Alaska (30 page)

But when things seemed at their worst, the aurora borealis appeared, flooding the night sky with colors the New England men had never imagined, and Seaman Atkins, on his casual returns to the long hut, informed them: 'The Eskimos say that the People Up There are holding festivity, chasing bears across the sky. Those are the lights of the hunters.' But when the temperature dropped to what Captain Pym estimated as 188

colder than seventy-below, for even oil froze solid, the men ignored the lights and huddled by their driftwood fire.

A prudent captain, Pym insisted that his men rise from their beds at what would have been dawn if there had been a sun, and he wanted them to eat such food as they could assemble at stated meal hours. He asked Mr. Corey to maintain a watch around the clock, especially in the direction of Desolation Point, warning: 'Many ships in the Pacific have been taken by natives who appeared friendly.' He assigned tasks to keep his men occupied, and week by week he devised ways to make the long hut more habitable, and each afternoon, two hours after lunch, he and Corey and Kane hiked across the ice to check upon the status of the Evening Star.

Each day they inspected the planking to see if ice pressures had broken the stout body of the ship, and they saw with relief that the sides were so properly sloped that the crushing ice found nothing solid to push against. When it did move in with such tremendous force that it would have destroyed any ship not carefully built, it found only the curved flanks of the Evening Star,

and when it pressed against them it lifted the ship gently aloft, until the keel stood some two feet above the surface of where the unfrozen water would have been.

The ship had been lifted right into the air, and there it stayed as if it were some magic vessel in a dark gray dream.

'She's still firm,' Captain Pym reported each afternoon as the inspectors returned.

But the solemn moment came at what would have been sunset, local time, when in the blackness of perpetual night Noah Pym gathered his sailors and by a whale-oil light conducted evening services:

'Oh, God! We thank Thee that our ship is safe through one more day. We thank Thee for the minutes of near light at midday. We thank Thee for the food that reaches us from Thy sea. And we ask Thee to watch over our wives and children and mothers and fathers back in Boston. We are in Thy hands, and in the dark night we place our bodies and our immortal souls in Thy care.'

After such a prayer, delivered with surprising variation as he invited God's attention to their daily problems, he asked each of his sailors in turn, those who could read, to take the Bible which accompanied him on all his trips, and read some personally chosen selection, and rarely did the soaring words of this Book resound with more meaning than there in the long hut beside the Arctic Ocean as the sailors read the familiar

189

verses they had learned as boys in distant New England. One night, when it was Tom Kane's turn to read, this normally violent man chose from Acts a selection of verses that seemed to speak directly to their marooning and their encounter with the Eskimos: ' ”But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind . . . And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island ... we had much work to come by the boat.. . But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down . . . about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country . . . Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the day . . .

' ”And when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship . . . And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground . . . And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.

' ”And when they were escaped . . . the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.”'

His constant remembering that he was still an officer of a church back in Boston and that he was, in a very real sense, responsible for the moral welfare of his sailors, often placed Captain Pym in difficult situations, as when he put his whaler into some island port and his men ran wild with the tempting girls with flowers in their hair who came at them skimming over the water on boards. Not being unnecessarily prudish, he looked aside while his men reveled, then reminded them of their perpetual duties when he had them back at sea attending his evening prayers. He also knew that they would raise hell when they hit ports like the one serving Canton, and he told himself: Stay clear. Let the Chinese bash heads. But his magnanimity ended where marriage or its local equivalent was concerned, and when he saw how deeply Seaman Atkins was involved with Sopilak's sister, he realized that he could not ignore the moral problems which could result, and one morning in December when no hunting for seals was under way, he walked on self-made snowshoes to 190

Desolation Point, where he sought the hut occupied by Sopilak, and once inside, he asked to meet with Atkins and the girl with whom he was living, but three others concerned in these matters insisted upon attending also: Sopilak, his mother and his young wife, Nikaluk. Seated in a circle on the floor, Captain Pym started his discussion of the timeless problems involving men and women.

'Atkins, God does not look with favor at young men who live with young women in an unmarried state to the eventual detriment of those young women when the ship sails and they are left behind.'

Now developed a bizarre situation in which young Atkins, as the interpreter in the group, was required to repeat in Eskimo the castigation his captain had delivered, but the relations which had always existed between Noah Pym, one of the notable captains out of New England, with his men were such that Atkins felt obligated to translate honestly, and when he did, Sopilak's mother broke in vehemently: 'Yes, it is all right to make, and here she used a gesture which could not be mistaken, but to leave a baby behind and no man to feed it, that is no good.'

For the better part of two hours these six people on the edge of the mighty ocean, whose frozen blocks cracked and snarled as they spoke, discussed a problem which had confused men and women since words were invented and families came into being for the nurturing and rearing of new generations. The contradictions were timeless; the obligations had not altered in fifty thousand years; and the solutions were as obvious now as they had been when Oogruk sought refuge in these parts fourteen thousand years ago after family problems on the far shore.

The climax of the discussion conducted in such an awkward manner and with so many participants came when it was revealed that John Atkins from a little town outside Boston, a good Protestant and unmarried, was profoundly in love with the Eskimo girl Kiinak and she in turn was so lost in love for him that come midsummer she was going to have his child.

Interpreting of this last intelligence was not required, for when Kiinak pointed to her growing belly, her mother leaped from the ground, dashed to the door, and began shouting into the darkness: 'The bad one is going to have a baby and she has no man. Woe, woe, what is happening in the world?' Her cries attracted three other gossips her age, and now Sopilak's hut was filled with recrimination and noise and attacks against both the girl and her lover, and when the riot was sorted out, Captain Pym learned to his confusion that 191

whereas it was completely wrong for Atkins to have got this fine young woman, fifteen years old, with child, it had been quite all right for them to have conducted all the steps leading up to that unfortunate development.

It was at the height of this complicated moral chaos that Pym first became conscious of the fact that Sopilak's wife was indulgently smiling at his confusion, as if to say: 'You and I are above this nonsense,' and he found himself blushing and awkwardly aware that they had formed a kind of partnership. Nikaluk was tall for an Eskimo, thinner than usual, and with an oval face unmarked as yet by tattoos. Her hair was jet black and trimmed straight across her eyebrows, but she lacked the impishness of younger Kiinak, who had now moved close to Atkins as if to protect him from the condemnatory women who were shouting at him.

The impasse was settled when Atkins suddenly rose to announce in Eskimo that he wanted to marry Kiinak and that she had told him she wished to marry him. Now the four older women danced with glee, and embraced Atkins and told him what a fine man he was, with Captain Pym all the while standing aghast at this unexpected result his visit to Desolation Point had produced. But Nikaluk, still smiling condescendingly from the rear, made no attempt to quiet the confusion or give Pym any sign of reproof for the disturbance he and Atkins had created.

As the turbulent morning drew to a close, Pym told the crowd that he believed Atkins should return to the long hut with him and talk things over, and although the older women feared that this might be a device for preventing the promised marriage, they had to agree with Sopilak, who was the leader of their village, that it should be allowed, so after holding hands ardently with his young love, Seaman Atkins solemnly bound on the skis that Sopilak had made for him and followed his captain back to the long hut.

There Pym gathered the crew, informed them of what had transpired in the village, and awaited their amazed responses, but just as Harpooner Kane was about to make a suggestion, Pym interrupted: 'Mr. Corey, I believe we have missed winding the clock,'

and after the two men gravely attended to this ritual, Pym restated their position at the edge of the Arctic Ocean: '159 degrees West Longitude . . .'

IN THE PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE POSSIBILITY THAT

John Atkins might have to marry his Eskimo girl, the first alternative voiced was eminently practical: 'If she's pregnant, find some Eskimo to marry her. Give him an ax. They'll do

192

anything for an ax,' and before Captain Pym could oppose such an immoral proposal, several other sailors pointed out how impossible it would be for a civilized man from Boston, and a good Christian, to take back with him a savage who had never heard of Jesus, and this sentiment was about to prevail when a surprise comment altered the whole course of the debate. Big Tom Kane growled: 'I know this girl and she'll make a damned sight better wife than that bitch I left in Boston.'

Several sailors whose minds were undecided happened to be looking at Captain Pym when these harsh words were spoken, and they saw him blanch, gasp, and then say sternly: 'Mr. Kane, we do not invite such comments in this ship.'

'We're not aboard ship now. We're free to speak our minds.'

Very quietly Captain Pym said: 'Mr. Corey, will you accompany me and Harpooner Kane in our inspection of the Evening Star? And you will come with us, Seaman Atkins.'

Across the ice the four men went, and once aboard their ship Captain Pym began the daily examination as if nothing untoward had happened. They saw that the ice, still pressing in from the ocean, had as before struck the sloping sides of the ship and lifted her higher in the air rather than crushing her against the shore; the sides were tight; the caulking held; and when the thaw came she would sink back into the sea, ready for the trip to Hawaii.

But when the inspection was completed, Pym said almost sadly: 'Mr. Kane, I was sore grieved by your intemperate outburst,' and before the big man could apologize, the captain added: 'We know of your tribulations in Boston and sympathize with you. But what shall we do about Atkins?'

Corey interrupted: 'What Tompkin said is true. She is a savage.'

Pym corrected him: 'In her own way she's as civilized as you or me. The way her brother catches bears and seals and walruses is as able as the way you and I catch whales.'

Corey, not silenced by this apt comparison, addressed his next remarks to Atkins: 'You could never take her to Boston. In Boston a dark savage like her would never be accepted.' And Atkins astonished the three men by saying rather innocently, as if he were in no way annoyed by this intrusion into his affairs: 'We wouldn't go to Boston. We'd leave ship in Hawaii. I liked what I saw there.' Before the men could respond, he nodded deferentially to the captain: 'Granting your permission, sir.'

There in the dark hold of the whaler, with the casks of 193

valuable oil on all sides, Captain Pym considered this surprising development. Almost as if an act of God had descended upon his ship, he could in one sweep salvage his Christian conscience, help to save the soul of an Eskimo girl, and get rid of the consequences by putting the young couple ashore in Hawaii. On only few occasions in a navigator's life would he encounter an opportunity to do so many sensible things at one time and discharge the responsibilities of all concerned.

'You have my permission,' he said as ice pressed upon his ship and the timbers creaked.

Back in the long hut, he informed the crew that he would, as a captain legally entitled to do so, perform the wedding of his Seaman Atkins to the Eskimo lady, but he also pointed out that for the marriage to be acceptable, it would have to be conducted aboard his ship, for he was not entitled to act in that capacity elsewhere. And he then skied to the village to deliver the same message, and when he made it clear to the intended bride, who now spoke a bit of English, that a celebration was to be held to which the entire village would be invited, she ran through the huts, shouting: 'Everybody come!' and when she returned to where Captain Pym waited she kissed him warmly, as Atkins had taught her to do. Astounded by her boldness, Pym blushed furiously, and then he saw young Nikaluk smiling once again.

That wedding aboard the creaking Evening Star was one of the gentlest affairs in the long history of the white man's contact with the Eskimo. The Boston sailors decorated the ship with whatever bits of ornament they could construct, and that was not much: a scrimshaw here and there, a doll of stuffed sealskin, a striking block of ice carved with hammer and chisel by a carpenter, showing a polar bear rearing on its hind legs. When the Eskimos caught on to the idea of decorating the empty ship, they were far more inventive than the sailors, for they brought across the ice ivory carvings, things made of entire walrus tusks and the most wonderful items woven and constructed from baleen, until Captain Pym, comparing what they had done with what the Americans had accomplished, asked First Mate Corey: 'Now who is civilized?' and the dubious Irishman answered cogently. 'Taken together, what they've brought wouldn't signify in Boston.'