Journey (17 page)

And then Philip shouted: “Look at that one!” and down this meager stream, the Gravel, came one more block of ice, as big as any on the Mackenzie, and it was rolling in such grotesque fashion that it struck and dug deeply into the right bank, opposite where the watchers stood, and gouged out a huge chunk of bank, leaving behind four trees with roots torn loose, so that their trunks and branches, lying parallel to the earth, reached far over the surface of the river but not quite in it.

Carpenter, who had seen this phenomenon in Africa, warned those about him: “Extremely dangerous, that. They call them sweepers.”

“Why that?” Philip asked, and Harry said: “Because if you come down this river in an open boat—and what else would you have on a stream this size—you grow careless, and those low branches reach out and sweep you right off your boat, and the current is so swift you can't climb back. Take care with sweepers.”

One night during the waiting period it came Trevor Blythe's turn to conduct the seminar, and since this was more or less the termination of their long confinement, he offered a surprising but unusually profitable exercise: “Under my goading, we've talked a lot about poetry, I'm afraid, and often we've referred to the inventive lines with which poems begin. Things like ‘My true-love hath my heart and I have his' and ‘Tell me where is Fancy bred.' Such lines are keys that unlock gracious memories, and they don't have to be all that fine as poetry. Their job is to set bells ringing.

“As we drifted down this great river, I was pestered by a ripping pair of lines:

Ye Mariners of England

That guard our native seas!…

Ever since we left the Athabasca Landing, I've been such a mariner,” and after laughing at himself he cited a few more effective opening lines: “ ‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free' ” and “ ‘Oft in the stilly night.' ”

But then he shifted sharply: “I've come to think that how a work of art ends is just as important as how it begins. A good opening
entices us, but a strong finish nails down the experience.” Now he had to consult Palgrave, for not even he was as familiar with the good closings as with the lyrical openings. He deemed one of blind Milton's to be impeccable: “ ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.' ” But as a young man in love, a condition he had so far revealed to no one, not even the young lady, he also favored: “ ‘I could not love thee, Dear, so much, / Loved I not Honour more.' ”

But he surprised his listeners by praising extensively the rough, harsh ending of one of Shakespeare's loveliest songs: “It has one of the perfect openings, of course: ‘When icicles hang by the wall' and it continues with splendid lines which evoke winter, such as ‘And milk comes frozen home in pail' and ‘When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.' But after all the niceties of the banquet hall have been exhibited, he closes with that remarkable line which only he could have written: ‘While greasy Joan doth keel the pot' to remind us that somebody has been toiling in the kitchen.”

Trevor then came to his conclusion: “Point I've been wanting to make, the real poet has the last line in mind when he writes his first, and there's no better example of this than the ending to that special poem of Waller's whose opening stanza I praised many months ago, the one beginning ‘Go, lovely Rose!' Do any of you remember how it ends? Neither did I, and I'm not going to trust my memory now. It's Palgrave, Number Eighty-nine, I believe.”

While fumbling for the page, he said: “Remember how the first three stanzas go. In the first the rose is commanded to go to his love. In the second it's to inform her that young girls, like roses, are put on earth to be admired. In the third the rose is to command her to come forth and be admired. And now the wonderful last verse:

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee:

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!”

Silently the men contemplated the misery of death, then Lord Luton spoke: “A noble ending to a grand winter,” and as he looked at the two young men he said loudly: “Do you realize how precious this winter will have been when we look back upon it? Philip, Trevor! You'll tell of this to people who will never have guessed that a majestic river like this existed!” He smiled at Harry and added: “So shall we all.”

Harry did not return the smile, for while the others prepared joyously to plunge into the swollen Mackenzie for a triumphant run downriver to its junction with the Peel, he could not erase from his mind a segment of map he had memorized. It showed that if one ascended the Gravel to its headwaters and made a relatively short portage across the divide, one found oneself at the headwaters of a considerable river, the Stewart, which did meander a bit but which finally deposited one right on the Yukon, less than fifty miles upstream from Dawson City and the gold fields. And it's downstream all the way, once you reach the Stewart, he told himself, and he became so convinced that Evelyn was doing exactly the wrong thing in turning his back on the Gravel that on the very morning of their breaking camp he launched one final appeal: “Evelyn, you have studied the maps more closely than any of us. Surely you can visualize what a sensible union the Gravel and the Stewart achieve?”

Luton refused to listen: “I have indeed studied the map…memorized it…and I visualize instead the Peel, which leads directly to our destination.” And so the five men set forth.

 

O
n 10 June 1898, ten months after they departed from Edmonton, the Luton party was ready to resume its journey toward the Arctic Ocean, and their departure from the cabin which in its two locations had housed them for so long contained elements of sadness. Luton said the official farewells: “I doubt if any other five men could have occupied so small a space for so long without even a suggestion of friction. Gentlemen, I shall be forever indebted to you.” And each of the men said goodbye to some particular aspect of this strange hibernation. Harry Carpenter took one last circuit of his running track, its surface muddy now but nonetheless still one of the agencies for the good health the men had enjoyed. Philip, clad once more in his treasured boots now that the freezing weather was over, sat by the dead fire and read a few pages of
Great Expectations;
he had acquired much useful information beside that fire. Luton saluted the cabin, and Fogarty gazed for some time at the surrounding hills he had come to know so intimately. Trevor Blythe had the most painful farewell, because although his raven was reluctant to move near the boat, it was obviously loath to leave the poet. It rode on Trevor's shoulder down to the water, but when the young man stepped aboard the craft, Othello flew off. In bewilderment it circled a few
times, then cawed hoarsely as if bidding a dear friend farewell and flew inland to where its companions waited.

As the carefully reloaded
Afton
eased into the fast-moving waters of the Gravel, she seemed eager to complete her journey and fairly leaped forward to rejoin the Mackenzie. Carpenter had been nominated to get the voyage started properly and he was steering when the rushing waters of the Gravel veered suddenly to starboard, throwing the little boat right at the spot where the huge cake of ice just days before had gouged out the chunk of bank, leaving the dangerous sweepers.

Too late Harry saw that he was powerless to prevent the
Afton
from being driven under the branches of this fallen tree, but he did have time to shout a warning: “Down! All down!”

The men, remembering Harry's warning, obeyed, except for Philip Henslow, who was striving to save a rope that might be lost and remained standing aft as he reached for it. Before Blythe could shout his own warning, the sweeper caught Philip in the back and pitched him into the icy waters.

“Help!” shouted Blythe, leaping to that end of the boat, but now the mighty current of the Mackenzie took over, and by the time the others sprang into action, Philip was far out into the larger river. Even so, the agility with which Carpenter shot the
Afton
into the main current, plus the frenzied power when the others started paddling and rowing, would have enabled them to save Philip had it not been for those dreadful boots, rubber and heavy and reaching well above his knees; they filled immediately with water and made swimming impossible.

Had he been wearing short, loose footgear, which the knowing did, he could have kicked them off and saved himself, but impeded as he was, he could kick neither swiftly nor strongly and was unable to keep afloat until the boat overtook him. In the first terrible moment when he struck the water and felt his boots becoming dead weights, he tried with super-human valor to stay afloat. His lungs took in more oxygen. His heart beat faster. His arms produced unbelievable pulling power, and he battled to keep his head above the swirling waters of the Mackenzie.

But inexorably the boots, heavier than lead, pulled him down, and as he fought vainly to counteract their pull to death he uttered a wild and piercing scream:
“Help me!”
Each man on the boat heard it, and would hear it for many nights, and even months, but each
was powerless. Trevor Blythe tried to leap into the water but was restrained by Harry Carpenter, who did not wish to lose two members of the team. However, he could not prevent Lord Luton from diving fully clad into the icy waters.

The gesture was fruitless. Luton did not come even close to his drowning nephew before the boy, with one terrible last scream, disappeared forever.

When the three men in the boat finally dragged Luton back aboard, they threw a blanket about him and sat beside him as the
Sweet Afton
floated swiftly down the broad crest of the river. “You did your best,” Carpenter said, and Fogarty added: “No force could save him, Milord. You tried.” But Blythe, standing at the rear of the boat, could only look through stinging eyes aft toward the dark waters that had taken his friend to their bosom. He remained there through that long, dreamlike spring twilight which seemed to last forever.

—

As the
Sweet Afton
continued down the Mackenzie the four survivors became painfully aware that each mile it carried them along took them farther from the Klondike. It was infuriating, yet inescapable, to be drifting down this great river and to be allowing it to divert them from their target, but that was the nature of the Mackenzie: one of the great rivers of the world, it led nowhere but its own end.

Harry spotted Trevor writing quietly, as he had done so often during the winter on the banks of the Gravel. Saying lightly “Examination time,” he drew the book toward him, and what he saw was so pleasing that he did not stint his praise: “I say, Trevor, I do believe you've done it.” Rapping for attention, he read aloud some dozen lines, which ended sardonically:

“Reluctant paladins we

Who seek our Golden Grail by fleeing from it.”

Returning the book, Harry told the author: “See how much better it is when you compact your words and place among them images we can respond to?” and Trevor fell silent, for he was wishing that Philip had been alive to share this encouraging assessment of his first mature poem.

Shortly after dawn on the next day, Luton saw from his position in the bow the post at Fort Norman, and without alerting the others,
he fired two salutes into the crisp morning air. The shots brought the Canadians to the head of their stairs, where they waited, but the Métis, George Michael, recognizing the boat and its occupants, leaped down the steps, shouting: “Duke! Duke! Throw a line.” When he had it firmly under control, he drew the
Sweet Afton
to him as the Canadians hurried down to meet the Englishmen and renew their acquaintance with Luton, whom they remembered with respect.

When all were seated in the post's dining area, Luton opened the meeting with an acknowledgment: “Good friends, I want you to know that if your man Michael had not accompanied me home last time, all of us might now be dead.” When the Canadians looked at one another in surprise, he explained: “He warned us to move our cabin and our boat to higher ground…against the day when so many ice floes would come roaring down that they would pile onto the land and crush all. He not only gave warning, he helped us move upland, and saved our lives.”

As the Englishmen nodded toward their savior, the Métis looked carefully at each man and asked: “The other one, with the light hair? You leave him, maybe?”

Slowly and with visible pain Luton told the Hudson's Bay people the kind of tale with which they were familiar: “Drowned in the Mackenzie. A sweeper caught him in the middle of his back.” There was silence—broken by Carpenter, who added: “Lord Luton dived into the icy water to save him. Hopeless. A dreadful loss.”

The Canadians were so pleased to see Luton again that they wanted him to lay over two or three days, but they understood when he declined: “Our job is to get over the mountains and into the Yukon.”

“We remember,” said one of the men who had drawn him some maps of the delta area. “We certainly hope you've changed your mind about trying the Peel.”

By the austerity of his look dismissing that ticklish subject, Luton let it be known that he would not welcome further discussion of routes, but he did express interest when the head of the post said: “We have few goods for sale this time of year. Our big supply ships don't reach here till July, but we can let you have a few things you might be able to use.” While Luton disappeared with him to check what might be available, the other Canadians took Carpenter aside and advised him strenuously to argue some sense into Lord Luton, show him the folly of his plan to travel the Peel: “You will not be able to get through the rapids before the freeze sets in. It's as simple as
that.” But Carpenter silenced them: “It's his expedition and he's gone into difficult spots all over the world.” One man replied with unmasked contempt: “Not at our degrees, he ain't. In Fahrenheit forty-five minus, in latitude sixty-six north.”

The post people were able to provide Luton with six cans of meat, but nothing else, and as the Englishmen walked down to the
Afton
they assured the Canadians that they had sufficient stores to carry them into Dawson. The farewells were hearty, with Lord Luton at the last moment slipping a ten-dollar note into George Michael's palm: “For saving us with your help,” but it was not till some time after cast-off that Trevor Blythe, wreathed in smiles, revealed his secret: “Look what George Michael slipped aboard when the Canadians weren't watching!” and he threw back a tarpaulin to reveal eight boxes of hunting ammunition.

Some days later, as they moved north of the Arctic Circle, Lord Luton for the first time lost his composure: “Damn it all! I wish we could leap over those mountains and land in Dawson,” but this was not to be. At the conclusion of a river trip that had no parallel in the world, the Luton party approached the incredibly tangled delta where the Mackenzie fragmented into a score of separate rivers, each winding its way haphazardly toward the ocean. It was a jungle of swampland and muddy streams that not even the local Indians could thread, and Harry, who was at the wheel, shouted: “Everyone! Help me find the Peel or we drift out into the Arctic Ocean!”

All eyes scouted the left bank, but found no indication of where the Peel debouched into the Mackenzie; however, they were able to move slowly ahead, still looking, for at this time of year no night fell in this far latitude. As they crept along, Trevor Blythe, suddenly overcome by the thought of leaving the majestic Mackenzie, cried: “I cannot allow poor Philip to lie in the bosom of this icy river without a word of Christian farewell.” For although each of the others had mourned privately for Philip, they had done so during the lonely night watches and at the rising sun of each new day. They agreed with Trevor and gathered with him at the rear of the
Afton
, where the young poet borrowed Carpenter's Book of Common Prayer, searching the pages for the service for the dead. When he found it, he passed the book along to Lord Luton, who read the noble words in stately cadence. A young man they had loved was gone and they eased his soul to rest. And when the prayers were ended, Trevor produced his copy of Palgrave, opened it to a place he had marked, and said softly:
“I should like to read a farewell to my dear friend.” And he began in a clear voice: “John Milton lost a young friend, drowned in the Irish seas, and wrote ‘Lycidas' to express his grief:

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere
,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,…”

On through the majestic phrases he read, until it seemed as if some celestial organ were paying tribute to the dead young man, and it was improbable that Blythe realized how appropriate the final lines of this elegy were going to be when heard by Lord Luton's beleaguered party:

“And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills
,

And now was dropt into the western bay:

At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:

To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”

“That's the command,” Luton said, “spoken from the grave. Tomorrow we head for the conclusion of our journey.” Trevor, listening to these harsh, practical words, thought: How callous. But quickly became contrite: It was I who chose the poem. It was I who did not foresee the ending.