The Surfacing (10 page)

They sat together in her cabin. She was fiddling with a ball of wool. He was paring
his nails. They were waiting for the dinner bell to ring.

She showed him the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.

About three inches, she said. He says.

That's not three inches, he said. That's more like five.

Already, he thought. The ambition. As though the numbers were in some way a measure
of herself. He reached and took the seamstress's tape from the sewing-box, rolled
a foot of it out on the spread. With forefinger and thumb, he showed her what she
had showed him.

She considered him hatefully. His useless precision. Regardless, she said, it's growing
bigger and bigger every day.

He brushed his parings into his cupped hand and stretched to sprinkle them into the
stove-box.

He's a handsome man, Morgan said.

Who? she said.

Cabot. Myer. Banes, Morgan said. Who do you think?

I will openly admit it, Dr DeHaven has a handsome face.

More handsome than me, Morgan said. Don't you think?

I suppose that would be a matter of personal opinion, or personal taste.

And what's your personal opinion?

Well, he's a little younger than you, I suppose. He certainly has that in his favour.

I'm July, he's December. The same year.

You wouldn't think it, she said.

He's led a very sheltered life. Compared to me.

That must be what it is.

We've known each other since we were boys, Morgan said. We were in the same class,
all through school. Afterwards, we were in India together, for a little while. Our
families are still neighbours. The story has it we even shared the same wet-nurse.
Sucked at the same teat, if you will.

He obviously sucked a little harder than you, Kitty said.

I'd have made more of an effort, Morgan said, had I known at the time it would make
such a difference.

What's done is done.

Indeed.

I thought once a man went Army or Navy, he had to stick with it for life.

Usually, but I managed to wriggle out of it. One of my father's friends.

Another false start.

One of many, Morgan said.

Is it true his brother is on the
Terror
?

It is. Even so, it was no easy matter getting him signed up. I had to pull a few
strings. More than a few.

So he came out of his own free will?

Yes and no. Likely he feels that somebody somewhere forced his hand. That he had
to at least make a token effort, for his brother's sake.

I wish he wouldn't rail about everything, all the time, she said.

That's just his character, I'm afraid. He's always been a man who's very easily unimpressed.

30th August

They had another storm. All day and all night MacDonald lay on his bed, listening
to the noise. He felt very alone. As often as he could, he thought of Christ in Gethsemane.
This was how He must have felt, he told himself. He liked the comparison. The effect
was calming. He reached for his Bible, read the passage over, though he knew it by
heart. Each word was where he'd left it, in exactly the right place.

In the early morning, Morgan went up to admire the wreckage. The floe had been shattered
completely. Still the wind was blowing hard, but now swinging round to the southeast.
Immediately he heard that, Myer gave the order to cast off their ice anchor, set
their mainsail, and begin boring, due north.

Morgan steered through the clutter as best he could. Some of the slabs in their path
were ten feet thick. The hammering sickened him, but Myer insisted he keep his course.
They would not haggle their gift, Myer said. Everything depended on riding this slant
from the south, as long and as far as they could.

By afternoon their precious southeasterly had settled and stilled, and they were
stuck exactly as before. Morgan stared hatefully at the web, that stretched to the
sky on every side. The wind had done its work well, jamming all the pieces together
again.

That evening Morgan climbed above, as though to get out of range. And from on high,
inexplicably, he saw a solid shadow on the northwestern horizon. He had often dreamed
of it, from out of the sky the wicked voice crying Land! Land! And here, now, was
something very like land, to the northwest. But he held his tongue. He confirmed
it through the glass. After a time he got out his pipe and knocked it out, let the
ash fall and flare. It did not matter who was below. Nothing else mattered at the
moment. There was a single consequence now, that drowned everything else. They would
get through.

When his watch was over he went down again, sat on a crate. Myer was gone. It was
Cabot to deal. The hands moved clumsily. The cards came one by one, rationed out.

What will happen now? Cabot asked, tilting his head towards the bows. The closing
ice, he meant. Their latest impasse.

Morgan did not offer an opinion. He'd said nothing to anyone yet of what he'd seen
from above.

Don't worry your little head, DeHaven said. I have it all figured out. It's not the
ice is holding us back, it's the ship. He showed it to them, proudly. All we have
to do is get out and walk.

That's fine for us, fine mints of men one and all, Morgan said. But what about her?

She's the one wanted the life of a rover, DeHaven said. He considered MacDonald,
and pointed him out. There's the man brought her aboard, he said. I wonder does he
think now was it such a wise choice.

I'm sure we can all understand the inconvenience, MacDonald said. At least as far
as Mr Morgan is concerned.

Not only me, Morgan said. The entire ship.

Her presence seems to me to have had little effect thus far. A general improvement
in manners, perhaps. Perhaps you begrudge her the extra bed, and the extra food?

I begrudge her nothing. You know well that's not what I mean.

Afterwards, Morgan spelled it out, the future that Cabot saw. If we're caught, he
said, we may well tough it out till the spring, the thaw. Other ships have done it.
Or – He stamped his boot loudly on the boards, then turned up the sole, to let them
see. Underneath was something that had been alive, with a definite shape, only seconds
before. Now it was pulp.

He had decided to play, to enjoy his reprieve. They were no longer condemned. From
the foretop he'd seen a definite shadow beyond the mist. At Beechey Island all the
other expedition ships would be waiting, and they could put her on the supply ship,
the steamer, to bring her back to Disko, or England, whichever she preferred.

Then our geese, they are cooked? Cabot said. The lilt made him sound almost hopeful.
He threw down a worthless club.

Our goose is, MacDonald said.

My goose, his goose, our
geese
, Cabot insisted.

Absolutely spot on, DeHaven said. He showed them his card and gathered his trick.
My goose, his goose, our geese.
Are all cooked. Good man Cabot. We'll teach these
bastards a bit of plain English yet.

That night, Cabot served the officers up a Salmis of Auk.

Dugléré himself would be proud of it, DeHaven said afterwards, and Cabot actually
blushed.

If you've ever had the pleasure of Muscovy duck –, Morgan announced. He jabbed a
finger at each of his accusers. He had forgotten what he wanted to say. Only seconds
before, it had been of the utmost importance. He was very drunk, with no obvious
occasion. It was the water-sky he had seen to the west. Still he had shared the news
with no one, not even DeHaven. He needed time, to figure out how to enjoy it properly.

Now that it was over, he managed to think – and instantly corrected himself. Nonetheless,
what he felt just now was more than relief. It was almost a thrill. They would get
through. For the first time in months, he felt certain. The thing felt solid, and
he liked the weight of it. Nothing his mind could concoct had spoiled it yet. They
would get through. They would catch the other ships at Beechey, where they could
be rid of her. His drinking tonight was a celebration, he supposed.

Now musk ox, he declared, with time, respect, and the right marinade – He did not
finish the phrase. They were drinking gin. He could no longer pronounce the word
‘palatable.'

The clock sounded midnight. It was another day, another month. The world was an older
place.

September, DeHaven said.

It was something that had been dropped on them out of the sky. Sadly, Cabot nodded
his head. The faces were sullen. They were slowly working their way through another
bottle of wine, as though determined to leave nothing behind.

10th September

Starboard, ruined pyramids were scissored into the sky. That was Greenland, sweeping
down again from the far north. On the western horizon, from the foretop, Morgan had
yesterday seen great masses of smoke, that meant open water, that looked like a city
in flames. That was where they wanted to go.

The night before, they had tied up to the land floe – a frozen ledge lipped far out
over the sea, like a vast, silken sweep of white sand. According to the whims of
wind and current, the outside floe battled against this shore, or was sucked away
from it, to open up a treacherous canal. This was the only way forward now.

The outside floe was fifteen feet thick, a mile across, and moving north now at a
rate of two knots. A hundred yards ahead of the ship, the canal was slowly narrowing,
to nothing. Gently, the outside floe came in to kiss the land ice. The land ice did
not cede, and the outside floe did not stop. It simply cracked and buckled and began
to rise. The first marble table rose up at a sharp angle, like a drawbridge. When
at last it broke, it did so with a lazy, wretched rip. Behind it, the outer floe
advanced at exactly the same rate as before.

From the bow, Morgan watched it come. From the helm, Myer was shouting at him for
instructions, as though there was something yet to be done. Still the ice advanced.
Morgan stood facing forward, saying nothing, both hands on the gunwale to steady
himself for the shock to come. The train-lamp was swinging back and forth beside
his head.

Overhead was a slate sky. Wreaths of snow were lifting up off the ice, hovering magically.
Finally the ice touched the bows, and began moulding itself to their shape, as though
to get a better grip. Morgan could feel it tightening about his own heart. Underneath
him, he could feel her starting to lean to landside. She was tilting hard, and he
could feel himself starting to slide. She began to whimper, to groan, trying to back
out of the vice. Behind him, the dogs were all howling now with a single voice.

In the end she popped out like a pinched orange pip. The gate was closed for now,
but it did not matter, he had seen the smoke. The next tide would draw the floe back
and reopen the canal, and they could start inching forward again. They would push
through. He was no longer in any doubt.

11th September

Then it was the 11th. The 12th. The 13th. The winds wheeled about and died. The tides
swung back and forth. Mechanically, the canal opened and closed, and they scraped
their way along the coast. Progress was slower every day. Every new morning they
had to push through a brittle skin an inch thick, that dragged at their sides like
broken glass. In Morgan's mind, it was still a race against the clock. If they arrived
too late, the supply steamer might be gone home, and they would be stuck with Kitty
aboard all winter, and perhaps beyond.

The hatches were always closed now, even at noon, against the cold. The bull's-eyes
too had been boarded up. But it was still far too early, Morgan told Myer, to set
the stoves and ventilation pipes. After all, if by some late freak they did not get
through, they would need their coal.

She lay in her bed, with a sick stomach. She felt she was being slowly smothered,
she said. She meant the stench below. The walls were closing in. By the time they
got to Beechey, Morgan told himself, she would be glad to go.

He went to see her. She was sick, and weak, and perhaps he thought there was benefit
to be had. A chance to brag or be cruel, perhaps. Perhaps he hoped it might be a
first goodbye.

I had a dream, he announced.

Well done.

I don't have them that often, it seems to me.

You have as many as the rest of us, she said. You don't remember them, that is all.

Well, I remembered this one. Even as I was dreaming, I was telling myself, don't
let this one go.

What was it?

I was out on the ice.

Original.

Hauling something on a sledge.

Perhaps you were posing again, for one of our good doctor's plates?

What wit, he said. How ever did the Danes let you go?

What was it you were hauling?

Some kind of box.

Big or small? Narrow or wide?

Long and narrow.

A coffin, she said.

I don't think so, no.

You're not sure?

It was a dream. How would I know?

You make it sound like it happened to someone else. It sounds like a coffin, she
said.

Then maybe it is.

Ah! The plot thickens, as you like to say. And what was inside?

Your guess is as good as mine.

You didn't open it?

No.

And then?

Nothing. That's the dream.

Nothing actually occurred? she said.

No, but I was very fearful. That I do remember. Of what might be in the box.

What do you think it might be?

It's hard to say.

Do you think it is a body perhaps?

Perhaps, he said.

Your father?

Perhaps. Or perhaps my mother. Or perhaps my wife.

Saying this last word, Morgan made sure to keep her eye.

It was a full-sized coffin? she said, unblinked. Not a child's?

No, I don't think so. But I can't rightly say. Such things are often unclear, in
dreams. Perhaps deliberately so.