The Surfacing (22 page)

About six in the evening on the 12th of November they made the Cape Osborn depot.
Their grave had been dug out, wrecked and robbed. The barrels of bread and pork lay
in splinters, teethmarks in the frozen wood. A leather glove sat stiff on a rock,
a finger pointing at the sky. Nearby, the lump of a Bible was fluttering prettily.
Up and down the beach, every few yards, another alien shape was growing under the
snow. A tin of potatoes. A tobacco-box. One of the little rum kegs. They strolled
back and forth kicking them out. A sheaf of wicks. The spare thermometer. Then a
shout from Cabot – he'd found the little chess set. But not a single lump of meat.
Eventually Morgan found the bottle, with only the note he himself – that other man
– had left in it ten days before.

He felt no rush to indignation. In fact, some sly part of him admired the scene.
He was used to being punished for what he did wrong. Justice, he called it, even
when it was early or long delayed.

When they woke the next morning, he told them to stay in their bags. He himself worried
about the conjuror, the scales.
By his reckoning, they had meat enough for two days.
The bread might be stretched a little more.

Over and again that day the drift took them to the knees, sometimes even to the neck.
Over and again the nose of the sledge took to burrowing. The crust on the new snow
out in the Channel was wafer-thin. There was never anything to be done but lift DeHaven
off again. So they lifted him off again, and hauled the sledge back up out of the
snow. As they loaded him up, Morgan could not help but study the wilderness ahead
of them, that nothing could change. His most miserable prophecies were satisfied.

That day they hauled for twelve hours straight, with never more than a few minutes'
pause. Even when the sledge was free, they were wading in water, upstream, feet sucking
at the river mud. Step by step he began to forget the snow, the sledge, the other
men. He was alone, leaning into the pain. Everything was taxed – every breath, every
lift of the leg. There was resistance everywhere, in all directions, all the time.
It knew in advance what he was going to do. Even by shifting the harness, he could
not shirk it for long. It was too shrewd, and too heartless. It wanted its due. Behind
his mask, he had already confessed everything – surrender, indifference, despair.
But still the hurt kept burrowing, tirelessly, even when there was nothing more
to find. It had reached the raw nerve, and was chewing patiently. It wanted its due.

That day they hauled for twelve hours straight, with never more than a few minutes'
pause, until finally Cabot collapsed. It was neither exaggeration nor display. Morgan
himself stood clinging to the sledge, knew that without it he would fall. Daly too
had let himself crumple to the ground, and Petersen was standing over them, ordering
them to get up. He was roaring. He was right. It would be better, afterwards, to
be able to say you had still been able to stand. Stretched out on the ice was too
much of a concession. You were beaten, with no further asylum. It was your back against
the wall.

Slowly, Daly rolled onto his side, onto his belly, managed to lift himself onto his
hands and knees. But still Cabot lay stretched out on the snow, looking up at them.
What he wanted, of course, was mercy. It was now blowing smartly, and already the
snow was banking up against his leg on the windward side.

They set up the tent around him. They ate their meal without a word, scraped their
fingers round the insides of their tins. 12 hours' labour, he wrote, for 6 miles'
gain, at best. The tent was rattling in the wind. In the ancient lamplight, the faces
were stupid with fatigue. Before turning out the lamp, he allowed them an extra dose
of grog. It was the one thing they still had plenty of.

Exhaustion had calmed him, flushed away what was useless, cleared his head. The decisions,
now, were so much simpler than before. They could not bring the sledge farther, he
told them when they woke. They could not do again what they had done the previous
day. They could not wait for the surface to freeze. They would have to leave everything
but bags and food. How far they still had to go, he did not say. He gave them an
hour to better their boots.

I can't go, DeHaven said.

I don't care, Morgan said. You're coming with us.

I don't want to.

I don't care. You're coming with us.

I can't see. I can't walk.

I don't care, Morgan said. I'm not leaving you behind.

Why not? DeHaven said. He sounded like he was going to cry.

The whys and the wherefores are no matter now. We're not leaving you behind. Full
stop.

Is it for her? Is that it?

Morgan didn't answer.

I refuse, said DeHaven.

You had your chance and you missed it, Morgan said. From now on, I decide.

For the last time, he crawled out of the tent. In the green
dawn, he looked back
at the Devon Island coast. Day after day, north from Cape Osborn, south almost to
Beechey, he had laid it all down. As best I could, he wrote afterwards, in the conditions
that obtained, with the tools at my disposal.

He had them balance a tent-pole across his shoulder. Two packs were loaded, compared,
corrected. One of those for a standard, until every load was identical, counterweighed.
There would be no pack for DeHaven. That was the only concession made.

He had them parcel up everything else on the sledge, tight and tidy, as though they
might come back to collect it at their convenience. Everything, he said. Even the
buffalo skin. Even his charts and instruments, and the medicine chest, and the scales,
and the lamp.

He handed DeHaven the tub of hog's lard. Extreme unction, he said. Ears, nose, eyes,
lips. What else? You're a doctor, you should know.

DeHaven said nothing, took his scoop, handed it on.

For staffs, they gave DeHaven two tent-poles with padded feet. At first, the legs
simply refused to obey. He was leaning forward, almost falling, and step after step
a leg swung out to keep him up. Morgan had once seen an old sailor with two wooden
legs and two canes walk in much the same way. It could be done. It would get easier,
Morgan said, as the legs came back to life.

Once they had started that day, he refused to consult his watch. He pushed on without
portion, as though determined to cripple them, by sheer exhaustion. All day he herded
them on as best he could. Promising, or goading, or daring them to give in. There
she is, he bragged – the headland directly ahead of them, still seven or eight miles
off, on the Cornwallis shore. That's the medal, he said. They could collapse when
they reached it, but not before. It was not just for the men. He too fed on the fantasy.
It was a screen between himself and the suffering, and the prospect of more.

They had no tent, but lay down that night in the lee of some hummocks, huddled together
in the bags. He put DeHaven in
the middle, two men on each side, to keep him warm.
Even so, like sprinkled sugar, the frost soon covered his bag the same as the rest.
They rested about four hours, without sleeping. Without eating, they set out again.
They had no food to speak of. The previous day, without the sledge, they had covered
some thirteen miles, he judged.

He had been tutoring himself privately with speeches on resilience, on resolve, on
untouched reserves. The deep well each man had within him, and drawing the water
up. But none of that could dampen the hope that a depot had been laid down for them
on the Cornwallis shore. Myer might not have thought of it, but Brooks surely would.
Still, he said nothing of that to the men. Already DeHaven and Cabot looked and sounded
a little drunk. He knew it as sheer mortal fatigue, and was afraid of what another
disappointment might do.

They reached the Cornwallis shore the next morning, staggering into a strong wind
from the north, that seemed determined to hold them up. The men huddled up against
the cliff face, around the conjuror. Their fuel was almost done. Only the dregs of
the bear fat remained. Their boots were falling apart.

He immediately set off up the headland, ordered the others to take their meal without
him, right away. Their meal he called it, afraid to call it anything less. Lukewarm
tea and a double dose of spirits, that was all. No one proposed to wait for him.
As they were drinking it, two hundred feet above them the wind held their commander
ridiculous, lopsided, straining in mid-air – like a puppet, wilting, at the end of
a string. At precisely the spot where he'd stood and watched DeHaven approach, three
short weeks before.

There was no depot, of course. There was no more food. There was light snow. They
were pressed up against the bare rock. They lay down on the bare ground, and closed
their eyes. They were shivering mechanically. Around five o'clock, one after the
other, Morgan and Petersen and Banes and Daly and Cabot got to their feet. They were
within forty miles of
warm soup and a warm bed, and now DeHaven announced again that
he could not go on. No one showed any sign they heard. He was still lying there in
his bag.

Ten feet away, around the corner, the drift was coming on so hard it seemed physically
impossible they should stand to it. Morgan led the way. A few minutes later he glanced
over his shoulder. It was exactly as he expected. They were all there, all five of
them, following.

Before, heading down the Devon coast, the effort often seemed pointless, wasted,
there was always so far still to go. It seemed to make no difference, pushing on
or calling a halt. Now it was the opposite. Now he was afraid to stop. It was a full
twenty-four hours since he'd eaten, and by the end of the day his mind was wandering.
With his mind wandering, it was easier to go on. He had dropped back again to drive
them. Ahead of him he could see the slumped shoulders, the nodding heads. They too
were wilting, rehearsing, learning to give in. He was glad of the veils. Here, now,
there were no faces, no silent appeals. He was waiting until weakness began to topple
them. All he cared about now was that he not be the first.

Just before midnight, with the men stumbling like drunkards, he pulled them up.
Cabot and Banes and DeHaven, he saw, were far more damaged than he. They were slowing
him down. He wanted to abandon them, push on with Petersen, survive. By his reckoning
they had covered some eighteen miles, had twenty-odd to go. They lay down on the
frozen shingle, one right up on the other almost, every man. Beside him, DeHaven
was whining quietly, like a dog. Worse, he had never known, and could not imagine.
This is the worst moment of my life, he promised himself, counting everything to
come. It would be a useful memory, he knew, if he survived.

He knew this must be their last stop. He could see they were spent, almost. They
had courage enough for only one more start. He was almost relieved. There was no
more need for heroics, no choice to make. He ordered everything
abandoned, bags and
knapsacks and all. For this last leg, he wanted everything neat and clear in their
minds. He ordered them to make a pile of every provision they had, and from their
pocket seams they turned out loose crumbs of chocolate, broken nuts, and dust and
fluff, and mixed it all in with a cold tin of pork he had been holding back. As they
ate he made a little speech. It was a speech from another, warmer world, where it
was merely a matter of choice whether or not they went on.

There are ten thousand reasons to give up, and all of them good, he said. They're
out there right now, waiting for us, all lined up in a nice orderly queue, every
single step of the way. He had never heard himself so definite, so determined, so
proud with belief. What he heard was the clamour of alarm.

It was a fine speech, that got every one of them to his feet, except DeHaven. Morgan
stared down at him, ready for murder. He was giving him one final chance to pretend.
DeHaven would not look him in the eye.

In the end he mumbled: My legs.

Daly and Cabot and Petersen were stamping the ground. There were no favours possible
now. All along the shore, the surface was like a layer of broken bottles, in outsized
chunks and shards. That was the road they had to take.

Get up, Morgan ordered him.

It was his last chance, and still the man did not move. So Morgan turned to the heap
of abandoned gear, and with trembling hands undid his sleeping bag. He had baled
it with a length of leather from one of the traces. Slowly and carefully, he now
wrapped this around his mitt, for a fist, buckle out. He stood over DeHaven, and
lifted that fist into the air.

Get up! he roared.

DeHaven was looking him straight in the eye. He seemed perfectly calm, defiant almost.

Get up! Morgan roared again. And then with all the strength and all the rage remaining
to him, he gave one murderous punch to the head.

He stood there panting. He had such pains in his legs he
could barely breathe. He
unwrapped the thong, then wrapped it around his mitt tighter again.

Get up, he said.

They still had some twenty miles to go. They had a last drink of rum, and then at
six o'clock on the 16th of November, 1850, they all six men made their final start
for the ship.

PART III

19th November

Morgan was woken by the smell of fried bacon, and the smell of fried bacon today
produced a shrewd, mortal pain in his heart. Then, the sound of crockery, cutlery
– a table being laid. Then the first voice. It was MacDonald's, a prayer, expressing
profound gratitude to their Lord God and Maker, Who in His infinite kindness had
spared these six men's lives and delivered them out of the obnoxious wasteland, back
to their friends and their ship, where they would henceforth properly appreciate
His untold other mercies. Afterwards, the sound of a meal. Knives squealing on the
plates. More voices, chat. Morgan showed no sign he heard any of this. He was awake,
but in darkness. His eyes were swollen shut, and he made no effort to open them.
He made every effort to lie there as still and as quiet as he could, to give no sign
of life. It was as though he thought he could somehow defer it further, his return
to the ship.