Voyage of Ice (10 page)

“Catharine?” At the sound of the voice, my blood froze. It was Captain Thorndike! “Catharine, dear? I've come to check on ye. Be ye sleeping?” His voice surprised me, for it was as tender as if his wife were a babe. I heard the sound of a bed squeaking and knew he must have sat next to his wife.

“Catharine? My love, answer me. Answer me, love.” A pause. A rustle of bedclothes.

Again the bed squeaked. For a long time, silence. The pounding of my heart. Then an anguished cry. Like a rock scraped across a pane of glass.

Another cry. And there began an awful wailing. “No! No! God, no! Please don't take her! Not Catharine!” cried Thorndike, his voice cracked and dreadful to hear. “My love, my life. I need you! I need you!” He burst into deep, wretched sobs I'd never heard a man cry before.

Tears sprang to my eyes. Mrs. Thorndike was dead, no doubt. Elizabeth's mother. I could imagine the sorrow, for I hadn't forgotten the day I learned my father had died. It was a deep, jagged pain that lay buried a hundred layers down but was there nonetheless. Much as I hated Captain Thorndike, hated him for all his cruelty, for the scars on my back, I was sorry for him too. It was confusing, so I just stood and cried and cried, wiping my nose on my sleeve, not caring that Dexter would roll his eyes and call me a sissy girl and a blasted idiot besides.

Then Elizabeth spoke. “Father? … Father?”

There came a creak of someone rising from the bed. Heavy footsteps.

“Is she dead?” Elizabeth asked in a whisper.

There was no sound. I imagined Captain Thorndike standing in the doorway, his face contorted with weeping, staring at his daughter with eyes turned red. I started to cry again, silently, trying not to sniff. “Aye,” he finally answered, “she's dead. And you've yourself to thank for it, upsetting her the way ye did. You've sent her to an early grave.”

I heard a gasp, a cry, and then sounds of Elizabeth's weeping. Of Captain Thorndike in the main cabin. A door opening. Closing. The thud of footsteps and the creak of stairs. And Elizabeth weeping. And weeping.

I fumbled in the dark for the closet latch.

“Who's there?” came Elizabeth's frightened voice.

I fumbled a bit more.
If I can just get out of the blasted closet …

“Who's there?”

I pushed hard against the door and found the latch at the same time. Out I tumbled in a cascade of clothing and books and shoes. I whapped my chin on the washstand on the way down and skinned my elbows as I landed.

“Nicholas!”

It wasn't exactly the entrance I'd imagined as I'd lain awake all night in the whaleboat. I removed a petticoat from atop my face. “Sorry,” I mumbled, sitting up.

But she didn't laugh at me. Instead, tears slipped down her cheeks and her lips trembled. “Did you hear? Mother's dead. She's dead. And Father hates me.” With that, she laid her face in her hands and sobbed.

I got up and closed the cabin door. Hesitating, I sat beside her. She leaned against me. I felt the burn of her fever. The moisture. The thin gauze of her nightgown. I hesitated again but then wrapped my arms round her. She cried and cried while I stroked her hair, saying, “Don't cry, Elizabeth. Don't cry.” And as her head settled against my chest, I knew. The realization struck me like a harpoon driven deep into my heart: I was in love with the captain's daughter.

We lay at anchor among the ice floes, silent, our flag at half-mast while they buried Mrs. Thorndike on the Siberian coast. For a whole hour, we just watched from the rail. Then, after Thorndike and the mates returned to the
Sea Hawk
, ships' cap-tains stopped by to pay their respects, bringing wives and chil-dren. It was a solemn affair. Black suits, black dresses, black gloves and veils. People sitting prim and proper, ferried in boats that passed between ships.

“We're so sorry to hear of your wife's passing. She was a dear soul.”

“I hear your daughter's sick as well. Give her our wishes for a speedy recovery.”

“She'll be missed, certain. 'Twarn't no one like Catharine Thorndike. She could bake the best green-currant pie in Massachusetts. Shame she didn't give me her recipe.”

“Rest assured, Ebenezer, she's in a better place.”

I could practically hear the old man's teeth grind, sensing his impatience to be rid of everyone even as he offered his visitors more hot tea.

Sure enough, after four days of visits, he ordered us to up anchor and head north, saying he was sick of sharing every whale chase with every ship ever built, sick of them all. We sailed in the company of the
Merimont
, whose captain was said to be Thorndike's good friend from way back when.

I hadn't told Dexter what I'd done. Where I'd been and what I'd heard. But he looked at me as if he knew anyways. Caution blazed in his eyes as if he were a lighthouse warning an unwary ship away from the rocks. I always turned away, pretending I didn't notice.
Just because you're older doesn't mean you know every-thing. Besides, you wouldn't understand.

Hoping for a glimpse of Elizabeth, I traded crow's nest duty for helmsman's duty whenever someone was willing, throwing in a plug of tobacco or a plum duff every now and then to sweeten the deal. For two hours at a stretch, I followed Thorndike's orders. Most times he stood at the foremast crow's nest, spyglass to his eye, hollering from aloft through a middleman: “Steady!” “Starboard!” “Luff! Luff!” “Steady now!” as we steered between the ice floes. Dangerous work it was. By the end of a two-hour shift, my stomach was in knots and I was sore disappointed that I hadn't seen Elizabeth. Was she better? Was she dying?

Meanwhile, we sailed with the
Merimont
between St. Lawrence Island and the mainland. We anchored for a time in St. Lawrence Bay along the Siberian coast. As a thick fog settled round us, natives came aboard to trade. They were short, chunky people, smiling, with brown eyes and straight black hair, smelling of grease. They offered furs and ivory in trade for tobacco. All the natives chewed and smoked tobacco—even the children. I imagined Aunt Agatha having an absolute conniption if she saw such goings-on. (I'd secretly tried chewing tobacco once, but after choking and turning green as seaweed decided it was better to get rid of it altogether.) I traded one plug of tobacco for a rein-deer fur and another for a walrus tusk.

That evening in the fo'c'sle, as I began to carve my tusk, Briggs was going on and on about how the natives were filthy beasts, how you could smell them before you could see them. How they were stupid and no-account and hardly better than ani-mals. How if it weren't for us Yankees, they would have remained savages forever. We were doing them a favor, he said. Dexter told Briggs to shut up, that he was sick of hearing Briggs' whiny voice, that there was no one on earth smellier and stupider than Briggs himself. Of course, they went at it hammer and tongs. But I couldn't help wondering if maybe Briggs was right, for I discovered the natives had sold me a broken walrus tusk, cleverly repaired with rivets and smoothed over with seal fat.

I'd been cheated.

While the ship was stuck in the fog, the mates kept us busy. We spliced worn-out rigging, scraped rust from anchors and chains, made fresh sets of ratlines, and scrubbed the latrines. Every day, regardless of how cold it was, barefooted, pants rolled up, armed with scrub brooms, we swabbed the decks as the mates sloshed bucketfuls of icy seawater in front of us, telling us to look lively or the captain would warm our hides the hard way.

Often, melting our middles like butter on a hot griddle, we'd hear Garret singing as he sharpened his lances and irons, oiling them till they glistened. Garret had a warm, rich voice, perfect for ballads, and it made our work seem bearable, made it seem as if one day we'd all be home, with money in our pockets, never cold again.

One day, our watch was tarring the standing rigging when Irish jabbed my ribs. He winked, put a finger to his mouth for silence, and pointed. There, snoozing like a babe atop the fore hatch, was Briggs, his bucket of tar beside him. I nudged Dexter, who stopped midwhistle, a right devilish grin spreading across his face. Then, with a wink at me and Irish, Dexter crept over and gingerly smeared tar on Briggs' nose and cheeks. Briggs mum-bled, snorted, and rolled over, getting right comfy once again. The three of us quickly got to tarring, trying hard not to split our sides while looking industrious and innocent.

Suddenly, Briggs' eyes popped open. Like a corpse rising from the grave, he sat up straight, touching the tar on his cheeks, his nose. His eyes narrowed when he spied us tarring the rigging so innocent-like. He jumped to his feet. “Why, you—”

“Ah, shut yer fat gob,” muttered Irish.

“You—you tarred me!”

“Tell it to someone who cares,” said Dexter. “The captain, maybe.”

“Gee whittaker,” I couldn't help blurting, “you look real nice, Briggs.”

Just then, Thorndike stepped out from behind the tryworks, his pipe clamped between his teeth.

hat's going on here?” demanded Thorndike.

Briggs pointed at us. “They tarred me!”

“And how do ye suppose they did that?”

Briggs blinked, and his lip twitched.

“Uh—I—uh—”

“Ye were sleeping on watch, weren't ye?”

“Uh—I—no—”

“What, ye just let them tar your face?”

“No, sir, I—” Briggs' words evaporated like water in the hot sun. His eyes widened as Thorndike took hold of the tar brush and began smearing tar all over Briggs. And not just his cheeks and nose, but his ears, his hair, his face, his mouth …

“Sir, sir, please stop.”

“Shut your mouth, sailor.”

“I can't breathe. It's hot, it's hot!”

“I said shut your mouth.”

Meanwhile, Irish, Dexter, and I were tarring like crazy, as if we'd never dream of sleeping on watch, or globbing someone's face with tar. My knees shook, and the Arctic air suddenly seemed hot.

After tarring every bit of Briggs' skin, Thorndike kicked him on his backside. Briggs tumbled to his knees.

“Bread and water for the next week, sailor, for sleeping on watch. Now go clean yourself up, you sorry waste of skin.”

To my relief, Thorndike turned and left, the thunk of his heavy boots moving aft. The three of us glanced at one another. This wasn't exactly what we'd planned. Irish hesitated and then went to help Briggs.

“Leave me alone!” Briggs screamed when Irish touched him. He stumbled to his feet and, after blindly searching for the fo'c'sle companionway, disappeared below.

It took Briggs two days to clean himself of tar. He shaved his hair completely, and his skin turned a bright crusty red that blended nice with his pimples. To my surprise, though, he never said anything about it; didn't throw cockroaches at me anymore, elbow my temple in the rigging, or go at it hammer and tongs with Dexter. He just did his work, tight-lipped and alone, and he didn't lie down for any more snoozes, either. We all agreed we liked him better this way.

“Tarred the snot out of him,” said Dexter.

In late June when the fog lifted, we raised anchor and beat our way north through the Bering Strait under double-reefed top-sails. The wind howled as it ripped through the narrow strip of water, funneled between two masses of land. Screeching birds circled the rocky cliffs of the nearby islands. Whenever I lay in my bunk now, cold air swirling round the fo'c'sle, I curled under
my reindeer fur and dreamed of home, mourning the loss of the carved tooth my father had given me (I'd lost it on the day of my flogging) and wondering if Elizabeth was still alive, my chest aching with the desire to see her again.

Then, one day, when a gale came screaming out of the north, we lost Irish overboard. One moment he was beside me, standing on the footrope of the main topgallant yard, and the next he wasn't.

Gone.

Those below saw him fall, cartwheeling through the air. They hove to and lowered a boat into the crashing waves, but it was too late. I saw him thrashing in the water, but when they cast him a life buoy, he couldn't grasp it. Hands too frozen, they told me later. Body paralyzed with cold. While I watched from the yard, horrified, Irish sank beneath the sea.