Across Frozen Seas (2 page)

Equally odd, although I hadn't dreamt it, I somehow knew what had happened to my dream self and George between the two dreams. He and I had indeed escaped the night after the first dream. I remembered squeezing myself through a tiny window into a dark alley and running until I could hardly draw another breath into my aching lungs.

After that, George and I had lived on the streets, stealing what food we could and sleeping wherever we could find some shelter. It was always raining. Our only happiness was the stolen copy of
A Christmas Carol
which George and I, huddled beneath a bridge, would read to one another. My reading was still very slow and George often had to help me, but we both loved the escape into Scrooge's world of ghosts and Christmas turkey. Our favourite bit was the description of the ghost of Christmas Present, surrounded by piles of food and gifts. We would torture ourselves by reading of the “great joints of meat,” “long wreaths of sausages,” and “seething bowls of punch,” until our stomachs were growling so loudly we couldn't continue.

How I knew all this without actually dreaming it was a mystery. Yet, somehow, I did, and what's more, I was beginning to care about what happened to my dreaming self. I found myself anxious to go to sleep the next night so that the story could continue.

The next night I sat in my small room in our house in Humboldt, Saskatchewan fingering an old ivory button. On one side was a carved crown and anchor and, scratched on the other, a broad arrow which identified it as having come from the uniform of a sailor in the British Navy. I often sat and looked at it. The button fascinated me. Who wore it? How had he lost it? An ancestor of my grandfather Jim's had found it on an expedition to the Canadian Arctic years ago. He said the owner must have died long before I was even born, but it seemed now as if a part of that sailor were still alive. When I held his button in my hand he was not alone and neither was I.

As for being alone, I don't have brothers or sisters, so I'm used to spending time in my room by myself, just thinking. When I was younger, I used to wish for a brother to play with, but now I can amuse myself for hours thinking about where I'll go when I leave home.
Often my mother interrupts my thoughts with her worried knocks at the door asking, “David Young, what
can
you be doing in there?” I usually reply, “Homework,” and then go back to my plans for the future.

In the meantime, I play hockey and hang out, and in the summer I canoe and fish, but that's about all there is to do. Humboldt is definitely not a thriving city. It's a small town about fifty kilometres east of Saskatoon and about as many years behind the rest of the world. As soon as I'm old enough, I'm gone. My friends are always talking about Toronto or Vancouver, but I'm heading north. As far north as I can get. Maybe I'll get hired by a government survey or work on the rigs; I'd take any job in order to get up there. If I want to stay though, I suppose I'll have to go to college first and learn a trade that will be useful in the North.

The Arctic has always fascinated me. I like the idea of the white wilderness, and of living on the edge of the world. Humboldt's not quite the edge of the world, but I like the winters here too, especially the storms when the snow whips across the prairie with nothing to stop it but the occasional grain elevator. Nothing matters to the snow—cars, roads, houses—it covers everything in its path, smoothes it over. Even sound is trapped by the falling flakes. Then it gets cold, minus twenty, thirty, even forty degrees sometimes, but then the sun comes out and the air gets so clear you can see forever. When it's that cold, your nose tingles when you breathe and the snow is crisp and dry under your feet. Mom says that when I was younger, I used to sit at
the window and watch the snow fall for hours. I still like to watch those big flakes drift down, thousands and thousands of them blanketing the silent land.

When it's snowing you feel as though you could be anywhere. They say no two snowflakes are the same, yet the ones that fall today are identical to those that fell on the huge ice sheet that once covered the prairie, or those that fell on the hairy backs of the mammoths in prehistoric times, or those that settled on bundles of beaver pelts the fur traders carried along the river ways. I love thinking about the past and, somehow, the snow is a link; it feels the same to everyone, regardless of when they lived or died.

All this I have learned from my grandpa Jim, Mom's father, who lives on a farm about ten kilometres out of town. His story began when his parents came over from England at the turn of the century, before Saskatchewan was even a province. They didn't know anything about farming, but I guess things were bad enough where they came from to make them want to leave and take a chance on Canada. Jim has a photograph of them, taken in their first year here, standing in front of a ramshackle sod cabin dressed in their city clothes with high, stiff collars and fancy hats. They
did
manage to make a go of it; the farm did surprisingly well, even through the depression years.

Jim was the second of two brothers. Both were born around the time of the First World War and both went off to fight in the Second. Jim was in a tank that was attacked in Holland at the end of the war. He was
lucky; he was the only one who got out alive. He has limped ever since due to a piece of shrapnel embedded in his hip. His brother was not so lucky. He was a spitfire pilot who shot down dozens of enemy planes. One day he took off on a routine patrol and disappeared. No one ever found out what happened to him. He must have crashed into the sea.

After his wound healed, Jim came back to Saskatchewan and took over the farm. He married a local woman named Elly, and my Mom was their only child. I think they were a little disappointed when Mom married my father and moved to town. Dad's not a farmer, so there is no one left to take over the farm. I suppose it will be sold when Jim dies. Elly died six years ago, but Jim is still there. He's too old to do any of the work now so most of the land is rented out. Last fall, Jim found even working around the yard too much, so he hired a Hutterite boy named Jurgen who lives on a farm across the road. I've never met him, but Jim says he's a hard worker and good company.

I imagine Jim tells Jurgen his stories. Jim has always been a great storyteller, and he even loves the Arctic as much as I do. His ancestor, the one who found the button, was a sailor on an expedition to the Arctic in the 1850's. They went north to find out what had happened to Franklin and his men on an expedition to the area ten years earlier. Franklin was trying to find the Northwest Passage to China, but they never reached their destination and all the sailors and both their ships disappeared just as strangely as Jim's brother had.

Jim's ancestor didn't unearth much except bones and Inuit stories, but he did bring back some relics: spoons, knives, bits of wood and rope. Most of them are in museums now, except for my button. But we still don't know much about what happened to Franklin.

Jim also told me stories of other explorers: Charles Francis Hall, who lived with the Inuit for five years; Schwatka, the cavalry officer, who covered five thousand kilometres by sled; and De Long, who died on the coast of Russia because his men couldn't make the locals understand that he was starving to death nearby. And, Jim said, at the other end of the world, there were Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen racing to reach the south pole. Jim tells great stories, so great that I often used to sit by the fire in his living room for hours, listening to him talk while the snow fell outside.

I don't seem to have time for stories any more, but they have left me with a love of the North and the certainty that one day I will go there and see it for myself. But for now, I will have to be content with this button, Jim's stories, and my dreams.

I am cold, wet, hungry and miserable. We are standing on a grey street under a leaden sky. In front of us, steps lead up to an imposing, carved wooden door. I am looking around and through the haze of my dream I think,
perhaps the cars will give me a clue as to the year.
But there are no cars to be seen. The street is cobbled and the only transportation visible is a black, polished coach. It sits on two wheels almost as large as I am and is drawn by a single brown horse. A driver sits at the back, guiding the reins over the roof and, as the vehicle passes, I catch a glimpse of the white faces of two passengers inside. I turn back to the door. George is saying something and, almost before I realize it, we are climbing the steps. I stand back while my friend raises the brass, lions-head knocker.

After a moment, the door opens and a woman in a maid's costume looks out. She is obviously unimpressed by the sight of us. George is moving into the open
doorway and talking fast, but not fast enough. With a look of utter disgust, the maid slams the door in his face. I can't really blame her. We must look pretty scruffy after living on the streets for two weeks. Turning, we slump dejectedly down on the step. Now, how will we get in to see Sir John, the naval hero, the talk of all London, and our only chance to go to sea?

I shiver in the damp air and pull Jack Tar out of my pocket. He is a lead figure, only about three inches tall, dressed in a bright blue sailor's uniform with white trim and a hand capped over his eyes. He gazes into the distance at some far-off shore, just as George and I had hoped to do. Will I ever get to see the things he has seen, or am I destined only to look out on the damp, rainy back streets of London?

Jack Tar is still in my hand twenty minutes later when a carriage pulls up in front of us. It is larger than most of the others that have gone by, with four wheels and two horses. A footman, who has been riding on the back, jumps down and holds the door open for an elderly, heavy-set man with the largest ears I have ever seen. He is wearing an impressive dark blue uniform with two rows of buttons down the front. The shoulders are decorated with gold epaulettes and he is wearing heavy-looking medals on his right breast and at his throat. His hat is like the ones you see in the old pictures of Admiral Nelson, peaked and triangular with a tassel of gold braid. In his left hand, he carries a thin gold baton.

The uniform is crumpled and a couple of the brass
buttons are unfastened, making it look as if he has slept, or at least dozed, in it. His face is heavy set but does not look healthy. The skin is pasty white and there are bags under both eyes. The eyes themselves look watery and bloodshot.

As I watch in confusion, the man takes a hesitant step forward, throws back his head, closes his eyes and lets out an enormous sneeze. I cannot hear it, but even several feet away, I can see his body convulse and spit fly from his open mouth. His baton falls to the ground and rolls toward an open drain. Instinctively, I recoil, but George is more alert. Before the footman can even move, he darts down the steps and retrieves the golden stick so it doesn't fall down the open hole. Looking small, George stands before the gentleman and offers him the rescued baton. He peers at George from behind the folds of an enormous white handkerchief.

Finally, the footman reacts. Brushing past his master, he grabs the baton from George and catches hold of my friend's collar. Never one to take an attack lying down, George reacts by landing a swift kick to the footman's shin which makes the man cry out in pain. However, it doesn't make him loosen his grip and George remains a prisoner. But not for long.

“Unhand the boy. He's done nothing wrong.” The great man draws himself upright and glares sternly at the footman.

“But Sir John...” the footman protests. With a wave of his hand and a ghost of a smile on his sickly face, Sir John steps forward and unclasps the footman's hand
from George's threadbare jacket. Realizing his rescuer is Sir John himself, George immediately begins talking. He explains who we are and why we are here. Sir John listens with a slightly amused expression on his face. Behind him, another carriage rumbles noisily past on the uneven cobblestones.

“So, you want to go to sea?” Sir John's voice is hoarse from his cold. For the first time, he looks over at me. I try to stand straight in what I assume to be the proper military manner. His eyes linger on me and then drift to Jack Tar on the step beside me.

“I see we shall get two sailors for the price of one with you my lad.” Sir John smiles and, in spite of his cold, his face turns gentle. “I was your age when I fought with Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen, and I was not much older at Trafalgar.” For a moment, he seems on the verge of drifting off into the past. With visible effort he pulls himself back.

“The world is changing my boy. Only this morning I was getting one of those new-fangled Daguerreotype pictures made. Don't hold with them myself. I much prefer a good old-fashioned painted portrait, but they tell me this new method is more accurate and will last forever. Long after I'm dead people will see my face fixed on a glass plate. Trouble is, I've got this terrible cold. Is that how I want people to remember me, with a red nose and puffy cheeks? Hah! At least a painter could make me look decent.”

His watery eyes swing away from me and back to George.

“I'll see what I can do,” he says. Then, turning to the footman, “Take these boys around to the kitchen and see that they get a good square meal.”

With a mumbled “thank you,” George and I follow the footman to the side of the house and through a much less imposing door. As soon as we cross the threshold we are hit by a blast of warm air. The kitchen is huge and smells of smoke and wet laundry and food. The laundry is hanging from a system of pulleys drawn up close to the high ceiling. The floor is made of flagstones and the only furnishings are a large wooden table and bench sitting in the middle of the room. One entire wall is taken up with a long, black, iron range and a variety of pots and pans. In front of the range, two women are stirring something in the pots. They turn as we come in and the footman speaks.