The North Water (24 page)

Freed from the chains, he feels suddenly larger and younger than before. It is as if, since the instant he murdered Brownlee, he has been asleep and now he is awake again at last. He has no fear of the future, no sense of its power or meaning. Each new moment is merely a gate he walks through, an opening he pierces with himself. He whispers to Cavendish to get himself ready and wait for his whistle. He ties his clothing into a bundle with a cord, tucks the bundle under his arm, then drops the file into his coat pocket and makes his way over to the snow house. The moon is high and waning. Its frail light turns the broad white snowscape the color of gruel. The fierce air around him is crisp and odorless. The dogs are sleeping; the sledge is packed. He lowers himself onto his hands and knees and crawls inside the snow house. It is pitch-black, but he can smell them anyway—the younger on the left, the elder on the right—and hear them softly breathing. He is surprised they do not wake up, that his very presence does not alert them. He waits a moment, gauging the position of their heads and the directions they must be lying in. It is warmer here than in the tent, he notices. The atmosphere is close and oily. He reaches out carefully, slowly, and touches with the tip of his fingers the surface of one of the sleeping bags; he pushes very slightly down, and there is an answering moan. He puts his hand into his pocket and takes out the file. It is a foot long and an inch wide and one end is spiked. The spike is not especially sharp, but it is long enough for his purposes, and he thinks he will manage. He grips the end of the file in his fist and leans forwards. He can see the men's faint outlines now—a thicker, denser black against the darkness of the snow house walls. He sniffs once in preparation, then reaches out and shakes the elder one awake. The man murmurs and opens his eyes. He leans up on one elbow and opens his mouth as if to speak.

Holding the file with both hands, Drax drives the spiked end into the man's neck just below the ear; there is a spurt of hot blood and a noise somewhere between a gurgle and a gasp. He pulls out the spike and then quickly drives it in again, a little lower this time. When the younger man stirs, aroused by the noise, Drax turns, punches him twice to keep him quiet, then starts to throttle him. Being naturally scrawny and encased in a narrow, tight-fitting sleeping bag, he makes a poor fight of it and is suffocated before the elder one has finished dying. Drax pulls them both out of their bags, then strips the elder of his anorak, slits it up the side, and pulls it on over his own head. He feels around for the blubber knives and the rifle, then crawls back outside.

There is no sound or movement, no indication that anyone in the tent has heard a noise. He goes over to the sledge and gets the deerskin traces. One by one, he wakes the dogs and harnesses them. He crawls back inside the snow house, takes off the dead men's boots, britches, and mittens and stuffs them inside one of the sleeping bags. When he comes out again, he sees Cavendish standing over by the sledge. He raises his right hand and walks across to him.

“I hant whistled you yet,” Drax tells him.

“I int waiting for no fucking whistle either.”

Drax looks at him and nods.

“The case is altered. I have to show you something now.”

“Show me what?”

Drax puts the sleeping bag down on the snow, tugs it open, and points inside.

“Lookee in there,” he says. “Tell me what you see.”

Cavendish pauses, shakes his head, then moves forwards and leans down to take a look in the bag. Drax steps off to the side, grabs him by the forelock, yanks his chin upwards, and cuts through his windpipe with one single slice of the blubber knife. Cavendish, rendered suddenly mute, grabs his gaping neck with both hands as if hoping to reseal the opening and drops onto his knees in the snow. He shuffles forwards for a few moments, like a crippled penitent, jerking, rasping, and gushing blood from his impossible wound, then topples, shudders like a hooked fish drowning in air, and stops moving completely. Drax turns him over and starts going through the pockets of Brownlee's greatcoat.

“That wont my idea, Michael,” he tells him. “That one were yours alone.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

It is still half-dark when they find the first mate's corpse spread-eagled on the snow, frozen hard, throat gashed, bibbed and spewed over with blood. They assume the Yaks have murdered him until they realize that the Yaks are both dead themselves, and it is only then that they notice Drax is missing. When they figure what has happened, they stand there stunned, unable to parse the world implied by such events. They look down at Cavendish, dead and rime-covered, as if expecting him to speak to them again, to offer up one last unbelievable opinion on his own demise.

Within the hour, under Otto's direction, they bury Cavendish in a shallow, scooped-out trench at the tip of the headland and cover the body over with slabs of rock and stones prized from the cliff face. Since the Yaks are heathens and their funerary rites, in consequence, obscure, they leave their bodies as they found them, only blocking the snow house entrance and collapsing the roof and walls on top to form a crude and temporary mausoleum. Once this work is complete, Otto calls the men into the tent and suggests they pray together for God's mercy in their present distress and for the souls of the recently deceased. A few kneel and bow their heads; others unfurl themselves lengthways or crouch cross-legged, yawning and picking at themselves like apes. Otto closes his eyes and tilts his chin upwards.

“Oh dearest Lord,” he starts, “help us to understand Your purposes and Your mercy. Preserve us now from the grave sin of despair.”

As he speaks, a jury-rigged blubber lamp is still burning at the center of the tent. A curlicue of black smoke twists up from it and meltwater drips off the canvas where the heat has risen and touched the half-inch inner layer of ice.

“Let us not give in to evil,” Otto continues, “but give us faith in the workings of Your Providence even in this time of our confusion and suffering. Let us remember that Your Love created this world and Your Love sustains it still at every moment.”

Webster the blacksmith coughs loudly, then leans his head out of the tent and spits into the snow. McKendrick, who is on his knees and trembling, begins to weep softly and so does the cook and one of the Shetlanders. Sumner, who is light-headed and nauseous from a combination of fear and hunger, tries to concentrate on the question of the manacles. Since Drax could not have committed three murders with his wrists and ankles chained together, he must have freed himself beforehand, he thinks, but how could he do so? Did the Yaks assist him? Did Cavendish? Why would anyone wish to help a man like Drax escape? And if they did help him, why did they all three end up dead?

“Guard and direct the spirits of those who have just died,” Otto says. “Protect them as they travel through the other realms of time and space. And help us remember always that we are a part of Your greater mystery, that You are never absent, that even if we fail to see You, or if we mistake Your presence for some other lesser thing, You are still there with us. Thank you, Lord, Amen.”

The amens come back to him in ragged, grumbling chorus. Otto opens his eyes and looks about as though surprised at where he finds himself. He suggests they sing a hymn, but before he can begin, he is interrupted by Webster. The blacksmith appears angry. His dark eyes are filled with a bitter eagerness.

“We've had the Devil hisself living here amongst us,” he shouts out. “The Devil hisself. I seen his footprints out there in the snow just now. The cloven hoof, the mark of Satan. I seen it clear as day.”

“I seen it too,” McKendrick says. “Like the tracks of a pig or a goat, 'cept there int no pigs or goats alive in this forsaken hole.”

“There were no such tracks,” Otto says, “no marks at all except those left by the dogs. The only Devil is the one inside ourselves. Evil is a turning away from good.”

Webster shakes his head.

“That Drax is Satan taken on a fleshly form,” he says. “He int human like you or me, he just looks that way when he chooses to.”

“Henry Drax is not the Devil,” Otto tells him patiently, as if correcting an elementary confusion. “He's a tormented spirit. I've seen him in my dreams. I've spoken to him there many times.”

“There's three dead men outside I'd weigh against your fucking dreaming,” Webster says.

“Whatever he may be, he's gone now,” Otto says.

“Aye, but where is he gone to? And who says he won't be coming back betimes?”

Otto shakes his head.

“He won't come back here. Why would he?”

“The Devil does as he wishes to,” Webster says. “He pleases hisself, I'd say.”

The possibility of Drax's return sets the men into a hubbub. Otto tries to quiet them, but they ignore him.

“We have to leave this place,” Webster tells them all. “We can find the Yaks' camp and they can take us down to the Yankee whaling station on Blacklead Island. We'll be safe there.”

“You don't know where the Yak camp is or how far distant,” Otto says.

“It's away off to the west somewhere. If we follow the shoreline, we'll find it soon enough.”

“You'll die before you get there. You'll freeze to death for sure.”

“I've had about my fill of taking other men's advisements,” Webster says. “We followed orders since we left from Hull, and it's that has brought us to this sorry fucking pass.”

Otto looks to Sumner, and Sumner thinks a moment.

“You'll have no tent,” he tells him, “no furs or skins to wear. There are no roads or tracks of any kind here, no landmarks any of us recognize, so even if the camp is close you may not find it ever. You might survive one night out in the open air, but for sure you won't survive two.”

“Those as want to stay in this accursed place can stay,” Webster says. “But I int staying an hour longer here.”

He stands up and starts gathering together his possessions. His face is stiff and pale, his movements jerky and enraged. The others sit and watch him, then McKendrick, the cook, and the Shetlander stand up too. McKendrick's sunken cheeks are still wet with tears. He has open sores on his face and neck from his time down in the hold. The cook is shivering like an animal in distress. Otto tells them to delay, to eat dinner in the tent tonight and then leave at first light if they must, but they take no notice. When he presses them, they raise their fists against him and Webster pledges he will knock down any man who seeks to stand in their way.

The four men depart shortly afterwards, without ceremony or extended farewell. Sumner gives them each their share of the frozen seal meat, and Otto hands Webster a rifle and a handful of cartridges. They shake hands quickly but neither party attempts to speak or soften the dread implications of their leaving. As they watch them walk away, their dark outlines shrinking into the general blankness, Sumner turns to Otto.

“If Henry Drax isn't the Devil, I can't claim to know just what he is. If there's a word been coined for a man like him, I don't believe I've learned it.”

“Nor will you learn it,” Otto says, “not from any human book, at least. A fellow like him won't be caged in or fixed by words.”

“By what then?”

“Faith alone.”

Sumner shakes his head and laughs unhappily.

“You dreamt we'd die, and now it's coming true,” he says. “It's getting colder every day, and we have three weeks' food at most and no hope of help or rescue. Those four bastards just gone are good as dead already.”

“Miracles occur. If great evil exists, why not great good the same?”

“Signs and fucking wonders,” Sumner says. “Is that the best that you can offer me?”

“I don't offer you anything at all,” Otto answers calmly. “It's not in my power to do so.”

Sumner shakes his head again. The three remaining men have retreated into the tent for warmth. It is too cold to linger outside for long, but he cannot bear the thought of returning to their dreary, hopeless company, so instead he sets off walking east, past Cavendish's new-dug grave and out onto the frozen bay. The sea ice has been cracked by winds, buckled, and then refrozen into a rubbled landscape of crazed and tilted blocks fissured and motionless. Black mountains, gargantuan and sumptuous, rise off in the distance. The dangling sky is the color of milky quartz. He walks until he is breathless and his face and feet are numb, and then turns about. The wind is blowing against him as he begins to walk back. He feels it seeping through his layers of clothing, nudging and chilling his chest, groin, and thighs. He thinks of Webster and the others walking west and feels suddenly sickened and wretched at his core. He stops, groans, then leans over and vomits out gobbets of half-digested seal meat onto the frozen snow beneath. He feels a sharp pain like a lance jabbing in his stomach and releases an involuntary squirt of shit into his trousers. For a moment, he cannot breathe at all. He closes his eyes and waits, and the feeling passes. The sweat is frozen on his brow, and his beard is hard now with saliva and bile and fragments of tooth-ground meat. He looks up at the snow-packed sky and opens wide his mouth, but no sounds or words come out of it, and, after a short while longer, he closes it again and walks on silently.

*   *   *

They divide up evenly the scanty rations that remain and allow each man to cook and eat them as and when he pleases. They take turns to feed and tend the fitful blubber lamp. The remaining rifle lies near the entrance of the tent for anyone who wishes to hunt with it, but although they pass to and fro to shit and piss and bring back snow to melt for water, no one picks it up. There is no one in command any longer: Otto's authority has gone, and Sumner's role as surgeon, without his medicines, means nothing. They sit and wait. They sleep and play cards. They tell themselves that Webster and the others will send help, or that the Yaks themselves will surely come out searching for the two who are dead. But no one arrives, and nothing changes. The only book they have is Otto's Bible and Sumner refuses to read from it. He cannot bear its certainties, its rhetoric, its all-too-easy hope. Instead, he silently recites
The Iliad
. Whole sections return to him at night, unbidden, near-complete, and in the morning, he tells them over line by line. When the other men see him mumbling to himself like that they assume he is at prayer, and he doesn't seek to disabuse them since this is as close to honest prayer as he is ever likely to come.