Afterlands (29 page)

April 29
. Morning fine and calm, the sea quiet. All but the injured men on the lookout for steamers. Sighted one about eight miles off. Called the watch, launched the boat, and made for her. After an hour’s pull, gained on her a good deal; but they did not see us. Another hour, and we are beset in the ice, and can get no farther.

Landed on a small floe, and hoisted our Stars and Stripes again; then, getting on the highest part, Joe fired his rifle, and Hans his pistol—which he has received, for hunting, from Hannah, Kruger having somehow contrived to lose Hans’s rifle in the sea!—hoping by this means to attract their attention. The combined effort made a considerable report. They fired three volleys, and seemed to hear a response of three shots; at the same time the steamer headed toward us. Now we feel sure that the time of our deliverance has come.

We shouted, involuntarily almost, but they were too far away to hear our voices. Presently the steamer changed her course, and headed south, then north again, then west; we did not know what to make of it. We watched, but she did not get materially nearer. So she kept on all day, as though she were trying to work through the ice, and could not force her way. Strange! I should think any sailing ship, much more a steamer, could get through. She being four or five miles off, we repeated our firing, but she came no nearer. All day we watched, making every effort within our means to attract attention. Whether they saw us or not we do not know, but late in the afternoon she steamed away, going to the south-west; and reluctantly we abandoned the hope which had upheld us through the day.

April 30
. At 5 A.M., as I was lying in the boat, my watch having just expired, Herron on the look-out espied a steamer cutting through the fog, and the first I heard was a loud cry, “There’s a steamer, lads! Lads, there’s a steamer!” On hearing the outcry, I sprang up as if endued with new life, ordered the guns to be fired, and set up a loud, simultaneous shout; also ordered the colors set on the boat’s mast, and held them erect, fearing that, like the other ships, she might not see or hear us, though she was much nearer—not more than a quarter of a mile off when we first sighted her.

I also started Hans off in his
kyack
, which he had himself proposed to do, to intercept her, if possible, as it was very foggy and I feared every moment we would lose sight of her; but, to my great joy and relief, the steamer’s head was soon turned toward us. But Hans kept on, and paddled up to the vessel, singing out, in his broken English, the unmeaning words, “American steamer!”—meaning to tell them of the loss of the
Polaris
, I suppose; but they did not understand him.

On her approach, as they slowed down, I took off my old Russian cap, which I had worn all winter, and waving it over my head gave them three cheers, in which all the men, except perhaps poor Meyer, heartily joined. It was instantly returned by a hundred men, who covered her top-gallant mast, forecastle, and fore-rigging. We then gave three more, and a “tiger,” which was surely appropriate, as she proved to be the sealer
Tigress
—a barkentine of Conception Bay, Newfoundland.

Two or three of their seal-boats were instantly lowered, and the crews got on our bit of ice, shook our hands, and peeped curiously into the dirty tins we had used over the oil-fires. We had been making soup out of the blood and entrails of our last little seal. They soon saw enough to convince them that we were in sore need. They took the women and children in their boats, while we tumbled into our own, bringing Captain Hall’s little desk, but leaving behind all else—and our all was simply a few battered smoky tin pans and the
débris
of our last seal! It had already become offal in our eyes.

On climbing on board, I was at once surrounded by sealers filled with curiosity to know our story, and all asking questions of me and the men. I told them who I was, and where we were from. But when they asked me, “How long have you been on the ice?” and I answered, “Since the 15
^th
of last October,” they were so astonished that they fairly looked blank with wonder.

One of the
Tigress’s
crew, looking at me with open-eyed surprise, exclaimed.

“And was you on it night and day?”

The peculiar expression and tone, with the absurdity of the question, was too much for my politeness, and in spite of myself I laughed and laughed—painful though that forgotten exercise was—in fact finding it no easy matter to stop.

The captain came along and invited me down into the cabin. There we sat talking of our “Wonderful,” or, as he called it, “Miraculous” escape, some half an hour, and I became very hungry, having eaten nothing since the night before. And I wanted a smoke
so
much; but I saw no signs of either food or tobacco. Finally I asked him if he would give me a pipe and some tobacco. He soon procured both from his mate, or “Second Hand,” and I had a good long puff—the first I had had since many dreary days in our hut. This “Second Hand” then quietly offered to bring me a “breakfast dram” of spirits, but this I declined. In course of time breakfast came along—codfish, boiled potatoes, hard bread, and coffee. I fell upon this plain food with a keenness which the reader may find it hard to grasp; in truth, no subsequent meal can ever surpass it to my taste, so long habituated to raw meat, with all its uncleanly accessories. No one, unless they have been deprived of civilized food and cooking for as long as I have, can begin to imagine how good a cup of coffee, with bread and
butter
, tastes! Never in my life did I enjoy a meal like that. Plain as it was, I shall never forget that codfish and potatoes.

On board the
Tigress,
May 1
. How strange it seems to lie down at night in these clean quarters, and feel that I have no more care, no responsibility! To be
once more clean
—what a comfort! Captain Bartlett has all his boats down this morning, sealing. Numbers of seals are to be seen lying on the ice. Our tireless Joe has joined in with them, and is in all his glory. God bless the good and kind Captain Bartlett! He is very kind indeed; so are all the ship’s company. We sail, in a few more days, for St John’s.

May 1, Here in v. simple quarters, stench of Seal fat ambiant yet can think of no finer Luxury! No sweeter Joy! And savoured alone, in one’s own small v.
clean
Cabin. All are safe. Ice-Master
Woodfine says Jamka’s 2 Ft. must be amputated on arrival St J’s perhaps up to the Knee or worse. But he & Meyer shd
Live
! & in
2 nights time under covered Deck theres to be a “Ball” in honor of Rescue. A last Irony for none of us I believe will have strength for a single Reel, or Square!

Tukulito has fixed her hair for the occasion, her braids prettily redone with Punnie’s help, looped back behind her ears, a plain woad dress of homespun wool on her, pinned up at the sleeves and the hem—a forgotten ship’s dress of Mrs Woodfine, who used to accompany her husband to the sealing grounds every spring, until the children came. Ice Master Woodfine has made a gift of it to Tukulito. Tukulito, working overnight and through the day, has sewn a little dress for Punnie from a tartan wool blanket that Captain Bartlett has given her. A little brown Highlander she looks now, says the captain, who has loaned Tyson his dress uniform, the one he usually saves for the morning of their return to St John’s, which will be in less than a week now. Woodfine and Second Hand Squires have lent Meyer and Kruger some plain, decent clothes, but the rest of the crew have only their fur trousers and their washed but tattered sweaters, and whatever spare things the sealers can find for them. Ebierbing and Hans and his family remain in their sullied furs. Says Woodfine, I can’t recall no other occasion any lot made our boys look so damn fine.

There’s an accordion, a fiddle, spoons, and the younger sealers get straight on the pace, of course, because the ship’s hold and forehatch and even this topdeck’s edges are baled with good pelts and the voyage ending and the captain turning a blind eye to the circulation of rum, tots of rum fortifying the tea in their tin mugs, and at first the men jig or hornpipe, solo—the clatter of planking flashed over the deck to shield it from hobnailed boots—and a few other men jump in and now the natives are among them, sweeping the floor clear, parents and children square-dancing in the bounding, boisterous style they’ve adapted from the Arctic whalers, with ease turning these tunes to their purpose, so the sealers must either dance with them or move aside and watch. Some choose one, some the other, but above all they watch Tukulito, dressed as if to teach the dance to the other Esquimaux, but not moving with a teacher’s measured, monitoring air, she’s flushed like the little ones and equally possessed, abandoned, which strikes the sealers as unexceptional, they’ve heard of this native exuberance, this love of the dance—and they haven’t spent the last two years with her. Her white fellow-survivors are dumbstruck. As she gallops and stamps down the reel-road with her shrieking daughter, to the chugging of the squeezebox and the fiddle’s skirling—dumbstruck. Loose planks slapping under the dancers’ boots. Seal-oil lanterns swinging on their pegs. And Kruger, lax-jawed, also stares, then feels his face stretching, mirroring her delight and displaying his awe at this latest revelation. Interpreter, mother, mender, marksman, master butcher, burglar, stepmother, diplomat, rescuer, now passionate dancer. Loving her is like loving the population of a small city. You can see the lightness of relief in her, as if she’s abruptly exempt from the force of gravity. And Tyson, standing squared beside Captain Bartlett across the deck, the toe of one polished boot tapping—he looks years lighter too.

Herron launches himself on this whirling herd and his cheeks, already starting to plump out again, are the jocund red of Madeira, his full-lunged laughter rising over the sealers’ stomping and clapping, their chorus of “Dear Doctor John,” your cod-liver oil is so pure and so strong, and now Jackson joins with Herron, a borrowed, too-big felt cap low over his eyes, skull shaved clean, and together they gallop down deck through the yipping gauntlet, I’m afraid for me life I’ll go down in the soil, if me wife don’t stop drinking that cod-liver oil. Lindermann clumps into the reel, flap-footed, the biggest figure on deck, Madsen and Lundquist the next to yield. Only a few of the watchers are silent. Seated on stools along the gunwale with mugs of spiked tea are Meyer, palely shaved and groomed, his cheek on his hand, elbow on his knee—a pensive general in exile—and Jamka, his doomed feet swathed in bandages. They stare glassily, though less in rueful defeat, it appears, than a kind of burnt-out serenity. They’re alive. Only Anthing, slouched against the gunwale smoking, wears a bitter look. Only he seems outside the jamboree. His bandage has been removed, head shorn, and except for the lurid welt at his temple, the dome is white as a toadstool. Kruger wonders if he and Tukulito might have spared the world some small, future misery by finishing him when they had the chance.

But Kruger can no longer resist the rhythm, the release, the riotous delight of the dancers, and he is out among them, biding his moment, then slipping in and pounding down the long reel-road with Tukulito, wanting to move faster and wilder in the elation of the act, yet also slow things down, to make the passage last. It does last long enough that, face to face, and with a row of other faces blurring behind her, she smiles deep into him, a real smile, and it hits him that never before has he fully seen her teeth—stubby, small as a child’s, but straight, nearly white—let alone this flash of the glistening red gums.

And there is a moment, some hours later, Kruger pitching, yawing drunk though he has had only four or five tots, when he meets her between decks, by the rope locker, she returning from the head, which he is trying to find, or is it she he is trying to find, and as they come face to face he is brought up straight, as if by a pinch of snuff or a dunking. Dim lanterns sway at either end of the passage. From the deck above, stamping and the clatter of the raw-boards. He reaches for her. She closes her eyes and sags, like somebody walking a plank, into his circling arms. He kisses her forehead, hard, feels the heat of her exertion, tastes sweat, grips the back of her head to turn her face up toward his, expecting resistance, but her lips have already reached his own. A firm, humid, clumsy kiss. She pushes him back and mutters what must be a kind of oath, or profanity, in her language.

But I love you, Tukulito.

You must leave me now, sir.

I don’t know what else to do, he says. Forgive me.

Please, sir. An amber tear starts down her cheek. With the clipped nail of her trigger finger she flicks it away. As if expert at the practice. Already her face is being reined back to impassivity. The slate has been swept clear. None of this has happened.

Tukulito, he says, I beg of you. Don’t leave. This might be our last moments this way.

I must, sir.

This once, at least, let me hear you say my name!

I shall never forget you either, she says.