EDEN (19 page)

Cody looked into Jake’s eyes, more than half a century of experience looking back into his own. He nodded.

‘Then let’s get to it,’ Jake said. ‘We’ve got ice to clear.’

*

Week 26

My beloved Maria,

Our passage south is laborious but consistent. The current that flows down through the Nares Strait maintains a steady five knots and is supported by northerly winds. However, the captain is reluctant to use canvas because of the icebergs that litter the surface of the channel. Some are far larger than the ship itself, leviathans of ice that tower over us and calve chunks the size of houses into the brutal water.

This place is of such beauty that I cannot describe in words how it feels to witness it, a world unstained by mankind but for our silent passage. Beluga whales sail with us, diving beneath and around the ‘bergs. Polar bears track our progress and Arctic seals watch from the shores. We are forced to shoot them from time to time for food but we only take that which we need to survive. Bethany and Charlotte maintain five days’ emergency stock of meat, never more. The captain has urged them to accept more as we will soon leave the channel and it will become harder to find food, but they have both refused as there is no room in the ship’s only working ice-box for further supplies.

Our one great hope is that the ship’s radio suite is now broadcasting the signal of the distress beacon we took from Alert. If there is somebody out there with the ability to track us, they will know we have left the Arctic and are sailing south.

Bobby passed away two days ago. His body is stored below decks in what I’m told was a gunpowder store in the original vessel from which the Phoenix derives. Lined with tin and bitterly cold, it preserves his remains until we reach Baffin Bay. Everybody agreed that the last place he would have wanted to be interred was the unforgiving permafrost of Ellesmere Island.

The weather is improving steadily although sudden fogs impede our progress from time to time. The captain intends to avoid deep water sailing because of the treacherous conditions through Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait.

I do not trust the crew of the Phoenix or their captain. I fear that if they knew of the coordinates I recorded at Alert, they would have no qualms about leaving us behind and pursuing their “Eden” alone. In the captain’s own words: the less bellies need be fed, the more miles covered instead…

*

‘Iceberg!’ Hard to port!’

Reece’s cry rang out across the deck like a claxon in the otherwise deep silence as the Phoenix drifted near scattered pack ice along the coast, the channel entombed in a thick fog so cold it froze on the skin.

Cody looked up and saw the huge ‘berg loom ahead as they rounded the narrow clear water channel alongside the coast south of Smith Sound. The fog enshrouded the coastline and the sheer mountains rising up from the ice sheets in walls of rugged grey and white, their soaring heights lost in the gloom.

Saunders span the wheel hard and the Phoenix began turning away from the sheer cliff of craggy white ice. Cody dashed for the starboard bow along with Denton, Taylor and Sauri as smaller chunks of ice began thumping against the hull.

Cody saw that the channel running toward Grise Fjord was packed with a solid mass of jagged white ice that stretched back into Jones Sound and blocked the way into Craig Harbour like an enormous glacier.

‘We’re cut off,’ Saunders said as he moved to stand along the bulwark. ‘We’ll never reach Grise Fjord through that.’

His voice sounded dull and flat, distorted by the cold air and the fog. The Phoenix drifted slowly around the immense shelf of the iceberg, which had become lodged against the coastline several hundred metres away.

‘Probably calved off the Jakeman Glacier,’ Saunders said as he pointed out to the west, ‘got turned around in the currents here. The rest of it is ice melt that’s got packed up into the channel and frozen again.’

Hank Mears strode across and joined them at the bulwarks. He scanned the densely packed iced channel for a few moments and then made his decision.

‘We can’t make Grise Fjord,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll have to push on south.’

Cody watched as the ship slowly rounded the iceberg and Jones Sound appeared before them. A broad stretch of water between Ellesmere Island’s south coast and the north coast of Devon Island, the Sound was filled with rugged ice compressed into the channel. The dark, foreboding water gave way to the white pack ice which in turn gave way to the featureless grey fog.

‘How come it wasn’t like this further north?’ Cody asked Jake. ‘How did we get down out of Alert?’

‘The currents drag icebergs around the tip of Ellesmere Island,’ Saunders replied, ‘packs ‘em in here sometimes against the year-round ice. You can’t get to Grise Fjord without an aeroplane when it’s like this. It’s sometimes the same at Alert, but you guys were lucky. The winds cleared the ice from the shore as we made our way up, gave us that clear water channel, and coming back down we just floated along with the current.’ Saunders dragged deeply on a cigarette and then flicked the butt out into the pristine water below. ‘But if the channel had frozen again, like here, it would have crushed the ship’s hull and we’d all have been long dead.’

‘What about Bobby?’ Cody asked him.

‘No way we’re risking landfall up here now,’ Saunders said, ‘too dangerous. If we get boxed in we could be stuck for weeks, months even. Your boy will be buried at sea.’

‘That’s not what he would have wanted.’

‘He didn’t want to die either, did he?’ Saunders replied. ‘But it happened, and I’m sure he doesn’t give a damn now bein’ gone and all.’

Saunders turned away from the view and followed his captain back toward the wheelhouse. Hank directed Denton, Seth and Taylor to retrieve Bobby’s body from the powder store below decks.

‘They’re just going to dump him here?’ Bethany gasped.

Charlotte was behind Bethany and watched in silence as Denton and his crewmates hefted Bobby’s body up through the main hatch. He was wrapped in old sheets, probably a sail that had torn during a storm, the canvas stitched closed around him with thick cordage.

‘Hold her steady! Fly topsails!’

The captain’s voice blasted like a shotgun across the decks, startling a pair of Arctic terns on the distant shore. Their flapping wings echoed eerily as they flew away and vanished into the fog as the Phoenix drifted listlessly in the current, Saunders holding her rudder full to port to prevent her from turning toward the densely packed ice in the channel to their right.

Four crewmen scrambled across the decks and hauled on the rigging lines, releasing triangular sails that rumbled as they fell from the uppermost yards. Cody watched as they braced the lines, bringing the canvas taut and then tying the rigging down.

‘He’s using the breeze to bring us out of the channel,’ Jake said.

The Phoenix got underway, the barely noticeable wind producing just enough thrust to keep the ship moving away from the treacherous ice.

Hank Mears strode back to the bulwarks as Denton’s men set Bobby’s body down on the boarding ramp, which was normally lashed to the bulwarks but lay now on the deck. The captain looked at the body and then at Jake McDermott.

‘You got anything you want to say?’

The crew gathered nearby in silence and watched as Jake stood forward. Cody could not bring himself to look at Bobby’s body as Jake spoke. He could see Bethany look at him from time to time from the corner of his eye, but he refused to raise his head. Nearby, Reece stared at the corpse, a horrible sense of guilt etched like stone into his features. He occasionally looked back and forth between Cody to Jake.

Cody tried not to look at him as Jake spoke.

‘This is not something that we ever thought we’d have to do, bury one of our own,’ Jake said, his gravelly voice rattling out into the uncaring wilderness around them. ‘Bobby Leary was a sociable man who sought to learn what he could from the world and from his companions in the Arctic. He was an orphan, and we never learned if he had extended family somewhere out there. Maybe losing his folks affected him more than he let on and he chose not to contact them. We’ll never know. What we do know is that when the time came and we were all tested, Bobby stepped up and did not once shirk his responsibilities. That courage cost him his life so that ours might go on.’ Jake exhaled noisily on the cold air, his breath billowing in thick clouds. ‘We owe it to him that he not be forgotten, by any of us, for our every breath is thanks to his courage.’

Jake looked down at the body and then stepped back.

Hank nodded to Denton. The sailor stepped forward and with Seth and Muir lifted the ramp and rested the bottom end atop the bulwarks. Taylor, the tallest man in the crew, stepped to the back and lifted the ramp high in his chunky hands and tilted it toward the sea.

Bobby’s body slid down the ramp and over the side. A moment later it slipped with barely a ripple into the bitter waters and vanished into the icy darkness.

The ship remained silent as though frozen in time for what felt to Cody like an eternity. He noticed Denton and Seth watching him with barely concealed satisfaction on their faces. Then, the captain bellowed an order.

‘Brace the foretop!’

The crew scattered to tighten the canvas further and make headway as Hank span on his heel and headed back to the wheelhouse. Cody stared at the black water swirling like oil past the hull, unable to shift the image of its bitter depths from his mind and the distant sound of the grinding ice. The glaciers sounded forever as though they were alive, creeping with unstoppable force across the barren, rocky lands.

‘C’mon.’

Cody turned and saw Bethany standing beside him. She slipped one arm through his and tugged him away from the bulwarks and the lonely, bleak vista that lay beyond.

‘I don’t want us to lose anybody else,’ he whispered.

‘We won’t,’ Bethany replied. ‘We won’t.’

‘All hands, step lively!’ the captain boomed. ‘We’re joining the floes again.’

The Phoenix was drifting out of the sound toward the coast of Devon Island somewhere far to the south. With pack ice behind and icebergs to her port side, there was only one way to go and no way to turn back. Cody headed for the port bulwarks, the sound of the grinding glaciers seeming to increase in volume behind him.

Cody slowed and turned as behind him the grinding and crunching noise became even louder. He dashed back to the starboard bulwarks as he spotted something moving on the shore far behind them.

‘Bradley! Jesus Christ, it’s Brad!’

Charlotte’s frantic cry caused every head to turn as a pair of headlight beams sliced through the fog on the southern shore of Ellesmere Island. Cody felt his guts lurch as through the grey mist the blocky form of a yellow BV appeared, puffs of black smoke spilling from its exhaust stack as it headed for the shoreline.

Jake whirled to the captain and pointed back at the shore.

‘We’ve got to go back for him!’

The captain stood on the quarterdeck, his gaze unblinking as he surveyed the shore and the thick icebergs spilling from the channel into the sound. Even as Cody watched he knew with an unbearable certainty that there was nothing they could do.

Hank Mears shook his head once.

‘He’s your man,’ the captain said. ‘We can’t turn back now.’

Charlotte screamed something unintelligible and hurled herself at the captain. Jake leaped across and wrapped his arms about her waist to prevent her from scratching the big man’s eyes out. Charlotte broke free and dashed to the bulwarks as the BV shuddered to a halt near the water’s edge and the cab door swung open.

Even across the expanse of ice-flecked water Cody could see Bradley’s haggard features as he staggered to the water’s edge and flung his arms wide at them, shouting and hollering, his voice carrying faintly across the lonely sea.

Cody looked up at the Phoenix’s mainmast and saw that the beacon was still shining there. He looked down to where Saunders manned the ship’s wheel, saw the old man avert his eyes behind the wheelhouse windows.

‘You can’t leave him here!’ Cody shouted at Hank.

The captain did not look at Cody as he replied. ‘Yes, I can.’

Cody whirled away and glimpsed Denton smirking at him. The scrawny youth raised one pierced eyebrow. ‘Less bellies to be fed….’

Denton didn’t see Sauri coming. The Inuit span Denton around by the shoulder punched him hard enough that the crack echoed across the ship. Denton whirled and hit the deck just as Taylor reached Sauri and drove an elbow deep into his belly.

Sauri tumbled sideways into the bulwarks and doubled over at the waist as Taylor stepped in to bring his knee up into the Inuit’s face. Jake dashed across to them and shoulder barged Taylor aside, knocking the big man off balance as Denton scrambled to his feet, a knife flickering in the pale light and his face shining with mindless malice.

***

Cody moved without thinking as the crew began swarming to the defence of their fellow seamen, spilling from the rigging lines and the quarterdeck. Cody stepped in front of Denton and blocked his path to Sauri as he raised a hand.

‘That’s one step too far,’ Cody uttered as he looked at the blade. ‘Back off.’

‘Out of my way, freak,’ Denton spat, ‘or I’ll gut you here and now.’

Cody stood his ground and glanced up to the quarterdeck. The captain was standing with his hands behind his back, watching but clearly not about to intervene. Denton, Taylor, Seth and several others were all wearing expressions of fervour, infected with a lust for blood.

‘What the hell will that achieve?’ Cody snapped at Denton with more gusto than he felt.

‘Just like I said,’ Denton replied, ‘less bellies.’

‘Gut him,’ Seth sneered, his tattooed face pulsing with delight. ‘Do him!’

The sailor hopped forward and swiped the knife at Cody’s face. Cody leaped backwards in shock as the wicked blade flashed past an inch from his eyes. A moment later, a heavy chunk of rigging tackle swung past in the opposite direction and landed in Denton’s belly with a dull thud that folded the sailor over and dropped him to his knees.