Georg Letham (23 page)

It was possible to communicate with them indirectly. The linguist and the Norwegian first learned their dialect, and their energetic sign language did the rest. Everyone listened with pleasure to their stories and enticed them with all sorts of delicacies, with harmonica playing,
and especially with alcohol, which they prized in all forms and quantities, by the tablespoon and by the liter–and by the barrel. One evening, when they were particularly merry, two of them performed the famous drum dance. One imitated a frolicking seal, the other an enraged polar bear. They were paid once more in alcohol. After a time they vanished, without good-byes, without a trace.

At length another band appeared (mostly older men), who spoke a somewhat different dialect. They were not as garrulous and childlike as the first, but it was soon possible to communicate with them in a friendly manner too. One old man in this group made mysterious mention of a white man who wished to go to the northernmost north. A European? Surely not a European, a man like these scholars here, who, suddenly pale, gathered in a circle around the speaker? But yes. All fell silent in consternation. It was not a fur hunter. Not a seal trapper, not a whaler, not a skipper, not a missionary. It could only be another polar explorer.

My father was gripped by terrible impatience. He wished to consult with his comrades. He had to command, even the ship's captain had to obey him, but in this ship's council all had the same voting rights, officers and crew, scholars and nonscholars.

But he could obtain no advice, and he could give no orders. They had to wait.

My father changed, he became irritable, often insisted upon his authority, played the men against one another, became excessively courteous and moody.

Now all were suffering from living together so unnaturally, more and more with every hour that passed. The quarreling increased, my father had to adjudicate and perhaps often made partisan decisions. From
time to time he wished to avoid making these judgments, have a bit of peace, not be burdened–but then something would happen without his knowledge, he became sensitive and withdrew, personally offended. The open, comradely atmosphere was gone.

It was at this moment that the plague of rats began to get out of hand, it truly stank to high heaven. The heavily constructed ship was stuck, held fast in the ice. The greatest cleanliness was required, the latrine rules had to be precisely observed by officers and crew, which often led to ship's hearings until there was a resolution. Only the rats paid no attention, leaving their filth and the sharp reek of their urine everywhere.

They set about tucking into not only the ship's provisions but also the ship itself, cool as you please they gnawed on the stout timbers, ate large holes in the strong, reefed, ice-stiffened sails, they set to work energetically on the stores, neither barrels nor chests were safe from them. Only the preserved foods soldered into tin cans, the wine bottles and rum barrels, and the ship's pharmacy were secure. Along with the weapons, ammunition, and the many scientific instruments. What help was any of that?

The entire crew began to sleep poorly. During sleeping hours the men rose, wandered through the ship's passageways, hunted for rats, fired carbines in the dark, and it was fortunate that no one was wounded.

Soon after the above intelligence was received from the Eskimos, the missionary, his face grave, appeared before my father. He took a conscientious view of his duty as purser and feared that the rats might have broken into a large portion of the provisions. At his urgent request,
another ship's council was called. Some of the gentlemen could not be rousted from their bunks, many at this time were already leading a passive, entirely mindless and will-less existence, wishing only to be warm and well fed. At length an allusion to the brig succeeded in startling them and bringing them to the ship's council. The discussion went on for ten solid hours. The passions were finally awakened. The will to live had been rekindled. It was decided to smother the rats. My father undertook to prepare a particularly poisonous gas mixture. Poison gas warfare had been invented long before the Great War. Plenty of arsenic poison in solid form had been brought for the purposes of preserving valuable mammal and bird pelts. There was also sulfur in great quantities for sterilizing drinking-water vessels.

Every effort was to be made to snuff out the rats. Only two were excepted in response to the geographer's earnest appeal, the two tame males he kept, sharing with them his meager, monotonous rations.

He is to be permitted to keep the two rats provided they really are tame, which is doubted by all. But he maintains there are no animals that cannot be tamed through kindness, people included. Fine, as long as the two males do nothing wrong. The geographer is pleased. If my father can have Ruru, his dog, and the missionary the two small, ocean blue parrots that he brought from port, then he can have his tame rats. But all the others are in for pitched battle. The poison mixture (arsenic plus sulfur) is going to be volatilized on old leather, the remnants of snow boots and such. The yellowish white powder is spread here on a little tray of leather under the companionway steps, laid there in the magazine near one of the rats' breeding areas. This is known to be close to a rat's nest because the young rat pups can be heard twittering; they
just cannot be located. But the poison fumes will reach all those places where men's eyes cannot. All the hatches are methodically sealed. Not the tiniest opening to the outside may remain. My father, the strategic leader of the operation, gives the rallying cries, all work with great zeal, things seem brighter, everyone sets to, sleeping hours are now punctually observed, people get along. Appetites are better, health improves. The teeth of some of the men have been threatening to fall out from the bland, monotonous diet and the associated scurvy, but now they decide to stand by their old owners, which gladdens the poor devils. Everything produces joy, hope of hope, true faith–in faith. Nights are calmer, the rats are seen and heard and smelled less, they are not as bold as before, perhaps they fear the fate in store for them. The two “tame” rats are a notable exception. The stronger male injures the weaker by biting his throat, and as if that were not enough, he craftily goes after the missionary's two parrots by squeezing his sharp-clawed feet through the bars of their cage. He comes to grief when the little parrots summon help with their excited screeching. The rat is caught and sentenced to death by shooting along with his innocent companion. The geographer is heartbroken, his eyes fill with tears, but, crouching in a corner of the ship's mess, he gives his silent consent to the death warrant for his two foul-smelling darlings, leaves the ship before the execution, and roams about with his lantern in the darkness out on the snow-covered floes, where the Eskimos have pitched their tents.

Two shots. Done.

While he is gone, the poison bombs are set off with fuses, a bell hanging from a yardarm is rung. This is the alarm, the signal: all hands on deck, officers and crew. The crew creep out, heavily laden. The arctic
night is frigid, they have all their possessions with them, as though it were good-bye forever. The gentlemen have just blankets and furs, the missionary also his two parrots. He has thoughtfully covered their cage with a heavy fur coat, and their chirping is barely audible. They are freezing, this is their first time on deck in the cold. Earlier, before the assassination attempt by the recently executed rats, they were very loud, often fluttered screeching to and fro in their spacious cage. They have not yet recovered from the shock.

The crew sit on sea chests gnawed by rats, on nibbled-at coils of rope beneath the tattered sails hanging from the yardarms. The Eskimos, drawn by the unusual drama, are also on board with their strong, woolly, intelligent dogs, which sit together quietly, only growling softly now and then, straining at their leads, until a kick from an Eskimo quickly shuts them up.

It is not totally dark, this night, although the moon is new. Especially splendid northern lights spread in gentle arcs over the entire eastern sky. A multiply pleated, shredded band of greenish, magical, unreal light. It looks loose at the edges, hanging down in many layers. A blue star of particular lambency shines through the seething fog of the aurora. The cold fire undulates in the stiff, icy air and gradually subsides.

My father feels a compulsion to photograph the lights. He ventures down into his cabin, ignoring his own order, finds it still free of poison gas, and soon sets up a tripod on the motionless ship with the lens of the apparatus aimed at the phenomenon, requesting complete quiet from everyone present in order to avoid vibration. No one dares to light a lantern, a cigar. I still remember the photograph my uncle often showed us as children. All you could see was a washed-out band of light, a kind
of diffuse halo; the rest had to be added by a child's imagination. But it was one of the first photographs of the northern lights, requiring a quarter hour of exposure with the shutter wide open.

The ice, mounting in terraces on the floes, eroded and fissured down on the level of the ship, boldly jagged higher up, can also be seen emitting a pale light. Nothing moves. Not the Eskimo dogs, not my father's collie. Not the northern lights. Not the ship. Not the men.

While all is still locked in a strange somnolence, a small object suddenly falls somewhere down below, making a faint, hollow sound. Ruru, my father's dog, leaps up, turns her long, beautiful head this way and that and will not be soothed. My father too is startled, hastens to close the plate cover in order to save the precious exposure. The same hollow fall to earth is heard again. One of those cork shuttlecocks with colored feathers attached, the kind that children use to play a kind of table tennis, batting them back and forth with small rackets, makes such a sound when it strikes the tabletop.

But these are not children at play, these are adults, who are controlling themselves only with effort, whose hearts are heavy, whose eyes are beginning to tear, who are listening warily to the boiling and scurrying and stewing in the interior of the rat ship and now all long for light. The Eskimo dogs have suddenly broken free, they have pulled their masters along amid mad barking, snarling, and howling, and already the dogs are charging off over the gangplank and onto the open snowfield, their masters behind them.

The company and crew stay behind. Then someone begins to breathe with difficulty, to groan, he vomits, someone else croaks, racked with
terrible throat irritation, tears gush from his eyes, his nose, his oral mucosa begin to be awash, twenty men complain of headaches, burning in their throats, choking, nausea, anxiety, fear of death, fear of darkness, fear of the northern lights, all throng to the gangplank, but this is no orderly retreat like that of the children of nature, the Eskimos and their animals; instead the civilized men stumble in the darkness, the steel hawsers slice the palms of their hands, they bump into each other, two of the scholars slip on the icy gangplank, slide sideways under one of the slippery steel hawsers and lie whimpering on the ice at the foot of the ship, all are as though gripped by madness. Only my father is not, he and the geographer, my future uncle, who had gone out for a walk on the snowfield with his lantern while all this was happening on board. Now he lights the lantern, which had gone out as he rushed to lend a hand, he helps the two men of science writhing in the snow onto their feet, they have only bruised their tailbones, assists the others in leaving the ship. Keep calm, don't panic! There's nothing to worry about! But only a few follow his orders, many more surge on deck in a confused mass, their fists pressed against their bellies, they are wading through their own vomit, and no one can see for streams of tears. The suffering becomes ever greater, the lantern illuminates a dreadful scene. The birdcage is also knocking about among the agonized men. Two small ocean blue balls of feathers are rolling lifeless on the bottom, on the bare metal (for there has long been no bird sand in this frozen waste)–whether frozen or poisoned, the parrots are no longer alive.

The dog Ruru circles my father tirelessly, snaps at his high boots as he tries to kick her away, a hundred times she runs ahead over the gangplank and back again, is so to speak asking him to follow. My father, as the leader of the expedition, has to be the last one to leave the ship.

What has happened? The poisonous vapors, arsenic mixed with sulfur, stewing slowly on damp leather, must have risen invisibly up through tiny chinks. The smell of the leather burning would have been a warning, but no one noticed anything. The men lie there groaning softly. Poison gas. The northern lights glow above them, traversed by silent flashes. Not a breath of wind.

All ashore. The most delirious ones first. They are in a kind of frenzy, stamp their feet, turn on their rescuers, hit their heads on things. Men of science weep and sob and–pray! The missionary, ordinarily a jolly fellow, always joking, reaches into my father's face, his own twisted with pain, pulls on his long beard, tears off his gold-rimmed spectacles, but my father and the geographer energetically take hold of the man between them, one seizes his arms, the other grips his legs, and quickly off with the heavy man, out of the atmosphere laden with invisible poison. Then the others follow, and ten minutes later the ship is finally empty of men. Let the poison do its worst, let the rats suffocate, perish to the last rat.

All now crowd into the Eskimo tents out on the ice, but the Eskimos are making ready for departure, they claim their provisions are exhausted, they say one thing and another. They have to be threatened with a good going over. The members of the expedition endure two days and two nights in the tents, fed extremely meagerly, freezing, plagued by the filth of the men and dogs, delirious from the effects of the arsenic poisoning, ill, either extraordinarily apathetic or extraordinarily irritable and foul-tempered. They hate my father because he has remained healthy. But he breathed the same poison fumes. Is he to blame for his good fortune?