Andrea Barrett - Voyage of the Narwhal

SABINE THE FOX was cleaning herself in the tub of snow Zeke kept on deck for her delight. Even those who disliked having her in the cabin were charmed by her habit of burrowing her nose into the snow, tossing it over her back and hindquarters, and then rubbing herself with her paws. She was watching, unconcerned, as Scan and Ivan lugged a scuttle of ice to the melting funnel on the day before Christmas. Then Scan tripped, dropping his side of the scuttle, and Ivan slipped on the spilled ice and fell, thrashing his arms and his legs just as Barton emerged through the hatchway. Ivan’s arm knocked Sabine from her tub and hurled her through the air: and in an instant she’d bounced off Barton’s thighs and tumbled down the hatch.

She broke both hind legs. Zeke, who rushed from his bunk at the sound of her howls, was too busy comforting her to be of any practical help. Although Erasmus knew he should wring her neck right then, Zeke talked him and Dr. Boerhaave into splinting her bones and then dribbled water from a spoon down her mouth all day. Still he couldn’t save her. He wrapped her in a length of gray flannel and buried her under a pile of stones near the promenade. He squatted next to the stones; he wouldn’t come in. Erasmus had to go out after him.

“Zeke?” he said. “They’ve made dinner for us, Christmas Eve dinner. You can’t let them down…”

Zeke brushed his outstretched hand aside. “Can’t I simply have a minute alone?” He exhaled a cloud of frost, shaking his head as he rose. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go be cheerful.”

Joe had hidden seven ptarmigan, which he roasted with the help of Ned: half a bird to a man, a splendid change from salt pork. Isaac, Thomas, Robert, and Barton had secreted a portion of their flour and lard rations for the past several weeks, and with these supplies, and the dried cherries and raisins Scan contributed, they made a delicious duff. Erasmus brought out two of the plum puddings donated by a neighbor at home; Dr. Boerhaave prescribed from the medical stores two bottles of cognac, to protect them all from indigestion.

They ate and drank with good humor, despite Zeke sitting glum at the head of the table, and despite the silence falling after a memorial toast to Nils Jensen and Fletcher Lamb. Isaac pulled himself together and elbowed Barton. “A joke!” he cried. “Every man must tell a joke!”

Barton shook himself and told a coarse story about a one-legged man and a singer. Thomas responded with a joke about a carpenter and a cow. Around the table they went, all except Zeke; when silence fell again Mr. Francis and Mr. Tagliabeau led a round of whaler’s songs. Then Ivan flourished his napkin and said to the officers, “Please take your seats in the theater.”

Up on deck, under the housing, the men had arranged meat casks and boxes for seats and marked off a stage with a row of candles. In great secrecy they’d gotten up a little skit for the officers, prancing about in the freezing air with their fur jackets tied about their waists like skirts, and their shirts pulled open and tucked down to form flounces around their hairy bosoms. Bulky Scan played a young beauty; Ivan and Barton her jealous older sisters; serious Thomas her mother; and Robert and Isaac the two suitors competing for the beauty’s hand as they fended off the sisters’ advances. As the melodrama concluded with the duel of Robert and Isaac, frowning and slashing the air with their jack-knives, Scan stood on a candle box and shrieked so shrilly that Erasmus could hardly see for laughing.

Afterward Captain Tyler and the mates brought out the last surprise — three bottles of excellent port. Even as the men fell on it gratefully, and as Erasmus sipped his own delicious ration, he wondered where it had come from. Captain Tyler’s bleary-eyed mornings, his snoring deep sleep — had he a private supply of spirits? Erasmus saw Zeke look down at the cup he’d just held to his lips and come to the same realization.

“Captain Tyler,” he said coldly. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s Christmas,” the captain said, grinning and waving one of the bottles. “Relax yourself a bit. Celebrate. It is very fine port, is knot?”

“We are carrying no port.”

Captain Tyler shrugged. “No ship’s captain would travel without a small private stock,” he said. “What I do with it is my own business. And what I choose to do with it tonight is share it with our fine crew.”

“You are in on this?” Zeke said, turning to Mr. Francis and Mr. Tagliabeau. “I object to this. Very, very strongly.”

“More music!” Mr. Francis said. Gathering the men on the makeshift stage, he started up a sailor’s hornpipe, foe played his zither, the men sang and danced, Captain Tyler joined them. Erasmus followed Zeke outside, where they gazed at one another and then at the moon. A complete halo hung around it, with the arc of another perched on top of the first like a crescent headdress.

“More snow on the way,” Zeke said gloomily.

Erasmus wished he could join the frolicking men. The invisible ice crystals filling the air and bending the moon’s rays made Zeke’s face look ghastly; Erasmus turned his eyes back to the sky.

“Homesick?” he asked. “Lavinia should be lighting the candles on the tree about now. Serving eggnog, and those little ginger cookies our mother used to make. Maybe the rest of the family is there and someone’s playing the piano…”

“Torture yourself,” Zeke said. “Go ahead.”

“SHOW HIM YOUR gums,” Dr. Boerhaave said, standing Scan and Barton in front of Zeke one January Sunday.

Obediently they opened their mouths. “See that?” Dr. Boerhaave said. Zeke leaned toward Scan. “How puffy and red the gums are in the back?”

“And I have a loose tooth,” Barton said, reaching up with his right hand. “Here.”

Zeke shook his head. “I know,” he said. “We need fresh meat. Joe’s been out looking for bear every day this week but he’s seen nothing yet.” Then he returned to his charts. He was making elaborate maps of the coastline, naming every wrinkle.

“My knees and shoulders are aching badly,” Dr. Boerhaave said to Erasmus later. “How are yours?”

“Not bad.” But he lifted his shirt to show Dr. Boerhaave the dark, bruiselike discoloration spreading down his left side.

“Ned has patches like that all over his arms,” Dr. Boerhaave said. “Ivan’s old harpoon scar is beginning to ooze. I fear we’re in for real trouble.” He and Erasmus went through the storehouse and suggested to Zeke that small portions of the few remaining raw potatoes and a little lime juice be added to the daily rations. They worried that everything was running short.

Erasmus counted items again and again, comparing what was left against his lists. All his work and planning, and still he’d miscalculated. Already the candles were almost finished, as was the lamp oil. Joe had made some Esquimaux lamps, which he fueled with the blubber he’d put down in the fall; these helped stretch the candles but were smoky and covered everything with soot. The coal was low enough that they had to ration it and could no longer keep the cabin so comfortably warm. Erasmus found plenty of beans and salt beef and pork, but Dr. Boerhaave said these were exactly the worst things for men beginning to suffer from the scurvy. They needed fresh food, and couldn’t get it.

When Erasmus showed Zeke a detailed accounting of their stores, Zeke blamed the shortages on him. “All those days you were fretting in Philadelphia,” he said. “How could we have ended up like this?”

Erasmus couldn’t answer him. The obvious answer — that they hadn’t meant to overwinter — he’d long since realized wasn’t true; more and more he understood that Zeke had plotted since the beginning to search for an open polar sea. Only living members of Franklin’s expedition could have kept him from this ambition. Zeke had insisted they stock the ship as they might have to overwinter, as if they might need these supplies in an emergency, and Erasmus couldn’t blame their present straits on ignorance. Somehow, despite all his lists, he’d made mistakes. He hadn’t realized how ravenous the cold and the boredom and the physical labor would make them, or how little they could depend on hunting.