Andrea Barrett - Voyage of the Narwhal

Ned, who was standing next to Erasmus and sorting handfuls of scurvy grass, said, “You saw the Esquimaux?”

“I saw no one,” Zeke said curtly. “The pack in the Sound is beginning to move, there are big leads everywhere and there’s no possibility of travel across it. As the Esquimaux must have known when they sent us home. They never had any intention of helping us, they just meant to get rid of us. And so they have. We have no way of communicating with them now for the rest of the season.”

“Why would they come here?” Ned said. “All they ever want to do is get away from us.”

“Your opinion,” Zeke retorted. “Which you may keep to yourself.”

Ned turned and busied himself with the stove. Captain Tyler and Mr. Tagliabeau, still idle but well enough to sit in the sun wrapped in blankets, looked up at Zeke. “But this is good news,” Captain Tyler said. “Isn’t it? If the ice is breaking up in the Sound, surely we’ll be freed soon…”

“I don’t think so,” Zeke replied. “I went south along the ice belt, looking for open water. The straits aren’t open anywhere, they’re only heaving and breaking. The ice on our side is completely solid between us and the North Water.”

Mr. Tagliabeau groaned and put his head on his knees.

“We have at least six weeks before there’s even the possibility of breaking out,” Zeke said. “And there’s no point wasting this precious time. So we don’t have dogs. So the movement in the Sound blocks us from travel to the east. There’s no reason we can’t head north, exploring the coast. We’ll break into two parties, one to guard the brig and ready it for our departure, and another to travel. Volunteers?”

No one said a word.

Zeke looked from face to face. Erasmus shifted his eyes when Zeke’s gaze reached him.

“Some enthusiasm would be welcome,” Zeke said. “I’ll post a sheet of paper in the deckhouse tomorrow morning, and I expect six of you to sign up for the exploring party. Work it out among yourselves.”

* * *

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, the sheet remained blank. Ned took Erasmus aside, while Zeke rummaged through the supplies on the ice. “No one’s going to sign up,” he said. “Of course no one is. After what happened — I’ll never go anywhere with him again. And neither will anyone else. I’ve talked to the men.”

He looked Erasmus squarely in the eye, and Erasmus understood that, beyond the rebuilt bulkhead, Ned had been telling the crew his version of the trip to Anoatok, which must have won out over Zeke’s.

On Thursday, Zeke sat down to dinner with an armful of charts. “Well?” he asked. “Who is joining me?”

“We must stay with the ship,” Captain Tyler said. “Mr. Tagliabeau and I — it’s our duty to guard the ship, and ready it for our departure.”

The seven crewmen rose from the table as one. Ned stepped forward and spoke for them. “It’s too risky,” he said. Brave boy, Erasmus thought. “There’s nothing to be gained. The ice may break up before you think, and we must be here when it does.”

Zeke’s face turned white, but he clenched his hand around his charts and said to Erasmus, “It’s just you and me then, my old friend. But we’ll move more swiftly without these malingerers. Shall we leave on Saturday?”

For a minute Erasmus struggled with himself. His duty toward Zeke and Lavinia, his duty toward Ned and the rest of these men — no matter what he decided, he’d fail someone. “It’s a bad idea,” he said. “I can’t support you in this. I vote to stay.”

Zeke rose, scattering papers. “This isn’t a vote. Who said anything about voting?”

“I’m staying here,” Erasmus said, hoping he sounded as firm

as Ned had.

“You can’t do this,” Zeke said to him. He turned, faced the others, and repeated himself; then added, “You’ll all regret this.”

“We’ve followed you wherever you wanted,” Captain Tyler said. “Look where it’s brought us.”

Mr. Tagliabeau said,”We might now consider this ship a wreck, since it has no power to move. Under maritime law, the commander of a ship has no further powers once a ship is wrecked.”

Ned took a breath and steadied himself. “The Narwhal isn’t a ship anymore,” he said. “Maybe it’s not a wreck like Mr. Tagliabeau says, but it’s not a ship. It’s our home, even if it feels like a prison.”

Was this mutiny? Erasmus wondered. If Zeke started hurling orders at them, if he threatened them and still they refused…

“I’ll give you all another chance to act like men,” Zeke said, beginning to pace. “We’ll meet here tomorrow at noon, and I’ll ask each of you to state for the record your decision to support me in a journey north. Perhaps a party of six is excessive, given our reduced numbers. I need only three of you. Any three.”

He left the cabin, clambered down onto the ice, and did not return. No one slept in the cabin that night. Erasmus tossed in the deckhouse, aware that below him, Captain Tyler and Mr. Tagliabeau had abandoned their bunks to join the men in the forecastle. He heard voices deep into the night, although only a few phrases floated clearly: when a whaling ship’s frozen in life this, the captain is bound to release the men; the boats should be at our disposal; if he won’t do that we might confine him— Barton DeSouza, Robert Carey, Isaac Bond. Erasmus longed for Dr. Boerhaave, who might have guided him.

At noon, they waited for fifteen minutes before they heard Zeke climb up on deck and then descend among them. From the shelf behind his bunk he took the small metal box in which he kept his charts and his journal and also, since their deaths, Mr. Francis’s official log and Dr. Boerhaave’s journal. He opened Mr. Francis’s log. One by one, in a steady voice, he called out the crew members’ names. One by one they said, “Stay.” He entered each vote, turning last to Erasmus.

“I’m sorry,” Erasmus said. “But I must also stay.” “Well, then,” Zeke said. “So you reveal yourselves.” He wrote a few more lines in the log and then locked it inside the box. “I’ll be gone four weeks,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “The ice won’t open before August fifteenth, almost surely later. I’ll be back before August fifth.”

“You’re going alone?” Ned said. “You’re still going?” “Of course I’m going,” Zeke said. “Why would I return home without taking advantage of our excellent situation here? Dr. Kane may have preceded us to the Greenland side of Smith Sound, and may have befriended our fickle Esquimaux before us, but who’s to say how far north he traveled? The open polar sea may be less than a hundred miles away, and I won’t give up this chance to find it because of you.”

He turned to Erasmus. “I’m very disappointed in you,” he said. For a second, Erasmus was reminded of his own father. “But under the terms of the contract you signed, I leave you and Captain Tyler in shared command until I return.”

He left the brig again, headed for the three guardian icebergs. Erasmus followed a few minutes later, cursing as he crossed the spongy white plain and looped around the turquoise puddles of meltwater spread so deceptively everywhere. Like windows into the open sea but shallow, just a few inches deep, all lies. He waded through them, soaking his boots, panting as Zeke’s figure disappeared. His own feet disappeared in the water; how could the ice be so wet on the surface, so solid below, so obstinate in refusing to release them? At the first berg he stopped and rested against the slumping contours. Around the back of the third, largest berg, he found Zeke.

“Please,” he said, still panting. “Don’t go off alone.”