Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

“No. Hell, I don’t like to lose you. I can’t share you. Can’t you understand that?

“We don’t have any choices. Can’t you understand that?”

“I guess … Brit, am I any different to you, or are we all just men who happen to need you?”

“You are the only man I ever knew who I think will somehow always win …”

“Win what? ”

“Anything. And winning is important, believe me … you have to lose to learn that.”

“I understand … Jesus, Brit—”

“I’ll remember this cabin,” she said, “and laughing together, so silently, under that sword.”

“I’d give it to you as a souvenir, but I’m afraid it would make all your other friends jealous.” He didn’t smile.

“Jealous men I don’t want. I’d like to have your sword. I’d hang it on the wall to remind me that it’s not always necessary to lose.”

He took the sword in its leather case from its brackets and handed it to her.

“Does this mean that you surrender to me?”

“I did that a long time ago, and you know it.”

“I have something to give you in return. I’ll send Peo down to the ship with it before you sail, but I’ll tell you about it now.”

“I’d like a picture of you.”

“I’ll send that too, but my real gift is a narwhale tusk, the biggest I’ve ever seen. Do you know about narwhale tusks?”

“Not much.”

“The Greenlanders for centuries have sent them to Europe and Asia, where they think they come from a unicorn. Old men grind them and drink the powder as a love medicine.”

“You think I need that?”

She touched his face. “Not for sex, Paul, but maybe for love.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“No, I don’t mean that … Just take the narwhale tusk and hang it over your bed and if anyone asks, say it comes from a unicorn. And if anyone says that’s a mythical beast, just say, ‘How could it be? Here’s its horn.’”

He laughed, and kissed her, and then Guns was knocking loudly at his door and saying, “They’re bringing the wounded aboard, sir, and Mr. Green is going to have funeral services for Mr. Farmer up in the chapel.”

Brit went with Paul to the funeral services. No clergyman was present, but almost all the members of the Arluk ’s crew were there and many Eskimos. The old woman played the organ while they sang “Abide With Me.” Mr. Williams read a service from his Bible that Paul somehow did not want to hear, and then Nathan said, “I think the men would like to hear a few words from you, Paul.”

He felt curiously weak as he made his way to the lectern. He looked at Brit’s tired face, at Nathan’s haggard one and at the exhausted faces of the Arluk ’s crew and suddenly he was terrified he’d break out into tears and not be able to say anything.

“I don’t know what to say,” he began. “Seth Farmer died while he was helping to carry a wounded German below. He had a bad heart, and a great one. Most of you knew him as well as I did. He never complained …” For about five minutes he praised the old fisherman, but his words didn’t seem to make much sense to his own ears, though they were all true enough. The church was much too hot … “What I guess I’m trying to say is that Seth was part of the Arluk and part of us, whatever we are. I think we’re important, but I don’t know how. We’ve been through a lot together, and now we’re burying one of our own. May God have mercy on his soul and on all of ours.”

He paused and was grateful when the organ began to play “Rock of Ages.” He returned to his pew and stood beside Brit while everyone mumbled the hymn. Afterward he followed her out of the church.

“I suppose Greenland will preserve Seth forever, with all the rest of her dead,” he said of her.

“Nothing really dies here,” she said. “Nothing changes. I told you that.”

“After the war is over, will you stay here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think ahead. Paul?”

“What?”

“I have to go now. I mean really go. And so do you.”

He nodded.

“It isn’t only bodies that Greenland preserves. Memories too. Nobody ever forgets anything that happens to him here.”

“I believe that.”

She brushed his cheek quickly with her lips before turning and running toward her small ketch.…

When he got back aboard his ship Paul found that Peomeenie had delivered a magnificent narwhale tusk in a sealskin case. Over six feet long, it had been polished to the consistency of a candle, and the intricate spiral weave of the ivory was just as ancient writers had described the unicorn’s horn. It exactly fitted the brackets which had been built for Paul’s sword above his bunk.

The Arluk did not get stuck in the ice on the way back to the west coast, but an almost continuous gale and blizzard slowed her, and the voyage took two weeks. Because Nathan was occupied with the wounded and the other prisoners, Paul stood watch most of the time himself, snatching only brief naps while Flags and Boats took over the watch on the bridge. His exhaustion protected him from feeling too much as the ship crammed full of dazed sick and wounded men rolled and pitched in the endless darkness. Most of the time he had to navigate without a sun, without a horizon and without stars. But he still had radar, and with that he paralleled the coast, keeping a good thirty miles out, located the mouth of the passage which led across the tip of Cape Farewell and headed up the west coast When he finally gained the shelter of Narsarssuak Fjord, the rolling and pitching of the ship mercifully stopped, but the quiet waters of the inner fjord had frozen into smooth ice unlike the Arctic, more like a pond at home. It made a sound like continuously breaking glass as the Arluk ploughed through it and slowed her to a bare four knots. It was snowing, it was always snowing, and the steep white sides of the fjord were invisible. Flags gave Paul almost continuous radar readings, his voice so hoarse that he whispered.

“Get Nathan up here,” Paul said to the quartermaster.

Nathan arrived, so exhausted that he stood supporting himself on the engineroom telegraph. “When are we going to get in?”

“About four hours. Give GreenPat an ETA of six o’clock. Have ambulances meet us and trucks with guards for the prisoners.” There was a pause before Paul added, “I have an idea that old Mowrey will be waiting for us, all ready to take his ship back.”

Nathan smiled. “That’s a private nightmare of yours, skipper. The old man was done when he left here.”

“Maybe,” Paul said, “and maybe I’d half like to see him come back. When the old bastard was sober he at least knew what he was doing.”

“You haven’t done so bad,” Nathan said. “All you need is some rest — about thirty days leave. You’ll be raring to go again.”

As soon as the ship was moored alongside a wharf at the base in Narsarssuak, Paul toppled into his bunk and slept for twelve hours. He might have slept much longer, but he was awakened by Nathan.

“Skipper, Commander GreenPat wants to see us.”

“Have the prisoners all been taken ashore?”

“Yes … the commander is here. He came aboard to see us. I think that’s supposed to be some kind of an honor.”

“Where is he?”

“Up in the forecastle drinking coffee.”

Paul struggled to a sitting position in his bunk. Nathan had shaved and either because he had no clean clothes left or because of pride had put on his Eskimo outfit.

“You go talk to him,” Paul said. “Talk Eskimo to him. Tell him you forgot all your English.”

“He wants to talk to you. He’s been waiting about a half hour.”

“He probably wants to send us right back to Angmagssalik. Tell him we need availability for engine repairs. Banes will think of something.”