Read Online The Still Point by Amy Sackville - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amy Sackville
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in the featureless air; only as they drew close could they recognize each other, put names to the shades they’d become.
Sometimes it would clear enough to reveal the three masts above them, the sails furled in the useless stillness. These pockets of misted visibility were worse, somehow, than the seamless blanket of the heavy fog. The men shuffled on wetly in the silence. Edward imagined himself on a ghost ship, cords and torn sails hanging listless on the yards, their bones full of the chill, all light gone from the world and their eyes. He began to feel that Persephone had tricked them, leading them into a pale grey afterlife; they had already reached
the end of the world and were condemned to sail for ever in this sunless void.
It went on for days. They kept to their cabins, emerging only for the hourly night watch which dragged by for each of them in turn, with nothing to watch for. Whales, walruses, Krakens from the deep could have passed their flank by inches, and only the sudden roll in an otherwise waveless sea would have betrayed them. The dogs, battened down in their kennels on deck, rested their muzzles on their front paws and looked mournfully up at their Russian keeper with flat, saddened ears, every coarse hair tipped with dew. The Norwegian crew were stoical, but Edward’s English companions did not know these seas, and had expected splendours after the beauty of the hard, cragged coast they’d set out from. Only Samuel Freely, who had sailed with Edward for the Northwest Passage seven years before (netting and pinning a host of Arctic Whites en route), knew what a northern summer was. Still, his spirits were as numb as his fingers, and he could summon for his friend little comfort. Mealtimes were dismal affairs, false jollity washed down by disappointment. They moped below decks and turned in early.
On the sixth day a bank of dark blue appeared to starboard, as if a line of ink had been drawn across the centre of a wet page; it seeped at the edges, but there it was, undeniable, darkening and hardening into contours as they watched. And as the air cleared they became sure that what they could see was land, not some trick of the water and light. Within hours, the bird-streaked coast of the islands of Nova Zembla emerged from the ocean, black and grey, crammed with the squawks and settling feathers of the summer nesting. They navigated the strait around the tip of the southern island and emerged into the open Kara Sea, stretching north, north, to a watery horizon. A blue sky arced
glorious over them, almost liquid where it touched the sea and seemed to soak into it. The men stretched out on the deck in their sun goggles, lolling against each other, as if the ship had transformed into a lido. With the wind in the sails, they sped forward. How lazy, they laughed, adventure could be. To the Pole, they cried, and don’t spare the dogs!
In his cabin, a month after leaving his wife on the shore, Edward woke in half-darkness and knew that dawn was close; and something else too. They were nearing ice. He could feel it. He knew where he was from the moment he woke; for the first time since they left the coast behind them, he did not expect to find her beside him. The sea shifting under him had become his own lymphrhythm. And he knew, too, that the sea was beginning to freeze, although it was not yet August; without so much as standing up from his bed, he knew it. He could smell it, although it was scentless. Across the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, like a frozen sneeze he felt the pinch of it. Ice.
He dressed quickly, pulled on boots and gloves and coat and left his cabin. Only Janssen, the cook, was awake below decks, peaceful and floury in the galley. Edward’s stomach, tight with excitement, barely registered the comfort of the baking bread; it was knotted up with that other evasive but undeniable scent, ice, ice.
He came out on deck. Lars Nordahl was on watch. Edward was wary of him — he’d
Sometimes it would clear enough to reveal the three masts above them, the sails furled in the useless stillness. These pockets of misted visibility were worse, somehow, than the seamless blanket of the heavy fog. The men shuffled on wetly in the silence. Edward imagined himself on a ghost ship, cords and torn sails hanging listless on the yards, their bones full of the chill, all light gone from the world and their eyes. He began to feel that Persephone had tricked them, leading them into a pale grey afterlife; they had already reached
the end of the world and were condemned to sail for ever in this sunless void.
It went on for days. They kept to their cabins, emerging only for the hourly night watch which dragged by for each of them in turn, with nothing to watch for. Whales, walruses, Krakens from the deep could have passed their flank by inches, and only the sudden roll in an otherwise waveless sea would have betrayed them. The dogs, battened down in their kennels on deck, rested their muzzles on their front paws and looked mournfully up at their Russian keeper with flat, saddened ears, every coarse hair tipped with dew. The Norwegian crew were stoical, but Edward’s English companions did not know these seas, and had expected splendours after the beauty of the hard, cragged coast they’d set out from. Only Samuel Freely, who had sailed with Edward for the Northwest Passage seven years before (netting and pinning a host of Arctic Whites en route), knew what a northern summer was. Still, his spirits were as numb as his fingers, and he could summon for his friend little comfort. Mealtimes were dismal affairs, false jollity washed down by disappointment. They moped below decks and turned in early.
On the sixth day a bank of dark blue appeared to starboard, as if a line of ink had been drawn across the centre of a wet page; it seeped at the edges, but there it was, undeniable, darkening and hardening into contours as they watched. And as the air cleared they became sure that what they could see was land, not some trick of the water and light. Within hours, the bird-streaked coast of the islands of Nova Zembla emerged from the ocean, black and grey, crammed with the squawks and settling feathers of the summer nesting. They navigated the strait around the tip of the southern island and emerged into the open Kara Sea, stretching north, north, to a watery horizon. A blue sky arced
glorious over them, almost liquid where it touched the sea and seemed to soak into it. The men stretched out on the deck in their sun goggles, lolling against each other, as if the ship had transformed into a lido. With the wind in the sails, they sped forward. How lazy, they laughed, adventure could be. To the Pole, they cried, and don’t spare the dogs!
In his cabin, a month after leaving his wife on the shore, Edward woke in half-darkness and knew that dawn was close; and something else too. They were nearing ice. He could feel it. He knew where he was from the moment he woke; for the first time since they left the coast behind them, he did not expect to find her beside him. The sea shifting under him had become his own lymphrhythm. And he knew, too, that the sea was beginning to freeze, although it was not yet August; without so much as standing up from his bed, he knew it. He could smell it, although it was scentless. Across the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, like a frozen sneeze he felt the pinch of it. Ice.
He dressed quickly, pulled on boots and gloves and coat and left his cabin. Only Janssen, the cook, was awake below decks, peaceful and floury in the galley. Edward’s stomach, tight with excitement, barely registered the comfort of the baking bread; it was knotted up with that other evasive but undeniable scent, ice, ice.
He came out on deck. Lars Nordahl was on watch. Edward was wary of him — he’d
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