The Surfacing by Cormac James Read Free Book Online

didn’t think she could resist. Sympathy
and forgiveness, of course, could easily be confused. Letting her see him in that
state, with his guard down – she’d take it as an act of trust, and feel obliged,
or allowed, to pay him back.
    From a distance, later, DeHaven watched his friend trying to walk from the dancehall
across the beach, towards the governor’s house. He watched the man falter and dither,
stagger on only to stall again, as if unsure of his bearings. Now he gathered resolve
and lunged forward, swaying outrageously, like a ship in a heavy swell. Beside him,
the sea glittered like silver foil in the moonlight, and slopped beery foam onto
the sand.
    At six o’clock in the morning, still singing, the men took hold of the capstan, and
began to haul up. Some of the girls stood crying silently on the shore. About the
ship, the gulls swooned and mimed in the wind. Morgan had been found and carried
to the jolly-boat and laid along the bottom, and that was how he quit Disko – snoring,
unconscious, almost forgotten, in a leaky boat trailed behind the ship.
    Even as the last whaleboat was pushing off from the beach, Rink tried to convince
them to wait. Myer was out at the ship, of course, and there was no one to appeal
to but the drunken crew. They left him letters for the next homebound ship, whenever
that would be.
    25th July
    All sails set, they ran along smartly under the cliffs. For two days now, a strong
wind from the south had been driving them on. It felt like proper progress at last.
On deck, Morgan listened to the jibes batted back and forth overheard. They were
no more anxious, it seemed to him, than men making a jaunt from Kingstown to Holyhead.
They seemed utterly indifferent to their own fragility, and that of their ship.
    Up the coast the whalers were all gathered just off Upernavik, where the ice now
pushed right in to the shore. Like them, Myer made fast to the floe to wait for an
opening. Immediately, a boat came working its way towards them through the mess.
It was Captain Parker, of the True Love . He had mailbags for them from Scotland,
but no news of Franklin.
    Myer insisted the man stay to dinner, and all through dinner interrogated him. True,
the ice was fairly rotten, Parker said. But what did that matter without the wind
to scatter it? No, he said, this year he did not think they would find a way. Neither
their nor his nor any other ship. Of course, Parker told the table, I’m not a prophet.
    Myer insisted on telling the man their own story, blow by blow, as though inviting
him to approve or find fault. The long weeks trapped in the floe, the daily crush,
the ice that simply would not be bullied aside. He’d left himself open to accusation,
he was sure. Now, listening to him interrogate Parker, Morgan wondered was Myer looking
for a way in or a way out. Coaxed by the lamplight, he felt something very like pity
for the man. The weeks refitting and recruiting at Disko had done little for him.
Since taking to sea he’d been tired and sick. He looked older, starting out a second
time.
    Afterwards, as usual, MacDonald retired to his cabin early. Now Myer too stood up,
saying he was not altogether well. That left Morgan and DeHaven and Brooks, and Cabot
clearing away, and Hepburn already in his bunk. They had all understood the conversation
with Parker. As soon as the ice loosened any, they would begin to bore again. They
would have to bore as far as they possibly could, for the sake of the log. Myer had
even convinced Parker to sell them a sail and yards, that would let them add a main
topsail to their spread.
    Pure folly, DeHaven said, almost to himself. The ship and everything in it, he meant,
or what was waiting for them in The Pack.
    How do you mean? Brooks said. It was a challenge of sorts, a show of loyalty to the
captain.
    He means we’re too late, Morgan said. He could not contemplate an argument. Like
Myer, he’d been not a little tetchy since shipping from Disko, and in every