I threw him a sharp glance, but he was staring at his boots.
‘D’you believe in any of that, Jack?’ His face was grave. In the lamplight, frost glinted in his beard.
‘Believe in what?’ I said guardedly. ‘Spirits brandishing torches?’
‘No, no of course not. I mean . . . unseen forces. That sort of thing.’ Embarrassed, he hacked again at the snow.
I guessed what he meant by ‘that sort of thing’, but I didn’t want to talk about it, not in the dark, so I pretended I didn’t understand. ‘I believe in the wind,’ I said. ‘That’s an unseen force. And radio waves.’
For a moment he was silent. Then he snorted a laugh. ‘Very well, then. Be the literal-minded scientist.’
‘I’m not,’ I replied. To prove it, I told him what I’d been reading in the professor’s periodicals.
I must have waxed enthusiastic, because his lip curled. ‘And you envy them, don’t you, Jack?’
‘What?’
‘Those physicists in their laboratories. You want to be the one thinking up the crazy theories about the universe.’
It was my turn to be embarrassed. And flattered, that he should know me so well. Because he’s right, I am jealous. That should be me, dreaming up mad ideas in a physics lab.
And maybe I could do it, after all. Maybe when we get back to England, I can find some way of going in for a further degree. Gus thinks I can. That’s got to count for something.
So now as I sit here writing, I keep breaking off to fantasise about the insights I’ll gain at Gruhuken, and how I’ll astonish the world on my return.
How things change! When we first got here, my nerves were on edge. All that brooding about ‘the great stillness’, and getting spooked by some sealer in a sheepskin coat. But now that Gruhuken is really ours, I’m not on edge any more.
1st October
I can’t stand it, he’s insufferable. I know the dogs need fresh meat, and I know that means shooting a few seals. But Jesus Christ.
Yesterday I went with him in the canoe, and I got lucky and shot a seal. We rowed like hell and gaffed it before it sank, then dragged it back to shore. The dogs were going frantic at their stakes. Gus ran down to help cut up the carcass.
Algie was chief butcher, because of course he’s the expert after six weeks in Greenland. So there he is, skinning it – or should I say ‘flensing’ it – with his nasty great ‘flensing knife’ (why can’t he just call it a knife?). But as he’s slitting the belly, the creature shudders. Its guts are spilling out, its blood soaking the snow, that hot-copper smell catching at my throat, but its eyes are big and soft as plums – alive.
‘Christ, it’s not dead!’ I croak as I scrabble for a rock to finish it off. Gus has gone white and he’s fumbling for his knife. Algie calmly goes on skinning. It’s only when he reaches the bit over the heart that he sticks in his knife and ends it.
Why? To show us how tough he is? Or is it because he hates this place, and he’s getting his own back?
I told him he made me sick. He said if I felt like that I should’ve done something, not just watched. We would have come to blows if Gus hadn’t hauled me away, leaving Algie fuming.
‘I know he’s been your friend for ever,’ I told Gus when I’d got myself under control, ‘although why that should be I cannot begin to fathom. But you saw what he did. Tell me you’re not going to make excuses for him.’
Gus flushed. ‘No excuses. Not this time.’
I was fiercely glad about that.
You’d think skinning a seal alive would be enough, but today Algie went further – or he would have done, if the two of us hadn’t stopped him.
For days he’s been trying to prevent the dogs from chewing their harnesses, and this afternoon he declared that enough’s enough, and grabbed his geological hammer.
‘What the hell are you doing with that?’ I said.
‘Don’t worry, old man,’ he said breezily. ‘It’s just an Eskimo trick I know. You break their back teeth. Works a treat.’
Gus and I stared at him, appalled.
Algie rolled his eyes as if we were imbeciles. ‘It’s practically painless! You simply hang them up till they pass out, then tap away with the hammer. They’re a tad woozy for a while, but they soon pick up. Huskies are tough as steel, don’t you know?’
Slowly, I rose to my feet. ‘If you go near those dogs with that hammer, I’ll smash your face in.’
‘Jack.’ Gus put a hand on my shoulder.
I shook him off. ‘I mean it, Algie.’
‘I don’t care if you do, old man,’ said Algie, turning pink. ‘You’re not in charge of the dogs. I am.’
‘I’m not an old man,’ I said, ‘and I’m more than capable of stopping you, so—’
‘Jack, no,’ said Gus. ‘Leave this to me.’ He turned to Algie. His eyes were glassy, his features chiselled in marble. ‘As leader of this expedition, I am telling you, Algie, that I absolutely forbid this. Do I make myself clear?’
Algie’s pale eyelashes quivered. Then he heaved a sigh and flung down his hammer. ‘Lord, what a rumpus over a few dogs!’
I don’t think he has the faintest conception of what the ‘rumpus’ was about. I think he genuinely believes that animals don’t feel pain. And of course, I’m a Nancy boy for believing that they do.
If he touches Isaak, I’ll break his teeth. See how he likes it.
6th October
We’re down to a few hours’ daylight.
Dawn comes, and deep down, you can’t help believing that there’s a full day ahead. It’s a shock when you realise that the light’s already on the turn, and soon it’ll be night again. It’s hard to get used to, that sense of the dark gaining ascendancy. Waiting to take over.
At the moment there’s a moon, so it isn’t too bad, but you know that it won’t last long. Strange. In the summer, when it was light all the time, the moon was so faint you hardly noticed it. Now you follow its every move.
I’m trying to train myself to find my way in the dark without a torch. I don’t like the way the beam of light draws your eye and renders what’s beyond impenetrable. I suppose it’s the same as when you’re inside the cabin and you light a lamp and it prevents you seeing outside. Or rather, it doesn’t completely prevent it; there’s a gradation. Light one lamp, and you can still make out the dogs, or the bear post. With two lamps, it’s harder. With three, all you see is the lamps’ own reflections in the panes. A commonplace observation, of course, but here it strikes me afresh. How odd, that light should prevent one from seeing.
It’s colder, minus fifteen today. Stoking the stove is becoming a preoccupation. And it takes an age to get dressed, even if it’s only to fetch logs from the wood-pile, right outside the door. When you come back, you’ve got to brush the snow off your clothes and pick frost out of your beard before entering the cabin. Last week we had to break the ice on the stream to reach the water. Now there is no water, and it’s a bucket of ice that we bring back to the cabin.
The birds have gone. The cliffs are silent. There’s a sense of something waiting.
12th October
Four days before the sun goes for good.
Dawn comes, then turns to dusk, with nothing in between. But for the past three days we haven’t even seen that, because of the fog. Camp is an island, floating in grey. No colours, just grey. And the stillness.
You feel this constant anxiety. It’s childish but real; you worry that you’re going to miss the last of the sun. Every day you wake up and tell yourself surely the fog’s lifted? But it hasn’t. And by lunchtime you know that you’re facing another twenty-four hours of this dead grey stillness. What if the fog doesn’t lift until it’s too late?
That’s probably why I’m not sleeping too well. I know I have dreams, and that they’re dark and exhausting, because I wake up unrested, with a sense of a struggle. But I can’t remember.
It’s not just me. Algie gets up during the night, and Gus moans in his sleep. And somet
imes I come inside and they’re talking, but they fall silent when they see me. I shouldn’t mind, but I do. It hurts. I thought that business with the seal had opened Gus’ eyes. Surely he can’t be drifting back to Algie? The dogs are unsettled, too. And when we let them off for a run, they always head for the eastern end of the bay, never the west.
Today it was my turn for the five o’clock readings. Dark, of course, but even in fog, the snow creates a kind of dim grey gloom. You can find your way if you know the terrain, and although you can’t make out faces, you can recognise creatures by how they move: an Arctic fox, a dog, a man.
My breath crackled in my nostrils as I trudged to the Stevenson screen. I had to watch my footing. Five days ago it rained, and there’s ice under the snow, which makes it treacherous.
I don’t like the way you bring your noise with you. I don’t like it that your hood cuts off your vision, so you don’t know what’s behind you.
Last week I tried bringing Isaak with me, on a rope clipped to his harness. It didn’t work. He was nervous, panting and setting back his ears. I think it’s because the Stevenson screen is only about thirty yards from the rocks, and for some reason he doesn’t like them. Maybe it’s just that he’s scared of the sea.
We’re all a little on edge. It’ll be better once the sun’s gone for good, and we can forget about it and get on with things.
16th October
I’ve seen it.
Writing the words makes me break out in a cold sweat. But I have to set it down. I have to make sense of it.
The sky cleared just before noon, so we got our last sight of the sun after all. It was Gus’ turn to take the readings at the Stevenson screen, but I went with him to watch the sun rise and set – which by now is pretty much the same thing. Algie stayed inside. He said it would spook him to see it go. This time, no one suggested a ceremonial whisky.
Twilight. Behind the bird cliffs, the red glow of dawn, but to the west it was night: the cold glimmer of stars. The black bones of the mountains jutted through the snow. On the shore, the whale ribs glinted with frost, and the rocks sloping down to the sea were white and smooth. The water was dark purple, vivid and strange.
Because of the cliffs, we couldn’t see much. We saw the sky turn bloody and inflamed as the sun struggled to rise. We saw a sliver of fire. An abortive dawn. The sun sank back, defeated.
Gone.
I shut my eyes and it was still there, blazing behind my eyelids. I opened them. Gone. All that remained was a crimson glow.
‘So that’s that,’ Gus said quietly.
Four months without the sun. It doesn’t seem real.
In the doghouse, the dogs began to howl. ‘They feel it too,’ said Gus.
I forced a smile. ‘Gus, I think they’re just hungry.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Well, they’ll have to wait a few hours. Are you coming in?’
‘In a bit.’ I still had time before I was due to transmit the readings. I didn’t want to lose any of that crimson glow.
Listening to the diminishing crunch of Gus’ boots, I watched it fade behind the cliffs, like embers growing cold. The moon wasn’t yet up, but there was still enough light to see by. No wind. The dogs had stopped howling.
Out of nowhere, for no reason, I was afraid. Not merely apprehensive. This was deep, visceral, pounding dread. My skin prickled. My heart thudded in my throat. My senses were stretched taut. My body knew before I did that I was not alone.
Thirty yards away on the rocks, something moved.
I tried to cry out. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
It crouched at the edge of the rocks. It was streaming wet. It had just hauled itself from the sea. And yet the stillness was absolute. No sound of droplets pattering on snow. No creak of waterproofs as it rose. Slowly. Awkwardly.
It stood. It faced me. Dark, dark against the sea. I saw its arms hanging at its sides. I saw that one shoulder was higher than the other. I saw its wet round head.
I knew at once that it wasn’t some trapper from a nearby camp, or a polar mirage, or that hoary excuse, ‘a trick of the light’. The mind does not suggest explanations which don’t fit the facts, only to reject them a moment later. I knew what it was. I knew, with some ancient part of me, that it wasn’t alive.
Behind me the cabin door creaked open. Yellow light spilled on to the snow.
‘Jack?’ called Gus. ‘It’s nearly twelve thirty. The transmission . . .’
I tried to reply. I couldn’t.
The rocks were empty. It was gone.
I stood breathing through my mouth. I stammered an answer to Gus; I said I was fine, told him I was coming in soon.
He shut the door and the light blinked out.
I’ve never felt such reluctance as I felt then, but I made myself – I willed myself – to take my electric torch from my pocket and walk down the beach and on to those rocks.
The snow crust was brittle as glass beneath my boots. Pristine. No tracks. No marks of a man hauling himself out of the sea. I’d known that there wouldn’t be. But I’d needed to see for myself.
I stood with my hands at my sides, hearing the slap of waves and the clink of ice.
The dread had drained away, leaving bewilderment. My thoughts whirled. It can’t be. But I saw it. It can’t be. But I did see it.
And I know, although I can’t say how I know, that what I saw on those rocks was the same figure I saw at the bear post, two months ago at first dark.
It’s real. I saw it.
It isn’t alive.
8
17th October
All day I’ve been trying to get it straight in my mind. What did I see? Should I tell the others?
When I got back to the cabin, it was 12.29, and I had to scramble to do the transmissions. I was two people. One was a wireless operator pedalling the bicyle generator; clipboard in his left hand, tapping the key with his right. The other was a man who’d just seen a ghost rise out of the sea.
I can’t remember what I did after that. But I remember looking around me at the cabin. The orange glow of lamplight, the socks and dishcloths on the line above the stove. Gus and Algie tucking into Paterson’s Oat Cakes and Golden Syrup. I didn’t feel part of it. They were on one side, I was on the other. I thought, how can all this exist in the same world as that?
Somehow, I got through the rest of the day. And oddly enough, I slept like a log.
It was Algie’s turn to do the readings today, thank God. I was on kitchen duty. I clung to it the way they say a drowning man clings to straws.
For breakfast I made what Algie calls ‘boardinghouse kedgeree’. I told myself, this is reality. The smell of coffee. The buttery taste of salt cod and hard-boiled egg.
I didn’t set foot outside the cabin, except to go to the outhouse. I scrubbed the kitchen and washed clothes. Made cheese scones and seal meat hash for lunch. Tried to read one of the professor’s periodicals. Saw to the transmissions.
For dinner I made my pemmican stew. Pemmican is a mix of lean and fat beef, dried and compressed into blocks with albumen. You break it into lumps and boil it with water. Too much water and you’ve got a slimy sludge; too little and it’s disgusting. I usually get it about right. I add potatoes, dried vegetables, and my secret ingredient – Oxo – for a salty, filling stew.
Concealment is hard work. I was almost too exhausted to eat. Algie, too, seemed tired, and Gus was out of sorts and picked at his food. None of us suggested the wireless, and we turned in early.
I’m writing this in my bunk. Behind my head, scuffles are coming from the doghouse. Tomorrow it’s my turn to do the readings. I’m dreading it. I’m going to take Isaak.
I can’t face telling the others, not yet. I wish I could believe that what I saw on the rocks was all in my mind, because then it wouldn’t be real. But I know that’s not true. I felt that dread. I saw what I saw.
Gruhuken is haunted.
There. I’ve said it. That’s why Eriksson didn’t want to bring us
here. That’s why the crew always slept on the ship, and were so anxious to leave before first dark.
But what does it mean, ‘haunted’?
I looked it up in Gus’ dictionary. To haunt: 1. To visit (a person or place) in the form of a ghost. 2. To recur (memory, thoughts, etc.), e.g. he was haunted by the fear of insanity. 3. To visit frequently. [From ON heimta,to bring home, OE hamettan, to give a home to.]
I wish I hadn’t read that. To think that something so horrible should have its roots in something so – well, homely.
But what is it?
It’s an echo, that’s what it is. An echo from the past. I’ve read about that; it’s called ‘place memory’, a well-known idea, been around since the Victorians. If something happens in a place – something intensely emotional or violent – it imprints itself on that place; maybe by altering the atmosphere, like radio waves, or by affecting matter, so that rocks, for example, become in some way charged with what occurred. Then if a receptive person comes along, the place plays back the event, or snatches of it. You simply need to be there to pick it up. And who better to do that than a wireless operator? Ha ha ha.
Yes, this has to be it. I don’t think I’m clutching at straws. What else could it be? It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.
And it means, too, that what I saw on the rocks doesn’t actually exist. It did once, but it doesn’t now. That’s what I’ve got to hold on to.
What I saw was only an echo.
18th October
But an echo of what?
It’s five in the morning and I’ve got to sort this out before I do the seven o’clock reading.
An echo of what?
It has to be something that happened here. Something bad. I know it was bad, because of the dread.
I’ve flicked through my books on Spitsbergen, but I didn’t find any mention of Gruhuken. And I’ve been over this journal and reread what I wrote about the men who were here before us. There isn’t much, and I’m not sure how accurate it is, because at the time, I wasn’t interested. I didn’t think it was important. First there were trappers, then miners, that’s what Eriksson said. All those bones, and the mining ruins, and that tangle of wire on the beach. The claim signs. The hut.