The Rope Eater by Ben Jones

Author:Ben Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307429261
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

eleven

Five bleak days passed. We made the motions of preparing to sail, but did not move. The captain kept us busy—repairing lines, checking sails, stowing the gear from our treks. At the completion of each task, we would wait, poised, for the order to weigh anchor, but it did not come. After a pause, Griffin would bellow another order from the deckhouse—rerig, restow, scrape clean the anchor chain, clear ice from the rigging that we had cleared a scarce hour before. The Narthex swung on her chains, as if anxious to be off herself, her nose swinging east, then west of north, like a great horse tossing her head with slow impatience, her sides knocking into the ice to keep it off. Smoke rose from the stack as Aziz fired the boiler, and we could hear the chuffing of the engine, then a whirring groan as it died away.

With the time to notice, I was struck by the suddenly falling temperature—it was now steadily fifteen or twenty degrees below zero—a sharper blade of cold than that we had had steadily prodding us. We could only stand a few minutes out in it without getting frostbitten. Shivering on the deck awaiting orders, I found us more often in the darkness than in the light, and the days, when they came, much shorter and strengthless; this searing land of light was flickering and fading; after hours of gray warning, the sun broke weakly over the horizon at ten, and disappeared at two. Around the ship, lumpy ridges of ice cast achromatic shadows; the whistling call of a skua echoed over the ice occasionally, but we saw no walrus or seals; lures idly cast overboard dragged through greasy slush and caught nothing. The dogs paced for no reason, turning in tight circles, starting fights and abandoning them, leaving their food to weaker dogs.

Adney and Reinhold started shanties, but without work to drive them, they died away in the silence; with no wind to animate us, and no ice to battle, a kind of lethargy settled over us, a low fatigue exacerbated by the freezing temperatures; stubborn lanyards pulled back as we pulled; obdurate sails would not shake free their frost. Every action called for more effort than seemed its due, and returned less than it promised. It was not simply the death of Hume that dispirited us—if anything it occasioned some glee, albeit muted—but the lack of results for all of our efforts, the lack of discernible progress, for the hint of reward. West’s promises seemed not simply evasive but mendacious and the strength of our backs revealed it. The doctor moved through us like a wraith, not responding to questions or greetings; waved us aside or shouldered past us, muttering and scribbling. He no longer called on me to help him, spending most of his time in the laboratory. No announcement was made about the cause of Hume’s death.

At twilit noon on the fifth day, Griffin ordered us at last to weigh anchor.

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