Northwest Passages Page 16

  Whether or not he made it this far is, of course, unknown, and likely to remain so at this remove, although one tantalising clue exists. When the crew of the Plover were forced to spend the winter of 1848–9 in Chukotka, on the northeast tip of the Gulf of Anadyr, they heard many tales of the rugged coastline to the west, and met many of the inhabitants of the villages, who came to Chukotka to trade. One of the party—Lieutenant William Hulme Hooper—later wrote Ten Months Among the Tents of the Tuski about the Plover’s experience, and in one chapter touches on the character of these hardy coastal people. “They are superstitious almost to a fault,” he wrote, “and signs and events that would be dismissed by most are seized on by them as omens and portents of the most awful type. . . . One native told of a man who appeared like a ghost from the south, who had no dogs and pulled his own sledge, and whose wild eyes, strange clothes, and terrible demeanor so frightened the villagers that they—who are among the most hospitable people on Earth, even if they have but little to offer—would not allow him a space in their huts for the night. When day came they were much relieved to find that he had departed, across the ice in the direction of Wrangel Land to the north, where the natives do not venture, upon seeing which they were convinced that he was come from—and gone to—another world.”

  Historians have debated the meaning behind Hooper’s “a man who appeared like a ghost from the south”. The author would, of course, have been hearing the native’s words through an interpreter, who might himself have been imprecise in his translation. Hooper’s phraseology, if it is a faithful transcription of what he was told, could mean that the stranger appeared in ghost-like fashion; that is, unexpectedly. However, another interpretation is that the man appeared pale, like a ghost, to the dark-skinned Chukchi people; this, when taken with the direction from which the man appeared (which is the course Wallace would almost certainly have taken) and his decision to head northeast toward Wrangel, means that Hooper’s description of “the man like a ghost” might be our last glimpse of William Henry Wallace, who would have gone to certain death in the treacherous ice field; although whether before, or after, finding that Symmes’s theory was just that—a theory only—will never be known.

  From We Did Not All Come Back

  The land ice—the shelf of ice permanently attached to the shore—was easy enough to traverse. He towed a light sledge of his own devising behind him; he had no need of dogs, and now laughed at Symmes’s idea that reindeer would have been a practical means of transport. Here there was one thing, and one thing only, on which he could depend, and that was himself.

  An open lead of water separated the land ice from the pack ice, and it was with difficulty that he traversed it. From that moment his journey became a landscape of towering ice rafters and almost impenetrable pressure ridges, formed by the colliding sheets of ice. On some days he spent more time hacking a trail through the pressure ridges, or drying himself and his clothes after falling through young ice or misjudging his way across a lead, than he did travelling, and would advance less than a mile; on other days, when his progress seemed steady, he would find that the currents carrying the ice had taken him further forward than he anticipated.

  He headed ever northward. He passed Wrangel Land on his left, and could have confirmed that it was an island, not a land bridge across the Pole connecting with Greenland; but by now such distinctions were beyond him. All was one here, the ice and snow and he himself, a tiny dot in the landscape of white. Did he believe, still, in Symmes? Would he have recalled the name, had there been anyone to mention it? But there was no one, and with every step forward he left the world, and his part in it, further behind.

  Each night he built his house of snow. The Esquimaux had built their igloos large enough to accommodate several people; his own houses were small, large enough to accommodate only one, and consequently he had had to train himself to wake every hour or so, to clear the ventilation hole of ice so that he could breathe. It was not difficult to wake at regular intervals; the ice cracked and groaned and spoke almost as a living person, and more than once he sat in the Arctic night, listening to the voices, trying to discern what they were saying. One day, perhaps; one day.

  His provisions, despite careful husbanding, gave out eventually, and for several days he subsisted on melted snow, and by chewing on the leather traces of the harness which connected him to his sledge, his only remaining link with his past. In reality, he was almost beyond bodily needs; he only remembered that it was time to eat when the increasing darkness reminded him that another day was drawing to a close. The seal was the first living thing that he had seen in—how long? He did not remember; yet instinct took over, and he killed and ate it, and when he had sated his hunger he had a moment of clarity, almost, when his course seemed laid out, stark and level. Either he hoarded the seal meat, turned, and set back for the coast, or he continued, onward through the ice, toward: what? An Open Polar Sea? Symmes’s hollow earth?

  It did not matter.

  Nothing mattered.

  His destiny was here, in the north, in the ice. It was all he had wanted, since—he could not remember when. Time meant nothing. The life he had left behind was less than dust. This was the place that he was meant to be.

  He would go on.

  He crawls into the igloo and fastens the covering over the opening, making a tight seal. His fur-covered bed beckons, and he pulls the robes over himself. Around and below him the ice cracks and cries, a litany lilting as a lullaby which slowly, gradually, lulls him to sleep.

  The ventilation hole at the top of the igloo becomes crusted with ice, condensed from his own breath.

  He does not wake to clear it.

  And the ice carries him, ever onward.

  TOURIST TRAP

  The leaflet was thrust into Charlotte’s hand before she could refuse it. She had not seen the boy distributing flyers; he had been hidden by a pillar and, swept up by the flow of people on the pavement, she had been carried inexorably forward, with nowhere to go when the boy appeared before her, turned, and held out his hand in one fluid motion. Before she had had a chance to notice his face the leaflet was in her hand and, his mission accomplished, he had disappeared into the crowd, suddenly and completely.

  She did not want to dispose of the leaflet while there was a possibility he might still be watching, and she could see no rubbish bin where it could conveniently be deposited. She had travelled some twenty yards before she spotted one; but before dropping it into the bin she smoothed the piece of paper out and looked at it.

  The flyer consisted of a single, narrow strip of bright yellow paper with “Trotter’s Tours Bring You The Best Of Britain” emblazoned across the top. Charlotte looked back in the direction she had come. She could no longer see the boy; possibly he had now moved to the other side of the pillar, or had taken himself off to another location in search of a more receptive audience. He certainly seemed to have been unlucky with the people behind her: she could see no one clutching the telltale yellow sheets. Perhaps they had been bolder than she, and had already discarded them.

  Charlotte turned her attention back to the leaflet.

  Specialists In Local Sightseeing

  We Go That Extra Mile For You

  DON’T MISS OUR FABULOUS

  OFF-SEASON RATES!

  Charlotte felt a bang on the side of her leg, and looked up to see a woman furiously manouevring a pram backwards. Two children, both under six, clung to either side of her, and the pram—from which the sound of a crying baby could be heard—appeared to be full of shopping. The two older children were in the middle of an argument which, from the well-worn taunts, was obviously a performance that had been given many times before. The mother caught Charlotte’s eye and glared at her, as if everything was her fault; then, with a sharp word to both children that made Charlotte wince, she continued down the pavement. The sound of the children arguing lingered on the air for a few moments and then mercifully faded and died. Charlotte looked down at the leaflet
once more.

  Forget about it all for a day and relax in the professional hands of Trotter’s Tours. Our luxurious, fully-equipped, air-conditioned coach will whisk you away on a day of adventure. In the morning, you’ll visit the picturesque ruins of Snaresbury Abbey, as seen in the film One Day Last Summer. Then it’s on to the beautiful village of Brindford, “Heronsbrook” in the long-running television series Blue Skies, where there will be time for lunch before travelling on to the magnificent estate of Wynsford, used as the setting for the acclaimed miniseries Soldier of Fortune. Tour price includes admission fees; lunch, tea, and gratuities extra.

  There was more in the fine print, including the price of the tour and the departure points and times. Charlotte read the blurb again, shivering a little in the early October breeze. Well, there would be no need for air-conditioning, at any rate. She looked up at the sky, where the sun was playing hide-and-seek with clouds which were clearly winning. She had made no clear plans for the day: she knew no one in the town, which had merely been another stop on her fortnight-long holiday. It was late in the year to be taking holidays, but there had been such good reasons for everyone else in the office to go during the prime summer months, and Charlotte had found her two weeks getting pushed further and further back. At least, she had told herself, it would give the tourists—the other tourists—a chance to thin out.

  The tourists may well have vanished—hence the disappearance of the boy with the leaflets—but the residents of the ancient city in which she found herself certainly made up for them. They took over the pavements with a proprietary air: mothers with pushchairs walked two and sometimes three abreast, seemingly oblivious to everyone behind them, while gangs of children (surely they should be at school?) stood in front of any shop that promised food or loud music or both. Even as she stood pondering the leaflet, three schoolboys in navy blue blazers came charging down the pavement towards her, narrowly missing her at the last moment. Two of them exchanged a joke—almost certainly at her expense—and laughed as they ran past, while the third stopped for a moment and looked impassively back at Charlotte before turning and following the others.

  Charlotte decided. She had spent two days in the city already, and had another night booked at a bed-and-breakfast near the train station. She didn’t want to have to cancel, and disappoint the sad-eyed proprietor; but neither did she want to spend another day in the city, being jostled and pushed, especially as it looked as if it might well start to rain before long. A relaxing trip on a coach, with lunch in Brindford and perhaps a cream tea at Wynsford, would get her away from the crowds; and if it rained, at least she’d be warm and dry. She assumed the coach had heating as well as air-conditioning.

  The coach departed from the train station at 10.30. Charlotte glanced at her watch. Just before 10.00; and she had with her everything she would need. Her heavy-duty, plastic-lined carrier bag, printed over with cats and flowers, contained a rolled-up plastic mac and a collapsible umbrella, as well as a guidebook, a bottle of water, and a packet of biscuits. She had also, at the last minute, added a scarf; after all, you never knew what the weather would do at this time of year, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

  She turned her back on the city centre and set out for the station, following the stream of black taxis making their way to it. As she walked she noted, somewhat sadly but without surprise, that her way led past branches of the same chain stores which dominated every other town of any size in Britain. She could have been anywhere; if someone had blindfolded her and plumped her down in the city centre, it might have taken her some time to decide precisely where she was. The thought depressed her. All of her holidays were spent in the British Isles; her only trip abroad had been on a school visit to France when she was seventeen, and she had been dismayed and somewhat frightened to find that her schoolgirl French had done little to prepare her for the realities of getting by in a foreign country. Perhaps, she thought, she should spread her horizons a little on her next trip: Eire, or the Channel Islands (which she knew were British, but which somehow seemed “abroad” to her).

  This somewhat daring train of thought was halted by her arrival at the station. She pulled the leaflet out of her bag and looked at it again. “Coaches depart outside the train station”, it read, which, considering the long sweep of pavement outside the building, was not as helpful as it might have been. She was on the point of finding the Tourist Information booth and asking for help when a group of people noisily saying goodbye to a bored-looking teenage boy moved away from the curb, revealing a wooden signboard set on the pavement. “Trotter’s Tours: Departure Point” it announced, while a clock below was headed by the legend “Next tour departs at ——”. Someone had pointed both hands to twelve.

  Charlotte looked around to see if anyone else appeared to be waiting for the coach, but could not spot any telltale slips of yellow paper. She checked her watch; just ten past ten. There was still plenty of time for others to arrive; and there could well be a few people inside the station, seeking the dubious comfort of a cup of railway coffee. She would give it ten minutes; if no one had arrived by then, she would go back to town and try to find some other way to occupy her day.

  A clock perched high above the station ostentatiously ticked away the minutes, and as Charlotte’s self-imposed deadline approached it seemed that no one else had found the tour an attractive proposition. However, just as the minute hand struck twenty past the hour, and Charlotte reluctantly decided she would have to seek out some other amusement for the day, a number of people suddenly converged on the signboard, as if a pub somewhere in the area had just turned out and the patrons had decided that this was the next best option. Little knots of two or three people stood in clusters on the pavement, all peering at the board and checking various brochures and leaflets.

  A moment later a coach pulled up to the kerb, the words “Trotter’s Tours” and “We go that extra mile for you” emblazoned on the front and side. It was an undistinguished vehicle in all other respects; when Charlotte boarded she wrinkled her nose at the smell—admittedly faint, but persistent—of stale tobacco, kept at bay, but not vanquished, by the aggressive use of air freshener. A professionally enthusiastic guide, who had a name badge reading “Ron” pinned crookedly to his jacket, kept up a running commentary as he greeted each arrival and collected their fare.

  “Hello there, luv,” he said cheerily to Charlotte as she boarded, “ay-up, mind the step, that’s a girl . . . take any seat you fancy, there’re views from all sides . . . now don’t you worry about missing anything, I’m here to make sure you don’t . . . you can put yourself in my hands, ha-ha, been doing these tours since Adam was a lad . . . that’s it, in you go . . . Hello there, mate . . . mind the step, that’s the way . . . ah, one of our American friends, I see . . . ”

  His patter faded as Charlotte made her way down the coach and settled on a seat near the back with an unobstructed window view. A quick check of the queue showed that there would be a number of empty seats, so she did not feel guilty about placing her bag on the seat beside her rather than at her feet or in the overhead bin. She had noticed one or two other “singles” in line, and had no wish to have one of them latch on to her for the duration of the tour. She had an uncanny knack for attracting the wrong sort of person; whenever she travelled by train or bus she invariably found herself sitting beside someone garrulous or drunk or both.

  She was gazing at the coloured brochure Ron had given her upon boarding the coach, when she became aware that someone had stopped in the aisle beside her. She looked up to see a man standing there, gazing at the remaining seats as if weighing them up. He caught Charlotte’s eye, smiled, and made as if to sit beside her; then, catching sight of her bag ostentatiously perched on the seat, he asked, “Are you saving this for someone?”

  “No, not really,” Charlotte was forced to admit.

  “Oh, good. Then you don’t mind . . . ?”

  His unspoken question hung there for perhaps a second too lon
g before Charlotte heard herself say, “No, of course not.” She reached over for her bag, her glance, as she did so, taking in the empty seats, of which there were quite a few.

  “My name’s Frank,” her seat-mate said. “Frank Miller. I’m from Chicago; well, not really Chicago, you know, but pretty close, and at least people over here have heard of Chicago; most of them, anyway. You from here?”

  Charlotte was unsure whether by “here” he meant England or something more specific. “I’m from Guildford,” she replied. Then, realising that that probably meant little to him, she added, “That’s south of London. My name’s Charlotte.”

  “Well, Charlotte, I’m really glad to meet you. I have to say, I didn’t know what to expect from you English people.” He affected a dreadful British accent. “Stiff upper lips, what, old chap?” He resumed his normal tone. “I mean, you’ve kind of got this reputation, you know, of being a bit—well, stand-offish, I guess, but everyone has been just great since I got here. Some of my friends warned me before I came: ‘Don’t expect them to be too friendly; they like to keep to themselves; it takes ages for them to get to like you’, that sort of thing, but people have been incredible. I love the way all the guys call me ‘mate’, like they’ve known me for years! Just goes to show, doesn’t it?”

  It took Charlotte a moment to realise she was being included in the conversation. “Goes to show what?”

  “Well, that you can’t believe everything you hear! I mean, if I’d listened to my friends, I never would’ve come, and then I’d have missed all this.” He gave an expansive wave, which Charlotte interpreted as taking in England and its inhabitants as a whole; she could hardly imagine that he would wax so enthusiastic about the coach and the train station.

  Further comments were curtailed by the whoosh of the coach door shutting and a muttered conversation between Ron and the driver. The vehicle pulled out into traffic, and Ron, swaying slightly with the coach’s movement, began what was obviously a well-rehearsed spiel.