Journey: A Novel

  Now when he did his daily turns on the new track, some fifty feet higher than the old, he calculated the odds on each of these impediments. At the end of one imaginary survey he ruefully cast the score: Impedimenta barring the way, nineteen; Lord Luton’s party, nothing. And he could foresee no way to change those odds unless Evelyn entertained a revelation when he faced that lonely spot where the Rat River led to safety across the low divide: If he refuses to see or to listen, we’re doomed.

  He was certain of this, and yet he did not enforce his judgment upon his cousin. Luton was younger than he by six years and less experienced in the field by seven or eight major explorations. He was in no way superior to Harry in intellect or in his university performance. He was courageous, of that there could be no question, but he had never been tested under fire the way Harry had been. And although he had a stern moral fiber, what some would term character, it had not yet been required to assert itself in time of real crisis, the way Harry’s character had been tested in India and Africa.

  With the scales weighing those virtues that really mattered in Carpenter’s favor, why did he defer to his younger cousin? Because in the prolific and noble Bradcombe family it was the custom out of time to pay deference when facing difficult decisions to the man who held the marquisate of Deal, and remote though the possibility was, Harry knew that Evelyn might one day be that man. This rule had served the family well, and if an occasional marquess had been a ninny, most had not, and Carpenter could see that when Evelyn had a few more years under his belt, he would be eligible, if called upon, to be one of the best. This expedition to the gold fields of Canada could be the final testing ground that would make Lord Luton a whole man, one forged in fire, and Harry Carpenter would stand by him in the testing period, for in that regard, he, Harry, represented all the Bradcombes. Their leader was under scrutiny and they stood with him.

  With the arrival of warmer weather in April the men assumed that the Mackenzie would begin to thaw, and it was Blythe, least experienced outdoorsman of the group, who pointed out: ‘Fellows! It’s still ten degrees below freezing!’ and Philip replied: ‘But it feels like summer.’

  It did, and the realization that the winter hibernation would soon be coming to an end spurred the men to start casting up their assessments of what their adventure in the arctic winter had meant. Lord Luton took it upon himself to make the summary statements in the official log, and he came close to the truth when he wrote:

  As I look back on this splendid adventure, I see that we were a team of five who respected nature and wished to test ourselves against the full force of an arctic winter. Harry Carpenter had wide experience in frontier situations in all climates. My nephew Philip Henslow was a keen sportsman and a reliable shot. His friend Trevor Blythe displayed an uncanny aptitude for domesticating wild ravens, something never before attempted to our knowledge, and even our trusted ghillie, Fogarty from Ireland, had an unmatched knowledge of the way of salmon. I had traveled to many distant areas, loved boxing and cricket and the dictum of Juvenal: Mens sana in corpore sano.

  At the beginning of our long hibernation we laid down sensible and healthful rules which all obeyed, and as a result we suffered not one serious illness or accident. Rigorous daily exercise seems a sure preventative for the idleness of an arctic stay, and our experience is that it should be enforced out of doors even in the roughest weather. Among other benefits, it inhibits constipation.

  But the remarkable fact about our stay is that all team members displayed unusual and unflagging courage. Never were spirits allowed to fall or pettiness to invade our daily regimen. When meat was needed, our members were willing to roam very far afield, even under the most daunting circumstances. Hard word was greeted almost as a friend, and we proved once more what honest Englishmen can accomplish in adversity, and even Fogarty caught the spirit, for his extended forays in search of provender were little less than heroic. Harry Carpenter was an older exemplar without parallel of such deportment and our two younger men were faultless, displaying great promise for future development.

  In all modesty I make bold to claim we were a gallant bunch, and the arctic was powerless to defeat us in our quest.

  When the others heard these lines read aloud, they protested that in the coda Lord Luton had not mentioned his own laudable behavior, and when he disclaimed the right to any special notice, Harry Carpenter took the journal and wrote, reciting the words aloud as he did:

  ‘The other members of the Lord Luton party wish to record the fact that in all contingencies their leader was salutary in his own display of courage under difficult situations, none more so than when he went on foot fifty miles in each direction, alone and in the dead of winter with the thermometer at minus-forty and storms brewing, to find us data regarding our next target. In this feat, performed during days that allowed only two hours of daylight, he performed as none of the rest of us could have.’

  There were murmurs of assent when Carpenter laid down his pen, but as he himself looked at the final words of his encomium he realized that he had omitted the salient truth of Luton’s journey: And he returned from his venture without having listened to a word of the advice given him.

  In May came unmistakable signs of approaching thaw, but it was not until June that Fogarty set out for one last hunting trip on the opposite bank of the Mackenzie; he returned immediately up the Gravel, shouting: ‘Gentlemen! Come see the river!’ When they did, they witnessed one of the most savage displays of nature, for the various tributaries lying far to the south where the sun returned early had long since thawed and sent their burden of melt-water and floating ice crashing northward. Now, as this icy flood reached areas still frozen, the whole river began to writhe and crack and heave. With astonishing reports, like the firing of a battery of cannon, thick ice off the mouth of the Gravel, locked there since October, broke asunder in wild confusion.

  ‘Good God!’ Luton shouted. ‘Look out there. That one’s as big as a house,’ and when the men stared toward the middle of the Mackenzie they saw that he was wrong. It was bigger than three houses, a huge chunk of ice, and as it ground its way past the mouth of the Gravel, pulverizing the smaller floes which that small river had contributed, the men gained an appreciation of what an arctic river could do when it was shattered by the surges of spring.

  Blythe and Henslow stood side by side, watching in awe as a gigantic iceberg came thundering down the river, holding embedded within its massive walls of ice a collection of intertwined evergreen trees that it had ripped from a hillside eight hundred miles distant. On it came, ‘a frozen forest,’ Trevor said as he tried to imagine the journey the trees had made, ‘That iceberg must hold a thousand bird’s nests, and when they come flying back to find their homes the landlord will tell them: “We’ve moved them to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Start flying north.” ’

  For more than an hour the two young men watched little forests floating past, but then their attention was directed to Carpenter, who shouted: ‘Look what’s coming to greet us over here!’ and everyone turned to see what their relatively tiny Gravel could produce, for tumbling down it came a monstrous block of ice traveling at harmful speed. As it roared past, twisting and turning, it swept with awful crunching force right over the spot where the original cabin had been, and with such grinding power that it would have reduced both craft and cabin to pulp.

  No one, watching the total erasure of their former homesite and means of escape from this wintry prison, could keep from thinking: My God! If we had remained in that spot! And all recalled George Michael’s rhetorical question: ‘What would you do if you lost your boat?’ Carpenter summed up their reactions: ‘Thank God, Evelyn did go to Fort Norman and bring back that Métis. We escaped a terrible trap.’

  And then Philip shouted: ‘Look at that one!’ and down this meager stream, the Gravel, came one more block of ice, as big as any on the Mackenzie, and it was rolling in such grotesque fashion that it struck and dug deeply into the right bank, opposite wher
e the watchers stood, and gouged out a huge chunk of bank, leaving behind four trees with roots torn loose, so that their trunks and branches, lying parallel to the earth, reached far over the surface of the river but not quite in it.

  Carpenter, who had seen this phenomenon in Africa, warned those about him: ‘Extremely dangerous, that. They call them sweepers.’

  ‘Why that?’ Philip asked, and Harry said: ‘Because if you come down this river in an open boat—and what else would you have on a stream this size—you grow careless, and those low branches reach out and sweep you right off your boat, and the current is so swift you can’t climb back. Take care with sweepers.’

  One night during the waiting period it came Trevor Blythe’s turn to conduct the seminar, and since this was more or less the termination of their long confinement, he offered a surprising but unusually profitable exercise: ‘Under my goading, we’ve talked a lot about poetry, I’m afraid, and often we’ve referred to the inventive lines with which poems begin. Things like “My true-love hath my heart and I have his” and “Tell me where is Fancy bred.” Such lines are keys that unlock gracious memories, and they don’t have to be all that fine as poetry. Their job is to set bells ringing.

  ‘As we drifted down this great river, I was pestered by a ripping pair of lines:

  Ye Mariners of England

  That guard our native seas!…

  Ever since we left the Athabasca Landing, I’ve been such a mariner,’ and after laughing at himself he cited a few more effective opening lines: ‘ “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free” ’ and ‘ “Oft in the stilly night.” ’

  But then he shifted sharply: ‘I’ve come to think that how a work of art ends is just as important as how it begins. A good opening entices us, but a strong finish nails down the experience.’ Now he had to consult Palgrave, for not even he was as familiar with the good closings as with the lyrical openings. He deemed one of blind Milton’s to be impeccable: ‘ “They also serve who only stand and wait.” ’ But as a young man in love, a condition he had so far revealed to no one, not even the young lady, he also favored: ‘ “I could not love thee, Dear, so much,/ Loved I not Honour more.” ’

  But he surprised his listeners by praising extensively the rough, harsh ending of one of Shakespeare’s loveliest songs: ‘It has one of the perfect openings, of course: “When icicles hang by the wall” and it continues with splendid lines which evoke winter, such as “And milk comes frozen home in pail” and “When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.” But after all the niceties of the banquet hall have been exhibited, he closes with that remarkable line which only he could have written: “While greasy Joan doth keel the pot” to remind us that somebody has been toiling in the kitchen.’

  Trevor then came to his conclusion: ‘Point I’ve been wanting to make, the real poet has the last line in mind when he writes his first, and there’s no better example of this than the ending to that special poem of Waller’s whose opening stanza I praised many months ago, the one beginning “Go, lovely Rose!” Do any of you remember how it ends? Neither did I, and I’m not going to trust my memory now. It’s Palgrave, Number Eighty-nine, I believe.’

  While fumbling for the page, he said: ‘Remember how the first three stanzas go. In the first the rose is commanded to go to his love. In the second it’s to inform her that young girls, like roses, are put on earth to be admired. In the third the rose is to command her to come forth and be admired. And now the wonderful last verse:

  Then die! that she

  The common fate of all things rare

  May read in thee:

  How small a part of time they share

  That are so wondrous sweet and fair!’

  Silently the men contemplated the misery of death, then Lord Luton spoke: ‘A noble ending to a grand winter,’ and as he looked at the two young men he said loudly: ‘Do you realize how precious this winter will have been when we look back upon it? Philip, Trevor! You’ll tell of this to people who will never have guessed that a majestic river like this existed!’ He smiled at Harry and added: ‘So shall we all.’

  Harry did not return the smile, for while the others prepared joyously to plunge into the swollen Mackenzie for a triumphant run downriver to its junction with the Peel, he could not erase from his mind a segment of map he had memorized. It showed that if one ascended the Gravel to its headwaters and made a relatively short portage across the divide, one found oneself at the headwaters of a considerable river, the Stewart, which did meander a bit but which finally deposited one right on the Yukon, less than fifty miles upstream from Dawson City and the gold fields. And it’s downstream all the way, once you reach the Stewart, he told himself, and he became so convinced that Evelyn was doing exactly the wrong thing in turning his back on the Gravel that on the very morning of their breaking camp he launched one final appeal: ‘Evelyn, you have studied the maps more closely than any of us. Surely you can visualize what a sensible union the Gravel and the Stewart achieve?’

  Luton refused to listen: ‘I have indeed studied the map … memorized it … and I visualize instead the Peel, which leads directly to our destination.’ And so the five men set forth.

  THREE

  DESOLATION

  ON 10 JUNE 1898, ten months after they departed from Edmonton, the Luton party was ready to resume its journey toward the Arctic Ocean, and their departure from the cabin which in its two locations had housed them for so long contained elements of sadness. Luton said the official farewells: ‘I doubt if any other five men could have occupied so small a space for so long without even a suggestion of friction. Gentlemen, I shall be forever indebted to you.’ And each of the men said goodbye to some particular aspect of this strange hibernation. Harry Carpenter took one last circuit of his running track, its surface muddy now but nonetheless still one of the agencies for the good health the men had enjoyed. Philip, clad once more in his treasured boots now that the freezing weather was over, sat by the dead fire and read a few pages of Great Expectations; he had acquired much useful information beside that fire. Luton saluted the cabin, and Fogarty gazed for some time at the surrounding hills he had come to know so intimately. Trevor Blythe had the most painful farewell, because although his raven was reluctant to move near the boat, it was obviously loath to leave the poet. It rode on Trevor’s shoulder down to the water, but when the young man stepped aboard the craft, Othello flew off. In bewilderment it circled a few times, then cawed hoarsely as if bidding a dear friend farewell and flew inland to where its companions waited.

  As the carefully reloaded Afton eased into the fast-moving waters of the Gravel, she seemed eager to complete her journey and fairly leaped forward to rejoin the Mackenzie. Carpenter had been nominated to get the voyage started properly and he was steering when the rushing waters of the Gravel veered suddenly to starboard, throwing the little boat right at the spot where the huge cake of ice just days before had gouged out the chunk of bank, leaving the dangerous sweepers.

  Too late Harry saw that he was powerless to prevent the Afton from being driven under the branches of this fallen tree, but he did have time to shout a warning: ‘Down! All down!’

  The men, remembering Harry’s warning, obeyed, except for Philip Henslow, who was striving to save a rope that might be lost and remained standing aft as he reached for it. Before Blythe could shout his own warning, the sweeper caught Philip in the back and pitched him into the icy waters.

  ‘Help!’ shouted Blythe, leaping to that end of the boat, but now the mighty current of the Mackenzie took over, and by the time the others sprang into action, Philip was far out into the larger river. Even so, the agility with which Carpenter shot the Afton into the main current, plus the frenzied power when the others started paddling and rowing, would have enabled them to save Philip had it not been for those dreadful boots, rubber and heavy and reaching well above his knees; they filled immediately with water and made swimming impossible.

  Had he been wearing short, loose footgear, which the kno
wing did, he could have kicked them off and saved himself, but impeded as he was, he could kick neither swiftly nor strongly and was unable to keep afloat until the boat overtook him. In the first terrible moment when he struck the water and felt his boots becoming dead weights, he tried with super-human valor to stay afloat. His lungs took in more oxygen. His heart beat faster. His arms produced unbelievable pulling power, and he battled to keep his head above the swirling waters of the Mackenzie.

  But inexorably the boots, heavier than lead, pulled him down, and as he fought vainly to counteract their pull to death he uttered a wild and piercing scream: ‘Help me!’ Each man on the boat heard it, and would hear it for many nights, and even months, but each was powerless. Trevor Blythe tried to leap into the water but was restrained by Harry Carpenter, who did not wish to lose two members of the team. However, he could not prevent Lord Luton from diving fully clad into the icy waters.

  The gesture was fruitless. Luton did not come even close to his drowning nephew before the boy, with one terrible last scream, disappeared forever.

  When the three men in the boat finally dragged Luton back aboard, they threw a blanket about him and sat beside him as the Sweet Afton floated swiftly down the broad crest of the river. ‘You did your best,’ Carpenter said, and Fogarty added: ‘No force could save him, Milord. You tried.’ But Blythe, standing at the rear of the boat, could only look through stinging eyes aft toward the dark waters that had taken his friend to their bosom. He remained there through that long, dreamlike spring twilight which seemed to last forever.

  As the Sweet Afton continued down the Mackenzie the four survivors became painfully aware that each mile it carried them along took them farther from the Klondike. It was infuriating, yet inescapable, to be drifting down this great river and to be allowing it to divert them from their target, but that was the nature of the Mackenzie: one of the great rivers of the world, it led nowhere but its own end.