Throwing my weight into the steering oar, my shoulders and back screamed from the brutal effort of keeping the small whaleboat steady. I aimed the bow at the looming, ghostly shape of the Håpet emerging through the thin mist quickly settling around us.
The Larson twins, their faces red, their skin glistening with a mixture of freezing sea spray and sweat, heaved on the heavy ash oars. With every stroke came a primal grunt as they dragged the craft through the ever-thickening sludge of grease ice. It was a boat that handled easily with a full crew of six, but short-handed as we were, it was clumsy and sluggish.
Bjorn leant over the bow, his oar clattering against the float ice and growlers that could so easily smash through our thin wooden hull. Between his boots, wrapped in stiff wool blankets, lay the two English boys, a dead weight that caused our boat to sit dangerously low in the freezing water. One was still clinging to life, the other cold, stiff and unmoving.
“On deck there!” I bellowed upwards, my voice echoing in the still air. “Drop the lines! Send down the stretcher too. I’ve got a boy and a corpse. The lad’s in a bad way.”
For a second there was only the hollow thump of our boat gently knocking against the side of the towering ship, then an excited cacophony of shouts and commands broke out from above.
A heavy rope tumbled down across our bow. Bjorn lunged forward, grabbed the thick hemp and wrapped it around the chocks to secure the boat. Then came the two massive iron hooks of the crane lines, clattering violently down the side of the ship and landing with a slap, one just fore and the other just aft of us.
Once attached, the lines snapped taut. The whaleboat gave a shudder before being hoisted a few feet clear of the churning slush.
A white canvas stretcher came swinging down from the bulwarks. Bjorn and the twins didn’t waste a second. Carefully, they lifted the boy, gently handling him into the sling.
“Hoist him up,” I called.
Next came his dead brother. We heaved his ice-stiff carcass over the gunwales and into a second sling before starting our climb up the frost-crusted rungs of the rope ladder.
My boots landed on the snow-dusted deck with a solid thud.
“Phillips!” I roared. “Where’s Thomas Phillips?”
“Captain?” A gruff English accent replied from behind me.
Turning, I saw the bent shape of Thomas Phillips limping across the slippery deck towards me, his sturdy, spike-tipped cane tapping out a constant rhythm. Steel-grey eyes peered at me from a leathery, weather-worn face, and a tangled grey beard hung almost to his waist. The crew whispered that he had once been an assistant surgeon and ship’s cook in the Royal Navy before having fled England for reasons that I didn’t know and certainly wasn’t in my business to ask. Now, he plied his trade brewing bitter coffee and stewing salt beef in the dim bowels of the Håpet.
“The frost has got him bad,” I said, nodding towards the bundle of blankets that was just being eased from the canvas sling. “Take him down to the galley and get him warmed up. Give him whatever you think he needs. Other than his brother, the ship was deserted. He’s English, Phillips, so see if you can find out what happened to the rest of them when he talks.”
Not waiting for an answer, I spun on my heel, scanning the swirly grey, ever-thickening fog. The dark, indistinct figures of the crew seemed to float across the deck in the gloom. Suddenly my eyes snagged on the man I’d been looking for.
“Christian!” I called out, striding toward the young man who was leaning against the ropes of the mainmast. “Did you find them? Jens? Henrik?”
Christian turned and took a step towards me, his form materialising from the haze. His eyes fixed on mine as his hand took a light hold of my elbow with a trembling grip.
“We found Jens.”
My breath hitched in my throat.
“You found him?” I echoed with a hollow rasp.
“Yes,” Christian confirmed again with a nod. “The crevasse was empty when we got down there. We hunted for what felt like hours, but we found neither of them. We had given up and were returning to the ship when, by some sweet miracle, we found him slumped over an ice floe. The current must have carried him out to sea.” Christian’s weary, bloodshot eyes blinked slowly. “There was no sign of Henrik.”
My mind reeled, tumbling over itself like a dizzying blur of impossible thoughts. I had watched Jens fall. I had seen him vanish into the blue abyss where no man could hope to survive.
“Where is he?” I whispered.
“We took him straight down to the saloon,” Christian said, glancing towards the quarterdeck. “There wasn’t anywhere else.”
I didn’t hesitate. Striding towards the quarterdeck, my boots thudded loudly on the worn wooden boards beneath my feet.
I grabbed the heavy hood of the aft companionway, yanking it forward, it squealed on its frozen iron tracks.
Descending the steep, narrow steps, my hand groped for the handrail to steady myself as the ship tilted slightly in the ever-shifting soup of ice.
The warmth of the saloon hit me first. The air was thick with the familiar smell of coal smoke, tallow and damp wool, but there was something else too, something different. Cutting through the usual scents was the cloying stench of stagnant ocean brine.
The amber glow of the gimbal lamp flickered in the low room, causing the shadows to writhe and judder across the dark-stained walls.
The long oak dining table stretched out in front of me, at the far end of which sat a dark shape.
The moment I stepped into the room, his glassy eyes fixed on me. His skin was white and cold. His woollens were soaked through with seawater. Seawater that dripped off him and puddled on the floor at his feet with a steady, relentless tick.
A sudden warmth exploded in my chest, driving away the bone-deep chill of the last few hours. My legs suddenly felt light as I lurched forward.
“Jens, my old friend! By God, we thought we had lost you, man.” I exclaimed, my voice bubbling with relief as I slapped my first mate on his cold, hard shoulder. “You must be freezing. Get into something dry and I’ll pour you a glass of my private brandy.”
Jens didn’t move; he just looked up at me with an unblinking stare.
“Did you get the oil?” He asked in a voice that rumbled from deep in his chest. “Did you fill our hold?”
“Damn be the oil!” I snapped.
How could I even think about that oil now? Seven men were dead because of my selfishness. Can trying to save your family from ruin really be called selfish? Regardless of the answer, there were seven women back in Tromsø without a husband, seven families without a provider to put food on their tables. They had followed me to their deaths, never once openly questioning my reasoning, the secrets that had driven me.
It was time to let those secrets go and face my fate. It was time to take my ship and my crew home.
Before I could say another word, Nils’ voice boomed loudly from the deck above. “Captain! You’re needed at the helm.”
By the time I stepped back out on the quarterdeck, the fog had descended over the ship like a suffocating white sheet, damp and cold against my skin. From where I stood, I could barely see beyond the murky shadow that was the mainmast.
“Captain,” Nils said urgently, his hand gripping the wheel tightly. “We can’t navigate, Captain—”
“We need to get out of here, Nils,” my sharp voice cut him off. “Set a heading due south. Take her steady until we’re clear of these ice lanes. Set a double watch, three men on the bow.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Captain.” Nils’ voice was strained, his jaw tightly clenched as he gestured towards the chest-high binnacle, bolted to the deck just forward of the heavy wheel. “We can’t set a course. See for yourself.”
Stepping closer to the pedestal, I glanced inside the tarnished brass casing. The compass card, which should have been firm and decisive, swung around erratically.
Plunging my hand into a pocket, I pulled out my own compass and flicked open the brass case.
Inside, the needle spun like a top.