Until the Night

From the Blue Notebook

The low sun shining in Rebecca’s eyes as she said, I think we’re going to die. I just mean it factually.

Quite possible, I said, noting the lack of fear in her voice, a preparedness to meet fate head-on, on fate’s terms. But let’s try to do it on actual land rather than a chunk of ice.

What about staying where we are, waiting for the plane?

The arrangement was that a station radioed in to Resolute at agreed-upon days and times. In our case, every two days. If a check-in was missed and the station could not be raised, a plane would be in the air within a matter of hours. Unfortunately, we had checked in the day before.

It’ll be hard for them to spot us, I said. Kurt may be all right—the radio mast is visible and he probably even has a beacon—but a single plane is going to have a hard time spotting us.

And there was the matter of keeping warm.

It was my idea to set out for what was now the western end of the floe. Although we were closer to Axel Heiberg, the current was taking us toward Meighen Island. The Polar Continental Shelf Project had once had a camp there, and there was a chance it was still operating.

My memory goes wading among the four of us like a ghost, reaching out to try to protect Rebecca, enclose her in my giant hand and keep her warm, but of course she does not see me, feel me. Nor does my younger self. I remember the fear, the panic in my chest, and an odd sense of guilt, as if I were the one, and not Kurt (or her own curiosity and ambition), who had lured Rebecca north of the eightieth parallel, where she was now very likely going to die. I was a creature of the High Arctic, went walking there even when I was not working there, studied the maps and journals of the great explorers. It was as if she were meeting my family and they were being hateful.

They say you haven’t really travelled in the Arctic unless you’ve been lost at least once. I have been lost many more times than that, twice on Ellesmere alone, once in Greenland north of Thule. The fear was intense, but nothing compared with what I was feeling now. And yet my mind was skipping forward to some years in the future—a house, a quiet street and the smell of fallen leaves, Rebecca seated in a leather chair. A wall full of books.

That was one future. The other was gathering itself into a darkness in the west, not much more than a smudge at that moment, between the surface and the sun. I was about to point this out when there was a gunshot behind us. We turned our backs on the indigo water and scanned the horizon. Jens and Ray were no closer to us than they had been when we stopped. I took a look through my field glasses.

Something’s wrong, I said.

Maybe they saw a plane or something. Trying to draw attention?

Give me the flare gun.

What for?

And the belt. Just give it to me. I reached inside my fleece and pulled out the radio and handed it to her. Keep this. Kurt may manage to get the mast working, or there may be a submarine in the area. If I don’t come back, head west quickly—that means keeping Heiberg at your back—and try an SOS every half-hour. Keep it inside your jacket.

Kit, what are you doing?

Wait here. I won’t be long.