Perhaps some meat.
Thank you.
I know that you crewmen have excellent appetites.
He looks up at her. Her liquid eyes, calm and clear, are fixed on his.
After a moment he says quickly, I hoped my going with Joe tonight could make some small apology for my … weakness of the other night. Apparently it does not. Of course it’s not enough. I’m ashamed, and I offer you both my truest apologies.
Another studious pause, then she says, To the contrary, sir. It is more than enough. Your help may have saved Hans Christian. And she smiles, fleetingly, an astonishing sight—a small but explosive release.
Ebierbing looks at her in puzzlement, as if awaiting a translation.
This is the one place on this island, Kruger says, moved, where I see no weakness.
In the eyes of God we are all equally weak, sir.
Weak, we eat more, says Ebierbing, taking two of the grey strips Tukulito has set to warm on the rim of the fatlamp. One of these he hands to Kruger with a cordial grunt. Kruger hesitates. Presumably this is a leftover fillet of either Sambo or Poodle, and so far the men have declined to eat such meat—another small “justification” for the other night’s open theft. But before long they may have to accept whatever comes; Tyson has said that since the “secret pilfering” is occurring almost every night, he may soon be forced to tighten the ration.
The strip tastes a little like stringy, dried-out pork.
Hans Christian is a barrel-bodied little man with a benevolent gnome-like face—large snouty features inherited from the Danish grandfather he proudly cites. His chin and cheeks are as hairless as a girl’s. Seen from behind, he has the stubbed, bandy legs of a terrier. In noon’s blue twilight, a few stars twinkling, Kruger watches him kick and drag Spike by his salt-and-pepper scruff away from the camp. The dog gives a few shrunken barks and whimpers but is too starved to do more. For a moment Spike seems to hold Kruger’s gaze— Help me, you! —and Kruger can only look away from those hazel, human eyes. The remaining dogs sit clumped together by Hans’s snowhut, howling as they watch, and the Esquimau children cluster nearby. The crewmen by their own hut watch intently. Meyer stands with them. Ebierbing is off hunting seal, the lieutenant is indisposed. Meyer has told Kruger—whom he seems to see as a kind of subaltern—that his cabin-mate has been feeling poorly since finishing the “liquid provisions” to which he had grown accustomed on the ship. When Meyer adds that he, Meyer, has decided to move in with the men, perhaps tomorrow, Kruger guesses that while Meyer has been willing to share a bit of Tyson’s drink, he’s not prepared to share a small hut with a man in the throes of withdrawal.
The air is frigid and still. Human and animal exhalations rise in pale, fading verticals. This is the third day running that Hans has slaughtered a dog. The crewmen now eagerly partake of the meat. The men seem ready to eat almost anything. When Kruger told them how close he and Joe had come to gunning down Hans, a brief, ambiguous silence had followed, and Kruger had felt, had known, with a sort of tribal intuition, that some men were pondering what would have been done with the remains. What they’d have been willing to do with them.
Hans draws a gutting knife from his belt and with the hand that grips Spike’s scruff he tries to upend the dog and expose his throat. With a whiplash twist of the body Spike breaks free and, lips peeled back, leaps snapping at Hans, who recoils, falls. In silence Spike turns and hobbles quickly away, favouring the left front paw. Without a word Hans gets up and starts after him at a plodding lope. Hurry! cries Herron. Jamka lifts his rifle and Anthing his long-barrelled revolver and they fire on the dog, but miss.
Kruger joins Hans in pursuing Spike, now well ahead but slowing as he limps over a steep hummock of rafted ice. Both men are winded—just standing up winds them all
Thank you.
I know that you crewmen have excellent appetites.
He looks up at her. Her liquid eyes, calm and clear, are fixed on his.
After a moment he says quickly, I hoped my going with Joe tonight could make some small apology for my … weakness of the other night. Apparently it does not. Of course it’s not enough. I’m ashamed, and I offer you both my truest apologies.
Another studious pause, then she says, To the contrary, sir. It is more than enough. Your help may have saved Hans Christian. And she smiles, fleetingly, an astonishing sight—a small but explosive release.
Ebierbing looks at her in puzzlement, as if awaiting a translation.
This is the one place on this island, Kruger says, moved, where I see no weakness.
In the eyes of God we are all equally weak, sir.
Weak, we eat more, says Ebierbing, taking two of the grey strips Tukulito has set to warm on the rim of the fatlamp. One of these he hands to Kruger with a cordial grunt. Kruger hesitates. Presumably this is a leftover fillet of either Sambo or Poodle, and so far the men have declined to eat such meat—another small “justification” for the other night’s open theft. But before long they may have to accept whatever comes; Tyson has said that since the “secret pilfering” is occurring almost every night, he may soon be forced to tighten the ration.
The strip tastes a little like stringy, dried-out pork.
Hans Christian is a barrel-bodied little man with a benevolent gnome-like face—large snouty features inherited from the Danish grandfather he proudly cites. His chin and cheeks are as hairless as a girl’s. Seen from behind, he has the stubbed, bandy legs of a terrier. In noon’s blue twilight, a few stars twinkling, Kruger watches him kick and drag Spike by his salt-and-pepper scruff away from the camp. The dog gives a few shrunken barks and whimpers but is too starved to do more. For a moment Spike seems to hold Kruger’s gaze— Help me, you! —and Kruger can only look away from those hazel, human eyes. The remaining dogs sit clumped together by Hans’s snowhut, howling as they watch, and the Esquimau children cluster nearby. The crewmen by their own hut watch intently. Meyer stands with them. Ebierbing is off hunting seal, the lieutenant is indisposed. Meyer has told Kruger—whom he seems to see as a kind of subaltern—that his cabin-mate has been feeling poorly since finishing the “liquid provisions” to which he had grown accustomed on the ship. When Meyer adds that he, Meyer, has decided to move in with the men, perhaps tomorrow, Kruger guesses that while Meyer has been willing to share a bit of Tyson’s drink, he’s not prepared to share a small hut with a man in the throes of withdrawal.
The air is frigid and still. Human and animal exhalations rise in pale, fading verticals. This is the third day running that Hans has slaughtered a dog. The crewmen now eagerly partake of the meat. The men seem ready to eat almost anything. When Kruger told them how close he and Joe had come to gunning down Hans, a brief, ambiguous silence had followed, and Kruger had felt, had known, with a sort of tribal intuition, that some men were pondering what would have been done with the remains. What they’d have been willing to do with them.
Hans draws a gutting knife from his belt and with the hand that grips Spike’s scruff he tries to upend the dog and expose his throat. With a whiplash twist of the body Spike breaks free and, lips peeled back, leaps snapping at Hans, who recoils, falls. In silence Spike turns and hobbles quickly away, favouring the left front paw. Without a word Hans gets up and starts after him at a plodding lope. Hurry! cries Herron. Jamka lifts his rifle and Anthing his long-barrelled revolver and they fire on the dog, but miss.
Kruger joins Hans in pursuing Spike, now well ahead but slowing as he limps over a steep hummock of rafted ice. Both men are winded—just standing up winds them all
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