The North Water(59)

“You can’t use it inside the tent,” he says, showing him the file, then pushing it underneath the folds of Drax’s blanket. “The others will hear for sure.”

Drax nods and smiles.

“That seal meat don’t agree with me none,” he says. “I’ll be in and out all night for shitting, I ’spect.”

Cavendish nods. He stays crouching, placing one hand on the floor for balance.

“I been thinking,” he says.

“Oh aye.”

“What if I come along with ye when you go?”

Drax sniffs and shakes his head.

“It’s safer here.”

“We can’t all winter through alive. Ten men? It int possible.”

“One or two may die, but I’d say you won’t be one of ’em.”

“I’d sooner take my chances with the Yaks, like you are.”

Drax shakes his head again.

“That int the agreement I made. It’s me alone.”

“Then I’ll make my own agreement, separate like, why not?”

Drax turns the ivory over in his hand and feels its shallow indentations with his thumb.

“You’re best to stay,” he says again.

“Nay, I’ll be coming with,” he says. “And that there file’s my ticket out.”

Drax thinks a moment, then reaches into the blanket and touches the file’s relentless edges, feels its tight-packed rills like the cold surface of a metallic tongue.

“Ye always were a bold and blusterous fucker, Michael,” he says.

Cavendish smirks and rubs his beard eagerly.

“You’d thought to get one over on me, I ’spect,” he says. “But you won’t do it. I int staying here to die with these others. I got bigger plans than that.”

It is so cold outside the tent that Drax can only work on his manacles for twenty minutes at a time before he begins to lose feeling in his hands and feet. It takes him four separate trips spaced out across the night to fully free himself. Each time he leaves the tent, he picks his way carefully through the low hillocked landscape of dark sleeping bodies, and each time he comes back, frosted and shuddering, his clothes stiffened with ice, he does the same. The men groan and curse as he nudges into them, but no one opens their eyes to look, aside from Cavendish who watches him intently.

Freed from the chains, he feels suddenly larger and younger than before. It is as if, since the instant he murdered Brownlee, he has been asleep and now he is awake again at last. He has no fear of the future, no sense of its power or meaning. Each new moment is merely a gate he walks through, an opening he pierces with himself. He whispers to Cavendish to get himself ready and wait for his whistle. He ties his clothing into a bundle with a cord, tucks the bundle under his arm, then drops the file into his coat pocket and makes his way over to the snow house. The moon is high and waning. Its frail light turns the broad white snowscape the color of gruel. The fierce air around him is crisp and odorless. The dogs are sleeping; the sledge is packed. He lowers himself onto his hands and knees and crawls inside the snow house. It is pitch-black, but he can smell them anyway—the younger on the left, the elder on the right—and hear them softly breathing. He is surprised they do not wake up, that his very presence does not alert them. He waits a moment, gauging the position of their heads and the directions they must be lying in. It is warmer here than in the tent, he notices. The atmosphere is close and oily. He reaches out carefully, slowly, and touches with the tip of his fingers the surface of one of the sleeping bags; he pushes very slightly down, and there is an answering moan. He puts his hand into his pocket and takes out the file. It is a foot long and an inch wide and one end is spiked. The spike is not especially sharp, but it is long enough for his purposes, and he thinks he will manage. He grips the end of the file in his fist and leans forwards. He can see the men’s faint outlines now—a thicker, denser black against the darkness of the snow house walls. He sniffs once in preparation, then reaches out and shakes the elder one awake. The man murmurs and opens his eyes. He leans up on one elbow and opens his mouth as if to speak.

Holding the file with both hands, Drax drives the spiked end into the man’s neck just below the ear; there is a spurt of hot blood and a noise somewhere between a gurgle and a gasp. He pulls out the spike and then quickly drives it in again, a little lower this time. When the younger man stirs, aroused by the noise, Drax turns, punches him twice to keep him quiet, then starts to throttle him. Being naturally scrawny and encased in a narrow, tight-fitting sleeping bag, he makes a poor fight of it and is suffocated before the elder one has finished dying. Drax pulls them both out of their bags, then strips the elder of his anorak, slits it up the side, and pulls it on over his own head. He feels around for the blubber knives and the rifle, then crawls back outside.

There is no sound or movement, no indication that anyone in the tent has heard a noise. He goes over to the sledge and gets the deerskin traces. One by one, he wakes the dogs and harnesses them. He crawls back inside the snow house, takes off the dead men’s boots, britches, and mittens and stuffs them inside one of the sleeping bags. When he comes out again, he sees Cavendish standing over by the sledge. He raises his right hand and walks across to him.

“I hant whistled you yet,” Drax tells him.

“I int waiting for no fucking whistle either.”