The Discovery Of Slowness (6 page)

On deck, he learned that three of twelve ships had run aground, but not the
Polyphemus
. White smoke billowed out of the side of another ship close by. That image remained fixed in John's eye. On the
Polyphemus
, pieces of splintered wood skidded across the deck as fast as lightning, slicing in circles like mowers' blades. Sadly, John watched ordinarily sedate officers who never had to get out of the way jump aside with most undignified leaps. Of
course, they acted correctly, but it remained somehow degrading. He delivered his messages.

Now the companionway looked very different. Obstacles protruded from the wall, detached themselves from above, and swung down at the height of his forehead. Since he could neither get out of the way nor stand still, he received scratches, cuts and bruises, which certainly made him look like a hero. And at all times he tried to act like a gentleman. One could easily lose an eye; Nelson had only one. What did Nelson think now? He stood on the quarterdeck of the
Elephant
. Nelson would always know everything.

He could hear pumps working. Perhaps they were on fire? Or was the ship taking in water? People were reeling on deck as though they were drunk. The captain sat on top of a cannon, shouting, ‘Let's all of us die together!' Earlier they had made very different noises. Next to the captain the head of a listener was suddenly missing, and with it the listener himself. John became unhappy. All sudden changes confused him, whether of seating-order, deportment or systems of coordinates. It was hard to stand these constant disappearances of more and more people. Besides, he felt it was a deep humiliation for a head when, in consequence of actions by totally different people, it lost its body just like that. It was a defeat and not really an honour. And a body without a head, what a sad, indeed what a ridiculous sight!

When he got back to the gundeck he was greeted by a sudden sharp brightness and an enormous racket: a ship had exploded nearby. He heard ‘Hurrah!' and in between, again and again, the name of a ship. In the midst of the hurrahs, however, he heard a penetrating creaking, rasping noise, and then felt a jolt: a Danish ship had come up alongside them. And through the demolished gunport someone jumped aboard.

John caught the image of a light, foreign boot which suddenly pushed its way in and got a foothold. It was a quick, threatening move. Its image remained fixed in John's mind and kept him from a full awareness of further events. His head thought automatically: we'll show 'em! For this was the situation he had thought of when he first heard this slogan. Next he saw just that
man's open mouth and his, John's, thumbs on his neck. By some chance the man had come to lie under him. Now he had a hold on him – he, John!

When John grabbed a person, there was no escape. Now he saw the pistol emerging at the lower periphery of his vision. The sight paralysed him immediately. He didn't look at it but rather kept his eye on his strong thumbs as though they could prevail over the pistol, which – it could not be denied – was now pointed at his chest. In his mind, one single concern began to crowd out all others. It grew and grew. It surpassed all boundaries. It exploded. The man could pull the trigger at once and kill him, sending him to death or to perish slowly from gangrene. He was faced with it now: there was no escape. It was about to happen and could not be averted. Suddenly John clearly sensed where his heart was, like anyone who knows that death is inevitable. Why couldn't he knock the pistol out of the man's hand or throw himself to the side? Neither required ingenuity, yet he couldn't do it. He had the man by the throat and thought only that somebody who is being strangled can't fire a gun. But that a man would be particularly inclined to fire if he was in the process of being strangled but hadn't been strangled yet – well, perhaps John wanted to think of that but couldn't because his brain acted as if it were already dead. All that remained alive was the idea that the danger could be averted only by the unremitting, relentless strangulation of that throat. The other man still didn't fire.

He was old for a soldier, certainly over forty. John had never knelt on top of anyone who could be his father. The throat was warm. The skin was soft. John had never touched a person for so long. Nowchaos had really set in: the battle inside his body. While he was squeezing the throat, the nerves in his fingers felt horror at its warmth and softness. He sensed how the throat – purred! It vibrated, tender and miserable, a deep, miserable purr. The hands were horrified, yet the head, which dreaded the humiliation of being killed, that traitor head which thought wrongly, acted as though it had understood nothing.

The pistol dropped to the floor. The legs stopped thrashing. A gunshot wound in the shoulder: bright red blood.

The pistol had not been loaded.

Had the Dane said something? Had he surrendered? John sat and stared at the dead man's throat. He had been afraid of the humiliation of violent death. But squeezing an organism to death with slow deliberation, because fear had not subsided fast enough, meant losing more than one's head. It was a humiliation, a powerlessness which was even more crushing than the other degradation. Now that he had survived, and his head had to admit all his thoughts again, the battle continued inside him: hands, muscles, and nerves rebelled.

‘I killed him,' John said, trembling. The man with the high forehead looked at him with tired eyes. He remained unimpressed. ‘I couldn't stop squeezing,' said John. ‘I was too slow to stop myself.'

‘It's done,' the forehead answered hoarsely. ‘The battle is over.' John trembled more and more. His trembling turned into shaking: his muscles contracted in different places in his body, forming painful islands, as though in this way they were armouring his inner self or were expelling an alien substance straight through the skin. ‘The battle is over!' shouted the man who had seen the sign. ‘We showed 'em!'

They put out new buoys. The Danes had removed all markings from the waterway so the British ships would run aground. Gradually, the longboat advanced to the edge of an unfathomable depth, very close to the broken, shot-up Trekroner. John sat on the boat's thwart, apathetically, and stared at the shore. Slowness is deadly, he thought. If it is so for others, so much the worse. He wanted to be a piece of coast, a rock on the shore whose actions would always correspond exactly to his true speed. An outcry made him look down: in the clear, shallow water countless slain men lay on the bottom, many of them with blue coats, many with open eyes staring up. Terror? No. Of course, they were lying there.

He himself was part of them: a stopped clock, that's what he was. He belonged to them down there much more than to the crew of the boat. Too bad about all that work. He thought he
heard a command but didn't understand it. No one could follow a command after all that thunder of cannon. He wanted to ask for a repetition of the order but thought he had understood it after all. He drew himself up, rose, closed his eyes, and keeled over, very slowly, like a ladder that had been set up too straight. When he was in the water, the question came to him unasked: what will Nelson think? The traitor head was too slow even here; it didn't want to let go of the question. So the others fished him out again before he could find out how one drowned.

At night he stared straight up to the ceiling and searched for Sagals. He no longer found him. A god of his childhood only, Sagals had now succumbed, too. A hundred times he rattled off all the sails from the foresail to the topgallant royal, back and forth. He recited all the rigs from the fore royal stay to the main topgallant royal and all the running rigging from the jib stay to the fore stay. He conjured all the yards from the mizzen topgallant to the foretop. He cleared the ship for battle with all topmasts, all decks, quarters, ranks – only his own mind had become inextricably entangled. His self-confidence was gone.

‘I expect,' said Dr Orme when they saw each other again, ‘that you're sad about his death.' He said it very slowly. John needed to take his time, then his chin began to tremble. When John Franklin wept it took a moment or two. He cried until the urge to weep tickled in his nose and in his fingertips.

‘But you love the sea,' Dr Orme resumed. ‘That shouldn't have anything to do with the war.'

John stopped weeping, because he was thinking. While doing so, he studied his right shoe. His eye followed incessantly the shining square of the large buckle: up to the right, down along the side, then farther down to the left, returning to its starting point more than ten times. Then he fastened his glance on Dr Orme's flat shoes, which had neither tongue nor buckle, but left the instep open with a bow in front. At last he said, ‘It's about the war that I was so wrong.'

‘We'll have peace soon,' said Dr Orme. ‘Then there will be no more battles.'

S
herard Philip Lound, ten-year-old volunteer on the
Investigator
, wrote home: ‘Sheerness, 2 June 1801. Dear Parents.' He licked his lips and wrote without any ink spots – probably Master Wright-Codd, the teacher, would read the letter to them.

‘For the ship, it will be the longest voyage she ever made. I'm happy to be part of it, and above all as a Volunteer First Class. The captain refuses all thanks, saying that John Franklin had spoken for me. I'd like to be a captain, too, some day. I was in London with John. He's become even slower since Copenhagen and broods a great deal. At night he dreams of the dead. John is a good man. For example, he bought me a sea chest just like his own. It's cone-shaped, very deep, and has many compartments. On the bottom it's ringed with a rubbing-strip. The handles are loops made of hemp. The lid is covered with sailcloth. I'm writing on it.' He propped the sheet of paper higher, licked his lips, and dipped his pen into the ink. The page was only half filled.

‘I got a shaving kit, too, because John said that somewhere in Terra Australis it'll be time. Also, he showed me around the city. People don't say hello there because they don't know me at all. John's aunt Ann (Chapell) is also on board; she's the captain's wife. He's going to take her along to the other side of the earth. She sometimes asks me if I need anything. I'm eager to know how it all comes out and I'm happy. I'll stop writing now because there's lots to do on board.'

The ship's captain was none other than Matthew, who had come home at last after he had been given up for lost. John Franklin had just turned fifteen.

‘He isn't all that well,' even Matthew said, and since he was
now John's uncle he expressly took his side against the others – Lieutenant Fowler, for example.

A lot of the time John just stood around, not knowing what to do and always where he was in the way. ‘That fellow's really no great shakes,' Fowler remarked. ‘He's not a bad sort,' said Matthew, ‘only he's a bit hard of hearing just now from the battle.' Fowler thought to himself: ‘That's a month ago by now.'

One deck below, Sherard was talking: ‘B'cause John's incredibly strong. He strangled a Dane to death with his bare hands. But he was my friend even before that.'

When John got a whiff of that talk he suffered even more. True, they meant well, and he didn't want to disappoint them under any circumstances. But he didn't know how to help himself, still less what to do with such praise. At night, when the slain men on the bottom of the sea didn't reappear, he dreamed of a strange figure: symmetrical, smooth without sharp edges, a friendly, well-ordered plane, not quite a square and not quite a circle, with an evenly proportioned drawing inside. Suddenly, however, it would transform itself into something tangled and splintered. It exploded into an ungeometrical grimace and became so nasty and threatening that John awoke bathed in sweat and was afraid of going back to sleep, in dread of its return. In the end, he feared the smooth, geometrical figure almost more than the dreadful one it turned into.

The
Investigator
– formerly named the
Xenophone
– was a sloop which had suffered honourable wounds. In the middle of the war against France, the Admiralty couldn't spare a better ship for exploration. ‘As soon as I hear the word exploration,' said Master Gunner Colpits, ‘I know at once: clear the pumps.' If only they hadn't changed the ship's name. That provoked fate even more. Mr Colpits believed in the magical significance of certain days. In Gravesend he had had all days of misfortune recorded for the next three years. The woman who read his fortune in the stars had told him: ‘You must watch out that you don't perish with the ship. If you get away when she runs aground, you'll have a long life.' It didn't speak well
for Mr Colpits that the crew knew this by heart as early as Sheerness.

When Matthew read out the Admiralty orders before the start of the voyage, he stuck out his lower jaw so that his teeth showed, and said sharply, ‘The stars tell us only where the ship is located – nothing else.'

Almost the entire crew hailed from Lincolnshire, as if Matthew had collected on one single ship those few among the farmers' sons of the county who weren't afraid of the sea. The twin brothers Kirkeby came from the city of Lincoln and were famous for their muscles. With their own hands – the oxen had collapsed – they had pulled a fully laden cart over the Steep Hill up to the church. The two of them looked very much alike; one could tell them apart only by the phrases they used. Stanley's comment was usually ‘That's just what the doctor ordered.' Olof said only ‘Beastly good!' – about the weather, the tobacco, the work, the captain's wife: ‘Beastly good!'

Then there was Mockridge, the cross-eyed helmsman with the clay pipe. He had one talking eye and one listening eye. If John looked into the long-range, listening eye, he often understood Mockridge's words before they were out. Most of the time, though, it was safer to look into the short-range, talking eye.

Mr Fowler and Mr Samuel Flinders were lieutenants and arrogant like so many of their kind. The crew called them ‘luffs' because they were windbags. Seventy-four men, three cats, and thirty sheep made up the ship's population. After two days John knew them all – even the sheep, and especially the scientists: one astronomer, one botanist, and two painters. Each of them had his own servant. Nathaniel Bell was also a midshipman, and not yet twelve years old. He suffered badly from homesickness immediately on the pier in Sheerness, although his three older brothers were with him and reassured him. Even the familiar smell given off by the sheep didn't help: it merely increased his suffering.

Sheep dung, according to Mr Colpits, could be extremely useful. ‘For caulking small leaks, the best thing you can get,'
he announced lugubriously. ‘Alas, we must expect bigger ones.'

The
Investigator
was a warship, so there had to be ten Marines and a drummer on board. They were commanded by a corporal, and he, in turn, by a sergeant. In port, they had already drilled diligently and marched up and down on deck until they got in the cargo officer's way. Mr Hillier let them know that he needed the space for more important work; loading and storing of provisions was a job to John's liking. Where should they stow two spare oars? Where to put fifty boxes of soil for plant specimens? Was it true that zwieback and pickled meat would last one and a half years, and the rum for two years? John calculated. The books in the cabin – if one included the
Encyclopædia Britannica
– contained enough material for a solid year. Where to put the presents for the natives: five hundred axes and hatchets, one hundred hammers, ten kegs of nails, five hundred pocket knives, three hundred pairs of scissors, innumerable pieces of coloured and transparent glass, ear and finger rings, glass beads, colourful ribbons, sewing-needles, and ninety medallions with the King's picture on them. Every item was noted carefully on double-entry lists, and Mr Hillier knew in his sleep where each could be found. Matthew replaced some of the great guns with light carronades, and even those he stowed where they were least in the way. When Mr Colpits's face showed that he was going to make a remark about that, Matthew was before him: ‘We're researchers. We're getting a pass from the French government.'

The first annoyance. For a time no one could talk to Matthew, and everyone stayed out of his way: scientists, midshipmen and cats, even the cook.

In Sheerness two high officials of the Admiralty inspected the ship. Most of Matthew's requests had been granted: brand-new sails had been hauled up the rigging, looking like thick sausages; new ropes of good Baltic flax were put in where the old ropes had turned brittle. The bow shone with copper up to the hawse-holes, for they had to count on drift ice. But then the great gentlemen noticed women's washing on a line. A woman on board? On such a long voyage? ‘Impossible!' they said, and Ann, to whom no one
in the crew bore the slightest ill will, had to leave the ship. Women were usually tolerated quite well on ships which didn't actually go into battle. You heroes of administration! You weren't willing to allow cheerful, healthy, comforting Ann to remain with her Matthew. The captain was white with rage. ‘Never again,' he muttered in a peculiarly low voice. ‘I'll never again follow just any asinine instruction from above. I won't even read that rubbish!'

They put to sea. The next annoyance already awaited them. Before Dover, Matthew sent the pilot away and relied on sea charts. A few miles farther on, in Dungeness, the ship ran aground on a sandbank. They trimmed the sails and lowered the boats into the water. The current helped. Shortly they got free. But now the
Investigator
had to go to Portsmouth into dry dock before starting her long voyage. They had to check whether the ship had been damaged below the waterline. Matthew dropped a quiet remark – though distinctly audible to all – about the Admiralty and its charts.

Mr Colpits, however, was glad. He viewed the sandbank as the one mishap that had been prophesied, and believed that now he wouldn't perish. Mockridge thought of other things. ‘Portsmouth,' he mused. ‘I know a lot of girls there.' The eye geared to distances had already focused firmly on girls. Stanley Kirkeby agreed and declared that this was just what the doctor ordered. His brother Olof was silent. He always judged only after the fact. Every ‘Beastly good!' presupposed a present test. Also, it wasn't sure yet whether the crew would even be allowed ashore.

John Franklin wanted to be like every man. He therefore listened closely when the others talked about women. ‘I like 'em with bigger hips,' said the gunner. Boatswain Douglas wagged his head: ‘Depends, depends.' The gardener had a different opinion. Obviously, they all visualised precisely what their recollections offered. John was especially interested in how one went about this practically. He approached Mockridge and put some carefully thought-out questions to him about when and how. Here, too, the answer was mostly ‘Depends,' but John remained obstinate.
‘Does the man undress the woman first?' he asked. Mockridge mused for an unusually long time. ‘It gives me pleasure that way,' he said. ‘But you're the suitor. Things are done the way you want them.' The way Mockridge did them was surely the way it was done. John was still concerned about the many buttons. ‘Where things are buttoned, tied and laced, you have to find out for yourself. And don't forget: pay cruder compliments only to older women. Are you scared?' John was indeed scared, and for that reason, completely against his instincts, he started to tell how before Copenhagen he had after all … with his bare hands … a soldier. He was immediately ashamed. Mockridge looked at John gently, with his listening eye geared to distance, and turned his sharp, talking eye on the bowl of his pipe. ‘Once you lie with a woman, you'll be able to forget Copenhagen.'

On land, John wanted to gaze at all the women, trying to memorise their clothes. But there was so much to see that he almost lost sight of his objective. The city was brimming with scores of sailors; so many young men in one place didn't exist anywhere else in the world, and he was part of it. He also wore a uniform, and if he just stood there he was one of them. He didn't know how to dance, though, and there was much dancing.

He couldn't see enough of the town hall. It was a narrow building in the middle of the main street, with vehicles crowding around it. Then there was the semaphore tower in the harbour, where many arms were waving to receive and confirm orders from the Admiralty in London. For the first time, John sat in a seamen's tavern. The innkeeper asked for his order and he read off one of the names written above the bar: Lydia. They all laughed, because that was the name of a ship out of Portsmouth. Those names were inscribed as solemnly as were the drinks.

Fortified by a Luther and Calvin, he again turned his attention to women. Their dresses varied greatly. Common to them all were the respectable, menacingly protruding bows of their bodices. What standing or running rigging was hidden underneath was not easy to make out. It would all come out upon sampling. Mockridge took him to a house on Keppel Row and said, ‘Mary Rose is all right. You'll have fun. She's a sweet fat girl, always
gay. When she laughs she wrinkles her nose.' John waited outside in front of a low building while Mockridge negotiated something inside. The windows of the house were blind or curtained. If one wanted to see anything one had to go in. Then Mockridge appeared and took him indoors.

John discovered that Mary Rose wasn't fat. Nor did she wrinkle her nose. She had a bony face: her forehead was high, as though it had been put together from many arched lines. Something about her reminded him of a ship. She was a mano'- war of the female sex. First, she pushed up a window to let in some light: then she examined John carefully. ‘Did you fall into a bush?' she asked, pointing at his head and hands. ‘That was no bush. I was in the battle of Copenhagen,' John answered, subdued, and stopped.

‘And you have your four shillings?' John nodded. Since she fell silent, he saw his task clearly before him. ‘I will now undress you,' he said intrepidly. She looked amused under the multiple arches of her eyelids, eyebrows, skull bones and the little bays where her hair began. ‘That's what you think,' she said, smiling. Her gentle mouth could say mocking phrases in a very friendly way. In any case, so far this was nothing to run away from.

Half an hour later John was still there. ‘I'm interested in everything I don't know yet,' he said.

‘Why don't you grab this––do you like it?'

‘Yes, but things aren't functioning right with me,' John ascertained with some disenchantment.