Ice - Anna Kavan [45]
I went on deck with the first officer. The air stung like acid. It was the breath of ice, of the polar regions, almost unbreathable. It scarified the skin, seared the lungs; but the body quickly adjusted itself to this stringency. The density of the snow created a curious foglike gloom in the upper air. Every thing was obscured by the small flakes falling ceaselessly out of the shrouded sky. The cold scalded my hands when I collided with iced-up parts of the ship's superstructure, which only became visible when it was too late to avoid them. In the silence I noticed a rhythmic vibration below, and spoke to my escort: 'The engines; they haven't stopped.' For some reason it seemed surprising. 'You bet they haven't. The skipper can't wait to turn the ship round. He's been cursing you for days for making us put in here.' The man showed the same antagonism as the captain, plus a disagreeable curiosity which came out now. 'Why the devil have you come, anyhow? 'That's my business.' In unfriendly silence we reached the rail. It was cased in thick ice, a rope ladder dangling from it towards the sound of a motor running below. Before I had time to look down, he swung his leg over. 'Harbour's frozen. We've got to put you ashore by launch.' While he quickly descended with practised ease, I followed more awkwardly, clinging on with both hands, blinded by the snow. I did not see who pulled me into the rocking launch, or who pushed me towards a seat as it immediately shot forward. Travelling at full speed, it plunged and reared continually like a bucking horse, sheet of spray flew over the roof of the little cabin. There was too much noise for voices to be audible; but I could feel the almost murderous hostility of those on board, all hating me for keeping them here in danger when they might have been on the way to safety. To them my behaviour must have seemed perverse and utterly senseless. I began to wonder myself whether it made any sense, sitting huddled up in my coat, in the brutal paralyzing cold.
A sudden long-drawn-out yell startled me; it was really more of a howl. The officer jumped up, shouted back through a megaphone, then resumed his seat with the words: 'One way traffic.' Seeing that I did not understand, he added, 'Plenty going the other way,' and pointed ahead.
A confused indistinct commotion revealed itself as a ship, motionless in the midst of the feverish activity of small boats seething round it. In frantic competition, they fought to get near enough for their occupants to climb aboard. There was not room for all. Spectators crowded the rails of the ship as if at a race course, watching the collisions and capsizings below. Those in the boats had probably lived easily and been unaccustomed to danger, for they battled clumsily for their lives, with a sort of headlong terror, wasting their strength in useless jostling and surging. One boat floated upside down, surrounded by frenzied hands and arms struggling out of the water. The people in the next boat swarmed over it, hit out, kicked, stamped on the clinging hands, beat off the drowning. Even the most powerful swimmer could not survive long in that freezing sea. Several of the overcrowded unskillfully handled boats turned over and sank. Some broke up after colliding. In those that remained afloat, the passengers crushed and trampled each other in senseless panic, drove off clutching swimmers with oars. People already dying were battered and beaten. The muffled uproar of screams, thuds, splashes, continued long after the scene was hidden behind the snow. I recalled polite voices announcing over the air that people were desperate,