The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 65

truth. There’s black fumes gushin’ out of Satan’s Seat, they say, and when the winds—them winds ain’t like this here, them be winds!—get it right, that ice blowin’ off the plateau like white fire, then that black cloud above Satan’s Seat takes shape of a giant figure. Hard to say what. Mate of mine, Norwegian salt, said he seen a man’s face with whiskers, wearin’ iron, same’s them sorts talk of their old god Odin. Odin? He was pretty-headed like that, my mate, couldn’t trust him. Others said they saw what they wanted. Mark me, more than some said they saw a face. What I favored fer myself was them that said they seen a ram’s head. Blunt snout, big horns curled back. There’s more. At night—and night down there be dark, matey, long and dark, six months long and dark, what makes a man sad and filled up with memories, that long and dark night—then that face of that giant black ram glows. He lights up when the sea shakes and the ice islands crack apart—bang! bang!—and the birds filthy with ash scatter off the floes. Big albatross all black and stunned, sink fer swimmin’! That black giant ram’s face glows. They say that face has a smile to it. Get that, he’s happy. I’m no good Christian. No time. I don’t favor it still. What’s damned funny to the Divil?”

The last two weeks at Port Stanley are a single dark episode for me. The attack the first week was from the west, the Patties sending armed beasties at our forward redoubts. The command withdrew us to an inner perimeter, anchored by a shore battery north of the inlet on the cliff’s plateau, two concrete wharves seaward protecting a thin rocky beach on the Atlantic, and the stone-built Presbyterian church guarding the quay road. The Falkland Irregulars formed a rescue team to bring in those cut off in the hills to the south; none came back. The second week began with the Patties making an amphibious landing across from the northern scissor blade of the inlet, cutting off the Volunteers holding the headquarters caves over the harbor. The Patties established fireposts on our abandoned redoubts. We traded nuisance fire the next day, watched as the Patties put up wheels with Volunteers and Irregulars lashed and alive above the jetty at the mouth of the harbor. We three, with Christmas Muir, had been relieved from the fire detail. We were armed and assigned to the graveyard of the Presbyterian church, its high wall topped by jagged glass. Rumors said that Elephant Frazer, the new commander-inchief with the other senior officers dead or wounded in the caves, had rejected a demand to surrender. There was also word that Volunteers were straggling in, that one of the Frazer sons had arrived by boat at the south point of the inlet.

An Irregular officer came at supper to tell us Port Stanley was done. It was our choice to stay or to evacuate in longboats. The six Irregulars chose to fight, took their rations and went back to the wall. We Volunteers counted off by fours, signifying how we would be withdrawn: Otter Ransom and Lazarus counted 2; Christmas Muir and I counted 3.

I do not recall any untoward feelings inside me that night as we waited for a mass attack that did not come. I was hungry, very frightened of dying, very tired, curious if it had been Germanicus or Samson Frazer who had come in. I did think much of how Grandfather would have judged my conduct during my weeks among the Volunteers. I prayed while I huddled from the wind and the rain. I am certain I felt no vengeance, had no more need of killing my enemy than I did of quitting.

The big storm that started during the night slowed the Pattie attack and our retreat the next day. The Atlantic tossed up angrily, belittling any violence we men might do. The number 1’s left us, and early in the afternoon the number 2’s were called. We three did not talk at our parting—Otter Ransom did smile, Lazarus kept his head down. I sat by Christmas Muir, with Iceberg between us, and watched them run for it. Word came to us at the Presbyterian church soon after that the evacuees were pinned down on the embarkation beach more by nature than by the murderous volleys off the mountainside. Elephant Frazer nearly lost control of the Volunteers then—there could not have been two hundred of us left—because the notion of starting an eight hundred-mile voyage in an open boat in such a storm was hardly less frightening than facing the Pattie wheels. Some volunteers did come back to the church. We heard that one was shot for mutiny.

Christmas Muir and I were called at twilight. We dodged sniper fire over the open ground, our way marked by corpses to the crescent-shaped embarkation beach on the Atlantic, east of the settlement. We found Volunteers pressed so close to the cliff face along the shore that they seemed part of the rock, the surf crashing up almost to cover them. There were pools of burning gasoline from the Pattie fireballs floating on the wave crests, and with each new rush of the sea the flames threatened to scorch the men. Out to the left, I could see the evacuation boats being brought up one at a time around the point, risking the Pattie bombardments from the west.

I got down on the beach and was assigned a place in line. I boosted Iceberg up on my shoulders to keep her from the surf. It was then—turning and twisting away from the cold water—that I spied Black Crane. They were bringing her about the far wharf and into the breakers toward the beach. She was manned by Volunteers, no sign of Orlando the Black or the Turks. I pointed her out to Christmas Muir. “It’s my boat!” I screamed.

Christmas Muir looked quickly, said, “Don’t,