canoe himself down this coast. The three of us are like a shock of rye when your Småland fields are harvested, Karlsson. Together we lean in support of one another. Take any one away and we fall."
"And are trampled by the Russians."
"Aye, well." Melander swabbed sweat from himself with a spruce whisk. "The answer to that is not to fall, nor let each other fall."
"I need to know one matter about you, Melander. Why didn't you stay on with the schooner?"
"Yes, I can see that might be a matter to know. Promise me not to laugh. But I stayed ... I stayed, I suppose, for a pretty sight. Pretty face, it'd been, you might understand better. But it was this. What took my eyes was the
Nicholas,
these islands and mountains and the Northern ocean. I saw myself on that steam whale, going places of the world here I could never have dreamed of. Up into the high north, there. Ice high as a church eave, they tell of along those shores. And creatures. Carpenter of a brig I shipped on, an old man-of-war's man, had been high north
once on a whaler. Said whales stink like Hell's cess, but iv a I ruses were worth the trip to see. I've never forgot—'They have noble bones in their teeth,' lie said to me. And to sail it ali by steam, just this fog around us now,...So I looked 011 the
Nicholas
and saw luck, right enough." Melander's eyes tightened above the reed mask. "What I forgot to look at was the wormy souls of these Russians, aye?"
"And wasn't that a fall, of a sort?"
"A stumble, my friend, a stumble. The strides we'll take together along this coast will make up for it,"
"A stumble, that's nothing," said a third voice. "Unless a noose is around your neck just then."
The steam thinned as the opened doorway brought into view Braaf. With his clothes off, lie looked more than ever like an outsized boy rather than a man. Both Melander ami Karlsson noticed that Braaf did not even pause to accustom himself to the cumulus of heat before crossing the room to them, nor bother to put the steam-sieving mask to his mouth until he was seated, a little way from the other two.
"Our commissary officer. Welcome, Braaf. Let's have no more thoughts than necessary of nooses and the like, though." Now that all three of them were at hand, Melander was, for him, singularly businesslike. "What we need to talk through is our divvy of tasks. Braaf, we're going to want—" and here Melander recited in crisp fashion which would have done honor to a king's remembrancer the list of supplies for the escape, "Any of this you can't put your fingers to?"
Braaf contemplated the steam overhead.
"No. Some harder, some easier. But no."
"Good. Tomorrow, begin your harvest."
"A tiling more, Melander." Karlsson, afresh. "How is it we're to get ourselves and all this plunder out of the stockade, when time comes ?"
"Oh, aye, did I not tell you? Through the gate."
"Through the...?"
"Well that you asked"—Melander's voice clarifying as he took aside the reed mouth mask to display a growing grin—"for you're the one with the lever to work that gate open for us." Melander instructed Karlsson with monumental joviality now. "It's there between your legs."
In New Archangel's next days, a gleaner drifted about within its walls like a cloudlet of steam freed from the bathhouse. So adept a provisioner did Braaf prove to be that, lest the Russians become suspicious about the fresh blizzard of thievery, Melander had to ration out his stealing assignments.
By the end of July, Braaf's cache for the plotters held a compass, two tins of gunpowder, one of the three-pound boxes of tea the Russians used for trade with the natives, some fishing lines and hooks, a blanket apiece, and a coil of rope.
During August he added a gaff hook, three excellent Kolosh daggers, a number of candles, a couple of
hatchets, a fire steel and flint apiece, another blanket each, and a leather map ease waterproofed with birch tar.
September's gleanings comprised a second compass—double certain
"And are trampled by the Russians."
"Aye, well." Melander swabbed sweat from himself with a spruce whisk. "The answer to that is not to fall, nor let each other fall."
"I need to know one matter about you, Melander. Why didn't you stay on with the schooner?"
"Yes, I can see that might be a matter to know. Promise me not to laugh. But I stayed ... I stayed, I suppose, for a pretty sight. Pretty face, it'd been, you might understand better. But it was this. What took my eyes was the
Nicholas,
these islands and mountains and the Northern ocean. I saw myself on that steam whale, going places of the world here I could never have dreamed of. Up into the high north, there. Ice high as a church eave, they tell of along those shores. And creatures. Carpenter of a brig I shipped on, an old man-of-war's man, had been high north
once on a whaler. Said whales stink like Hell's cess, but iv a I ruses were worth the trip to see. I've never forgot—'They have noble bones in their teeth,' lie said to me. And to sail it ali by steam, just this fog around us now,...So I looked 011 the
Nicholas
and saw luck, right enough." Melander's eyes tightened above the reed mask. "What I forgot to look at was the wormy souls of these Russians, aye?"
"And wasn't that a fall, of a sort?"
"A stumble, my friend, a stumble. The strides we'll take together along this coast will make up for it,"
"A stumble, that's nothing," said a third voice. "Unless a noose is around your neck just then."
The steam thinned as the opened doorway brought into view Braaf. With his clothes off, lie looked more than ever like an outsized boy rather than a man. Both Melander ami Karlsson noticed that Braaf did not even pause to accustom himself to the cumulus of heat before crossing the room to them, nor bother to put the steam-sieving mask to his mouth until he was seated, a little way from the other two.
"Our commissary officer. Welcome, Braaf. Let's have no more thoughts than necessary of nooses and the like, though." Now that all three of them were at hand, Melander was, for him, singularly businesslike. "What we need to talk through is our divvy of tasks. Braaf, we're going to want—" and here Melander recited in crisp fashion which would have done honor to a king's remembrancer the list of supplies for the escape, "Any of this you can't put your fingers to?"
Braaf contemplated the steam overhead.
"No. Some harder, some easier. But no."
"Good. Tomorrow, begin your harvest."
"A tiling more, Melander." Karlsson, afresh. "How is it we're to get ourselves and all this plunder out of the stockade, when time comes ?"
"Oh, aye, did I not tell you? Through the gate."
"Through the...?"
"Well that you asked"—Melander's voice clarifying as he took aside the reed mouth mask to display a growing grin—"for you're the one with the lever to work that gate open for us." Melander instructed Karlsson with monumental joviality now. "It's there between your legs."
In New Archangel's next days, a gleaner drifted about within its walls like a cloudlet of steam freed from the bathhouse. So adept a provisioner did Braaf prove to be that, lest the Russians become suspicious about the fresh blizzard of thievery, Melander had to ration out his stealing assignments.
By the end of July, Braaf's cache for the plotters held a compass, two tins of gunpowder, one of the three-pound boxes of tea the Russians used for trade with the natives, some fishing lines and hooks, a blanket apiece, and a coil of rope.
During August he added a gaff hook, three excellent Kolosh daggers, a number of candles, a couple of
hatchets, a fire steel and flint apiece, another blanket each, and a leather map ease waterproofed with birch tar.
September's gleanings comprised a second compass—double certain
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