The Solitude of Thomas Cave Read Online Free PDF Page B

that it was not so, that the place is indeed surrounded by sea in all directions.
     The sea to the north appears to be frozen so it is yet possible that it may connect by the ice to further land.
    On this day, the second of September, I saw for the first time a small quantity of drift ice driving to and fro in the bay,
     and with the telescope I saw upon one piece far out two sea horses lying asleep. I judged however that they were too far off
     for hunting.
    He saw cloud also, cloud that crept in swiftly from the east as he looked out to sea, that when he turned hung suddenly leaden
over the island behind him. The temperature had turned as fast, a sudden drop that was almost as tangible as the loss of light.
The first snow to fall since he had begun his time alone was a thin, mean snow, no more than a light fall, just enough to
cover the surface of the island, to hide rock and vegetation for one opaque still day until the winds sprang up and stripped
some places bare again.
    In the snow I have found tracks of deer close to the tent. In the stillness and fog of the previous day I did not like to
     venture far from the tent for fear that I would be unable to return, but this day it was possible to hunt. I killed a reindeer
     of good size not one hundred yards from the door. With this in addition to the ship's rations and the birds I have trapped
     I have hanging in the tent now a good stock of meat.
    The deer was a stag and it was clear that it did not know the sight of man. He had worked from downwind, taking every care,
walking crouched and with silent footsteps in the snow, and yet just as he came within range the animal had sensed something
and looked about and he could have sworn that it looked directly at him, alert for an instant as he had seen deer so many
times before, in that intense frozen second before they set to flight. Only this one did not flee but saw him with his arm
extended into the musket, taking aim, and put down its great antlered head as if he were nothing animate, nothing more than
a piece of driftwood, an alien tree washed up upon the shore, and munched again at some thin mosses where its hooves had churned
up a patch of snow.
    The stag was too heavy for him to bring and hang inside so he had done his butchery immediately at the site of the killing,
with cold hands and the wind swirling odd icy flakes like pinpricks against his face. He skinned, removed the entrails, crudely
hacked up the carcase leaving what he did not want for foxes and gulls to scavenge. The pieces he cut off he brought into
the tent and there in a copper washed them in vinegar and strewed them with pepper. Suspended between the poles the meat now
begins to freeze even as it hangs, leaving on the floor beneath it a pool of iced blood so dark that it is almost black. He
has kept back one steak to eat fresh that evening, strong dark meat and very lean.
    More deer appear on the following day and he has further success, killing two younger animals, hauling them in to hang in
the tent and using pieces of them to bait the snares he has set for foxes. The hours of daylight are short, the sky low, the
sun a colour, an idea rather than a form, too often obscured behind a weight of cloud. He feels an urgency to his hunting,
each pound of meat to hang and freeze or preserve a piece of time ensured. He does not know what light, what cold, to expect
of the winter, nor if there will be any breathing warm-blooded thing to live it through besides himself.

4
    M ICHAELMAS. THESE THREE days a blizzard has kept me in. Its wildness came upon the place suddenly and with great drama, akin more to an ocean squall than any storm on land. The cell is sound and snug and resists all but the
     finest whisper of a draught though the wind howls within the shuddering walls of the tent outside and fine snow has penetrated
     there and piles up in the corners and on the surfaces of the stores and against the far wall. Each day once or twice when