The Elder Ice: A Harry Stubbs Adventure (2 page)

“As a matter of fact, when the expedition made for home after the wreck of the
SY Endurance
, Sir Ernest made great play of throwing away gold sovereigns because they were too heavy to carry. So anything he brought back would have to be—if I may coin a phrase—worth more than its weight in gold. What sort of thing could that be?”

“What indeed?”

“Being as you are an expert in antiquities, and especially in gemstones and jewellery, I thought Sir Ernest might have consulted you on any valuables he might have acquired or hoped to acquire.”

Mellors sipped his camomile tea as he considered that. “And that’s your entire chain of reasoning?”

“Yes, sir. I might mention at this juncture that there would be remuneration if I were successful in recovering something of value. I am not at liberty to make promises, but a finder’s fee of ten percent is quite usual in these matters. “

“You thought Ernest might have asked me to fence the stuff for him.”

I had not expected to hear such a blunt expression from the criminal underworld. “I wasn’t thinking in those terms at all. I just thought, being as he was your brother, he might have consulted your expertise.”

“Well, I have to disappoint you, Mr Stubbs. My brother was not in the habit of trusting me—me, of all people!—with valuable information. Nor did he ever ask for my expertise, such as it is.”

“That’s a great pity. But can you tell me, are you aware of any valuable finds from the Antarctic region? Is there anything it’s known for?”

“It’s known for ice and snow, and penguins and whales. There are no people there.”

I recalled
Nanook of the North
, that great cinematic epic of the Polar Regions, documenting the life of the Eskimo. I had seen it twice, and it made me shiver in the warmth of the Sydenham picture house to watch the doughty Nanook struggling against the polar blizzards and building his house out of ice blocks. “I believe I saw some carved penguins in one of your display cases?”

“Very astute, Mr Stubbs! My small tribute to Ernest… those are scrimshaw, carved by bored whalers. The best specimen is narwhal horn and has provenance to 1824. But they’re not priceless relics. Antarctica does not produce indigenous art. The oldest things there are the empty tin cans left by brother Ernest’s mob of ruffians.”

“He never mentioned anything that he found, or hoped to find, that might appear valuable?”

“He talked all the time,” said Mellors. “Ernest always said he was going to go off and find Captain Kidd’s treasure or something, but he never did. We grew up on the
Arabian Nights
, and I don’t think he ever got over it.”

Having delivered the final verdict on his brother, he put down his cup. I might have objected, but it struck me then how hard it might be to have an elder brother like Sir Ernest, and how that might colour his opinion.

“Well, thank you for the tea, Mr Mellors. If anything should occur to you, I do hope you’ll write to me care of Latham and Rowe.”

“Treasure hunting,” he said. “When we were children, he’d get our sisters and me into parties to go and dig up the garden for pirates’ gold. He’d always tell us he had a map, and we always believed him. Underneath the fourth plank from the right-hand wall in the summerhouse… now he’s got you chasing it, and he’s not even alive! Dear old Ernest.”

“Mr Rowe is convinced of the possibility of something of value.”

Mellors snorted. “Value? There’s a chap called Harcourt who wants to assemble a private museum. He pays well for anything ‘Shackletonian’. If you’ve got an old sledge or an armchair of Ernest’s, he might give you five pounds for it. I sold him a few souvenirs. You might try the same.”

The suggestion was evidently facetious, and I did not record it.

“Are you a boxer, Mr Stubbs?” Mellors asked suddenly.

My physiognomy betrays the marks of the ring. I have the ears and nose of a boxer. “As a matter of fact, I was. I boxed for the Royal Regiment of Artillery in the war and afterwards on the circuit for a couple of years.”

“I knew it from the way you moved when you came in. On your toes. I knew you had to be a boxer or a dancer. I’ve spent some time in boxing gymnasiums. How do you come to be working for a lawyer?”

I explained briefly how my work collecting debts had brought me into contact with Latham and Rowe, who had offered me part-time occupation in serving processes and assisting with the recovery of monies from businesses. Tasks like the more cerebral current assignment had increasingly supplemented that, and I was now a full-time employee. They had even suggested that, with appropriate study, in time I might become an articled clerk.

My older brother worked in Father's shop. He had married unexpectedly early and already had a family. It was not certain that the business could support me as well, so everyone was pleased that I had found an opening that was not at a rival butcher’s.

“So they didn't send you here to duff me up! A great relief to both of us, I'm sure.” Mellors chuckled as he spoke. I could not hold it against him. “Funny how we start out on one course and end up on another.”

I must have looked perplexed at this, because he laughed aloud. “Evidently you don’t know my history. I thought the whole world knew… I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted. If you represent the law, well, I am a criminal, a convicted fraudster—accused, tried, sentenced, and duly punished.” He struck a dramatic pose as though handcuffed and smiled at my discomfort.

Of course, I knew he must have changed his name from Shackleton to Mellors for some reason but had not guessed it was anything so serious. “I’m sorry to hear it, sir.”

“It’s water under the bridge. I still get pestered with a few feeble attempts at blackmail or harassment. These days I live very quietly, though ‘the sword outlives the scabbard’ and all that. I assumed you were here on my account rather than dear Ernest’s.”

“Oh, no. And if you should think of anything in connection with your brother’s legacy, I'd be very pleased to hear from you.”

He seemed about to say something but closed his mouth and held out his hand. “You’re chasing wild geese if you expect money out of Ernest,” was all he said. “Goodbye, Mr Stubbs.” He shook hands limply. I had expected a robust, booming sort of man like his explorer elder brother. I would say Mellors was more the aesthetic type.

I procured a stock of ham sandwiches from the station refreshment room to sustain me on the journey back to Victoria. On the way back, I confess I read
Kim
rather than any law books. I tried to ignore a man in the compartment with a bushy beard who kept stealing glances at me. I do not believe the spectacle of eating ham sandwiches is such a remarkable thing. Considering that my observer wore a beard like a privet hedge, which might itself be the object of some remark, I thought he could have had better manners.

I reflected that the crock of gold to which Mellors had referred seemed as elusive as ever—if not actually imaginary, as he clearly believed. It was not my place to question the instructions of my superiors. If they wished to send me in pursuit of wild geese, off I went. Perhaps they might find something useful in my report, in which I attempted to transcribe the whole conversation. It seemed to be all hints and suggestions but nothing solid. Nothing I could get to grips with. I just made the notes; better brains than mine could solve the mystery.

I spent an hour at the gymnasium that evening, mainly working out on the heavy bag. Some boxers make the mistake of taking a breather every thirty seconds, but you need to practice as you fight, with a continuous rhythm of punches for three minutes at a stretch. It’s a good exercise, and one that helps make up for the physical inactivity of life as a pen pusher. It is a relaxation too, mixing with men whose minds are of a more down-to-earth cast. By the time we had watched some young lads sparring and discussed Jack Dempsey’s latest bout, I was feeling myself again.

Round Two: The Naturalist

Again, they put me to asking what Shackleton brought back from the desolate polar wasteland, so valuable it was worth dying for.
What mysteries did his expedition encounter, of which they never spoke a word?

Sir Ernest Shackleton is remembered as our second-greatest polar explorer. Most put him a rung below Robert Falcon Scott, “Scott of the Antarctic” as the newspapers always call him, although the title is not genuine at all. It is simply a made-up epithet, no more official than Harry ‘the Norwood Titan’ Stubbs. I don't rate Scott so high; Shackleton will always be the greater of the two.

Neither man achieved the South Pole, but Shackleton made it to within a hundred miles on the
Nimrod
Expedition before deciding to turn back. That was the difference between them: Scott's men perished because he decided to go on—and they failed to reach the pole anyway—but Shackleton nobly put the lives of his men first. He turned back rather than continuing to his goal. Some thought it would have been better if he had planted the Union Jack at the Pole in 1909 and died there. He could have been a martyr to the Empire, as Scott later martyred himself. But Shackleton brought his men back alive, every one of them, from that expedition. Even more remarkably, he did the same with the
Endurance
expedition that followed it.

Shackleton had a genius for coping with disaster. When ice trapped the
Endurance
, he knew he would have to maintain morale in the icebound ship for several months until the spring melt. Months later, when the ice groaned, squeezed, and crushed the vessel, he abandoned ship and led his men, dragging two lifeboats, on an heroic trek across the ice. After months of travel and many adventures, they made it to the sea and left the ice at last, taking to the boats. Six days later, they finally made Elephant Island, where they hoped whalers would pick them up.

Shackleton then understood that their supplies would not last until the whaling season. With a handful of men, he undertook the eight-hundred-mile journey to South Georgia with rudimentary navigation tools in open boats. After sixteen gruelling days, dehydrated and exhausted, Shackleton finally made landfall. Then he discovered they were on the wrong side, and winds prevented them from sailing round the island to the whaling station. Shackleton faced his greatest trial, crossing the snow-clad mountains of South Georgia with no equipment.

Still he showed endless resource. When finally they arrived at a peak above their objective, Shackleton fashioned a toboggan from a coils of rope and they flew down the last two miles. I should have been no more astonished if he had woven a magic carpet.

With every setback, he picked himself up and set a new goal. And he did not stop until he steered a Chilean ship to Elephant Island and rescued every single one of his men.

It's not just because Shackleton came from Norwood, like me, or because he had humble origins, like me, that I rate him greater than Scott. No, it's because he gave up glory in the name of humanity. That is the stuff of greatness. I would have followed him anywhere, if he'd have had me.

Any other man might have hung up his boots after
Endurance
, a great enough adventure for any three lifetimes. But not Sir Ernest. Like Sinbad the sailor, he kept going back for another adventure. Settled life never satisfied him.

Sir Ernest was a British hero, and it is not for the likes of me to pass comment on his heroism. However, I do feel able to say a word about Mr Shackleton the private man, speaking as one who takes a professional interest in such matters. His management of domestic economy was shocking. His wife and children survived on a pittance, supplied by her own private means.

Not so much credit as pure optimism funded his expeditions, and he started arranging one before he had even paid off the debts for the last. He spent money he did not have in the expectation that somebody would foot the bill afterwards.

In my line of work, I often meet dreamers. They are men of great conviction and, more often than not, very great talkers. These are, without exception, men with large debts and no way of paying them. They always want to explain why you should not bother about money but follow your dream.

I am not so much a dreamer. I am sent to collect money.

In the boxing game, a man who harbours illusions will get them knocked out of him. No, I don't seek to look very far beyond the facts and the hard reality of coins and folding stuff. Give us this day our daily bread, and the rest can look after itself.

Shackleton was a dreamer, and he left forty thousand pounds of debt when he died. Debt, promises of payment, and the notion of a great treasure that would pay for the lot. He dropped many hints to people around him. Most people, like Frank Mellors, assumed these were empty promises of El Dorado. But some, my employers among them, detected a germ of truth in his tales. And that was why I found myself on the outskirts of Croydon, clutching a parcel wrapped in brown paper and looking for the house of a certain Dr Evans.

I did not wish to presume by arriving early, and my watch was not exact to the minute. Too cold to wait around, I walked up and down until a church’s chimes struck the hour. As I turned around to go back to the house, a man scuttled away at the end of the street, and it seemed to me that he must have been following me. Now he was gone. I checked up and down the road before knocking at the door, firmly but politely.

I had written requesting an interview, and Dr Evans had invited me to visit at my convenience. I knew as little of Evans as I did of Mellors—even less, as it turned out. A man with grey hair, dressed casually in a waistcoat and an open-necked shirt, opened the door. He was smiling even before he opened it and seemed amused that he had to look up at me. He adjusted his gaze and craned his neck in an exaggerated fashion.

“Would you be Dr Evans?” I asked.

“No indeed, I wouldn’t,” he said, in the lilting singsong of a Welshman. “But I think she’s expecting you. Come in, come in.”

This was Mr Evans. The Dr Evans I was looking for was his wife. Like him, she was in her sixties. Her untidy grey hair was done up in a bun, with many strays wisps escaping. I did not have the impression that she troubled excessively over personal appearance. But she was a lively individual, and she showed me into a little parlour as neat as anything I could have wished for, with a fine oak dresser and plates displayed on the wall—good quality hand-painted china imported from Wales, I judged. Watercolours depicting coastal scenery adorned the walls, and there was a framed embroidery in a foreign language above the fireplace. It felt I had stepped out of London into another country.