'Never been there,' Charley said, 'and wouldn't want to.' He said something in the clucking kind of language Fraser had been spouting on ship and I was surprised to find that I caught the gist of it.

  'Raw meat eaters,' I said.

  Charley looked surprised. 'Hey, that's right. That's what the Injuns call the Eskimos. You speak Kutchin?'

  'Not really. Few words.'

  'That could be useful,' Charley said.

  'How d'you mean?'

  The two men exchanged glances. Both nodded and the heads came in over the table again. 'Ollie an' me, we seen thousands of men come into this territory. Right, Ollie?'

  Ollie nodded. 'And we've seen 'em in boxes going into the ground that was so cold they had to blast to make graves.'

  'Jesus,' I said, 'what's your point?'

  'You get so's you can judge a man. Whether he's fit for this place or not. Was you in the war?' Ollie sipped his rum; it must have been his tenth but he didn't seem to be affected by them.

  'Yes.'

  'Maybe you know what I mean, then. I heard old sodjers say you can tell when a man's not goin' to come through the action. Something about him. That right?'

  I tried to remember. I'd shut out a lot of the memories of those dreadful days and nights in France with the artillery booming and the ground shaking and the night sky lit up momentarily by flashes brighter than the moon and stars. I could remember hands trembling on rifle stocks on freezing nights and pale faces dripping with sweat despite the cold. 'I know what you mean,' I said.

  'No offence, Hank,' Charley Moon said. 'But you got that look to me. If'n you go to the Mackenzie your time is up.'

  Ollie clapped his hands. 'Jesus, Charley, this is no way to be talking. That could all be crap. We haven't been here in a long, long time. They've got modern conveniences now – roads, oil stoves, airplanes, for Chrissake. This ain't the nineteenth goddamn century.'

  Hunched over his drink, his dark hair falling in his face, Charley Moon suddenly looked very like an Indian. 'The Circle don't know it's the twentieth century,' he said.

  'Let's eat,' Ollie said. 'C'mon, Hank, you're our guest.'

  I smiled, drained my drink and tried to shake off the gloom. Indians and Aborigines, I thought. Both the same, all wailing about sticks and stones and death. 'Thank you, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'll be honoured to join you. Perhaps you'd like to hear about some of my exploits in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.'

  We stood and moved towards the dining room. Charley put his arm around my shoulder and spoke in my ear. 'If you're a Mountie, I'm a Zulu. An' if you need some help so's you don't have to go to the Mackenzie maybe I'm your man. Me 'n' Ollie's goin' on to Dawson. You need help, come to me.'

  'Why would you do that, Charley?'

  He patted my shoulder. 'You remind me of Kangaroo Pete; the way you look, the way you move. Pete saved my life in a rockfall on the Yukon in '96.'

  Fraser came into the bar and I introduced him to Ollie and Pete. He informed me that we'd be leaving at 8 a.m. the following morning and that I should prepare myself to be under orders in the district to which I was assigned. I didn't have the faintest idea what he meant and I was drunk. I clicked my heels and saluted. Fraser sniffed and marched away.

  Ollie and Charley told Mountie jokes over dinner (steaks and fried potatoes as I recall), and we drank much more red wine than was good for us.

  'Saw a list of Mountie casualties once,' Ollie said around a mouthful of potatoes. 'Know what killed most of 'em, Hank?'

  I thought of my own brief period of service. 'Boredom?'

  'Hah, that's a good 'un. No, not boredom nor getting shot by renegade Injuns either – 'scuse me, Charley.'

  Charley Moon inclined his head gravely, the wine had got to him finally. 'You're talkin' 'bout a fine body of men, Ollie,' he said. 'I should know, coupla my sisters got raped by 'em.'

  Ollie swallowed; put down his knife and fork and raised his glass. 'Biggest cause of Mountie death is drowning. Can you swim, Hank?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'First Mountie I ever met who could swim,' Ollie muttered.

  Charley Moon drank some wine and held his glass up to the light. 'Propose a toast to our fren' Hank. May he avoid boredom, Injuns and drownin'.'

  I drank enthusiastically enough to that. I didn't know it then, but I was heading straight into a lot of the first and the second and damned close encounters with the third.

  7

  Nowadays if I was to wake up with the kind of head I had on that September morning in Skagway, Alaska, in 1922, I'd know just what to do. I'd have one of the girls make me up vodka and tomato juice with an egg beaten up in it and I'd snort just one short line of coke and put the drink down my throat fast. Then I'd climb into the hot tub and soak and bubble a while and after that I'd get Rosalie to give me a long, warm oil massage. By the time her arms got tired I'd have other work for her to do.

  But I knew nothing then about how to look after my body. Fraser hauled me out of bed and I cursed him and threw up and got dressed and threw up again and finally steadied myself with a pull on a brandy bottle I'd somehow finished up with after a long, long night with Ollie Fisher and Charley Moon.

  Fraser was eating breakfast when I joined him with my bag packed and my headache settled down to a steady beat.

  'I thought I told you to get ready to be under orders,' he said.

  I looked at the eggs and bacon on his plate and shuddered. 'I don't feel well.'

  'I'm not surprised. You're going to have to cut that hair and trim that beard. God help you if you don't get it done before you report to the depot in Dawson.'

  I had my own thoughts about that but I just nodded and considered the question of coffee. When I decided I could manage some I sat down. Fraser wiped his mouth and stood.

  'What're you doing?' he said.

  'Need some coffee, 'I muttered.

  'No time. Train goes on the hour. We'll just catch it, you've made us late as it is.'

  Waiting for the train, stamping their feet against the cold, were a few dozen people bound for Dawson City. A couple looked like school teachers; there was one certain minister of religion and the rest were a mixed bunch of workers, merchants and railroad men. Fraser sat himself near a window, opened it a fraction and lit his pipe. I'd thought to stick with him and pump him for as much information about Mountie life in the north as I could but the smell of the pipe was too much for me. I dropped my bag and headed for the observation car. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen Ollie and Charley. The train was about to pull out when I saw them hurrying along the platform. For oldish, heavy men with hangovers they moved surprisingly fast. They saw me and gave a wave as they swung aboard.

  The Whitehorse & Yukon line was narrow gauge and the train followed the winding Dyea River for a distance before it bucked and swayed and kicked its way up the Chilkoot Pass. The rail bed seemed mostly to have been cut through the rock, especially in the steeper parts; on the easier grades I could see signs of an earlier track but it must have been brutally hard going without an engine to push or pull. I stood on the half-enclosed platform feeling the wind cut through me. The air got colder the higher we climbed.

  'Used to be a Maxim gun down there on the pass,' Ollie Fisher said. 'How do, Hank?'

  'Howdy, Hank.' Charley Moon stepped through the door after Ollie.

  'Mornin', gents,' I said. 'How's the heads?'

  'Feels like I been down a sluice head first,' Ollie grunted. 'Remember the Maxim gun, Charley?'

  'Sure do. They could swing it to traverse . . . oh, all they need to, I guess.'

  'Maxim gun?' I said. 'What for?'

  'Undesirables,' Ollie said. 'There was every kind of riff raff poured in here in those days. Wouldn't have been surprised to see people with two heads, there was every other kind. Some of'em real bad.'

  'You mean like Soapy Smith?'

  Charley spat onto the line rushing away below us. 'No, ol' Soapy, he weren't too bad. He was a gentleman compared to some.'

  The line zigzagged and the three of us had to hang on to each other and the handrails to stay upright. 'You knew Soapy Smith?' I asked.

  'Manner of speaking,' Ollie said. 'Let's get inside. I got a bottle in my bag and I'm starved with the cold out here.'

  We went back into the coach and settled down in a compartment without the reverend or the school teachers or any women of whom there were a couple on the train. We all began to feel better after a few nips on the bottle and after I got the first few lungsful of smoke down I felt fine as only a healthy twenty-five-year-old can. Just idly I asked Charley why it had taken so long for him to revisit the scene of his big strike. He glanced uneasily at Ollie.

  'What sort of question's that?' Ollie said.

  'Oh, nothing. Just curious.'

  'We told you, Hank,' Charley said softly, 'we was in business in our different ways. Takes time to build a stake into something solid.'

  Ollie coughed on his cigar and I looked out the window. The story seemed to have changed somewhat overnight but who was I to press people for accuracy and consistency. I was an Australian-born deserter turned movie actor and rum-runner masquerading as a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. If a Chinaman wanted to call himself Angus McTavish of Glasgow it was fine with me.

  Fraser wandered through on his way to the observation platform, possibly to study birdlife but more likely to keep an eye on me. A curt nod was all I got from him and all I gave.

  'He's a sharp one,' Charley said. 'He goin' to Mackenzie too?'

  'Don't remind me,' I shivered involuntarily as I spoke. 'No, he's got business in Dawson, then he's heading back.'

  'Good. You wouldn't have a chance of getting clear with him around. He's got the eye.'

  'What eye?'

  'Man-huntin' eye. He'd enjoy it.'

  'Shit, Charley, this thing slows down on the bends. Why don't I just jump out and take my chances.'

  'Then you'd just be between the police in Skagway and the Mounties in Whitehorse. Not smart. Be patient. You might get to stay in Dawson where it ain't so bad.'

  'And if not?'

  'You'll get your chance. Why I remember when Ollie and me were . . .'

  'Yes?'

  'Don't matter. Look, we're crossing back into Canada.'

  We were at the top of the pass. The train stopped briefly but if there were any formalities about crossing from Alaska into Canada I don't remember them. The stop seemed to be to allow some of the passengers to take photographs. I got down to stretch my legs and stepped back almost straight away. The air was colder than I'd ever felt it before. Fraser was striding up and down clapping his hands and stamping his feet. He caught sight of me and bellowed, 'You should be acclimatising yourself, Connybear. This is just a taste.'

  I swore, scuttled back into the compartment and took another swallow of Ollie Fisher's rum. We seemed to be at the top of a white and grey world. Looking out the window I could see the snow on the far peaks and the tops of dark pine trees closer around that looked to be inviting the snow to fall on them. A passenger had walked a short distance away from the train and had come hurrying back. Steam from his breath enveloped him. Charley looked out the window and chuckled.

  'He don't know how soft this is. Shoulda done it by foot in '96, eh, Ollie?'

  'Right. Carrying a hundred and fifty pound pack.'

  'No pack animals?'

  Ollie rubbed his lower jaw; the old skin stretched and was slow getting back into shape. The skin on his hands was cracked and parched. 'Bad winter,' he said. 'I ate my mule before I got to the top of the pass.'

  'Me too. 'Course, we come at the right time – before the real rush,' Charley said. 'Next year those poor devils comin' up here died like rats. They killed each other, some of 'em. And they turned the trail into a lot of mud slides and . . . what d'you call them ice sheets, Ollie?'

  'Glaciers,' Ollie said. 'Nothing to the country around the Mackenzie, of course.'

  Charley dug him in the ribs. 'Shut up, sourdough, can't you see Hank here ain't feelin' too good?'

  Charley was right; what with the hangover and that view of the frozen peaks from the top of the pass and the talk of eating mules I was feeling very queasy. I tried to remember what they'd served us up at school about the North Pole. All I could remember was some stuff about Captain Oates going outside and not coming back and Captain Scott eating the harness from the dog sleds.11

  The train was rattling downgrade on the Canadian side, rushing around bends and almost scraping the walls of the rocky cuttings. Suddenly I heard a rumbling roar and then a screech of metal on metal and then there was pandemonium. The train was rocking as it rounded a bend and half the mountain seemed to be falling down ahead of us. Boulders came crashing down the slopes and trees were toppling end over end with their thick ends splayed like chewed matches.

  'Slide!' Charley yelled. 'Jesus, there's a long way to fall.'

  I looked over to the other side of the train; it was slowing down and the trees weren't whizzing by the windows as fast as they had been. If the rockslide hit the train it looked like it would sweep it off the tracks and over the side down a long slope. Not too steep but not regular either; surviving that drop would be a matter of luck. I couldn't help it, I felt I was all out of luck and couldn't take any chances on rocks and trees behaving the way they should. I grabbed my bag and headed for the rear door.

  People were lurching around between the seats, grabbing bags and coats, standing and sitting and cursing like sailors. I pushed my way to the rear of the car, through the open door and jumped into the brush and loose rocks and dirt on the side away from the rockslide. As I took off I heard an almighty crash and felt the train shake under me. I closed my eyes and tried to curl into a ball, ready to roll.

  I hit hard, got a face full of dirt and stones and jarred my legs and then my shoulder in the roll. But I was alive and I still had hold of my bag. I came to rest against a tree. That is, my head rapped sharply against it and my vision wobbled as I wrapped my free arm around it. I lay there gasping; I was just inches from a nasty drop and the grey clouds were wheeling around above me in a pale sky. I closed my eyes and fought for breath and a slower heart beat. When they came I looked up at the train. It had stopped before the rockslide and that cataclysm itself had subsided to a trickle of small rocks, slipping dirt and a cloud of dust. A big tree which must have been thrown sideways in the slide had hit the last carriage and knocked it half off the tracks. People were getting down gingerly on to the line at the rear and the engineer was up front inspecting the blockage. There was a shout and a knot of people rushed to the side of the tracks where a man was staggering and bleeding. He fell to his knees.

  'Thrown clear off!' I heard someone yell and it was music to my ears. If people were being thrown clear off why couldn't Hank Connybear be one of them and be thrown clear back to the US border? I wriggled around behind the tree, taking care not to move closer to the edge and slowly wiped my face clear of dust and grit. I had some tears in my clothes but nothing serious; I was wearing heavy gloves so I hadn't lost any skin on my hands. All in all I was in good shape. A bottle would've been a help but I consoled myself with the thought that it probably wouldn't have survived the jump.

  I stood up carefully and got a grip on my bag. My head was ringing but I could see clearly again. A little way along was a short drop to a ledge that ran parallel to the track but well below it and falling gradually down into the valley.

  'Things could be worse, Dick,' I said. I bent low and started for the ledge.

  'Could they indeed, Mr Connybear? I'll thank you to stand where you are.'

  Sergeant Fraser stepped from behind a tree a few feet away. From my crouch he seemed to be at least eight feel tall and the long-barrel pistol he held in his hand looked like a howitzer.

  8

  They levered the carriage back on to the tracks and the engineer and some of the workman types on board the train had the line cleared pretty quickly. Most of the bigger boulders had gone on rolling down the valley and the smaller ones were easy to lever out of the way if you knew how. Charley Moon was one of those who helped, more in a supervisory category than with actual muscle, but I had no doubt he would have been useful in that department too.

  Fraser had me virtually under guard. He sat beside me with his pistol in his coat pocket and he stood outside the convenience which I had to use pretty frequently. I was scared of what lay ahead. To arrive as a disgraced man in some godforsaken outpost, charged with the duty of self-rehabilitation, is one thing. Hard enough, but made a damn sight harder by bearing the reputation of a coward. That was the upshot of my jump from the train. All the other men aboard treated me with contempt, including Charley and Ollie, and the women turned their faces away when I looked at them.

  I tried to explain to one of the school teachers that I'd been planning to lighten the load and be first on hand for the track-clearing but he didn't buy it.

  'You pushed past women and children to jump, sir,' he said. 'It's a pity you didn't break your cowardly neck.'

  Well, I hadn't noticed any children but I supposed I would have pushed past them regardless. So would you if you were being taken somewhere by a six and a half foot martinet to be despatched to the North Pole. Nowadays I'd just have to mention the Gulag and that Pasternak fellow and everyone would be on my side but then, with the worms eating the millions of slaughtered men in their graves, you had to be a man, a hero . . . bloody awful film, bloody Gyppo . . . [Browning breaks off here and rambles incoherently, evidently under the influence of alcohol. He appears to have confused the Russian Nobel Prizewinning writers Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn. The film he refers to above is probably 'Doctor Zhivago' in which Egyptian actor Omar Sharif had the leading role. The tape runs silently for a time and when Browning returns to his work his speech is interrupted by loud slurping, probably of coffee. His voice becomes steadier as he proceeds. Ed.]

  We rattled down into the valley and to the end of the line – the town of Whitehorse. It was one of those places that seemed to be crowding towards the water. Parts of Sydney are like that, and San Francisco. You get the feeling that if they could have built the town out over the actual water they would have. The life of the town, such as it was, all took place along the street that fronted the Yukon River. I remember the river more than the town which isn't surprising as I was to spend more time on rivers than in towns over the weeks ahead.

 

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