CHAPTER 4: Water Bears

The Mercury Queen was built for whaling originally, but was later purchased by the Covington family for shipping goods to colder climates, such as the one the hulking vessel was slowly making its way through now. Her hull was double planked, with bands of iron around the outside and metal sheeting at the bows and stern. The ship's carpenter, , was now present on deck, having been roused by news of the berg they were coming up on and the clanging bell for all hands. He stood close to the captain as the ship was slowed, idly stroking a side of his curled moustache, his face set in a studious expression in the green light if the Northern aurora.

Felicity was finally beginning to feel a chill as she stood in the tight circle of Ben's arms, his and her breath vapors tinted green as they breathed nervously. Suddenly it seemed like she ahd become aware of everything: the up and down movement of the ship upon the unsettled waves, the cold, the immediate tension that was now hanging over everyone on deck, the wind that stung her cheeks, Ben's chest rising and falling against her back, the tension in her own limbs.

"Felicity," Elizabeth began worriedly as the magnificent ice berg became paliner and plainer to see, even in the aurora's ghostly green light, "Maybe it would be best if we went below..."

"You and Arthur can if you want to, but I'm not." Felicity's tone remained determined. Not angry or irritated, just firm.

"Looks as though we'll be missing the big bugger after all." This bemused statement came from , having just come up from the hatchway. "The men work hard to keep their claim! The 'Queen has never struck an ice berg in all of her days with us as her crew, an' she aint gonna this night!"

"How lovely," grumbled Ben, who was more annoyed by Licklighter's sudden appearance than worried about the berg.

Captain Crisp was back at the helm of his ship, looking more relieved than anything. "It'll be bergs here on out, . All the way to Newfoundland, I suspect. If'n ye look a little harder, you'll see that one's the biggest one, but there are other smaller ones about."

By 'smaller' Felicity reckoned he meant 'not as large as my own house in Williamsburg.' She gulped as the ship drew near to the mighty ice formation on their right. It was perhaps seventy feet from the ship, looking menacing and overwhelming, eerily monsterous in its silent frozen threat. She overheard a man tell the captain it looked to be about ten meters high and five to ten meters in length. Then she heard Ben's breath whoosh out from his lungs in awe. and then she noticed something else: a smell.

Cucumbers?

She wasn't the only one who noticed it, either. Elizabeth had crinkled her nose, then looked to Felicity as if wondering if anyone else noticed it, too. "It smells," Elizabeth said, blinking in surprise."Wh-why is that?"

"Don't know," replied the captain at this wheel. "Some of 'em have a smell, some of 'em don't."

Elizabeth shivered and pressed closer to Arhtur, who was staring at the massive chunk with his mouth open. Ben's lips brushed Felicity's ear as he murmured, "No church-sized mountain of ice is going to stop us from getting home!"

"Aye," she murmured back in agreement. "But look at it, Ben, its gigantic! According to the men, something like that can sink a ship like this one! 'Tis a frightening notion, even if I am not afraid of dying. I recall cutting my finger on an icicle's tip when I was small, so imagine what ice like that can do to us!"

"Its beautiful," commented Elizabeth absently. "Even if it is horrible."

"Incredible," added Arthur, trying to get his cold lips to work after being agape for several minutes there. "It does not sink. It is ghastly and wicked and indeed, absurdly beautiful. Mama will absolutely faint dead away when I tell her what we've seen!"

Mr. Licklighter, who had nothing better to do than stand by the captain, it seemed, said to them all, "In the daylight that big berg might have the colors of blue, green or indigo. Right now everything is green-looking because of the aurora."

My, thought Ben sarcastically, we would have never figured that out for ourselves had you not told us

"Why do they have colors?" inquired Felicity, ever curious. "I thought all ice was just, well, white!"

"Don't know why that is, Miss," said Crisp, his eyes leaving the berg as they passed it, looking for more. "But another thing about bergs is that there is usually more to 'em than what you see on the water."

Felicity's eyebrows shot up in morbid fascination. "You mean, there is ice below the water?"

"Yes! Some of 'em are so big they're like islands unto themselves. But beneath the water there could be even more of it, some that could scrape the bottom of the ship if we're not careful. See what young Mister Applejack is doing over there with that extra long rod? 'E's probin' for ice we might run into. We got to be extra careful here on, which means we'll be going slow, and there will be more men on the watches, day and night."

"My goodness," whispered Elizabeth in shock.

Felicity turned to Ben and hugged close to him. "Let's go back down now. I'm getting colder."

"Of course. Don't know how we'll get back to sleep, though, having had all of this excitement." He smiled at her in a way that made her feel warmer.

Lord Eric hefted Thomas from one shoulder to the other. "Let us all go back to our cabins now, shall we? We needn't be up top to be underfoot if anything else should arise. We are getting closer to Greenland, so it will be getting even colder than this. And this little one here is getting colder, too!" In agreement with his father, young Thomas nodded and buried his little face in Eric's cravat.

The excitement of the ice and the Northern Lights still stayed with them though as they went back to their guest quarters. Both Ben and Felicity slept lightly the rest of the night, mostly due to winds picking up and making the ship rock or pitch quite actively. She tried reminding herself that the captain had told them to be expecting stronger winds the closer they got to Greenland. Wind and cold, two very dangerous combinations. Why in the world did Lord Eric and his brother want to be explorers in this Godforsaken climate? And the ice bergs? Such risk! Any risk was worth getting home to her family and starting her life over, but to choose a passage like this out of curiosity alone? Whoosh! It must certainly be a thing only a man's mind could make sense of!

The following morning they were up late, but that was no surprise to anyone, either, since one's cabin with its little cast iron pot-stove was far warmer than anywhere else on board. Elizabeth and Arthur were late risers, too, same as Eric and his son (who was very wrapped in wool from head to foot and wearing his little riding boots over not one, but two pairs of woollen breeches. The captain's quarters were very warm, what with the bigger iron stove it had, and had cooked a cauldron of hot porridge for everyone, with hot tea and equally hot bread. But before anyone could be seated at the table, they first had to go arrive on deck, and that is where the next jaw-dropping sight awaited them.

The men were accustomed to seeing that which Elizabeth was gaping at. As soon as Felicity and Ben appeared above decks to go to the captain's quarters, they saw her dark green cloaked form standing at the gunwales. She turned and beckoned quickly to them, her face in a wide grin beneath her hood and her cheeks red. With her other hand she gripped the railing, for the ship was quite undulative this morning. Ben and Felicity looked at each other and hurried over to her. Instantly Elizabeth reached for Felicity, drew her near and said, "Lissie, look! Out there, on one of the floating ices!"

"What is it?" Possessed by curiosity, Felicity clutched her friend, for warmth as much as stability, and looked out at the sea. It was an overcast morning, the sky a moody blend of creys, some of which did not look the least bit friendsly, and the wind was bitingly cold (praise God for woollen breeches, Felicity was thinking intensely, for I have been blessed to be wearing two pairs beneath these confounded skirts! ). Yet neither young woman was about to let the frigid cold keep them from seeing things they'd never seen before. So Felicity looked in the direction that Elizabeth was pointing in, and when she beheld what her best friend had been seeing, she gasped and cried, "Oh Ben, look! Are those bears?"

"Could they be?" wondered Ben aloud, marvelling at the sight of a huge white bear about a hundred and twenty feet form the ship, which had slowed to a stop. It was the biggest animal Ben had ever seen! Almost as white as the icy mound it stood upon, looking back at the ship with its black eyes, just as curious as the three humans who were gazing at it. Ben quickly looked around for someone.

Mr. Vogel, the ship's moustached carpenter, was the first person he saw, smoking a pipe and looking out at the floating chunks of ice that seemed to dot the sea-scape around them. It was only then that Ben noticed that there was a coast line of sorts, black-sanded, off to their right not too far off. Black rocks, jagged and dangerous looking could be distinctively made out along this strange shore. He found his voice and called, "! Is that creature some sort of bear?"

With a smile dimpling his face beneath the curly moustache, strolled over to them and looked out at the ice. "Aye, lad. Those are bears."

"Those?" Ben peered hard, "But I only see one-"

As if one cue, the hulking white bear moved to reveal not one, but two smaller bears, obviously babies who were rather rambunctious, scrambling about the bigger bear, which was obviously their mamma, like a couple of uncontrollable balls of raw cotton. Both Felicity and Elizabeth breathed "Awwwww!"s out at the same time, clasping thier hands together and grinning adorably. Ben himself couldn't help but grin.

"Those are cubs!" adored Felicity delightfully. "And they are white! Oh Elizabeth have you ever seen such a sweet sight! They are so beautiful!"

"Oh look, Felicity, they are trying to climb up on their mother! She is so huge!" Elizabeth asked , "Are they dangerous, those bears? What are they called? Where do they come from?" (Ben thought amusedly that Elizabeth sounded more and more like Felicity all the time)

laughed gently and took a puff of his pipe. "Dangerous? I'd say so, lass! The tribes of Greenland hunt 'em for thei coats and meat and what have ye, and now the men of other lands have begun huntin' 'em, too. They can get mean in an instant if we get too close, more savage than a bear of the colonies. I've seen 'em get hunted. You'll never see a creature get as savage as a white bear. Bigger than a man when they stand on their back feet! The tribesmen call them nanuq : an animal worthy of great respect. And it fits accordingly, does it not?"

"Oh, hullo everyone!" said Arthur cheerfully, emerging onto the quarterdeck as he hurredly fastened the claps at the high neck of his brown cloak. "I'm terribly sorry, but I had another bout of the vomits and I just had to- Ye Gods! What is that?"

The look of shock on Arthur's pale face was so funny that both Felicity and Ben could not stop themselves from laughing. He stood frozen to the deck as he stared out at the big white bear and her two little ones on the ice floe. bit his bottom lip, trying not to laugh himself, and Elizabeth smiled at her fiance with sympathetic humor. She reached for him affectionately.

"Dear Arthur, come here. They will not hurt you, for they are way over there, and we are way over here."

"Th-those are b-b-b-bears?"

"Aye, lad," said , his dark eyes twinkling. "And they can swim, too."

"They can swim?" Arthur looked as if he wanted to bolt, but had no idea at all where he was to bolt to. "Oh law! Will they attack us?"

"Not unless we get close to them," Vogel told him pleasantly, and Ben couldve sworn Arthur looked like he wanted to pass out. "But don' worry, we aint gettin' too close." Beneath the curled moustache, the older man grinned.

"Truly, Arthur, look!" Elizabeth pointed again at the bear family. "That is a mother white bear, and those are her cubs! Are they not adorable?"

"If you say so," he gulped weakly. "They are...enormous!"

"Oh! I see more of them!" cried Felicity in wonder, pointing out to the black shore of the immensely rocky island. There were two big white bears and two more youngsters, only not as small as the ones on the ice floe. She was actually straining against the gunwales in her effort to see more detail. Ben took her arm gingerly to keep her steady. Her eyes darted actively to a what seemed to be a rather large clustering of strange, dangerous-looking seal-type animals "And what are those creatures?"

Mr. Vogel stepped closer to the railings and looked. "Ah, those are the walrus! See what magnificent tusks they have? The Inuit believe their tusks to have healing powers as well as many other interesting values. And do you hear that gruntin'? Sounds like a bunch of pigs, don' they?"

"They certainly do!" said Ben, shaking his head and grinning. "Never seen anything like that in the colonies! Let me guess: they are dangerous, too!"

This was answered by Arthur, observing aloud, "I am beginning to think everything in this land is dangerous!"

"Aye!" agreed heartily, slapping Arthur on the back companionably. "If you lived your whole life in weather like this, you'd be a might touchy, too!"

"Is that Green-land over there?" Felicity asked, acknowledging the black sand shores and rocks.

"Part of it, Miss," said another new arrival to the gunwales in the form of the bosun, who was called Flem. The tall lanky fellow nodded toward the land in question. "Doesnt look so green, does it! It aint the main land, but one of many islands that make up this part of it. Looks like th' walrus and the water-bears aint gettin' along this mornin'!" Then he went on his way, whistling.

The wind was cold, the air bitter, but yet the sight of animals and land they had never seen before had Felicity and her friends feeling too enthralled to let the frigidness get the better of them. Ben pulled Felicity back from the railing and snaked his arms around her from behind. "Strange place, isnt it! You should start a journal, Lissie, of all the new things you see!"

"Why, Ben, that is a splendid idea! I shall do just that!" She craned her neck back so that she could kiss his cheek properly, and Ben felt absurdly, joyously warm all over.

"Oooo!" marvelled Elizabeth, looking to the ice floe-dotted sea on the other side of the ship. "Is that another baleen whale, ?"

"Aye, but that is the one they call the 'right whale'."

"But it is on the left side of the ship," pointed out Arthur dumbly, causing Elizabeth to giggle.

"It is called the 'right whale' because the natives consider it to be the right whale to catch!" They all watched as the massive whale's rounded back and one massive, knobby flipper splashed back down beneath the waves. "It's slow and it floats when its dead. Easy targets, they are."

A sound that Felicity very much likened to a sick cow down in a hollow pit filled the air just briefly. "Look at that!" called Ben uncontrollably, pointing to the huge, tapered head of one of these 'right' whales emerging from the waves at about one hundred feet from the ship. Most of its fifty-foot body lifted from the water and fell back down again, causing an astounding splash to further awe the young human on-lookers aboard the Mercury Queen.

"How can such creatures live where it is so cold? How do they keep from freezing?" Felicity wanted to know, and a splash from the ice floes off to the right made her turn to see. One of the big white bears had plopped into the water and was now paddling over to another ice chunk to another big bear. When the massive white bear emerged onto the ice, it was completely soaking wet, with what looked to tbe dark skin underneath its soggy white fur.

"They aint like us, that's for sure!" Vogel chuckled lightly.

The wet bear shook itself mightily, sending big fat drops of water all over its mate, who didn't see m to care. Arthur blinked in surprise. "They swim in water that we would freeze in! Remakable!"
had appeared, hands on hips, looking frumpy and slightly irate that none of her passengers had come in for breakfast yet. "Well! Are ye gonna stand out here all live-long day an' watch water-bears, or come an' eat like human bein's!"

Feeling guilty and red-faced, Felicity, Ben, Elizabeth and Arthur showed their embarassment as they trudged after to the captain's quarters, where a very nice breakfast was in the process of cooling off. Lord Eric was in there already with Thomas, both of whom greeted them with pleasant smiles despite the rush of cold air that came in with them. Then all four of his young friends immediately tried to tell him about the things they saw, all at once. Young Thomas looked up at his father and exclaimed, "Papa! They have all gone daft!"

Not even could avoid laughing at that one.

Throughout the day, the ship moved slowly and carefully through waters dotted with the icebergs, eventually leaving the tip of Greenland and turning southwest in the direction of Newfoundland. And the waves were higher, the sky darkening considerably, making the afternoon look more like evening. Arthur Pratt was not the only one concerned at this point, for his friends felt tense as well, with the steeper rising of the waves and uncomfortable pitching of the ship.

But nobody was really scared until sometime in the night, when thunder boomed the loudest they had ever heard and the sky was almost constantly lit with lightning flashes and forks. For Ben and Felicity, there was no cause for alarm until the violent tossing of the ship sent Felicity tumbling from the narrow bed and Ben right after her. Waking up mid-roll, Felicity hit the wall that was only four feet across from the bed with a shrill gasp, and Ben fell nearly on top of her with a loud "Ooof!" Felicity glanced up to see their ceiling beam lantern swinging like crazy, to hear the coals in the iron stove rattle to one side, and see also the opposite side of the little cabin rising up as the ship was nearly turned on its side, making everything that was not bolted down slide toward them. The chamber pot tumbled out from under the bed and banged Ben in the knee, to which he yelled, "At least there was nothing in it!"

The sound of crashing waves, thunder and wind nearly drowned out the ship's bell clanging up top, the screaming men, and pounding of feet. "My God, Ben, what is happening?" Felicity shouted in a near-panic.

"Storm!" he hollered, trying to be heard above the ocean's roar. He grabbed Felicity protectively, holding her tight as one side of the ship rose up high again, and this time somebody shouted as if in warning. Neither Ben nor Felicity could discern what the person had shouted, but they both didn't need to think much to figure out it wasnt good, whatever the situation was like up there. There was an ear-splitting crack, such as that of wood splitting, and then the whole ship groaned in protest. The sound of something huge crashing into water made Felicity's stomach vibrate. Some other unrecognizable voice was yelling, but she could not understand what was said, because her face was buried in Ben's chest.

But Ben could hear this time. "They've lost a mast..."

Without raising her head she said, ""Oh Lord, what wil they do?" She had the sensation of wanting to slide to their left.

"Hopefully they still have the other two."

She raised her head this time and saw the worried look on his face. "We should see if Elizabeth and Arthur are all right!"

"No!" Ben said immediately, clutching her tight. "Neither one of us are leaving this room until we can stand up straight! Elizabeth is a sensible girl, and Arthur would rather die than let anything happen to her. We just have to trust that they are staying put and holding on the same way we are!"

Felicity grimaced as another round of booming thunder filled her ears. She felt Ben's body tense as the ship nearly turned on its side again. This was a horrible thing to wake up to! Suddenly all of the tales of shipwrecks, drownings, and lives lost at sea that she'd ever heard of raced thorugh her mind, pressed upon her heart and made her simply shake. This was nothing like the storms she'd experienced on the ship to England. This was a nightmare!

As if things were not worrisome enough, she happened to look around at the room again, and saw a stream of water trickling into their cabin from some unseen nick in the tar between planks above them. Be saw it, too, but knew nothing could be done about it right now. It would be useless to put the chamber pot under the leak with all the tossing and sliding about. At least the leak was not over them or their bed, but how long would that last? Be reckoned their leak was probably not as bad as other things that might be happening- he figured he would rather the two of them be in here with a drippy ceiling than outside, up top.

Ben licked his lips and said loudly, "If we live through this, I am going to teach you how to swim when we get home!"

"Before or after we marry?" she shouted her question in reply.

Despite all, he grinned. "After, if I know there will be no more ship travel!"

"Oh, there won't be!" she assured him.

He hugged her tight. He'd always thought it stupid that girls were not allowed to learn swimming. After all, what if a lady fell into the water by some kind of unforseen accident? She'd sink to the bottom faster than a rock, being laden with those horrible corsets and layers of clothing! He was going to teach Felicity how to swim whether it was improper or not. Couldnt take the risk of there not being a situation where she might need to know how! One never knew when terrible things would happen.

Another groan of the ship filled their ears and it rose and fell. Another flash of lightning lit the cabin despite the shutter being fastened over the portal. And another creaking sound, loader than any of the creaks that had come before it came sharply and sickeningly with the thunder. The entire ship shuddered, and Felicity had the horrifying feeling that the entire vessel was falling apart right beneath her feet.