Bevis: The Story of a Boy

by Richard Jefferies

The Antarctic Expedition—Conclusion.

The winter remained mild till early in January when the first green leaves had appeared on the woodbine. One evening Polly announced that it was going to freeze, for the cat as he sat on the hearthrug had put his paw over his ear. If he sat with his back to the fire, that was a sign of rain. If he put his paw over his ear that indicated frost.

It did freeze and hard. The wind being still, the New Sea was soon frozen over except in two places. There was a breathing-hole in Fir-Tree Gulf about fifty or sixty yards from the mouth of the Nile. The channel between New Formosa and Serendib did not “catch,” perhaps the current from Sweet River Falls was the cause, and though they could skate up within twenty yards, they could not land on the islands. Jack and Frances came to skate day after day; Bevis and Mark with Ted, Cecil, and the rest fought hockey battles for hours together.

One afternoon, being a little tired, Bevis sat on the ice, and presently lay down for a moment at full length, when looking along the ice—as he looked along his gun—he found he could see sticks or stones or anything that chanced to be on it a great distance off. Trying it again he could see the skates of some people very nearly half a mile distant, though his eyes were close to the surface, even if he placed the side of his head actually on the ice. The skates gleamed in the sun, and he could see them distinctly; sticks lying on the ice were not clearly seen so far as that, but a long way, so that the ice seemed perfectly level.

As the sun sank the ice became rosy, reflecting the light in the sky; the distant Downs too were tinted the same colour. After it was dark Bevis got a lantern which Mark took five or six hundred yards up the ice, and then set it down on the surface. Bevis put his face on the ice as he had done in the afternoon and looked along. His idea was to try and see for how far the lantern would be visible, as the sticks and skates had been visible a good way, he supposed the light would be apparent very much farther.

Instead of which, when he had got into position and looked along the ice with his face touching it, the lantern had quite disappeared, yet it was not so far off as he had seen the skates—skates are only an inch or so high, and the candle in the lantern was four or five. He skated two hundred yards nearer, and then tried. At this distance, with his eyes as close to the ice as he could get them, he could not see the light itself, but there was a glow diffused in the air where he knew it was.

This explained why the light disappeared. There was a faint and invisible mist above the ice—the iceblink—which at a long distance concealed the lantern. If he lifted his head about eighteen inches he could see the light so that the stratum of mist, or iceblink, appeared to be about eighteen inches in thickness. When he skated another hundred yards closer he could just see the light with his face on the ice as he had done the skates by day. So that after sunset it was evident this mist formed in the air just above the ice. Mark tried the same experiment with the same result, and they then skated slowly homewards, for as it was not moonlight they might get a fall by coming against a piece of twig half-sunk in and frozen firmly.

Suddenly there was a sound like the boom of a cannon, and a crack shot across the broad water from shore to shore. The “who-hoo-whoop” of the noise echoed back from the wood on the hill, and then they heard it again in the coombes and valleys, rolling along. As the ice was four or five inches thick it parted with a hollow roar: the crack sometimes forked, and a second running report followed the first. Sometimes the crack seemed to happen simultaneously all across the water. Occasionally they could hear it coming, and with a distinct interval of time before it reached them.

Up through these cracks or splits a little water oozed, and freezing on the surface formed barriers of rough ice from shore to shore, which jarred the skates as they passed over. These splits in no degree impaired the strength of the ice. Later on as they retired they opened the window and heard the boom again, weird and strange in the silence of the night.

One day a rabbit was started from a bunch of frozen rushes by the shore, and they chased it on the ice, overtaking it with ease. They could have knocked it down with their hockey sticks, but forebore to do so. From these rush-bunches they now and then flushed dab-chicks or lesser grebes which, when there is open water, cannot be got to fly.