Pescador's Wake by Katherine Johnson Page B

himself.
    Carlos had warned the crew that the Pescador would venture into the high Antarctic if the pickings of toothfishelsewhere had been unfavourable, or if they’d been forced to flee a patrol boat. But the chances of being chased had always been slim. He has never known a boat to be pursued over such a distance. He tells himself that his decision to run south was sound. It has forced the Australians to break the hot pursuit, and now the Pescador can’t be charged under international law—not as he understands it. As he passes the starboard iceberg, he uses the searchlight and sees an opening in the pack only one hundred metres away, just before the next iceberg. He makes for it.
    Carlos watches Eduardo brace himself against the deck rails as the Pescador turns, and notices his flapping jacket go still as the wind drops in the lee of the second berg. Even if Eduardo were not wearing the personalised wet-weather jacket, Carlos would be able to tell Eduardo apart from the other orange-hooded forms on deck. There’s something unique about the deliberate and relaxed manner in which he works, and the way he seems to move as one with the ocean.
    This afternoon, just before nightfall, Eduardo had stopped to watch hundreds of birds launch themselves into the fertile waters at the edge of the ice. The feeding frenzy was of a scale he had never before witnessed, he later said. Eduardo reeled off the various species of birds, embellishing his sightings with facts about where they nest, how often they breed and how their populations are faring. Carlos is well aware that while other crewmen play cards or music or read magazinesin their rare moments of recreation, Eduardo makes careful notes, sometimes well into the night, from his small on-board library of science books and magazine articles. In another life, the first mate’s love affair with the sea might have seen him graduate with a degree in marine biology, the master thinks as his friend leaves the deck and makes his way towards the wheelhouse.
    Carlos again passes the searchlight over the seas, this time illuminating a pod of minke whales. Their shining backs, punctuated by tall, curved dorsal fins, drift out of the beam of artificial brilliance and deep into the night. Eduardo enters the cabin and drops his hammer on the floor. Shards of ice rain out from creases in his jacket, and pool on the fuzz of worn, blue carpet tiles. He throws back his waterproof hood and strips off a woollen balaclava, his face emerging like a sculpture from a mould. He has the perfect skin of a child it occurs to Carlos, as though the wind and salt water have worn away the layers and turned back time. His eyes are deep-set and dark; his only physical imperfection the slightly folded rim of his right ear. Eduardo jokes that it’s where his mother used to grasp him when he misbehaved as a child.
    â€˜Must be time for me to thaw out,’ Eduardo offers, a shine in his eyes. ‘Now that we’re through the hard part.’
    Carlos flashes a good-humoured smile and gives over the helm. He has always marvelled at Eduardo’s energy andresilience. The first mate endures conditions that would break a weaker man, and always comes up smiling and asking for more.
    â€˜I’m getting that ice off first, though,’ Carlos says, pointing at the thick film encrusting the wheelhouse window. ‘Can’t have us heading to the South Pole! Or do you think that government boat would follow us there, too?’
    Eduardo laughs. ‘Sorry, I should’ve cleared it off before I came in.’
    Carlos waves away the apology, flips his jacket’s hood forward over his head, and does up the zipper. Only his dark eyes and heavy brow are visible as he leaves the wheelhouse, ice scraper in hand.
    Outside, the horizontal barrage of stinging water slices at his face. It hurts to breathe. His chest tightens. Salt spray burns his eyes. He chips the ice away as fast as he can,