Aurora

‘Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing o’er the plains

And the mountains in reply,

Echoing their joyous strains.

Glo--ooo--oori—a

In excelsis de—o

Glo--ooo--ooo---‘

Masterson: ‘Quit, will ya, for the love of God!’

Geissel, who had recovered enough to hobble out on deck and present his carols to the Arctic winds, was at the side of the boat with Walter.

‘So you’re allowed to sing and I’m not?’ asked Geissel.

‘My songs are good,’ said Masterson.  ‘My body lies over the ocean, my body lies over the sea.....’

Geissel, louder: ‘Gloo--ooo--ooo--ooo--ooo

‘My body lies over the...’

‘Gloo--ooo--ooo--ooo

‘My body lies over the...’

‘Gloo--ooo--ooo--ooo

‘My body lies over the...’

Geissel brought the battle of songs to a halt, turned to Walter, and said: ‘He is an outrageous priest.’

‘True.  But he sings well.’

‘I agree,’ Geissel whispered.

Masterson was also at starboard, and he was wielding a big stick, but for a change he wasn’t using it to beat up young boys; he was now being of some help to Dolores, using the stick to sweep away the smaller floes.  Littlewood had seen them safely through the scattered ice but shards of it remained, and even those smaller ones were dangerous, so the Captain had a strained look of caution on his face as he steered Dolores slowly onwards.

*

Aidan Stinson was a black and white sort of chap really, never you mind the colour-blindness.  You had your Heaven and you had your Hell.  He always had Heaven, of course; that was all that was within his sights; there was no in-between.  It was all or nothing with Stinson.  Red or yellow.  Apples or oranges – that is, if he could make one or the other out.  The habit suited him well.  Faith was harder to surrender if unstymied by complexity.    

So the monochromatic seascape before him now: it was simply ideal for such feeble vision.  In recent days, the Aurora had appeared, and glad he was not to have to deal with all that commotion of light.  Oh, how so very glad.  The others were all gaping upwards like idiots.  He didn’t have to deal with it.  He saw nothing.  It was all those magical, celestial, other-worldly tones or nothing.  He could deal with nothing on that occasion.  Oh, how very fortunate he was. 

But you could never say when this undemanding perspective of his might find itself challenged once again by this God-given optical affliction.     

Stinson was at the other end of the boat from the others, reading his mother’s letter once more, when he saw a familiar shape emerge from the water some yards away.  At first, he thought it might have been a distress flare from a ship in trouble nearby, but the smoothness of its jump and subsequent re-entry rejected this presumption.

Was that a dolphin? 

He couldn’t be sure. 

And was it yellow?  As before?

Or was it red?  As the Captain had said.

No. No. Not yellow.

It was red indeed.  He now was sure it was.    

‘Did you see that?’ he asked Katrine, who was standing close to him, gazing to sea, in more or less the same direction.  ‘Out there.  In the water.  I saw something.’

‘Yes,’ she said.  ‘I saw it too.  It was red.  It was a red dolphin.’

‘You saw it?’

‘I did.  But don’t tell Walter.  He’s a communist.  He’ll jump in to kiss it or something.’