Chapter 2
The Cossack Toma Lepekhin knocks on the door.
Steller is sitting in his cabin writing up his notes, and upon seeing the Cossack he smiles and offers him some tea, but Lepekhin declines.
Word is spreading on deck: the lookout believes he has spotted land.
This is as yet unconfirmed, the horizon is shrouded in mist, it might be nothing but a rain front in the distance, but the lookout thinks he has seen a dark shadow in the sea, and with that Steller forgets all about the tea.
They hurry up on deck and train their eyes on the horizon, an unbearable wait, the waves heave up and down, then the lookout shouts, yells so loudly that he is startled at his own voice: Terra firma! Terra firma!
The officers are enjoying dinner. The captain is not eating with them.
He has been feeling tired and prefers to eat alone in his cabin, so Khitrov, the fleet master, is hosting the men.
When Steller enters the room, their conversation dries up.
The naturalist will not take no for an answer but continues raving about the ocean currents and pieces of seaweed to anyone who will listen to him, and he does not fall silent though he knows that the officers do not share his assessment of the situation.
Khitrov has begun to suspect that Steller is adapting the laws of nature and the ocean currents at will simply in order to prove his superiors wrong, and now he has the nerve to interrupt their meal, he neither greets them nor deigns to remove his cap in their presence but gabbles at them, pleading with them to change course, until Khitrov informs him that he will check this observation himself once he has eaten.
During the main course, rain starts to fall from the heavens.
After the punch, their visibility is further impaired, and they must wait for a clearer day as the fleet master will not believe it before he sees it with his own eyes, no, and certainly not when the wrong man is trying to twist his arm.
The rain abates and the rising sun reveals the islands’ black shadows.
Bering congratulates Khitrov, though in truth he could almost weep.
He sees the men’s childish glee, the way they laugh and celebrate without sparing a thought for how far this new land is from any civilisation, or for all the dangers and delays that lie in wait for them as they chart this new coastline.
They do not know the winds in this sea, winds that for all they know might blow them eastwards and prevent them from ever returning home.
What a cruel twist of fate. They have already sailed far enough that no-one in St Petersburg would berate them; they could have returned home and proved that the journey is quite simply impossible.
Four days more and they would have turned back, but now, to his great chagrin, they have discovered America.
On St Elias’ Day, the St Peter lowers anchor off the coast of this green island.
For two days they edge closer to the shore.
Progress is slow, as the coastal waters are dotted with rocks and sandbanks, but the mood is buoyant.
Weeks of nothing but the vast expanse of the sea, and suddenly an unknown land appears in front of them, a scintillating row of wooded islands and, beyond them, an alien shore.
The world expands before their very eyes, they fill their glasses and their maps, and Khotyaintsov the underskipper adds ink to the places where until now there was nothing.
They name the island Cape St Elias, but Steller objects. The word “cape” denotes a strip of land stretching out from the coastline, and an island cannot be a cape, but the officers tell him to keep his mouth shut, and this name is duly added to the map.
The captain commander does not go ashore.
His head is aching, he needs to remain on the ship and rest, so the fleet master assumes leadership of the expedition.
He selects the men who will go ashore, but there is no room for the naturalist in his boat.
Steller asks Khitrov to explain how he can possibly examine the island’s terrain, the plants sprouting from the soil and the animals walking on its surface from the deck of the ship.
Of course, he is excellent at his work, but even for his considerable skills this is one challenge too many.
Until now, he has accepted the officers’ disdain without complaint, but he will not agree to this; he cannot agree to this.
He joined this expedition in order to serve the Tzarina, the Academy, in the service of science no less, and now the fleet master is preventing him from doing his work.
This simply will not do, he shall report the matter to St Petersburg, to the Academy, to the Tzarina herself!
Bering is summoned on deck – why are they bothering me with these childish disputes?
Let the naturalist go ashore with the dinghy sent to replenish the ship’s freshwater supplies.
Steller clambers into the dinghy. The trumpeter sends him off with a mocking fanfare, and Khitrov bows to Steller from the prow of his boat and laughs.
Steller is allowed to take one assistant with him, and he chooses Toma Lepekhin.
The Cossack tries his best to calm the doctor, who looks so angry he could kill a man, but as they approach the shore, Steller forgets all his woes.
He jumps out of the dinghy and almost trips and falls into the waves, his boots touch solid ground, but his head is still spinning, and he is forced to grip the side of the vessel to stay upright.
How intriguing – he knows that seasickness can be alleviated with a tea steeped from bishopwort, but he wants to know what causes the phenomenon in the first place, that and why his body can remember the movements of the sea though the ground beneath his feet is solid.
The seamen begin rolling water barrels ashore, Steller steels himself and strides off towards the edge of the forest, muttering the names of birds and trees under his breath.
Lepekhin hurries after him. They have come ashore on a strange island in a strange continent, they have no notion of what beasts and souls might be concealed in these forests, and he decides to keep his rifle at the ready.
Steller’s foul disposition has vanished.
A short walk around the vicinity and he has already encountered several new species, the Cossack has shot some birds for him, and he has found evidence of human settlement, a path leading to the mouth of what might once have been a root cellar.
Inside he found carefully preserved berries, fish, and sundry supplies, and he takes with him an arrow, a flintstone and a strap braided from seagrass.
He presents these items to the sailors, and they search their belongings, rummage through their pockets and find pieces of green glass, a knife, a string of pearls and two pipes, which Steller leaves in place of the items he has taken, then he asks for more men to row ashore.
He needs a draughtsman, assistants to string up a net for the birds, scouts to search for the island’s inhabitants, but the dinghy brings him a brusque reply instead.
The barrels have been refilled, and if Steller does not return to the ship immediately, he will be left on the shore.
He has no option but to comply, but that evening he writes a bitter entry in his diary: it seems we have undertaken this journey merely to carry water from America back to Asia.
Bering, however, has no interest in the scruffy birds or the natives’ trinkets.
No, they shall begin their return journey that same evening.
The crew shall store as much water in the cargo as will be needed for their journey home, a full six weeks at sea, and with that they hoist the sails, and Steller’s worst fears are realised.
They try to sail out towards the open sea, but a stubborn wind keeps pushing them off course.
Weeks of nothing but the empty sea, and now they cannot leave land behind them; they have reached the Catherine Archipelago and a merciless wind keeps pushing them back towards the row of two hundred volcanic islands.
Steller argues his case, but Bering is adamant.
The expedition will not go ashore on these islands, and neither will the ship stop to chart or examine them.
Steller can no longer claim that they are preventing him from doing his work, and he will have to make do with the birds and grasses he has collected from Cape St Elias.
Their mission is complete, they have located the American coastline, and now they can return home.
For twenty years, Bering has watched his colleagues surpass him, he has had nightmares about the expedition that claimed the lives of five of his children.
He will not wait any longer: he will return to St Petersburg and leave his detractors red-faced.
Steller slits open the blue jay’s chest, taking pains not to damage its plumage, removes its inner organs, and casts them over the rail and into the water.
He watches as the seabirds gobble up everything he throws them and wonders whether the gulls realise they are eating one of their own kind or whether they gulp down their prey unaware that this is an act of cannibalism.