Icebound

From the Diary of Viola Bellamy -- 22 August, 1896

I dressed for government today.

Mister Volkow had been trying his hand at fashioning jackets from our modest materials and had recently furnished me with enough clothing to make a dreadful nuisance of myself. 

I therefore spent part of the morning asking Miss Vivienne whether I looked presentable, by which I naturally meant whether I looked marvellous and wished her to say so.

She informed me, with complete sincerity, that I looked rather like a schoolgirl.

I added a pair of broken spectacles.

This improved nothing whatsoever.

Still, I had intended to play while everyone gathered for the meeting, and one ought not assault both the eyes and ears of one's neighbours without at least making an effort at the former.

Thus prepared by fashion, music, and entirely undeserved confidence, I once again settled into the background, content to take notes with the entirely unreasonable belief that I might fully understand what everyone was talking about.

The purpose today was rather clearer than our first political experiment. Frightfully tired laborers, sick soldiers, and rather harried first-class passengers all packed into the mess tent. Seven names have been put forward for civilian seats upon the council:

Mister Archibald Kennethson

Mister Arthur Sterling

Lady Catherine Cendrebourg

Miss Deirdre O'Donnell

Mister Derek Kelp

Miss Lilian von Onatopp

Miss Vivienne Delaunay

We are to choose three.

The Quartermaster placed a lockbox upon the table for ballots and asked each candidate, more or less, what they would actually do with the privilege.

This struck me as an excellent idea.

Miss Vivienne spoke first. I may be accused of partiality for my dear friend here.

I shall survive the accusation.

She began by saying she had no great appetite for authority. Rather, she believes we have spent long enough thinking only about surviving the present evening and ought now to think in terms of weeks and months.

Her order of concerns was quite broad.

First, fuel. Without it, councils and settlements become academic exercises conducted shortly before freezing to death.

Then defense. Raiders, scavengers and Prussians remain outside our walls—or, more accurately, outside our canvas.

Then food. The stores from the Perseverance cannot last, and we must learn to hunt, forage, preserve, and eventually grow what we need.

Finally, she argued that we must build something stronger here.

This does not mean deciding that this miserable patch of ice is our eternal home. Miss Vivienne hopes quite the opposite. She would have us search beyond the hills for survivors, fertile land, or whatever remains of civilization.

But those who leave should have somewhere safe to return to.

I thought that particularly sensible.

Exploration and settlement are not opposites. One may search for something better without arranging to die while looking for it.

Her final promise was not that she would always be correct, but that she would listen before speaking and would not gamble another person's life simply because caution proved inconvenient.

I liked that very much.

Miss Onatopp's priorities were delivered with considerably less decoration.

Fuel.

Food.

Trade.

Defense.

Coal.

Particularly coal.

Miss Onatopp has the advantage of having gone to the mines herself, carried fuel back, fought the Prussians, and been injured doing so.

Her opinions are therefore not entirely theoretical.

Where Miss Vivienne speaks of what we must preserve in the coming months, Miss Onatopp is terribly interested in whether we shall remain warm enough to see them.

I do not think these views truly oppose one another. They merely begin at different ends of the same problem. I fear both are distressingly sensible.

Miss Onatopp's philosophy could likely be written upon a very small card:

Less talk. More coal.

In fact, I believe I've seen just that, printed in a delightful assortment of locations about the camp.

Mister Kelp was absent.

This was unfortunate, as whatever else may be said of him, nobody left our last meeting uncertain that he possessed opinions.

The Quartermaster invited someone to speak on his behalf. Mister Declan Doyle rose solemnly and announced:

“Kelp will help!”

He then sat down.

There followed several fish-related remarks which I shall omit out of respect for the dignity of representative government.

Mister Kelp therefore offered no new case today.

From our previous gathering, however, his concern was clear enough: 

whatever we build, trade or govern should serve everyone rather than merely those fortunate enough to sit nearest the table.

I continue to find his manner appalling.

I continue, most inconveniently, to think that particular warning worth remembering.

Miss O'Donnell spoke for the greenhouse.

At first glance this sounds rather a modest platform for government.

Upon closer inspection, however, her case is rather broader.

She has spent her life studying botany and chemistry—what grows, what heals, and what may be made from it afterward. A greenhouse, in her view, should provide both food and medicine.

Plants for fever.

Plants for wounds.

Something for pain and infection.

Something, one hopes, for the plague of coughing which presently seems intent upon claiming half the camp.

Her point was that we cannot wait until someone is hungry to begin thinking about food, nor until someone is bleeding to begin thinking about medicine.

We must plant for both.

She cannot make spring arrive sooner.

She believes she can help ensure that we are alive when it does.

There is something wonderfully stubborn in that.

The weather has apparently declared war upon agriculture, and Deirdre intends to garden at it until it surrenders.

Lady Catherine admitted, quite plainly, that she had not particularly wished to stand for office.

This may be one of her strongest qualifications.

Her argument differed from the others because she spent less time listing what we need.

We already know what we need.

We are alive because everyone here possesses some talent for surviving. 

The problem is that survival alone is an individual affair. If we are to do more than survive individually, those talents must begin serving everyone.

She described the sort of counsel she would offer as rather like a mother's:

Care where needed, firmness where required,

and very little patience for foolishness.

This produced no great shock among those acquainted with Lady Catherine.

She also made perhaps the hardest promise of the afternoon. There may come decisions involving danger, sacrifice or blood. If so, she would rather accept the burden of making them than allow the camp to perish through hesitation.

Her speech was not cheerful.

It was, however, reassuring in a peculiar fashion.

Some people rather seem to promise that dreadful choices shall never be necessary.

Lady Catherine promises that if they are, she will not pretend otherwise.

Mister Sterling kept his promise before he had even made one: his speech was short.

He said we all know what we need.

The question is who can accomplish it.

His principal promise was that he would never ask another person to do something he would refuse to do himself.

If there is dirt, blood or danger involved, he intends to stand in it with everyone else.

This is very much Mister Sterling.

He offered few grand plans and no philosophy of government.

He offered himself.

I think that distinction matters.

There are people one elects because they have excellent ideas.

There are also people one trusts because, when an unpleasant task becomes necessary, one knows where they will be standing.

Mister Sterling's argument was very clearly the latter.

Mister Kennethson finished the speeches and surprised me somewhat by beginning with agriculture.

He does not oppose it forever, but believes intensive agriculture is unnecessary yet. Fish are plentiful, and useful herbs already grow nearby.

Fuel, to him, is more urgent.

He has seen the Prussian mines himself and also served with a line company during the early war. For that reason, he strongly cautioned against simply taking the Prussian mine.

They will not surrender it politely.

Many of us might die trying.

Instead, he proposed expanding the abandoned mine east of camp. Coal is already found there, and perhaps—with the advice of a geologist—we might uncover enough to keep ourselves warm without fighting for every shovelful.

Finally, he proposed proper tenements.

Real walls retain heat.

Canvas does not.

Better housing therefore saves coal while making us considerably less miserable.

I confess this last argument appealed strongly to me.

I have grown quite tired of dressing beneath a blanket while Biscotte watches with great professional interest.

The speeches made something rather clearer to me.

Almost everyone agrees about the problems.

We require fuel, food, defenses, better shelter, reliable supplies, and some means of surviving beyond whatever happens tomorrow morning.

The disagreement is chiefly one of order.

Miss O'Donnell fears waiting too long to grow what we shall later need. 

Miss Onatopp fears freezing before any of it matters. 

Mister Kennethson would conserve fuel while safely seeking more of it. 

Miss Vivienne would make the camp secure enough to explore beyond it. 

Lady Catherine concerns herself with obtaining and distributing what all these plans require. 

Mister Sterling wishes chiefly that someone begin doing them.

And Mister Kelp, were he here, would presumably ask who receives the benefits when we succeed.

So perhaps we have progressed!

At our first meeting, we argued about whether anyone had the right to choose.

Today, we argued about what they ought to choose first.

This is apparently an advancement.

The Quartermaster asked whether we could agree upon one project for the Foreman to begin while voting continues.

Suggestions arrived immediately:

Growbeds.

Rifle pits.

A church tent.

Market stalls.

An indoor workshop.

A roof over the boiler.

A better supply route to the mines.

And--God bless whoever first conceived of walls--

lodgings.

I rather hesitantly admitted that I liked the idea of somewhere warmer to sleep.

Mister Sterling agreed.

Miss Vivienne agreed.

Mister Kennethson agreed.

Mister Keene pointed out that one substantial building is easier to heat than a collection of little ones.

Miss Jones wanted anything sturdier than cloth.

Miss Onatopp was less convinced that sleeping quarters should precede food and fuel.

Lady Catherine would first make the acquisition of resources easier.

Miss O'Donnell still has entirely reasonable and intriguing designs upon the soil.

Nevertheless, lodgings received the most support, and the Quartermaster will ask the Foreman to begin breaking ground.

So, there we are.

We have candidates.

We have ballots.

We have competing priorities.

And, most astonishingly of all, we have apparently made a true decision.

Mother and Father used to argue over voting with enormous enthusiasm. I remember thinking politics was simply a game adults played when dinner had lasted too long.

I begin to understand the appeal.

There is something hopeful in disagreeing about what we ought to build next.

It assumes there shall be a next.

— V.

P.S. I played before the meeting and nobody asked me to stop. I shall therefore record my performance as a tremendous artistic success and reject all competing evidence.