Survival Tails: Endurance in Antarctica

by Katrina Charman

  Dogs and men boarded quickly as the steam rose thicker and faster into the sky, the men looking happier than they had in weeks. There was a loud groan as the ship tried to break free from the icy grasp that held it. Samson looked over the bow. A little way ahead, a narrow passage of water opened up as the pressure of the ship against the ice disturbed the floe, breaking it apart. Samson ran down to the boss, barking at him until he spotted the lead, desperate for the ship to get moving.

  “Passage ahead!” the boss called out.

  The steam slowed, and the men hurried back out onto the ice, carrying with them chisels, picks, saws, anything they could use to break up the ice and widen the lead of water. Samson wished they would let him back out onto the ice. He could help the men by pulling ropes or… something. But the dogs were forced to remain on board, so all Samson could do was watch helplessly as the men toiled, attacking the ice with their tools and hauling away huge chunks of ice from the water, then breaking them up. The ship lurched forward suddenly, moving ahead a few feet, and both dogs and men gave a cheer in triumph, but the small victory was short-lived.

  As day turned into night, then back to morning, the men seemed to be fighting a losing battle. The passage of water wasn’t any wider. As soon as the men cut away the ice surrounding the ship, more ice quickly replaced it.

  Ahead, tantalizingly close, lay open water. But between that and the Endurance lay four hundred yards of thick, immovable ice. Eventually, the boss signaled for the men to put down their tools. One by one, the defeated, exhausted men returned to the ship.

  Men and dogs gathered around Shackleton as they waited to hear what they would do next. Samson’s stomach churned, but he felt sure that the boss would have a plan. There was no reason to think they would be trapped forever. It was a minor setback, nothing more.

  “The ship seems stuck fast,” Shackleton said. “So for now, we wait and hope that when the weather warms we can continue the journey.”

  “Can we call for help?” one of the crew shouted out.

  Shackleton glanced at the captain and shook his head.

  “We’re too far out of range to contact anyone by radio. Maybe as the ice floe shifts, we might move closer to land.…” Shackleton drifted off, unable to give them any better news.

  “I guess that’s it, then,” Samson said, returning to his kennel for the first time in weeks, feeling as defeated as the men.

  “Maybe not,” said Sally, coming to join them. “I have to believe that we’ll return home one day… that I’ll see my mate again.”

  “We can’t be that far away from land,” Samson said. “Maybe we will move closer to land as the captain said?”

  “We’re not that far from land,” Bummer said. “If the ocean were clear, and the pack ice not in our way… But now that we’re stuck, we’re drifting away from the Antarctic.”

  Samson shook his head hard. That couldn’t be it, could it? They couldn’t have come so far only to get stuck in the ice to drift without ever making it to land. Without ever having started the expedition.

  “There has to be something the boss can do? Some way?” Samson asked desperately.

  Bummer sighed. “There’s nothing to do now but wait.”

  CHAPTER 6

  BUMMER

  February 1915

  The ship drifted along on the ice floe, moving farther and farther away from the land that had been so close. Bummer couldn’t help feeling all hope ebb away with it.

  The boss called a halt to their routine and decided to move the dogs off the ship, which was now permanently entrenched in the ice, and onto the floe. The ship was turned into a makeshift camp for the men that they named the Ritz, after the famous hotel.

  Some of the men set to work constructing kennels on the ice with McNish. First they built up the snow into dog-sized igloos, then used spare pieces of wood to reinforce the openings so that the snow wouldn’t cave in. They added a hospital and quarantine ward for sick dogs, and an outdoor stove, which the men gathered around during the day and the dogs at night when the humans were on the ship.

  “How do you like dog town?” Samson asked, checking out Bummer’s kennel-igloo.

  “It’s not so bad,” Bummer said, grateful to finally have a space of his own without being constantly surrounded by dogs. The men had added sacks filled with straw for beds, and it was the most comfortable Bummer had felt since they’d set sail. “You know, they should call these kennels dogloos because they are igloos for dogs.”

  Samson laughed. “Come on, the boss is about to choose the team leaders.”

  “I won’t be chosen,” Bummer replied sullenly, following Samson toward the ship.

  “You have just as good a chance as me,” Samson said.

  Bummer stopped and stared at him until Samson conceded, “Well, maybe you won’t be chosen as sled leader, but I’m sure I will and you can be on my team.”

  Bummer perked up at this. Pulling a sled might be fun if he was with his friends. It would beat being stuck on the ship, at least. They reached the crowd of men and dogs. The boss had already begun pairing up each of the men with his own team of dogs. Every single member of the expedition would be in charge of at least three dogs.

  “Wild!” Shackleton called out, reading from a piece of paper in his hand.

  Wild stepped forward.

  “Your sled leader is Samson, with Sally, Gruss, Bob, Jasper, Saint, Tim, and Surly.”

  Samson turned to look at Bummer, his eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown. “Sorry,” he mouthed, joining Wild and the rest of his team. “Maybe you’ll be with Mack,” he called back. “He’s a good sport.”

  Bummer sat patiently, waiting for his name to be called, a feeling of unease growing in his belly as more dogs joined their teams. He glanced around to see who was left. There weren’t many. Only Amundsen, Wolf, Hercules, and a few other dogs whom Bummer hadn’t had the chance to get to know. His gut twisted as he realized that they were the final team.

  “Crean,” the boss announced.

  Bummer hesitated. Crean was kind enough—maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he was in charge.

  “Your team leader is Amundsen, with Wolf, Hercules, Satan, Rufus, Judge, Noel, and…” He paused to glance over at the remaining dogs. “Bummer.”

  Wolf and Hercules groaned as Bummer’s name was called out. Bummer felt as if his body and limbs were weighed down with the dread of being on Amundsen’s team.

  “I’m doomed,” he whispered to Samson and Sally.

  “I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think,” Sally said, but Samson gave Bummer a grim look that said he thought otherwise.

  “Maybe they will switch the teams around when we reach land?” Samson said, trying to lift his spirits.

  “If we ever reach land,” Bummer mumbled as he was harnessed up by Crean.

  Crean worked them all day and well into the evening, racing them back and forth while he rode on the sled, yelling out commands, seemingly having the time of his life. It took Bummer a while to get used to the pull of the harness: the way it rubbed and chafed his skin, and the constant urge to scratch beneath it. His discomfort was soon forgotten after Amundsen snarled at Bummer when he put a foot wrong… or was too slow… or in the way… or turned in the wrong direction.

  “Don’t listen to him, lad,” Judge puffed beside him. “You’re doing a good job.”

  Bummer tried to smile, but he barely had the energy to breathe. Finally, Crean drove them back to camp, where many of the other dogs were settled in their dogloos for the evening. Bummer searched for Samson, finding him playing with a ball on the ice with the humans and a few other dogs. The men had set up two poles on either side of a large expanse of ice, and the aim of the game seemed to be to get the ball between the two poles.

  “Bummer!” Samson called. “Come and join us. The humans call it football.”

  Bummer paused. He couldn’t quite see the point of it, and all he really wanted to do was eat his meal and settle in front of
the stove for the evening to warm his aching bones, but he hadn’t seen Samson all day, so he ran over to join them.

  “You can be on Surly’s team,” Samson told him. “All you have to do is get the ball and run it past my team and between the poles. Simple!”

  Simple? Bummer thought. It was simple enough for Samson, who could outrun the wind, but not for him. More dogs came over to watch the game, including Amundsen and Sally. Bummer ran as fast as he could, chasing after the ball, but only managed to get even slightly close when the other team was heading toward him. As they scored yet another goal, Bummer stopped to catch his breath.

  “Bummer!” Sally shouted from the sidelines. Bummer looked up, startled to see Samson heading right for him. He ran forward to intercept the ball but lost his courage at the last minute as Samson barreled toward him. Bummer gave chase, feeling a surge in energy as Sally and some of the others cheered him on.

  Samson stumbled ahead, faltering. His front leg had slipped down into the snow and he was stuck fast. Bummer ran faster, joy swelling in his chest as he took the ball right from under Samson’s nose and ran it between the poles.

  The dogs and men cheered, and even Samson whooped from the other end of the field. Bummer glanced over to the sidelines to see Amundsen watching him closely; then, to Bummer’s surprise, Amundsen gave him a small smile before wandering away to his dogloo.

  That night, a blizzard blew into camp, covering the entrance to Bummer’s dogloo with snow. He pushed out a paw, poking a hole in the snow so that he could breathe, then tried to settle down to sleep.

  He opened his eyes again with a start and heard a cry on the wind from one of the dogloos. He clawed at the snow to make a hole big enough to fit through, then hurried around dog town, barely able to see more than a few paws ahead as the blizzard swirled snow all around him. Bummer’s ears pricked up as he searched for the source of the noise. Whoever it was sounded as if they were in pain. He kept his eyes closed against the biting wind, following the sound to Sally’s dogloo, where Amundsen paced nervously at the entrance.

  “What’s happening?” Bummer whispered, worried that Amundsen had hurt her. “Sally, are you all right?”

  Sally looked up at Bummer, her eyes wide as she let out another agonizing cry.

  “I tried to get help,” Amundsen said. “But the blizzard… I couldn’t find my way to the ship.”

  “Wait there!” Bummer cried. “I’ll get help.”

  Amundsen called after him, but the words were lost on the wind. He raced to Samson’s dogloo to wake him.

  “It’s Sally,” Bummer gasped.

  Samson raced out of his dogloo and Bummer chased after, losing sight of him in the blizzard a few times as his legs, still aching from the day’s training, struggled to keep up.

  “What have you done to her?” Samson snarled at Amundsen.

  “He hasn’t done anything,” Sally panted as she caught her breath. “He’s trying to help.”

  “If I stay here with Sally, can you go and wake Dr. Macklin?” Samson asked. “I don’t want to leave her with Amundsen.” Macklin was a surgeon for the men, but as they had no veterinarian, he also served as doctor to the dogs for anything that couldn’t be dealt with by the crew.

  Bummer didn’t wait to be told twice; he pushed his way through the snow. His eyes watered as the harsh wind cut into them. He kept his head low, squinting through the blizzard for any sign of the ship. A few times, he was blown off course by the heavy wind and driving snow, losing his footing as he fought a battle against nature itself, pushing against it to reach someone who could help Sally. Finally, he saw the dull glow of an oil lantern and raced toward it, scrabbling up the gangplank and down into the main part of the ship where the men slept. In the darkness the men all looked the same in their bunks, so he barked loudly to wake them.

  Crean was the first to wake. “I think he’s trying to tell us something,” he said, pulling on his fur gloves and boots.

  Bummer didn’t wait for him to follow—he hurried back to Sally, the wind now at his back, urging him on.

  “The men are coming,” Bummer panted.

  Samson turned around and smiled. “She’s going to be fine, Bummer,” he whispered. “Look!”

  Bummer peered over Samson’s shoulder. Sally lay on her side, looking as exhausted as Bummer felt, with four tiny wet bundles of fur snuggling against her.

  “Pups!” Bummer gasped as the one closest raised its tiny pink nose to sniff the air.

  “Bummer,” Sally said, “meet Nell, Nelson, Roger, and Toby.”

  Bummer beamed down at the tiny creatures, amazed at the wonder of life.

  “I wish their father were here to see them,” she whispered.

  “Is he still in Canada?” Bummer asked.

  Sally nodded. “I didn’t know I was expecting pups until it was too late. Now he might never meet them.” She sniffed, licking each pup on its head in turn.

  The men finally caught up, as surprised as Bummer to see the newborn puppies.

  “We’ll get home,” Bummer told her. “Somehow, we’ll get there.”

  CHAPTER 7

  SAMSON

  May 1915

  Samson hadn’t quite understood the part in Shackleton’s advertisement where it had mentioned long months of complete darkness. The only words he had really remembered were honor and recognition, but now that the sun no longer rose in the morning and the days were filled with endless night, the other parts were slowly coming back to him. He thought for a moment of asking Bummer to remind him what else the advertisement had warned about, but he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer.

  At least now that the boss had decided they had no choice but to wait out the dark months of the Antarctic winter, the dogs weren’t kept captive on board the ship. Each day, Samson led his team across the ice. Surly, as his name suggested, was less enthusiastic than the others but fell in line quickly enough when Samson barked out his orders. They were one of the fastest sled teams.

  Samson glanced over to where Crean was setting up Amundsen and his team in their harnesses on the floe, ready for another day of hunting, exploring, and fishing. To make their food rations last longer, they brought back penguins and seals, using their blubber as fuel for the stove and their meat for food. Bummer stood in the back of the group looking a sorry state. He was at least a head smaller than the other dogs.

  Bummer gave Samson a half-smile, half-grimace as Crean put on his harness.

  “Stop pulling at the harness!” Amundsen snapped at Bummer as he was pulled suddenly to one side by Bummer’s anxious bouncing.

  “I wish Bummer were on our team,” Sally sighed behind Samson, watching as Amundsen’s team set off with Bummer’s legs moving twice as fast just to keep pace with the others. Occasionally he stumbled, and Judge would nudge him onward before Amundsen could notice and snap at him again.

  Roger snuggled up to his mother. “Couldn’t he stay behind with us?” he asked.

  Nelson nodded. “If Bummer doesn’t want to pull the sled, why does he have to go? He could play with us instead.”

  Sally smiled as Toby tried to climb up onto her back. “Your father has a rule—no dog left behind. When he was out with his sled team back home, it didn’t matter if he wanted to keep going—if any of his team needed a rest or was injured, the rest of the team would help. Bummer might be smaller and slower than the rest of his team, but they will help him if he needs it. That’s what a team does.”

  “Just like us!” Nell said.

  Sally laughed. “Exactly.”

  “I’m not sure Amundsen’s heard of that rule,” Samson muttered under his breath.

  “I asked Amundsen to go easy on Bummer,” Sally whispered back as Wild tightened the harnesses around Samson’s shoulders and beneath his stomach. “I just hope he listened.”

  Sally said a quick goodbye as she returned to camp with her pups, unable to join her team until she was back to full strength.

  “We’ll have to stay
steady today,” Samson said, changing the subject so he wouldn’t dwell on his friend’s discomfort. “We’re one dog short, and the pressure beneath the floes has driven up more obstacles.”

  The captain said they were drifting north encased in the ice, each day moving farther away from land, so that by the time the ice began to thaw enough for the ship to be freed, they could be hundreds of miles off course. Though the ice was solid and thick, beneath it churned the ocean, dark, wild, and unyielding. The subtle vibrations and pressure below the ice often drove up great mounds and ridges of ice, so Samson had to be careful to make sure he chose the best path—especially since it was harder to see in the perpetual twilight. One wrong turn could mean they’d end up trapped between ridges, or worse—beneath the ice. Samson had learned his lesson when he and Amundsen had been submerged in freezing water, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat anytime soon.

  With the dogs fully harnessed, Wild stood on the sled behind them. “Mush!”

  Samson was keenly aware of each dog on his team, slowing his pace when he sensed one struggling, racing on when he knew they felt the call of the wild and the urge to run. Each time they ran, Samson learned more about his team, and they about him, until they trusted one another completely.

  Today there was nothing but wilderness and the wide-open whiteness of it all. Samson thought he could probably run in any direction for days without having to stop. All around them, icebergs rose and fell in the distance, reflecting the bright white of the moon. The ground beneath Samson’s feet sparkled like crushed diamonds, and the sky above was a deep purple smear of ink. It was one of the most breathtaking sights Samson had ever seen.

  Samson decided to take a diversion from his usual route to see if they could find some thinner ice that Wild could cut through to get to the fish below. As he ran, he felt a small vibration beneath his paws. Nothing big, more of a little tickle that ran through his fur. He slowed slightly, but Wild yelled at him to continue on, so he picked up his pace.