Sam looked at me, then at Otto. “You two okay?”
“Fine,” I said.
Otto smiled. “Happily, like Vicky, I do not get seasick.” He looked up as the ding-dong sounded for an announcement. Quim told us we were about to sail by Elephant Island, and the captain would make the decision as to whether or not we would be able to anchor and take the Zodiacs in. I was sitting by the window and the water was rough, with large whitecaps, and I didn’t think getting in or out of a Zodiac was a good idea. But Elephant Island as we sailed by was awesome. Glaciers. Snow-topped mountains. Blue ice, white ice, yellowish ice, strange shadows and shapes, clouds that looked like part of the glaciers but suddenly swirled and roiled.
“Look!” Angelique cried, and pointed out a large petrel battling the wind.
“My advice as ship’s physician is that we should stay right where we are,” Dick said. Certainly, getting in or out of a Zodiac bobbing up and down was not easy for him.
Angelique leaned against him affectionately. “I’m quite content to see Elephant Island from here.”
Otto put down his knife and fork, asking, “Do you realize that several of Shackleton’s men spent—how many months?” He looked at Sam, who shook his head, then at Leilia.
“A long time, right there”—Leilia pointed out the window—“under two upturned lifeboats, waiting to be rescued, and believing they would be rescued.”
“Were they?” I asked. Elephant Island looked wild and hostile.
“They were,” Leilia said. “Their faith in Shackleton was justified. I have a not very good video documentary of Shackleton I play for my kids, to teach them something about promises and honor.”
The ding-dong sounded, and the loudspeaker came on. Quim’s voice told us that there was no way the Zodiacs could be launched in these seas. Angelique gently touched Dick’s knee and gave him a quick, loving smile.
Quim’s voice continued, telling us that the portholes on starboard were being covered, but this was normal procedure, nothing unusual or worrisome.
The sense of awe I felt as we sailed past Elephant Island was deeper than Aunt Serena’s photographs or even Adam II’s journal had prepared me for. What we saw as we looked out the windows was stranger and more alien than pictures of the moon. Not many people nowadays see the planet like this, pure and serene and ruthless.
“Would it happen today?” Angelique asked.
“What?” Dick raised his eyebrows.
“Caring about your colleagues enough to risk your own life for them.”
“It’s anybody’s guess,” Dick said. “We’ve become deeply entrenched in uninvolvement.”
“Not you,” Angelique said.
Leilia shook her head. “Quim or Benjy—or any one of our lecturers—I think they’d care enough, be responsible enough.”
“Let’s hope they’re never tested,” Dick said.
“Are you seasick?” Angelique asked him.
“Because my pessimistic side is to the fore? I don’t like the water when it’s this rough. I’m off to my bunk.”
“Me, too,” Otto said, and bid us all good night.
In the morning we moved out of fog into sunlight as we sailed through a turbulent sea full of ice floes and spectacular icebergs. Even more than the day before, I felt as though we had sailed back billions of years. The blue coloring in some of the icebergs was so brilliant it made the sky look pale. The water was rough and full of whitecaps, and Siri, who was sitting across from me at breakfast, announced that she was very glad that our ship had radar and depth sounders and that the double hull was ice-hardened. Quimby came on the intercom and told us we’d be sailing south all morning, passing to the east of Joinville Island and the Danger Islands en route to Paulet Island, where there should be thousands, literally thousands, of Adélie penguins.
Otto came into the dining room and joined us, and so did Sam, Angelique, and Dick. Despite the rough sea, we saw several groups of penguins porpoising, incredibly graceful in the water in comparison to their clumsiness on land. Benjy was right about their flying in water. While they were leaping in swiftly graceful arcs, they did look like cetaceans rather than birds. No wonder Benjy found them so fascinating. I wondered if Adam was studying penguins at LeNoir Station.
—No, Vicky. You aren’t thinking about Adam.
Todd, our mammal lecturer, came on the intercom to tell us we might see some whales, and maybe a few dolphins, though not many here at this time of year. “Keep a lookout, though,” he urged us, “and if a whale flukes, take as many pictures for me as you can. I’m studying flukes.”
After breakfast, while I was putting on my heaviest sweater, red parka, boots with two pair of heavy socks, Benjy knocked on my door and poked his head in to make sure I was all right. We went together out to the fo’c’sle, to look in all directions as we sailed through seas so full of ice that some of the smaller floes hit against the sides of the ship with a sound like distant thunder. Benjy said the channel had opened just a week before, and there was no way we could go through it without bumping into floes. In another week or so, it would close up again with solid ice.
Todd came out, his parka hood pulled close about his face. He stood with us, and we saw many seals sleeping on ice floes, crab-eater seals, Todd told me, though there are no crabs in these bitter waters. The seals were lazing on the tabular icebergs in larger numbers than the singletons or doubletons on the floes, snoozing away because they hunt at night. For a while we sailed through a veritable city of icebergs. Benjy said we were seeing a far greater colony of bergs than usual. Then he excitedly pointed out two snow petrels. Benjy had taken this trip many times and had never lost his excitement.
The wind was so fierce that, even with our hoods up, we were driven in. I hadn’t seen Otto, but I had tried not to look for him. It was quite easy not to see somebody, because our red parkas made us all look alike.
To my surprise, the ding-dong rang and the announcement was made that we were going ashore. About half of us lined up to get in the Zodiacs. When my turn came, the Zodiac seemed to leap up at me and I dropped in and sat on the side beside Leilia. Getting out was not bad, because the rubber boat was pulled partway up onto the beach and we just had to swing our legs over the side and slosh in. And there were indeed thousands of Adélie penguins. I was surprised to see one languid Weddell seal lying among the penguins nearest the shore, and others on ice floes no more than a few feet away. Papageno’s experience had made me a little leery of seals, but Todd assured me that Weddell seals wouldn’t harm either me or the penguins.
“What about your harp?” Greta asked Siri.
She shook her head. “I didn’t bring her this morning. The water’s pretty rough, and I don’t want her getting wet. She’s hard enough to keep in tune as is.”
I reminded her, “What about singing to the seals?”
She assured me, “There’ll be other opportunities, I promise you. Today let’s concentrate on penguins and birds.”
Benjy said, “One seal doesn’t make a stink, but wait till we get close to a bunch of them. They dribble yellow mucus from their noses to get rid of excess salt, and while the stuff is functional, it’s also smelly. Hoy! Look up there on the cliff at that albatross nest!”
Sam let me use his binoculars. “That water’s getting mighty rough.” He didn’t sound happy. “Once we get back to the ship, the Zodiacs aren’t going to stand quietly while we disembark. They’re going to go up and down like jumping jacks. It’s going to be even harder on Dick than on me.”
“The sailors’ll be there to help.” I tried to sound comforting, but leaping out of the Zodiac onto the small metal platform of the ladder wasn’t easy in clothes that made you weigh double your normal weight and in boots that made your feet twice their normal size.
“I hope they really check our manifest numbers,” Sam grumbled.
“We do,” Benjy assured him. “On one of our trips, when we checked the board, one manifest number hadn’t been turned over, so
Quim and I got in a Zodiac and went back to the part of the peninsula where we’d been that afternoon, looking for the missing passenger, who’d climbed high up on a cliff where he shouldn’t have been. He was an amateur ornithologist and was trying to take pictures of albatross babies in their nest, and he slipped and fell and knocked himself out. He came to after all the Zodiacs had left for the Argosy, and he was mighty glad to see Quim and me, I can tell you. And look—”
High above our heads an albatross was flying, riding the current, its great wings outspread, and I thought of Adam II’s description. The great bird glided serenely, with no motion of the wings, sailing on wind and sky and sun. I watched for so long that I had to run to catch up with Siri and Benjy. If Greta hadn’t been with them, I’d have continued to lag behind, but she was chattering away about some zoo in Berlin, ignoring a colony of gentoo penguins.
“My ex-husband liked that zoo,” Siri said.
“Ex?” Benjy asked with what I thought was considerable interest.
“Very ex. He’s married to a fifty-year-old heiress so he can live in the life-style to which he always wanted to become accustomed.” Her usually gentle voice was sharp.
“Where’d the heiress’s money come from?” Benjy asked.
Siri made a face. “Deodorants, I think.”
“And where does your money come from?”
“It doesn’t come. I work for it.”
“My point entirely,” Benjy said, though I wasn’t sure what his point was. Whatever, it was meant to make Siri feel better. “I enjoy my work and I think you enjoy yours, right?”
Siri’s voice and smile were back to normal. “Right.”
Sam and I were in the same Zodiac on our way back to the ship. It seemed to me that, wherever I went, Sam was apt to be there, too. Not exactly shadowing me. Not exactly hovering. Just there.
I watched two strong sailors heave him safely onto the landing platform. One thing about Sam, he didn’t let anything stop him.
Greta said, as she washed the guano off her boots, “Jorge and Otto stayed on the ship. Business talk.”
Fine. I didn’t want to get obsessed with Otto. Or anybody.
The next morning we had a very early wake-up call and after coffee and a roll headed for the Zodiacs. Quimby had warned everybody not to drink too much coffee, because we’d have an hour’s trip each way in the Zodiacs, and there weren’t going to be any johns along the way. The sea was moderately calm, despite the frigid winds—katabatic winds, Quim called them, and I liked the word because it sounded as bitter as the winds.
A few people stayed on board and slept in, but most of us made it. Greta was feeling miserable, Siri said, and was staying in her bunk, and Leilia and her friends, who’d been here before, were catching up on sleep. So was Otto, Jorge told us. Jack was sitting across from me in the Zodiac, and I wished he’d take off his cowboy hat, which was blocking my view. Dick and Angelique were next to me, Dick determined not to miss anything he didn’t have to.
It was beautiful in the semi-light of what would still have been deep night at home. The icebergs gleamed as if by moonlight, and there was a pearly quality to the day, as though the planet were a jewel in a great shell. We were heading for an island off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, where an explorer called Nordenskjöld and his companions had been stranded during the 1902–3 winter. When our Zodiac approached the beach, Benjy let out a startled exclamation, and I could see several bright orange tents.
“Who the—” Benjy started, and then, as our Zodiac was pulled up onto the beach, “Vespugians. What the—”
The second Zodiac pulled up next to ours, and Quim jumped out, saying, “Hey, Benj, they shouldn’t—” and then shut his mouth as several tent flaps opened and half-dressed men came staggering sleepily out to see what was going on.
A bulky man who looked like, but wasn’t, Captain Nausinio came hurtling toward us, buttoning and buckling his uniform jacket and shouting ferociously, and I thought I heard the word científico, and then Quimby was shouting back.
Jorge splashed into shore, talking to the bulky man, then to Quim, and they both quieted down, though the bulky man was scowling and Quim looked anything but pleased.
Todd was giving Dick a hand out of the Zodiac, and I heard him mutter, “Scientific, my Aunt Fanny.”
Jorge was carrying his enormous camera cases and was slung with two other cases of equipment, which he put down at his feet. He continued talking to the Vespugian in a calm, smiling way. The still-scowling Vespugian officer picked up Jorge’s cases and took them into one of the tents.
Quimby said, “Well, this was an unexpected surprise, ladies and gentlemen. We were given no indication that anybody was going to be here.”
Benjy muttered to Dick, “Spurious scientists, if I ever saw one. Everybody knows the Vespugians want to be a presence in Antarctica.” Jorge, at the same time, was reassuring everybody that the tents represented a small scientific excursion, there was nothing to be disturbed about, everything was fine.
More soldiers were coming out of the tents, and suddenly one of them waved at me, shouting out, “Vickee!”
It was Esteban. I waved back, a reflex of recognition through my startlement. I turned to Jorge. “What on earth is Esteban doing here?”
Jorge went over to Esteban and shook his hand, saying to me over his shoulder, “It is not that surprising to see him. The Vespugian army is very small, as our country is small, and the General wants to give the young men as full and varied an experience as possible during their two years of service.”
The other soldiers were not as welcoming as Esteban. Some of them appeared confused by our presence. A couple turned to Esteban with what seemed to be both scolding and questioning, and the one who looked like Captain Nausinio and who seemed to be the leader came up to Quimby again, still exuding belligerence.
Once more Jorge intervened, talking, smiling, laughing. I heard him say something about Generalissimo Guedder as he patted the bulky soldier on the shoulder, and then apparently asked him what he had done with the camera equipment.
The Vespugian pointed toward his tent and Jorge nodded, saying to Quim, “Good, my equipment is very expensive and not replaceable in Vespugia. I’m glad to have it under cover until I’m ready to take pictures of Nordenskjöld’s hut.”
Jack Nessinger came up to him, and the two of them moved past the cluster of tents.
Benjy turned to me with a grin. “The Vespugians thought—maybe they still think—we’re an invading army, come to take over their post. Jorge has been trying to reassure them. I guess being a pal of the General’s gives him considerable clout.”
“If they weren’t expecting us,” Dick said, “a whole lot of people in identical red parkas arriving in Zodiacs would seem pretty threatening.”
“We weren’t expecting them,” Quimby growled. “I don’t think they’re supposed to be here. They’re certainly not a registered station.”
“Thank goodness for Jorge,” Angelique said, “and his diplomatic ability. I thought the captain was ready to line us all up and shoot us.”
There were half a dozen tents, and some of the emerging soldiers had gone back in and were now fully dressed in their uniforms. It was early, not yet five in the morning, and they must have been sound asleep. Esteban had gone back into his tent, and now he came out, buttoning his uniform jacket. He waved again and smiled at me, and spoke to the Vespugian leader. Esteban was pointing at Siri and me, then at Sam, and nodding and smiling. I think he was explaining that he had already met us. The bulky captain stood with his legs apart, hands on hips, scowling as he listened. He wasn’t wearing his gun, though some of the others had picked up theirs. “They’ve become a gun-happy people,” Sam muttered.
Jorge walked over to us. “Esteban will lead you to Nordenskjöld’s hut, and I’ll get everything here straightened out with the captain.”
Quim muttered, “I suppose it’s politic, having one of them be our guide. Jorge knows we’re perfe
ctly capable of taking the group to the hut, but this gives their being here more plausibility, I suppose.” He did not sound pleased.
We followed Esteban, crunching along in our boots. I was walking with Sam, but he said, “Go walk with Esteban, Vicky. I think he’d like that.”
Dick, just behind us, grunted assent. “This can’t be a pleasant post, no matter what the reason for the Vespugian presence here.”
Angelique smiled at me. “Esteban has been casting longing glances at you.”
I thought they were exaggerating my importance to Esteban, especially as the language barrier was as high as ever, but I moved up to walk beside him, and he gave me a brilliant smile. Then he handed me another postcard, this one of Weddell seals on a large ice floe. He nodded and smiled and nodded again as though he were trying to tell me something. I turned the postcard over, and on the back was written in pencil: TEN CUIDADO! GUÁRDATE! Even though my Spanish is nonexistent, I was pretty sure it meant BE CAREFUL!
Nine
The Zodiac had come so near that my heart had quickened with hope, and even after I had long given it up, my heart continued to pound. I listened for the sound of the motor as it died away. The Zodiac had gone after something—someone—else. Had left me.
It had been so close. I was sure someone had to have heard me, seen me waving my red parka.
On the Argosy they must know I was gone. My manifest number would be red side up, not yellow. Benjy had told about going back for someone who had not turned his number. They would not sail off and leave me. Benjy would not let that happen. An alarm would have been raised. All I had to do was wait.
How long had it taken for Shackleton to rescue his men? We’d watched a movie about that one evening. He’d tried four times to get to Elephant Island. It took him how many weeks? Months? I had no lifeboat to shelter me. I couldn’t catch fish with my bare hands. I wouldn’t last many more hours, much less days.
“Esteban.” I spoke slowly, enunciating clearly, as though that would help him to understand. “What are you doing here?”
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