The officers were excited about arriving – the Far South was within reach. They had put out from Christchurch after a final night during which many of them had stayed at Warner’s Hotel – a last night of clean, thick sheets, running water and deep, safe sleep.
‘This is what it’s about,’ Evans said pointing at a picture of Winter Quarters Bay, ‘this great white nothing.’
‘What’s it really like?’ Bowers sounded wistful.
Evans, the only man among those assembled who had been there, searched for the words.
‘I’d hate to know I’d never see it again,’ he said. ‘It changes your life.’
They knew that already. The difference between the men who had been tested and those who hadn’t was obvious. Karina put her head to one side as, Cherry, a good-looking young officer, searched for a bottle that still contained some spirit. He poured four glasses.
‘To the south,’ he toasted and they all drank.
‘And now I suppose we better sleep it off,’ Cherry smiled with good nature.
There was a general murmur of agreement.
‘It’s after two,’ Bowers checked his watch.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a loud bang from beyond the mess. It sounded like a door being slammed. Bowers stumbled off to investigate while Evans fumbled, trying to do up the buttons of his jacket – no mean feat after the better part of a bottle. Then Scott’s door swung open. There was another crash from inside the captain’s cabin. Bowers poked his head through.
‘Sir?’
Scott’s eyes were alight. ‘Bloody lies!’ he said, brandishing a piece of paper.
Bowers stood up straight, or tried to. He focused and realized that the piece of paper was a telegram. ‘Sir?’ he repeated.
‘Bloody Amundsen,’ Scott hissed. ‘Arctic expedition my foot. He’s coming for us, Bowers. Sneaky bloody Norwegian.’
Bowers glanced back at the others in the mess. The captain followed the lieutenant’s eyes and realized that some of his officers were awake. He pushed past. The skipper offered no explanation, instead striding into the disarray of a night of heavy drinking. The fellows jumped to their feet.
‘Gentlemen,’ Scott nodded, ignoring the detritus, ‘the Norwegians have thrown down the gauntlet.’
Oates stifled a hiccough. The rest merely looked troubled.
‘Sir?’ Oates enquired.
Scott rustled the telegram.
‘Roald Amundsen left Oslo weeks ago. He declared his expedition was for the Arctic but he’s a damned liar. He’s heading south in direct competition with us. He’s got dogs and he’s aiming to reach the pole before we do.’
The officers became suddenly startlingly sober.
‘Beg to inform you, Fram proceeding Antarctic,’ Scott read from the cable. ‘Bastard.’
The men didn’t know how to express their shock.
‘Well,’ Evans rallied, ‘we’ll give him a run for his money. Bloody cheek!’
Scott’s eyes narrowed but Cherry picked up the baton.
‘Let him try!’ he said. ‘Just let him try.’
‘Interloper!’ Oates wholeheartedly banged the table. ‘How dare he?’
‘Well, he can’t get there more quickly than we can,’ Bowers pointed out, ever the tactician. ‘We have the lead. He’ll need to lay supply depots just the same as we do. There’s no short cut. We’ll have our base at Ross Island, he’ll have to establish his own.’
‘He’ll choose the Bay of Whales.’ Scott crumpled the telegram in his hand. He did so loosely because he wanted to keep it. First Shackleton had wanted to take over his camp. Now Amundsen was trying to cut in on his shot at glory.
‘We must get there at the double,’ he pronounced.
‘Yes, sir.’ The men stood to attention.
‘Well, then, let’s get on with it!’
Karina watched. They were heading into a storm though they didn’t know it. The wind whipped ahead of them. The forecast from Christchurch had not predicted the weather accurately. It was worse than was usual at this time of year. Behind her, she looked towards their destination. The pole. It had never interested her but now it seemed some kind of drama would play out there with the Norwegian and Scott converging at the same time. She thought for a moment and then turned away from the ship, catching an air current to the south and riding it.
She had never tried to fly that way before. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her. Behind her figure, there was a school of whales on the horizon. They fell out of sight as she crossed the ice mountain. All the tracks the men left had disappeared, buried long ago. The snow was blinding in the sunlight. And then she realized she was over virgin territory and at once she found herself engulfed in blackness.
When she opened her eyes again she was returned to the shore, to the place her body was buried. It was as if the world had slapped her in the face. My grave is the centre of everything, she thought. She got up and rose on the air again, this time more slowly, heading south again. As her eyes began to dim, she stopped, drawing back before the endless white turned instantly to pitch. She hovered there on the edge of her world and felt a kind of fury. If Scott made it to the pole she’d never see him. There were edges to her world. Not only to the north, but southwards. The pole had not tempted her till now. The men and their ambitions had uncovered a new kind of curse. To be able to see it, but not go herself. She’d go no further than Shackleton – not by her own volition anyway. The world might take her other places but she had no control over that.
Far across the sea, the Fram headed south long behind the Terra Nova, which now was engulfed in the storm. Karina watched from a distance. Scott’s ship was taking on water. The wind howled so loudly that the men could neither hear the shouted orders or their prayers. The crew dealt with the crisis calmly. Below, Bowers dived through the incoming water to locate a pump which had ceased to function. His sodden clothes were covered in thick smears of sticky filth so he looked as if he had been rescued from a mining disaster. As he came up, his teeth chattered so hard, Karina wondered if they would chip. Two men rubbed him down and gave him a tin cup of hot tea but the trauma of the icy water was too much and his body rebelled. He vomited the liquid as soon as he drank it.
‘The crew are taking it in shifts to save the ship,’ Scott wrote in his log book. Karina settled to watch, distracted from her anger at the boundaries of her world. Bowers turned and dived back under the water. His skin screamed with the cold. He could hardly think. An engineer was hammering on the other side of a metal wall and Bowers helped him to clear sludge from the pump. It had been at least an hour or two, she realized. A long time for the living.
Elsewhere on the ship the dogs were howling uselessly into the screaming wind. They were cut off from all hope of rescue by the rising water. On deck, Cherry, Oates and Wilson directed a party of men to throw items overboard to lighten the load – Bowers’ carefully packed supplies were tossed away. If the ship goes down they will all die, she thought in a rush and realized she would feel let down. After all, then they would never make the pole. But no. Below, as the pump burst into life the small crowd that had gathered cheered. Slowly they waited, expectant as the water began to go down. Bowers’ knees were weak but he felt elated – the hero of the hour or one of them.
‘Birdie, good on you.’ A man slapped him on the back as it became clear that his efforts had paid off. These naval men and their nicknames. Karina regarded Bowers and his beak of a nose. He had been bullied all his life on account of it. This was a fond sort of nickname – better than what had gone before. Scott sent the sodden men to change and rest and she followed them.
She toured the cabins of the Terra Nova. In Bowers’ naval trunk, marked with his initials, was an embroidered pennant for his sled. His sisters had made it. She remembered Marijke sewing by the fire at home, stitching little flowers into their winter scarves and hats. Carefully placing small blue crosses around the edge of their mother’s apron. It was a way of saying that she cared. Later
she would be paid by strangers for these efforts – it was her embroidery that had made her famous – among the women of Copenhagen and Amsterdam at least. Tucked beneath the pennant, Bowers had started to write a letter to a girl in Australia – a blonde, pink, warm creature. She was the way he imagined a woman should be. Soft. Gentle. In death we give no such impression, Karina thought. She had been soft once, or softer.
Then, as the ship steamed towards her, she turned back to the mountain and lay down under the ice. She’d wake, she supposed, when they got there.
TWENTY-TWO
She was roused suddenly as if from a nightmare some time later. She seemed to be cutting in and out as if the earth was claiming her – taking her away. The sky was dark as pitch and she was on the ice in another storm. Beyond her, on the mountain, she swung round to see three men sitting in the snow, singing hymns in English. She peered at Wilson, Bowers and Cherry. ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ How had they got there? Their equipment was stacked around them and they were singing into the wind. She mined their minds to find out what had happened and all she came up with was: penguins.
Wilson had been sketching penguin skeletons and examining penguin beaks. They were an ancient species and he wondered if they were some kind of living link to a time when reptiles and birds were more closely related. This seemed a strange, academic concern compared to the madness of the men out here on the hill, in the worst kind of weather, but Karina pursued it. The doctor, she saw, had formed a plan. The emperors nested over the winter. Having laid at the end of the summer, the females abandoned their eggs and it was their mates who congregated to endure the sub-zero winter with their unhatched young slipped under their skirts. Hundreds gathered at Cape Crozier, more than thirty-five miles away from Scott’s base. And that is why they had come, these three men, in the dark, to collect penguin eggs. How the birds survived temperatures of minus seventy for months on end was a mystery, she thought, but Wilson, Bowers and Cherry certainly could not pump blood in this temperature without the cold freezing them to death.
Wilson felt guilty, she saw. He considered it his fault they had ended here. He had encouraged the others. When the doctor first mooted the idea of the expedition, privately, in the captain’s cabin, Scott had stayed uncharacteristically silent. It was early June – the middle of the worst weather. The idea of a round journey of over seventy miles to Cape Crozier and back in the grip of the cold was too crazy even for the skipper. Conditions were devastating. For a start, the darkness was unrelenting and the men would have to navigate by the stars. Wilson’s eyes fell to his leather boots. He examined the laces.
‘The penguins are ancient, Skipper,’ he said. ‘There will be interest from the Royal Society and if we take back an egg, it’ll go on display at the Natural History Museum. Who knows what we might learn?’
Scott had a vision of the pale stone museum building next to the Victoria and Albert Museum. In his mind’s eye it was spring and doily-thin apple-green leaves were fluttering in the breeze. A crowd formed at the entrance. It was comprised of women in smartly buttoned boots and men with ebony walking sticks. Every one of them had come to see the egg the Terra Nova had brought home. The skipper allowed himself a smile. He’d like to have material from his expeditions in all of London’s museums, nonetheless he was taken back by Wilson’s pluck. Even if he was lucky, the going would be hard as granite.
‘It’s practically a suicide mission, Teddy,’ he said.
‘It’s the only way to get hold of an egg. A live one. It could advance our understanding exponentially.’
Scott ran a hand over his hair. ‘Who would you want to take?’
‘Well, they’d need to volunteer.’
The captain considered this. ‘But who would you want?’
Wilson hesitated. ‘Bowers and Cherry.’
Karina watched from above and felt a frisson of excitement. Over her shoulder, she felt the ice stiffen as if in anticipation. Scott had known it was a suicide mission. He’d said so.
‘And you think it’s possible to survive? In your medical opinion?’
Wilson grinned. ‘Well, I hope so,’ he replied.
‘How long do you expect it will take?’ Scott cast a glance at the chart on his desk.
Wilson’s eyes were steady. He had planned everything in its entirety and he knew the answer to any question that Scott might ask, but he did not want to appear presumptuous. He paused as if considering the matter.
‘We’d probably want to man-haul the sledges. At a guess it’d take a month. In the dark and the cold I can’t see that we’ll manage it more quickly. If we make it we’ll be back long before you’re ready to attempt the pole. Before the light comes, if that’s your concern. But the exact timing depends on the weather. There are bound to be blizzards and it’s impossible to guess how long they’ll last.’
Scott wondered which would be worse – the darkness or the cold. The former would mean the men would have to travel in close proximity, reliant on shouting over the weather to pin down their location, otherwise they’d risk losing each other. That’s why Wilson didn’t want the party to consist of more than three. The darkness was bad enough, but, on top of that, the cold would be painful. Their lips would turn to aching iron knives and their ears would howl. The ice would sculpt itself over their bodies. No one had ever survived a week, never mind a month out on the ice in the dead of winter. It was almost July and the going beyond the Terra Nova, on the hospitable part of the plain, was like a sheet of corrugated iron.
‘You better ask them privately,’ he said. ‘You need to be sure it’s not only a matter of bravado.’
She followed Wilson. She trailed him down the dark wooden corridor, not an all-seeing spirit from above but right behind him. Birdie and Cherry were playing chess at the mess table and Cherry had the advantage. He was the expedition’s assistant zoologist but the truth was he had the kind of mind that could turn itself to anything. Poetry. Politics. Dissection. Or in the case of the chequered board laid out before him, a winning strategy steeped in cold, hard logic. She scoped him and saw that Cherry was the man who had everything. He had inherited a country estate and the means with which to run it. He was good-looking and well educated. At first he was teased mercilessly about all three of these things. He had donated £1,000 from his own pocket towards the expedition’s costs and despite his good manners and his willingness to do more than his share, the fellows couldn’t quite shake off the idea that the money was why Scott chose him to join the Terra Nova. It was not. Cherry had made it clear that the £1,000 came without strings.
‘I’m thinking of an outing,’ Wilson started.
Birdie looked up as Cherry slid a bishop across the board.
‘I’d like to get my hands on an egg or two,’ the doctor said casually.
Birdie grinned. ‘An omelette, is it, Teddy?’
‘Emperor eggs. Penguins. They are nesting, you see. No one’s ever got one before.’
The words captured Cherry’s attention.
‘The birds don’t really build a nest, as such,’ Wilson continued. ‘But they are at Cape Crozier, roosting.’
‘Sounds like a frolic,’ Birdie said.
Cherry laughed. ‘You mean now? In this?’
‘It’s a scientific mission. To have a penguin embryo, to examine one, I mean. It can only be done at this time of year. I’m not going to lie to you, the conditions will be rough. I came to you two first.’
Birdie’s gaze did not waver. Cherry’s shoulders rose only slightly. They both knew what they are getting into. It was forty degrees below and some days it had been colder. Cherry got to his feet and offered Wilson his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
The last night at base camp, Birdie couldn’t sleep. He left his bunk and sat at the table by the stove in his woollen dressing gown. The hut was lit by single lamp, hanging on a hook beside him. The air smelled faintly of pipe smoke and toast. Karina watched, settled in the warmth like a silver-white husky, wait
ing. The others were asleep. Slowly Birdie drew his half-written letter from his pocket and laid it on the embers where it curled and blackened. If he did not return, there was no point in upsetting Gladys Brearley, the soft, blonde woman to whom he had been composing his first and only love letter.
He told himself that burning his words was a kindness. He couldn’t marry. He had his mother and sisters to support and money was tight. And besides, if things went wrong, he didn’t want anyone else to know what he’d said. He leaned forward and clasped his hands over his knees as he watched the words disappear into ash. Passion is all that matters. It is everything, she cooed. In eternity, the pain will go and all that is left is love. Birdie shifted, looking straight at her. He sniffed. She could swear he could make her out, a pale wraith of a dead woman enrobed in the scent of summer berries. His gaze did not waver. She blew out the lamp and even in the pitch black she could feel him smile. Birdie Bowers was a brave man. He made a dent in the deepest darkness.
‘Bless you,’ he whispered, as if she had sneezed.
But this is gone. This is over, she told herself. They ended up on the ice, singing. Insane. Exposed. She wondered if now she could walk through time as well as space. And if so, could she change what was going to happen? Could she save them? It would be restitution for killing Vince. More than that.
When Birdie got up he did not relight the lamp. He made his way back to his bunk in absolute darkness because he knew he’d have to get used to it. As he brushed past Cherry’s bunk, Cherry turned over. He was dreaming of an arm around his shoulder. He couldn’t say whose arm, but it was comforting. All Cherry’s dreams amounted to him feeling safe. All his nightmares amounted to him letting down the others. Oblivious to the matter of which side of Cherry’s dream the coin had fallen that night, Birdie climbed into his bunk. Karina settled under the table and listened as he arranged his fur-lined sleeping bag. They were a curiosity – the men Scott had brought with him this time. There was something compelling about them. Outside, the temperature rose only slightly as if to encourage these would-be heroes of the Natural History Museum. By the time they woke it was not even thirty below on the plain.
The Ice Maiden Page 22