Antarctica

by Peter Lerangis

  He faded in and out of consciousness, swimming hard. He had no feeling below the waist and could only hope his arm motions would jump-start his system. When the arms started to spasm, he prayed he was kicking.

  “Nes … bit!”

  The blue in Nesbit’s eyes seemed to have run out, leaving only white.

  And then he was under.

  Barth dived. The water was clear but dark. Nesbit was a black blur.

  He reached desperately and grabbed hold of something. Fabric.

  He pulled and the black blob came with him. He thrust himself back to the surface and lifted Nesbit’s head above water.

  Nesbit convulsed. A thick stream of water and saliva spewed from his mouth.

  The floe seemed miles away. Lombardo and Robert were standing at the edge, shouting.

  How far was it, really? Fifty yards was a child’s distance. He’d been trained to pull a flailing victim four times as far.

  Forty yards.

  Nesbit was heavy. Deadweight. Dead weight. Live weight. He was alive. He couldn’t die. Not on Barth’s watch.

  Thirty.

  This was all his watch, wasn’t it? This was his expedition — number 137 for Elias Barth, United States Navy captain, retired. At large. For hire. No commitments. No family.

  Only friends.

  Friends were those in whose company you thrived. To whom you dreaded bidding farewell.

  Twenty.

  The sea was his friend. The Mystery.

  Nesbit.

  These men.

  The black ice.

  Ten.

  Farewell.

  14

  Colin

  February 5, 1910

  “NICE VACATION SPOT,” KENNEDY said.

  Ruskey threw open his arms. “I name this paradise Elysium!”

  “That’s where the ancient Greeks went after they died,” Philip remarked. “Their idea of heaven.”

  “I feel sorry for them,” Flummerfelt said.

  Dismal was too kind a word to describe this place. The shore was a patch of rocks, salt-washed and slickened with guano and seal excrement. The wind shrieked from all directions, a downdraft from the ice cliff that encircled them like a fortress wall.

  Even the dogs, restless and dazed from the voyage, had no scamper in their souls.

  Where a section of the wall had collapsed, a steep, gravelly path led farther inland. But no one was particularly interested in exploring.

  The Iphigenia was intact, resting in the westernmost part of the cove. The Horace Putney’s hole was big but reparable. And Flummerfelt had located a sturdy spar in one of the boats, large enough for a new mast.

  They were lucky.

  Colin hoped the other boats had been, too. He kept his eye out to sea, hoping for their appearance any minute. Everyone suspected the worst, so no one dared speak about them.

  As Kennedy sawed wood, O’Malley fired up a Primus stove to boil seal’s blood.

  There would be no shortage of that. The bay was dotted with the domes of a few dozen seals, distinguishable from the rocks because their heads bobbed.

  “Aw, no!” Kennedy threw down his saw in disgust and gestured toward the water. “Look!”

  Cranston gasped in mock horror. “It’s an ocean! And here I thought I was back on Lake Ronkonkoma!”

  “The tide is coming in, you fools!” Kennedy shouted. “We must have pulled in at dead low.”

  The joking stopped.

  No one had noticed any high-tide line here. It was one of the first things a sailor looked for on a beach, a telltale strip of seaweed and detritus high up the beach that marked the farthest edge of the tide. If no line existed, you assumed you’d arrived at high tide.

  But because algae and fish were so sparse here, the line wasn’t easy to spot. Now Colin saw it, a slight but definite darkening at the base of the cliff.

  Which meant that in a few hours the entire cove would be underwater.

  “Come on, let’s lift her up the path,” Mansfield said.

  The men tipped the Putney upright and threw in the tools, wood, and stove. When they were done, they spaced themselves around the boat, Father to Colin’s left and Philip to his right. “Heave … ho-o-o-o!” Jack called out.

  It wasn’t as heavy as Colin had expected.

  “Hey, easy there on port!” called Rivera from the other side. “You don’t know your own strength, kid.”

  “Sorry!” Philip exclaimed.

  “Not you,” Windham said. “Colin.”

  As the men walked carefully across the slippery rocks, Dr. Riesman yelled from above: “There’s a ridge up here! A cave, too.”

  The footing was treacherous over the loose rocks. At Father’s command, the men turned and began climbing sideways to the incline, for stability. Sanders and Rivera each tumbled once, almost upsetting the balance. Philip fell twice to little effect.

  Talmadge and Dr. Riesman met them at a long plateau, about ten feet wide, that looked like a kind of fault line between two halves of the ice cliff.

  As they set the boat down, Colin eyed the cave. It was triangular and deep, rent between two slanted, massive ice formations.

  Rivera was already heading for it. “I’ll scout out the lodgings.”

  “What for?” snapped Kennedy.

  “Shelter,” Rivera replied. “Warmth. We may need it.”

  “We’re settin’ up a guest house here?” Kennedy asked.

  “Wyman, please …” Father said.

  “We’re going to unstep this mast, slap on a new one, and put in, and it ain’t going to take that long,” Kennedy said. “I was raised on a farm — we worked until the job was done.”

  “Kennedy, you’ll love it in here!” Rivera called out from the cave mouth. “It smells like a barn.”

  “Oh, do save me a spot,” Philip murmured.

  “If we need to, we can always turn these babies upside down and use ’em as shelters,” Kennedy said. “Side by side, the Putney and the Iphigenia’ll be at least the size of a twenty-man tent.”

  The Iphigenia.

  Colin ran toward the path. He heard the crunch of running footsteps behind him. At the top of the incline he glanced down into the cove. The wind had picked up, raising six-foot breakers on the shore.

  The tide was half in, and the Iphigenia was no longer on solid ground. Tethered to a vertically protruding rock, it pitched fiercely on the water.

  Colin descended fast. The boat wasn’t far out yet.

  “Colin, watch it!” Father called from behind him.

  Colin skidded to a stop. His feet went out from under him and he fell.

  A wave rose out of the churning surf. It towered over Colin ten, fifteen feet and opened like a black-gloved hand.

  He turned and scudded back across the stones. Father grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the pathway. The other men waited, halfway up.

  The wave crashed behind him, and he felt the sting of freezing water on his back.

  As they joined the men, Colin and his father turned.

  On the backwash of the wave, the Iphigenia rose fast. It left the surface for a moment, pausing in the air, and flipped. Another wave slammed into it, thrusting it toward the rocks.

  It smashed into pieces, jettisoning wood far out into the sea.

  The crashing surf sounded like laughter.

  15

  Andrew

  February 7, 1910

  ANDREW WATCHED THE RAINA float away, carrying four men. Robert and Nigel pulled hard at the oars against the brash. Behind them sat Petard. The body lay out of sight, wrapped in a tarp under the decking.

  When the oars stopped their rhythmic plunging and the boat began to slow, Andrew turned away. He heard a soft but substantial splash, a brief prayer.

  When he looked back, the Raina was coming about. Petard now held an empty tarp.

  The sea had claimed the first victim of the Samuel Breen and the Raina.

  Nesbit had been a powerful presence. Like Shreve, he was ste
ady and keenly intelligent. Unlike Shreve, he was cautious. He thought ahead.

  Sometimes even those qualities didn’t help.

  Nesbit had never regained consciousness in the two days since Captain Barth’s rescue. He’d remained in a coma until this evening, when his breathing finally stopped.

  Dr. Montfort, who had been standing by Andrew, now turned silently and slumped into the tent. He had to care for his other patients.

  Barth would be next to go, most likely. He had neither moved nor spoken in two days. Hayes, at least, could moan and ask for water.

  Demosthenes and Socrates still lay nearly motionless. It wouldn’t be long for them, either.

  At the edge of the floe, the three sailors climbed out. Silently they pulled the Raina onto the ice, then disappeared into the other tent.

  Andrew curled up in a tarp by the tent flap, his position for night watch. The wind blew off the Ross Sea, picking up moisture that intensified the cold until it could penetrate fabric, limb, and organ, until it congealed the marrow in Andrew’s bones. The sun now made a brief nightly disappearance below the horizon, and the fact of darkness was frightening.

  Soon the Antarctic summer would be over. In two months, the dark would begin to overtake the light until it swallowed up the entire winter season.

  Andrew hated night watch. Hope was the first thing to go when you were alone. It was in short enough supply anyway.

  The name of their present home, Camp Hope, had been Andrew’s idea. He thought it would help raise morale. Morale was as important as food.

  The trek inland — in ice was more accurate — had been awful. None of the men had fully recovered from the disaster at sea.

  They’d managed to drag the Raina along the ice and snow to a more solid floe. It still didn’t seem as stable as it should — you could feel the motion of the current — but the men were in no condition to travel farther.

  No one had yet addressed the issue of returning. Survival had taken all the energy the team could muster.

  But now, with the men snoring and the dogs whimpering in their sleep and the night reaching in, Andrew could think of nothing else.

  The Raina could only be rowed now, but Robert had begun repairs on the rigging, along with a team made up of the fully recovered men. They’d all dutifully followed his instructions — including Nigel. After the incident with the boom, Nigel had had the good sense not to contradict anyone on anything.

  And yet the question remained: What happened after the boat was repaired? They couldn’t all fit in. Did they all stay here to die, out of fairness? Or did they draw lots — home for the winners, death for the losers?

  There would be fights. The men would tear one another apart.

  And what about the ones who did leave? What were the odds of sailing to safety over nearly 3,000 miles of treacherous freezing seas, with no food and little shelter, in a jury-rigged rowboat?

  Andrew tried to stop the thoughts. He gazed out over the water, hoping for the thousandth time to see the silhouettes of the Horace Putney and the Iphigenia.

  He heard a rustling behind him and turned. Oppenheim was awake, crawling toward the tent flap. Andrew dreaded this. The babble would be unbearable without anyone else awake to soften the blows.

  But Oppenheim sat quietly next to Andrew and pulled his canvas blanket around him. “They’re coming,” he said.

  In the dusky sky over the sea, the light began to change, its hidden particles of color gathering as a cloud gathers from vapor. They blazed and faded in a diaphanous shimmer of purple, blue, and red, as if a curtain were being slowly drawn across heaven. In the water Andrew saw dancing shapes that transformed into hideous sea monsters, sinking ships, flailing men. He saw Nesbit reaching up, his face bone white. He heard Dr. Shreve’s voice explode in a desperate cry that slowly receded, and the shrill wail of dogs about to die on the ice. He heard Jack and Colin calling for him, asking him to come along. And Mother, singing out his name.

  He felt caught in the moment between death and life, looking forward and backward at the same time.

  Faith, hope, and love — these ideas had sustained him on the South Pole trip. But it was different then. Then he was returning to a ship, a family, the idea of going home.

  Now he had none of the three.

  Without a word, Oppenheim slipped away and went back to sleep.

  Over the water, the aurora australis winked and faded.

  16

  Jack

  February 7, 1910

  “MANSFIELD, HOW LONG’S IT gonna take you to step that mast?” Kennedy barked. “An’ what, pray tell, are you doin’ with that seal’s blood, Westfall — paintin’ a still life? Smear it on, boy!”

  Kennedy, who’d never been known for patience and flexibility, was losing what little he had of each. The repair to the Horace Putney hadn’t been minor at all. In sawing the wood around the hole to make a neater fit for the new planks, the hull had caved in. The wood had dry rot. It had probably been rotting for months, escaping notice back in New York. And in repairing that, Kennedy had discovered “structural flaws” in the boat, things that could prevent it from sailing true.

  Jack hadn’t understood a word of his explanation, but you didn’t contradict Kennedy on matters of carpentry or design.

  They had worked straight through, taking shifts. Some of the men had slept in the cave, despite the darkness and the atrocious stink. Others had taken shelter under the overturned boat, managing to sleep soundly despite the noise of repairs. Kennedy had been awake for at least seventy-two hours.

  “She should be ready to sail in a few hours, as soon as the caulk sets,” Dr. Riesman said.

  Jack shook his head. “We’ll leave her overnight. We need rest, all of us — especially the ones sailing back.”

  Flummerfelt peeked out from the starboard side, where he was helping sand down the hull. “You got that right.”

  “I could sleep like a hedgehog hidin’ in the canebrakes,” Kennedy murmured.

  “He’s human after all,” Ruppenthal grumbled.

  Kennedy whirled around and grabbed Ruppenthal by the collar. “Repeat that?”

  “At ease, gentlemen!” Jack said, pulling them apart.

  They would need the cave. No doubt about it. Without shelter, without a sense of a home base, the men would be at one another’s throats.

  He’d have to explore. Despite the smell.

  “Who has the matches?” Jack asked.

  “I do,” Colin said.

  “Come with me to the cave and bring a lamp.”

  Colin reached under the decking and pulled out a small kerosene lamp. “Sorry, Kennedy, I won’t be gone long.”

  “I won’t miss you,” Kennedy replied. “Stumblebum — Flusterfield — whatever your name is — up here on the double.”

  Colin climbed down from the boat and walked with Jack toward the cave. “Who’s going? Tomorrow. With you.”

  “You are,” Jack replied. “Only one other. We need speed and flexibility.”

  “Who’s the other?”

  “Philip.”

  Colin gave him a tenuous look.

  “I’m serious.”

  “But why?”

  “I can’t leave him here, Colin. The men’ll make mincemeat out of him.”

  “Father …”

  Colin fell silent. He couldn’t argue that.

  The smell of organic waste came out to greet them from the cave opening. Colin covered his nose. Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out Walden’s flag to use as a handkerchief.

  The rocks outside the opening were smooth and slick, like the ones below, no doubt from centuries of seal visitations. Among them, Jack saw three tiny white slivers.

  Burned matches.

  “Who left those?” he asked.

  Colin shrugged. “Not me.”

  “Has anyone else been using the matches?”

  “Nope. I’ve had ’em since we left Camp Perseverance. Robert has the only others, and he’s on th
e Raina.”

  Jack picked one up. It was whole.

  Matches were priceless. Only a half box remained. Jack had strictly ordered the men to use them only if absolutely necessary — and to cut them in half, to double their lives.

  “Looks as if someone’s hiding something from us,” Jack said.

  “But why?” Colin asked. “Why keep something like that secret when it could help us all?”

  “As we get further into this mess, Colin, I understand more about how to manage men but less about their motives.”

  Colin pulled out his pocketknife. He took a match and laid it on a flat rock. With a firm but delicate stroke he sliced the match in half, taking care not to crumble the head.

  As Jack cupped his hand around it, Colin struck the match and quickly ignited the blubber in the lamp. Crouching in the cave entrance, he held it forward.

  The light played dimly against the smooth walls of ice. Shadows formed by long icicles danced a hoedown. The floor was cluttered with odd-shaped objects.

  “Bones,” Jack murmured.

  “It’s the seals’ chophouse and mausoleum,” Colin said.

  “The seals’ outhouse is more like it,” Jack remarked. “Let’s clean it.”

  “The shovel was in the Iphigenia.”

  “We’ll use oars then.”

  “You dropped something.” Colin knelt to pick something off the ground. He held out a small American flag to Jack.

  Jack took his hand away from his mouth. “I didn’t drop it.”

  “Then … where’d this come from?”

  Jack held his flag side by side with the other.

  They were identical.

  17

  Andrew

  February 8, 1910

  “HEY, FELLAS, THE OLD man’s alive!” Lombardo shouted.

  He and Petard had been saying daily prayers by Captain Barth’s side. Apparently they’d been answered.

  The men crowded into the makeshift infirmary. Barth was turning his head slowly. “I’m not old, you nitwit,” he mumbled.

  “Yeeee-HAAAAH!” Lombardo cried out.

  “How are you feeling?” Dr. Montfort asked.