Perce thought about her a lot these days. She had never actually been his sweetheart in real life, but out here the faraway Anna was becoming more real than real could be. She had dark straight hair and dark brown eyes that sparkled when she laughed. She laughed a lot and wasn't afraid of anything. Perce had known her since they were small but never thought much about her except that she always wanted to play with the boys. She could run faster than most of them and row better than some. Anna was the youngest of nine, and everyone said her poor parents were just too worn out by then to do anything about her.
He had always thought of her as just one of the kids in the lane until one spring, when he was fourteen, just a week before he first went to sea. He had picked up an extra job painting boats with Anna's brother Hugh. One day, Perce was surprised to see Anna ride up on Hugh's bicycle. It was the first really warm spring day and the first time Perce had seen her without the drab bulk of winter clothes. She was thirteen or even fourteen now, he realized, and hadn't been roughhousing with the boys lately. She was dressed in old clothes, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail, but Perce didn't really notice that because there was a golden curtain hanging behind her, pushing away everything else in the world. How could a girl be the same girl you've seen all your life but completely different? The way she looked at him too, like she knew all the secrets in the world.
“Where's Hugh?” Perce asked. His voice came out strangled, and he blushed. He ducked his face and fixed his attention on the complicated job of opening the can of paint.
“Buggered his shoulder playing rugby yesterday,” Anna said. “Doc had to come and pop it back in. You could hear it crackle like breaking a chicken's neck!” She laughed, and a thousand songbirds died from envy. “So I'm here for him. Said a warm, dry day we shouldn't waste, and the rest were off fishing.” Her hair was shiny in the sun, her lips like she had just eaten raspberries. Her wrists, where she had rolled up the sleeves of her brother's shirt, were covered in a delicate downy fuzz.
They painted all day. She was good at it. She had a way of holding the brush so it barely touched the wood, leaving a perfect, smooth stroke of crimson paint. Sometimes now it was all he could think about, the row of red hulls glistening in the hot sun, the shine on Anna's hair, the graceful little hands, the feel of her skin as their hands or wrists would bump in the work, once her whole leg.
“Aw, well, that Tolstoy can be rough going.” Billy jostled Perce back to reality. “Try Kipling,” he suggested. “He's got some bang-up adventure stories. Also H. G. Wells. You'll have to stand in line for it, but The Time Machine is super. Green-street is reading it now, and Hurley claimed it next.”
Perce had never read a novel before joining the Endurance. He had read stories in magazines, but there weren't many novels around. And between work and rugby and looking after his brothers, there just wasn't much time. Now he discovered how wonderful it was. Books took you someplace else. He could lie on his bunk with a novel and be sailing in the South Pacific instead of frozen stuck in Antarctica. When he finally got his hands on The Time Machine, he read it straight through without stopping. He even tried reading Shakespeare but found it even rougher going than Tolstoy.
“Oh, Shakespeare,” Billy laughed. “He's a pretty good writer, that fella. But he's got some strange words. And sometimes just too many of them!”
Shackleton loved books and liked to talk about them, even with the fo'c'sle hands. He also encouraged the men to keep journals and gave them all notebooks. Some wrote every day. Orde Lees wrote pages and pages and pages about every little thing. Perce didn't know what to write about.
“Tell how things are,” Hurley suggested. “Like a letter to a friend.” But Perce was never good at writing letters.
“Do it like in the encyclopedia,” Billy said. “Or like a school report or newspaper story.”
That was an even worse idea. Perce had never liked school reports, and most news stories were boring.
“Do you keep a journal?” he asked Crean when they were working in the harness room one day.
“A journal? What would I put in a journal?”
“I don't know. Things that happen?”
“Not much happens.” Crean ran his fingers over a harness strap, feeling for worn spots. “Then when something does happen, it's either a great good thing—like Sally's pups— so I'll remember it just fine, or it's a bad patch, and why in heaven's name would I want to remember that at all?”
There was some truth to that, Perce thought. “What if it's a bad patch but you can't help remembering anyway?”
Crean laughed. “That's why God made whiskey and the Irish make songs.”
Perce gave up the idea of a journal. The blank notebook sat on his shelf by his bunk for a couple of weeks. Then one night he couldn't sleep. A blizzard had been raging for three days. It was dark and cold, and everyone was cooped up and cross. Even Mrs. Chippy hissed at him when Perce tried to move him off the table. It seemed the winter would never end. Perce felt alone and crowded and scared and mad all at the same time. He didn't know what to do with himself. Cry or scream or get an ax and chop a hole in the boat and sink and be done with it. He saw the notebook and grabbed a pencil and just let everything tumble out the way he felt it.
Sometimes I hate this ship! I am the stupidest person alive for stowing away! I want to run off across the ice and keep going and not look back. Sometimes I hate everyone here, even Billy. Well, not him so much. Just seeing him all the time. The same faces and the same smelly socks and the same old jokes. I want to see girls in Sunday ribbons—yellow, blue, pink, green. I long for color. I want to eat color. I hate everyone. Well, not the dogs. I love the dogs. And Mrs. Chippy. But everyone else—yes! I hate them all!
Sometimes the dark feels evil. Like a live thing out there, wanting to get you. Or a monster. It is always out there and nothing we can do about it. Everything is just dark, dark, dark. I know the earth is still turning. I know the sun will come back one day. But sometimes I can't believe it. I can't remember sunlight.
It felt good to write all that. It was like opening a window in a stuffy room and letting fresh air in. And with the fresh air came better memories. Perce took up the pencil and wrote some more.
But then I'm on night watch and the Boss comes and sits with me and talks. Just ordinary talk. Like he isn't the Boss and I'm not nobody. He remembers I have five brothers and asks questions about them. He has eight sisters. He asks why I first went to sea and what else do I want to do in my life. I don't know that. Don't know much beyond this for now. But just because he asks, I think there might be something. So then I don't hate everyone anymore. I don't want to run off across the ice. I believe the sun will come out again and the ice will melt and Endurance will sail free again. So maybe things are really all right.
chapter seventeen
June came. They had been stuck for three and a half months. Shackleton worked hard to keep up spirits. They had birthday parties nearly every week. On Frank Wild's birthday, Charlie brought out a big round cake all covered in coconut. He called it a snowball cake. When Wild cut into it, however, the cake exploded, throwing gobs of frosting all over. Charlie had frosted a balloon for a trick. So for Crean's birthday, everyone was suspicious. It looked like a regular cake, but Crean stood back and poked it very delicately with the knife. When nothing exploded, he tried to cut it. Hard as he tried, the knife wouldn't go through. This time Charlie had frosted a brick. When there were no birthdays among the crew, Shackleton declared it was the birthday of the king of Tonga or the sultan of Mesopotamia. Sometimes he sent Billy searching through the encyclopedias for obscure occasions to celebrate. They celebrated the invention of the tin can and the transcontinental railroad.
Shackleton insisted that all the men gather together in the Ritz for a little while every night. He knew how easy it was for some men to feel isolated and depressed and he didn't want them hiding away alone in their bunks. On Sunday nights, they listened to records on the gramophone. A
t least that was one benefit of being stuck in the ice: they never had to worry about the needle skipping and ruining the record. On clear nights, they often went outside to watch the southern lights. Beautiful curtains of light and color danced across the sky. Gold and green and pink shimmered so bright sometimes, it was like fireworks.
On July 26, the sun finally peeked above the ice again. In August, the seals and penguins began to return, and by September, they started to feel the first hints of spring. From the crow's nest, they could see cracks appearing in the ice. October came with brilliant sunshine and mild weather. The temperature at midday often went up to twenty degrees. Open lanes of water began to appear in the ice. One day Perce woke to a strange feeling. It took a few minutes to realize what it was. The ship was floating. After eight months, she was a real ship again.
Perce ran up on deck, where everyone else was gathering. The ice around the hull had melted enough to give them a little pool of water. All over the ship, loose gear rolled off tables and tumbled off shelves. Even the dogs knew something exciting was going on and set up a loud howl.
“Let's hoist the mainsail,” Captain Worsley ordered. They knew they weren't going anywhere soon, but the sail would help keep the ship steady. Perce, Tim, and Billy scrambled aloft. After being furled for so long, the sail was frozen solid, but they knocked the ice off with gleeful kicks. From the yardarm, they could see patches of open water in the distance. Their own little pond was hardly bigger than the Endurance's hull but, soon enough, the sea would be open and they would all be going home.
A few days later, Perce had a strange dream. He dreamed an orca had come up under the ship and was pushing it over. He started sliding out of his bunk but held on so the orca wouldn't get him. He could hear the eerie calls of whales all around him. Perce woke in a cold sweat. First he was relieved that it was just a dream. Then he realized it wasn't. Perce sat up and rolled right out of his bunk. He slid into the side of Tim's bunk. Everything was tilted at a crazy angle. The ship was full of strange noises: groaning, creaking, and screeching. The screeching was so loud, he could hardly hear Tim. Then there was a loud crash, and Billy came tumbling out of his bunk above.
“What the hell!”
“What's happening?” Tim shouted.
“Don't know. Let's get out of here.” Perce gave Tim his hand and pulled him up out of the bunk. Clothes, books, boots, and jackets had been thrown everywhere. They had to scramble out, walking sideways like crabs. The squealing, grinding noise got louder. It was like being in the jaws of a giant machine. They struggled to open the fo'c'sle door. In the Ritz, chess pieces, books, lamps, and empty sardine tins had been thrown in a pile on one side. Mrs. Chippy sat contentedly licking at the spilled sardine oil. Lopsided didn't matter much to a cat. The benches and tables had slid down the sloping floor. Curtains hung out from the walls. Other men were stumbling through, fighting their way to the deck. The bell began to clang.
Once on deck, Perce stopped and stared. The flat, endless ice plain they had lived in for months was torn apart. But rather than opening up the sea for their escape, it was trapping them more than ever.
Great jagged slabs of ice were piled up all around the ship, lifting her hull half out of the water, tipping the Endurance until she was almost on her side. Deck planks were snapping, and metal halyards screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. Shackleton stood on the bridge, calmly giving orders in the chaos. Wild directed the men as they came on deck.
“Billy,” Wild shouted. “Help McNeish with the lifeboats.” The Endurance was heeled so far over, the lifeboats on the port side were in danger of being crushed against the ice.
“Blackie, Tim,” Wild commanded. “Help get the dogs on board.” Dogloo city was a wreck. The dogs howled with fright. Some of the chains had come free, and the loose dogs ran everywhere. Others were trapped and buried in their dogloos. Huge slabs of ice stuck straight up like tombstones in a giant's graveyard. Perce grabbed an ax in one hand and a pike in the other. It was hard even getting to the dogs through the maze of broken ice. Perce began to chop the chains free. Crean was digging Sampson out of his collapsed dogloo.
“What's happening?” Perce had to shout to be heard over the noise of crunching ice.
“Pressure!” Crean shouted back. “Ice starts to break up, and the current jams it all together. Then the wind catches the broken slabs like sails and pushes it up more.”
It was scary to see blocks of ice that weighed ten tons piled up around them like a child's building blocks. Crean freed Sampson and led him to the safety of the ship, with the four grown pups running right behind. Hurley had his hands full with Shakespeare but grabbed another dog from Perce. They bolted in opposite directions, almost pulling him in two. Hurley swore, yanked on the leashes, and muscled the dogs back to his side. It was a frantic race, but within ten minutes every dog was securely on board the ship. They were so terrorized, they even forgot to fight. They just cowered in corners and whined.
McNeish came running, as much as anyone could run on the sloping deck.
“She's sprung fore an' aft, Boss!” he announced. “There's two foot of water in the hold, and the pump's froze up.”
“Very well,” Shackleton said evenly. “Get some men on the hand pumps. Can you stem the leaks?”
“Timbers is split, sir. I might build a cofferdam, though. Might keep the water back from the engines.”
“Take whatever men you need.”
“You two—” Wild pointed at Perce and Tim. “Help Hurley secure the dogs, then relieve the men on the pumps. You there—Bill, Vincent, the rest of you there—get the pikes, let's try to push some of this ice back from the ship. The rest of you with McNeish.”
McNeish took his men belowdecks. “I need all the planking you can find,” he directed. “Packing cases, shelves—get the doors off the cabins! Go!”
Perce dragged a frightened dog along the tilted deck. His heart was beating hard, but he felt surprisingly calm. There was just no time to be afraid.
They worked all day and all night. McNeish and his crew sloshed waist deep in the freezing water as they tried to stop the leaks. The sailors, officers, and scientists worked shoulder to shoulder. They were so wet and dirty, you could hardly tell one man from another. Fifteen minutes on the hand pumps— fifteen minutes' rest, half hour chopping at the ice or helping with the dam down below. Perce pounded nails and stuffed blankets into cracks, then went back to the pumps. The labor was extreme. The water was pouring in so fast, they had to pump full out. After five minutes, his arms ached. After ten minutes, his shoulders and neck were in a spasm.
The night became a blur. Once Perce fell asleep while holding a board in place on the dam. Once he found a mug of soup in his hand and didn't know how it got there. The strangest thing was how the Boss was everywhere all the time. When a shift finished on the pumps, there he was with mugs of chocolate. When the strips of blanket floated out of the cofferdam, it was Shackleton's hand that caught them. His clothes were as wet and dirty as any of theirs, but he never rested, never seemed tired.
Finally, late the next morning, the efforts began to show success. Water still came in, but slower. Shackleton ordered an hour's rest. Charlie had somehow managed to cook with the galley at a crazy tilt and now dished out big bowls of porridge. The men ate hunched over, too tired to speak. Some fell asleep at the table, their heads beside the empty bowls. And always, the terrible screech and groaning of the pressing ice continued all around them.
Perce saw Crean come into the Ritz. His clothes and face were covered in ice. His eyes were red. Perce realized he hadn't seen him below at all. He must have been working outside all this time. Shackleton went to him, and the two men talked briefly. Then Crean caught Perce's eye and nodded toward the companionway. Perce got up, gathered an armful of empty bowls on his way, and dropped them in the galley. Then he got his coat and hat and went up on deck. He blinked at the bright light after the darkness below. The sight was shocking. The deck was all twisted
and broken. Rigging had snapped, and a couple of loose lines still whipped around. Blocks of ice the size of train cars were piled against the side. The beautiful Endurance was a shattered wreck. For a moment, he felt more sad even than scared.
“Can you still stand up, lad?” Crean smiled.
“No one's standing up much on these decks,” Perce replied. “But I'm strong yet.”
“Good. Help me with a wee job, then.” Crean walked over to the port side. There were crates of provisions on the deck: rolled-up tents and sacks of sleeping bags, tins of paraffin and boxes of food. “The Boss has an idea that we might like to have the lifeboats ready,” Crean said. “But we don't want to make a big fuss about it. I need a hand to load all this mess in.”
Perce looked down at the ice where the lifeboats had been lowered. Another hundred feet out, he saw Hurley and the other dog team leaders packing the sleds. He realized what they were doing now. They were getting ready to abandon the ship. The Endurance was done for. He knew it already, of course. Probably everyone knew. But knowing something in the back of your mind was one thing. Knowing something in the way of packing the lifeboats was another. The pressure ice had caused too much damage. There would be no fixing her, no sailing away, no escape. Perce felt his head go all hot and his stomach lurch. He took a gulp of cold air, but it didn't help. He grabbed the rail, leaned over the side, and threw up.
“Sorry.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Crean put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You'll do all right, Blackie,” he said quietly. “We've a bad time coming, but you'll do all right.”
Shackleton's Stowaway Page 9