Some are grumbling mightily tonight. Say it's all a waste of time. Vincent making fun of me for writing here. Says I'd do better just writing up my last will and testament. Well, joke is on him, then, for I haven't anything to leave anyone in a will and testament. Didn't even fill my two-pound allotment out side of clothing, so told Billy he could have another pound of books. That's two more encyclopedias and he's happy. Hurley built a blubber stove out of an old ash chute from the ship. Very clever. We cut the blubber into chunks and put it on a metal rack. Under it is a little pan of paraffin. When this is lit, it starts to melt the blubber, then the blubber keeps itself going, slowly melting, dripping, and burning in the same pan. It makes a hot, stinky, smoky fire, but it will be our only way of cooking for some time.
Mostly we are eating what we call “hoosh.” That is boiled seal meat with some broken-up hardtack biscuits to thicken it. Shackleton asked Charlie today to add some chopped-up seal blubber for all the strength we need. But the blubber is oily and fishy-tasting, and some of the men picked it out.
Everyone was gloomy that night as they made camp. The men staggered with fatigue as they set up the tents. Charlie Green wobbled as he stirred the pot. Every day since they started camping, one person from each tent took a turn at being “Peggy.” The Peggy had the job of fetching the hoosh for his tentmates from the main pot, then cleaning the pot out with snow. Each man had a tin mug called a pannikin, which he used for both food and drink. It became quite normal to drink a cup of hot milk with globules of seal fat floating on top. For utensils, each had a spoon and his fingers. They didn't really wash these, just licked them clean and put them back in their pockets. They ate inside the tents, sitting cross-legged on the soggy canvas, hunched hungrily over the food.
When Billy finished eating, he leaned over to put his pannikin away, then gasped and fell over.
“Billy?” Perce leaned over his friend. “What's wrong?”
Billy was crumpled on his side, his face twisted with pain. He could hardly talk. “Cramp,” he hissed, arms clutching tight around his stomach.
“Tim, come give a hand. Try to relax, Billy, we'll stretch you out.”
“Here, pull his knees down. Easy, like.” Tim grabbed Billy's knees, and Perce held his shoulders, but Billy was still seized up.
“Jeez—he's tight as a bug. We need to warm the muscles. Anyone's hands still warm?” Tim asked.
“Aye.” Walter How put down his mug, scooted over, and reached up under Billy's clothing and rubbed his palms on the bare skin.
“I'll go for Doc,” Tim offered.
“Can you take a deep breath, maybe?” Perce suggested as he crouched beside his friend. Suddenly his own leg started to cramp. When Tim crawled back inside the tent a few minutes later, he felt the muscles clutch in the back of his neck. It would have been comical if it didn't all hurt so much. Doc Macklin came with a jug of warm water. “You've all got to drink more,” Macklin explained as he knelt beside Billy. “Everyone's cramping up tonight. The Boss is walking like a beggar, and Crean is groaning like an old lady.” He felt Billy's knotted stomach muscles. “Though none so bad as this.” He mixed hot water with four lumps of sugar and some brandy and gave it to Billy by spoonfuls until he could sit up enough to drink it down.
“I know you men are knackered after the work, but you can't just sit right down in the cold. Walk around a little. Like a horse after a race.” Finally, his muscles relaxed by the warm drink, Billy fell asleep, his cramp subsided. Perce lay awake a long time, watching the frost form on the inside of the tent.
If Shackleton really was limping like a beggar the night before, it didn't show in the morning. Perce was the Peggy for his tent that day. When he went to fetch the breakfast hoosh, he saw the Boss far out on the ice with Wild, Worsley, and Hurley. They looked small and lonely against the gray sky. He knew they were surveying for the day's journey, and the very thought of it made Perce shudder. A little while later, after they had finished breakfast and Perce was rubbing out the pots with snow, Shackleton came over.
“Bit of a rough go yesterday, eh, lad?”
“A bit, sir.”
“Is Billy doing better?”
“Much better. He slept fine after Doc saw to him.”
“Good. Haven't much time to do your studying these days, have you?”
Perce looked down at the pots. He wasn't sure if the Boss was chastising him or not. “You've been so busy with all this hauling,” Shackleton added quickly as if he immediately read Perce's mind. “But let me ask you something.” Shackleton sat down on a crate beside Perce. “I know we all like the sense of getting somewhere, but this man hauling, well, doesn't seem to be working very well, does it? Not for lack of trying, mind you. I know everyone is working very hard.”
“We haven't got very far,” Perce agreed.
“We were out scouting this morning.”
“Aye, I saw you.”
“The ice is pretty bad. All broken up as far as we could see. But there appears to be a good solid floe not too far away. We were thinking about camping there awhile until the ice breaks up. What do you think? Do you think the men would mind?” Perce felt a flood of relief at the idea.
“Might be a good idea,” he said.
“We'll have a meeting in a little while to talk about it. Tell the others in your tent, will you?”
“Aye.” They both stood up. Shackleton staggered a step and Perce saw him wince.
“Are you all right, Boss?”
“Just a twinge here and there.” He rubbed his hands over his lower back. “Ah, when we get home, I'm going to lie down in the green grass. Let the sun beam all over me for about ten days. Maybe just in my knickers. What do you say, lad? Sound good?”
“I haven't any knickers decent enough for that, sir,” Perce said. Shackleton laughed.
chapter twenty
They called their new home Ocean Camp. It was a good, thick chunk of ice, almost a mile square. Best of all, it was only two miles from the remains of the Endurance, where so much had been left behind. That first afternoon, most of the men went back to see what they could salvage. Everyone was in a jolly mood as they set out, but when they got close to the wreck, they fell silent. The Endurance was little more than a twisted pile of wood, half sunk and crushed like a child's toy run over by a train. It was a horrible sight.
“Doesn't it seem a hundred years ago,” Perce said. “And it's only been a week since we left her.”
“Father Neptune got us, boys,” Billy said with some admiration. “Poured out all his vengeance for trespassing in his domains.”
McNeish, Hurley, and Crean went on board first to check for danger. The mainmast was about to fall, so they cut it down. The mizzen fell with it and made a terrible sound. The sorrow didn't last long, however, once the plunder began. The next few days became a combination pirate raid, treasure hunt, and Christmas all rolled into one. They brought back planks of wood and built floors for the tents. They pried up the entire wheelhouse and turned it into a galley for Charlie. Much to Billy's delight, many of the encyclopedias were rescued. They salvaged boards and ropes and rolls of canvas. They spent hours prying out every precious nail they could get. Hurley found a metal coal hod and more pieces of the ash chute and improved the blubber stove.
“Look at that,” he said proudly. “We can melt two and a half gallons of water in thirty minutes with ten pounds of blubber for fuel. That's double what we were doing!”
Best of all, they recovered the third lifeboat. No one had liked the idea of all twenty-eight men crammed into two lifeboats. Now all they needed was for the ice to break up enough to use them. Meanwhile, they worked on a more comfortable wait.
“Do you know that big iron pot we had?” Charlie asked Perce one day. “It was in the pantry locker.”
“Aye.”
“Could you have a look for it? Be a great thing to 'ave! All's we got is this thin one now, and I don't think it will last. Hurley's new stove gets too hot, y'see.”
<
br /> The wreckage shifted day by day, so when they found the pantry locker, the door was under two feet of water and eight inches of slushy ice.
“Anyone fancy a swim?” Perce said. No one was exactly jumping for the opportunity.
“Would be mighty good to have that big pot,” Billy said wistfully. “I'll bet if we sent a big strong fellow down with a rope around him, he could find it well enough.” He looked pointedly at Tom Crean.
“I'd say we're better off sending a skinny little fellow down.” Crean grinned. “And have the big strong fellow hold his ankles.”
“Well, there's an idea!” Billy replied quickly. “Not a good idea, but an idea! What do you say, Perce?”
“I say it's fine of you to volunteer!”
“Oh, I would, you know, Perce, but after all, it's you who knows what the pot looks like.”
“Why, it looks just like a pot, Billy. Two handles and a big pot-shaped thing in the middle.”
“And since you won't be seeing much down in the dark water anyway, it doesn't matter much what it looks like, does it?” Crean added. “I imagine it's more a groping sort of job.”
“Groping. Yes, that's what I'd expect. So don't you agree we'd do much better with a tall fellow like Tim here!” Billy clapped Tim on the back. “His arms are much longer—why, he's practically built for groping!”
They finally decided by drawing straws. Billy lost. He stripped off his clothes and waded into the freezing water.
“Oh, jeez—I don't know enough swearwords for this!” Billy gasped.
“Easier if you just plunge on in, mate,” Tim encouraged.
“Oh, you think so? Oh, blast—let's get on with it.” Crean grabbed hold of his ankles, and Billy took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and plunged, shrieking with the cold. He felt around in the dark murky water for the cupboard latch, then felt around in the mess of floating junk for the big iron pot. He was almost out of breath when his fingers struck the dense metal. He grabbed hold of it just as Crean yanked him out.
Billy held the pot triumphantly aloft. The other men cheered. Tim threw him a blanket, but Billy waved it off.
“I'm half froze already, might as well get some more!” He plunged in twice more and pulled out three more pots before Crean, afraid to risk turning him into an icicle, called a halt to the effort. They rubbed him with blankets until his skin was red as a lobster, but Billy didn't warm up for hours.
Pots were good, but the real quest was for food. Right now the ration was about half a pound of food per man per day. It wasn't starving, but it wasn't much. Back home, a man could easily eat a half-pound steak for dinner. They had carried off several tons of food when they first left, but there was much more in the ship's hold.
“Only we have to break through decking a foot thick and three feet underwater,” McNeish explained. “With nothing much to stand on and no tools to speak of.”
“It's impossible.” Vincent scowled. He sat on a piece of rubble and began to roll a cigarette.
“Aye.” McNeish nodded somberly. “Impossible it is. You know what that means, Blackie?” He winked at Perce.
“Impossible?” Perce knew what Shackleton would say. “Means it's going to take a little longer?”
“Machines!” Hurley was bristling with energy. “That's what we need, boys—machines!” Hurley was never happier than when he was creating some new useful thing out of old bits and pieces. The task of breaking through the deck was a good challenge. He sharpened one of the ice chisels and rigged it to a block and tackle. They could hoist it up and let it drop like a pile driver. It took half the day to get through the thick deck, but once it was pierced, they could insert a long saw and the job went quicker. A couple of hours of sawing and finally they had an opening three feet square.
Wild wouldn't allow any more diving. “It's too deep, and no one's going to last long enough to get much out anyway. Get the boat hooks and we'll see what we can drag out.”
They still had to stand knee-deep in the freezing water, but no one minded when they were fishing for food. On the very first try, a barrel of walnuts floated up. The men cheered. Soon other crates came bobbing up behind it. It was like the arcade game where you moved mechanical jaws to grab a toy from the pile; you never knew what you would get. There was a case of sugar, then one of flour. When they hauled up a case of strawberry jam, the men jumped up and down like kids. They opened a jar right there and passed it around, dipping their fingers into it with sloppy delight. Dried vegetables and lentils were less exciting but still welcome, but when Perce fished out a case of creamed spinach, he was loudly booed. They did not, however, throw it back.
Over the next few days, they made several more holes in the deck of the Endurance and eventually brought out three tons of food. Shackleton figured that with a steady supply of seal and penguin, they could eat comfortably for six months, but no one expected they would wait that long. It was early November; the Antarctica summer was just around the corner. Everyone was feeling optimistic.
Best of all, as far as Hurley was concerned, was the rescue of his photographs. It was another wet and dangerous job with ankle-holding plunges, but the plates were in good waterproof cases and few were broken. Until that night anyway.
“You know we can't carry them all, Frank,” Shackleton said. There were over five hundred negatives. Hurley and Shackleton sat down on some cases and sorted through the plates. They chose a hundred and fifty of the best ones. Then they smashed the rest. Hundreds of glass plates crashed one by one into a pit in the ice. It took hours. Perce found Hurley later, standing by the pit. He could see bits of the broken images still, ghostly and gray against the snow.
“Why did you have to break them?” Perce asked. “Couldn't we just leave them whole? Maybe someday they'd be found.”
“Boss was afraid I might try to sneak them along somehow. And he was probably right!” Hurley laughed. “But you must be happy, Blackie. No more lugging all that gear around with me, eh?”
“No! Of course not,” Perce said earnestly. “I liked it.”
“I was just kidding, lad.”
“Really, I was glad. And I learned something.”
“Well, I've got the Vest Pocket left,” Hurley said matter-of-factly, patting the Kodak in his jacket pocket. This was the newest, most amazingly small camera invented. It folded up to the size of a paperback book. “Twenty-four shots. Suppose I'll have to restrain myself a bit.”
“You'll start over easy when we get back. People will pay to see your lantern shows, and you can buy all the newest equipment,” Perce reassured him.
“When we get back.” Hurley looked up from the broken glass, out over the endless ice. “Yes, I suppose I can.”
chapter twenty-one
After a week of scavenging, Shackleton and Wild decided the sinking wreck had become too dangerous. The raiding parties were ended. Life at Ocean Camp settled into routine. Wake up. Wash your face with snow. Eat breakfast. Do chores. Chop ice for water, shovel snow over the latrines, skin some penguins, cut blubber for the stove, feed the dogs, check the tent stakes. Afternoons: read, play cards. Walk around the floe. Play with the dogs. Eat dinner. Read some more. Play cards. Sleep.
November 18, 1915
We have quite the little town here now and are even comfortable. We have boards for the floor of our tent, which makes it nice and dry. Billy has been curing sealskins, which he knows how to do from his trapping days. When they are ready, we will have soft beds. It is late spring, weather has been mild, usually in the thirties, and the sun shines about half the days. Even blizzards aren't so bad, though, for the wind blows our ice island farther north. It is rather miserable to be squashed up inside a tent for two or three days while the wind howls, and we all shiver all the time, but the miles are worth it. We make bets on how far we will go. When the sky is clear, Worsley can get a sighting and figure our position, just like on the ship. Well, guess we are on a ship, really. Only a ship of ice.
Some nights we have light
shows in the sky. Called aurora australis, like the northern lights, all pink and gold and green wavy curtains of light. Shiny, too, like a lady's fine silk scarf. Once Hussey took out his banjo and made up music to go along with the lights. It was different from the singsong tunes he usually plays. Sort of peaceful and dreamy, but a little sad too. Sad in the way when you see something very beautiful and know it will go away. Like a flower will die or a summer picnic day has to end. No one talked or joked around like they usually do. Even the dogs got quiet. After a while, I felt tears filling up my eyes. I think others did too.
The only real work now was hunting. They built an observation tower out of salvaged wood so they could look out over the floe, but with the ice so tumbled up, the seals were often hidden from view. Most days when the weather would allow, the men went out hunting on foot. They went off in different directions in groups of two or three. If anyone spied a seal, he would climb the nearest hummock and wave a flag to the man in the observation tower. Wild carried the rifle, so the flagman in the tower would signal him where to go. Wild was an expert marksman and usually killed the seal with one bullet through the head. Then the men would gut it and wait for a dog sled to come carry it back. If the weather was closing in and the dogs couldn't get there in time, they would hang the guts on a tall ice hummock to mark the place and hurry back to camp.
One evening, almost a month after they left the ship, Perce was lying awake in his sleeping bag after supper. It was light around the clock again, and he sometimes had trouble falling asleep. He knew Shackleton had even more trouble, for Perce often heard him walking around the camp after the men had gone to bed. Probably it was the only time he really had to himself.
Shackleton's Stowaway Page 11