Bad enough they had to see him lying there day in and day out. At least with all the other stink in here, they probably didn't mind the rotten flesh all that much.
“I think it's about time, Perce,” he said. “Maybe another week or so. I want to be sure there is a good separation between the live tissue and the dead.” He felt Perce's forehead. The fever was no worse.
“How far up will you—cut?” Perce asked.
“Here—” Macklin gently drew his finger across Perce's foot, just above the blackened toes. “Hopefully at this joint where the toes join the foot. I won't know for sure until— until then. I may not be able to give you much notice either,” Macklin explained. “We need a mild day so I can send all the others outside. And a warm day will make it easier to heat up the hut so the chloroform will vaporize. So I might just come to you one morning and tell you it's time. Would that be all right?”
“I'll try to keep my schedule open.”
“There you go!” Macklin squeezed his shoulder. “And who knows, one more week and Boss could be back anyway. I wouldn't mind a proper operating room with a nurse or two around—what do you think?”
Perce thought about butchering penguins—the sound the knife made when it cut through a gristly joint.
Two awful days later, South Georgia Island was still out of reach. A hurricane was raging and night was closing in. The ocean was like a horrible child unwilling to give up his toy.
“Make any landing!” Shackleton shouted in Worsley's ear. Worsley nodded. The whaling station was on the opposite side of the island, but there was no way the James Caird would make it that far. Another huge wave smashed over the side, knocking both men down. The sails flapped as the little boat lurched off the wind. Tim slid across the cockpit and slammed into Crean. With hardly a second's pause, they untangled themselves and resumed bailing as if nothing had happened. By now they were so numb and exhausted, they could not think or feel. Only move. Just keep moving.
Their little boat was falling to pieces. It was almost as bad as Tim's nightmare. The planks in the hull were beginning to splinter. The sails were torn, and the mast shook with the strain. The canvas decking was split in a dozen places. There was no shelter now at all. They had to bail all the time.
Shackleton slid down into the cockpit and flung an arm around Tim's shoulders.
“Won't be long now!” he croaked encouragingly.
Tim nodded. “I'll keep her dry, then.”
“A fine idea—why didn't we think of that sooner!” Shackleton laughed. They might as well try to empty the ocean. Shackleton took the bailing bucket from Crean. Even the Iron Man was looking frail right now, but Shackleton knew he would never rest, even if ordered. Distraction was the best he could offer. “Find us a landing, will you, Tom? You have the keenest eyes.”
They had been at sea for seventeen days. They would not survive one more. No one but Vincent had slept in over thirty hours. The last of the brackish water was long gone, and they were all crazed with thirst. McNeish huddled in a corner, working the little hand pump with all the strength of a ninety-year-old grandmother.
Crean crawled up on the shattered remains of the decking and scanned the rocky coast. They had to land tonight or die of thirst. They didn't really know where they were, for this side of South Georgia was hardly mapped, and most of that by Captain Cook 150 years ago. The mountains that might have been landmarks were hidden in the clouds. Just like on Elephant Island, the coast was so rocky and the waves so rough, they might never get through at all.
Tim couldn't feel his arms or legs anymore. He no longer shivered. He felt nothing but a mild relief. He knew the long, cruel journey would end in the next few hours. One way or another. He didn't care anymore. He just wanted it over. They had done all they could. Even Shackleton's iron will couldn't blast a channel through the rocks.
“Lash up and stow,” Wild called out. “The Boss may come today!” The wake-up call didn't sound so reassuring these days. It was late May, and Shackleton had been gone for almost three weeks. Some of the men were starting to lose hope.
“Come on, who really thought he'd be back so soon!” Wild tried to reassure them.
“Once he gets to South Georgia, it might take a while to find a ship. He might have to go on to the Falkland Islands or even Chile. There aren't many ships that can handle the ice,” he reminded them. “He might have to get the Aurora sent out from New Zealand. That alone would take a month. And she will have just come back herself, so she might need some repairs first.”
Most of the men had forgotten entirely about their sister ship, Aurora, and the other half of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Wild would never forget, for his own brother was among them. The Ross Sea, on the other side of Antarctica, was easier to navigate, but there were still a thousand ways to get into trouble.
“It's a shame for them,” Billy said. “Must have been hard work laying the supply depots and now for nothing.”
“Shackleton could still come back and do the crossing,” Perce offered optimistically. “Sledging rations won't go bad, after all.”
“Because they start out bad!” Billy laughed. “But really, it would take years to put together a new expedition. He'd never be able to find the depots after all that time.”
“He could,” Wild said. “They'll be well marked.”
“How?” Perce asked.
“Snow cairns ten feet high built out from both sides of the depot,” Wild explained. “Like a line of pawns on the chessboard. Even if the tracks are gone or the men are off course, they'll find the depots. My brother knows what he's doing there.”
Perce studied Wild's face and saw that the man still guarded Shackleton's dream in his own heart.
Tim woke up with an oar in his hands. That was strange. He didn't remember rowing. Then he felt the crunch of rocks against the wooden bottom of the boat. The boat jolted, and he bumped against Crean. Everyone was silent. No one moved.
“All right! Come on, then,” Shackleton said. Tim turned, puzzled. Shackleton was standing behind him. Standing on a beach.
“Go on, Tim,” Worsley whispered. “We're in the surf.” Tim nodded dully. But for some reason, he couldn't remember how to get out of a boat. Worsley put a hand under Tim's knee and lifted one leg over the side. Then Worsley heaved him up and Tim tumbled over. Somehow he crawled a few feet up the beach. Crean was on his feet now, but barely. He leaned on Shackleton, both reeling. Tim crawled another few feet, then collapsed flat on the beach. He felt cold stones against his belly, cold stones against his cheek. He smelled grass and dirt. Suddenly everything was real again.
“Oh, Jesus, Boss! Did we land on something?”
“Aye. Something all right.”
“You bleeding dimwit, we made it!” Crean cackled. Worsley, McNeish, and Vincent staggered out now, and all six tried to pull the James Caird farther up the beach. They managed only a few inches, then a big wave pushed the boat up a few feet, tumbling the men like bowling pins.
“Leave it,” Shackleton gasped. “I hear water.” The six men crawled and stumbled across the beach and found water pouring out from the rocks. They pressed around the tiny stream, drinking the cold, sweet water. Tim had never tasted anything so good in all his life.
chapter thirty-seven
What shall we do when we get out of here?” Billy said, settling down on a crate beside Perce. “What do you think we should do first?”
Perce groaned to himself. They had this conversation almost every day now. It was almost like a play with a script they both knew by heart. It was fun at first, making up stories, but now it seemed stupid. He didn't really feel like playing anymore. Why can't Billy just go away and leave me alone?
“When we get home?” Perce took a deep breath and sat up a little more. “Well, first of all, we'll eat for a month without stopping. We'll have raspberries and cream, cake and cream, cream and cream,” he said wearily.
“Yes.” Billy closed his eyes, smiled, and sighed contente
dly. How can I even think like that? Perce chided himself. A little fantasy was the smallest thing anyone could ask out here. And hadn't Billy kept him going more times than he could even count?
“Then we'll have cake again and chocolate bars,” Perce said with more enthusiasm. He went on through every dish he had ever tasted or heard of. They would eat bread and butter, sweet peas from the garden, and fresh pineapples. Neither had ever seen a pineapple, but Worsley ate them all the time in the South Pacific and said they were very good.
“After we've eaten for a fortnight, we'll go off and see some more of the world.” Perce moved on to the next scene.
“Where will we go?” Billy said his part.
“China first, and then Africa.”
“I'd like to see China,” Billy agreed. They had the usual talk of China. This part could last twenty minutes. The food they would eat there, walking on the Great Wall.
“I hear the Chinese girls are beautiful,” Billy sighed.
“But not as lovely as my Welsh girl back home.” And here Perce had to tell Billy all about his sweetheart. But it was getting harder and harder to remember what Anna looked like. It was hard to remember what any girls looked like.
“She has a beautiful smile and a laugh like music,” he said. “And every day she wears a different-colored ribbon in her hair.”
They went on with the fantasy: sailing to Africa and going on a safari, visiting those Masai, who drank blood out of the necks of their cows. They both agreed they probably wouldn't try that.
“And then? When you're done with the world? What'll you do, then?” Billy asked.
“When I'm done with the world, I'll go home and marry my girl. I'll buy a snug little house with a garden in the back.”
“And what will you have in the garden?”
“Strawberries and flowers. And chickens.”
Billy frowned. “What chickens? You never said chickens before.”
“Well, now I think I'd like chickens.” Perce was surprised. He thought Billy would enjoy a little embellishment in the imaginary garden. “What's wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I suppose.” Billy looked sulky.
“Wouldn't you like a nice fried egg?”
“Yes, in butter, with the edges crisp.” This idea brought Billy around. “Okay, chickens, then,” he said, back to his cheerful self. “What else?”
“I'll have two nice comfortable chairs right in front of the stove for me and my wife. And a pretty little hearth rug there, and buy a new one every Christmas so it never looks tatty.”
Billy liked this part. Perce went on describing his house. There was a shelf full of books and a gramophone. Curtains on the windows, new dresses for his wife, good shoes and plenty of chocolate and toffee for his children. Finally Perce could think of no more for the fantasy. “And we all live happily ever after,” he ended.
“Aye,” Billy said. He looked away. The dark had come. Wild lit the blubber lamps. The weak flames cast a cruel glow on reality. Filthy, ragged men huddled together against the cold, balanced on the last thin edge of hope.
Tim tottered out from the cave and squinted at the morning. It wasn't a real cave, just a rock overhang, with giant icicles for a front wall, but it was shelter enough last night. The beach was fringed with grass. Real grass! It was the first living plant he had seen since they were on this same island waiting for the ice to break up in the Weddell Sea. Eighteen months ago—it felt like a lifetime. He walked clumsily down to the beach, where Crean was sitting by a roaring driftwood fire. Crean handed him a mug.
“Cheers.”
“It's scalding,” Crean warned. “Watch out.”
Tim took a cautious sip. For the first time in a week, the milk wasn't salty. Crean had made a little cooking ring of stones on the edge of the fire. He raked some coals into it with a piece of driftwood, then put the pot on top. He dropped in a lump of seal blubber. When the fat began to sizzle, he threw in what looked like two little chickens.
“What are those?” Tim asked.
“These? Why, they're South Georgia pheasants.” Crean grinned wickedly. Tim looked around the beach, then up on the nearby cliffs, where dozens of albatross mothers sat on their nests. Killing an albatross was taboo for a sailor, but the sizzling meat smelled delicious. “It's just the chicks,” Crean explained. “We've decided the bad luck doesn't come till they're fully grown.”
“And if it does come, how would we know it from the regular bad luck anyway?” Tim laughed. They saw Shackleton climbing down the little bluff.
“What's he doing off on a hike first thing in the morning?” Tim said. “I can barely walk.”
“Scouting,” Crean said simply. Shackleton stiffly eased himself down beside them and held his hands out to warm by the fire.
“Good morning, Tim, did you sleep well?”
“Never better,” Tim replied. He didn't ask Shackleton how he slept. They had all been awakened by his shouts from the nightmares.
“I thought we might have another try at the boat after breakfast,” Shackleton said. The battered James Caird bobbed slowly in the water, half full of water. They hadn't strength enough to pull it up on the beach last night. The mast had fallen; the rudder was gone. “If we cut the decking off and knock down the gunwales, it might lighten her enough.”
“Are there nails enough to put it all back together, then?” Tim asked. Shackleton paused, then chose his words carefully, like a doctor delivering bad news.
“She's not sailing anywhere else, Tim. I'm afraid the best we can expect from the James Caird now is a bit of shelter here on the beach. Crean and I have been talking. We're going to hike across. Worsley too if he's fit enough.”
“Hike across the island?”
“That's where the whaling station is.”
“But it's all mountains, Boss! And we don't have a map.”
“I didn't have a map to the South Pole either.” Shackleton smiled wearily. “And the mountains aren't so high. They just look bad.”
“There's all this driftwood, though,” Tim said. “McNeish could shore up the James Caird.”
“It's a hundred and fifty miles around by sea,” Shackleton said. “And bad sea all the way. We might patch the Caird up. We might even make a new rudder, but we can't exactly weave new sails out of grass. There isn't another way. It's across or nothing.”
“Then I'll go with you, Boss. I'll be fit in a day or two.”
“I've no doubt, Tim. But I need someone to stay and look after McNeish and Vincent. Worsley has done some climbing in New Zealand.”
“They'll do all right for a few days here alone,” Tim protested. “We'll make a snug shelter, gather lots of wood and seal meat—they'll do fine.”
“Tim, my friend,” Shackleton interrupted. “You know it might be more than a few days.” He looked Tim straight in the eye. Tim didn't want to see the truth in his gaze. He looked away, but there was more terrible truth in those mountains.
“Men could live here for months if they had their wits about them,” Shackleton went on. “You're the only one with wits to spare. Come summer, a whaler might pass near enough to see a signal fire. It isn't just the three of you either. It's possible …” Shackleton's voice broke. He looked down and struggled to compose himself. “It's possible the others could hold out too.”
Tim understood. Shackleton, the supreme optimist, was also a realist. If there was a way across the island, he would find it. If not, he would die trying.
“Aye.” Tim nodded. “I'll stay, then.”
chapter thirty-eight
June 15 was a mild warm day, with the temperature in the low thirties. Doc Macklin came and sat on the crate by Perce's bed. Perce knew by his face what he had come to tell him.
“I don't want to wait any longer, Perce,” Macklin said gravely. “It seems a good day; what do you think?”
“Good as any,” Perce said. Shackleton had been gone almost two months. There wasn't going to be any nice clean operating room. The news spre
ad through the hut, in the hushed way bad news does. The other men pulled their boots on and crawled out one by one. Some stopped to wish Perce good luck, some tried to pretend nothing was happening. Billy and Wild pulled the crates together for an operating table. Hurley began to stoke the fire. Wild would assist Macklin with the operation. He had no medical training, but they all knew Wild could be counted on to do whatever needed to be done. Once the hut was ready, Billy came over. Perce was writing in his journal.
“Are you taking back all the bad things you've written about me there?”
“I haven't enough pages left for that.” Perce put the pencil down.
“Perce.” Billy looked down at the ground. “I want you to know I'd do anything for you in the crunch.”
“Aye. I do know. And you have already. A hundred times over.”
“But—well.” Billy looked up, saw the operating table, and quickly looked back at the floor. “Well, would you mind if I didn't stay here for the—operation?”
“Good Lord, Billy!” Perce forced a laugh, though he wanted to cry. What a good friend he had in Billy. “Why would I want you in here crowding my operation? I'm going to sleep through it anyway. And what would you do? You don't even have the S encyclopedia anymore, so you can't look up surgery or A for amputation.”
Billy smiled with relief. “Well, I thought I might hold your hand and say, ‘There, there’ and ‘Poor little thing.’”
“And look at you! You haven't had a bath in a year,” Perce went on. “Get your stinking self out with the others.”
“Thanks, mate! I'll see you soon, then.”
Hurley began to light the blubber lamps. Macklin took off layers of filthy clothes until he wore only an undershirt. He dipped some warm water out of the pot and began to scrub his hands with a tiny sliver of soap.
“Water's boiling,” Hurley said. Macklin dropped the instruments into the pot. The clink of metal gave Perce a sick feeling.
“Are you ready, then?” Macklin asked.
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