Shackleton's Stowaway
Page 20
“Yes, sir,” Perce said quietly. Macklin looked around at all the flickering lights and the roaring stove, then at the little bottle of chloroform. If he worked quickly, there should be enough. Hurley and Wild carried Perce over to the table. It was covered only with a thin blanket, and the boards were hard against his bones. His feet hung over the edge. Wild tucked a sweater under his head for a pillow. Hurley fished the sterilized instruments out of the pot with a piece of wire. Macklin carefully unscrewed the lid on the bottle of chloroform. This was actually the trickiest part of the operation. Too much chloroform could kill Perce. Excess vapors in the air could ignite from the open flame and set them all on fire. He poured a few drops on a piece of gauze and held it over Perce's face.
“Just close your eyes and breathe deep,” Macklin said.
The vapors smelled sweet. Perce felt dizzy and a little bit panicked. He grabbed the sides of the crates. He felt Wild's hands on his chest and heard Macklin's soothing voice.
“It's all right; just go to sleep now….” Perce remembered nothing more.
Macklin picked up the scalpel. Then he put it down again and took a deep breath.
“You all right, mate?” Hurley asked.
“All right?” Macklin wiped sweat off his forehead with the cleanest bit of his discarded shirt. “This was my first posting, you know, straight out of medical school. Now I'm on a godforsaken island in the frozen middle of nowhere, crouched under a boat, about to do practically the first surgery I've ever done in my life, with little more than a scalpel and tin snips.”
Wild and Hurley looked at each other, then back to Macklin.
“Well, good luck, then,” Wild said calmly.
Billy climbed as high as he could up the cliff and sat on a rock. He could hear the other men laughing and talking in the ice cave below. They were cutting each other's hair. Thick black smoke poured out from the chimney of the hut below. The bay was full of pack ice, and a dense fog hung low over the water. There would be no rescue today. Not unless a spaceship landed from Mars. And they would have to be pretty stupid Martians to land in a place like this.
Macklin picked up the scalpel and lightly made a cut across the top of Perce's foot. The hut was silent except for the sizzle of the penguin skins. He peeled the skin back and cut away the dead flesh until the joints were exposed.
“Can you give me more light?” he asked Hurley. Hurley tried to maneuver one of the sardine can lights close enough to shed light without risk of dripping blubber into the open wound. “Good,” Macklin whispered. He picked up the tin snips and cut neatly through the joints. The toes fell one by one with a dull clink into a can. Wild watched without flinching. Macklin went on cutting and scraping until only healthy tissue remained. Then he cut away the excess flap of skin, trimmed the edges, and neatly sewed up what was left of Perce's foot. The whole operation had taken just under an hour.
Billy watched an albatross soaring along the edge of the island. Maybe he could make some wings out of penguin feathers and fly away like Icarus. No chance of melting in the sun down here. He looked down on the hut, but there was still no sign of anyone coming or going. Wild would call for them when the operation was over. Billy stared out into the fog but couldn't see more than a hundred yards. He certainly couldn't see eighteen miles offshore, where a small ship crept slowly along the edge of the pack ice. He couldn't see the small, forlorn figure of a man standing on the bow, binoculars pressed to his eyes, desperately looking.
“Boss.” Crean came up beside Shackleton and touched his arm. Shackleton slowly put the binoculars down. He had pressed them so hard against his face, they left deep red rings around his eyes. But no matter how long and hard he looked, he could not see anything except the tallest peaks of Elephant Island sticking up out of the clouds. It was only eighteen miles away, but it might as well be a thousand. They could not get through the ice.
“Captain says we can't stay any longer,” Crean said gently. “It's time to turn the ship around.”
“Yes. Of course. I just hoped to see something. A bit of smoke.” Shackleton cleared his throat. “Please tell the captain to go ahead. I'll come down in a minute.”
Twenty-five days ago, when they had staggered into the Stromness whaling station, the rescue seemed so close, he could smell it. He had sailed the impossible ocean, crossed the forbidding mountains, and conquered a thousand devils—all that was left was to find a ship and return to Elephant Island. This was his second attempt and his second failure. The ice was crushing his hopes as surely as it crushed his ship.
“They'll be fine, Boss.” Crean spoke as if reassuring a child. “We'll find another ship; we'll make another try.” For twenty months he had been by Shackleton's side through every danger and hardship and never seen him as despondent as this. “Our boys are strong, you know. And our Frankie's there. What could go wrong with Frank Wild around?”
Shackleton just nodded. What could go wrong was madness, violence, death from starvation or despair. A hurricane washing away the fragile shelter. Ice fall from the glacier crushing them. But there would be no rescue today. The little ship he had borrowed was running out of coal. There was only three days' supply left. They had to turn back.
“Tell the captain I'm going to fire a few shots,” Shackleton said. “Perhaps they'll hear and at least know we're alive and coming for them.” Crean went below with the message.
Perce woke slowly. His head ached, and he felt sick to his stomach. His foot felt heavy with the bandages.
“How are you, Perce? All right?” Macklin smiled.
“Never better,” Perce replied. “Though I'd dearly like a cigarette.”
“You know smoking is bad for you, lad!”
“It's Antarctica that's bad for me, Doc!”
Macklin laughed. “Oh, well, then, has anyone got any tobacco left?”
“A bit,” Wild replied. “But I'll have to take a page from your encyclopedia to roll it in. What would you like to smoke, Perce?” He opened the encyclopedia. “Linotype? Lemurs of Madagascar? Poland?”
“How about Polar Exploration?”
Perce tried to sit up, but his head was spinning too much. Everything felt queer—all his senses turned up loud but only noticing one thing at a time. He could hear the stove door clattering but not what anyone was saying, or he heard words but no other sound. Then the words faded away, and he heard a crack, like fat popping in the fire.
“Is the fire all right?” he asked worriedly. “It's snapping so.”
“Fire's gone out,” Hurley said.
“I heard something. A cracking sound,” Perce insisted. “Like a gunshot.”
“It's probably ice falling off the glacier,” Wild reassured him. Ice was always breaking off, and it sounded just like gunshots. Then they all heard it. Macklin crawled outside, still in his undershirt. The sweat on his forehead quickly vanished. His neck was cramped, and his legs trembled. He looked up at the glacier but didn't see any chunks falling or the white plume that indicated an avalanche. Hurley came out and stood beside him. The two men stared out into the fog.
“Probably just floes crashing in the bay,” he said. “It sure is thick again.”
“Aye.” They stood listening for several minutes but heard nothing else. Macklin shivered, then crawled back inside to tend to his patient.
Shackleton looked out the window and watched the wake carve a foamy arc through the dark sea as the ship turned around. The mountains of Elephant Island quickly faded out of sight, shrouded in the fog.
“Have another, Tom,” Shackleton said despondently as he picked up the bottle of whiskey.
“I've had enough, Boss,” Crean replied gently as he took the bottle away.
“It's all right, Tom. We've nothing to do now,” Shackleton protested mildly. “Just ride along.” If the weather was fair, it would be a three-day trip back to the Falkland Islands.
“Will you eat something now?” Tom asked. “Whiskey isn't good on your stomach like this.”
&n
bsp; Shackleton shook his head. He was too upset to eat. How odd that was! When they had stumbled into the whaling station on South Georgia Island, he thought he would do nothing but eat for a year. Now he could not take a bite of the sandwich on his plate. The very sight of the soft white bread was a physical pain as long as his men were still stranded. He lifted his glass and drained the last drops of whiskey. He looked around the empty table.
“Tom, have you taken away my only solace?”
“Aye.”
“You're a rotten friend.”
“Aye.”
A steward came in with a pot of tea, and Crean poured a cup for Shackleton. His hand shook as he picked up the teacup.
“We'll find another ship,” Crean said reassuringly. “Somewhere, Buenos Aires, Montevideo—we'll have another go. You know what they say, Boss, third time lucky.”
“The ice—”
“The ice comes and the ice goes.”
“I can't—”
“Boss—” Crean interrupted sharply. “You wouldn't let any man under you talk like this, so I won't have it now. You're sounding like the Old Lady. Drink your tea and go on to bed.”
That same night, aboard a ship bound for England, Tim was also sleepless. He couldn't stay in his bunk. He had strange spells where it seemed unbearably hot and he couldn't breathe. His heart raced, and he felt trapped. It was very odd. For nearly two years when he should have been afraid every day, he wasn't. Now, for no reason at all, when he was perfectly safe and going home, every little thing made him jump.
He felt out of place and very alone. He was sailing back to England with Vincent and McNeish, but they had never been good friends like Billy and Perce. Vincent and McNeish played cards and joked in the mess room with the other sailors, but Tim stayed to himself. Sometimes it seemed like nothing was real, like he had forgotten how to be a person. He missed his friends. The world was upside down. The war was still raging, and it was like no other war in history. The Germans were using poison gas on the battlefield. Millions were dead. It was ridiculous, but he found he was longing for the days when they were camped on the ice floe. Life was so simple then. All you had to do every day was stay alive.
chapter thirty-nine
Lash up and stow….”
Nine weeks had passed on Elephant Island. Every day Wild's wake-up call sounded more hopeless. Half the men paid no attention. They didn't even stir in their sleeping bags. Wild didn't press them. Each day was a struggle against despair. Every night they crawled into bed thinner, colder, and more despondent than ever. The boredom was crushing, and some of the men were barely holding on to sanity. Orde Lees challenged Doc Macklin to a duel over some petty offense. Broken oars on the beach at sunrise.
They had not killed a seal for two weeks. Penguins were scarce too. If the bay was full of ice, they couldn't come ashore. Sometimes five or six days passed with none at all. There was enough meat stockpiled for a month at least, but it was a painful way to last. There were still two cases of biscuits and two of sledging rations, but the precious nut bars and milk powder were gone. There weren't enough skins to keep the fire going all day, so Charlie could only cook in the morning. The evening meal was cold penguin hoosh.
July 1, 1916
I never knew what it was like to really be hungry before. There were times I thought I was: times Mum would thin out the soup to make it go around, times there was only bread or porridge for supper, but we never starved. This is like your whole body is caving in. Like everything inside you has grown sharp edges. You feel a little bit crazy too. Shaky and nervous and like crying. We have a penny cookbook, and every night someone takes a turn at reading a recipe out loud. It's like church service. We've heard them all ten times or more by now but still listen. My favorite is plum pudding because the recipe is very long. I would actually rather eat an apple pie, but the recipe doesn't have many ingredients: apples, sugar, piecrust. Plum pudding has nineteen ingredients and many lines of directions. After we read, we talk about the recipe. How we might change a thing or two. Would it be good with custard or cream. (Everything would be good with custard or cream!)
One night we went around and named the one food we would have if we could have anything at all. Hurley wanted cream horns. Clark named sweet dumplings with cream. Almost everyone longed for sweets: apple pudding, doughnuts with syrup, blackberry tart. But Doc wanted scrambled eggs on buttered toast, and Billy asked for baked pork and beans. When it came my turn, all I could think of was bread and butter. Endless slices of warm white bread and sweet butter. But soon, any day …
Perce dropped the pencil. It was only a stub now and hard to hold. It was too dark to see, so he felt around for it. All he felt was stones. Just as well. Writing made him tired. He felt sick again. A different kind of sick. His feet didn't hurt so much, but he ached all over. He was hot even as he shook with chills. He was thirsty, but it was too much trouble to ask for a drink of water. His notebook slipped off his lap. He could write more later. There was always plenty of time for that. Maybe he would sleep. That would be so nice. Just to go to sleep and not wake up again.
Halfway back to the Falklands, Crean saw the old Shackleton come back to life.
“We'll go to Chile for a new ship.” His eyes sparkled again; his voice was confident. He had a plan. “There's a British community in Punta Arenas. Sheep ranchers mostly, but there's money there.” He paced the small wardroom. “We can't count on any help from England. Even if they do decide to send a ship, it will take too long to get here.”
In a series of stern telegrams, the British government had made it clear that it had more important things to do with its ships during wartime than rescue a bunch of wayward explorers mucking around the South Pole. No ship could leave England for a month at least. Then it could take up to another month to reach Chile. If Shackleton were to save his men before that, he would have to come up with his own ship.
“There must be something we can charter in South America. I can raise the money,” Shackleton explained. “Lecture, you know? I'm a bit rusty, but God knows I've had enough experience. We go around to their parties, be charming, and give talks about the expedition.”
“We?” Crean frowned. “What do you mean, we? Do you see me chatting up the swells at a fancy party? You're daft now, Boss.”
“Oh, Tom, you won't have to talk. You just stand there and look the part. Who looks the part more! Better if you don't talk. I'll tell them how the iron pike bent around you— there's a fine story.” Shackleton lit another cigarette and went on, talking rapidly. “You'll see. People want a taste of it. We get them all stirred up for adventure. Tell about our boys rowing day and night even as the sea froze around them!”
Crean was glad to see the Boss shake off his depression, but he had not seen this side of Shackleton before. He sounded like a sideshow barker.
“I'll get us another ship. By God, I will if I have to steal it and shanghai a crew. Will you come, then, Tom?”
“If you steal a ship?” Crean leaned back in his chair as if deep in thought. “Well, if she's a good ship, I might.”
The Emma was not a good ship, but they didn't have to steal her either. Shackleton was indeed a success at fund-raising. The British community in Punta Arenas welcomed him with open arms. Shackleton took Worsley and Crean around to an endless assortment of dinners, luncheons, and teas.
“Aw, not more bloody champagne!” Crean growled. The dainty little glass always looked comical in his big, rough hands. “Damn froggy fizz. Don't the swells ever drink a good pint?” But Shackleton was true to his word and did most of the talking. Crean just had to stand around looking like an explorer. He was starting to get a little flesh back on his big bones, so he was convincing. Shackleton did have some magic about him when he gave his talks. People listened to every word. Women wept. Men opened their checkbooks.
In no time he raised fifteen hundred pounds. There was little choice of what to spend it on, however. Few ships were built to work in the ice. Fewer shipowne
rs wanted to take the risk. Finally they found the Emma. She was built of wood, but otherwise a terrible vessel for an Antarctic voyage. She was a small schooner, only seventy feet long, and depended almost entirely on sail. There were many yachtsmen who wouldn't trust her to cross the English Channel. She had a light diesel engine, but it wasn't built for long voyages. And diesel engines were so new that it was hard to find an engineer who could repair them. Shackleton scratched together a crew of six, and on July 12, he set off with Crean and Worsley on the third attempt to rescue his men.
Storms hit the second day out and never stopped. One horrible week later, Emma's engines were dead and her sails torn. Heavy layers of ice snapped spars and rigging. Half the crew was too seasick to stand. They were still over a hundred miles from Elephant Island when the pack ice threatened to trap them fast. Once more, Shackleton had to turn around.
He had no time for despair on this return. The Emma was in constant danger. For two weeks, they fought simply to keep her afloat. They had thirty-foot waves and almost constant gales. With only nine men aboard, it took everyone's energy just to keep her floating. Once again, Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley were on a desperate voyage. No one slept for days at a time. They rarely had a hot meal. When they finally arrived back in port, Shackleton's hair was streaked with gray. He could barely walk. Crean had to help him ashore like an old man.
“Lash up and stow, for the Boss may come today.”
“Oh, shut up,” someone muttered from a dark corner of the hut.
August 19, 1916
Billy is restless these days. Hurley as well. They can't stand to be inside the hut. I don't even think about it anymore. It seems that I have always been here and always will be, on a bed of rocks in the dark and cold. They are hammering bent nails on a rock outside. I can hear. The plan is to fix up the Dudley Docker and send another party out for help. It is four months since Shackleton left. They will sail out closer to the whaling grounds and hope to see a ship. It is impossible, and everyone knows it. All the best bits of the three boats already went into the James Caird. There isn't a scrap of sail left or a mast to hang it on. There are only five oars and no canvas for decking. No compass, no sextant, or navigational tables. Nothing to carry water in.