But I want them to go. It is better that way. Some are talking now….
Perce scratched out those last words. What was he doing? He couldn't write that down! He shivered. It was so hard to keep his mind focused. But he certainly would never write that down. He shut the journal and tried to calm himself.
“Hey!” Billy suddenly squatted by his bed. “Look at these!” Billy shook a can, then reached in and pulled out a flat shell. It was about the size of a bottle cap. “They're called limpets. They're all over the rocks now that the ice is melting back. Charlie's going to make us a bully-base. That's French for fish soup, you know.”
Perce stared at Billy. His face seemed underwater. His voice was far away.
“Perce? Are you all right?” Billy felt Perce's forehead. “Your fever's up again.” He looked around for Macklin, but most of the men were outside.
“Look here,” Billy went on with forced cheerfulness. “Something new to eat. We got them off the rocks. There's loads and loads.”
Perce felt even more confused. There was a strong fishy smell from the can. He tried to focus; there was something urgent he had to tell—oh, yes—he remembered.
“You need to go away, Billy.” It was such an effort to talk, but he had to warn Billy. “You need to leave.”
“Of course I need to leave.” Billy frowned. “We all do! What's wrong, Perce? You're acting strange.”
“They were talking—” Perce dropped his voice to a whisper. “Some were talking.”
“Who was talking?”
Perce grabbed Billy's arm. He tried to pull himself up but was too weak. Still, his grip was tight from fear.
“They want to draw lots. They talked of drawing lots! This morning. After Wild went outside. I heard them.”
“Oh, Perce! What are you talking about?” Billy laughed uneasily. “Come on, you were dreaming.”
“No. I heard them.”
“How many times have we joked about that? Oh, Greenstreet, you're the sweetest one, so you'll go first. Or wouldn't the Old Lady taste good with a little curry and sweet relish.”
“It isn't a joke.”
“Or what if we just cut one leg off each one at a time, and do you think a man could eat his own leg… ?”
“They're serious now.”
“They're not serious!” Billy yanked his arm away “Shut up. I'm going to get Doc. I don't think you're well.”
chapter forty
The Yelcho was the most unsuitable boat yet.
“Achhh, Boss, you can't be serious.” Crean frowned when he saw her. “She's a tugboat!”
Tugboats were not even designed for open seas, let alone the most stormy seas on the planet. They were meant for towing bigger ships through harbors. No metal ship was good for ice, but the Yelcho was particularly bad. Ancient paint peeled off her dented hull. She was rusty from bow to stern. The engines chugged and wheezed. The boilers made alarming noises. She was the worst possible choice.
“She's the only choice left,” Shackleton pointed out. “And I had to beg to get her.”
While the British government was stalling about sending a ship, the Chilean people were eager to help. They had come to love Ernest Shackleton. Everyone in Punta Arenas had fallen under his spell. They thought of the stranded men as their own brothers and sons. So after receiving Shackleton's solemn promise not to take the Yelcho close to any pack ice, the government agreed. The Yelcho's regular captain, Luis Pardo, offered to command. Sailors from the Chilean navy rushed to volunteer as crew. On August 25, with Crean and Worsley still at his side, Shackleton sailed south once again for a fourth attempt at rescue.
Billy stood outside the hut, waiting for Macklin to come out. When he did, his face told little. They walked down the spit, heads bent into the wind until they were out of earshot.
“So what's the matter? Is he very bad?” Billy asked. Macklin hesitated.
“The wound has gone septic.”
“Blood poisoning?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“How bad is that?”
“We'll have to wait and see.”
“Would that make him delirious?” Billy asked. “He was talking all crazy.” Billy picked up one of the smooth stones and rubbed it nervously. It was a habit he had started now that there was no pipe to smoke.
“What do you mean, crazy?” Macklin frowned.
“He said some of the men were talking. Talking about drawing lots.” Billy didn't look at Macklin, reluctant to say any more, as if speaking the idea were devil enough. “You know how we've all joked about it. But now, after so long and so little food left …” Billy dropped his voice so his words were almost lost in the wind. “It's happened before. In America, there's a terrible story of these pioneers called the Donner Party. They got trapped in the Rocky Mountains over one bad winter and half of them ate the others.”
“I've heard of that.” Macklin sighed and pulled his worn coat tighter around his neck. “It won't happen here, Billy. Wild wouldn't let it. I wouldn't let it, nor would you or Hurley or most anyone else. And the penguins will be back any day now anyway.”
Neither offered the suggestion that Shackleton would come. Few really believed that anymore.
“It's a few men with too much time to fret talking that way. Though I'd like to smack the sod who talks like that around a sick man,” Macklin said with disgust. “Besides, it isn't even practical! Take the fattest man among us and you might get two days' worth of meat at best. Stringy meat at that. No fat to any of us. And without blubber or penguin skins, how are you going to cook the poor bugger anyway? It's one thing to eat your mate all nicely stewed; it's quite another to gnaw on him raw.”
Billy stepped back, his eyes widening. Macklin gave a short laugh. “Oh, probably not the sort of thing you like to hear your doctor say.” He took a deep breath and steadied himself against the wind. “Look, Billy, we may have become savages, but we're not stupid. And the larder isn't empty yet by far. We have biscuits and penguin for another week at least. It's only the weather keeping them away, and that has to turn soon. Remember, just two weeks ago there were seals and penguins all over the place!”
It was true. In just one week they had killed three seals and ninety-three penguins. Then the ice came back to choke the bay, the weather turned bad, and all wildlife vanished.
“Think of how many times we've been down to the wire and a seal shows up. We haven't come this far to fall apart now. Perce heard some idle talk, that's all. We're all of us a bit crazy, and the fever makes it worse for him. I'll talk to Wild.”
The sea was calm, the wind good. After four days, the Yelcho's engines were still chugging along well. Most importantly, there was no ice. They saw the occasional bergs, but the dreaded pack ice that had surrounded Elephant Island was gone.
“What did you do, Boss?” Crean joked. “Light a hundred candles or sacrifice a virgin?”
“Sixty miles to go, Boss,” Worsley said, making no effort to control his excitement. “And no pack in sight. Finally some good luck.”
“Luck? Ah, you know what good luck is?” Shackleton said with a note of bitterness in his voice. “It's being too bloody stubborn to die through all the bad luck that's come first.”
“He can't die,” Wild said. “Not now.” Frank Wild's voice caught in his throat. He turned into the wind and rubbed his face. “After all we've been through?”
Doc Macklin said nothing. He could give Wild a medical answer—that Perce's body simply could not keep fighting the infection much longer—but Wild was not asking a medical question. He was asking the question of all men in all horrible times: God—why? Macklin had no answer for that.
“I'm sorry,” Wild sighed. “I know you're doing everything you can.” The two men sat on some rocks at the far end of the spit. It was a rare sunny day, and with most of the men out walking, that was the only place to talk privately.
“Are you sleeping at all these days, Frank?” Macklin asked.
“I must be, for I kee
p waking up in this godforsaken place.”
“How do you do it? How do you make your mind go quiet? Do you have some trick?”
Wild smiled and looked a little embarrassed. “I paint icebergs. I tried counting sheep, but they kept turning into juicy chops. Now I picture myself on a ladder with a bucket of paint, like I'm painting a house, only it's a great huge iceberg. I dip the brush and paint in these long, slow strokes. The color runs down the ice. It's really quite lovely. I work my way through the spectrum. Start with ultraviolet, you know, then purple, blue. I'm not sure I get them in the right order, but if I'm lucky, I fall asleep by orange or yellow.”
The trick was not working much lately. The only color he could see was red. Keep them alive. That was all Shackleton had asked of him. Wild's hands began to shake. He tucked them under his arms so Macklin wouldn't notice.
“Doc,” Wild whispered, staring out to sea. “Doc, we can't even dig a grave out here.”
chapter forty-one
The fog dropped suddenly at midnight. It swallowed the Yelcho like a python swallowing a rat. Captain Pardo stood beside Shackleton on the bridge. Neither said anything for a long time. It would be dangerous to keep going when they couldn't see. No ship should sail in a fog this thick when there could be icebergs around, let alone a little metal tugboat. The memory of the Titanic was still fresh. But the pack ice could close in again anytime. The decision was Captain Pardo's to make, but Shackleton couldn't help pressing his case.
“We haven't seen any icebergs for a while, Captain Pardo,” he said casually. “What do you think about going on?”
“I think I would be very irresponsible to do that, sir,” Pardo said gravely. Shackleton tensed. “However, I wrote a letter to my father before I left on this voyage. I told him I would come back with your men and there would be a great party. Or I would not come back at all, and there would be a great funeral. Either way, they will have plenty to eat and drink, eh?” He gave Shackleton a wicked smile. Shackleton laughed with relief and clapped Pardo on the back.
“How is our course, Worsley?”
“Steady as she goes, Boss.”
Billy plunged his hand into the icy water and scraped another handful of limpets off the rocks. The good thing about the water being so cold was that it numbed his hands. His fingernails were scraped and split from prying the tiny shellfish off the rocks.
For a week now, limpets and seaweed had been their main food. In the past twenty days, only twelve penguins had come ashore. All had been killed, but still made only two meals. Charlie cooked the limpets up with old seal backbones and other bits of carcass dug out of the rubbish pit. They hadn't used the backbones to begin with because they took too long to cook and there wasn't enough fuel. Now there still wasn't enough fuel, but the men were much less particular about how tough the meat was.
But now even the supply of limpets was fading. They had stripped the rocks bare as far as they could walk or wade. Billy sat on a rock and shelled his catch, then carried his can up to the hut.
“You ready for the little guys, Charlie?” he asked. Charlie lifted the lid. The pot was already bubbling, and big green gobs of seaweed floated to the top. The seaweed didn't taste like much but thickened the broth a little. Billy tipped the can into the pot. He warmed his hands over the steam while Charlie stirred. The limpets only needed a few minutes to cook through, and soon Wild was dishing out portions.
Suddenly they heard Hurley shouting from outside. No one could tell what he was saying. For a few seconds, they stared dumbly at each other. Then it was like being hit by lightning. What else would anyone be shouting about? There was a mad rush for the entryway. Mugs of soup went flying. Men got stuck in the narrow entry flap and soon tore it to pieces. The whole pot of limpet stew was toppled. The blubber stove went out with a hiss and cloud of soot. Perce listened to the chaos from his dark corner of the hut.
“Look!” He heard Hurley's voice outside. “Out there. I thought it was an iceberg at first.”
“Can it see us? Has it come for us?” Orde Lees said.
“It's not a proper ship,” someone said. “It looks like a tugboat!”
“Proper or not, if it floats, it's a ship,” Hurley insisted. “Look, you can see it's under power.”
Shackleton! Shackleton had come for them.
“It's going away!” Orde Lees said nervously. “Look!”
“It isn't going,” Wild said calmly. “They're searching. It's been some time since Shackleton saw this place. How about a signal fire?”
Perce threw open the sleeping bag. A ship had come! They wouldn't forget him, would they? Pulling with his arms, pushing with his better foot, and energized by hope, he dragged himself to the entryway. If his foot hurt, he didn't notice or care. The bright daylight hurt his eyes, and he ducked back into the shadows to let them adjust. When he could look, he saw Doc Macklin on the hill, raising an old shirt on the flagpole. He saw Billy and the other sailors frantically gathering up all the old blankets, sennegrass, fur mitts, socks, anything that would burn. Hurley ran to the larder and got a crate of blubber. Wild put a pick through a tin of paraffin and poured it all over the pile. He lit it and it practically exploded.
“Get all the sail scraps,” Wild ordered. “Shirts, coats, anything to wave.” The men raced back to the hut. Some tore the old tent canvas off the roof. Beams of light flooded in like spotlights. Perce thought his heart would beat right through his chest. Was it all a dream? He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. He looked around the small dungeon that had been their home for these endless months. Dirt and reindeer hairs floated in the sunbeams.
“It's turning!” He heard the shouts, nearly hysterical now. “It's coming! They see us!”
The men cheered and waved and hugged each other. A few just knelt on the beach and wept. Wild stared out over the calm water as the mysterious little ship turned and made straight for their bay.
“It's a Chilean flag!” Orde Lees cried out.
“Gentlemen, I assume your gear is lashed up.” Wild smiled. “Let's bring it down. And can someone go fetch our young stowaway?”
Now Perce couldn't hear anything but excited babble. Of course they hadn't forgotten him. And there really was a ship. Shackleton had to have made it. He was alive! Tim and Crean, all of them had to be alive. Macklin popped back inside and grinned at Perce. “Well, what are you waiting for, lad! Don't want to miss the boat, do you? Have you got your things together?”
“My things?” The only things he had were the clothes he was wearing and his journal. He stuffed the little notebook in his pocket. “Yes, I've got all my things.”
Suddenly the hut was a flurry of activity as men squeezed in and scrambled around for their meager possessions. Hurley still had three tins of the precious photographic plates. Greenstreet had saved the log from the Endurance. Perce watched the old sailor McLeod climb into the “attic” and carefully take a bundle out of the bow. It was the queen's Bible that Shackleton had dumped to save weight. McLeod had smuggled it along.
In a very few minutes, the hut was emptied of everything worth keeping. Macklin carried Perce outside and propped him against some rocks near Wild so he could see the ship. The fresh air felt wonderful. The ship had anchored about two hundred yards out and now was putting down a rowboat. They still had no idea where the boat was from. It certainly didn't look like any ship they had expected. A battered metal tug! Who would bring such a thing down here? They all watched as the rowboat came nearer. When it turned to work through the shoals, all at once they saw the broad, square shoulders of the man they knew so well.
“Oh, God, 'tis him,” Wild murmured. The men cheered. Perce saw Wild's shoulders tremble and his eyes tear up. Their unflappable leader, the champion stoic, was working hard not to cry.
A few more oar strokes and they could see Shackleton's face.
“Are you all well?” he shouted.
“All safe! All well!” Wild replied.
“Thank God!”
> “Are you all well?” Greenstreet called.
“Don't we look all right now that we've washed?” Shackleton laughed. There was no good landing on the beach, so Wild guided them up alongside some rocks. Shackleton threw him the line. Everyone stood still as if paralyzed.
“Well, come on, then, no time to lose,” Shackleton said. “Let's have seven men and whatever baggage is ready.”
“Baggage is always ready, Boss!” Billy said. “Mr. Wild made us stow it every morning.”
“But you must come see the hut, Boss!” Orde Lees said. “See what a good job we've made of it.”
“I'm sure it's a palace, but we have no time to spare. The ice might come back any minute. Let's get away while we can. Come on, men, any takers?”
Wild waded into the gentle surf. Shackleton leaned over, his face beaming, his eyes shiny with tears.
“Good to see you, Frank.” He took Wild's hand.
“Aye, and you're looking well, Boss.”
Now both men had tears in their eyes. Shackleton looked at the ragged group of men waiting on the beach. Every one alive. “Thank you, Frankie.” Shackleton's voice broke with emotion. “Thank you for this.”
One hour later, they were all aboard and the Yelcho was under way with the engines at full speed. Most of the men went below immediately, eager, of course, to start eating and drinking. Perce didn't want to go below just yet. He hadn't seen the sky for four months.
“I haven't even seen the island since we went into the hut.”
“I would like to watch it disappear in our wake,” Billy said. “Otherwise I'll think this is just another dream.” They sat on a deck locker at the stern. It was hard for Perce to even sit upright; his muscles were weak from lying down so long. Billy sat close beside him and kept him from toppling over. They watched the hut grow smaller and smaller. What a desperate, forlorn little shelter it seemed now, with its patchwork cover of sealskins and torn tents.
Shackleton's Stowaway Page 21