“Do you suppose anyone will ever see it again?” Perce asked. “And what would they think?”
“First they would think they had never smelled anything so foul in all their lives.” Billy laughed. “I guess you can't leave anyplace that's been home without some sad feelings, but I won't be missing that place anytime soon.” Billy shuddered. “Shall we go inside and warm up?” He looked around to see who might help him carry Perce. He saw Wild and Shackleton walking alone along the port-side rail. They stopped at the stern. Wild leaned against the railing, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Shackleton bent close, talking quietly but with some urgency.
“Hey.” Billy nudged Perce. “Doesn't look like a happy chat there. Wonder what's up?”
Wild frowned and nodded. Shackleton touched him on the shoulder. There was obviously some bad news. When Shackleton left, Wild took out his pipe and tobacco. His hands shook as he filled the pipe. Only then did he look up and see Perce and Billy. He came over and leaned on the locker beside them.
“I didn't think anyone would still be out here.”
“We were just admiring the scenery,” Billy said. “Admiring it disappear, that is!”
“Is everything all right, Mr. Wild?” Perce asked.
“Aye, for us,” Wild sighed. “But the Aurora's had a bit of trouble over in the Ross Sea.” Perce hadn't even thought about the Aurora in months but now realized why Frank Wild would be upset at the news.
“Is your brother all right?” Perce asked.
“Boss doesn't know. He only got the bare bones of it from the telegraph before he left Chile. The Aurora dragged anchor in a gale. The men were ashore when the ice came in. The ship couldn't get back to them. She got frozen in, then lost her rudder and barely made it back to New Zealand. They're trying to repair her now to go back for the men.”
“But there is a hut there, right?” Billy said. “So they have shelter.”
“Aye. And they landed half their supplies. Boss says there was plenty left there from earlier expeditions too. Probably enough for a year. They should do fine. He's going after them himself as soon as we get back and he can find passage to New Zealand.”
The three fell quiet then. It was no use offering reassurance. They knew too well what the crew of the Aurora was facing. Having a hut and stores made it a little easier. And at least the men there knew that others knew where they were. As far as getting stranded in Antarctica went, they had it pretty good. But nothing could take away the horror of this awful place.
chapter forty-two
As soon as the Yelcho cleared the pack ice, the men began to celebrate. Finally the rescue was real. They had escaped the ice at last. The ordinary dangers of crossing the ferocious Southern Ocean seemed small. Doing it in a rusty little tugboat that should never have left the harbor only made it better.
“Finally we get to give old Neptune a good punch in the face!” Billy laughed.
The boat was crowded, and some were already seasick, but they were safe. They were going home. They were warm and dry. Charlie Green, who had worked more hours than ten other men put together, went immediately down to the galley with the Yelcho's cook. Soon the men were feasting on roast lamb and potatoes, fresh bread, peaches, and twelve pounds of macaroni and cheese. There was coffee and wine and sweet, thick fruit juice. Macklin told them to go easy, but no one listened. Everyone ate their fill. Everyone was soon sick.
There wasn't enough water for anyone to take a proper bath, but just having clean hands and faces made them feel like new men, even in their grimy old clothes. Shackleton asked them not to shave yet.
“The good people of Punta Arenas helped us out so much, I think they deserve a look at genuine castaways.”
No one cared. That first day passed in giddy confusion. There was so much to catch up on. Conversations started and stopped and zigzagged all over. Shackleton told them a little about the war. He had brought along papers and magazines but didn't hand them out right away. It was shocking enough to discover the war was still going on. They could learn the particular horrors later.
Shackleton had also brought along a box full of medical supplies. To Macklin, it was like Christmas morning. There was alcohol and iodine, carbolic soap for cleaning wounds, sulfur and bichloride of mercury for infection, and miles of clean gauze bandages. Some of the Yelcho's crew gave up their bunks for the invalids. Crean and Billy carried Perce down to have his foot cleaned up, but Perce was not about to spend the day lying around belowdecks.
“Come on, Doc, it's not like I could sleep anyway!”
“Perce, you can barely sit up now, and believe me, once the first excitement fades, you're going to feel weaker.”
“So I'll lie down then.”
“I'll fix him up a chair and a footstool in the mess room,” Billy offered. “He can't miss the party, Doc!”
“Go on, then,” Macklin finally agreed. “Set it up in a corner, for I'm sure there'll be drunken fools dancing around the place by day's end crashing into everything.” Once Billy and Crean left, Macklin started to unwrap Perce's foot. The bandage was soaked with blood and pus. The smell filled the tiny room. Perce bit his lip to distract himself. The lightest touch was a lightning stab of pain.
“You might not want to look, Perce,” Macklin warned as he pulled away the final layer. Perce stared at the ceiling and counted the rivets. The more he tried to hold still, the more his body trembled. This was the first time since the amputation that Macklin had seen the wound in good light.
“I think we could do with a shot of morphine first,” he said, trying not to let any worry come through his voice. “I'm going to give it a good cleaning, and that will hurt.” He filled the syringe and injected the painkiller into Perce's arm. Almost immediately, Perce felt relief. His whole body relaxed, and the pain simply vanished. What a wonderful sensation! He felt peaceful and dreamy and relaxed. Even as Macklin cleaned the open wound and cut away dead tissue, Perce didn't feel a thing.
“Don't touch it,” Macklin said after he bandaged the foot. “Don't try to walk or hop around. Just sit and keep it up.”
“Okay, Doc.” Perce felt so good right now, he would go around with a live duck on his head if Doc told him too. It was so nice not to hurt. Macklin gave him some aspirin to bring his fever down, then released Perce to join the rest of the crew. The party went on well past midnight. Shackleton wanted to hear all about their time on Elephant Island. He praised their skills and ingenuity. He laughed at the songs they had made up.
In typical fashion, he made light of his own journey in the James Caird. It was “a bit rough now and then,” he said. The monster wave “gave us a fright and needed some bailing to put things right again.” He made the whole journey sound like an endless picnic.
“So there we were,” Shackleton said. “Perfect navigation— only wouldn't you know it, some fool had decided to put the whaling station on the opposite side of the island! Well, we weren't too keen on another sail, even if the poor old James Caird hadn't sprung a leak in every plank by then. So we rested a few days, then Worsley and Crean and I just walked across. And here we are today!”
The men played along. They could guess the truth, of course, but the truth was just too awful to think about right now. Despite all his casual talk and endless cheer, Perce could see that Shackleton was a different man. Even now, after four months of regular eating, he looked gaunt. His hair had gone gray, and his eyes were sunken in a weary face. He looked old, Perce thought. Old and damaged.
Perce and Billy learned more of the truth, for Crean gave them a letter Tim had written while he waited on the beach.
Dear Sailors,
Did you ever think to get a letter from yours truly? But I have plenty of time to write and not much else to do, for this is the land of plenty. We have fresh water bubbling right out of the rocks, and seals come over every day and lay their head down on the block for us. Water is the best thing. Sometimes I just sit there and look at it, coming out all clear and sweet. Well
, it was a hard trip, I will tell you that. Now Boss and Crean and Worsley are going across the mountains on foot. I wish I could go, but someone had to tend to these here.
There is wood on the beach from shipwrecks over the years. I wondered if any was from the Endurance yet. A strange thought. But it makes a good fire. I won't say I wish you were here because that would be rotten for you, but it is kind of gloomy by myself. It will be no more than four or five days, though. If they don't make it across by that time, then they plain don't make it and neither do we. Then I suppose you won't get this letter, right!
No one has ever gone across South Georgia Island before. (Why would they?) Oh, well, how many other things have we done by now that were never done before or even possible? It will be chancy, though. All they have is some bits of rope tied up together and Chippy's adze for an ice ax. That adze is good for everything, I will say. We pulled nails out of the boat and put them on the bottom of their shoes for walking on the ice. They took no sleeping bags, for they are too heavy, only the Primus and a little fuel. They will just go straight without stopping. Worsley figures it is around twenty-five miles. That would be a hard walk on flat ground for the way I'm feeling now. And of course they don't know the way. But that has never stopped Shackleton before, right? I will tell you, I was not feeling so happy to see them leave. But if you read this—well! Then we came out fine! If we don't, then hello to whoever might find this someday.
The second page was on letterhead from the Stromness whaling station. It was scribbled in huge joyous writing with exclamation marks everywhere.
May 23, 1916
We are all right now! Here at the whaling station and plenty to eat. Boss came through again! I don't know how. You remember how big and sharp these mountains are. The whalers all look at him like he must be one of their old Nordic gods from legend. I know how he will tell it. Like it was a walk in the park. But don't believe that. It nearly killed all three of them. I don't know why it didn't. Don't know why any of us has lived when you think about it! Maybe we're meant to do something big, do you think? I will go home on a ship from here. The war is still on, and I think to join. The Boss leaves today to fetch you all, so I will finish now. He is eager to be off, though he is in a bad way and Crean and Worsley too. But see you all in Ireland someday soon.
Cheers,
Your shipmate, Tim McCarthy
Late that night, after Crean had enough whiskey in him to loosen his tongue, Perce got a little more out of him.
“Aye, I have to say, many a time I thought we wouldn't make it. We would go up a mountain, then find no way down, so we'd retrace our path, go down again and up another way,” Crean explained. “That first night, we were up on a ridge with the cold closing in fast. We had no hope to last up there, and it was too steep to climb down. I thought, well, that's it, we gave it a good try. But then Shackleton decides we'll slide down!” Crean rubbed his big hand against his face as if he still couldn't quite believe it. “It was crazy, but we could see there was no other way down. We coiled up the rope and sat on it one behind the other like on a toboggan. Then we just pushed off and flew! I shut my eyes. We were going too fast to see anyway and couldn't very well steer even if we wanted to. We had no idea if we would shoot off a cliff or slam into a rock. But we made it. Aye, by God, we made it.”
Perce didn't remember being carried to his bunk. He woke in the morning with a strange sensation. He was warm and dry. No blubber smoke, no stones poking him in the back, no reindeer hairs in his mouth. So it was true. They were safe at last.
September 1, 1916
After living so long how we did, it is hard to adjust to real life again. No one really knows how we should feel or what to do. Some men will not stop talking. Some hardly talk at all. Like they are pretending nothing ever happened. I am unbelievably happy most of the time, then suddenly, out of nowhere, I am so sad, I think I will break apart. And though I have food now and medicine, I sometimes shake all over. Wild paces the deck at night, can't sleep at all. Those who can sleep wake shouting with the nightmares.
Only Charlie Green seems right, for he has a job to do again. He is feeling right at home in the Yelcho's galley with a proper stove and real pots and pans! He made dumplings and pies, yeasty white rolls, and Shackleton's favorite jam tarts.
We mostly sleep and eat and read the papers. It is hard to make sense of the war. Three million are dead. All of Europe is a battlefield. The whole world has changed seems like overnight. There is a place called Gallipoli, where officers sent their troops straight into machine-gun fire. A passenger ship was torpedoed and sunk. It is impossible to make sense of it all.
It took four days to reach Punta Arenas. As they got closer, Perce saw a change come over Shackleton. He seemed anxious and distracted. On the third day, Perce was sitting by himself in a sheltered corner of the side deck. Shackleton came out and began to pace. He did not look like a man who had just pulled off a triumphant rescue. He looked old, Perce thought, old and lost and terribly sad. When he finally noticed Perce, his face changed abruptly back to the calm, genial leader, confident and unruffled.
“Are you ready for civilization, Perce?” Shackleton said. “We'll be there tomorrow.” He sat down and lit a cigarette. “You know, I'm actually very good at it. Civilization. You can't get anywhere in this game if you're not. But it never quite fits me somehow.” He stopped abruptly and shook his head as if ridding himself of the gloom. “So what are your plans now, lad?”
“I don't know, Boss.”
“Macklin says you'll be in hospital here for a while. I'll make arrangements for your passage home whenever you're fit.”
“Thank you.” A petrel soared alongside the ship, coasting effortlessly. It turned its head with quick little darts to examine the two odd creatures sitting there.
“Sir—” Perce said after a while. “Even how things turned out, I'm glad I did it.”
“Good God, Perce—don't think like that!” Shackleton snapped. “Don't let it get hold of you. There's nothing but ruination in this game!” Shackleton looked as angry as when he had first discovered his stowaway. Perce was startled by the response.
“Oh, I don't think I'm ruined, Boss,” he said. “I said I was glad I did it. Not that I'd want to do it again.”
Shackleton relaxed. “Aye, all right, then.”
“But it's like in that play by Shakespeare,” Perce went on. “Henry the Fifth, when he's sending them off into battle. How all the men in England lying abed would wish they were there.”
“Ah.” Shackleton nodded. “And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day. So you read Henry the Fifth, did you?”
“Aye. On Elephant Island. Billy read it to me mostly. But I would read that part over sometimes. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. That seemed right for us too: how we were, a band of brothers. Bad as it got sometimes, well, I don't know how to explain it. Bad as it got, I wouldn't trade it back. I don't think a lot of men ever get to know how that feels.”
“Just us and Shakespeare?”
“Aye,” Perce laughed.
A cloud came over Shackleton's face. “Well, at least I'm not sending you into war like King Henry. You'll be one less dead soldier on some bloody field.”
“But I mean to sign up, Boss! As soon as I get back.”
“They won't take you, lad. Not missing your toes.”
“I want to do my duty!”
“Your duty, Perce,” Shackleton sighed. “Your duty is to find a pretty girl and give England lots of fine sons and daughters. Teach them what grand things they can do and what places there are out here in the world.” He looked out to sea, where the bird still glided along beside them. “If there's anyplace left after this madness.”
chapter forty-three
The next morning brought the glorious sight of land. The mountains of southern Chile were bathed in a golden sunrise.
The wind smelled of grass and trees. As they neared the harbor, the men lined the rail, exclaiming over each sight of civilization. As the Yelcho got near the harbor, dozens of boats came out to escort her in. They were decorated with flags and flowers and streams of bunting until the entire harbor was bright with color and noisy with horns.
“Holy Christmas—will you look at that!” Billy laughed. “They've got the whole town out and every flag flying. You'd think we went to the moon and back! All we need now is a brass band and dancing bears.”
The brass band was waiting on the dock. The entire city of Punta Arenas had turned out to welcome Shackleton and his rescued men.
“I don't know whether I'm happy or terrified!” Billy exclaimed.
“Both, I think,” Perce said. “A whole lot of both.” It had been almost two years since they had walked on a street, entered a house, or seen a woman. Even Frank Wild looked nervous. He kept fiddling with his pipe, tugging at his coat sleeves, and brushing back his thinning hair.
“Steady now, boys, remember we've been through worse!” Shackleton understood the men's nervousness. He walked among them, putting them at ease, straightening a torn collar, pretending to brush a bit of lint off a tattered jacket. They still wore the same filthy clothing they had worn for the past year, soaked through with blubber, soot, and penguin blood. The Yelcho eased up alongside the dock, and the crowd pressed in tight.
“Don't worry,” Shackleton reassured his men. “As soon as they smell the lot of you, they'll stand back!”
The crew scrambled to secure the mooring lines. Shackleton came over to Perce.
“The Red Cross has a car here for you, Perce.” Shackleton pointed to the dock, where a nurse in white uniform was waiting with a wheelchair. “They'll take you right to the hospital.”
Shackleton's Stowaway Page 22