Shackleton's Stowaway

by Victoria McKernan

  Perce hadn't thought about how he would get off the ship. He didn't want everyone to see him carted off like an invalid.

  “We'll get the others off first; how's that?” Shackleton said as if reading his mind.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  A sailor opened the gate, and Shackleton, with Frank Wild once more by his side, stepped up to the top of the gangplank. The crowd went wild. Shackleton waved, then turned back to his men and winked. Then for one final time, he led the way. A group of officials greeted them at the bottom, and photographers pressed in close to snap pictures. Then the men began to file off. A shabby, skinny, dirty group of triumphant men. Everyone wanted to shake their hands, kiss them, take a photograph. Billy stayed behind with Perce until the crowd got distracted, and the Red Cross nurse came to fetch him. She was a tall woman who walked like a general. The crowd parted in front of her, and she wheeled him through so quickly that Billy got lost in her wake. She and the driver bundled Perce into the car. Perce felt suddenly very strange. He was shaking all over. He tried to control himself but couldn't stop it. It wasn't just the fever. It was like fireworks inside him shooting off every which way. It was all over now. Nothing to worry about anymore. They were safe. But Perce felt like he was falling into a million pieces. The car began to move slowly through the crowd. Suddenly hands pounded on the roof.

  “Hey!” Billy's face appeared at the window.

  “Hey, Blackie!” Greenstreet was right behind him. There was a knock on the other window. Perce saw Crean's craggy face, grinning through the window on the other side. Other bearded faces crowded behind him. They had broken away from the official welcome to see him off.

  “See you soon, Perce!”

  “Hey—I'll trade your share of champagne for a nut bar! What do you say?”

  “Leave us some nurses, lad!”

  “We'll come see you tomorrow!”

  Perce's eyes filled with tears, but he didn't care. His hands stopped shaking. He waved at his friends as the car slowly pulled away.

  The men were taken to a hotel to wash and given new clothes and a bin in which to put their old ones for burning. They hardly recognized one another with clean, beardless faces and new clothes. Without the layers of underwear, sweaters, and jackets, it was clear to see how painfully thin they all were. That night was the first of many banquets and parties. Macklin had warned them not to go crazy eating and drinking too much, but no one listened to his advice, not even Macklin himself.

  Billy slept very soundly that night and late the next morning. It was late afternoon when he went to the hospital, but the doctors wouldn't let him see Perce.

  “No see,” a nurse explained in broken English. “Too sick.”

  “He can't be any sicker than he's been for months,” Billy protested. “He's in a hospital now!”

  The nurse did not understand. “Too sick,” she repeated. “And too many come here, want to see poor boy with Shackleton.”

  “But I'm his friend,” Billy explained. “I was on the ship. I was with Shackleton.” Just then Billy saw Doc Macklin come through the hospital lobby. Billy ran over to him.

  “Doc, what's going on? They won't let me in to see Perce.”

  “Not yet, Billy.” Macklin frowned. “He's still groggy. We operated on him this morning, and he's recovering from the chloroform.”

  “Operated for what? You didn't cut his foot off, did you?”

  “No. Just a little more tissue and bone. The bone is infected.”

  “But he'll be all right now, won't he?”

  “I don't know, Billy.”

  “What do you mean you, don't know? Come on, Doc, after all this? He can't—it—it would be—” Billy couldn't even say it. Perce can't die now. It would be ridiculous, cruel, ungodly.

  “I know, I know.” Macklin was even more frustrated. It was over a hundred years since scientists first discovered bacteria. They could look at them under the microscope, they could grow them in a dish, they just couldn't kill them.

  “You can see him tomorrow.” Macklin rubbed his tired eyes. “Just remember he has a way to go yet. I'll tell the nurses to let you in. He's become a bit of a celebrity, you see. There were a hundred people here yesterday wanting to see the poor frostbitten lad.” Macklin gave him a weary smile.

  chapter forty-four

  As Macklin promised, the nurses let Billy in the next day. They were much more friendly now that they knew who he was. Perce's bed was in a corner of the ward near a window. In the bright sunlight, Perce looked as pale as the bedsheets. A wooden hoop held the blanket off his feet.

  “Well!” Billy laughed. “You're looking so good, I don't think you'll get any sympathy out of me now!” In truth, Perce looked terrible, but they had spent enough time with Shackleton to learn the value of optimism. “Though a proper barber would do you some good.”

  “I wouldn't have recognized you at all!” Perce smiled. “Tell me everything—are they treating you grand?”

  “We're drinking champagne like water and eating like kings. And we're famous, you know! Look here.” He brought out a stack of local newspapers with photos and stories about them. Neither of them knew Spanish, but it was clear from the size of the headlines and the bold type that they were making for a good story.

  “They've got us all farmed out in folks' houses now,” Billy explained. “Sleeping on great soft beds and food all over. How about you? Are they feeding you up all right?”

  “Aye.” Perce pointed to a table beside the bed that was heaped with tins of cookies and chocolates and all manner of delicacies. “All the English have been sending baskets over!” He picked up a scone from one of the baskets and tapped it on the bedside table. It sounded like a rock and didn't even crack. “But Charlie could give out a few baking lessons, if you know what I mean!”

  “Oh, Charlie,” Billy laughed. “He's quite the celebrity now. Some writers for a ladies' magazine came to interview him. Asking for his recipes. So Charlie goes on, you know how he can go on about cooking, goes on about how many ways there are to cook a penguin.” Billy imitated Charlie's squeaky voice. “Oh, well, the legs is tasty fried, you see, and the breast, well, depends on if it's a gentoo, you see, or an Adélie, for the tenderness, eh? Of course the emperor has the most meat, but I rather think the gentoo is sweeter.”

  Perce laughed until he was too weak to laugh anymore and a clucking nurse chased Billy away. Over the next week, others came to visit. They brought him more cookies and chocolate than he could eat in a year. When Crean came, there was a great buzz among the nurses, for the story had spread throughout all of Punta Arenas about how he bent the iron pike across his chest. At least six different nurses found some reason to walk by Perce's bed during the visit, each one slowing to glance at the handsome Irish Giant.

  Wild, by contrast, was barely noticed by anyone. The strongest, most stalwart member of the expedition never looked the part of an explorer unless you took the time to look into his eyes. Perce thought those eyes looked a little red and tired these days. Unlike most of the men, Wild's responsibilities had not ended upon arrival here. He was busy helping Shackleton with a thousand details and arrangements. There was still no news about the fate of his brother and the other men in the Ross Sea Party.

  “I've brought you something.” Wild glanced around to see if anyone was near enough to eavesdrop, then he took out a brown envelope. “Hurley's photos. He went in the darkroom the day we got back and hasn't come out much since. No one's supposed to see them yet,” he explained. “The rights were all sold years ago to finance the expedition, so we have to ensure the exclusive, but Hurley said you could take a look.”

  Perce took the photos. There was one of the men eating at the wardroom table aboard the Endurance and one of Crean holding Sally's four puppies in his big hands. There were several pictures of the dogs. Perce felt a new stab of loss for them.

  “They're brilliant.” Perce was amazed. There was a grand picture of the Endurance stuck in the ice that Hurley
had taken at night. That photograph had taken hours to prepare for. Perce remembered setting up a dozen pans of flash powder all around the ship.

  “She was a beautiful ship,” Wild said quietly.

  “Aye.” The entire ship was frosted in ice. The ice in her rigging looked like diamonds.

  “Look here.” Wild handed him another print. “Now, that's a fine-looking cat. Very fine. Too bad he's posed with such an ugly mug.” Perce looked at the photo with astonishment. There he was himself, with Mrs. Chippy sitting on his shoulder, just outside the galley. Perce had never seen himself in a photograph before. And that long-ago self looked nothing like the person he was today. The man in the photo was healthy and muscular. He stood with the easy confidence of untested youth, looking very sure of himself. Off on a jolly lark. Perce felt tears creeping into his eyes. When he came to a picture of the hut on Elephant Island, he couldn't bear to look anymore. The tears flowed down his cheeks.

  “Happened to me too, lad,” Wild said reassuringly. “All of us are still a bit tender, I think.”

  chapter forty-five

  After two weeks in the hospital, Perce was well enough to sit up in a wheelchair. Billy wheeled him outside to the hospital garden. It was spring, and the air was sweet with the scent of flowers.

  “I've got some good news!” Billy grinned.

  “You've met another beautiful Chilean girl and danced with her all night.”

  “Well, yes, but besides that. I got a job.”

  “On a ship?”

  “On a ranch in Patagonia!”

  “Patagonia? Where the heck is that?”

  “South of here. I got to talking with an old Scottish fellow who owns a big sheep ranch. His nephew was running it but got killed in the war. I told him I'd done a little ranching, and I guess he took a liking to me. It'll be good to get back in a saddle again,” he said. “Sleep out on the ground under the stars.”

  “Don't you want to go home? See your family?”

  “Yeah, sure, but the job needs someone now. You wouldn't think it after all this, but my wandering feet aren't ready to settle down just yet.”

  “Congratulations, then.” Perce forced a cheerful smile. “That's grand. When do you leave?”

  “Well.” Billy looked down and picked at a torn fingernail. “Actually, my boat leaves in a couple of hours.”

  “Today?”

  “Yeah. I just met this fellow two days ago, and it turns out the boat only sails every other week. The others are all leaving in a few days, and I can't just keep living off hospitality here, so, well, time to move on.”

  “Well,” Perce repeated. He couldn't imagine not having Billy around. But somehow it also seemed perfectly right. Billy had breezed along onto the Endurance and now was breezing off into his next adventure. “Come see us in Wales when you get tired of the sheep,” he said. “We'll go to Ireland and find our Tim.”

  The bell rang to announce the end of visiting hours.

  “Shall I take you back?” Billy stood beside the wheelchair.

  “No, I'll stay here a while longer.”

  “It's a nice evening.”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, goodbye, then.”

  “Goodbye.” They shook hands.

  “Thanks for bringing me out, Billy,” Perce said quietly.

  “It is a lovely garden.” Billy sighed and looked around at all the flowers.

  “I didn't mean the garden,” Perce said.

  “I know. But if you say any more, you'll get me blubbering.”

  Shackleton came to visit the next morning. He was still dealing with an avalanche of bureaucracy, telegrams back and forth to England and arrangements to get everyone home. Some of the men had already left, eager to return to England and join the war. The rest would sail north tomorrow on the Yelcho to Buenos Aires and from there to England. Shackleton and Worsley were about to leave for New Zealand, then back to Antarctica to rescue the other stranded men.

  “There's a chap from the British Club who will look after you here,” Shackleton explained. “He'll arrange your passage home when you're fit to travel. Macklin says the doctors here know what they're doing, so you should be up soon.”

  “Yes, Boss. I'll make out fine.”

  “Good. Very good. Here's a few pounds in advance of your wages.” Shackleton put an envelope on the bedside table. “You'll want to buy clothes and a few things.”

  “Thank you, sir. I'd like to bring some presents home.”

  “I expect you'll find something.”

  Their conversation was stiff. Shackleton clearly did not like hospitals and seemed ill at ease. Perce finally gave him mercy by pretending to be tired. Shackleton got up with relief.

  “Well, it was good to have you along, Perce.” They shook hands. It was oddly formal.

  “You did well, and I'm proud of you,” he said. Then he was gone. Perce leaned back on his pillow and smiled. He didn't mind the abrupt goodbye. He understood this man's heart by now. In the grip of disaster, Shackleton had inspired his men with words. Faced with ordinary sentiment, he stumbled badly. Perce didn't care. Mr. Shakespeare would have had a grand flowery speech to say. But Mr. Shakespeare would not likely have gotten them home.

  chapter forty-six

  December 1916

  Perce sat on deck, watching the night slip slowly into morning as the sky changed through a hundred shades of blue. It was odd to be on a ship as a passenger. Perce wasn't really sure what to do with himself. They were two days out from Buenos Aires now, and the weather was fair. He could hear dolphins swimming and blowing alongside the ship, though it was still too dark to see them. He had been up all night as usual. Partly because he still had trouble sleeping, but mostly because it was just more peaceful then. He liked to watch the stars circle overhead and listen to the familiar sounds of the sea. He liked to be alone. The other English-speaking passengers had been suffocatingly kind. Perce could not sit on a deck chair without someone running over with a blanket or have a simple cup of tea without plates full of food being pressed on him. He was shy enough to begin with, but especially so with people so far out of his class. Night gave him the solitude and peace he craved.

  He walked along the side deck toward the stern, only occasionally holding the railing for balance. The special shoe still felt awkward, but Perce was determined not to show a limp by the time he got home. Day by day, he felt stronger. Every night, he went to one of the ship's fire stations and lifted buckets of sand to build up his muscles. The shirts he had been given in Punta Arenas were getting tight in the shoulders. He walked a lap of the ship and returned to the bow. It was a little brighter now. The dolphins were silvery shadows.

  Andres, the ship's steward, came out with a basket of folded blankets. He began to put them out on the first-class deck chairs. He was a small, cheerful Argentinean boy of fifteen. He liked talking to Perce. Perce liked Andres too because he didn't talk too much. Andres spoke very little English but was trying to learn. He asked Perce for five new words every day, then practiced them in sentences.

  “Mister Blackborow, sir. How are you doing this fine morning?” he said with careful precision.

  “I am well, thank you.”

  “I have for you English news!” Andres said, taking a folded newspaper from his towel basket. “Paper is from Buenos Aires. Only three day—ah—of time?”

  “Three days old.”

  “Yes! I find in the trash of cabin. And always you are reading. So I save for you.”

  “Thank you, Andres.” Perce took the papers. He was puzzled. Passengers usually left papers in the salon for others to read. It was strange that any of the English would throw away a newspaper, especially the Telegraph, which carried the very latest news, sent at great expense from London by wire.

  The sky wasn't quite bright enough to read by yet, so Perce sat in a chair to wait for the sunrise. He felt peaceful. The bad memories were starting to loosen their grip. The cold and pain and terrible fear were fading. He had good m
emories now too: dogsled races and football games; the crazy, raucous singsong nights; playing in the snow with Sally's puppies. He smiled as he remembered Charlie frosting a brick as a joke for Crean's birthday. He had seen a thousand things that few other people in the world would ever know: crystal green icebergs in an azure sea, the shimmering gold of the aurora australis blazing across an endless sky. He had friendships that no one else could even imagine. Slowly the sky grew lighter. Perce's eyes fell on the newspaper in his lap. At the bottom of the front page, a few paragraphs were set off in a box with a small headline.

  ENDURANCE SAILOR DIES IN CHANNEL BATTLE

  Sailed for Rescue with Shackleton

  Timothy McCarthy, a crew member on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was among the brave sailors killed in battle when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. McCarthy, twenty-eight, of Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, had only recently returned from the expedition, which has already become a legendary story of heroism and survival. After their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by ice, Shackleton and his twenty-seven men spent seven months camping on an ice floe before escaping in the ship's three small lifeboats. A week's harrowing boat journey took them to a desolate scrap of land called Elephant Island. Once there, McCarthy was one of five men chosen to sail with Sir Ernest across another eight hundred miles of open ocean to obtain rescue. Sir Ernest, en route to New Zealand, could not be reached for comment.

  Perce shut his eyes. He couldn't breathe. The paper had to be wrong. How could it be true? Every day for months, they had walked with death. They had slept beside death, swallowed it whole, laughed at it, cowered from it, taunted it, sometimes longed for it. But death had proved to be no real match for twenty-eight ordinary men. Perce read the story twice more. He opened the paper and searched every page, looking for a different story, one that would change this, have it all be a mistake. But there had been no mistake.

  Perce got up and threw the newspaper overboard. The pages came apart and fluttered gently in the wind. Death was such a coward. You had a fair chance! he thought angrily. You had your chance at all of us! In the worst place in all of the world, with a thousand knives in your bag, you failed. With the cold dagger of Antarctica, you could not take even one of us, so with a dull thump of war you have taken the best of us.