The Winter Pony

by Iain Lawrence

  I could hear the whales and the birds, but I couldn’t see them. Everything was invisible.

  I moved close to Uncle Bill. He pressed against me, snorted, and began to nuzzle at my neck. Then Punch came and joined us, pushing up against my other side. Even squeezed between them, I was still cold, but it made the night less lonely.

  In the morning, I saw that we had moved along in the darkness. Our little island was jammed in a mass of ice below the Barrier, at a place where the cliff had crumbled away. There was a slope from top to bottom.

  I hoped to see Patrick looking down at me, but nobody was there. The killer whales had followed us. As I looked across the water, one lifted its head high from the surface and gazed back at me with its piggish eyes. And the skuas had moved nearer. The whole flock was gathered close by.

  In the shadows below the cliff, something moved and caught my eye. I had to blink frost from my eyelashes and turn my head to see it properly. A little man was coming across the ice. He lurched and tipped, as though trying to keep his balance. I made a happy sound; I stomped my feet and shook my mane.

  But it was only a penguin. I saw the white feathers at its front, its orange feet padding along. It hopped from one floe to another, then up onto our own small island. It waggled its stump of wings and made a funny chirping sound, then settled down, as though waiting to see what would happen.

  The sun was climbing through the sky when I saw Patrick. He was still quite far away, but I knew for sure it was him. Soon I saw Mr. Oates and Captain Scott and Birdie Bowers too. They moved quickly along the edge of the Barrier, and then down the ramp to the ice.

  Uncle Bill saw them. So did Nobby. Both turned in that direction, their ears twitching wildly. But Punch only blinked, blinded by the snow and glare.

  Captain Scott and Patrick went off in different directions, looking for the best route across the ice. But Mr. Oates and Cherry and Birdie Bowers came straight to our island, hauling an empty sledge that they used to bridge across the widest gaps.

  I could feel the hurry, the anxiousness inside them. Wispy clouds were flying northward, and the wind would soon come down to the sea.

  They chose Punch to go first. Birdie grabbed his tether rope and tugged him forward. Punch lurched down the slope toward the first gap, three feet wide. “Straight across,” said Birdie, leading the pony faster.

  Punch was cold and stiff, half blinded by the sun. But he trotted along beside the little man.

  “Yes, yes,” said Birdie, half running now. His short legs swished back and forth, and the skuas that sat by the water flew up in a great black horde.

  Maybe it was the birds that frightened Punch. Something certainly did. At the very edge of the floe, he dug in his heels and Birdie had to leap across by himself, letting go of the rope.

  The ice broke away, crumbling back from the edge. Punch cried out. He tipped forward headfirst and tumbled into the sea.

  He surfaced again a moment later, such fear in his eyes that I looked away. I heard the killer whales talking. I saw their black fins veering toward us.

  Punch tried to paw his hooves up to the ice, to pull himself to safety. He struggled and screamed. But the terrible cold of the water sapped his strength in a moment. He sagged down in the water, raised himself again, and then looked desperately around at the men.

  Captain Scott and Patrick came running to help. All the men worked together, trying to keep hold of Punch. But he kicked and thrashed in the water, and there was no hope of pulling him out. In moments, the killer whales would be tearing at his legs, and it was the creaky feel of their voices that put such terror into poor old Punch.

  Mr. Oates was holding a pick. It was Mr. Oates who had to do the awful thing.

  I turned away. So did Patrick and Birdie Bowers. I heard the thud of the pick, and a grunt that might have come from either one, the pony or the man.

  When I looked, Punch was gone, and Mr. Oates was standing there with the pick hanging from his hand. His back was toward me, his shoulders were hunched and his head hanging down.

  Patrick came up and grabbed my rope. “Time to get you moving, James Pigg,” he said. At the same time, Birdie took hold of Nobby and ran him toward the gap. The pony held back at first, then trundled along, faster and faster. But he veered aside at the last minute, nearly trampling Birdie.

  “You’ll have to show him how,” said Patrick. He thumped my neck with the flat of his hand. He rubbed my nose. “Ready? Off we go,” he told me.

  I didn’t dream of letting him down. When Patrick got me started, I trotted beside him. I sped up to a canter. We aimed right for the gap, where Punch’s blood spotted the ice with speckles of red.

  “Good lad! Good lad,” cried Patrick, running beside me.

  I wanted to lead the way to safety. But I wasn’t a jumper. My legs were short, the water black and awful, full of killer whales and dead ponies. I wanted to jump. I didn’t.

  Like Nobby, I veered away. I turned toward Patrick, pushing him back until he stumbled and fell on the ice. I heard him groan as his shoulder hit the ground. I had to skitter my back legs to keep from running him down.

  One of his mittens had been torn away. He got up and put it on again. “Well, James Pigg,” he said. “Let’s give that another try.”

  “No, that’s enough,” said Captain Scott. He looked angry but sounded sad. “It’s no use. The ice will drift away before we get them all across. If the gap widens, we’re all finished.”

  “We have to try,” said Birdie Bowers.

  Captain Scott shook his head. He looked at Mr. Oates, who was standing in silence with the pick in his hand. “Finish them now,” he said. “They’re lost at any rate.”

  If Captain Scott had been holding the pick instead of Mr. Oates, it might have been the end for me right there. It was Captain Scott who knew about ice, how it broke apart, how it rotted, how it drifted, and he knew there wasn’t time to waste. He stepped toward Mr. Oates, reaching for the pick. “I’ll do it, Titus,” he said.

  Birdie Bowers pretended not to hear. He took my rope. He turned me toward the gap. “Come on, Jimmy Pigg,” he whispered. “It’s up to you now.”

  I ran beside him. The edge of the ice was three feet away, then suddenly right below me. Birdie jumped, and so did I, pushing with my legs. I hurdled the gap. I bounded across it.

  Patrick cheered. A great smile came to Mr. Oates. He was standing next to Uncle Bill, so he took the pony’s tether and raced him to the water.

  Uncle Bill was big and heavy. Once he was moving, he was hard to stop. He went straight for the gap, but he didn’t jump. It was as though he didn’t see it right in front of him. He just blundered to the edge of the floe—and right across to the next one. When he stood beside me, he seemed surprised to be there.

  Old Nobby came easily then, anxious to stay with the leader. Captain Scott hurried us on, and from floe to floe we moved toward the slope. Most of the jumps were easy, the gaps just a foot or two wide, and we crossed steadily from island to island, and came at last to the final floe. I was the first to reach it, bounding across. But it was a very narrow island, and a big pool of open water was suddenly right in front of me.

  Patrick veered me off to the left and straight across another gap. I jumped without thinking. And I sighed to see that I was safe, standing on solid ice at the foot of the Barrier.

  Nobby came behind me. I watched him leap the first gap, swing to the left, jump again to safety.

  Uncle Bill was already huffing across the snow, trying to catch up. He crossed the first gap and turned left, with Birdie nudging him.

  Just as he started the second jump—in the moment he timed his leap—a dozen killer whales surfaced in the pool. They came in a surge of water, with their shocking breaths as loud as gunshots. Their heads towered up, their piggy eyes staring.

  Uncle Bill tried to twist away from them. He was half in the air as he turned, and he landed just half on the ice. His back legs splashed into the sea, and he hung from the f
oot of the Barrier with his head and shoulders high above the surface. His eyes swiveled around as he looked in terror for the whales.

  At one time, Uncle Bill might have pulled himself easily onto the ice. But now he was old and cold and hungry. Birdie grabbed his mane. Someone else took hold of his halter. But they couldn’t pull him up.

  “Leave him,” said Captain Scott. “Bowers, please!”

  He was right. All around the floundering pony, where the men huddled to help him, the ice was cracked and shattered. They might end up in the sea at any moment, but Birdie Bowers wouldn’t give up. “I can’t leave him to be eaten alive by those whales,” he said.

  The pick was lying on the ice. Both he and Mr. Oates looked at it. There was a wretched expression on Mr. Oates’s face. “I shall be sick if I have to kill another horse as I did the last,” he said.

  “Give me the pick,” said Birdie. “He’s my horse.”

  Mr. Oates fetched the pick. It might have weighed a thousand pounds, the way he dragged it behind him. He let it fall on the ice as he bent down and pointed out a spot on Uncle Bill’s forehead. Then he walked away with his head hunched down, as though trying to cover his ears with his shoulders.

  For Uncle Bill, there was one last pet and a whispered good-bye. Then Birdie swung the pick, and very quickly it was over.

  We went along the ice and up to the Barrier. Nobody looked back at the sea, at the scattered floes we’d crossed. We just walked in a stunned sort of silence, with Birdie carrying the halter that Uncle Bill had worn for so long. He was so sad that he smelled of sadness.

  For me, it was awful to lose Uncle Bill. A pony without a leader was a lonely and wandering soul. I suddenly wanted to get to the stable as quickly as possible. I had to see Hackenschmidt, my old silvery stallion from so long ago. I believed he’d be better now, tamed at last by the Englishmen all around him. I couldn’t bear to think of anything else, not after the things I had seen.

  It was nearly the end of our first season. The days were ever shorter, and the sun was setting as we tramped around the edge of Mount Erebus. Eight ponies had gone out to lay depots, and only two came back.

  I was in the lead. Me and Patrick. Sore and tired, I was looking forward to stopping, to a long winter’s rest in the stable. With one more hill to cross, I smelled the straw. It seemed the most beautiful, wonderful odor in the world. And I hurried then. At the crest of the hill, I whinnied to let Hackenschmidt know I was coming.

  He didn’t answer. But Jehu did. That surprised me a bit, and pleased me a whole lot more. I leaned forward and hurried, over the crest and down to the winter station.

  It was all suddenly spread out below me. The wooden hut at the side of the sea, the stable against it, now roofed and complete. Little sheds here and there. Men busy at strange tasks. A pony racing wildly over the snow with a rider on its back. And little Jehu looking up at me, wriggling happily to see me arrive.

  But where was Hackenschmidt? I called out again. Still, he didn’t answer.

  Some of the men looked up. They saw Patrick and me coming over the rise, then Mr. Crean with Nobby, then Captain Scott and Mr. Oates all harnessed to the sledge, pulling it along. The men below waved, then started running up the slope.

  I had never arrived at a place full of men and gotten a welcome like that. I was greeted as warmly as anyone, the men calling out—“Hello, Patrick.” “Hello, Titus.” “Hello, Jimmy Pigg!”—as though all of us were equal.

  Then they saw that there were no more ponies behind us. And all the happiness turned to a solemn sort of wonder. Birdie Bowers still carried his pony’s halter; he had scarcely put it down in two or three days. He tried to tell what had happened but couldn’t finish speaking. So others told the story as we trekked down toward the hut, wading now through softer snow.

  “And what of Hackenschmidt?” asked Mr. Oates at last. “Still as mean as ever, is he?”

  “Not quite,” said one of the men who’d stayed behind.

  Mr. Oates laughed. “You don’t mean he’s improved?”

  “Much improved,” said the fellow. “He’s dead.”

  It was shocking news, and I hated that the man was happy to tell it. I hated that others laughed to hear it. Only Mr. Oates seemed the least bit sad. “What happened?” he asked.

  The fellow shrugged, as though it didn’t really matter how the pony had died.

  “When?” asked Mr. Oates.

  “Weeks ago. Not long after you left, I’d say.”

  Patrick reached out and patted my neck. I pushed against him, wanting to feel the same comfort from his touch that I’d found in my mother’s gentle nuzzling. It made me feel terrible inside to think that the silvery stallion had been dead a long time. I’d wanted so badly to see him again.

  “One day, he stopped eating,” said the fellow. “He didn’t eat or drink; he didn’t want to leave the stable. He just lay down and died.”

  Mr. Oates looked worried. “Was it colic?” he said. “Was it glanders?”

  “No,” said the other. “The biologist couldn’t explain it. If you ask me, it was cussedness. He’d do anything to avoid his work.”

  In his hut, with his work done, Amundsen greets winter with pleasure. Looking out at the Barrier through his kitchen window gives him a feeling of comfort and well-being.

  He sets up a nursery for his pregnant dogs and lets the others run loose through the day. Their manners, he says, have improved and they come back on their own to be fed, each heading to its own post in its own tent, where it is fastened up for the night. Big battles are rare these days.

  He rations time spent with the gramophone, afraid his men will grow tired of it. But every evening, there’s a glass of toddy and a cigar, and no one tires of that.

  When the sun disappears and the temperatures fall, his men dig tunnels and rooms in the ice. They can go from the house to the coal room to the storeroom without ever being outside.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WINTER came quickly. Soon the sun was showing himself for only an hour or two every day, barely peeking above the horizon. He moved swiftly to the north, toward his wintering place behind the world. On April 23, it was only his light that we saw, shining on the mountaintops and the glaciers as though the snow was burning. Then he was gone altogether, off to his long rest.

  There was only darkness after that. All day long, it was night. The air in our stable got colder and colder, and frost sometimes pushed right through the wall of hay bales. In its corner, the stove was kept lit all the time. The men skewered slabs of seal blubber onto a spike inside it, and the fat dripped slowly onto a sizzling fire, filling the stable with a stinky sort of warmth. In the stalls nearest the stove, the ponies sweated from heat, while those farthest away shivered in the chill.

  I was about in the middle. I had Jehu on one side of me, and on the other quiet Snippets, who would eat just about anything he could reach, including the top rail of his stall and—once—a chunk of seal blubber.

  In front of us was a corridor, then the wall of the hut. Just beyond that wall were the men, and I often heard them laugh and talk, and sometimes heard them singing. They played the piano then, with music so lively that I imagined I could see the notes flitting through the air like bright little birds. Captain Scott’s voice would rise above the others, and sometimes it was his alone carrying the tune. It made me happy to hear the singing, and proud as well, because I was the one who had brought the piano.

  Mr. Oates kept a schedule—he was a very clever man. As though the darkness was still divided into days, we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all dished out in square troughs hooked to the front of our stalls. It was a great comfort to know that a meal of chaff and oatcakes meant that it was lunchtime, because I could spend the afternoon thinking about my dinner, wondering if it would be hot mash and oil cake—my favorite—or boiled oats and chaff—my second favorite. I could never figure it out, and I was always surprised. After dinner, I thought about the hay that would come next, hoping tha
t Patrick would be the one to bring it. Then I settled down and went to sleep thinking about breakfast, almost tasting the chaff. It made for a very busy day.

  Between breakfast and lunch, if there was not a terrible blizzard, we were usually taken out for exercise. It was always nice to get out in the cold, but I liked it best when the aurora was strong and bright, filling the sky with its rivers of color, and Patrick’s boots went crunch-crunch-crunch through the snow. I liked it nearly as much on the windy days, when flying snow made everything so dark that the hut disappeared if we went thirty feet away. On those nights, Patrick was enormously fat in his big bundle of clothes, and all I could see was his eyes.

  But not all the ponies were winter ponies. Some of them hated to be dragged away from the blubber stove, and they tried to break loose as soon as they were out the door. Christopher was the worst for that. He was so wicked and mean that only Mr. Oates could ever try to walk him, and then it was as if Mr. Oates was trying to put a tether on a blizzard, because all we could see was a whirl of white mane and tail.

  Poor Mr. Oates nearly had his arm torn off as he hauled his pony from the stable. More often than not, Christopher would be back very quickly, his rope swinging from his halter. Then Mr. Oates would arrive a long time later, always covered in snow, sometimes bruised or limping. But he never raised a hand to Christopher; he never even raised his voice. I believed he felt sorry for the pony, who didn’t enjoy the battles any more than Mr. Oates. Christopher had never learned to trust a man, and that disappointed Mr. Oates. Patrick and the others called Christopher “a man-eater,” but the pony was more terrified than most of them ever knew.

  On days of blizzards, we got no exercise. For hours and hours, the wind howled around the hut. There was a tremendous rattle and bang from everything that was loose. Snow flew hard as gravel against the walls and windows of the hut, while the tarpaulins on the stable roof fluttered and banged. Inside, most of the ponies were frantic with fear. Mr. Oates never left us then. He slept in a chair pulled close to the stove, making sure we could see him and know we were safe.