The White South

by Hammond Innes

  I must have fallen asleep, for suddenly Gerda was shaking me. “I think there is something wrong with the radio,” she whispered. “It is past three and I can get nothing.”

  I sat up and fumbled with the tuning knobs. There was a faint crackling, but I could pick up nothing on our R/T wavelength. I switched over to the next waveband and almost immediately picked up music from a shore station. “Nothing wrong with the radio,” I said. “Sure you didn’t alter the tuning knob?”

  “No. I switched on just before three. There was nothing. Then I look at the tuning. It is quite okay. I think they do not broadcast.” Her voice trembled slightly.

  “But they must have done,” I told her. “They know how anxiously we’ll be following their broadcasts. They’d never just miss out one. I’ll try again at three-thirty.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was ten past three. I lit my pipe and sat there, waiting for the next broadcasting time. And as I sat there, listening to the thunder of the pressure ridges and the crunch of the man on watch pacing up and down outside, an awful thought crossed my mind. Suppose the operator were too busy to broadcast to us! I tried to put the thought out of my mind. But it persisted. It persisted and grew with the groaning and crashing of the ice and the sudden, deathly periods of silence. They’d never forget to broadcast. If Gerda were right and they had failed to broadcast, then there must have been a reason. And there could be only one reason—more important traffic. I glanced at my watch. It was fourteen minutes past three. I looked across at Gerda. She was lying down, breathing quietly. Twice in the hour, for three minutes, there is a period of radio silence. From 15 minutes to 18 minutes past the hour and from 45 minutes to 48 minutes past the hour every operator in every ship in the world listens on a Watch wave of 500 k.c. for emergency calls. I just had to set my mind at rest. I leaned quickly forward, switched the set on and tuned to the Watch wave. The radio crackled. I gazed at the luminous dial of my wrist-watch, and as the minute hand touched the quarter I was sweating despite the cold. The radio crackled. That was all. Relief flooded through me. I told myself I’d been a fool. And then, so faint that I could not catch the words, the voice of an operator crackled out of the set.

  I leaned forward quickly and fingered the tuning knob. The name Southern Cross was repeated twice. Then I was on the wavelength and the operator’s voice was echoing through the tent: “We are beset by ice in 66.21 S. 34.06 W. Southern Cross calling all shipping. SOS. SOS. Can you hear me? We are beset by ice in 66.21 S. 34.06 W. Southern Cross calling all ships. SOS. SOS.…”

  It went on like that unendingly. The operator’s tone never varied. It was unemotional, ordinary. He might have been making a weather statement. But the monotonous repetition of the words drummed at my brain and I sat there, quite regardless of the cold, seeing nothing, hearing nothing beyond that voice, completely stunned.

  There was movement in the tent round me. Gerda caught at my arm. She was thinking of her father. Nobody spoke, but I knew they were all awake and listening. Sometimes the operator sent in English sometimes in Norwegian. Always the message was the same. Then a new voice was on the air. “Haakon to Southern Cross. Haakon to Southern Cross. Repeat your position. Over.”

  The position was repeated. There was silence for perhaps five minutes. Then the Norwegian factory ship was back on the air. “Haakon to Southern Cross. Proceeding to your assistance. Our position is now 64 S. 44 W. We should be with you at about 20.00 hours. Report fully on your present circumstances.” And the operator gave an R/T wavelength.

  After I had tuned to him, Eide himself came on the air. “We passed between two icebergs in a wide lead at 17.30 hours yesterday, going to the assistance of three of our catcher fleet damaged in the ice. At about 19.00 hours the lead came to an end and we entered the ice which was loose pack and not thick. At 21.45 hours we were held up by a mass of very heavy pack. We tried to back out of this, but the icebergs we had passed through were piling the pack up across our line of retreat. It appears that there is a strong eastward drift here. The icebergs are moving with the drift. But to the east there is a storm thrusting the ice westward. We are being caught between these two forces. When you reach the ice you will find there are seven icebergs in a row. Do not try to proceed beyond this line. I repeat, do not try to proceed beyond this line. We will keep you informed of all developments.”

  “Haakon to Southern Cross. Thank you for your warning. We will do all we can.”

  “It is not believable,” Gerda whispered.

  I didn’t say anything. I felt utterly crushed. I think I prayed. I don’t know. My mind was a sort of blank in which I could think of nothing but the fact that I needn’t have been here. I wasn’t a whaler. I wasn’t a part of this Antarctic organisation. If only I hadn’t been so damned foolish about that fiver Bridewell had given us as a New Year present! Or if only I’d had the sense to confirm that Kramer could get me a job in Capetown! It was as though Fate had organised it all. I felt bitter and lonely.

  “Capitano.” Bonomi’s voice trembled in the dark corner of the tent where he lay. “You will get us out of here, yes? You can navigate. You have been on a polar expedition. You can get us—”

  “It wasn’t a polar expedition,” I snapped at him. “It was only to Greenland.”

  “What is the difference? You understand how to travel on the ice. Tell me, please—it is possible to get out of the ice, eh?”

  “In Greenland we had dogs.”

  “Yes. But we have a boat.”

  “Would you like to drag a boat through twenty miles of the conditions through which you ski-ed this evening?”

  “No. But I must get back. When I complete these whaling pictures, I am to go to the Rand to work for some goldmining companies. Oh, you people, you do not understand. You are not artists. For me my work is everything. I must get back. I cannot be snuffed out here like any common photographer. I have much fine work yet to do.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I said. But the way he’d talked made me realise that there were fifteen people right here on the ice with me who expected me to save them. The responsibility wrapped itself round me and lay like a heavy mantle on my shoulders. Gerda touched my hand. “You must not worry, you know. God will help us.”

  Bonomi heard her and said, “God?” Though I couldn’t see him, I could picture the down-droop of his mouth and the upward roll of his eyes. “God has done too much for us already, I think. Madonna mia! We must do for ourselves now.”

  The refrigerator ship, South, and the tanker, Josephine, were now on the air. They were ordered to close, but to stand off, clear of the ice.

  All night the Southern Cross issued reports—to her own ships and to the Haakon. But they showed no improvement until shortly after six when our hopes were raised by the news that she had dynamited a patch large enough for her to be warped round. I felt then that there was a chance. She was facing out of the ice and a powerful ship of that size ought to be able to batter her way clear along the route by which she had entered. Everybody was cheerful at breakfast. But a broadcast shortly after eight-thirty shattered our hopes. The icebergs were charging into the pack and building it up into huge pressure ridges. The way out was blocked. Though we couldn’t see the Southern Cross because of the glare, we could see the icebergs. And to do this we no longer had to climb to our lookout. They were much nearer and plainly visible from the tents.

  Shortly after nine, Colonel Bland himself came on the air instructing the Josephine to refuel all catchers and towing vessels and escortt hem to South Georgia. This, more than anything else, brought home to us the seriousness of the situation. To give such an order it was clear that the officers on board the Southern Cross considered there was no chance of their being able to resume operations that season.

  There is no need for me to record here in detail what everyone knows. By ten o’clock the Southern Cross was reporting damage due to the pressure of the ice, though the pumps were still holding the water. But an hour later the whole starboard side of
the factory ship was buckling under the constant attack from the ice. By eleven-thirty she was pierced in several places and the crew were off-loading stores and equipment. Oil was being pumped out to be ignited later as a guiding beacon.

  Gerda took me aside then. “Duncan. I think we must begin to carry more stores to the floe-berg. I am not happy here. If we get caught between those icebergs and the pack ice to the east we may lose everything.”

  I nodded. “You’re right,” I said, and gave the order for my party to get ready. The men were reluctant. They didn’t argue, but I could see it in their faces. The morbid fascination of listening to the reports from the Southern Cross had gripped them. The sky to the east of us changed as we began to load the sledges. The opaque, iridescent light faded out of it till it was a dead, white glare. Wisps of cloud drifted across the sun and thickened like a fog. The last spark of comparative warmth vanished and the world was a cold etching in black and white. Then the first flurry of snow scattered like a handful of confetti through the camp. With the snow came the wind. At first it was just a cold breath of air out of the east. But in a moment a gust hit us, whipping at the end of one of the tarpaulins. It died away again and then suddenly it was blowing hard and the snow had thickened to a driving blanket. It was a thick cloud of black specks against the ice, but where it settled it produced a carpet of clear white. We secured the stores, pegging down the ends of the tarpaulins, and crawled into our tents.

  From the clear sunlight of the morning, it had changed to a world of howling chaos. The wind moaned and screamed and the snow drove like a biting shroud across the ice. We sat and smoked. Nobody said anything. The only voice was the voice of the operator on the Southern Cross. The blizzard was making it difficult to unload their stores and they could no longer estimate the extent of their danger.

  I shall always remember that morning. I think it was the longest I have ever spent. It was very dark in the tent. The other occupants were vague humps huddled under their blankets for warmth. The only thing that was unchanged was the steady voice coming out of the radio.

  I think we all felt that the end was inevitable. Yet I remembered the profound shock the announcement caused. It was at seventeen minutes past two. Eide was speaking to the Haakon, which had now sighted the Josephine and the rest of the catchers. His voice was trembling slightly as he announced: “The ship is pierced in several places. The pumps are no longer holding the water. She is sinking and I have given the order to abandon ship.” At 15.53 hours the operator on the Southern Cross announced: “All the crew safely on the ice, together with a reasonable quantity of stores. The ship is very low. Owing to the blizzard our camp is not very satisfactory and the movement of the ice is threatening. We are right in the path of the icebergs and unless the westward thrust of the storm eases soon our position will be dangerous. Captain Eide is about to leave the ship and I shall now remove the radio equipment to the ice. I will radio again as soon as I have set up the equipment.”

  That was the last message we received from the Southern Cross. We sat there for hours in the semi-darkness of the tents, the crackle of radio barely audible above the sound of the storm, but no message came from the Southern Cross survivors. At six o’clock in the evening the Haakon began calling the Southern Cross. The voice of the Haakon operator went on and on, a monotonous drone that gradually got on our nerves. There was no reply and at length I switched the radio off. The voice was too much like someone trying to call the dead. We lay there in the shadowy gloom of our tents and wondered what had happened. And with each minute that passed the sound of the wind seemed to encroach upon our refuge till it dominated us all with its syren scream of warning. We were alone, without hope of rescue, and I think we felt our smallness and were afraid.

  VIII

  TO WAKE UP on an icefloe with a blizzard blowing and realise that you are responsible for the lives of thirteen men, a girl and a young boy, is not pleasant. I knew I had got to get them out, but in the moment of waking I was so dazed that I don’t think I realised the full extent of the disaster that had occurred. I lay in the shadowed darkness of the tent, listening to the blizzard and trying to measure our distance from the main centre of pressure by the trembling of the ice under me. And as I lay there it slowly came back to me—how the Southern Cross was gone and there was no prospect of help from the outside world and how a line of icebergs was driving towards us through the ice. At least the floe hadn’t split up in the night. That was something. I climbed out of the tent into a screaming world of wind and stinging snow. The two men on watch were white ghosts against the dirty grey backcloth of the storm.

  I got one of them to help me brew some tea and took it to the men myself. The only one of them who said anything was McPhee. “Mon, ye’d make a bonnie waitress,” he grinned as I handed him his mug. “Do ye ken if they charge extra for tea in bed at this hotel.”

  “The tea’s free,” I said, “and so’s the weather.”

  “Weel, thanks for the tea, anyway.”

  Howe stirred at his side. “And you can thank God for the weather.” He sounded bitter.

  “Ye’ll do no gude blaming the Almighty,” McPhee admonished him. “Better to get doon on your knees and pray to Him for guidance.”

  Tempers were short and the hours passed slowly in that bitter cold. It was too dark to read or to play bridge. I found a notebook in my pocket, tore out all the used pages and started a log. The first entry is a queer scribble, written more or less blind: II Feb. The Southern Cross was abandoned yesterday. Still no message from the survivors. Blizzard blowing outside, but party all safe in the tents. No prospect of being rescued. Morale low. Movement of ice becoming violent. As soon as the storm ceases intend to move to nearby floe-berg. I then listed the names of all the party, including Bonomi, and the names of the two men who were killed in the collision.

  I was sitting there, wondering morbidly who would eventually read the log and whether it was worth entering the reasons for the collision, when the ice quivered violently under me. There was a shout and a report like a pistol shot. I felt the tent moving. I put out my hand to support myself and fell on my side. The floor of the tent was no longer there. In the dim light a dark gash was opening under us. The canvas of the tent began to rip. I flung myself towards the entrance, dragging Gerda with me. Bonomi gave a shout. Howe was slipping, but somebody had caught hold of his legs. Hans, the deckboy, was in the gap, clawing at the edge and screaming. He was all tied up in his blankets. McPhee pulled him out. We got to our feet and fought our way out of the tent, the men outside pulling the canvas clear of us.

  The sight that met my gaze as I flung the last fold clear of my face was pretty frightening. A crack was opening right across the floe. Fortunately it missed the stores and the other tent. But it had cut our own sleeping quarters clean in half. Our sleeping positions were moulded in the ice by the warmth of our bodies. The shapes of our heads and shoulders were on the far side of the gap, our hips and legs on the near side. If the floe had split during the night, when we were asleep, nothing could have saved us. Even as I stared at it, the gap closed with an ugly snap. It did this several times—opening out to about three or four feet and then closing again with a clash of ice on ice. Finally it stayed closed and we could hear the broken edges grinding together under the pressure.

  I knew we ought to move to the floe-berg. But it was impossible in that weather. We could not have made it and in any case we had no idea what was happening to the ice along the sledge route. We re-erected our tent as best we could and crawled inside. It was only then that we realised we hadn’t got the radio. I went outside to look for it. The others joined me, searching anxiously in the snow. But it was gone. And then Hans said he saw it fall into the gap as he was being pulled out. Questioned by Gerda, he admitted that he had grabbed at it to hold himself and had pulled it in. After that we knew it had gone and we went disconsolately back to the tent.

  You can’t imagine what a difference the loss of the radio made. Whilst w
e’d had it we at least had the illusion of contact with the outside world. Now we were completely cut off. Its loss produced temporarily a mood of despair in all of us. But it also brought us face to face with reality. I don’t think the men, or even I myself, had fully faced up to our position until then. As long as there was a voice on the radio telling us every move on the part of the rescue ships, bringing right into our tent the voices of men straining every nerve to do what they could to reach us, I think we felt unconsciously perhaps that we needn’t exert ourselves, that we had but to stay put and everything would be all right. Now we were out of touch. We’d no means of knowing what the rescue ships were doing OK what they planned to do. One thing we did know, however, and that was that our plight was now lost in the far greater disaster of the Southern Cross. There were over four hundred men out there on the ice somewhere, and their rescue would be the first objective.

  McPhee put it into words when he said, “Ah dinna think the radio is much o’ a loss. There’s nobody will save us noo except oorselves.”

  All that day the snow continued and the wind blew like a raging monster out of the east. The cold was numbing and we lay huddled in our tents, waiting with fear in our hearts for the floe to open up again. Nobody spoke much and the cards lay forgotten, though it became just light enough to see. I cut watches to half an hour and that was quite long enough out there in that hell. Once one of the men on watch went a few yards from the camp to investigate a noise that sounded as though the floe were cracking again. We were shouting and blowing on my whistle for three-quarters of an hour before he stumbled into the camp again, utterly exhausted. You had only to go a few yards and the camp was lost to sight under its canopy of snow. It was only by luck that he’d found it again. After that I gave orders for the watch to remain close to the tents and within sight of each other.