by Justin D'Ath
Luckily the whales stayed away. But by the time I reached Harry, my hands were so numb with cold I couldn’t use them. I got Harry to lie on his stomach and hold my ice kayak steady while I half-rolled, half-slid across onto the larger floe.
‘Help me put my gloves back on,’ I gasped. My hands hurt so much I’d forgotten there was only one glove left. I couldn’t even pull it out of my pocket. Harry had to do it for me, then thread the glove, one finger at a time, onto my freezing left hand. I felt as helpless as a baby. I clamped my bare right hand in my left armpit to warm it up. I was worried about frostbite. But more worried about killer whales. Where were they?
Harry and I sat huddled in the middle of the icefloe, as far from the edge as possible. But it wasn’t far enough and we both knew it. If the whales came back for us, we’d be an easy meal. There was no sea leopard to distract them now. No penguins. Just Harry and me, totally defenceless on our little raft of ice.
My eyes darted back and forth. At any moment I expected to see the tip of a fin, a V-shaped bow wave, a huge black-and-white head. But wherever the whales were, they weren’t showing themselves. Nothing moved. The sea was dead calm. Everything was shrouded in mist, and visibility was down to a few hundred metres. I could no longer see land, only the dim shadows of icebergs.
Where were Dad and Ross? I wondered how far from shore we’d drifted. Now that the wind had died down, they might hear us if we shouted. I filled my lungs with icy air and cupped my hands around my mouth.
But before I could shout, I saw something that drove all thoughts of Dad and Ross from my mind: another shadow. One that wasn’t an iceberg. One that was a lot darker than the soupy grey mist around it. A shadow that grew steadily larger.
Harry had noticed it, too. ‘Uh oh!’ he said. ‘Killer whale.’
I shook my head. My heart started beating really fast. Not from fear this time, but excitement.
‘Listen,’ I said.
Carrying faintly across the water came the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard - the throb of a diesel engine.
Harry and I scrambled to our feet and started yelling and waving. Out of the mist came a small, squat ship, painted completely black and streaked with rust.
Harry and I stopped yelling and slowly lowered our arms.
Hanging limp from a pole at the front of the approaching vessel was a skull-and-crossbones flag.
‘Holy torpedo!’ breathed Harry. ‘Pirates!’
9
CAPTAIN DAN
I could hardly believe my eyes. okay, I knew pirates still existed, but the last place I expected them to be was Antarctica. Who would they steal stuff from?
Just then a figure appeared on the foredeck – a stout, bearded man wearing a red exposure suit with its hood pulled up. He looked more like Santa Claus than a pirate.
‘Ahoy there!’ he called in an accent that was unmistakably American. ‘Are you from the plane crash?’
I realised the pirates must have intercepted Ross’s Mayday call and come to plunder the wreckage.
‘Yes,’ I yelled back. ‘Will you help us?’
‘Pleased to oblige, buddy.’
The pirate ship came to a stop about forty metres away. Painted on the bow in dribbly red letters was the ship’s name: Black pimpernel. Four yellow-clad figures lowered a Zodiac inflatable boat into the water. Santa Claus and a much smaller figure clambered down a rope ladder into it and came motoring towards us. As they drew closer, I saw that the small pirate was a girl. She manoeuvred the bobbing craft skilfully alongside our icefloe.
‘What happened to the others?’ the big pirate asked as he tossed me a rope.
I caught it in my gloved left hand. ‘They made it ashore,’ I said, studying him closely. He looked vaguely familiar. ‘But there’s nothing left of the plane.’ Nothing worth plundering, I nearly added.
‘Are you a pirate?’ asked Harry.
Our unlikely rescuer let out a loud, Santa-like laugh. ‘There are people who call me that,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘But I only worry about what the whales say.’
Harry screwed up his face. ‘Whales don’t talk!’
‘You’re dead right there, buddy. That’s why me and my pirate gang’ – he winked at the girl pirate – ‘have to act on their behalf.’
I frowned at Santa Claus. The rope that connected us was literally a lifeline. If he let go, Harry and I would drift away into the Southern ocean, never to be seen again. Then I remembered where I recognised him from – Earth Watch magazine.
‘Are you that guy who saves whales?’
He gave a little bow. ‘Captain Dan Caldwell at your service, gentlemen. And who might you be?’
As Captain Dan and the girl helped us into the Zodiac and gave us life jackets to put on, I told them who we were and how our ski plane had been forced to make an emergency landing on the ice.
‘We were the nearest vessel when your Mayday call went out,’ Captain Dan said. ‘But the Black pimpernel was never built for speed. We nearly burst a boiler trying to get here in time.’
The girl gave me her woollen scarf to wrap around my half-frozen right hand. She was quite short and looked barely older than me. I thought she might be Captain Dan’s grand-daughter. But when she spoke, her accent wasn’t American, it was European. ‘For sure, you boys must be freezing cold,’ she said. ‘We will go back to the ship and find you some dry clothes and a nice hot drink.’
‘We’re dry enough,’ I said politely, turning to Captain Dan. ‘Can we rescue Dad and Mr Willis now?’
Captain Dan frowned into the thickening mist. It hung all around us like a damp grey curtain. ‘We can’t be more than half a mile from shore,’ he said in his slow American drawl. He turned to the girl. ’What do you think, Frøya? Can you find your way through this pea souper?’
Frøya settled herself next to the outboard motor. ‘For sure, I can try.’
As Frøya steered the Zodiac carefully through a crazy paving of bobbing icefloes, Captain Dan had a call on his two-way radio from someone called Billy aboard the Black pimpernel. I couldn’t hear what Billy was saying, but it made Captain Dan very excited.
‘Okay, we’re on our way.’ He lowered the radio. ‘Take us back to the ship,Frøya and don’t spare the horses. We’ve got us some Japanese whalers to put out of business.’
‘Wicked!’ said Harry.
‘What about Dad and Mr Willis?’ I asked as Frøya turned the Zodiac around and headed back the way we’d come.
‘They’ll be okay,’ Captain Dan replied. ‘Billy McCormack, my first officer, says there’s a rescue helicopter on its way from Casey Station.’
‘Will they be able to find them in this fog?’
Captain Dan nodded. ‘With all the tracking equipment they have on those rescue choppers, they could find a needle in a haystack.’
It wasn’t a needle I was worried about; it was my dad. But I knew I’d be wasting my breath arguing with Captain Dan when there was a choice between going back for my father or saving some whales from Japanese harpoon boats. According to the article I’d read about him in Earth Watch, he cared more about whales than anything else in the world. Already he was back on the two-way radio, talking to his first officer about coordinates and engine speed and how much fuel was left in the Black pimpernel’s tanks.
‘What about Harry and me?’ I asked as the rusty, black anti-whaling ship loomed ahead of us in the mist.
Captain Dan gave us a puzzled look, as if he’d forgotten who we were and what we were doing aboard one of his Zodiacs.
‘Ever been on a pirate ship?’ he asked.
10
MURDERERS
The Black pimpernel even had cannons – water cannons. There were two on the foredeck, six along each side and another two in the stern. Captain Dan and his crew used them to defend the ship from unwanted boarders. They had other weapons, too: catapults to hurl bottles of butter acid and smokebombs onto the decks of whaling ships; prop foulers to tangle their propellers; and the ‘
can opener’, a two-metre-long steel blade attached to the bow to slice open their hulls. The Black pimpernel really was a pirate ship!
‘But it is the whalers who are doing the crime,’ Frøya said as she set two mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of scones in front of Harry and me in the ship’s galley. ’Sure, they say it is research, but they do not kill one thousand protected whales every year for science! It is for whale meat that they are doing this horrible murder – whale meat for the fancy restaurants all over Japan.’
‘What does whale meat taste like?’ asked Harry, helping himself to one of the doughy cheese scones.
Frøya flicked the long blonde hair out of her eyes. ‘I would die rather than eat it,’ she said fiercely. ‘Whales are beautiful creatures, so calm and gentle.’
I thought about the pod of killer whales that nearly ate Harry and me for breakfast, but decided not to mention it. ‘Is it dangerous sailing with Captain Dan?’
‘Do not worry, Sam. A helicopter will come and get you boys before we reach the whaling ship.’
I was disappointed. I’d been looking forward to using a water cannon. ‘Do you know if they found Dad and Mr Willis?’
‘I will go and hear if there is news.’ Frøya disappeared up a narrow flight of stairs, leaving Harry and me in the galley with Spiro, the ship’s cook, who was stirring a big urn of seafood soup on the stove.
‘Is Frøya a pirate, too?’ Harry whispered. He wore a blue-and-white jumper that belonged to Frøya and a pair of yellow ski-trousers about four sizes too big for him.
I laughed. ‘no, she isn’t a pirate.’ Frøya had found me a change of clothes, too, which fitted me better than Harry’s. ‘And neither is Captain Dan,’ I added. ‘They’re environmentalists – they stop people from killing whales.’
Harry sipped his hot chocolate. ‘Killing whales is bad, isn’t it, Sam?’
‘That’s right,’ I said, taking a bite of scone.
‘Even killer whales?’
The half-frozen fingers of my right hand began to sting and tingle as the blood seeped back into them. I wrapped them around my mug for extra warmth.
‘Even killer whales,’ I said.
‘Good news, boys.’ Frøya came clattering down the companionway two stairs at a time. ‘Billy called the helicopter on the radio. They have rescued your father and the pilot. They are both okay.’
That was a relief. I’d been worried about Dad getting hypothermia after falling through the ice.
‘Will the helicopter come and get us now?’ asked Harry.
‘There is bad news, also,’ Frøya said with a sigh. ‘A big storm is coming, so the helicopter must go quickly to Casey Station before the weather becomes too bad for flying.’
‘Will Captain Dan take us back there?’
Frøya shrugged. ‘For three weeks we have searched for the Japanese whaling ships and at last we have found them. I am thinking Captain Dan will not turn back just yet.’
There was a rumble under our feet. The Black pimpernel shook like a huge waking animal as its diesel engine chugged into life.
‘So Harry and me are stuck on board?’ I said.
Frøya nodded apologetically.
‘Wicked!’ Harry and I both said at the same time.
11
SCREAMING SIXTIES
I’d been excited when Frøya told us we were stuck on the Black pimpernel on account of the approaching storm. But I didn’t think it through. I was thinking about water cannons and smokebombs and going to war against Japanese whaling ships; I wasn’t thinking about the storm itself. We were at sea in the Antarctic Circle, in a region known as the Screaming Sixties – the coldest, windiest, most inhospitable place on Earth – and the Black pimpernel was only a small ship.
Not the best situation to be in.
Especially if you get seasick.
I didn’t know I got seasick until ten minutes after the storm hit. Suddenly I lost all my hot chocolate – and two cheese scones – into a red plastic bucket that Spiro gave me when he saw the colour of my face. (‘You have turna green,’ he told me.) Thirty seconds later, I lost my breakfast as well. Then I lost what remained of the previous night’s dinner. Pretty soon, nothing was left in my stomach but an achey hollow feeling. And still I kept throwing up.
Seasickness is about the worst you can feel and still be alive.
Nobody else on the ship was seasick. Not even Harry.
‘Gross!’ he said, the first time I spewed. As if I could help it.
After my second time, Harry said, ’I’m out of here,’ and went up to the bridge to see what Captain Dan was doing.
I stayed below deck. For the first hour or two I spent most of my time in the Black pimpernel’s smallest room (it’s called the ‘head’ on a ship), clinging to the toilet bowl to stop myself being flung against the walls by the trampolining motion of the giant waves. When I’d stopped being sick, I crawled with my bucket to a spare cabin, lay down on the narrow bunk and waited to die.
I felt like I was going to die – either from seasickness or when the ship sank. It seemed impossible that the Black pimpernel could survive the terrible pounding of the wild seas. When Frøya described the approaching storm as big, she hadn’t been kidding. It was HUGE. A force ten gale. With winds strong enough to flatten a house. Or toss a ship around like a rubber duck in a washing machine. I clung to my bunk to stop myself being thrown off, while around me the Black pimpernel heaved and shuddered and groaned. It sounded like it was about to break into bits.
But the old girl hung together. She didn’t capsize and she didn’t sink. And I didn’t die.
A hand touched my shoulder. ‘Sam, how are you feeling?’ Frøya asked.
‘Crook as a dog.’
‘Come upstairs and you will feel better.’
‘I’m not going outside in this weather,’ I groaned.
‘For sure, we will not go outside,’ she laughed. ‘Come with me up to the bridge.’
I didn’t want to go anywhere. But before I could object, Frøya hauled me to my feet. She was surprisingly strong for someone so small. With one arm around my waist and the other holding my bucket, she led me swerving and swaying down a long narrow gangway. We bumped from wall to wall like marbles in a pinball machine. Halfway along, we passed a porthole. I shouldn’t have looked out. Hooley dooley! The horizon is supposed to be level. This one wasn’t. It was tipped forty-five degrees from the horizontal. Then, as I watched, it slowly swung a full ninety degrees in the other direction.
‘Give me the bucket!’ I gasped.
A minute later Frøya guided me through a low doorway into the dining room, which she called the ‘mess’. It was crowded. About twenty men and women, most of them not much older than Frøya, sat around the long, bolted-down tables, calmly eating their lunch. They had to hold their bowls clear of the tables to stop the contents from slopping out. The mess reeked of seafood soup. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
There were three people on the bridge: Captain Dan, a tall skinny man standing at the helm who turned out to be first officer Billy McCormack, and Harry. There was also the same gut-turning stink of seafood. At first I thought the horrible smell must have followed Frøya and me up from the mess, then I noticed two empty bowls on a tray in one corner. A third bowl rested in Harry’s lap. He looked quite at home eating his soup in the captain’s chair, eyes glued to a glowing green radar screen set into a console above his head.
How come he doesn’t get seasick? I wondered.
‘Come check out the Japanese ships,’ Harry said when he noticed me.
I lurched across the swaying floor towards him. The bridge was two storeys above the main deck, so the pitch and roll of the giant seas felt worse than downstairs. I had to grab the back of the captain’s chair to stop myself falling over. Like everything else on the Black pimpernel, it was firmly bolted down.
‘See those two big dots,’ Harry said, pointing with his spoon. ‘They’re Japanese whaling ships.’
Trying my best to ignore the fishy smell floating up from his soup bowl, I looked at the two green blips on the radar. For the first time since the storm hit, I forgot about my seasickness.
‘How far away are they?’
Captain Dan made his way over from the chart table and stood at my shoulder, supporting himself against a bulkhead. ‘About fifteen kilometres. They’re only doing four and a half knots, riding out the storm. If they don’t see us coming, we should catch up with them in a couple of hours.’
‘Then what will we do?’ I asked, thinking about water cannons again.
‘There’s nothing we can do until the storm passes,’ Captain Dan said. He had to raise his voice above the howl of the 180km/h wind that pummelled the bridge’s reinforced windows and shrieked through the superstructure outside. ‘It would be too dangerous to get close in this weather. But in the meantime, the storm is working in our favour. Billy is running us with the waves. I’m hoping the Japanese will mistake us for an iceberg on their radar.’
I thought of the Titanic. How it hit an iceberg and sank. ‘Are there many icebergs out here?’
‘Thousands,’ said Captain Dan, indicating a rash of tiny blips across the screen that I’d mistaken for waves. ‘But with Billy at the helm, we’re safe as houses.’
I hoped he was right. I certainly didn’t feel safe. The Black pimpernel’s bow reared skywards as it climbed another watery mountain, then plunged sickeningly down the other side. When we hit the bottom, the splash was so big that the forward half of the ship disappeared in a massive explosion of spray and foam.
‘Whoopeeeeee!’ yelled Harry, holding his half-full bowl of soup out in front of him and somehow not spilling a drop.
The other three people on the bridge – Frøya, Captain Dan and Billy – laughed.
I made a wild grab for the bucket.
12
COLLISION COURSE
Two-and-a-half hours later we had our first glimpse of the Japanese ships. Or one of them, anyway. The storm had passed, but a veil of misty rain and gently falling snow made it hard to see. Captain Dan peered through his binoculars at a huge grey shape looming directly ahead.