Antarctica (9 page)

“That’s blackmail!”

Nigel shrugged. “That’s reality. Of course, you could say yes. We’ll take over the ship, ’ead back to a ’ero’s welcome. We’ll tell the newspapers that the South Pole party, poor fellows, they died for the love of their country, sniff sniff.”

“How do I know you won’t turn on me?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you were never on the ship, Philip. You ’ide out an’ sneak away after we land. Your uncle, I’m sure, won’t put up a fuss.”

“And if he does?”

“We’ll tell ’im you died, too. That’ll get the authorities off your tail. You set up a new identity for yourself in Milwaukee or some blasted place.”

“I couldn’t!” Philip protested.

“All right, then,” Nigel said. “New York.”

Philip slumped against the barrel. “Let me think about it.”

Nigel smiled.

November 20, 1909

A
NDREW RAN.

Jack was shouting at him, telling him to save his energy, but he didn’t listen.

He ran because he couldn’t stop himself. Even though his snowshoes were too loose and they pulled on his feet, even though his ankles ached and the wind felt like sandpaper against his skin—none of that mattered. He had plenty of energy. Here he would always have energy.

He ran because it was glorious, because the sky was so clear he thought he could see straight through to heaven. He loved the sound of the dry snow crunching beneath him and the hoarse chuffing of his own breath. In the distance, somewhere over the horizon line, the Transantarctic Mountains loomed craggy and blindingly white. Beyond them would be the South Pole.

He would be the first; Jack had agreed to it. Andrew would be the first person in history to step on the South Pole, and there he would proudly plant the flag of the United States of America. In the year 2000, when the world was different, when people would be traveling in time and taming the Martian frontier, they would point to Andrew Douglas Winslow for inspiration. He reached the end of the earth, they’d say. He made it possible for us to dream.

The expedition had been gone a week now. Maybe more. Andrew had lost track of time. He hadn’t thought about the
Mystery,
or Colin, or home. Out here, your mind was always full. Out here, the basics were everything—breathing, seeing, running, eating.

Back home, he had read much about Antarctic weather. He knew that snow rarely fell here, that you worried more about the
blowing
ice and snow. But nothing had prepared him for the first blizzard—not the writings of Scott and London, not even the memory of the cruel ocean wind across the
Mystery’s
decks. On their second day out, the sun had abruptly vanished and the wind came in like fists. It threw the men back on their heels, causing the dogs to tumble and tangle in their traces. Like a comet’s tail it spat ice and rocks, and Andrew had struggled to cover his face even as he felt his arms straining to stay in their sockets. In that moment his body became a machine, his mind an engine, useful only in their ability to propel him forward.

The storm had lasted all day, but the worst part came afterward, when the wind had died down. As the others set up camp in the lee of a rock formation, Andrew stood, numb and unable to move. This, he realized, was not an experience meant for humans. It was warfare against nature and destiny. A pack of fools tilting at an unvanquishable foe.

Andrew had awakened the next morning with tears frozen to his cheeks.

The sky was a brilliant blue. He stood and walked away from the camp, to where he could see the snow stretching in all directions, curving over the horizon line north, south, east, and west—or was it just north, north, north, and north?—and he smiled.

The bottom of the earth was, by the curious laws of physics, also the top of the world. He knew that he had made it through the worst, alive—and if he could do that, he could make it all the way.

The team fixed a breakfast of pemmican, coffee, and hardtack and broke camp early. They mushed all day, breaking once for lunch. The second blizzard hit that night, fierce and punishing. But this time Andrew helped find shelter in a small ice cave. He loaded in the supplies, assisted in pounding the canvas over the opening, and helped light a fire.

For the next five days, the temperature had remained above zero—warm for Antarctica. They traveled twenty miles a day, easily.

And now Andrew wanted to see it all. Every inch.

As he ran, Socrates kept pace. Socrates was a renegade. An individual. He was different from the other dogs. Like Buck in
The Call of the Wild,
he couldn’t be harnessed, couldn’t stay in line.

Socrates ran because he needed to. He ran with Andrew.

“Where are we going next, Soc?” Andrew shouted, but the words seemed to freeze in midair and drop to the earth.

They were circling a steep ridge of snow, and Socrates pulled ahead in great leaping bounds.

He disappeared around the bend and suddenly started barking.

“What is it, boy?” Andrew called out.

He turned the corner and stopped in his tracks.

It was a field of ice baubles—small, mushroomlike, thousands of them packed together tightly, pulsing in the light, as far as he could see. They stood dense and orderly, as if they’d been planted.

The three sledges pulled up alongside Andrew. The dogs were jumping, howling at the sight.

Dr. Shreve, the geologist, ran toward the field, breaking off some of the specimens. Ruskey begged him to go away so he could set up a photo. Socrates, having pounced on an ice flower only to see it break into a knife-edged shape, now scampered back toward the sledges.

“Ice flowers!” Shreve called out. “Scott told about these.”

“
Ti oraia,”
Kosta murmured.

“It
is
beautiful, Kosta,” Jack agreed. “Let’s break, fellows. We’ll camp behind the mound and have supper.”

Jack retreated behind the hill. Kosta, Lombardo, and Dr. Riesman brought up the sledges behind him. As Andrew helped the other sailors set up tents, Riesman and Kosta fed the dogs.

O’Malley broke out the big stove and one Primus, fired them up, and reached into the food supplies. “Steaks are going fast,” he said. “If you guys don’t curb your appetites, we’re in trouble.”

“The place is crawling with seals,” Cranston said.

Ruppenthal made a face. “Ugh.”

“It’s a delicacy in Kosta’s country,” Lombardo remarked.

“Ti?”
Kosta asked.

“The food is supposed to last to the South Pole and part of the way back,” Jack said. “As we get closer to the sea we hunt seals and penguins.”

Andrew felt nauseated. “How far are we?” he asked.

“A long way, I’m afraid,” Jack replied. “Six hundred miles or so—maybe seven more weeks. We’ve come about two hundred already. In two hundred fifty more, we’ll be crossing the Transantarctics. That’ll be the toughest part. Shackleton found a good pass, cut between the mountains by a glacier. We’ll find one, too.”

Dr. Shreve was unloading his supplies now, packing ice-flower specimens into a box. But his eyes were fixed on the horizon. “What on earth is that?”

Andrew looked but saw only a small, clifflike ridge in the distance, off to the left.

“A hot cocoa factory, I hope,” Lombardo said.

“Look at that outcropping,” Shreve replied. “Exposed rock—schist, I think. This could be an extraordinary clue to the origins of this place.”

“I suppose we could detour that way tomorrow—” Jack said.

“I’ll go now. It may be nothing. Why waste everyone’s time? I’ll just need one sled, four dogs—Dimitriou, Taso, Kukla, Skylaki. No supplies. I’ll cover the ground in no time. While I’m there, I can scout for a suitable path.”

“David, you’ve lost your mind,” Siegal said.

“I can’t let you travel alone,” Jack said. “You know that.”

“The visibility is clear. I won’t be traveling in darkness. It doesn’t look far. There is no risk.”

“Distances are deceiving here,” Ruppenthal remarked.

Shreve was taking everything off the sledge, unhooking traces. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. The dogs’ll have time for a good night’s sleep when I return.”

“Let Kosta go with you,” Jack said.

“Fine.”

But Shreve was fast. He was on the sledge, mushing those dogs.

“Feeghe mazìtou!”
Jack called out.

Kosta looked startled. He ran off, calling to the dogs, “
Ella tho, paidthakia mou!”

“How do you know Greek?” Andrew asked.

Jack smiled. “I listen. I ask questions.”

Shreve was long gone by the time Kosta was ready. O’Malley handed him a juicy cooked steak, which Kosta gnawed on as he rode off.

Andrew dug into his, using a fork and knife. The meat had to be eaten fast. It was cold by about the third bite.

The men crowded around the stoves, sitting on the remaining sledge and on the supply boxes. The wind had begun to pick up, and Andrew huddled tight, pulling on his gloves.

The sun had dropped behind the hill, on its way toward the horizon. Just before midnight it would set for a few minutes, then begin again its slow circle around the sky.

The men traded stories and jokes, until Lombardo challenged each man to reveal his darkest secret. “Me?” he began. “I once courted a young lady from Scranton by mail. She wanted my picture, but I thought my mug would scare her. So my brother, the theater agent? He lets me take a picture from his office one day—some actor, handsome guy, I don’t know him from beans—and I send it.”

“What’d she do when she saw your ugly face?” Siegal asked.

“She didn’t. It turns out this guy’s in all the magazines. Shaving cream ads. Toothpaste ads. Her old man takes one look at the picture, recognizes him, and says, I don’t want you stepping out with no
model.
Which is why I am still a single man.”

The men hooted with sympathy—or derision, it was hard to tell which.

The rest followed clockwise, one by one. Jack was second to last, Andrew last.

There were tales of sleepwalking and shoplifting, family tragedies and lost loves. But Andrew had a hard time concentrating. His eyes were on his stepfather.

They hadn’t talked about Mother’s death—not directly. He and Jack were birds of a feather. When the chips were down, you moved on. You ignored the things that couldn’t be changed, the questions that nagged. Like why a meeting with Horace Putney was more important than a dying wife. Why a death couldn’t even slow plans for an expedition, not even for a day.

Second-guessing corroded you. Made you bitter, like Colin. So you put it away in a corner of your brain until it hardened like a scab.

And you hoped no one asked you about it.

Andrew felt his stomach rumble. The day—June 10, almost a half year ago—was rushing back to him. Mother had called Jack’s name. Her last moment was spent finding out that he wasn’t there. He hadn’t shown up to say good-bye.

Why? Why did he do it?

Don’t, Andrew told himself.
Don’t think.

It was Jack’s turn now. He said nothing for a long moment, until Ruppenthal bellowed out, “Louder and funnier!”

Jack smiled and shook his head. “Gentlemen, I must confess—I have nothing to say. I keep no secrets. I make my mistakes in the open.”

The men broke into groans and catcalls.

In the open. That was how he saw it. He’d made his mistake in the open, and he didn’t feel ashamed.

Or he felt he hadn’t made a mistake at all.

Or he was lying.

Which?

Andrew would never find out. He didn’t want to know.

It was in the past.

It would stay that way.

Now the men were looking at him.

“You can do better than that, can’t you, sonny?” Lombardo asked.

The wind had picked up quite sharply, and snow fell in thick clumps. Andrew shivered and drew his knees up to his chest.

“Like father like son,” he said softly.

November 20, 1909

“W
HAT DO YOU MEAN,
you won’t hunt?”
Captain Barth’s veins were jutting from his neck. Surely the fellow had medication for this ill humor. He wouldn’t live long at this rate.

“I haven’t been trained,” Philip replied. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of much use.”

Some of the men in the cabin groaned. That was fine. This was all just fine.

“Captain,” Hayes said. “I’ll go in his place.” But Barth was intent on Philip. “You take a club. You walk up to the seal. You bring the club down on its head. Understand?”

Philip swallowed hard. The plan was working. Barth looked sadistic, unrelenting. “It’s like … cricket, then? Only for a ball you use the head of a smiling defenseless creature.”

“Exactly!”

“Oh, I think I am going to be ill.”

“Leave the boy alone,” Brillman called out.

“Ah, Mr. Brillman,” Captain Barth said. “Have you been appointed captain since we last spoke?”

“No, sir,” Brillman murmured.

“I thought not. Well, you and Mr. Hayes may both go on the hunting party, since you seem so eager. And you will take young Master Westfall with you. To your posts, men!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the men called out.

As Barth climbed abovedecks, Philip leaned over to Brillman and Hayes. “I—I don’t mean to be so helpless. It’s just that—well—”

Brillman nodded. “You didn’t develop a taste for hunting. My brother’s like that. Doesn’t mind trapping but can’t bring himself to shoot. Too personal.”

“Yes, that’s it!” Philip said. “Captain Barth doesn’t understand—”

“Barth is a pig,” Hayes said. “He’d better watch who he gives a club to. I’m liable to bring it down over his fat head.”

Hayes and Brillman. Here were two. Two Highly Possibles. Philip tried to control his glee. He shot a glance at Nigel. Nigel winked.

November 20, 1909

F
IVE HOURS LATER,
K
OSTA
and Dr. Shreve hadn’t returned.

The men had turned in. By 8:00 they’d been well fed and exhausted. Now it was after 10:30. The snow had turned to a blizzard, and Andrew was already deep into the first shift of the night watch.