Antarctica (5 page)

If you called out, someone on the team was supposed to acknowledge by echoing you.

Not by saying,
Again?

Andrew tightened his bindings and began moving forward. The bottoms of his skis had been waxed stingily at the beginning of the day. Now that the snowfall had turned wet, they were sticking.

Some rest period.

“Hey-o-o-o!” he yelled.

“Hey-o-o-o!” one of the men yelled back.

The wind stung his face and blew snow down his neck despite a tightly wrapped scarf. Aside from the wetness, the weather had changed little during the four days, the terrain not at all. The hummocks and ridges were beginning to look familiar to Andrew. He had the frightening sensation the teams were going around in circles.

As Andrew caught up to the
Horace Putney,
he caught a glimpse of Oppenheim, riding inside the boat. He wore no goggles but his back was to the wind, and he stared with steely eyes into the distance, his arms rigidly to his side and his palms facing up, as if serving an invisible meal.

He’d been this way for two days.

“Me back is breakin’, mate!” Nigel complained. “I need a rest.”

“Keep pulling,” Colin shot back.

“Gar, wha’ d’yer fink I am, a beask of burden? Your brother ’ad ’is nice ski trip — why can’t we switch places?”

“We’re supposed to
make up
ground during Andrew’s breaks,” Colin replied.

“Nigel, you should be glad we didn’t leave you behind,” Hayes snarled.

“You’re lucky I haven’t snapped you in half!” cried Lombardo from within the
Horace Putney.
“Or sicced Oppenheim on you.”

“No comments from the luxury seats,” growled Nigel. “An’ keep an eye out for the yeti.”

“The
who
?” Lombardo asked.

“Big, ’airy creature. Lives in the ice caves ’n’ eats people. True story. I ’eard about it in India or Nepal or some bloody place.”

Lombardo began warbling in a huge voice: “O-o-o-oh, I-I-I’m a Yeti Doodle Dandy, a Ye-e-eti Doodle Do or Di-i-ie!”

“Stop it — ’e’ll ’ear you!”

Andrew wanted to swat Colin for his comment.
Make up ground
during Andrew’s breaks? That was snide.

He counted silently to the rhythm of his sliding skis.

Thirteen … fourteen …

It was insulting.

Fifteen … sixteen
…

One minute Colin was decent and concerned, the next a snake. Why? How could someone who had saved his life turn like this?

The worst part of it was, Andrew couldn’t say a thing. Bickering had no place. Survival was all — feeding the dogs, hunting, cooking, making temporary camp, navigating, pulling, resting.

The boat team was slowing down. The dogs, too. Wet snow stuck to the runners, and the ice was hummocky. Ahead of them, Captain Barth’s team had stopped, both sledge and lifeboat tilted into a soupy mess.

“I can’t do this anymore!” Nigel cried.

“I gotta agree with him,” Hayes said. “This is horrible.”

“No,” Mansfield said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Oh, blimey, do we put you wif Oppenheim, now?” Nigel asked.

“Don’t you see?” Mansfield said. “These conditions mean we’re getting closer to open water. We’ll pull up with Team Two and break for lunch. And watch for that crack ahead!”

The
Horace Putney
jolted over a sudden sharp ridge. Supplies crashed loudly inside the boat, and Lombardo let out a howl of pain.

The ice seemed to give a little.

In front of the ridge was a long crack in the ice, at least a foot wide, running directly across Andrew’s path. It didn’t seem too dangerous; the skis would easily traverse it. Nonetheless he slowed to a stop. You never knew.

He stepped forward with his right foot over the crack.

Solid. Not a problem.

His team was gaining on Team Two now, the men shouting at one another. Ruppenthal, on Captain Barth’s team, had already set up a stove.

Andrew pushed forward, digging in his ski poles. His left leg slid over the crack.

A black shadow shot across his vision, under the ice.

Andrew tried to react but couldn’t possibly.

The head burst through the crack in a geyser of gray. Jaws opened quickly, baring jagged teeth for only a moment.

Andrew had no time to scream before the teeth closed over his calf and dragged him under.

January 17,1910

C
OLIN FLEW.

Lunging, he gripped Andrew by the arm and pulled. Out of the crack emerged a monstrous head, domelike and water-glistened, flecked with spots of black. Its mouth clung firmly to Andrew’s leg.

For a moment its eyes appraised Colin with cold indifference. Then, with a violent lurch, it pulled down.

Andrew fell toward the crack, yanking Colin off balance.
“Get it off get it off get it yyahhhhhhh!”

It was a killer. A predator. Trained to hunt by spying prey from under the ice, then ambushing.

Well, not this prey.

Colin planted his feet in the snow and held his brother tight.

Flummerfelt loomed above them. He raised a two-by-four and swiftly struck down. The plank splashed into the crack, sending up a gusher of water that froze as it struck Colin’s face.

Colin heard a dull, wet thud.

“HYEEEEEAH!”
Flummerfelt struck repeatedly with ferocious strength.
“HYEEEEAHl HYEEEEAH!”

“My leg! My leg!”
Andrew screamed.

The water coated Colin’s goggles, now darkening to pink, then red.

The other men closed around fast. Shouting through gritted teeth, they struck with more wood like a team of crazed pile drivers, their red eyes bulging, their red necks veiny and thick.

Under the barrage, the creature weakened. Mansfield grabbed Andrew and helped Colin pull.

Andrew’s leg slowly emerged. The monster’s head reappeared, a battered mass, blackened by blood, its spots now undetectable. Still attached to Andrew.

The thing wasn’t giving up. Its head must have been made of steel.

“KILL IT! KILL I-I-I-IT!”
the men shouted, bludgeoning the creature with renewed force.

Finally its eyes turned toward them. It stared for a long moment, unflinching against the onslaught, as if memorizing their features for future reference.

Then, without ceremony, it let go its jaws and sank into the water.

Andrew fell back, knocking over Mansfield and Colin.

The men continued striking, their frenzy unabated. Below them a shadow glided under the ice and disappeared.

“It
hurts!”
Andrew cried, writhing and kicking.

“Lie still, Andrew!” Dr. Montfort commanded, ripping open Andrew’s trouser leg. “Someone get more water. I can’t see the wound.”

Colin tore off his leather cap, scooped bloody water from the crack, and poured it over Andrew’s leg.

Andrew howled with pain.
“What are you doing to me?”

The gash was long and ugly. Dr. Montfort ripped a length of material from his own shirt and made a tourniquet, tying it above the wound. “Give me some pressure here, Colin.”

Colin leaned on his brother’s leg.

“Stop it, Colin!”

“Ssssh, Andrew, it’s okay.”

“Leather winter breeches,” Dr. Montfort muttered, “three pairs of moleskin pants … long underwear … he wore all his clothes. That fact may save his leg. I think the bite was more crush than tear.”

The other men still stood around the crack, shattering chunks of ice and bellowing like madmen. They were all soaked with water now, their drab clothing darkened to a black-red.

“Avast, men!”
Captain Barth shouted. “Winslow is returning! Avast before he sees you!”

The men slowly subsided. Their faces were drained and bewildered. They looked toward Andrew as if just remembering he still existed.

As Colin helped Dr. Montfort lay Andrew on a cot, a team went to work building a tent around them. Andrew was unconscious now, snoring, and Colin propped his head up on a pillow made from shirts and underwear.

This was Colin’s fault. Andrew shouldn’t have been skiing. His rest period had ended at least fifteen minutes earlier. Technically, it had been
Colin’s
turn. But he had let Andrew continue. If he had done what he was supposed to do, he would have gone over that crack himself, not Andrew.

Colin had broken the rules because the team needed speed. But a leader didn’t make arbitrary rules and then change them. A leader was steady. A leader led.

Perhaps Colin would have seen the beast. He’d have found a narrower break in the ice or alerted the others to distract it.

But it was too late.

“Bandage,” Dr. Montfort said. “Now.”

Colin ran outside and took a strip of snow-washed cloth that lay drying on the stove. Andrew was losing blood like crazy. If it weren’t for the cold, he’d probably be dead.

Father’s team was approaching now. The camp dogs yapped loudly, greeting the arrival. Colin’s heart raced as he ducked back into the tent.

Dr. Montfort quickly removed Andrew’s bandage. The blood was beginning to clot around the edges of the gash. The redness had spread through Andrew’s thigh, and the entire leg was beginning to swell.

Father rushed in, out of breath. “What on earth happened?”

“This — thing,” Colin blurted out. “A seal. It jumped out of the water and bit him. It tried to take him down, but I — Mansfield and I — pulled him out —”

Father flinched at the sight of the leg. “Will he lose it?”

Dr. Montfort shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s pretty inflamed right now, and he’s lost a bit of blood, but there’s not much risk of infection down here in a land with no germs.”

“Thank God.” Father placed a hand on Andrew’s forehead, feeling for a temperature.

“Without Colin, he might not have made it,” Dr. Montfort said.

“That’s not true,” Colin replied.

“Oh, yes it is,” said Bailey, his voice hoarse from shouting, his coat covered with blood.

From all sides, crew members crowded into the tent. “ ’E yanked ’im out wif ’is bare ’ands,” Nigel said.

Hayes nodded. “That thing nearly pulled Andrew under.”

“It was huge,” Cranston said. “Maybe ten, twelve feet. Some prehistoric dinosaur-fish, like.”

“Only Colin could have matched the strength of that thing,” Mansfield said. “Well, maybe Flummerfelt.”

“Don’t look at me,” Flummerfelt said. “I was scared.”

Father smiled at Colin. “Andrew’s a lucky boy to have a brother like you.”

“I was the one who let him ski,” Colin said, shaking his head.

The men stared as if they hadn’t heard him, their eyes resolute, their faces blood-spattered.

Despair and hunger had changed them. They needed a hero. It was all black-and-white now. Evil and Good. Kill or be killed.

We are all animals inside, Colin’s teacher used to say. Put to the test, we react like tigers. Civilization falls away, and all we’re left with is instinct.

Civilization was the
Mystery.

Dr. Riesman rushed into the tent, holding a leather-bound book. He knelt by Jack’s side and opened it to a photo of a spotted seal. “A leopard seal. Carnivorous. Stalks its prey — penguins, usually — under the ice. When it sees a shadow, it follows patiently, sometimes swimming for miles. Then it waits by a nearby hole in the ice — perhaps a hole made by itself. When the prey steps over the open water, the seal attacks with incredible swiftness, usually crushing the head.”

“So it thought Andrew was a penguin?” Windham asked.

“It didn’t know what it had found,” Dr. Riesman said. “Perhaps that’s why its bite was not as … precise as it could have been.”

Ruskey slipped between the men, focusing his camera on Andrew’s leg. “Dr. Montfort, can you remove the bandage for a moment?”

“After it heals,” Dr. Montfort replied.

“Dare I look?” Philip’s voice piped up from a corner of the tent. “I don’t know if I have the stomach for the sight of entrails.”

“Will someone get him and Ruskey out of here?” Captain Barth snapped.

Colin stood up. The photographer nodded amiably and stepped outside. Philip followed, clutching an oddly shaped sack of hardtack.

Colin stood by the tent flap and scanned the ice. The clouds had begun to lift, and he saw the sun’s orb for the first time in days. In the harsh light, the ice directly under them seemed darker than usual.

Water. Of course. The ice had to be pretty thin. How else could the leopard seal see through?

In the tent, the men were jabbering loudly about the incident. Father silently stepped away from them and walked over to Colin. “Do you see what I see?”

“Yeah, thin ice,” Colin replied.

“I had to swerve the team to the east to avoid this floe. The pack must be breaking up.”

“Will we be able to put in?”

“We didn’t see leads — but that deep blue on the horizon is a water sky, and leopard seals don’t stray far from the coast.”

“That’s great. Unless we fall through right here.”

“This ice is still maybe three, four feet thick. It’ll do unless the weather warms. We can move after Andrew’s condition improves. I wouldn’t travel much farther north-northwest, though.”

Colin squinted toward the horizon. From behind a decaying pressure ridge, two figures wandered out over the ice. Philip and Ruskey.

From Colin’s angle, the ice under them looked practically blue.

“What are they doing?” Father asked.

Colin raised his fingers to his lips and blasted three long whistles. They echoed loudly over the ice, borne on a stiff wind that had just started up from the south.

Ruskey continued on, snapping photos. Philip stopped to wave, then scampered after Ruskey, dragging his sack behind him.

“The idiots!” Colin said.

“Let’s get them,” Father said.

They began to run. Colin let out another whistle, sharper and louder.

Philip stopped again.

He hadn’t turned halfway around when he disappeared into the ice.

January 17, 1910

I
T HAPPENED FAST.
A
S
if Philip’s body had dropped clean away from its soul. Although he felt it all, he could see it, too — feet, legs, waist, chest, head submerging in slow motion. As his lungs seized up he heard the water smack over his head, like the sound of a doctor gently slapping a newborn. In the end as it was in the beginning.