The Winter Pony (7 page)

I felt a sense of dread as I peered out from my stall. I saw the faces of the men, suddenly grim and thoughtful. Through squinted eyes they looked at the snow and the ice, at the mountains, but not at each other. The land was so cold and barren that it made me shiver. I saw no trees, no flowers, no grass or clover, no plants of any sort.

But Captain Scott seemed perfectly happy. I could tell he was in love with this place. He had names for the mountains, for the bays and the capes, for the smoking peak with its white plume. He guided the ship along the edge of the ice cliff, around a point and around another. It was an island that we’d come to, but very different from the one we’d left. On three sides it was surrounded by ice, not water, and the only sand was in a black strip where I didn’t feel like running at all.

Captain Scott knew every inch of it. A snow-covered beach appeared just where he said he would find one, and he brought the ship to the band of ice that floated in front of it, half a mile wide. The men set out anchors and moored to the ice. Their ropes froze stiff and straight, like iron rods.

Off went the dogs, led over the side. Then out came the pony box, and this time I was glad to see it. Weary Willy went first. He bounded from the box as soon as it was opened, threw himself down on the snow-covered ice and squirmed like a cat, flat on his back with his legs in the air. I was so excited that I could hardly stand still in the box. Like Weary Willy, the
first thing I did was lie down and roll onto my back. Some of the men laughed at me. But I didn’t care. It felt wonderful to stretch and scratch, to rub away the lice and the loose hair. My legs were happy because it was the first time in forty days that they didn’t have to hold me up.

Weary Willy nibbled at my scabs and louse bites. I did the same for him, and then for Jehu and Nobby when they joined us. We stood in a happy group, all tending to one another.

There was a very nice man with a very big name. Mr. Apsley Cherry-Garrard. To me, and to everyone, he was only Cherry. He was twenty-six, which seemed ancient to a pony but not many years to a man. He looked after Weary Willy, and did it with nothing but kindness. Cherry could see only by peering through bits of glass hooked to his nose, as though he wore his eyes outside his head. It was his job to study the animals that lived in this winter land, and he was probably the happiest man on the whole ship because he was surrounded by the strangest animals.

There were fat seals sprawled on the ice like huge slugs. There were black skua birds that sat hunched in huge flocks and seemed like very evil little creatures. And there were penguins by the hundred, and they found Cherry just as interesting as he found them.

Penguins were curious about everything. They came from all around to have a look at us, waddling over the snow and the ice or popping up from the sea like sparks blown from a fire. They shot straight up at the edge of the ice, plopped flat on their bellies, then pushed themselves upright with their little stubs of wings. It amused me to see them.

In groups of five or six, they stood and stared at us. Their
little heads twisted and bobbed, and they muttered to each other in soft twitters that were quite lovely to hear. When they tired of us, they moved on to the dogs and didn’t know enough to be afraid. The dogs snarled and barked, but the penguins kept going closer. Mr. Meares shooed them away. He sent them scattering in their funny tilting steps, but they went right back as soon as they could. For a while, we watched a silly battle, with Mr. Meares running them off, and the penguins waddling back. But it wasn’t long before one of them went too close.

It was the dog Osmon, the king of the dogs, who lured the bird toward him. He held back, letting the penguin think he was right at the end of his leash. He waited for his chance, then suddenly pounced. There was a wolfish snarl, a flash of teeth, the saddest little squeak from the penguin. Then its body lay torn on a stain of red snow, its feathers scattered across the ice. I shuddered inside, knowing the same thing could happen to me if Mr. Meares ever let his dogs get loose.

Even then, the penguins learned no lesson. I might have thought they had no fear at all, except they lived in dread of the killer whales.

They were the worst of all animals, the killer whales. They were black and white with piggish eyes and rows of teeth. They had tall fins on their backs that sliced through the water, and they came sometimes alone and sometimes in wolflike packs. They could swim at the speed of galloping horses, or float absolutely still with their heads high above the water. It was eerie to see them doing that, for they never made a sound while they floated there but just watched with their round
eyes. Then down they went without a ripple, slipping quietly into the cold sea.

When the whales came close, I could hear their voices trembling through the ice. It was a faint sound of whistles and creaks, and at the first sound of it, the penguins burst from the water. Twenty, thirty, forty at once, the fat little birds exploded from the sea like rockets. And behind them, in the eddies and whirls of water, appeared scraps of penguin flesh.

Then the birds descended. Great flocks of black-winged skuas, all shrieking away, they came to feed on the scraps. I could follow the path of the orcas by the rising and falling of the birds.

It seemed a cruel world, really, in the icy land of the south. Seals hunted fish, and whales hunted seals, and everything hunted the poor penguins. The little babies tried their best to stay among the adults. But at least once in every hour a skua screamed and swooped, and a mother penguin was left bleating on the ice, gazing sadly all around.

I was glad there was nothing in that land to eat a pony, except the dreadful dogs.

For three days we did no work. Tied to a picket line on a snowy slope above the beach, we watched the men unload their things from ship to ice.

Off came the big packing crates that had covered so much of the deck. Inside them were strange sledges with motors on their backs. Instead of runners, they had wide belts that rolled
round and round as the motors roared and clattered. They lurched along the ice, reeling over every hummock, while a gang of men scurried around to keep them moving straight and upright.

I was pleased when one of the sledges crashed through the ice and disappeared. But Captain Scott was so sad that I felt rotten for being happy. The other two motors went straight to work carrying loads of wood and canvas. Weary Willy loved to watch the machine doing his job, and the only thing that could have pleased him more would have been for the sledge to carry
him
.

Then out came harnesses for ponies and dogs, and another sort that I didn’t understand. The men laid them out, attached the traces, then stepped right into those harnesses themselves. I could hardly believe it: men in harness, pulling like mad, puffing and grunting as ponies lounged nearby. I wondered if the cold and loneliness had driven them crazy. They even strapped boards to their feet—they called them “skis”—and went sliding across the ice, dragging a sledge piled high with bales of fodder.

It was a strange thing to stand idly, watching men work. In Russia, it would have pleased me; why, it would have
stunned
me. But now I felt useless, afraid that Captain Scott didn’t believe ponies could work. I felt out of place; I wanted to do my share. To make things worse, the dogs were put in harness as well. They went dashing across the ice, pulling little sledges that were quick as lightning. A whole team pulled only three hundred pounds, a third of what I could manage on my own. Mr. Meares drove from the back of the sledges, shouting commands in Russian.
“Ki!”
he cried, and the dogs swung to the
right.
“Tchui!”
he shouted, and they wheeled in a line to the left. With howls and barks, they made almost as much noise as the motor sledges.

I watched load after load come ashore. The men set up a winter station, starting with a big tent, and then a hut they built beside it. I thought I might never have a job to do.

At last I heard the jingle of a pony harness. To me, it was a lovely sound, but the work turned out to be harder than I’d thought it would be. There were so many supplies! We had to bring enough food and gear to see all of us through the winter, men and ponies and dogs. I found that dragging a sledge was not the same as dragging iron rails or heavy logs. If I slowed down, the sledge sometimes overtook me, and the heavy crossbar banged against my legs. But if I tried to hurry, it stuck in soft snow and I jolted up against the traces. Still, I pulled nearly eight hundred pounds at a time, across the ice to the beach, up a hill to the building site. Then I trotted back for another load.

We all joined in, going round and round like the tracks on the motor sledges. I liked to see the long line of ponies, the leaders changing all the time. Uncle Bill, the biggest pony of all, pulled a thousand pounds on his sledge. But it was Michael, the smallest, who somehow pulled the fastest.

I was often overtaken. It seemed a long haul to me, from the ship to the hut, over the ice and up a slope. I didn’t like that part of the work very much. I liked the parts better where I went back with the empty sledge, and where I waited while the men filled it again. A nice little man named Birdie Bowers was in charge of the stores, and he counted every bag and box like a chicken counting her eggs. He made sure that my
sledge was never overfilled. Then Patrick Keohane, the Irishman, led me off again, and he let me amble along as I pleased.

Stubborn old Weary Willy went past me. So did Nobby, who was about my size, and even little Michael. But I overtook Blossom and Blucher, who were very old. And I fairly rocketed past poor ancient Jehu, who couldn’t have passed a snail. The voyage had been hard on the oldest ponies, and he and Blossom and Blucher labored across the ice with their heads down, as though they were marching into a blizzard. Jehu’s load was barely three hundred pounds, but he still wheezed with every step.

I slowed when I passed him for the first time. Our feet crunched together in the snow; the runners on our sledges rasped behind us. Jehu turned his head just enough to see that it was me, and his look was full of anguish. We knew what happened to ponies who couldn’t keep up.

Then I saw his handler trudging along at his side. It was Mr. Atkinson, one of the doctors, and he looked just as worried as the pony.

“Poor old thing,” he said. “Crocked out already. He won’t last the summer. There’s not a hope.”

Mr. Keohane kept his hand in my halter. It was always there. I liked the feel of his knuckles pressing against my cheek, through the fur and hide of his mitten. We soon left Jehu behind.

Mr. Atkinson called out. “He’ll be next, won’t he? That one of yours.”

“No, not James Pigg. Hardly,” said Mr. Keohane. He tightened his hand on my halter, and I felt the press of his knuckles
more tightly. “Don’t you worry, lad,” he said in his soft voice. “Don’t you worry.”

I didn’t care very much just then for Mr. Atkinson. But I started wondering as I heaved my sledge along: Was I really a crock, no better than Jehu? Of course I wasn’t a match for Uncle Bill. I wasn’t as strong as Bones or Guts or Punch or Nobby. I couldn’t go as steadily as Snatcher, or as quickly as Victor. But I hated to think that I was a crock.

I kicked the snow; I snorted. I decided right then to work harder, to work as hard as I possibly could. I would show Mr. Atkinson that he was wrong.

As I waited at the ship one day, Mr. Keohane left me to help Mr. Oates with Christopher. I stood a few yards from the edge of the ice, near the big anchor line that held the ship in place. Two of the dogs were tied to the rope, curled up like big furry balls.

Beyond them, in the water, the fins of killer whales appeared. I heard the puffs of the whales’ breaths and saw the little clouds of spray. The dogs woke up, yawned and stretched. They looked at me hungrily.

The fins sliced quickly through the sea, rising and falling. Then they disappeared, all at once, and there was just the empty water.

But soon their heads appeared. They popped up together, a row of seven—young and old—staring toward me in that eerie way of theirs.