Antarctica (2 page)

Just beyond them, where Franklin Street met Varick and West Broadway, a small, pristine brick building stood on the corner. Its light shone through stained-glass windows protected by steel bars. It was clean and jewellike, completely out of place in this wretched neighborhood.

It had to be Putney’s office.

Colin took a wide berth around the drunken brawl and crossed the street.

P
UTNEY WAS THE MONEY
man.

It was that simple.

To go to Antarctica you needed a ship. One with a hull thick enough to withstand the pressure of the ice. A prow even thicker to batter icebergs without cracking. A steam engine and at least three masts, one or two of them full-rigged. Also a science lab, living quarters for up to thirty men, a kitchen, a cargo hold for a year’s worth of provisions, and enough kennel space and food for three dozen or so large dogs.

Jack Winslow would provide the leadership, the vision. But someone had to pay.

His old Harvard friends wouldn’t. They were rich enough now, but they hadn’t taken Ol’ Good Time Jack seriously. They never had.

After months of failure and mounting debts, Jack had turned to Putney as a last resort. Putney was a crook by all accounts. He’d made his fortune in the tenements, crowding people who didn’t speak English into buildings that couldn’t hold them. His expensive lawyers had protected him in the courts, but even Putney couldn’t buy the thing he wanted most: a good reputation.

Jack offered it. Putney would share the glory. The newspapers would make him a national hero, the financier of the greatest American voyage ever made—the greatest voyage ever made, period.

The deal had been quick and easy. Strictly business.

Jack dreaded having to break it.

“Cigar?” Horace Putney pushed a gilded box across his desk. Above him, a lazy ceiling fan made eddies of the dust and smoke, which were tinted by the stained-glass windows that blocked sight of the squalid streets from inside his countinghouse. “Havana. The best.”

“I’ll pass,” Jack said with an impatient smile. “To the point, then—Iphigenia has pneumonia. She’s taken a turn for the worse.”

Putney leaned forward, his chair groaning with the weight. His starched white shirt settled against the desk, like an iceberg against the hull of a ship. “If there’s anything I can do …”

“I’m afraid, Horace, that I must call off the trip.”

There. Cards on the table.

“Well.” Putney’s brows creased upward. “Jack, I understand how upset you must be. Whatever care she requires, I’ll make sure she has it—the best doctors, help for the house—you can prepare the voyage while you’re with her.”

“Horace, this may take a while.”

“Fine. A week, a month, two months, whatever it takes. Hire a good captain and delegate responsibility to him—”

“There is no time. Shackleton came so close—and Scott can taste success. He’s gathering a crew already. I wouldn’t doubt that Amundsen is doing the same. If the trip is to be done, it must be done now, heart and soul. And I simply can’t. What if she doesn’t pull through, Horace? I flee to the South Pole, leaving my sons alone? What kind of man would do that?”

“Have they no relatives to stay with while you’re gone—your in-laws in Boston, perhaps?”

“We haven’t spoken to them for years. They cut off contact—”

“I’ll find them for you. I have ways.”

“That isn’t the point—”

“Then what is? You’ve been a man possessed, Jack. The ultimate frontier, the greatest moment of glory in American history—what happened to all that? Not important anymore?”

“The point is family, Horace. The point is loving someone more than yourself.”

The man wouldn’t understand, of course. He was unmarried, childless, obsessed with wealth. He had never loved anyone more than Horace Putney.

Putney raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I must say, I hadn’t prepared for this.”

“I’m sorry, Horace. I understand it is a bitter disappointment to you—”

“Not to me, Jack. I’ll survive. But you? There are practical matters to think of. Samuel Breen, for one.”

Jack had been expecting this.

His life had been about Breen these days—stalling him, telling him the money was on its way. Breen was the finest, shipbuilder in the Northeast. Though Jack had no cash, Breen had put up a fortune of his own money to buy a sturdy barquentine from a Norwegian company—and another fortune to refit it to Jack’s specifications. It would be called the
Mystery,
and it would “sail through granite.” But Jack hadn’t repaid a penny yet, and Breen was already threatening to sue.

“Cover Breen’s costs, Horace,” Jack said. “You won’t lose money. He can sell the ship and split the proceeds with me. I will pay you back every cent.”

“We had an agreement, Jack. No trip, no money.” Putney gave a heavy shrug. “I can recommend a good bankruptcy lawyer … if you can afford him.”

“And if I can’t?” Jack said, rising to his feet.

“Your choice,” Putney replied. “I hear conditions in the poorhouse are conducive neither to good health nor to the proper upbringing of young men.”

Jack lunged across the desk. But a pair of strong arms grabbed him from behind—Putney’s butler, ever prepared for emergencies.

Obviously Putney was no stranger to personal attacks.

“You are a viper,” Jack said through clenched teeth.

Putney rose and met Jack’s glance. “Perhaps, Jack, you are not seeing all the possibilities. You could, for instance, take the boys with you.”

“They’re sixteen and fifteen,” Jack said. “They’re in school. They have no experience.”

“They’re healthy, smart, capable young men,” Putney replied. “And besides, they’ll have Philip to look after them.”

“Philip?”

“My sister’s boy. Twenty-one or so. An able sailor, I hear tell. They live in England, and she’s sending him here—supposedly to benefit from my example. I believe he’d profit more on your ship, as would you.”

“The selection of crew is
my
prerogative—”

“And make sure none of the men know the real destination until you reach your first port of call in South America. I want no leaks, no word getting out to Scott so he can try to hurry his voyage to beat you.”

“That’s ludicrous. The men need to know where they’re going—”

“One other thing—I reserve all film and photographic rights. After all this, I think I deserve to make a bit of a profit, don’t you think?”

A sudden smack on the front door made all three men turn.

The door flew open, letting in a blast of cold air and a familiar broad silhouette.

“Colin?” Jack said.

“Father,” Colin blurted out. “I have bad news….”

May 22, 1909

“N
AME?”
A
NDREW ASKED.

“Berle,” the man answered.

Andrew began writing. “That’s B-E-R-L—?”

“Not
Berle”
the man shot back. “B-O-Y-L-E—Berle!”

A few of the other men snickered.

“Any experience working on a three-masted ship?” Andrew pressed on.

Boyle nodded. “Soitenly.”

The front room exploded with guffaws and catcalls.

Andrew didn’t mind. They could talk with their strange accents, sing sea chanteys, drag their muddy boots across the Persian rugs, reek of un-bathed flesh. Only nineteen would be kept out of the hundreds who had answered Jack’s posting for positions on the
Mystery
.

Number 20 would be a photographer, to be chosen tomorrow. Numbers 21 and 22 were Andrew and Colin. They were going to the South Pole.

Andrew still had to pinch himself, just to be sure he hadn’t dreamed this up. Every day he’d expected his stepfather, Jack, to come to his senses. To break the news that the trip was canceled, or that Colin and Andrew would be staying in Boston with Grandmother and Grandfather.

But this morning, on Andrew’s sixteenth birthday, Jack had told the boys’ teachers they’d be gone for a year and arranged for the appropriate books to be loaded onto the ship. Everything was full steam ahead.

Andrew knew why this was happening. Surely it was Mother’s plan. She had wanted the trip to happen. She must have spoken to Jack before she died, insisted that he shake off his grief, hold fast to his dream—and take along his sons.

By now Andrew had read seven nautical manuals, a boat-building book, and every word Jack London had ever written. He would be as good a sailor as any of the men in this room.

They were the last interviewees today. Jack’s posting had been nothing spectacular. “Good wages, New York to Buenos Aires.” No word about Antarctica. That part was to be secret. And yet in three days Jack would have seen 467 of them. They’d come from as far as San Francisco. Many would be spending the night in Central Park.

If the truth had been out, the men would be lined up to the Hudson River.

Antarctica was on everyone’s tongue these days. The men were talking about Shackleton now. Shack had just returned from his second attempt on the South Pole. He’d come within 112 miles, the closest anyone ever had. Some were saying he was all show, no grit. Others claimed he had come within 100 yards and lost courage.

Fools. Shack was good, one of the best. Andrew knew about them all, each man and milestone—first sighting (Cook, Briton, 1774); first Antarctic islands discovered (Bellinghausen, Russian, 1819–21); first landing (Davis, American, 1821); first ship trapped in ice (de Gerlache, Belgian, 1897); first failed attempt on the South Pole (Scott and Shackleton, 1907).

He was aching to explode the men’s mistakes, to tell the men the truth about the voyage and watch the looks on their faces. But he had an agreement with Jack. The destination was secret.

“Gentlemen, please keep the noise down—an interview is going on in the parlor.” Andrew pointed to the next man, the only one he hadn’t yet signed in. “Name?”

“Orailoglu,” the man muttered.

This time Andrew estimated the spelling. “Thank you. Kennedy will be next!”

Kennedy sat up straight and smoothed his suit jacket. He had a gaunt face with thick red hair and hands that looked too big for his body. He seemed a decent sort, a Southern boy, and he had excellent credentials as ship’s carpenter. “So who are you, sonny, the captain’s son?” he asked.

“My stepfather is the expedition leader,” Andrew explained. “He will choose a captain. I am junior officer.”

“Ah,” Kennedy said.

“Didn’t know they had nurseries on these ships,” Boyle muttered.

Andrew quietly wrote a dark
NO
next to Boyle’s name.

The last of them left at 6:50. Jack stood against the jamb of the parlor entrance, his eyes red and droopy. “Happy birthday. Sorry you had to work so hard.”

“One hundred forty-three men today,” Andrew announced. “Kennedy, I thought, showed promise—”

“Was there any theft?”

“I don’t think so. I brought everything inside that wasn’t bolted down.”

“Good. Well. Let’s forget about them for a moment, shall we? I have a surprise for you. We’re going to celebrate. Where’s your brother?”

Andrew glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “I asked him to bring in some tea for the men.”

“When?”

“Three hours ago.”

“Come along.” Jack walked into the kitchen. Colin was sitting at the table, poring over the latest
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly.
“Colin, what are you doing?”

“Reading,” Colin said.

“What about that tea?” Andrew asked.

“Those guys weren’t tea types.”

“So you just stayed here and didn’t bother to help out,” Andrew said.

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re part of this, Colin. Because a crew is only as good as its weakest member—”

“And which of us would
that
be?”

“I’m talking about cooperation. Teamwork!”

“This trip wasn’t
my
idea—”

“At ease, men!” Jack put his arms around both sons. “If you stop yammering a moment, you may see Raschke trying desperately to enter the house.”

Chef Raschke, who lived in Number 35, was leaning on the front door, holding an enormous roast goose from his restaurant. He had a pink, doughy face and a belly that hinted at the joys of his profession.

Jack pulled open the door. “Karl, that’s entirely too big for us.”

“Ah, I forgot you’re only three now, ain’t you?” Raschke said, bringing the bird into the kitchen. “Well, eat up anyways, in memory of the missus. And happy birthday, young master.”

Raschke set the goose down and ran off to work.

The thick, smoky smell of sage and thyme slowly permeated every room. As Jack carved, Andrew set the table, leaving a place for Mother. He wasn’t ready yet to erase her from dinner. In a few weeks maybe. It was still May.

The night was unusually cool, and Colin built a small fire in the hearth. As they sat to dinner, the room was festive and warm with the smell of smoking birchwood.

As Jack began the grace, Andrew tried to avert his eyes from the empty seat at the foot of the table.

On special occasions, Mother had always sung the grace.

None of them could carry a tune—Andrew, Colin, Jack—so they would listen. Her voice was a gift, like cool, rippling water. They’d ask her to repeat the grace again and again. It was a tune she had invented and set to a Wordsworth poem:

O, dearest, dearest boys! my heart

For better lore would seldom yearn,

Could I but teach the hundredth part

Of whatfrom thee I learn.

“We give thanks for this meal,” Jack began, “and for another year in the life of my stepson, and we pray for his and his brother’s health as they approach a voyage that will try their courage and strength….”

Colin rolled his eyes. Andrew kicked him under the table.

“Most especially, we give thanks for the life of our beloved Iphigenia, who is with us here in spirit—”

Jack’s voice caught.

Andrew held his breath. He could feel her presence. The air to his right seemed displaced somehow, as if she’d dropped in unannounced.

He heard an Amen, saw a plate being lifted from the table.
Happy birthday, pass the peas, please.