Antarctica (4 page)

A wood plank came flying over the gunwale, and then another. Rivera was still on board, salvaging wood from the wreckage.

Not a good idea.

Captain Barth was at Jack’s side, his face red. “What is he doing?”

“Enough, Rivera!”
Jack shouted.

Rivera gazed down. “This is oak! We can use it!”

“Get down here right this
—”

The earth slipped.

The guts of the
Mystery
— afterhold, engine room, fo’c’sle, and deckhouse — erupted through the deck in a black cloud of wood and twisted metal.

And the ship began to sink.

January 10, 1910

A
PIECE OF THE
tiller landed to his left. A mangled pipe from the engine room. A push broom.

The
Mystery
was dying.

Colin heard the voices shout and the dogs howl. He felt his body move. But he wasn’t there. He was sinking, too.

“Get away!”

“Move back to the camp!”

“Last of ebb, and daylight waning
… ”

“Oppenheim, stop yammering and help out!”

“Mansfield’s been hit!”

“Where’s Rivera?”

“Has anyone seen Rivera?”

Mansfield had been clipped on the head by a flying piece of kennel. But he was breathing. Colin could see that because he had his hands under Mansfield’s arms, dragging him away from the ship.

The half ship. That was all he could see now. Half. The hole that he and Kennedy had planned to fix was below the ice, wedged into the bent hull of the
Mystery
, now gutted and grotesque.

“Colin, this way — the infirmary tent.”

“Siegal found Rivera! He’s okay!”

“Away to the boundless waste, and never again return.”

“Someone tie Oppenheim down!”

Colin stooped to pick up a scrap of wood — a finger-sized splinter from one of the masts. It was attached to a grommet, a metal loop with a length of rope still knotted to it.

He closed his fingers over it and began to weep.

All the voices around him seemed to stop at once, and he felt his father’s arm settle perfectly on his shoulder. But Colin wouldn’t open his eyes, he didn’t want to watch her go. The painted name, the gunwales, the taffrail, and finally the smokestack — that would be the order.

She had brought them into this world. She had kept them warm, sheltered them. When fourteen of her sons ventured out she’d waited for them, stalwart and steadfast.

They’d taken her example, her toughness, dignity, and grace. In return, they loved and cared for her. Over time, the soul of the
Mystery
— companion, protector, friend, mother — had become theirs.

Now she was leaving. Stranding them.

It was a feeling all too unfathomable and familiar.

Tears had frozen his eyes shut. He removed a glove and carefully cracked the ice off his lashes. The other men stood around the camp in small groups, facing the
Mystery.
Some had removed their hats and bowed their heads, and some openly sobbed.

“You can stand, Father?” Colin said softly.

“As long as I’m leaning on you.” Father’s eyes seemed gray and prematurely old. They frightened Colin.

Kosta’s scream broke the silence.
“Ta skylakia! Ta skylakia!”

The dogs.

They were out of control, scared, fighting and yowling. A group of them, at least half a dozen, had run away, becoming small dots on the horizon.

“Where’re those mutts going?” said Talmadge.

“Don’t matter,” Windham replied. “Dogs always come back.”

Bailey shook his head. “Comin’ back is
normal
dog instinct. This ain’t normal. They think they’re going to die. Something’s tellin’ ’em to run. Look at the Greek, he knows it. Kiss ’em good-bye, mates.”

“Pericles! Michalaki! Eleni! Ellàtteh!”
Kosta shouted after the runaways.
“Paithia-a-a-a-a!”

“Combustion, blast, cloud, and vapor!”
wailed Oppenheim, shaking his fist at the sky.

Nigel, his face red, hurled debris wildly toward the horizon. “Stay away, you mongrel traitors! You ain’t done nothin’ but foul the decks ’n’ eat our meat!”

Kosta limped toward the horizon, his shouts growing into screams. Andrew took his arm and tried to guide him back to the tent. O’Malley and Sanders threw chunks of ice at the
Mystery
, yelling incoherently. Blaming her. Blowing off steam.

A number of crewmen, shell-shocked, looked silently toward Captain Barth and Jack.

“What now?” asked Ruppenthal.

“We take a train,” Brillman said.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” snapped Hayes.

“Have we no radio?” asked Philip. “No telephone?”

Windham glowered at him. “Let me just check my pockets.”

“We traveled out of radio range near South America,” Bailey explained. “Where were you, Philip?”

“In steerage with Nigel,” Ruppenthal said, “eating our food and plotting our overthrow.”

Captain Barth cut them off. “I need men immediately to go after those dogs. Those of you intent on preserving chaos and strife may go with them and keep on walking. We need the dogs more than you.”

“Men, this —” Father’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “This is a horror. No less. We must talk plainly — and act together, decisively, with eyes clear and hearts open. Let O’Malley and Sanders and Nigel alone for now. I’ll handle them. Siegal, Stimson, Talmadge, and Windham, go after the dogs. The rest of you gather wood and debris — we’ll make use of it all. Nesbit, help Drs. Montfort and Riesman in the infirmary. And as always, do whatever Captain Barth says.”

The four dog chasers took off. The others trudged away to their tasks.

Colin was shaking. “Can we do this, Father?”

“Can we breathe and think?”

“The men are falling apart. They’ve lost their spirit already.”

Barth nodded. “Without the ship, they’re not sailors. The chain of command doesn’t hold.”

“They’re men,” Father replied. “They want a chain of command. And a plan of action. I suggest we stay put, shore up the camp. The winds and currents will carry the floes clockwise. We’ll float our way around the sea, west by northwest. It worked for Fridtjof Nansen in the Arctic. In the meantime, we use the wood to build up our lifeboats and rig them. When we reach water, we sail out of here.”

“Will we survive a winter down here?” Captain Barth replied. “Have you spotted many seals? Penguins? There aren’t a whole lot here. Fewer in the winter —
they’ll
be heading north. And when that sun goes away for three months, we won’t even see the ones that remain.”

“Why don’t we do as the seals do?” Colin spoke up. “Head north over the ice. We can pull the camp after us.”

“Pull the sledges
and
four lifeboats?” Barth asked. “Better to split into two teams—one to travel north, unladen, to check for leads, the other to stay put.”

Father shook his head. “We’re doomed if we split, Elias. Under no circumstances will I allow that, ever. Whatever happens, we remain together.”

“Aye, aye,” Captain Barth said gravely.

“I agree with Colin,” Father continued. “We must move — for the sake of morale as well as the hope of rescue.”

“And when we reach the water?” Barth asked.

Father exhaled hard. “We’ll worry about that when we come to it.”

The runaway dogs — Chionni, Dimitriou, Eleni, Megalamatia, Michalaki, Pericles, Plutarchos, Sounion, and Zeus — were never found. The four men came back empty-handed.

Kosta took the news hard. But like the others, he worked through to the next day without stop. The only indication of night was a brief winking of the sun at the horizon line before it began its ascent. No one showed any desire to sleep, and no one complained of the toil.

No one wanted to talk at all.

Colin worked with Kennedy on the rebuilding of the lifeboat the
Horace Putney.
Under Kennedy’s guidance, other teams worked on the
Raina,
the
Samuel Breen,
and the
Iphigenia.

Using planks from the
Mystery,
Kennedy taught Colin how to build up the sides, layering and nailing down planks lengthwise above the gunwale, following the curvature of the hull. This would protect the men better and prevent the boats from shipping water. The height would create an angle that would make rowing difficult, but Kennedy figured they’d have plenty of wind with which to sail.

Flummerfelt, Petard, and Siegal had been put to work fashioning four masts out of the wood Rivera had salvaged. To help move the boats over the ice, Windham and Bailey were making runners on removable frames, one set for each boat, based on Kennedy’s carefully written blueprints.

The
Mystery
did not sink that week, not entirely. Squeezed by the sideways pressure, the remains of the mizzen and mainmast stuck upward, spindly and misshapen like dead trees.

To Colin, it seemed to linger like an unhappy spirit.

By then, Lombardo was on his feet a couple of hours per day. Kosta was learning how to ski with special bindings made by Kennedy, to accommodate his lack of toes.

Oppenheim, however, was deteriorating. He’d taken to wandering away from the camp with little clothing on, reciting poetry. At first Andrew had tried to handle him — thinking perhaps he had special soulful insight, no doubt. Soon Captain Barth assigned tougher men, Robert and Nigel, to the task.

Back home, Oppenheim had been a naval officer turned English teacher. Wanting to return to the sea and write a novel, he’d quit the job. If his classroom demeanor had been anything like it was now, Colin was relieved for the youth of America.

“Bring me my bow of burning gold,
” Oppenheim railed at the sky.
“Bring me my arrows of desire!”

“Bring me some peace and quiet, blast it!” Nigel said. “Can’t you ever shut your mouf, ya bloomin’ lunatic?”

Oppenheim whirled around at him. “
Mouf
wif an F! You get an F! You fail! We all fail! And wasn’t it predestined? Wasn’t it? What is the future but the past seen through a mirror darkly?”

Nigel began applauding sarcastically. “Shakespeare, ain’t it?”

“No, Oppenheim!”

“Lovely. Deserves a bleedin’ prize. Per’aps you can save yer performances for the penguins, if we ever see any.”

Robert let out a muffled oath. The commotion was making him lose concentration as he tried to attach a boom to the base of the
Raina
’s mast. “Gentlemen, please!” he called out.

“And wha’ d’yer fink
you’re
doin’?” Nigel asked. “Yer don’t use
that size
bolts for the job. Too rigid, like. You need flexitude! Here, ’old the mast up.”

Nigel grabbed Robert’s can of bolts and threw them into the snow. Quickly, with great assurance, he began taking apart the joint and refitting it.

“Are you
sure
you know what you’re doing?” Robert asked.

“I may be a stowaway to you, but I’m a professional sailor! Trust me, I’ve done this a fousand times.”

No one — not a man alive — was as patient as Robert.

Turning back to his job, Colin brought his paintbrush to the stove. On the burner was a lukewarm pot of blackish liquid. Boiled seal’s blood worked well in the absence of caulk or glue. Colin had quickly become expert at slathering the stuff with speed and skill.

On the morning of the seventh day, they built wooden decking over the bow sections of each lifeboat, then covered the decking with canvas. The construction was done.

The men loaded up the sledges and harnessed the dogs. To the lifeboats they fastened harnesses and traces for themselves, made from rigging.

Into the
Horace Putney
were put two cots. Lombardo lay on one. Oppenheim was strapped to the other.

Jack gathered the men. “We’ll split into three teams,” he announced. “Mine will go first, to scout for a clear path. We will stay within sight. On cloudy days we will lay cairns of ice and rocks — whatever we find — and if visibility worsens we’ll stay still until the others join us, at which time we’ll tether all three teams with guy lines before we proceed. Captain Barth’s team will follow mine; it will be the largest and will pull the two smaller lifeboats. The last team, led by Mansfield and Colin, will take the infirmary sledge.”

As he read the names of each team, the men arranged themselves by their boats and sledges. As Colin fastened a harness around himself, Andrew took the one next to him.

“Godspeed,” Andrew said.

“Just pull your weight,” Colin replied.

“Readyyyy …” Captain Barth shouted. “Go-o-o-o!”

“Yyyyya-a-a-ah!”
Colin bellowed, leaning forward into the traces.

The boat didn’t budge.

“Harder!” Colin yelled. “Come on, Andrew!
Yyyyy-a-a-a-h!
”

There. It was beginning to edge ahead. Slowly. Very slowly.

“My rights are being violated!” Oppenheim shouted from behind them. “I demand to see the provost at once or I quit!”

“Shut up or I’ll smack your provost from here to Canarsie!” Lombardo said.

The snow began to fall, slowly at first, then picking up speed.

When Colin looked over his shoulder, the
Mystery
was gone.

January 17,1910

“I
’M DOWN!”
A
NDREW CRIED
out.

He picked himself up, brushing the snow from his trousers as he reset his skis into their tracks. His thighs were still wet and aching from the last fall.

“Again?” Colin called.

The
Horace Putney
jerked ahead, its runners crunching through the packed snow. Colin, Nigel, Robert, Hayes, Mansfield, Dr. Riesman, and Dr. Montfort pulled like a team of packhorses. Andrew was alone, “resting.” All the men had three rest periods throughout the day, according to a schedule Colin had worked out. You either pulled or you skied.

They’d worked out a system of calls and responses. It was
Down
if you’d fallen but remained in control.
Avast-ho!
if you’d fallen and needed help.
Hey-o-o-o!
to start the team back up when you were back on your feet. Three long whistles for an emergency. One long whistle, two short, if you spotted a seal or a penguin. And so on.