Death on the Ice (13 page)

‘Lawrence.’ His full name was a sign of real irritation. ‘Six months is what the doctors said.’

‘Yes, Mother, but that was a guess. An estimate. And you know how slow the army is—’

‘How is the leg?’

‘Fine.’

‘Then the cane is for decoration, is it?’

He spread his arms to show he had no supporting cane with him. ‘I only use it now and then. The built-up boot helps. I get the odd twinge.’

‘The odd twinge is perfectly acceptable on the battlefield, then?’

He groaned impatiently. ‘I should not necessarily be on the battlefield.’

‘There is still a war on.’

‘I would more likely be sent back to Ireland. There’ll be precious little fighting there.’

‘Then why go back so soon? Here would be more comfortable. If you fear inaction there is the hunt or sailing at Burnham.’

He could do both in Ireland, as well as race at Punchestown or The Curragh. ‘I need to be with the men.’

‘I am sure they can manage without you for two more months. Are you bored of our company so soon?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Good. I know you hate confinement. But we will take better care of you than the army. And now you have your new horses.’

‘Yes. Which I would have paid for myself.’

‘Oh let’s not go into that again.’ She leaned forward. ‘Laurie, you’re not looking for her, are you?’

He didn’t have to ask to whom she was referring. Little Edie. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Because that would make me very angry. Is that why you want to go to Ireland?’

‘Mother, Carrie, I am in the army now. I go where my regiment goes.’

‘I always wondered why you chose an Irish regiment.’

‘Because they were the only ones who would have me. I haven’t been scouring the country looking for her.’ He desperately wanted to get off this topic. She could always tell when he was lying.

‘You know, that whole affair broke your father’s heart.’

The Big Gun had finally come trundling out. Guilt over his father’s death, taken by fever in Madeira.

He adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘I wouldn’t have done anything definite without a conflab with you, you know. I was just testing the waters.’

‘I understand. However, I think this chat will stand for the conflab, don’t you? I think you should see out the full term of your leave. Just in case.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘Just for me.’

Oates sighed. Better a Boer bullet than Caroline Oates in full fury. ‘Of course. It was just a passing thought. I’ll let them know I shall be rejoining as originally scheduled.’

‘Thank you. And could you tell Mrs Phelps we could do with some fresh flowers in here? There’s a good boy.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

As her son left the room, she picked up her book with a sigh of contentment.

I
T WAS A CLIMB
of more than a thousand feet over smooth ice, with a truculent wind tugging at them. Scott and Shackleton scrambled up Crater Hill, towards the glow that had been strengthening in the sky for several days. The long twilight that heralded the end of the even longer night was almost over. Neither man spoke on the ascent, their breath coming hard after months of relative inactivity.

The duo crested the broad-shouldered rise scrambling on all fours and rose to their full height. The sun, free of the horizon at last, was a deep, almost blood-red disc and it stained the ice in front of it. The highest peaks before them had begun to glow, like freshly lit gas mantles.

Scott breathed deeply, pleasure flooding through him. ‘And I was beginning to think there was no finer sight on earth than silver moonlight on ice.’

The wind faltered and dropped and Scott pulled off his cap. He closed his eyes, letting the rays warm his pale, sun-starved face. Shackleton stared at the orb till his eyes hurt, then looked away. The vast emptiness of folded ice before them made him feel giddy after the closed horizons of life on
Discovery
.

‘Cold frost and sunshine,’ quoted Shackleton. ‘Day of wonder!’

‘Swinburne?’ ventured Scott.

‘Pushkin.’

‘Ah.’

A seal barked, somewhere very far away, and others joined in. What little life Antarctica could support was returning.

‘You did it,’ said Shackleton. ‘The furthest overwintering south.’

‘All thanks to a bowl of hay.’

Shackleton laughed. The skipper’s cabin, being situated over the engine room, was notoriously cold when the boilers were idle. Scott’s habit of snuggling his chilled feet in a bowl of hay while writing had become a standing joke on the ship. It had even found a place in one of the wardroom revues. ‘I was wrong to call it a fraud, wasn’t I?’

Scott nodded. Shackleton had parodied ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ in a
South Polar Times
article, suggesting the reputation of Antarctic darkness was fraudulent. That had been early on. However, in time the constant lack of light had certainly dragged spirits down, despite moonlit football and golf.

There had been disasters, too: Scott’s precious windmill had been plucked away by a gale. Bernacchi and Skelton had become disoriented mere yards from the ship in a blizzard and had been lost for two hours. Huge snowdrifts had almost swamped the ship and had buried the boats they had left on the ice. More than a few severe cases of melancholy had struck, one man teetering on the brink of suicide. Preventing that catastrophe had needed the best combined efforts of Scott’s authority, Shackleton’s bonhomie and Wilson’s faith.

The last month of confinement had been particularly testing, so Scott had begun to make serious plans for the next season’s expeditions, simply to keep the crew focused forward. He had designed a new dog harness and set Skelton the task of creating sledge-meters, modified bicycle wheels that would give a true reckoning of distance travelled. He set others the task of finding efficient ways of packing sledges and deploying tents.

‘It’s no fraud,’ Scott said. ‘But we have no casualties.’

‘And no scurvy.’

Scott shuddered. He felt about the naming of the subject much as an actor felt about
Macbeth
. There had been continued dispute over the best methods of prevention, and whether this was consuming fresh meat and limes, as Koettlitz thought, and whether the real cause was a taint of supplies, as the Royal Navy medical authorities insisted. To be on the safe side, they had all consumed fresh, if often overcooked, meat four times a week—skua, seal, seal liver, penguin, all roasted, stewed, devilled and boiled—and Dr Wilson had assiduously checked all tinned supplies for spoilage.

‘No, none of that evil, thank the Lord.’ Scott pointed to the sun. ‘And it’s time to come out of our hibernation. We should start the reconnoitring.’

‘You’ve done the figures?’ Shackleton asked. Scott had been in his cabin for the last few weeks, hunched over his desk, estimating rations and loads. Every man knew he was working on the sledging programme for the spring and summer. But what had occupied him most was the amount of energy a man would need out on the ice, and just how much food they would have to haul or deposit along the way for the return trip.

‘I have. A shade over thirty-three ounces per man per day.’

‘Broken down how?’

Scott went through the proportions of pemmican, biscuit, cocoa and chocolate he had calculated. With a few extra days’ in hand, it sounded reasonable, especially if the dogs pulled well. ‘Wilson agrees?’

‘Wilson and Koettlitz have been over the figures. Koettlitz thinks I may have been too parsimonious.’

‘I’d wager he thinks the sledges too heavy as well.’

‘Well, you know the doctor likes high rations and low loads.’ The long night had revealed many true characters to Scott. That Armitage was by nature gloomy and livery; indeed, he could turn monstrous if anyone suggested another should try for the magnetic pole. That Brett the cook was a villain and that Koettlitz was by inclination an idler. Scott thought he, too, suffered from indolence, but he recognised and fought the condition. Koettlitz simply succumbed to the lure of pipe, port and berth.

Shackleton risked pushing Scott further, knowing he was not a man given to sharing his intentions until he was ready. ‘And the sledging parties? You have decided?’

Scott walked forward a few paces, as if he could grab even more warmth from the low sun. He had written detailed orders for a dozen different forays on to the ice, noting every aim and permissible deviation, but hesitated to share the degree of his preparation. It was best that people had no time to dwell on or dissect orders, and that they just get on with obeying them. ‘More or less, although I would prefer it remained private. I want health and constitutional checks once again before I make final assignments.’

Shackleton sometimes had to look beyond the words to establish Scott’s agenda. Scurvy was what he was talking about. Although they hoped they had kept it at bay, he wanted to ensure it hadn’t crept up on them by stealth during the slack months. It was an insidious and intractable enemy, all the more feared because of its baffling origins.

‘There will be depoting runs, of course.’ Food dumps were an essential part of the plan to travel long distances over the ice, which meant Scott was thinking the Magnetic Pole—theoretically northwest of them—or the Pole, due south, but Shackleton said nothing. ‘And there is much still to be mapped. There is plenty for the sledging teams to do.’ This was all so vague, the next revelation came as a shock, even delivered as it was, a quiet, almost offhand remark. ‘I am decided, though, that a small party is best for the Pole.’

There, he’d said it. They were striking for the Pole. Which meant travelling over the ice barrier—the frozen sea—and trying to find a way through the mountains on to the continent itself. ‘How small? Will you go yourself?’

‘Yes. I thought two.’

Shackleton felt his chest constrict as he watched Scott’s back. He resisted the urge to spin him around and ask him to come straight out with it. The idea of the Pole had grown in Shackleton’s mind throughout their long winter as it clearly had in Scott’s. The last truly unknown part of the world was at their feet. He hadn’t come this far to be left behind at Hut Point, like a whaler’s wife, awaiting news of her husband’s voyages into the lands of mystery. But he had to accept it was Scott’s decision. ‘Just two?’

‘That is my thinking. And I have asked Bill Wilson to accompany me.’

Shackleton didn’t answer for a moment. He considered Wilson a friend and did not want to disparage him. Nor did he want his voice to convey his disappointment. But there was a truth that had to be faced. ‘The doctor didn’t find it easy last time out.’

Scott turned and faced Shackleton. ‘He admitted as much. But I told him he would learn from those mistakes.’

‘And I am sure he will.’ It was difficult not to sound bitter, but Shackleton wondered, if it came to it, how much man-hauling Wilson had in him. ‘But physically, is he the right choice?’

‘He did say that, given his uncertain health some time ago,’—Shackleton assumed Scott was referring to the TB that nearly cost Wilson his place on
Discovery—
‘he would be happier if there was a third. With just two, any one man’s breakdown would be a disaster.’

Shackleton allowed a flutter of hope to return. ‘Did he? He’s no fool, then. Three is indeed better than two, skipper. Did he have any suggestions?’

‘He did.’

Shackleton knelt as best he could in his thick britches, and scratched at the ice with his glove. He etched the date: 22 August, 1902. As he stared down at it, he could still see the after-image of the sun, ghostly flames dancing over the whiteness.

‘And I had some ideas of my own.’

The firm tone made Shackleton look up at his captain.

‘I think we shall have a Feast of the Sun. Turtle soup, perhaps, some of the mutton. The Heidsieck ’95. Armitage can do one of his punches, for those who have forgotten the effects from last time. And an entertainment. Young Gilbert can do his cabin-girl turn, if you feel our hearts can stand it. What do you think?’

‘I think you are a most aggravating man, skipper.’

Scott smiled. ‘Fortunately, Wilson’s ideas and mine were one and the same. We both think highly of you, Shackle. Your name was on both our lips. But this is a big undertaking, the biggest there is. Will you—’

Shackleton leapt up and threw his arms around Scott. The other man gasped in surprise, not least because of the power he could feel even through all the layers of clothing. His arms were pinned to his sides. Scott made a guttural sound as the air puffed from his body. Shackleton stepped back, embarrassed.

‘Sorry, skipper. Don’t know what came over me. Cabin fever. I interrupted you.’

Scott cleared his throat as he recovered his composure. Wilson had greeted the news rather more equably. ‘Mr Shackleton, will you be my third man in the party to journey south?’

‘Well, skipper,’ Shackleton furrowed his brow and stroked his beard. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

The sun seemed to rise a notch up in the sky as the sound of the two men’s laughter resounded over the icy hillside.

A huge shudder, half shiver, half spasm, pulled Scott from his troubled dreams. He opened his ice-glued eyes to a swirl of snowflakes, circling his head like moths around a flame. The wind battered his ears and when he tried to move, his frozen sleeping bag cracked, like a twig snapping.

Where was he? In the open. In a blizzard. His numbed senses struggled to think how he could have been deposited there.

A dog whimpered from somewhere out in the storm and he raised himself on one elbow. All he could see was the flickering white curtain of the storm that surrounded him. The tent was gone. So were Shackleton and Barne, his companions on this deputing trip. The aim was to cache food needed for the attempt on the South. Now he had lost them, lost his shelter. The cold seemed to envelop him, driving breath from his body. He had lost his life.

He yelled, but the wind took the words and ran with them. He had no gloves, no sledging clothes to protect himself, and snow was already filling the bag. The deep, sustained shivers of a body desperate to protect its core temperature began to afflict him. The tingle of early frostbite played over his exposed skin.