Death on the Ice (37 page)

The shock of the freezing cold made him gasp and he sucked in a lungful of sea. He managed to fling the poles away and thrash in the water, but he could feel the skis dragging him down. He began to pump his knees, hoping the thin planks would act like flippers, but they suddenly seemed inordinately heavy. He was going down into the thick, icy depths.

He could hear men shouting, although he couldn’t make out words.

‘Help!’

With some difficulty Oates got both his arms on to the ice and managed to anchor himself there.

Wilson was running towards him and Gran was speeding over on his skis, his cramp forgotten.

‘Whales, Titus.’

Oates tried to pull himself out but he could get no purchase and slipped back. He managed to pull up a leg and yank off one of the bindings from the ski boot, even though he could hardly feel his fingers. The wooden ski bobbed to the surface.

‘Whales!’

There he was drowning in an ice-cold sea and all Wilson could think of was some whales which must have surfaced somewhere on the edge of the floe.

As he got the other ski free, a penguin popped its head up near him and made a disparaging squawk.

‘Bugger off,’ he tried to say. ‘This is my ice hole.’ But it came out as a wordless roar from between blue lips and the penguin slipped back down into the green water.

‘Killer whales!’

And then he remembered. Ponting had been taking a picture of a berg close to the edge of a floe and a fearsomely huge black and white shape had burst from the water, dunking him an Adelie-with-camera.

‘Oh fuck,’ he muttered, an obscenity he hadn’t used since India.

Oates didn’t remember getting out of the water. One second he was up to his neck, the next he lay steaming on the ice, his body turning blue to match his lips. Wilson had had the presence of mind to bring Oates’s clothes and he rubbed him with the undershirt. Ponting and Gran stood around him, with concern on their faces, but also smirking.

‘What is so amusing?’

‘I have never seen any animal get out of the water so fast,’ said Ponting, finally allowing himself a guffaw. ‘Now you know how I felt.’

‘You were like a rocket,’ said Gran, miming his escape with his hands. ‘Whoosh.’

‘I wish I’d caught a picture of that.’

‘Well, Ponco,’ said Oates, through chattering teeth. ‘Once I get dry, I’ll do it again more slowly. How’s that?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘My pleasure.’ A terrible shudder went through him.

‘We’d best get you back to the ship,’ said Wilson.

He stood, finished drying himself with the undershirt and pulled on his sweater. Atch, who had managed to ski over, after a fashion, took his fingers and rubbed them till some feeling came back.

‘Three weeks we’ve been trying to get through this,’ said Oates, indicating the floes. ‘And now I fall through it.’ He looked at
Terra Nova
, still fixed firmly. ‘How much longer?’

‘It’ll let us through when it feels ready,’ said Wilson, well aware that
Discovery
had rammed her way through much more quickly. But that had been later in the season, when the pack was rapidly dissolving. ‘You have to be patient. But look on the bright side.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Perhaps your little dip shows it is breaking up at last. Come.’

Wilson led him back towards
Terra Nova
, while Ponting and Gran rescued the discarded skis and Atch carried on trying to master the planks of wood he had strapped to his feet.

‘Ridiculous things,’ said Oates to Wilson, his voice quivering slightly.

‘Except when used properly. We found them useful on
Discovery
, although hauling with them is even trickier than using them normally. Trigger says it can be done, with practice, but we never mastered it completely.’

‘Hmm. Doctor,’ said Oates.

‘Yes?’

‘Trigger was born with a pair of skis on, you know. They are, the Norskies, so he says. Has it occurred to you that if all the Norwegians ski like Trigger … ’

‘Then, if he gets through the pack, Amundsen might beat us to the Pole.’

Oates nodded.

‘It has.’

‘And have you mentioned it to the skipper?’ asked Oates.

‘Not yet. You think he doesn’t realise it?’

‘I find it hard to know what he is thinking at times.’ Scott had become withdrawn and pensive during the past few weeks, as if depressed and mystified by the behaviour of the ice.

Wilson knew what the problem was. Scott was not blessed with patience, and the failure of the ice to yield was causing him great anxiety. ‘Some might say the same of you, Titus.’

‘Aye. They have, as well.’ Oates began to shiver uncontrollably. They had reached the spot where he had discarded his jacket and he quickly pulled it on. ‘Lord, I’m cold.’

‘You were lucky. Eighteen thousand fathoms and freezing cold. Men can die in minutes in that water.’

‘Even without a killer whale chewing on their privates.’

‘Indeed.’ Wilson stopped them just short of the ramp to the ship. He lowered his voice. ‘And Soldier.’

‘Yes?’

‘What you just said about the Norwegians? Keep it to yourself, eh?’

‘Good God, that stinks,’ Oates proclaimed over the amplified crash of the surf hurling itself on to the basalt shore.

‘It’s not as bad as I recalled,’ said Scott.

‘The Emperor rookery is just over that cliff,’ Wilson explained. ‘Thousands of them, all sitting in their own guano. You get used to it.’

‘Not sure I want to, Bill,’ said Atch.

‘Enough to make a maggot gag,’ muttered Oates. ‘And it’s hardly a hospitable spot.’

Wilson nodded. ‘Indeed. The Good Lord alone knows why the penguins have chosen the most windswept place on the planet to make their home.’

‘You’ll have to pull harder than this.’ It was Tom Crean putting his back into keeping the whaler from the exposed rocks. That’s all there were, black evil-looking rocks, backed by the columns of basalt, all hemmed in by an inlet of high ice cliffs. A large piece of sea floe had beached and was sitting over the best landing spot. This was Cape Crozier, the place they’d tolerated twenty days stuck in the pack to reach. It didn’t look worth the effort.

‘I’ve got a crab.’ Cherry and his trawling net. ‘No, two.’ Then a screech. ‘Ow. They are rum little nippers.’

Oates laughed as Cherry sucked his thumb. His glasses were misted and salted from the spray and he looked like a schoolboy who had caught his finger in a desk.

‘Look, look,’ yelled Wilson, pointing to the land. ‘It’s a chick. Can’t we get in closer?’

An adult Emperor and its offspring were on the edge of the stranded ice floe, peering at the men.

‘We’ll be smashed, sir.’ Crean again.

‘We’ve never seen a chick like that. I could try to rope it.’

A wave dashed over the side and the swell rocked the boat with new violence. The noise of the surf echoed off the ice faces, multiplying its crashing, making it sound even more ominous than usual.

‘It’s moulting,’ insisted Wilson excitedly. ‘Look at its head and chest.’

‘Look at those rocks,’ said Oates.

‘There’s far more ice here than in
Discovery
’s day. We can’t get any closer, Bill,’ said Scott, scanning the mess of rocks, floes, cliffs, ice shelves, ice tongues and bergs. ‘We certainly won’t be able to land from
Terra Nova
with all this—’

The roar of the calving cliff face drowned him out. A crenellated block of ice the size of a large mansion split from the main body and crashed into the water, creating a disturbance that battled the incoming waves, resulting in a small maelstrom. Crean insisted they row away as quickly as possible, and all the oarsmen put their full effort into it. The newly born berg bobbed in the sea and, driven by the tide, began a stately progress towards the rocks. The Emperor and its baby had fled.

‘The whole area is unstable,’ said Scott. ‘You’ll have to come overland for your chicks.’

‘It’s the eggs I’d really like to see. But does that mean—?’

Scott nodded. Like
Discovery
and
Nimrod
before them, fate was pushing them west. There was only one place to land. McMurdo Bay, site of Hut Point.
Terra Nova
was going back to where it had all began.

Dearest Heart,

I thought I would drop you a note about how we are living. It might help visualise me as my face fades over the months. Nearly four hundred miles through the pack ice and stuck fast for Christmas. We had the most splendid dinner, with soup, stewed penguin, plum puddings and mince pies, asparagus, champagne, liqueurs. Then singing again until one a.m. I may have partaken of a little too much of the liqueurs, because I found the banjo playing quite pleasant.

It is two weeks since we began to land stores at the cinder rocks at what was the Skuary, now renamed Cape Evans (Teddy wasn’t as thrilled as I’d expected). It is around fifteen miles north of our old hut, separated by Glacier Tongue and two shallow bays of sea ice. We could not go much further south because of the risk of
Terra Nova
being iced in. If she is caught for the winter, my love, this letter will be sorely delayed.

I went across to Discovery Hut with Meares and the dogs. A good run, but how melancholy the place seemed. Someone—Shackleton, I think—left a window open and the place has filled with snow. How infuriating that anyone could be so careless. We will clear it out and use it as a forward base, no doubt.

I have sketched a plan of the new hut, similar to the one in my log. It is almost complete. Fifty foot long, twenty-five wide and nine foot to the eves. It is well insulated. I doubt a finer hut has ever been built in polar regions.

There is a line of packing cases separating the men of the shore party from the officers and scientists. Some of the latter were surprised at this, because out on the ice all is equal. But it was Crean and Wilson who first mooted it. The men like their privacy as much as the rest of us and to be allowed to carp and gripe if need be. As I said to Crean, we’ll ignore anything we hear short of mutiny. He said he couldn’t promise that, not after a couple months of seal dinners.

Oates, Bowers, Meares, Atkinson and Cherry sleep in the same area. They are already firm friends. They call the bunks The Tenements, because of the overcrowding. Gran was disappointed not to be included, but he is with Taylor, Debenham, Nelson and Day. The Norwegian thinks we wash too often and I find his posing when teaching skiing irritating. However, he has slotted in with the others well. They call their den the Ubduggery and call themselves the Ubdugs. When we ask them why they just burst out laughing.

Ponting has built a darkroom and sleeps over it. Some of the men object to posing when taking readings, but are generally astonished when they see the results. He has tried colour film, but the scenery is too bright. After complaining that the
Terra Nova
was no ocean liner, he now says the hut is not the hotel he is used to. At first everyone thought him far too prim. Now they simply rag him and he takes it in good spirit.

I share a space with Bill Wilson and Teddy Evans and a linoleum-covered table at which I am writing. I can hear hammering outside. That is Oates and Atkinson building the last of the horse stalls on the north side of the hut—the winds mostly coming from the south at this spot—for the seventeen surviving ponies, which they have fitted out with a blubber stove designed by Atkinson. It really is most efficient, its main drawback being the smell of blubber, of course. But you learn to tolerate that. The stalls are roofed with canvas and rafters but the walls are made of bails of fodder and coal bricks, to be replaced by wood as they are used, I am worried about the state of the ponies, the poor brutes, but there could be no better man to look after them than Oates. He might be a person of few words, and those he does speak tend to be gloomy, but I don’t know what we would have done without him.

We have one more motor-sledge to unload and then we shall plan the march south for the depoting, which must be completed by March. Then we will discover just how worthwhile horses, dogs and motor-sledges are.

Nobody speaks of him but we all wonder where Amundsen is. I think he must have landed at the Weddell Sea. I cannot see how he could do otherwise, with the pack the way it is. Still, I am determined the best way to treat him is to pretend he does not exist. We must not be panicked by what might be an imaginary rival. Nor must we compromise our science.

What madness this all seems sometimes. But what an adventure. I must finish now. Give my love to the boy.

H
ERBERT PONTING WAS FUSSING
with the bellows of his telephoto apparatus. He had discovered that the oil froze in the mechanism and so had drained it. Now it squeaked as he moved the mechanism.

Ahead of him was the ship, sitting hard up against the edge of the floe, held firm by the ice anchors, with men unloading the final batches of the stores and the last of the motor-sledges under the direction of Harry Pennell, the hard-working navigator who would take the ship back to New Zealand to overwinter. Scott had no desire to risk
Terra Nova
being iced in like
Discovery
.

Behind Ponting was a scene of improbable desolation and grandeur, the magnificent Mt Erebus and the sculptured vista of ice and rock that ran from it, down to their new home, the incongruous hut. To the south were the islands of the sound, encircled by ice, and beyond them peak after glorious snow-capped peak as far as the crystal-clear air allowed him to see. The sky was a rich royal blue, with just two banks of low cloud. Ponting had positioned himself close to the edge of the ice, but not too close. He had seen the black fins of killers breaking the water, racing up and down in their hunt for seal and penguin. He had no wish to be mistaken for a bipedal lunch again.

Scott was standing next him, talking away, but Ponting, concentrating on his focusing device, only caught one word in ten.

‘And then I think yours will be a ten- or twelve-day photography expedition.’