Death on the Ice (41 page)

Worse, the sea between the floes and bergs was brash ice that was churning and rolling, like a pot brought to the boil. The glossy black triangles told them what was causing the disturbance. Killer whales. One of them broke free of the sludgy surface with a terrible blowing roar and Oates could see a long torpedo shape in the mouth. A leopard seal, still squirming as the jaws closed on it.

‘Good grief, Crean,’ said Scott. ‘Were those brutes there when you left?’

The sailor managed a grin. ‘Oh, aye, sir. Kept me jumping pretty well.’

‘I see them!’ said Oates.

The floe containing the tent, men and horses had drifted east and south and was nudging the bottom of the cliff. Bowers and Cherry were waving their arms, and their faint voices carried over the waters. Standing next to their tent were the three ponies, tethered to a line driven into the ice from the tent apex.

‘Crean, stay here,’ ordered Scott.

‘Sir—’ he began to object.

‘We’ll need someone to lower us down and pull us up,’ said Oates, handing him a length of rope. ‘Unless you want to play whale hopscotch again.’

‘I will if need be, Captain Oates.’

Oates smiled. ‘We know that, Tom. We need you here.’

‘Sir.’

Within a few hundred yards, however, they found a spot where the ice cliff sloped down to a few feet high. The three scrambled down to the narrow littoral ice shelf at the base of the escarpment and moved along towards the men and their floe, which was no more than thirty yards across, and spinning. There were other ice blocks around it, and the pattern kept shifting as watery canals opened and closed. It was like a volatile, living jigsaw, where the pieces never quite fitted together. The sudden hissing exhalations told them the opportunist whales were still on patrol between the fragments.

‘Am I glad to see you,’ shouted Scott.

‘Indeed, sir,’ yelled Cherry in reply. ‘We can’t get the horses to jump across.’

‘Never mind the horses, it’s you I want,’ said Scott.

Aware of the ice creaking beneath their feet, the three would-be rescuers moved along the shoreline so that they were level with the stranded men and ponies. Oates tied his ice axe to the end of the spare rope and threw it across. Bowers caught it and smashed it on to the ice surface. Scott, Crean and Oates heaved on the rope, but the floe refused to move any closer.

An hour passed before the lazily spinning floe finally came within leaping distance of the shore. By this time Oates’s and Scott’s feet were soaked through from the constant dip of melting ice. Oates could no longer feel his toes.

‘Use the sledges as a bridge,’ said Oates. ‘And crawl across.’

‘What about the horses?’ Cherry said.

‘I’ll come out and talk them across.’ If I can, Oates added silently.

Bowers lifted one of the sleds and flung it over the gap. Scott put his weight on the front runners and Cherry passed supplies over, till the most valuable provisions had been saved. Then he scampered across.

‘Come on, Birdie!’ Oates yelled.

‘I’ll stay here and help you with the horses.’

‘Get off there.’

Bowers shook his head. He wasn’t abandoning the animals. ‘You come across, Farmer Hayseed.’

Oates crawled over the sledge bridge on all fours and dropped on to the floe. The surface was covered with an inch of water, and very slippery.

‘Right, let’s try Punch first,’ said Oates, untying him from the tether. He tried not to look out to sea, where solid land seemed so far away and the water still teemed with predators.

Bowers took the horse’s lead and looked across at Scott and Cherry. ‘Eyes ahead, now, boy.’

He sprinted forward as fast as his short legs would carry him, rushing up to the edge, ready to spring, hoping the momentum would carry Punch over. The horse made three giant strides and then faltered. He skidded to a halt, and Bowers only just managed to stop. As he did so, the floe tipped. Bowers leapt backwards, his finnesko slithering. He managed to find a purchase, but poor Punch slid into the black water between land and ice.

Cherry let out a scream of warning and Oates turned in time to see a yellow and black face leering from the water at him. Close to, the white patches on the whale’s body were the colour of nicotine, but the teeth gleamed bright enough.

Titus stumbled backwards and he felt the floe rock as the animal moved underneath.

Bowers was lying on his stomach, Punch’s reins in one hand, the horse’s head on the ice, the body swallowed by the black water. He was exhorting him to get back on.

Scott and Cherry watched helplessly as the disturbed floe began to drift away from the shore, widening the gap between the men and safety.

Oates moved to Bowers’s shoulder. Together they heaved on the animal, hoping it could get its forelegs on to the ice. Hoofs thrashed ineffectually at the water. Oates felt a muscle rip in his shoulder. Punch was just too heavy, awkward and terrified.

A slick black shape broke the surface and a deadeye gave them the once-over, or so it seemed.

They felt a snag on the animal, as if someone had pulled his tail. The horse made no sound at first as his hind leg was severed. Dark blood bubbled up into the water, but Punch gave only a pathetic whinny.

Oates felt his stomach turn. ‘Jesus.’

Another fin appeared and Oates released his grip and scrabbled over the ice to find his ice pick.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Bowers.

The poor pony’s head went back, and the lips bared, showing the huge teeth. Now the noise pierced the hearts of the onlookers, a mix of unimaginable terror and pain. Only Bowers’s enormous strength was keeping the head above water as Punch began to struggle.

‘Shall I let him go?’

‘No,’ said Oates. ‘They won’t have him.’

The glossy black skin appeared again, water streaming off the sides. Oates pulled his arm back and brought the pointed blade of the axe down on Punch’s skull. The pitiful whinnying stopped at once, replaced by a slow hissing sound as the horse went limp.

‘Let him go now.’

Bowers did so and the heavy head smacked on to the ice, leaving a trail of blood, before the animal slumped into the water. At once, several of the fins circling the ice disappeared.

‘Oh my Lord,’ said Bowers shakily.

Oates was already with the remaining animals, trying to calm them. They were Nobby and Uncle Bill. They were remarkably calm, their panic transmitted only as a shiver through the flanks and fast breathing.

Oates looked across at the shrunken figures of Cherry, Scott and Crean and groaned. Their floe had moved further out to sea. ‘We can’t make the shoreline.’

‘Save yourselves,’ shouted Scott from the bottom of the ice cliff.

‘We lose the ponies, we lose the Pole,’ said Bowers.

Oates said nothing in reply. He wasn’t thinking about the Pole; he was simply certain he didn’t want to abandon the animals to the whales. The thought of them slowly descending to the waiting jaws was too much.

Water began to slosh over the edges of the shrinking oval of frozen water they were standing on. It was sinking.

‘Come on, you two.’ It was Cherry.

‘Think we can get them over to that floe?’ Oates asked, pointing to a neighbouring slab.

‘Possibly.’

‘Like Crean. Playing hopscotch. On to that one. Then the next and on to the barrier. What do you think?’

The water was up to their ankles. ‘Worth a try,’ said Bowers. ‘I’ll go first.’

Bowers untied Nobby, backed him up to the far edge and rushed forward. As he did so, an ominous fin appeared in the gap. Oates felt the ice shift beneath them, but Bowers didn’t hesitate. He launched himself into thin air, stumpy legs windmilling and the pony followed. Both landed with a jarring thump on the adjacent floe.

Oates followed immediately before man or beast had time to think too hard about what they were doing. His boots scrabbled for grip and he felt a sharp pain up his leg, all the way to his old war wound. His feet slithered, went from under him, and his shoulder hit the ice with a dull crack.

‘Come on, Farmer. No time for lying down.’

As Oates struggled to his feet, Bowers took Nobby across to the final floe, the one but a short step from the shore. Oates applauded, but as he took a step forward his leg buckled. Pain flashed up his thigh and into his hip. ‘Oh damn,’ he said. ‘Not now.’ He felt his leg give way again and he sat down on the ice.

Bowers, though, had jumped Nobby to the waiting Scott and Cherry and leapt back. Now, with effortless agility, his short legs pumping as he launched himself into the air, he came across to his fallen comrade. He put an arm round Oates. ‘You all right there, Farmer?’

‘Just my ankle,’ Oates lied.

‘I’ll take Bill. Think you can make it over?’

‘Sure I can.’

With his new-found confidence, Bowers grabbed hold of Uncle Bill’s rein, lined up his jump and, screaming encouragement, sprinted forward. Bill slithered slightly as he got underway, losing momentum and, perhaps sensing he had compromised his speed, tried to stop. The hoofs locked but it was too late for him. Bowers tried to catch the skidding horse but even his formidable power was not enough. He was flicked aside like a skittle and Uncle Bill went into the freezing sea with a loud splash.

‘Oh no!’ shouted Oates.

Bowers executed a two-footed jump on to the other floe and dropped prone. Oates, watching the sea, saw the swerve of a fin break the oily water.

‘Birdie.’

‘I can get him up.’

‘Birdie.’

Bowers looked up at him. ‘You’ll have to do it.’

‘Do what?’

Oates tossed the axe over. Bowers reached up and plucked it from the sky. ‘I can’t.’

‘They’ll have him.’

‘I can’t.’

‘I can’t watch him being eaten. Neither can you.’

Bowers began to cry, his tears turning to steam.

A grinning head appeared at the edge of the ice and Oates began to shriek and wave his arms. The creature blew a fine spray of water and submerged.

‘Where?’ asked Bowers.

‘Put your glove on its skull. That’s it. No, go left.’

‘Here?’ His voice was shaking.

‘No. Up.’

‘Here.’

‘Yes. Hard as you can. Got to get through bone.’

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’

The whale surfaced inches from Old Bill, the mouth gaping in anticipation, looking as if it would sever the animal at the neck. Bowers yelled at it, his face purple, turned, and struck home. The late sun glinted on the metal as it splintered its way into the brain. Bowers left it where it was as Uncle Bill joined his companions in the water.

The Owner was shouting from the base of the cliff. Oates stood watching the agitated water. It was as if propellers had started to turn. Particles of flesh began to bob to the surface.

There was more hollering from the shoreline.

Oates looked up at the men waving at him. Next to them was Nobby, the sole surviving pony from the floes. In all, only two horses remained, Nobby and Jimmy Pigg, back at camp. They should have marched them on and given them a dignified death at eighty-two degrees. Now, all that flesh was wasted, sacrificed to feed the greedy cetaceans.

Fizzing with anger at the profligacy, Oates found himself reaching back to the language of the cavalry barrack room. ‘Fuck you, Captain Scott,’ he muttered under his frozen breath. ‘Fuck you.’

Dear Carrie,

We are at Hut Point and, I must say, feeling very glum. We have lost a lot of the horses, through no fault of mine, I hasten to add. Now, we are cut off from our base at Cape Evans by the lack of sea ice. Scott says with the gales and low temperatures it can’t be long before it reappears.

So we share these old quarters—Scott, Wilson, Meares, Bowers, Cherry, Evans and Atkinson, and now we have Taylor and his party of Debenham, Wright and Taff Evans. Sixteen in all. It is what you might call cosy. And all we have to read is my Napoleon book—which has proved very popular—and a stack of
Girl’s Own Paper
. We can’t quite decide how they got here and, of course, nobody is owning up. There is also a
Times Atlas
, a
Who’s Who
—how useful to have out on the ice—and Cherry carefully thawed out a copy of Stanley Weyman’s
My Lady Rotha
left by another party. The end is missing but Cherry says this adds to the excitement. There will be a competition to see who can come up with the best climax. Wilson sketches in his Windsor & Newton. Others practise their knots. As you can tell, these are exciting days.

We have plenty of seal to eat and a blubber stove: warm but greasy. Every man has a black face. Killing seals is a gruesome business, but nothing is wasted apart from the entrails. We take turns to cook. I think Debenham and Meares are the best, but they always say good things about my hoosh. Some of the others, however, who fancy themselves as cooks, rather mess up the meals by trying to produce something original.

But there is worse than the overcrowding. The
Terra Nova
had sailed west to find a place to land Victor Campbell’s party. They found a spot. Already taken! The Norskies are there. Amundsen has set up his base on a piece of ice at the Bay of Whales. Just where we couldn’t get through to. Campbell says it is precarious but Amundsen insisted to him that it was anchored tight to some hidden land. The Norwegian offered them a spot to set up base, but Campbell refused.

Scott is very down in the dumps. Terribly impatient to get back to Cape Evans, but there is no way by land. Cherry says it is twelve or thirteen miles, Cape Evans to Hut Point. It might just as well be a thousand while we are at the mercy of the sea. The Owner snaps at poor Gran whenever he comes near. He expected Amundsen to be at the Weddell Sea. Just in case all this is very hard to understand, I shall scribble you a rough map of our situation.

We need to head north from Hut Point to Cape Evans. Sorry, my mapmaking is no better than my arithmetic.

The point is, the main reason for gloom is that the Norwegians are a whole degree nearer the pole, around sixty miles. And Amundsen has a hundred or more dogs and, so Gran says, very hard men with him. While we are very young. Although Cherry thought we should go to the Bay of Whales with guns and have it out with the Norskies once and for all. Gran went quite pale at the thought. His worst nightmare—a war between England and Norway and him having to choose sides!

I keep thinking, though, we have a few sad ponies, no motor-sledges and not enough dogs. Perhaps our best course would be to ambush them.

Two days later.

There are signs that the sea ice is re-forming. Good news. It is ridiculous to be marooned here.

I despair of Scott’s planning. But then I often do and, as Bill Wilson says often enough, things usually turn out better than expected. He believes minor mishaps and mistakes come together in God’s great plan. And the Owner performed marvellously on the return, says Cherry, rescuing dogs from a crevasse that Meares said he would think twice about going down. Ninety-foot descent, tied to a rope in a hole in the ice, to a precarious snow bridge where the dogs were trapped. Then he hauled them up. There is nothing wrong with his guts. That is why men like Crean and Bowers are so loyal.

You must forgive some of the snaps and snarls from me in my letters. I am just like one of the dogs. One writes to let off steam. You must not worry. When a man is having a hard time, he says hard things about other people which he would regret afterwards. I suffer, as my old colonel once said, from being easily unimpressed.

As soon as the sea freezes—which can’t be long, we hear the crack and snap of it forming at night—then we can get back to the others at Cape Evans, feed up the horses and settle down for the winter. Things will seem better when the sun comes back next season, I am sure. Love to Bryan and the girls.

Your loving son,

Laurie