Death on the Ice (43 page)

There would be a last pipe or cigarette, hushed conversation and perhaps some reading, but for the most part the main acetylene lights were out by eleven p.m. Then men read by candlelight, but for no more than an hour, at which point the night watchman was the only one with a light burning.

They slept according to how fierce the weather howled around them and whether or not the dogs started one of their mournful group howls or there were the snores of dreamers or Cherry sleepwalking. There were other forces at play that might disturb a man’s sleep. Tensions simmered, even though the total darkness was but a few weeks old. An argument over a carelessly dropped biscuit or an imagined slight could fester for days. Friends swore they’d never speak to each other again, only to find they had forgotten the reason for their falling out within hours. And there were the worries, anxieties and quests for solutions to logistical puzzles that kept brains turning long after sleep should have shut them down. Scott and Bowers suffered most from this fatiguing syndrome.

At a little after nine-thirty that evening, Scott was writing at his table, dead pipe still clamped between his teeth, when Wilson and Cherry came and crouched next him, their voices low. Wilson had left him alone for he knew how much addressing the men took out of him. On the surface, Scott was robust enough, but strip away the temper and grit and you had a shy, reserved man at heart. He fought that nature as much as he fought the ice, Wilson thought.

‘Have you considered it?’

Scott took the pipe out of his mouth and tapped the contents of the bowl on to a metal saucer.

‘I have. And I am inclined to deny you.’

Cherry started to speak but Wilson put a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Might we ask why?’

‘It is a waste of our resources. The temperature has been steadily falling. Thirty degrees of frost now. And the wind. In total darkness. All for a few penguin eggs?’

Wilson wanted to retrieve an Emperor’s egg, to try to fill in some of their biology. Only by going in winter could they do this. It meant crossing to Cape Crozier, the journey that had nearly done in Royds on the
Discovery
expedition. And that had been in the sledging season, not in the dead of winter.

‘But it will give us a chance to test the sledges,’ Wilson objected, ‘and the double tent.’ This was a newly improvised dual-skinned affair, designed to trap air between the layers and, so the theory went, insulate the men inside. Taff and Lashly had constructed them to Scott’s specifications, but they had never been tried.

‘And the sledge rations,’ said Cherry. ‘Bowers has worked out a way of altering the fat ratio so we will all be on a different regime. He’s already made a list of requirements.’

He passed it across. Scott scanned it. There were 135 lb of Huntley & Palmer’s Antarctic biscuits, 110 of Bovril pemmican, 21 of butter, 3 of salt, 4 of tea, 60 of oil, the sledges, tents, rope, crampons, ice axes, lamp box, sennegrass for the boots, scientific and sample boxes plus spare parts for the stove, toilet paper, candles and spirit for lights. The list went on for two pages and totalled 790 lb in all. Over 250 lb per man.

As Scott was reading and making non-committal grunting noises, Wilson winked at Cherry. He had explained to the younger man that figures on paper were catnip to the Owner. To him, lists, formulae and tables was a way of breaking nature and the unknown into manageable forms.

‘That’s a lot of oil. How long are you expecting to be away?’

‘It’s a hundred and forty-one miles, round trip. That provision list represents six weeks’ supply, which should be plenty.’

‘Well, we are having our Christmas on June the twenty-second.’ This was the point of midwinter in the topsy-turvy world. ‘It would have to be later than that.’

Wilson nodded. ‘It’s a secret, but Bowers is making a tree. From penguin feathers. So he won’t want to miss the celebration.’

‘No.’

‘And apparently Emperors don’t lay till the end of June or early July. So we were thinking, June the twenty-fifth, or something like it. We’ll be back in plenty of time for the southern journey’

Scott considered for a moment. ‘Very well. Almost against my better judgement.’

‘Thank you, Con.’

‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ said Cherry, an inflection of nerves in his voice now the winter journey was a reality. ‘I’ll tell Bowers.’

After he had gone, Scott said. ‘For eggs, Bill.’

‘Embryos, Con. If it is true that the penguin is the most primitive bird on the planet, then its embryos just might prove that feathers really do develop from scales.’

Scott was silent again, as his appreciation of science battled his innate conservatism when it came to risking his men. ‘If you go, I also want you to try out the double bags.’ Another innovation was the decision to put eiderdown inside the reindeer bags, which made them more comfortable, but it remained to be seen how ‘icing’ from perspiration would affect them.

‘Of course. We’ll compile a list of objectives.’

As Wilson stood, Scott said, ‘Oh, and Bill.’

‘Yes?’

‘Bring them both back alive, won’t you? And yourself.’

‘I’ll do my best, Con. I’ll do my best.’

As the men fell asleep, Wilson went outside to watch the great vertical sheets of the aurora. Gran was already out there, binoculars clamped to his eyes.

‘Hello, doctor.’

‘Trigger.’

‘Lovely night.’

‘Yes.’

There was a silence that slowly thickened. Wilson knew the young man had something on his mind.

‘You know, I once played football for Norway.’

Wilson tried to keep the surprise from his voice. He wasn’t aware the Scandinavians had national sides. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes. Not like playing for England, but a high standard. But here, I am not used properly. In goal. Not my position.’

‘You should say something.’

‘I try. But they don’t use me correctly,’ he repeated. Wilson became aware once more of just how young Gran was. The ice had that effect; he had even forgotten that Cherry was a stripling, yet here he was taking him on a winter journey. ‘Why doesn’t he like me?’

‘Who?’

‘Scott.’

‘Doesn’t he?’

‘Not so much. He doesn’t use me properly either.’

The doctor thought about this for a while, watching the light show sparkle across the heavens. Sometimes it was like celestial semaphore, as if God was trying to talk to them. ‘There is a secret to Scott,’ said Wilson softly. ‘That is to be busy. He hates idleness.’

‘I am busy,’ said Gran, unable to keep a petulant note from his voice. ‘I ski, I cut ice, I skin the seal.’

‘Make sure he sees you.’

‘I think it is because I am Norwegian.’

‘No. Not that.’

‘You don’t sound so sure, doctor.’

Wilson laughed. ‘Well, perhaps you just remind him what is over the horizon.’ He pointed east, in the direction of the Bay of Whales.

‘I cannot help that.’

‘Nor can he.’

‘So I should stay busy?’

‘Yes. And make sure the Owner sees you. I tell you, he’ll soon come round.’

Gran handed Wilson the binoculars. ‘I shall go and check the skis. Loudly.’

Wilson watched him go. So very young, he thought once more. He looked back at the radiance above them. What would God say to his party of three striving to Cape Crozier to recover penguin eggs? Come on and try your best? Or, Go home, you blithering fools? Wilson caught himself. Trying to know the mind of God was the first step towards madness. He turned away and went back inside to get some sleep, hoping the Norwegian boy didn’t keep him awake with his energetic ski waxing.

Dear Con,

The most marvellous news today. Well, yesterday now. I have to confess it is very late. Two-thirty in the morning. I had a party for my birthday. I know that seems callous with you away, but I have been so lonely without you since my return. I needed a little life around me. Fifty-two people came to the studio, which was filled with daffodils. We danced and drank and I laughed properly for the first time in ages. Guess who turned up? Nansen. He didn’t stay long, said he wasn’t comfortable with that many people unless he was sharing a ship with them. I think he could become a dear friend. He knows so much about what you are going through. I expect you are all tucked up for the winter now. I have tried to explain to Peter how the sun disappears for four (or is it five?) months at-a time. I used balls of clay for the earth and the sun, but I fear I was not as clear as you would have been. Peter is the only authentic thing in my life without you here.

The good news I spoke of came right in the midst of the party. A telegram. From New Zealand. It simply said:

SHIP SIGHTED. ALL WELL.

So the Terra Nova is back and on it your letters, I hope. And I will get this and the others to you before it comes south to see you once more in your spring.

Tell Cherry-Garrard I have seen his mother, a dear thing, charming and sweet and frightfully intelligent, and his lovely sister Mildred. And I took tea with Ory Wilson, who is missing her Bill terribly. She even talked of going down to New Zealand to wait and see if he came back before next winter. I told her that would be awful, just endless waiting. I told her that if you stay on for a second winter, then Bill will too. He is nothing if not loyal, we both know that. She wept. (You don’t have to tell Bill that part.)

Once I have your letters I shall go straight to your mother and we will have a veritable Antarctic orgy with her. I always had the feeling to begin with that Hannah wanted to stab me and that she certainly would if she thought I’d hurt you. I hope we are past the knifing stage now. I think Peter made all the difference.

I have an invitation to go to the opening night of Shaw’s Fanny’s New Play. I am not sure whom to take. Perhaps Nansen, because he likes the theatre. Then there is a flying race at Hendon the next day I would love to see. Airplanes are beginning to have a strange appeal: perhaps you should get one for your next expedition. Flying over the ice must be better than walking it.

Oh, my love, I have so much news, but all of it seems so trivial next to the cable. Ship sighted. All well. I cannot recall four such lovely words. I shall go to bed now and dream of them.

‘Y
OU’VE GOT IT IN
the neck, now stick it, stick it; you’ve got it in the neck, now stick it, stick it.’

As he edged cautiously around the ice-strewn scree-fields of Mt Terror the words looped through Cherry’s brain as they had done for much of the last three weeks. He had to fill it with something, a distraction, or he might go mad. He’d suffered endless days of blisters and cold that seeped through to the bones, seemingly turning them to columns of ice. Sometimes it was like having steel pins driven into your limbs. Minus 77; that was 107 agonising degrees of frost. Cherry hadn’t thought it possible to be so frozen that your internal organs were chattering to stay warm. But they had; and it hurt. He’d cried a lot of iced tears.

He stumbled over something in the darkness and, in doing so, found the rock he was looking for. With the wind snarling at him and the clothes of unyielding lead keeping him upright, he somehow managed to bend at the waist and pick it up. As soon as he tried to straighten, the gale snapped him upright, causing him to stagger back.

The grip made his fingers burn in the mittens, a souvenir from taking his gloves off to haul on the sledge ropes. They had blistered within seconds. And that had been on the second day. They still throbbed and ached. He hugged the great lump of stone and turned back up the slopes of Mt Terrror, where, on a moderately level piece of moraine, they were building their pickling and dissecting igloo.

‘You’ve got it in the neck, now stick it, stick it.’

‘You all right there?’

Cherry squinted to his left. It was so cold it was impossible for him to wear his glasses for any length of time. He was forced to remove them at intervals and slip them into his jacket, hoping a little of his body heat would melt the hoar on the lenses. Without them his world was reduced to a white blur. But he could tell from the squat silhouette it was Birdie Bowers. By the look of it, he was carrying a rock twice the size of his own. Nothing was too big for this man. ‘Yes, Birdie.’

‘Wind’s getting up.’

‘Aye.’ As if that would worry Birdie. He had snored through nights when Cherry was rocked with tremors from the cold.

Together they staggered over the ice-dotted gravel surface to where they had deposited the first layer of rocks for the igloo. Bill Wilson was repositioning them, making the layer as wind-proof as possible. ‘How’s the wound?’ Cherry asked as he dropped the rock at his feet.

‘Bearing up.’ Wilson had splashed hot blubber from the stove into his eye, burning it quite badly. It was covered in salve and bandaged. Cherry was certain it was worse than Bill was letting on. ‘It’s three a.m. We should turn in.’

‘I’ll get a few more rocks before I do,’ said Birdie. ‘You two go ahead.’

A sliver of moon appeared from behind the clouds and Cherry took out his glasses and wiped the ice from them. He was in no hurry to start chipping at the frozen slab of a sleeping bag he would have to slide into. That might take thirty minutes or more alone. The wind whipped at him as he stared out from their little camp, but the grainy grey-white view was scarily magnificent. Huge knife-edged pressure ridges of ice eight hundred feet below ran north to the frozen Ross Sea. Moonlight lent the ice a ghostly gleam. It was like a half-remembered dreamscape. Yet somewhere down there were the Emperors they needed, the eggs to pickle and the adult birds to provide blubber. They had brought six tins of oil; they had used five, even after taking it down to two hot meals a day. The penguins would provide fuel. There were cliffs and a crevasse between them and the rookery, but they would have to be crossed to harvest the birds—and their eggs—if they were to survive the return journey.

‘You can’t do it in one night, Birdie,’ said Wilson. ‘Even you.’