Хэммонд Иннес - Calling the Southern Cross!

I crawled out of my tent and stood in the cold stillness of the ledge, shielding my eyes from the glare and trying to see what Bonomi was pointing to.

I followed Bonomi’s linger and saw three figures moving across the ice — three tiny figures dragging a sledge. They had their backs to the sun and they were headed toward the position where the Southern Cross might be expected to be. I ought to have realized what it had meant when Bonomi had said that Bland and the two mates were eating full rations. Bland had finally despaired of the iceberg breaking through to the open sea and had started westward in search of the Southern Cross camp or the rescue ships which might still lie searching on the edge of the pack.

Bonomi’s excitement had roused the camp. One by one, the men stumbled out and stared at the three figures moving slowly across the ice below. I remember one man said, “I think perhaps you do not go now, captain. They have had more food, those three. If anyone reach the Southern Cross they will. There is good hope now.”

Howe heard him, and he said, “If Bland reaches the Southern Cross camp no rescue party will come here. He’s gambling on being the sole survivor. That’s the only way he can save himself from being hanged for murder.” He turned to me. “Craig,” he said, “you’ve just got to get there. Don’t let him beat you on the last stretch. You and Gerda have got to reach the Southern Cross camp.”

It meant that we should have to follow Bland’s tracks. I had no illusions about the man. Somewhere along the route he would abandon Vaksdal and Keller. And if he did reach the Southern Cross camp and we didn’t, then there’d be no rescue party for the survivors on the iceberg.

The three of us remained in the tent all day, conserving our energies and eating enormously. As we lay there, warm and well fed, the iceberg assumed the friendliness of a home. In contrast, the trek that was to begin the next day seemed more and more frightening.

That night, shortly after our evening meal, the flap of the tent was pulled back and Judie’s voice, very low, almost scared, said, “Can I come in a moment, Duncan?”

She crawled in, caught hold of my hand, and fell, sobbing, into my arms, her cold cheek against mine, her body trembling. At length she said. “I have been so stupid. All this time — I have wasted it, lying in my tent being miserable. And now—” She kissed me and lay close against me, quietly crying. It was as though Bland’s departure had freed her from the thing that had lain so heavy on her mind.

At length she said, “You must sleep now. I shan’t watch you leave tomorrow. I’ll say good-by here.” She kissed me, her fingers caressing my beard. Then she said, “I don’t think we shall meet again, Duncan — not in this world. Will you please remember that I... love you always? And I’ll be with you out there... if it helps.” She stretched her hand across to Gerda. “Good-by. Gerda,” she said. “I wish I were coming with you to find my father.” She kissed Gerda. Then she kissed me again. The flap of the tent dropped back. She was gone.

Gerda touched my hand. “You must get through. Duncan... for her. You must go on, whatever happens. You understand?”

I didn’t say anything. I understood what she meant. Decisions like that couldn’t be taken in the comfort of a full stomach and a warm tent. That was for the next day and the days and days of weary ice that lay ahead.

At last the world was silent and still. There was nothing but the ice and the cold. The awful polar winter was upon us, and we were marooned at the southern end of the earth.

Our mother ship, the Southern Cross, had been crushed in the ice. The survivors had removed plenty of stores to their camp, but the little group of which I, Duncan Craig, was one, was starving. We could only guess in which direction the Southern Cross camp lay. We had been aboard small whale-catching vessels — Judie Bland, her despicable husband Erik, Gerda Petersen, Walter Ho we and I — until Erik’s mad hatred had led him to wreck us. Bland had murdered Bernt Nordahl, his wife’s and Walter Howe’s father, and, rather than return to civilization and face justice, he chose to make us all die together on the ice, with the crews of our vessels. To make us still more helpless, Bland had the only guns in the party. We had worked together in the desperate hours when the icebergs had been about to crush us — in fact, Bland had quite heroically led the way for us to get on one of the surging ice mountains. But now that the gale had abated and the ice froze us in, he wanted to destroy us.

The only chance was for one of us to strike out for the Southern Cross camp. It was decided that I should go. But Bland beat us to it. He set out on skis, with two of the crew. The rest of us could not stop him. All I could do was follow his tracks, and hope to avoid his bullets.

Gerda and Kalstad, a crew member, were to accompany me. We lay in our tents, conserving our energy for this last desperate dash in the morning. Judie came to me and kissed me good-by.

“I do not think we shall meet again, Duncan — not in this world,” she said.

The next morning as soon as it was light, we started out. We carried food for six days, a little tobacco, a pair of skis, one length of rope, a small portable stove with a little fuel, tent, blanket sleeping bags and a change of clothes. All this was piled on one sledge. The morning was very still and our breath hung round us like a cloud of steam. The sun came up as we went down the ledge and the world turned gold with an orange band along the horizon. Most of the men turned out to see us off. They came with us as far as the bottom of the ledge and a ragged cheer went up as we lowered ourselves to the broken surface of the pack ice. Our sledge was lowered after us, and then McPhee, who had climbed down with us to help get the sledge onto the ice, gripped my hand.

“Good luck, sir,” he said.

“We’ll be back with whale meat within a fortnight,” I said. I spoke loudly and with a confidence I did not feel in order to encourage the men. “If we’re not back by then.” I said to him privately, “do the best you can.”

“Och, ye’ll find ’em,” he said. “Dinna worry a boot us. Maybe the berg will break out into the open sea yet.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and picked up the sledge ropes. Gerda was saying a last farewell to Howe, who’d scrambled down beside us. Kalstad and I started out with the sledge along the track that Bland and his party had blazed.

Howe called after me, “Craig, you’ve got to get through! If Bland gets through alone—” He didn’t finish, but I knew what was in his mind.

I waved my hand in acknowledgment and Kalstad and I began to wind our way through the hummocks of snow-covered ice. Gerda caught us up, and in a moment the three of us were swallowed into a strange world of ice — an iridescent fairyland of silence.

As we wound our way through the great humps of ice we caught occasional glimpses of the iceberg. Once I saw a figure I thought was Judie waving to me. I waved back and then turned my face resolutely to the west. It was surprising how quickly the iceberg was lost to view in that broken plain.

I am familiar, as I’ve no doubt you are, with the great ice treks of polar exploration. In execution and design, our trek across the ice was in no way comparable. I realize that. But in fairness to my companions — both of whom are dead — I must make it clear that what we suffered was little short of what the great explorers suffered in the most desperate of their journeys. We weren’t explorers. We were ship-wrecked sailors with shipboard clothes, and sledges made out of bits of packing cases, an old piece of canvas for a tent and short rations. Our only goal was to save our own lives and those of the men we’d left behind on the iceberg. We were going to try to find the survivors of a ship. We weren’t sure whether there were any survivors and we weren’t sure of the position in which it had gone down. In fact we were on a forlorn hope — a last desperate bid for life in which I don’t think any of us really believed.