Хэммонд Иннес - Calling the Southern Cross!

That night Keller wanted to be left behind. He said he was too weak to go on. But we couldn’t leave him. There was only the one tent. We had to go on together or stop and die together. There is an entry in my log made that morning which reads:

We are going on. But this is the last day we can hope to move. Those on the iceberg will run out of food today. God help them.

Barely able to stand up for weakness, we made about a mile that morning. My eyes had become so bad that I could hardly see to lay a course. Keller was barely conscious as he stumbled on with his arms about our necks. At times he was actually delirious as he walked, babbling incoherently in Norwegian. Vaksdal and I were in little better case.

Shortly after midday we pitched our tent for the last time. It was while we were doing this that Vaksdal seized my arm and pointed into the snow glare. “Pingvin,” he croaked. Penguins? That meant food. I followed the line of his arm, screwing up my eyes against the glare. Several dark dots hovered in the mirage of the ice, waving their flippers. I picked up the rifle. God give me strength to shoot straight. The gun was incredibly heavy. The barrel wavered. I could not get the sights to stay for a second on the target. I told Vaksdal to kneel in the snow and I rested the barrel on his shoulder. The penguins were waving their flippers over their heads and vaguely, like sounds in a dream, I heard shouts. The trigger was heavy. I couldn’t see the sights properly and the shouts kept ringing in my ears.

Then suddenly I knew they weren’t penguins. Penguins didn’t wave their flippers over their heads. Those shouts were real. I dropped the gun and started forward. The figures melted, lost in a mirage of light that wavered uncontrollably. It was all a dream. There was no substance in those dark dots against the snow. I was delirious and imagining things. I knew this was the end even as I stumbled forward at a ridiculous wobbly run. I heard hoarse raven croaks coming from my throat. Then I stumbled and pitched forward. The snow was soft. A wonderful lethargy stole through me. I knew I must struggle to my feet. But I hadn’t strength. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to struggle any more. I remember I thought for a moment of Judie, dying of starvation up there on the ledge of the iceberg. But there was nothing I could do about it — nothing. I was finished. And slowly, luxuriously, unconsciousness came like a blanket to cover me.

I woke to warmth and the smell of food. A spoon was pushed between my cracked lips. I opened my eyes. Pain flamed at the back of my eyeballs. Captain Eide was bending over me. I couldn’t believe it at first. But there he was, forcing hot liquid between my teeth again, and I knew that I was alive and that I’d linked up with the survivors of the Southern Cross. His face came and went in front of me and I heard a croaking sound that was my own voice. There were things I had to tell him. But I kept losing the drift of what I wanted to say as I slipped back into unconsciousness.

I’m told I slept for sixteen hours. When I finally got my eyes open I found Kyrre, the second officer of the Southern Cross, in the tent beside me. The things I’d been frying to tell them rushed to the forefront of my mind.

“They have no food,” I croaked.

Kyrre put out his hand to steady me. The violent urgency of my voice must have shaken him. “It is all right, Craig,” he soothed me. “Lie down and rest. Kaptein Eide left yesterday, you know, with nine men. We are to follow.”

“But he doesn’t realize the urgency!” I cried excitedly. “He doesn’t know they are—”

He smiled and patted my arm as though I were a child. “He knows everything. You have been delirious. For hours you say nothing else but that they have no food and will die soon if no one reaches them. You are still telling us that, long after Eide has left. He has two sledges and a week’s meat for them and he is making forced marches. He tell me to say, do not worry. He will get there.”

“But the gap!” I cried. “He does not know there is a channel of water a quarter of a mile wide only a few miles to the east of us!”

“You tell us that also... many times.” Kyrre’s hand pressed me back. “You must rest, for soon we must start. We have sledges piled with whale meat and soon we must start.”

I thought of the long trek back over that frightful road to the iceberg. I knew I couldn’t make it. “Give us one man as guide and some food. We will go on to the Southern Cross camp. We shall only hinder you.”

But he shook his head. “You did not hear what Eide tell you last night. The Southern Cross camp is abandoned. You see, though we have an enormous quantity of meat and blubber, we have no boats. They were destroyed. So we go where the boats are. Each day we make a journey with half the sledges and then return for the other half. When we are too weak for this, we make a dump of half the sledges and go on with the others.”

“How many men have you?” I asked as I lay back.

“Forty-six, including those who have gone forward with Kaptein Eide.”

“The boats will not hold them,” I said, and added, “Even supposing we ever find open water to launch them in.”

“That is so. But we are agreed that everyone must be together. While the ice holds we shall continue to make journeys until all the meat is with the boats. So we may perhaps survive the winter, if we must. Sometime the iceberg must drift out of the pack. Then the fittest will try to reach South Georgia, as Shackleton did, and bring relief. It is our only hope.”

“Is Colonel Bland with him?” I asked.

But he shook his head. “Colonel Bland is dead. It was his heart. He died soon after Dahle reach us.”

“Dahle?” I stared at him. “Do you mean the mate of Hval Five?” He nodded. “He is gone on with Eide; now to the iceberg. He and two other men reach us early last month.”

“But how?”

“It seems they were swept away from you in the ice. They are on a floe berg. When it is quiet they find the Tauer Three camp. Then—”

“You mean the Tauer Three camp I was still there?” I interrupted him. He nodded.

So Erik Bland had been right. The icebergs would have missed him there. If he’d stayed he’d have had a chance of getting out alone. “Go on,” I said.

“There is not much to tell. They get food and shelter there and survive the storm. Then, when the weather clear, they see the oil smoke with which we try to signal to aircraft, and they join us. They are five days without food and the journey is terrible, I think. But they are all right.”

“What about you? What happened after the Southern Cross went down?”

“We lose our radio, so we cannot talk with the rescue ships. Then we were caught by one of the icebergs, as you were. Only a few survive. Olaf Petersen and the others are dead. Then Dahle tell us how you are on a ledge on an iceberg, with boats, and Eide start out with volunteers to reach you. But they are caught in a blizzard and have to turn back. We were beginning a second attempt with all the men when we are lucky enough to find you.”

I was beginning to feel tired again. Behind Kyrre I could just make out the emaciated features of Franz Weiner. And I thought how Gerda had gone, and Peer Larvik and Olaf Petersen. The good ones, the fighters — they’re always the ones that are sacrificed. I thought of Dunkirk and Salerno and Anzio and the ships that had gone down in convoys I’d escorted. It was always the fighters.

Next morning, after an early meal, all the tents but the one in which Vaksdal, Keller and I lay, were struck, and Kyrre set out with his men and the first convoy of sledges loaded with whale meat. One man was left behind to help us. We were to lie in for a bit and then come on in our own time.