Хэммонд Иннес - Calling the Southern Cross!

The trek east, back along the trail we had come, was painfully slow. For the first three days we just made the single journey from camp to camp. We carried nothing and could take our time, for Kyrre’s men, when they’d pitched the next camp, had to go back for the second lot of sledges. On the fourth day Vaksdal and I were sufficiently recovered to pull our weight on the single journey. Keller was still weak. But the next day, he, too, was pulling the single journey, while we had progressed to the full three trips between camps. With an abundance of regular food my strength quickly returned.

Slowly the line of icebergs came up over the horizon. I began to dread their approach, for when we reached them I should have to tell Howe about Gerda’s death. And I didn’t want to do that. Eide would have broken it to him, but he still would want to hear how it happened from my own lips. What could I possibly say to him? I remembered that scene on the ledge when he’d renounced his right to accompany Gerda. He’d committed her to my charge. Only one thing consoled me — that was that she died without knowing that her father had been killed. But that wouldn’t help me with Howe.

I could see his features quite distinctly as I trudged through the ice, leaning my weight on the sledge ropes. I could see the bitter look coming back into his face. And when we got back — if we got back — he’d start drinking again. Drink was all that was left to him. It would kill him in the end, and somehow I didn’t want him to go like that.

At last we could see the whole of our own iceberg. With my inflamed eyes I looked through Kyrre’s glasses and saw the ledge on which our camp should be. Perhaps we were too far away, but my heart sank as I saw no sign of life, no dark smudge that could be the boats and stores.

But at midday the following day — that is, on April ninth — we saw figures coming toward us across the snow. I thought, It’s Eide coming back. They’re all dead. I wasn’t worrying about Howe then. I was thinking of Judie and there was an awful ache in my heart. Then the figures were waving to us and shouting. My stabbing eyeballs couldn’t recognize them. I dropped the sledge ropes and broke into a stumbling run toward them.

There were about half a dozen of them, and the first one I recognized was Eide. I was sure then that the others were dead. He caught hold of my arm, grinning and slapping me on the shoulder. Then he pulled one of the others forward, and the next instant Judie was sobbing and laughing in my arms.

And when I looked at her, she was no longer thin and emaciated. She looked well fed and fit, except for the tears that ran down her cheeks. “I thought you were dead,” she said through sobs of laughter. “Then Captain Eide came and told us you were all right. Oh, Duncan, I didn’t want to go on without you. I couldn’t have faced it without you.”

I had my arms tight round her. She was trembling. The cold air seemed suddenly warmer and I no longer felt tired. “The others?” I asked. “Are they all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, everyone’s fine. Except Walter.”

“Except Walter?” I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Two days after you left,” she said. “Only two days, and thousands of penguins appeared on the ice round the berg. Migrating or something. We killed over two hundred in one day and more the next. We were roiling in food. We tried to make signals. But you didn’t see. Then Walter went after you. He went in the night without telling anyone. In the morning we could see him going out along the trail of your sledge. Eide says he didn’t find you.”

“No,” I said. A great weight seemed to have been taken off my mind. Howe was dead. He was safe from the bitterness of life. He was dead and I didn’t have to tell him about Gerda.

“There’s open sea within five miles of us.”

I was thinking about Howe and I didn’t take that in until she repeated it. “We’re drifting north and the ice is breaking up. If there’s a gale, the iceberg may break through the pack in a matter of days.”

I turned to Eide. “Is this true?” I asked incredulously. “Is there a chance of the iceberg breaking out?”

“Not only a chance,” Eide answered. “It’s a certainty. We’ll be able to launch the boats inside a week.”

“And then?” I said, glancing around at the Southern Cross survivors.

He caught the drift of my thoughts. “And then we split up. We have boats. Chances of getting help. The rest must camp on the iceberg. One of the boats will surely get through.”

I turned and stared at the iceberg. It looked solid enough, but the open sea was different from the pack. It wasn’t going to be pleasant marooned on an island of ice swept by gales and the piled-up waves of the South Atlantic. And those tiny boats. Winter way closing in. There’d be gale after gale. What chance had they? The thought made me shudder. I thought again of the trip I’d just made — the futility of it. We had gone in the wild hope of bringing back meat, and two days after we’d left they’d had meat in abundance. Gerda and Howe need never have died, and Eide would have joined up with us anyway. But we hadn’t known that. Just as now we didn’t know whether or not a rescue boat would sight us on the iceberg we stayed there. And because we didn’t know, we’d have to attempt the impossible and sail those flimsy liftboats to South Georgia.

I put my arm round Judie’s shoulder and pressed her to me. It was worth it for her sake. But “I hope to God Fate doesn’t play us any more dirty tricks.”

She looked up at me quickly and realized I’d spoken aloud. Then at said, “You’re thinking of Gerda, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“She was a lovely person. But, you know, she wouldn’t have been happy without her father. Walter couldn’t fill his place in her life.” And then looked up and smiled. “I think we are all right now. Everything is going to work out.”

The sledges were moving forward again and we turned our faces toward the great castle of ice ahead of us... and the future. Behind the ice was the black cloudscape that marked the open sea. And beyond was South Georgia. One of the men began to sing. It was a Norwegian song I’d heard them singing on board ship, something about going home. In an instant it was taken up by the rest of the men, and the sledges slid forward to the swelling of men’s voices breaking the eternal silence of the ice with their challenge of hope and longing. The sound was thin in the limitless plain of pack ice, but it was indomitable and it sent a thrill of pride and courage through me. Judie was singing, too — singing for me, with her gray eyes laughing and her young body flung forward, straining on the ropes. And her words echoed in my ears, I think we are all right now. Everything is going to work out .

On April twenty-first a message from South Georgia put the name of the Southern Cross back in the headlines of the world’s newspapers. It was from Jan Eriksen, manager of the whaling station at Grytviken, to the offices of his company in Oslo, and read:

TWO BOATS CONTAINING SURVIVORS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS ARRIVED AT GRYTVIKEN.

Two hours later a further message was received containing the first news that there were survivors marooned on an iceberg in the Antarctic. This read:

TWO BOATS EACH CARRIED SIX SURVIVORS. COMMANDERS: HANS EIDE, EINAR VAKSDAL LISTS OF CREW TO FOLLOW, TWO FURTHER BOATS (KYRRE AND DAHLE) NOT YET ARRIVED. REMAINDER OF SURVIVORS, INCLUDING MRS. JUDIE BLAND, MAROONED ON ICEBERG IN OPEN WATER. POSITION 62 58S. 30 46W. FOUR CATCHERS DISPATCHED TO SEARCH FOR MISSING BOATS. ON ARRIVAL STATION RELIEF SHIP. PINGVIN. WILL ATTEMPT TO RESCUE SURVIVORS MAROONED ON ICEBERG.

Winter was closing in on the ice-capped island of South Georgia. In two days the whaling station would have been closed and the place deserted. Eide had made it with just two days to spare. It was an incredible story.