Хэммонд Иннес - Calling the Southern Cross!

The iceberg had broken out of the pack in a gale on April tenth. The ledge on which their camp was situated then faced straight into the wind. Swept by icy spray from the waves that thundered against the berg, they clung precariously to life for twenty-four hours. Then the berg swung round so that their ledge was sheltered from the wind. They had already decked in the boats with pieces of packing cases and canvas.

They now recut the ledge, and on the afternoon of the eleventh, when the gale had begun to subside, they ran the boats down the ice slipway with the crews in them, letting them take the water like lifeboats being launched from a shore station.

In the mountainous waves and the almost continual gloom, the four boats were soon swept apart and separated. For ten days they drove northward toward South Georgia, their scraps of sail driving them pell-mell through the water on the crests of the waves and hanging slack for lack of wind in the troughs.

Eide, in his radioed report of the boat journey, said: “I have never experienced such hardship during my thirty-two years at sea. There was a crew of six to each boat. There was no place to sleep. We were constantly bailing for our lives and chipping away at the ice that coated the boat and threatened to sink her. Only once was I able to shoot the sun and check my navigation. It was so cold that men froze stiff as boards at the tiller and could not move their limbs until they had been well rubbed to restore the circulation. By the fifth day we were suffering badly from exposure and there were cases of frostbite. The fear that I should make an error in navigation, miss South Georgia and drive on into the Atlantic was constantly with me.”

They experienced one had gale. And then, late on the tenth day, they sighted the southeastern tip of South Georgia, and in the morning, as they sailed up the northern side of the island they saw Vaksdal’s boat following about a mile behind them.

These were, in fact, the only two boats to get through. What happened to the others we shall never know. Maybe they missed South Georgia and drove on into the Atlantic. Maybe they were swamped or the men became too weakened to chip the ice off and they just capsized. The catchers sent out from Grytviken to search for them reported nothing, not even wreckage.

Meanwhile messages were pouring in to the Nord Hvalstasjon. The attention of the whole world had suddenly Income focused on this lonely whaling outpost. Eide found himself with offers of assistance from a dozen different countries. But they were all useless. Within a few weeks the pack ice would have moved north with the winter and the iceberg would be beset again. There would be no hope of rescue then until next summer, and he knew that those on the iceberg could not survive the winter. His only hope was the Pingvin.

This little vessel arrived at Grytviken on the twenty-second and began refueling at once. It left in the early hours of the twenty-third with Eide and Eriksen on board. Before he left, Eide had radioed a full account of the disaster and the names of the survivors on the iceberg. This was the first intimation we had that an Englishman, Duncan Craig, was in command of the survivors.

There followed an anxious period of waiting. The catchers searching for the two missing boats were forced by heavy storms to return to Grytviken. No messages were received from the Pingvin. The ship was held up by loose pack and heavy seas, and though we didn’t know it at the time, Jacobsen, the captain, insisted on turning back early on the twenty-sixth. Only the pleading of Eide and Eriksen persuaded him to risk his ship and his men a few hours more in those terrible seas.

On the evening of that same day came the first piece of good news. A radio message from Grytviken reported: “Pingvin has sighted iceberg. Pack ice heavy and weather conditions bad.”

After that, nothing. For more than twenty-four hours Grytviken had nothing to report. Newspapers began running gloomy accounts of conditions in the Antarctic in late April, and as the hours of waiting passed and still there was no news, fears grew that the rescue attempt would fail.

Then, just after midday on the twenty-eighth, the teleprinters began clacking out the news for which the public had been waiting:

ICEBERG SURVIVORS RESCUED. OSLO APRIL 38 REUTER: MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM STATION. RELIEF SHIP PINGVIN STATES ALL SURVIVORS OK SOUTHERN CROSS MAROONED ON ICEBERG NOW SAFE. PACK ICE AND HEAVY SEAS DELAYED RESCUE OPERATIONS. SURVIVORS SAY CONDITIONS VERY BAD ON ICEBERG IN OPEN WATER OWING TO HEAVY SEAS BREAKING OVER LEDGE CAMP AND FREEZING.

REUTER 1317

Well, that is the end of the story of the Southern Cross disaster. There is little more to add, except that now, just over a year after it all happened, a new Southern Cross is building at Belfast. It is to cost over £2,500,000 and is expected to be ready for next season. The South Antarctic Whaling Company still has its offices on Fenchurch Street. Only the list of directors has changed. Sir Frederick Sands, well-known financier, is the new chairman, and Duncan Craig is on the board.

Judie Bland is now Judie Craig. They were married in Cape Town on their way back from South Georgia, and according to Craig, most of South Africa turned out for the wedding. Besides being a director of the company, Duncan Craig sails as master of Southern Cross II when the South Antarctic’s next expedition leaves in October. Eide, who was cleared of all blame for the disaster, is already in the Antarctic as master of another factory ship.

It is unlikely that Judie Craig will make another trip to the White South. Already she is a mother, and she and Duncan have charming hours looking out over the Falmouth estuary, where they spend the summer months sailing. There is nothing now to remind them of the terrible hardships they suffered except a series of beautiful ice studies presented to them by Aldo Bonomi. And most treasured of all, a picture of Gerda Petersen taken just before the start of the trek across the ice. It faces you in the wide entrance hall as you go in, so that no one can enter their house without meeting her.