Death on the ice, p.16
Death on the Ice, page 16
‘And you are the biggest bloody fool of all. You give me words, I’ll give them back to you tenfold.’
Scott felt his anger drain away and trepidation replace it. Shackleton had never been the most mature of men as far he was concerned, often quick to take offence, but this was something new. Something irrational. He spoke slowly and clearly. ‘No slight was intended. Nor did I mean to deprive you of company.’
‘Then Billy Boy steers.’
‘Bill steers.’
That afternoon they were visited by an exotic beauty. It was a vision so extraordinary it tested their credulity, making them wonder if hunger was fostering hallucinations on them. But they all saw the same thing. It began with a sudden drop in temperature that forced them to close all fastenings and pulls on their clothing and yank down their caps. Then the air took on a strange, hazy quality. The sun dimmed so rapidly, it was almost possible to look at it without the goggles.
‘Ice crystals,’ said Shackleton, attempting to grab a handful from the air in front of him.
Now Scott could feel them on his face, a million tiny needle points. Colours began to dance in the cloud that enveloped them, light broken apart by the prismatic effect of the crystals and water droplets. Then, lines and circles and arcs dissected the heavens, as if God was playing with a geometry set. A glowing double halo embraced the sun and, above it, hovering to the left and right, were two other discs.
‘Mock suns,’ Scott said. ‘I’ve heard of them, but never—’
He had to stop as more strange lines appeared, glowing links joining real sun to false sun. Wilson appeared running at their side, breathless. ‘Do you see it? I must sketch it. It’s magnificent.’
So they halted while Wilson carefully set down a record of the phenomenon, and marvelled at the shifting hues both in the sky and all around them. Now and then, despite themselves, they reached out to try to touch some dancing fire or dark shadow, but it dissolved away, to be replaced by an apparition even more beautiful and ethereal. They felt privileged to be seeing the phenomenon, as if nature was putting on a three-man show, just for them.
That night Dr Edward Wilson went snow-blind.
Twenty-two
The Curragh, Ireland
LAWRENCE OATES STRIPPED OFF his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves and began with Sorry Kate’s hoofs, noting that she would have to be re-shod soon. He cleaned her cornets and began brushing her down, enjoying the feel of the animal’s muscles rippling with pleasure as he did so.
Oates had cancelled his racing entries for two months following the demise of Mr Daniels. Animals died, he was quite sanguine about that, but the manner of their dying concerned him. So, during the week he attended the veterinarians’ course in Galway, where practical ability accounted for three quarters of the final mark, and he spent the weekends back at the Curragh riding Sorry Kate and then grooming her. They had enjoyed a decent canter that morning, before a slanting drizzle had blown in from the West.
While he brushed, he sang softly:
I’m Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten-thirty
And reach Kempton Park around three.
I stand by the rail, when a horse is for sale
And you ought to see Wooton watch me.
I lean on some awning, while Lord Derbys yawning,
Then he bids two thousand and I bid Good Morning.
I’m Bert, Bert, I’d buy one, a Cert,
But where would I keep it, you know?
I can’t let my man see me in bed with a gee-gee
I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow.
‘Oates.’
He looked up to see his old friend Culshaw, now a captain.
‘Sir.’
‘Oh, knock that off, Titus. How are you?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘I hear you passed your horse veterinarian’s examination.’
Oates shrugged. ‘I’ve had nothing official yet.’
Culshaw gave a broad grin. ‘I did a stint as the colonel’s adjutant, remember? I hear you have passed your horse veterinarian’s exam.’
He had been reading Sterling’s papers. ‘Oh. Good.’
‘I also heard you reduced the examiner to tears.’
Oates had to smile at the memory. His written exam had, of course, been borderline, so for his viva he had been required to criticise some poor nag they had brought out. He had been very thorough in his appraisal and critical of the conditions that could have been cured. ‘Keeping an animal in discomfort just so someone can diagnose summer itch is not right in my opinion. I told him that. Quite strongly, I fear. I thought they must fail me.’
‘Apparently not.’
There was something about the way the captain had his arms wrapped around his body that concerned Oates. He was shivering, too.
‘Are you all right, Culshaw? Are you ill?’
A heavier downpour began, beating on the stables’ iron roof with an insistent pulse.
‘Bit of trouble in town.’
‘The pox?’
‘Oh, I wish. That would be easy. I’d go and see one of those witches in Temple Bar for a few powders. Look, I hope you don’t mind me talking like this. Don’t know who else to speak to. You’ve always been a good sort. Hold up.’
They watched the Saunterer, the horse named after his boat, being led in by Trooper O’Neill who had taken him out to the gallops. Both were drenched, but O’Neill had a smile on his face.
‘How was he?’ Oates asked.
‘Very good, sir. Very keen.’ O’Neill wiped the moisture from his eyes. ‘He’ll make a fine hunter.’
‘Good. Just take the saddle off and throw a blanket over him, I’ll be there in a while.’ Oates turned back to Culshaw, his voice low. ‘It’s a girl, then.’
‘That obvious, eh?’
‘Usually is. Pox or a girl. How far gone?’
‘Two months, perhaps.’
‘Marry her?’
Culshaw snorted louder than Sorry Kate. ‘I have a fiancée.’
‘Fiancées can be unhad.’
Culshaw shook his head. ‘Not this one.’
‘Babies can be unhad.’
‘Catholic.’
‘Oh Lord, Culshaw.’
The captain hissed at him. ‘It’s all right for you, Oates, you’ve always kept your pecker in your pants. The rest of us don’t have that luxury—’
‘Or don’t choose to.’
The captain snarled now. ‘Whatever. What can I do? She’s from a good family.’
‘Do you love your fiancée?’
‘I suppose. She’s one of the Caldwells.’
Oates didn’t know who the Caldwells were, but no doubt they were another prominent family on a par with the Sheffield Steel Culshaws. ‘And this Irish girl?’
The wistful look on his face and the glint in his eyes gave the answer. ‘There you are, then. You choose love.’
‘You don’t fully appreciate what that would mean at home, it would ruin me to be with this girl. Her family is nothing away from the bogs.’
‘You are ruined either way, Culshaw. Go with the one where your duty lies.’
The captain frowned. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I won’t breathe a word. And there are places where she can be confined, you know.’
‘I am aware of that, Titus. But it’s hardly your area of expertise, is it? Women, I mean. Forget I mentioned it, would you? There’s a good chap. You don’t understand.’
Oates waited till Culshaw had gone before he muttered: ‘Don’t I?’
He returned his attentions to Sorry Kate, brushing with even more vigour. Culshaw’s dilemma took him back to his own. The meeting with the mother superior had been another dead end. Edie Roslin, the girl he sought, had left no trace of her passing in the convent or any other such establishment.
‘You heard about the orders, sir?’ Trooper O’Neill asked as he walked past.
‘No. Not another khaki jacket?’ Oates replied and the private laughed. There had been five changes of jacket style in the last year, with the fifth one being remarkably similar to the first. The British Army, Oates had decided, was totally cracked.
‘There’s to be a detachment of the sixteenth deployed in Belfast. But they—’
O’Neill stopped and looked around for any stray ears of rank. It was amazing how the men often knew more than the officers and spreading gossip—no matter how accurate—was frowned upon.
‘Go on, you can tell me. I won’t spill the beans.’
‘No, I know that, sir. They say it’s only a stop-off. Belfast, I mean. Not much call for cavalry there. It appears that the unit in question is to join a squadron to go to Egypt.’
‘Egypt? Really? What’s happening there?’
‘Turks have taken some of it, so I hear. And a few uppity tribes need a taste of the lance.’
‘Egypt,’ Oates said, mainly to himself. ‘That might be something to see. The pyramids and the Nile.’
O’Neill winked salaciously. ‘An’ a lot more, so I hear from thems that been there.’
Oates remembered he had been due to go before the committee of the Kildare Hunt, with a view to a post as chief whip. ‘Do they hunt there, do you think?’
‘I dunno. Desert, innit? Do you get foxes in deserts? But there’s a racetrack in Cairo. I know that. And polo grounds.’
‘Is there, indeed? Yes, that rings a bell. Where did you get all this from? About the orders?’
O’Neill looked slightly abashed. ‘The Cork Examiner, mostly.’
‘Ah. Well, it must be true, mustn’t it?’
Detecting a note of scepticism, O’Neill said: ‘Well, those papers often seem to know what we doin’ before we do. They get tip-offs from the War Office, so Corporal Houghton says.’
‘I’m sure the Corporal of the Horse is right.’
He slipped O’Neill a sixpence for giving the Saunterer a workout, retrieved his jacket and headed out for a word with Higgins, the squadron corporal quartermaster. As always, he’d know what was really afoot and how best to get his name on the list for attachment. At that moment, with chill rain squalls hammering on the roof and the trail of Edie colder than ever, Egypt didn’t seem like too bad an option. At least it would be warm.
Twenty-three
The Great Ice Barrier, Antarctica
SCOTT FOUND HIMSELF YELLING impatiently. ‘Keep still, man. Keep your hands from your eyes.’
Wilson was lying in his sleeping bag, his feet thrashing, his face screwed up in agony. He had been grinding his knuckles into his eye sockets, and Scott had smacked them away. Now he was leaning over Wilson, examining his corneas, which looked like a river delta drawn in capillaries. ‘I’m going to put some of the cocaine in there.’
‘Don’t touch the eye,’ pleaded Wilson.
‘Shackle, hold his arms.’
Scott fetched the small vial of cocaine solution from Wilson’s medical kit. They had all had some symptoms of snow-blindness, mainly the scratchy, sand-in-the-eye sensation, which caused agony when blinking. Wilson’s, though, was by far the worse case; it was likely the glare had burnt the retina. He said it was as if someone had scored the conjunctiva with a razor blade and then thrown salt into the wounds.
‘I’m going to try and lift up the lid so I can get the liquid under it.’
‘Be careful.’
Scott had only touched the puffy membrance when Wilson let out a yelp. One of the dogs replied from outside with a heartfelt howl.
‘How come the blasted huskies don’t get it?’ Wilson moaned. ‘They don’t have goggles.’ But he knew they had nictitating membranes, a third eyelid, to help protect their corneas.
‘Look, Billy, Christmas tomorrow,’ said Shackle, his voice low and raspy from serving his continuous tickly cough. ‘You’ll need your eyes for that.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Wilson, with uncharacteristic cynicism, ‘I wouldn’t want to miss the tree and decorations. Aargh. Scott, you bloody oaf.’
Scott had never witnessed Wilson swearing before. It was as unlikely as hearing his mother curse. ‘All right. Doctor, heal thy self. Do you want to do it?’
Wilson stopped squirming. ‘Sorry, Con. Go ahead.’
Scott managed to prise the lid up enough to squirt a good dose of the cocaine into the eye. ‘There. I’ll do the zinc sulphate later.’
Wilson continued to roll about and complain for a few minutes, but soon the drug had the desired effect, numbing the pain. Shackleton indicated they should go outside. The dogs stirred, expecting food, but the pair walked on, automatically striding further south, if only for a few paces. ‘We’ll have to take another dog soon,’ Scott said.
‘We?’ Shackleton said, bemused.
‘It’s a sordid business. But I’ll give it a go.’
‘You’d mess it up, skip. You have to be bold, so Billy said.’ He mimed stabbing with a ferociousness that made Scott flinch.
‘We are going to be pretty short to the Pole, aren’t we?’
They both examined the great exuberance of mountains and ice fields that lay to the West. Appropriately enough, much of the dusting over the soaring peaks seemed like marzipan on a Christmas cake.
‘We have to find a way to get past those first. It’s like God is guarding his crown jewel, keeping the Pole from human eyes.’
On the few occasions they had deviated and headed for land, their route had always been blocked by fearsome fields of ice-blocks and dizzying crevasses crossed only by unstable snow bridges. Even when they were roped together and climbing with ice axes, the obstacles defeated them.
‘Should we turn?’ Shackleton asked. ‘Given Billy’s eyes?’
‘The noon latitude was eighty-one point thirty-three South,’ Scott reminded him.
‘And you want eighty-two.’ It wasn’t really a question.
A muffled moan came from inside the tent. Surely the cocaine would last longer than that?
‘I do. You don’t?’
‘What does Billy think?’
‘A little further.’
‘Did he say that before or after his eyes were replaced by hot coals?’
‘He’ll walk blindfold if he has to.’
‘I know he will,’ replied Shackleton. ‘But should he have to?’ He tapped his cotton jacket. Through all his layers he could still feel his ribs. Stabs of deep pain, too wretched to be mere hunger, were plaguing his abdomen. He felt as if he were consuming himself from within. ‘We’re starving, skipper. You know that.’
Scott nodded. His urine was a strange colour now, and he could tell his muscles were wasting. ‘Yes. But we have plenty at Depot B for when we turn. It needs to be a little blacker before we give in.’
Shackleton resisted the urge to laugh in his face. His own lungs and throat were burning. Wilson was blind and Scott, with his hollow cheeks and burnt, wrinkled skin, looked like an old man. They’d all either chipped or cracked teeth on semi-thawed seal meat and could only sleep with heavily tightened belts. How much blacker did it need to be? But having been the one who curtailed the expedition last time, he kept his silence.
Scott interpreted the lack of reply as agreement. ‘So we go on. We should feed the dogs and make supper while Bill’s quiet.’
‘Yes.’
‘And put your goggles on if you are going to stare at the ice.’
‘I will.’ But Shackleton stayed where he was, watching the clouds scurry over the corkscrewed mountains, feeling a sharp blast on his face, stinging like shotgun pellets. He pulled the improvised windguard on his helmet forward. A wire ring held the cloth a few inches away from the face, so that he now saw life down a canvas tube. But it cut the exposure and the chance of frost-nip. Shackleton spoke to himself softly, reciting the poem he had written during the long night that now seemed so distant: ‘We leave our pleasant homelands, for the roaring south-east winds, all words of love and friendship, for yearning hearts and minds, for clasps of loving fingers, dreams must alone.’
He saw fingers of spindrift reaching out from the distinctive peak they had christened Mt Longstaff; a pair of them, like the devil’s horns. All around him the surface ice blew like sand, a fine mist tracking over the wastes. As the same wind found the cracks in his clothes, he prayed his mentor and sponsor would never be unlucky enough to see his namesake.
Shackleton took four paces, opened the front of his britches and, careful to cup exposed flesh in the fur of his mittens, made the snow yellow. He’d already had a bad bout of diarrhoea, and a frost-dappled arse to show for it. He didn’t want anything else on his body turning black and blistering. That would be rather difficult to explain to Emily on their wedding night.
He realised rather guiltily that it was some days since he had thought of her. Over winter, especially when he read mildly erotic verses on the Discovery, she had been a constant presence. As for most of the men, Gilbert’s turn as a cabin girl during the winter shows had aroused in him old urges. But Emily’s spectral presence hadn’t followed him out on to the barrier. Starvation had the effect of diminishing sexual hunger.
‘There’s not sufficient here for the dogs,’ he heard Scott yell. ‘Wolf’s pretty much gone.’
‘Brownie?’ Shackleton shouted back as he fastened himself up.
‘Brownie,’ Scott confirmed.
‘I’ll do it.’
‘You sure?’
Shackleton mumbled his reply. ‘One of us has to be man enough to do it. And they call Royds girlish.’ Then he raised his voice again. ‘No problem, skipper.’
Shackleton sighed, coughed, and went to fetch the blood-marked scalpel from the sledge. He hoped he got Brownie’s heart first dig.
Shackleton didn’t write up his account of Christmas Day till the twenty-sixth, after he had milked his companions’ surprise at his resourcefulness for all it was worth. Against all odds, the spirit of the day really did descend on the tent. Wilson recovered in one eye and managed with a bandage on the other, so he looked like a sun-ravaged pirate.
Shackleton smiled at the memory of his friends’ faces and, while the Boxing Day breakfast cooked, he jotted into his notebook:
