Authors: Peter Lerangis
Antarctica
Escape from Disaster
Peter Lerangis
For David Levithan
Mystery,
as of January 10, 1910:
Jack Winslow
— expedition leader
Elias Barth
— captain
Peter Mansfield
— second in command and chief navigator
Colin Winslow
— third in command
John Siegal
— first mate
Luis Rivera
— second mate
Andrew Douglas Winslow
— junior officer
Dr. Ross Montfort
— general physician
Dr. Harold Riesman
— veterinarian
Dr. Frank Nesbit
— biologist
Harv Talmadge
— meteorologist
Jacques Petard
— physical instructor and chaplain
David Ruskey
— photographer
Kosta Kontonikolaos
— dog handler
Sam Bailey, Pete Hayes, Vincent Lombardo, Mike Sanders, Chris Ruppenthal, Bruce Cranston, George Oppenheim, James Windham, Robert
(last name unknown) — able seamen
Tim O’Malley
— able seaman/second cook
Hank Brillman
— electrician
Wyman Kennedy
— carpenter
Horst Flummerfelt
— machinist
Rick Stimson
— cook
Philip Westfall
— helpmeet at large
Nigel
(last name unknown) — stowaway
Chionni, Demosthenes, Dimitriou, Eleni, Fotis, Iosif, Herd, Kalliope, Kristina, Maria, Martha, Megalamatia, Michalaki, Nikola, Panagiotis, Pericles, Plutarchos, Socrates, Sounion, Stavros, Yiorgos, Zeus
— dogs
Deceased:
Dr. David Shreve
— geologist
(fell into
crevasse, November 20, 1909, during
sledge journey toward South Pole)
Thirteen dogs:
Aspros, Galactobouriko, Hera, Hercules, Kukla, Loukoumada, Plato, Skylaki, Taki, Taso
(with
Shreve); Tsitsifies, Vrechi, Yanni
(of dysentery)
Trapped
1
Andrew
A
NDREW PUT DOWN
his pencil. Blood oozed from the broken, coal-black skin on his index finger and dripped onto the page. He lay back and let the notebook fall open on his chest. The cut throbbed, sharp and unrelenting. All his sores did— on his hands, wrists, face, feet.
The
Mystery
’s afterhold had become a makeshift hospital. The entire South Pole crew had required treatment upon returning, but now only Kosta, Lombardo, Oppenheim, and Andrew remained belowdecks.
Outside, the crew pounded on the ice that trapped the ship. Captain Barth’s voice was clear through four feet of hull:
“Put your weight into it
,
men!”
Andrew wanted to rise up and help — step outside, grip an ax in his frostbitten palms, and hack with the best of them. He was different now. The trip across the continent had changed him. He wasn’t the kid they thought he was: the expedition leader’s stepson. A dreamer. A bookworm. A sixteen-year-old landlubber playing sailor.
But he couldn’t very well prove it in the after-hold.
Andrew had learned the unspoken lessons of the sailors. Every day was a battle — position and planning, strategy and tactics. Life was about survival. Using the enemy’s strength to your advantage. Trimming your sails against a strong head wind, lowering them before a storm. Finding shelter under a pressure ridge and warmth in a cave of solid ice. Learning never to repeat your mistakes.
Andrew had fought his battle and lost. He had collapsed leading a dog sledge across the continent, with no reliable navigation and a partner who could neither speak English nor walk.
The sledge had traveled onward without him, 200 yards before reaching the
Mystery.
If his stepbrother, Colin, hadn’t found him, Andrew would have frozen, his body preserved forever in an ice cap that would push northward and eventually send him, encased in an iceberg, out to sea.
Andrew was grateful to Colin. Everyone was.
Colin had foiled Nigel and Philip’s mutiny. The crew respected Colin.
We knew he had it in him,
they all said;
he was just waiting for the right opportunity.
But they weren’t saying that before November. Colin had been a thorn in everyone’s side, surly and lazy. He’d been against this trip from the beginning. He felt it was wrong to leave New York so soon after his stepmother had died. It showed that Jack was obsessed and coldhearted.
But Colin hadn’t seen the truth, as Andrew had. Mother would have said
go.
Better to roll up your sleeves and follow your dream instead of moping while it faded away.
But what happened when you followed the dream and failed — when a glorious quest ended in mishaps, bad judgment, death, and disaster?
You bled. Your body suffered hypothermia and starvation. You were bedridden with the lame, the weak, and the crazy. You had everyone’s sympathy.
You didn’t have respect.
Andrew swung his legs around. The mission may have failed, but he would get the respect he deserved. He wouldn’t let them treat him as if he were a child. A
child
couldn’t revive an entire expedition when its members had nearly frozen to death in a cave. A child didn’t save the life of a man determined to die, the way Andrew had when Kosta insisted he be left to freeze with his dogs.
A child didn’t sit and stew when there was work to be done.
Holding tight to the wooden bunk frame, Andrew eased himself off the bedding. The last time he’d tried to walk, three days ago, he couldn’t support his own weight.
His feet hit the deck solidly. Slowly he released his fingers from the frame. His knees did not buckle. He walked in a circle, testing his leg muscles. Painful, but not excruciating. He felt a little dizzy, but that was to be expected. His belly, around which he’d had to cinch his trouser waist with a rope, now felt a bit flabby, if that was possible.
His ankles still had open sores, and his hands and face stung. But cuts didn’t kill. Quickly he put on three pairs of socks, then slipped on his boots, parka, and hat. He wrapped clean bandages around his hands before putting on gloves.
“Andreou, fìlos mou,”
Kosta said,
“pou pas?”
Andrew recognized that expression.
Where are you going?
“Epàno,”
Andrew replied.
Up.
“Etsi bravo!”
Kosta cheered Andrew’s vocabulary but his expression instantly turned to dismay, and he protested in a rapid staccato of words that Andrew neither understood nor obeyed as he climbed abovedecks.
The sunlight’s glare hurt more than the cold. Andrew pulled a pair of goggles from his pocket and put them on. The straps felt like metal files.
The ship’s dogs scampered outside their kennels, which lined both port and starboard sides, crowding the deck. There were only twenty-two of the original thirty-five; six had been lost on the journey to the South Pole, seven more on the retreat. The survivors were beginning to gain weight now, and as Andrew hobbled across the deck they fought over penguin pemmican and scraps of seal meat.
