The White South Page 2
By the middle of March winter was setting in. Conditions became very cold with new ice beginning to form. By the 22nd all search vessels had turned back. They refuelled at Grytviken in South Georgia and proceeded to their bases. By 15th April Jan Eriksen, factory manager of the Nord Hvalstasjon, Grytviken, reported to his company: All search vessels have now left Grytviken. Haakon and rest of Det Norske Hvalselskab fleet passed within 100 miles South Georgia yesterday on their way back to Capetown. There are now no vessels in the area of the tragedy. Winter is closing in. If any survivors are still alive, God help them—for no man can until summer. I am preparing to close down the station.
That report wrote finis to all attempts to rescue any possible survivors of the Southern Cross. It was dispatched to the offices of the Nord Syd Georgia Hvalselskab in Oslo and Eriksen began the work of closing the whaling station at Grytviken as the Antarctic winter closed in on the ice-capped island of South Georgia.
But the story doesn’t end there, for on 21st April, two days before he sailed with his men for Capetown, Eriksen radioed a message that set linotypes and presses the world over rolling out the name Southern Cross in great, flaring headlines. For, on the 21st April—
But this is Duncan Craig’s story. Let him tell it.
Duncan Craig’s Story
of the Loss of the ‘Southern Cross’, the Camp on the Iceberg, and the Trek that followed
I
I DID NOT actually join the Southern Cross until 17th January, only three weeks before the disaster occurred. Indeed, a month before that date, I was unaware of the existence of the ship or of the South Antarctic Whaling Company. I am not a whaler, and apart from a season’s work in Greenland with a university exploration club, I had never before been in high latitudes. I wish to make this point clear at the outset so that those who have long experience of Antarctic conditions and of whaling in particular will understand that what is familiar to them came to me with the impact of complete novelty. The reason I have been asked to set down a full account of all that occurred is due to the fact that, through circumstances largely outside my control, I was in close association with the personalities concerned in the disaster and know probably more about the real cause of what happened than anyone now living.
My connection with the events that led up to the loss of the Southern Cross began with the New Year. I was emigrating to South Africa and on the night of 1st January I was waiting in the offices of a private charter company at London Airport in the hopes of hitching a ride to Capetown. The decision to emigrate had been made on the spur of the moment. And if I’d known then where it was going to lead me, I’d have turned right back, pocketed my pride and resumed the routine of a clerk’s life in the offices of Messrs. Bridewell & Faber, tobacco importers of Mark Lane.
The flight was scheduled for 01.00 hours. The plane had been chartered by the South Antarctic Whaling Company for a Colonel Bland. There were five seats available and Bland’s party numbered three. That was all I knew. Tim Bartlett, the pilot of the aircraft, had tipped me off at a New Year’s Eve party the night before. As far as he was concerned it was okay. He’d take me. But it was up to me to talk my way into one of the two spare seats.
Bland arrived at twelve-thirty. He came into the terminal offices, stamping and blowing through his cheeks. “Is the plane ready?” he asked the clerk. His manner was peremptory. He had the air of a man always in a hurry. There were three other people with him—two men and a girl. A blast of cold air blew in through the open door and outside I saw a big limousine, its lights glistening on the wet tarmac. A uniformed chauffeur brought in their baggage. “The pilot’s waiting,” the clerk said. “If you’ll just sign these forms, Colonel Bland. And here’s a cable—arrived about half an hour ago.”
I watched his thick fingers rip at the cable envelope. He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on to his forehead and held the cable closer to the light. His eyes were hard under the tufty brows and his bluish jowls quivered slightly as he read. Then he swung round abruptly. “Here, read this,” he said to the girl. He held the flimsy cable sheet out and it shook slightly in his thick, hairy hand.
The girl came forward and took it. She was dressed in a pair of old slacks and a green woollen jersey. A lovely mink coat was draped carelessly over her shoulders. She looked tired and her face was pale under its make up. She read it through and then looked at Bland, her lips compressed into a thin line, her eyes blank.
“Well?” Bland’s voice was almost violent. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him and I saw she was trembling slightly. “Well?” he barked again. And then the violence inside him seemed to explode. “First you and now your father. What have you got against the boy?” His fist suddenly crashed down on the desk top. “I’ll not recall him. Do you hear? Your father had better learn to get along with him. Any more ultimatums like that and I’ll accept your father’s resignation. He’s not the only leader available.”
“He’s the only one that can get you the results you’ve been accustomed to,” she answered defiantly, a flush of anger colouring her cheeks.
Bland was about to reply, but then he saw me and stopped. He turned abruptly and seized the forms that the clerk had thrust towards him. His hand shook as he signed them. And as I watched him Capetown seemed to recede. I’d met his type before. He was the aggressive, self-made business man, even to the black hat and black overcoat with astrakhan collar. He was as hard as a lump of granite. And he looked as though he were on the verge of a nervous breakdown. To ask him for a lift in his plane would be like asking for the loan of a gold brick from the Bank of England. And the hell of it was that I’d burned my boats. I’d given up my rooms, requested my bank to transfer what little money I possessed to Capetown and the letter throwing up my job had been posted that afternoon.
As though he sensed that I was watching him, he suddenly turned and stared at me. His small blue eyes were distorted by the thick lenses of his glasses. “Are you just waiting for a plane, sir—or do you want to speak to me?” he demanded aggressively.
“I’m waiting for a plane,” I said.
He grunted, but didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Whether I get it depends on you,” I went on. “My name’s Craig—Duncan Craig. The pilot of your plane is a friend of mine. He told me there might be a spare seat and I was wondering whether you’d be—”
“You’re trying to scrounge a lift?”
The way he put it made me curl. But I kept a tight hold on my temper and said, “I’d very much like to come with you to Capetown.”
“Well, you can’t.”
And suddenly I didn’t care. Perhaps it was his manner—perhaps it was the way he’d spoken to the girl. “There’s no need to be offensive, Colonel Bland,” I said angrily. “All I asked for was a lift.” And I reached down for my bags.
“Just a minute,” he said. The violence seemed to have died out of him. As I looked up, he was leaning against the desk, his thick fingers tugging at the lobe of his left ear. “There are some two hundred thousand people waiting to get to South Africa. Why should I take you more than any of the others?”
“It happens that I’m the one that asked you. They didn’t.” I had picked up my bags now. “Forget it,” I said and moved towards the door.
“All right, Craig,” he said. “As it happens there is a spare seat. If the pilot vouches for you and you’re through the formalities in time, you can have it.”
He seemed to mean it. “Thanks,” I said and made for the door to the airfield.
“Check your bags and sign the papers,” he said. The abruptness was back in his voice.
“I’ve done all that,” I said. “I did it in advance—just in case.” I didn’t want him to think that I’d taken it for granted I’d get the lift.
His thick brows dragged down over his eyes and his jowls quivered. Then he suddenly laughed. “Where did you learn efficiency—in business or in the services?”
“In the services,” I replied.
“Which—the Army?”
“No. The Navy.”
That seemed to exhaust his interest in me. He turned and watched the baggage being weighed. Tim Bartlett came through from the flight office with his co-pilot, a man called Fenton. He glanced at me with a lift to his eyebrows. I nodded and he grinned. He introduced himself and Fenton to Bland and asked the clerk for the passenger details. As he glanced through the papers he said to Bland, “I see you’ve increased your party from three to four?”
“Yes. Mrs. Bland wanted to come.” He nodded in the direction of the girl.
Tim Bartlett’s brows lifted and he nodded. “Which is Weiner?” he asked. One of the two men standing in the shadows by the door came forward slowly into the light. “I am Weiner,” he said. His voice was a guttural whisper and he moved like a marionet, as though jerked along against his will by invisible strings. He was a Jew and his clothes were several sizes too large for his shrunken body. He had a bald head, thin, emaciated features and a tubercular cough. “Do you wish to see my papers?” he asked in that same wretched whisper.
“No, that’s all right,” Tim said.
“And I am Bonomi—Aldo Bonomi.” It was the fourth member of the party. He stepped out of the shadows into the light with the swagger and bounce of an opera singer. He wore a camel-hair coat with padded shoulders and tie-on belt and round his neck was a silk scarf of peacock blue with little yellow designs. Gold rings flashed as he seized Tim’s hand and pumped it up and down. “I am so pleased to know that we shall be in such good hands. You are an artist. I can see that. I, too, am an artist. I go to take pictures for El Colonnello.” He paused for breath and peered anxiously up into Tim’s face. “But I hope you are a careful driver. Last time I fly the driver he make play with the airplane and I am very seek.”
Tim got his hand back from the Italian and said, “It’s all right. You needn’t worry, Mr. Bonomi. It will all be very dull, I hope.” And he went out to the airfield.
The rest of us followed as soon as Bland’s party had had their passports checked and been through the customs. We piled into the plane. The luggage was strapped down, the doors closed. Fenton came through from the cockpit and told us to fix our safety belts. The engines roared into life and the plane taxied out on to the tarmac. The lights of the airport glittered frostily. We made the end of the runway and waited there for the okay from the control tower. My stomach suddenly felt hollow. It always does before a take-off. That uninsurable half minute! I don’t know anyone who’s really got over it.
I looked round at the others. Their bodies were self-consciously relaxed, the muscles under the surface rigid against the possibility of a crash. Nobody spoke. Bland had closed his eyes. The girl had her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her fur coat. Her grey eyes were wide and stared straight in front of her. Little curls of fair hair had escaped from beneath the silk scarf that covered her head. Bonomi wriggled in his seat. He couldn’t keep still. He was like a rubber ball, his head darting about, one moment peering forward out of the window, the next twisted round to examine the inside of the plane. Only Weiner seemed completely relaxed. He lay slumped in his seat like a bundle of old clothes. A nerve twitched at the side of his mouth, but his expression was one of complete apathy. His hands were held against his stomach, the long, nervous fingers plucking at the locking device of his safety belt.
The engines suddenly roared. The plane rocked and vibrated. Then the brakes were off and we were gathering speed down the runway. I braced myself automatically and peered out of the window, where the lights of the plane showed the concrete streaming by. The rear end of the fuselage bumped twice and then lifted. The lights of the control tower showed through the darkness moving slowly away from us. Then suddenly we were riding air, smooth and steady, the note of the engines changing to a solid drone, the seat pressing my body upwards. The control tower was a rapidly receding pinpoint of light now. Headlights cut swathes along the narrow ribbon of the road bordering the airport. Then we banked and the lights of London stretched away to the darkness of the horizon. Clear in my mind, like a montage, was the notice I’d pasted on my office desk—Gone to South Africa. Was it only yesterday evening I’d put it there? I thought of Mr. Bridewell standing there, staring at it, uneasy, suspecting a leg-pull, completely unable to comprehend why I had left. Even my letter wouldn’t explain that to him.
I undid my safety belt. Now I was actually on my way, I wanted to sing, shout, do something to show how I felt. Across the gangway, the little Jew was still twining his fingers round the lock of his belt. Behind me Bland suddenly said, “Judie. Change places with Franz. I want to discuss this electrical killing gear with him.”
I half turned in my seat. Nobody seemed to notice my surprise. The girl said, “Don’t you think you ought to rest?”
“I’m all right,” Bland replied gruffly.
“Doctor Wilber said—”
“Damn Doctor Wilber!”
“If you’re not careful you’ll kill yourself.”
“I’ll take a lot of killing.” He stared at her for a second. “Where’s that cable? I gave it to you.”
The girl felt in the pocket of her fur coat and brought out the crumpled cable flimsy. I heard him smoothing it out on his brief-case. Then he snorted. “Bernt’s no right to cable me like this.” Anger was catching hold of him again. “He’s not giving the boy a chance.” I heard the cable crushed in the sudden clenching of his fist. Then: “The trouble is that only Erik stands between him and full control of the company when I’m gone.” His voice was a deep, angry rumble.
“That’s not fair.” The girl’s voice blazed.
“Not fair, eh? What the hell am I to think? They weren’t a week out of Capetown before there was trouble between them.”
“And whose fault do you suppose that was?” the girl demanded angrily.
“Bernt was playing on his lack of experience.”
“That’s Erik’s story.”
“What of that? Do you expect me not to believe my own son?”
“Yes, but you don’t know him very well, do you? You were in London all through the war and since then—”
“I know when a boy’s being victimised,” Bland snapped back. “Why, Bernt even had the nerve to cable that he was causing trouble among the Tönsberg men. There’s never any trouble with whalers. They’re far too interested in the success of the expedition.”
“If Bernt said he was causing trouble among the Tönsberg men, then he was.” The girl’s voice steadied. “He’s never thought of anything but the interests of the company. You know that.”
“Then why does he send me this ultimatum? Why does he demand Erik’s recall?”
“Because he’s seen through him.”
“Seen through him? That’s a fine way to talk of your husband.”
“I don’t care. You may as well know the truth about him.”
“Shut up!” Bland’s voice vibrated like a plucked string.
“I won’t shut up,” the girl rushed on. “It’s time you knew the truth. Erik’s—”
“Shut up!” Bland’s voice was thunderous. “Don’t talk like that. I can see what’s happening to him now. You undermining him at home and your father undermining him out there. His confidence in himself is being sapped by the pair of you. No wonder he needs—”
“His confidence!” The girl’s tone was half contemptuous, half hysterical. “You don’t know him at all, do you? You still think of him as the gay, reckless boy of ten years ago—sailing his boat, winning ski jump championships. You think that’s all he wants. Well, it isn’t. He likes to control things—men, machines, an organisation. He wants power. Power, I tell you. He wants control of the company. And he’s got his mother—”
“How dare you talk like that!”
“God! Do you think I don’t know Erik by now?” She was leaning forward across the gangway, her body rigid, her face a white mask. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for some time—ever since that firs
t cable. But you were too ill. Now, if you’re well enough to travel, you’re well enough to know what—”
“I refuse to listen.” Bland was trying to keep down his anger. “You’re hysterical.”
“You’ve got to listen. I’m not hysterical. I’m telling you what I should have told you—”
“I tell you I won’t listen. Damn it—the boy’s your husband.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Her voice sounded frighteningly bitter. “Do you think he hasn’t made me aware of that every hour of every day we’ve been married?”
Bland was peering at her through his thick glasses. “Don’t you still love him?” he asked.
“Love him!” she cried. “I hate him. I hate him, I tell you.” She was crying wildly now. “Oh, why did you agree to send him out as second-in-command?”
“You seem to forget he’s my son.” Bland’s voice was ominously quiet.
“I haven’t forgotten that. But it’s time you knew the truth.”
“Then wait till we’re alone.”
The girl glanced at me and saw that I was watching her. “All right,” she said in a low voice.
“Franz!” The man next to me jerked in his seat. “Come and sit back here. Change places with Franz,” he ordered the girl. “And try to calm down.”
She got up heavily and changed places with the German. I watched her as she settled in the seat across the gangway from me. Her face was tense, her small hands clenched so tight the knuckles showed white. She sat there, quite still and rigid, as though frozen.