Free Antarctica by Peter Lerangis Page B

ground. Tethered to a vertically protruding rock, it pitched fiercely on the water.
    Colin descended fast. The boat wasn’t far out yet.
    “Colin, watch it!” Father called from behind him.
    Colin skidded to a stop. His feet went out from under him and he fell.
    A wave rose out of the churning surf. It towered over Colin ten, fifteen feet and opened like a black-gloved hand.
    He turned and scudded back across the stones. Father grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the pathway. The other men waited, halfway up.
    The wave crashed behind him, and he felt the sting of freezing water on his back.
    As they joined the men, Colin and his father turned.
    On the backwash of the wave, the Iphigenia rose fast. It left the surface for a moment, pausing in the air, and flipped. Another wave slammed into it, thrusting it toward the rocks.
    It smashed into pieces, jettisoning wood far out into the sea.
    The crashing surf sounded like laughter.

15
Andrew
    February 7, 1910
    A NDREW WATCHED THE R AINA float away, carrying four men. Robert and Nigel pulled hard at the oars against the brash. Behind them sat Petard. The body lay out of sight, wrapped in a tarp under the decking.
    When the oars stopped their rhythmic plunging and the boat began to slow, Andrew turned away. He heard a soft but substantial splash, a brief prayer.
    When he looked back, the Raina was coming about. Petard now held an empty tarp.
    The sea had claimed the first victim of the Samuel Breen and the Raina.
    Nesbit had been a powerful presence. Like Shreve, he was steady and keenly intelligent. Unlike Shreve, he was cautious. He thought ahead.
    Sometimes even those qualities didn’t help.
    Nesbit had never regained consciousness in the two days since Captain Barth’s rescue. He’d remained in a coma until this evening, when his breathing finally stopped.
    Dr. Montfort, who had been standing by Andrew, now turned silently and slumped into the tent. He had to care for his other patients.
    Barth would be next to go, most likely. He had neither moved nor spoken in two days. Hayes, at least, could moan and ask for water.
    Demosthenes and Socrates still lay nearly motionless. It wouldn’t be long for them, either.
    At the edge of the floe, the three sailors climbed out. Silently they pulled the Raina onto the ice, then disappeared into the other tent.
    Andrew curled up in a tarp by the tent flap, his position for night watch. The wind blew off the Ross Sea, picking up moisture that intensified the cold until it could penetrate fabric, limb, and organ, until it congealed the marrow in Andrew’s bones. The sun now made a brief nightly disappearance below the horizon, and the fact of darkness was frightening.
    Soon the Antarctic summer would be over. In two months, the dark would begin to overtake the light until it swallowed up the entire winter season.
    Andrew hated night watch. Hope was the first thing to go when you were alone. It was in short enough supply anyway.
    The name of their present home, Camp Hope, had been Andrew’s idea. He thought it would help raise morale. Morale was as important as food.
    The trek inland — in ice was more accurate — had been awful. None of the men had fully recovered from the disaster at sea.
    They’d managed to drag the Raina along the ice and snow to a more solid floe. It still didn’t seem as stable as it should — you could feel the motion of the current — but the men were in no condition to travel farther.
    No one had yet addressed the issue of returning. Survival had taken all the energy the team could muster.
    But now, with the men snoring and the dogs whimpering in their sleep and the night reaching in, Andrew could think of nothing else.
    The Raina could only be rowed now, but Robert had begun repairs on the rigging, along with a team made up of the fully recovered men. They’d all dutifully followed his instructions — including Nigel. After the incident with the boom, Nigel had had the good sense not to contradict