Free The Pole by Eric Walters Page A

Etah.”
    â€œThat sounds simple enough,” I said.
    â€œSimple, but not easy. It would be very difficult, especially if we didn’t have enough dogs. How are the dogs?”
    â€œAnother one died yesterday.” It was a big, white-faced male dog. He’d been getting sicker and sicker, losing it through both ends for the past few days, throwing up and getting the runs. I couldn’t help picturing the dead dog being thrown overboard. I knew there really wasn’t another way to do it—it wasn’t like they could bury it—but it still struck me as harsh.What would we do if a person died? No, we wouldn’t do that .
    â€œHow many dogs have died?” Matt asked. “Fifteen.”
    â€œThank goodness the Commander had the foresight to bring close to two hundred and fifty dogs along.We still have more than we need.”
    â€œWe do, but there are more dogs that aren’t well.” The sick dogs were throwing up and had the runs, making the mess on the deck even worse.
    â€œHow many more dogs are affected?” Matt asked.
    â€œAt least as many again.”
    â€œWe still have enough. The dogs will do better once we’re on shore, once we can separate them.Getting the healthy dogs away from the sick ones can only be a good thing.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    â€œNow, there’s still time to get some grub before we drop anchor.You hungry?”
    â€œI think I could eat a bite or two,” I said, with a grin.
    I TENTATIVELY PUT one foot down on the ice, and then the other. This was silly. I knew it could hold me, like it was already holding the dozens of men and dogs and sledges and crates that were already on the ice.
    Matt had, of course, been right. No time was wasted. Within thirty minutes of dropping anchor they had started to unload the ship. Between my shipboard tasks—including scrubbing and cleaning the deck after the dogs had been brought down to the ice—I’d been watching.The first men, driving a team of dogs, their sledges loaded with equipment, had started off across the ice toward land.
    The Roosevelt now sat in the middle of a solid sea of ice. The path that we’d broken to get here had refrozen.The ice had a different hue, and I could still see the path we’d travelled, but there was no more open water.The ship was locked in place. Funny, the last thing I’d wanted for the past few weeks was for the ice to be solid. Now, as I was standing on the surface, I wanted it to be as thick as possible.
    There was a strong wind, whipping up snow and blowing it almost horizontally across the ice. I pulled the hood of my parka tighter around my head and moved over until I was shielded from the wind by a pile of wooden crates stacked to form a protective wall.
    There was a blur of activity all around. All of the dogs that weren’t being used to ferry supplies to shore were pegged down on the ice. Being off the ship seemed to agree with them as they looked frisky, as though they were happy to be on solid land … solid ice.
    Equally happy were the Eskimos. I didn’t think they liked being confined to the ship any more than the dogs did. They were working, but there was laughter, and it seemed like everybody was smiling. They must have felt like they were home. I knew they were far from Etah, but this was a lot more like what they were used to than being penned up on a ship.
    Me, I liked the ship. I enjoyed sitting in the galley, at the big table, sipping a cup of tea or coffee and talking to Cookie. I liked being up on the deck. I was feeling a lot more comfortable in the rigging. Heck, I even liked the little section of the sleeping quarters I shared with five other crew, including Angus, who could snore so loud that it drowned out the noise of the ice against the hull.
    I looked around for Matt, or the Commander, or any member of the expedition. None were here. They’d all probably gone in with the first