Survival

by David Fletcher

  The ‘research station’ was not very interesting. Principally because it was little more than five mostly empty sheds, in which any evidence of any former research was as difficult to find as any evidence of comfort. Whichever poor sods had been deployed to this place, thought Alex, they must have craved a comfortable settee and a comfortable bed even before they craved the company of a woman. And they would all have been men. This place had the distinct feel of a military outpost, and Alex doubted that the Argentinian military had been at the forefront of gender equality. Especially when they were posting their ‘forces’ to somewhere with very limited facilities. And very limited opportunities for segregation.

  The bluff was better. It was quite a climb through the deep snow, and only Stuart and Gill made it to the very top. But even from a viewpoint halfway up this huge mound of rock, the view was not so much breathtaking as heart-stopping. How snow-covered peaks and a flat sea under a plain blue sky could create such wonder was, to start with, something of a mystery to Alex. But when he stopped to think, he realised that those peaks in the distance, lying under the strong Antarctic sun, were literally radiating whiteness, and that this whiteness was being reflected in a pool of magic blue below, with more of this magic blue above. And this was when he began to solve the mystery. Quite simply, this was the inanimate at its best, and it was almost too beautiful to absorb.

  Easier was the beauty of the imperial shags. The eight sightseers had now reboarded their zodiac, and Nick had taken it around the other side of the bluff, where high up on its other sea-facing side was a shag colony. There were maybe a score of nests here, all apparently built on turrets of guano, and all occupied by one of these magnificent birds. How long each bird sat before he or she was relieved by his or her partner was something that even Nick didn’t know. But what all of them did know was how privileged they were to be witnessing this sight. More so because they were amongst just a handful of people on the planet who could still witness anything.

  This thought was in Alex’s mind as Nick then made for the other side of the bay, which appeared to consist of the long, low front of one enormous glacier. And it was. And it was truly enormous. As the zodiac approached it, this became more and more apparent. Specific parts of it that Alex had taken to be the size of a small parish church, say, were in fact the size of a gigantic cathedral. It was as though his brain, when it had initially been charged with processing the information being fed to it by his eyes, had simply not been able to handle the scale of this vast block of frozen water. Only when the zodiac was a mere two hundred metres from its enormous ramparts could Alex’s brain finally cope with the truly gargantuan size of this fabulous glacier.

  Not for the first time, Alex felt humbled by the grandeur of this Antarctic realm, and by the almost incredible scale of its features. And, as if to emphasise his humble status, some alarmingly loud rumbling suddenly punctured the quiet of Paradise Bay. All aboard the zodiac then looked in the direction of this outsized sound, and saw what had caused it. Because there, above and beyond the glacier’s face, were the powdery remains of a giant avalanche, already being consumed by the giant snowscape around it. To have been in that collapse of snow would no doubt have proved lethal. To witness its immediate aftermath from a distance was to witness no more than an inconsequential puff of white dust, a mere nothing in this vast polar setting. It really was indisputable, thought Alex; the hallmarks of the Antarctic had to include grandeur and scale; enormous, difficult-to-comprehend scale.

  The seals might not have agreed. To them this place was just home. And a good place to find a small iceberg on which to take a nap. And it didn’t matter what sort of seal you were. A small, flat-topped iceberg made an ideal bed whether you were a Weddell seal, a crabeater seal or even a leopard seal.

  Nick found a Weddell seal on one iceberg, two crabeaters on another, and a leopard on a third. All were ‘half asleep’, their eyes closed but not always, and each of them not entirely unaware of the nearby zodiac. Alex was delighted that he was able to get such a good view of them all, and also very pleased that he could distinguish one smooth-bodied grey seal from its similarly smooth-bodied grey cousin. He’d remembered what he’d been told in the late John’s lecture, and here were those three featured seals in person, all displaying the physical characteristics that enabled even a novice to tell them apart. The school lesson had been followed by a visit to the zoo. And this visit had proved to be a fitting end to this unexpected circumnavigation of Paradise Bay. Alex suspected he was not alone in thinking that Captain José, in allowing this round of excursions for all his passengers, couldn’t have made a better decision.

  He was right. All the others with whom he had shared the trip agreed that their captain had made what amounted to an ideal decision. They had now swapped their seats on an inflated roll of rubber for seats around a restaurant table. Here they would share their lunch and their impressions of their ride around the bay. All of them, including Nick, who had been to Paradise Bay before, expressed their delight in the magic of this place, and their hope that Captain José might punctuate the forthcoming lockdown with more such expeditions. If, that is, there was time between all that reading, all that limerick composition, all that photography, and all that card playing and quizzing.

  Yes, with lunch over, it was time to embark on some of those self-help diversions, and when Alex and Debbie were back in their cabin, they made an immediate start. Debbie wrote a note to go on the ship’s noticeboard in reception, requesting that anybody interested in bridge make contact; and Alex actually composed his first two limericks. Then they both embarked on another activity planned for the duration. Which was an extended siesta. Absorbing the marvels of Paradise Bay had obviously proved exhausting for them both.

  Dinner was a dinner for seven: the five oldies and the two youngsters. And although the main course was clearly based on something that had lived in an Argentinian tin for some time, it was again a really enjoyable meal. By now, Stuart and Gill knew their fellow diners well enough to know when they were being serious and when they were being flippant (something that was no less than essential when listening to Derek or Roy). And this shared familiarity, as well as leading to a fair amount of jocularity, made for a truly amiable exchange of views; views that concerned just about anything other than their present situation or the regrettable loss of most of mankind. Nor was there any discussion of the future after Antarctica.

  They were all in a bubble. After that full stop to their ‘adventure’ two days before, a feeling of well-being had grown on the Sea Sprite, and if one were fortunate enough to be one of the diners around their table of seven, this feeling of well-being was probably acute. It certainly was for Alex. In fact, he felt so very well and so very content that he was on the edge of feeling guilty. Given everything that had happened to so many people around the planet – and to Mike, Terry, John and their mates, and to those three Moldovans – he wondered whether he and his friends should be so happy. Because they undoubtedly were. Whatever the future had in store, they were together, they were relaxed in each other’s company, and they were reassured by each other’s company. And they all knew that they had this almost blissful state of affairs to look forward to for at least the immediate foreseeable future.

  What’s more, Alex had already dreamt up some rhymes for limericks number three and number four, and Debbie had no less than seven bridge players lined up for tomorrow morning. And Derek had even found in the ship’s library a copy of Martin Amis’s Yellow Dog…

  four weeks later

  thirty-five

  It had become a routine for Alex and Debbie: quite early out of bed, but then, wrapped around with enough quilted outerwear to keep themselves warm, anything up to an hour sitting out on the cabin balcony, taking in the ever-present beauty and tranquillity of Paradise Bay. After that it was ablutions and breakfast, a walk around the outside of the Marco Polo Deck, and then their attendance at their respective ‘grou
p planning meetings’. There were quite a number of these, all instigated by Captain José, and all involving the participation of selected members of the Sea Sprite’s passengers and crew, and all intended to achieve two ends. One was to prepare the ship’s company for whatever they might face back in Ushuaia, and the other was to give the ship’s passengers something to occupy them that might actually be of real use.

  Debbie was in the group charged with establishing how the new colonists of South America might put together a mini health service. Not surprisingly, it was chaired by Dr Kovalenko, and it had been devoting much of its time to exploring how any medicines and medical supplies in Ushuaia could be gathered and stored and, given the age profile of those on board, which medicines and medical supplies might be those most in demand. There was then the issue of what to do when these supplies eventually ran out, and how feasible it would be to replace at least some of them with home-made alternatives, using any natural or synthetic materials that could be foraged in and around Ushuaia. There was also the small matter of how to support the skills of three of the handful of doctors who might still be alive on the planet. (There were possibly a number tucked away on various Antarctic research stations, but here on the Sea Sprite there were definitely just three: Dr Kovalenko, and two others who had been travelling as passengers and who had only recently retired.) All in all, as Debbie had reported to Alex, it had been quite an interesting and quite a challenging use of her time, and she had even decided that what her group had been doing might prove really useful, if not critical, to the survival of all the Sea Sprite’s unlikely pioneers.

  Alex – and Roy – were in the group that had been asked to deal with something entirely different, and this was the development of a constitution that might serve the purposes of… well, the residue of mankind. Alex had initially thought that this was a joke, just something to occupy a bunch of men and women who had none of the skills necessary to do anything else. After all, stuff like food procurement, fuel procurement, and even entertainment had already been handed out to others (as had ‘security’, despite Alex and Roy’s roles in the raiding operations), and clearly Captain José had been obliged to dream up something else to mop up the dregs.

  However, it had soon become apparent that, far from being at the worthless end of occupational therapy, working out how a group of people would live together – and avoid their regressing into some sort of feudal and possibly brutal society – was no less than a critical task. Especially when one took into account that this group would comprise a bunch of old folk, quite a few younger folk (with a predominantly Filipino culture), and a miscellany of various ‘other types’. There were just so many questions, principal amongst which was who would rule this rump of humanity, and who would choose this ruler? Would the new society be a democracy or an autocracy? And how about the laws? Who would establish them, and who would enforce them? And would there be a separate judiciary, and how would that work? All these questions could, of course, have been made redundant if Captain José had announced that he intended to remain in his present role and make every decision that needed to be made in respect of every aspect of everybody’s life, in much the same way as he was doing now. However, he was the first to insist that this would not be an acceptable way to proceed, and that, as soon as his captaincy duties came to an end, his leadership needed in some way to be shared with or passed on to others. There were, he maintained, wiser heads on this ship than his own. And if that was debatable, then there were indisputably many on board with more experience, and this, he suggested, should be seen as a reservoir of resource and a reservoir that needed to be tapped.

  Alex had, very early on, begun to enjoy this ‘constitutional construction’ work. As had Roy. It was a genuine mental challenge, and an opportunity to contribute something of real worth to everybody’s future. It was also like nothing he’d done before. That alone made it constantly absorbing, and maybe even more absorbing than compiling all those limericks…

  It was now four weeks since that first ride around Paradise Bay, and Alex had written forty-four limericks, all of which he intended to enter into a limerick competition that he himself had launched the day after the ride. This writing was something he did in the afternoons, when he wasn’t attending a presentation on Pelagic Birds, The Secrets of Ancient Greece, The Flora of the Falklands, or The Recollections of a Customs Officer (which was Patrick’s very own ‘uniquely bemusing’ contribution). Or, indeed, when he wasn’t struggling with one of Roy’s quizzes or struggling even more through a rubber of bridge with a partner whom he had decided was card-suit dyslexic. The two of them together soon established themselves as serial losers.

  Combined with the continued provision of imaginative food, the continued remarkable forbearance of the entire crew – and another six zodiac rides around the bay – all these intellectual and not-so-intellectual demands made for a very manageable time aboard the Sea Sprite. And if one added in the frequent sightings of humpback whales, assorted seals, a good number of penguins and quite a few other birds, it was more than just manageable; it was almost idyllic. And, whilst not something that Alex could have imagined doing indefinitely, it was certainly far more than just bearable. Every day, at some point during the day, he would stop to ask himself why he – and his wife – had been spared the carnage that had been visited on the rest of the world and had instead been delivered into such a sybaritic haven – on a well-appointed, well-provisioned ship, well out of harm’s way. Or, at least, it seemed to be out of harm’s way. Despite those terminal preparations recommended by Dr Kovalenko (of which Alex and Debbie had availed themselves), the spores had not returned, and in most people’s minds they were very clearly no more than a distasteful fragment of history; a passing blight that had overtaken the old world but that was not about to overtake the new world down here on the Sea Sprite. Or even when the new world docked back in Ushuaia. The spores were definitely has-been spores. Everybody on this ship knew this for sure.

  Alex, however, wasn’t quite so absolutely sure. So, every day he checked that his and Debbie’s vials were still intact and still ready for use. Nevertheless, he had to admit to himself that he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep alive any sort of raw fear. Now it was more like an intermittent dull toothache, the occasional unwanted realisation that a dreadful death might still descend from the skies and put an end to the lives of all those aboard the Sea Sprite. But only in much the same way as a boiler explosion might, or a fire in the galley that got out of control. Terrible prospects, all of them, but all of them not a great deal more than a theoretical possibility. And especially in the case of the spores. After all, one only had to consider how they were spread: through the upper atmosphere and then by descending to ground level – everywhere other than at the two poles. How, then, could what was now a five-week hiatus fit into that model of distribution? It couldn’t. It simply wasn’t possible. And hence that intermittent, ever-duller toothache that Alex was experiencing – rather than acute fear. Indeed, so much had the fear diminished that yesterday he had even forgotten to check on the vials. Although that may in part have been because he had heard a rumour – that today, Captain José would be making a significant announcement…

  All the planning groups had been given a deadline to complete their deliberations and produce a report. And that was two days ago. This was to give the captain a little time to study the reports before their contents were presented to the whole ship’s company, probably in a series of lounge gatherings, and probably when the Sea Sprite was on its way back to Ushuaia. He was apparently keen to energise his charges in preparation for their having to confront the reality of their new lives, and he believed that engaging them in all the practicalities of these new lives – as examined by the planning groups – would be an ideal way to do this. It would also mean that the findings and recommendations of each of the groups would be fresh in everybody’s mind.

  So, if that was his thinking, and he now had
all the reports – and it was now just over four weeks since the beginning of the Sea Sprite’s ‘rest’ in Paradise Bay – it was odds on that an announcement was imminent. The odds then shortened considerably when Jane informed her listeners over the tannoy that at the conclusion of today’s afternoon presentation on The Night Skies of the Southern Hemisphere, Captain José would make a short address, for which he would welcome everybody’s attendance. And that, thought Alex, would not be to tell his assembled audience that he was a keen stargazer himself.

  It wasn’t. It was, as all aboard the Sea Sprite suspected, to announce the end to their sojourn in Antarctica. Captain José started by telling them that the guys at Rothera were being as inscrutable as ever, and he had now formed the view that they regarded the Sea Sprite as no more than a potential threat to their own chances of survival. They wanted to avoid any contact with his vessel if at all possible, because they wanted to avoid any responsibility for all those aboard it. This was unfortunate, he said, but almost inevitable. And, in any event, it wouldn’t have any bearing on his own plans. Which involved setting off for Ushuaia the very next morning! Tomorrow, immediately after breakfast, the Sea Sprite’s engines would be started, and it would embark on its journey north, with Ushuaia as its intended destination.

  His tone, throughout the whole of his address, had been very upbeat, even when he’d reported on Rothera’s indisputably selfish attitude. (‘It’s very much their loss, not ours,’ he proposed, ‘and they’ll probably come to regret it.’) And to top off this upbeat theme, he concluded the address by informing everybody that tomorrow evening, the first evening of their journey ‘home’, there would be a grand Captain’s Dinner. With all the trimmings. The kitchen staff were already beavering away to prepare what would be a very special meal, and there would even be a suspension of the alcohol rationing system. Wine would flow. And all the ladies would be expected to attend in their poshest frocks and all the men in their smartest gear. There would even be cocktails before the meal, at which there would be the opportunity to choose the winner of the limerick competition. It would, Captain José emphasised, be a night to remember. Albeit not, of course, in the Titanic sense.