Survival Tails: Endurance in Antarctica

by Katrina Charman

  Nell frowned. “Are you coming, Bummer?”

  Bummer glanced up at Samson, who was laughing as Roger, Toby, and Nelson playfully snapped their jaws in the air, trying to catch his tail.

  “My leg is still feeling sore,” Bummer said. “And I just remembered that I have to go out hunting with my team. I should probably stay here and rest.”

  “Will you watch us for a little while?” Nell asked. “Please!”

  “All right,” Bummer answered, unable to disappoint the pup. “Just a few minutes.”

  The puppies stepped into the harnesses on the ground, which were attached to the sled. Bummer tried not to laugh. The harnesses were at least four sizes too big for the pups and hung limply over their shoulders. On Samson’s command they pulled together, straining as hard as they could, but the sled stayed put. Roger at the back of the pack stumbled forward, knocking into his brothers and then sweeping Nell’s paws from under her as they landed in a tumble of fur.

  Bummer couldn’t help laughing as the pups struggled to untangle themselves from their harnesses and each other, their small legs flailing in the air as they tried to break free. He caught Samson’s eye, then quickly looked away as he remembered the feeling when Samson had left him behind. The pain in his leg wasn’t half as bad as the pain in his chest every time he thought about it.

  He had turned to leave when he felt a sudden movement beneath his paws.

  Ahead, the Endurance shifted slightly; then all at once, ice rose up on each side, grinding against the ship like cat’s claws. The ice began to crack up all around dog town. Huge blocks of ice were thrown up as floes pushed together, rising up and out of the ocean. The ice blocks crashed down on the dogloos, crushing some while others sank into the deep cracks, disappearing into the black water below.

  “Samson!” Bummer called out, racing for the pups. “We have to get back to the ship!”

  The men had already started herding as many dogs as they could onto the ship as the floe shifted all around them—rising, then falling. One moment Bummer had to swerve to avoid a wall of ice rising in front of him, then the next he had to leap over a deep crevice as the pack ice split apart. Samson frantically pulled at the ropes of the harnesses with his teeth, but they seemed to have knotted, trapping the pups like fish in a net. Nell, the smallest, managed to wriggle free, and Toby followed, but Nelson and Roger were well and truly stuck.

  Bummer reached them, and Nell cowered beneath him as he took the other side of the harness in his jaws. “Pull!” he mumbled to Samson. Samson nodded and the two pulled in opposite directions as hard as they could, making a space big enough for Roger to escape. The pups huddled against Samson, trying to keep their balance as the ice shifted this way and that and Bummer tried to free Nelson.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath them cracked and split in two, with Samson and the three pups on one side and Bummer and Nelson on the other. Just as Bummer moved forward to grab hold of Nelson, the ice split again, separating them. Bummer tried to leap across, but his paw wasn’t strong enough. The ice rose up between them, creating a wall, hiding Nelson and the sled from view.

  “Nelson!” Bummer barked, his heart pounding in his chest as he frantically searched for a way to reach the pup. For all he knew, Nelson was already beneath the floe.

  “Nelson!” Bummer shouted again and again until his throat was raw.

  There was a roar, and suddenly Amundsen appeared out of nowhere, leaping up and over the ridge with Nelson in his jaws. He landed with a loud thump beside Bummer, and the floe shifted again beneath their feet.

  “Nelson! Are you all right?” Bummer asked.

  The little pup nodded, his eyes wide and his fur quivering.

  “We have to get to the ship!” Bummer yelled over the crash of ice raining down on the floe.

  Samson was already halfway to the ship, carrying Nell in his jaws while Toby and Roger clung to his back, wailing for their mother. Bummer and Amundsen followed, leaping from floe to floe, looking out for thin patches of ice. They finally reached the ship, and Crean hurried down to take the pups.

  “That was close,” Bummer puffed, his eyes wide.

  “I didn’t think we were going to make it,” Amundsen replied.

  “Nelson wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Nelson was still clinging to Amundsen’s fur, refusing to let go even as Amundsen shook his entire body.

  “No dog left behind!” Nelson announced, licking Amundsen behind the ear.

  Bummer laughed as Amundsen made a disgusted face and shook the pup off his back, escaping quickly to his kennel before Nelson could follow.

  Samson wandered over, and the two stood together for a while in an awkward silence.

  “Bummer,” Samson said finally. “I’m sorry… about the race. I got so caught up in winning and I didn’t want to let my team down… and…” He trailed off.

  “I thought we were a team,” Bummer said. “You knew I was hurt but you left me behind.”

  “We are a team,” Samson replied. “But I was so close to the finish line. I couldn’t lose a challenge from Amundsen, you know that. I was going to come straight back for you, but…” He trailed off again, looking down at the ground.

  Bummer paused for a moment. Part of him wanted to say it was all right, that he forgave Samson, but the other part remembered how he’d felt when Samson left him.

  Bummer shook his head, unable to find the right words to say, then limped to his kennel.

  CHAPTER 11

  SAMSON

  August 1915

  The men had done the best they could to salvage as much as possible once the shifting subsided. They were remaining on the ship for now for safety and also because most of dog town had been destroyed, but the dogs had become used to having freedom and open spaces. Now that they were back together on a single deck of the ship, it felt worse than when they’d been in the kennels.

  Bummer was still refusing to speak to Samson, no matter how many times he’d tried to apologize. Sally said to give him time and space, but that was easier said than done when they were in such close quarters, and Samson missed his friend desperately. The guilt of leaving his friend behind wrenched at his gut. Samson wished there were something he could say, something he could do to make it right again, but in the end the fact remained that he’d abandoned Bummer when his friend had needed him the most, and Amundsen had turned out to be the better dog after all.

  Samson wandered across the deck to see if the boss was busy. Shackleton sat at the very front of the ship—a lone watchman, monitoring the ice for any sudden changes in the floe. Samson went to join him, drawn both by the need for companionship and the mouthwatering smell wafting from a tin can in the boss’s hand.

  Shackleton started slightly as Samson approached from behind, then gestured for the dog to join him. Samson lay at his feet, and Shackleton patted his head gently as the two of them looked out at the icebergs surrounding them. Samson glanced up at whatever the boss was eating. It smelled delicious. He couldn’t help but move closer to sniff at the tin.

  “You hungry, boy?” The boss smiled.

  Samson gave a gruff bark, and Shackleton chuckled. “Well, I don’t much like sardines anyway, so you might as well have the rest,” he said, placing the tin on the ground in front of Samson.

  Samson plunged his face into the tin, chomping away at the smoky fish and licking every last corner, making sure he hadn’t missed a drop of juice. Satisfied, he lay down, licking his chops.

  The boss stood up, shielding his eyes as he gazed at the sun. “Eventually there will be more ocean than ice,” he told Samson. “I just hope the ship stays firm until then and we make it home.”

  Samson looked up at the boss, surprised. Shackleton had always seemed so sure, so in control of everything, even when things were going wrong.

  “I’m glad I have you to confide in,” Shackleton said. “I can’t tell the crew my fears. We need to keep their spirits up.” He smiled. “You must do
the same with your team. We must do everything we can to make sure that even if the ship falls apart, we stay strong.”

  Samson barked and the boss laughed, heading belowdecks. “That’s the spirit!”

  Samson perked up a bit at this. Finally, something was happening again. Over the last few months it had felt almost as if they were frozen in time, held within the ice, unable to move forward or back. At least now there was hope again of the ship escaping from its icy shackles.

  “So,” a low voice purred from atop a stack of crates beside Samson, and he saw Mrs. Chippy peering into the empty tin at his feet. “You’re back, are you?”

  Samson sniffed, keeping his distance. He didn’t much trust cats and still couldn’t quite understand why Bummer had taken such a liking to the creature that he’d felt obliged to save her when she’d stupidly thrown herself overboard.

  “For now,” Samson replied.

  Mrs. Chippy licked at her paws. “Shame,” she said. “Not that I’m not happy to see you again, I suppose. But I had become used to having the run of the ship. Now it’s overcrowded with all these savage beasts taking up the best napping spots.”

  “Hey!” Samson cried. “We’re not savage beasts!”

  Mrs. Chippy shrugged. “Maybe not all of you, but I saw what happened during your little race. That dog…” She lowered her voice and glanced around, making sure no other dogs were in earshot. “Amundsen knew he would flip the sled and take out at least one of his team with it. Any sled dog worth his salt would have known to slow down at that turn.”

  Samson gazed at the floor, feeling a hot flush of guilt all over again.

  “But…” she purred. “At least he stopped to help poor Bummer out.”

  Samson let out a low growl. He felt bad enough about it all as it was, without a cat making him feel worse—although he suspected she knew this and was trying to stir up more trouble. Cats were like that.

  “How long do you think it will be before we start moving again?” Samson asked, eager to change the subject.

  Mrs. Chippy licked at her tail and sighed. “I’m not sure we will be moving again.”

  “What do you mean?” Samson asked, feeling his stomach drop. “The boss said once the ice melts…”

  “Take a look around,” Mrs. Chippy told him. “The ice is pressing against the ship.”

  Samson peered over the side of the ship. The cat was right. Large folds of ice reached up against the hull, higher than ever. There were areas where chunks had broken up, but instead of falling away, new waves of ice had pushed up and over the old to replace them.

  “What does that mean?” Samson asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Mrs. Chippy said, slinking away with her tail held high.

  Samson sat in stony silence for a while. The boss is a clever human, he thought. He’ll figure a way out of this. Maybe if I help… He jumped up and ran down the gangplank onto the floe before anyone could stop him, scratching and scraping desperately at the ice against the hull to clear it, but it was useless. His claws barely scraped the surface. The ship was stuck tight.

  A couple of weeks passed with no sign of the ice easing up. If anything, it seemed to be getting worse. At night Samson could hear the creaks and groans of the ship, almost as though it were in pain from being so constricted by the ice, the life being slowly crushed out of it. There was a definite tilt to the ship now. Samson’s kennel on one side of the deck was at least a foot higher than the kennels opposite. Most of the crates and anything else that might pose a hazard had been secured by ropes, but occasionally something would slide down the deck, pursued by dogs as though it were a game and not a terrible warning of what might be to come.

  The boss had ordered the men to prepare supplies in case they needed to make an emergency evacuation, and the entire crew, including Shackleton, had been taking shifts throughout the day, hacking away at the ice in the hope that it might give the ailing ship a bit of space to breathe and settle once more. But their efforts turned out to be useless. For every chunk of ice the men managed to break free with their axes and picks, more ice would quickly move up to replace it.

  That night, Samson found it hard to sleep. The moans of the ship seemed even louder than usual. He closed his eyes again, trying to dream of happier times when he could run on the ice, when he felt a sudden shudder beneath him.

  “Bummer!” Samson called, forgetting their feud. He dug his claws into the wooden deck as the ship jolted again. “Something’s happening.”

  Bummer scowled, but then his eyes widened as there was another jerk. Just as the boss ran out onto the deck, the Endurance vibrated, shaking loose supplies and sending anything that wasn’t secured crashing down onto the deck. Kennels, dogs, and equipment flew across the deck in a jumble of ropes, wood, and fur. Then, just as quickly as it had started, everything went quiet. The dogs and men held their breath as one as the vibrations stopped—and then all at once, the ship jumped clean into the air, landing on the ice with an almighty crash to settle on solid ground. The entire ship now leaned to the port side, its hull and beam exposed.

  “Are you all right?” Samson asked Bummer as soon as he remembered to breathe again.

  Bummer just stared at Samson, his eyes huge and his body trembling. Samson thought he must look the same way. Although the vibrations had stopped, his legs shook and his heart hammered.

  “The ship jumped out of the water,” Bummer said, his voice trembling. “The pressure must have been so great that it squeezed it right up and out of the water. Pop!”

  “At least it didn’t crush it,” Samson said, relieved they were all still in one piece.

  “No,” Bummer said slowly. “But how are we going to sail to land when the ship is no longer in the water?”

  CHAPTER 12

  BUMMER

  October 27, 1915

  A heavy fog lay over the ship. Not the usual weather-type fog that dissipated with the sun, but the heavy weight of doom and gloom that seemed to have settled on them, harder to ignore with each day that passed.

  What will we do now? It was all Bummer could think about. With the ship veering to one side and not even resting in the water, how could they possibly move anywhere? They couldn’t take the lifeboats and sail to safety—they were still surrounded by thick pack ice for hundreds of miles in every direction. Even with the sun warming the ice, the temperatures were low enough that it might never thaw completely, or even enough for new leads of water to open up and guide them to safety.

  Bummer felt on tenterhooks every time he felt the slightest judder or movement or heard the smallest of creaks from the ship. It seemed as though the Endurance itself were made of ice and could shatter to pieces around them at any moment.

  There was a yell below, and McNish hurried up onto the deck. “We’ve got a leak!”

  Several men joined him as they raced down into the bowels of the ship with Mrs. Chippy swiftly running past in the opposite direction.

  “There’s water everywhere,” she moaned, her fur sodden and her tail dragging along miserably behind her. “On the starboard side. It looks as though the planks gave way.”

  “Will the ship sink?” Bummer asked.

  “I hope not,” Mrs. Chippy replied. “I do hate getting wet.”

  Bummer could do nothing but wait while the men worked the pumps below for three days and nights, until the water was gone and there was no more danger of sinking. The boss and the captain walked around the ship, inspecting the damage to the rudder and hull.

  “I wish we could do something to help,” Bummer told Sally. “I feel so useless.”

  “I’m not sure there is anything we can do,” she said, swatting at the pups, who were climbing over her back.

  “What will we do if the ship is lost?” Nell asked, her blue eyes wide.

  “We’ll carry on just the same on the ice,” Sally reassured her. “We are ice dogs, after all. It is where we belong.”

  “I’d rather
live and die somewhere a bit more comfortable,” Bummer grumbled. “By a warm fire, with a big, juicy bone to chew on and not an icicle in sight.”

  “But then we’ll never get to meet Father,” Nell sniffed.

  “This is an adventure,” Sally told Nell, drawing the pups close. “One day you’ll be able to tell your own pups about the amazing journey you made and, I hope, your father, too.”

  They listened as the ship groaned and creaked. The timbers gaped and twisted as though the ship were alive, taking deep breaths, in, then out again as the crew and dogs willed it to hold on.

  The boss returned, and an eerie silence fell on them. Even the ship was quiet for once as they waited for what Bummer hoped would be some good news.

  “We are to abandon ship,” the boss said, his head hung low. “It is no longer safe to stay here, and the ship is irreparably damaged.”

  That was it, then? They were doomed to live on an ice floe forever.

  There was a murmuring of voices; then the men got to work. They began unloading stores, equipment, and crates from the ship to set up camp on the ice now that it had settled. The dogs and men were uneasy about going out there again, but they had no choice. The ship was no longer safe. The men lowered three of the lifeboats filled with supplies to the ground. Out on the ice, the sleds were piled up with as much as they could comfortably take and the dogs could pull.

  Bummer was following the other dogs toward the gangplank when a shadow fell over him. Mrs. Chippy was stretched out precariously on the mast above, her tail flicking gently back and forth as she surveyed the scene.

  “Are you coming?” Bummer asked.

  She shook her head. “I am the ship’s cat,” she said. “I’ll remain with the ship for as long as I can. Then I might do a little exploring—I’m sure I can do a much better job than the men and dogs have managed.” She glanced at Bummer. “No offense. Who knows, I might even be the first cat to make it to the South Pole.”