The White South

by Hammond Innes

  He began shouting orders at the men. I saw the amazement I felt written on their faces. But they were overawed by the terror of their surroundings. They would follow any leader, so long as he led. I started forward, and as I came up to Bland I heard him announce the reinstatement of Vaksdal and Keller as mates. He gave an order. The men hesitated. Their eyes shifted to me. Bland turned. The sneer was gone now. But the truculence was still there. I ordered him to pick up one of the packing cases. His eyes shifted quickly from me to the men. Another instant and he’d believe what he wanted to believe—that he was not responsible for the predicament we were in. That mad scramble across the ice had almost wiped any sense of guilt from his mind. And as he didn’t move when I repeated the order, I knew there was only one thing to do. “McPhee. Kalstad.” The two Hval 4 men moved forward. “Arrest that man,” I ordered. And then, turning quickly to Bland, I said, “Erik Bland, you are charged with the murder of Bernt Nordahl and also with the deliberate ramming of Hval 4, an action which caused the immediate death of two men and which may be responsible for all our deaths. You will be held and committed for trial when and if we ever reach civilisation.”

  I was watching his eyes all the time as I spoke. For a moment they had a wild, almost hunted look. Then he laughed. “You can’t get away with this, Craig,” he shouted. “First you try to steal my wife, now you try to get control of the company through her.”

  I called to two or three of the Hval 4 men and with Kalstad and McPhee moved in to get him. I knew just what he was capable of now and I was taking no more chances. I wanted him secured. He watched us approach and I thought for a moment he was going to fight. His face was very white under his brown beard and his eyes shifted uneasily from side to side.

  Then suddenly he turned and slithered down the ice of the ledge. A man-hunt wasn’t going to be good for morale, but I was determined to get him. I sent Kalstad and the rest after him. He had stopped at one of the packing cases that had apparently been burst open with a pick. I thought we’d mastered him without the sordid business of a fight. I had turned back to speak with the men, when Howe gave a shout of warning. As I swung round, Bland was lifting a rifle out of the broken packing case.

  Kalstad started to run towards him. Then he and the men behind him checked suddenly. Bland had the gun cocked and levelled straight at them. He was laughing at them. A shot rang out close behind me. I turned to find Vaksdal struggling with Howe. Vaksdal had hold of his arm, and as he twisted it back the gloved fingers released the weapon; It fell to the ice. For a moment there was a glint of nickel-plating slithering down the ramp, then it disappeared over the edge.

  Bland was coming up the ledge now, and he was driving the Hval 4 men back at the point of his gun. He was immensely pleased with himself. You could see it by the gleam in his eyes and the way he walked. He bunched all the survivors together. None of us hesitated to obey. His eyes were narrowed and cold, and his manner and the way he held the rifle made it clear that he would not hesitate to use it.

  He called Vaksdal and Keller over to him. They hesitated uncertainly. Bland as the son of the chairman of the company was one thing. Bland with a gun another. But they went down to him all the same. Then he called on the rest of the men to join him. He spoke in Norwegian. They looked at me and then began muttering amongst themselves. “He tell them it is safe to have only one leader,” Gerda translated for me. “That he is in command and that it is mutiny if they do not obey him.”

  The thing had got to be stopped at once. I called out to the men. And then Judie’s hands were tugging at my arm. Bland was yelling at me to shut up. He had the gun to his shoulder and was aiming straight at me. “Keep quiet, Duncan,” Judie pleaded. “He will shoot. There is plenty of time.”

  Howe, just behind me, said, “We’ve got to get his gun.”

  As we hesitated, one or two of the men moved down the slope of the ledge towards Bland. In an instant they would all go. They needed a leader. Bland had a gun and the will to use it. It seems incredible now. But out there on that ledge in that chaotic wilderness of ice it didn’t seem so incredible. The law of the wild holds good when it comes to pitting your puny strength against the violence of nature. If we could stop the men, isolate Bland and his two mates, then the sheer threat of our numbers would wear him down. I started forward. If I got killed—well, it was just too bad. In the moment of horror the men might rush him then.

  But just as I moved out to stop what had begun to look like a general movement towards Bland, Gerda rushed past me. She stopped, facing the men with her back to Bland. Her small, bulky figure blocked their way down the ledge and she poured a flood of Norwegian at them, her eyes bright, her face flushed. The men stopped. I heard Nordahl’s name and Hval 4 mentioned repeatedly. She was telling them the truth now and the men growled angrily.

  I glanced at Bland. He had lowered the gun. He was sane enough to realise that if he shot her the men would kill him. But he was coming up the slope, his face white and convulsed with rage. I called to Gerda to look out. But she kept on speaking. Bland struck her from behind, stunning her with one blow of his hand across the nape of her neck. Howe gave an inarticulate cry and ran forward. Judie clutched at him, but too late. He flung himself shrieking on Bland, who met him with a jab of the rifle barrel to his stomach. And as Howe folded up, he brought his knee up sharply so that his head jerked back. Bland caught him as he slipped to the ice. I heard him shout something about wanting to do it for a long time, and he smashed his fist into the wretched man’s face. Howe’s face looked dazed and a gush of blood shone very crimson against the white of the snow. His knees gave and suddenly he was a crumpled bundle of clothing lying on the ice. Bland kicked at him viciously, his gun ready, waiting for the first man to break and rush at him. He was grinning all the time.

  I felt Judie stiffen beside me. This was the real Bland. This was the Bland she knew—the man who admired the Nazis and their methods. And seeing him kicking at Howe’s senseless body, I knew that none of us would get out of the ice alive; not unless we killed Bland first. God! How I wished I’d never gone back to the Tauer III camp for the boats.

  For a moment he was lost to everything but the pleasure of taking it out of Howe. We might have rushed him then. But I think we were all too astonished at the sudden display of violence. And by the time we had started to move in on him, the moment was gone. He checked us with the gun. And then he began talking to the men. And as he talked to them I realised how he had been able to pull the wool over Eide’s eyes. It was impossible to believe that a moment before he’d been kicking a senseless man. With the gun in his hand and the memory of that dash across the ice to the ledge, he had complete confidence in himself. His manner was a queer mixture of the arrogance of the leader and the almost boyish excitement of the adventurer.

  “He’s trying to persuade the men to desert us,” Judie said.

  I’d already realised that. “You must do something,” she added. “They may follow him if we don’t do something to stop them.”

  But it was no good my talking to them. The weakness of my position was that I was an outsider. And though I didn’t understand what Bland was saying, I knew from the contemptuous way in which he mentioned my name that he was using that fact to sway the men. “You talk to them,” I said. “They’re all of them Tönsberg men. Talk to them about your father.”

  She stared at me in surprise. And then very reluctantly, as she saw I wouldn’t move, she stepped forward. Her face was very white. It was hard for her. The man was her husband and she had to tell the men that he’d murdered her father. She began to speak, her voice clear even above the growl and thunder of the ice. For a moment she and Bland were talking at the same time. Then the attention of the men became riveted on her. Bland hesitated and then stopped speaking. The boyish arrogance gradually slipped from his manner. His eyes shifted uneasily from the men to Judie and back again to the men. His grip on his gun tightened as an angry murmur rose from them.

  Then suddenl
y he shouted an order. His voice was crisp and hard. He was calling on the men to follow him. They talked uncertainly among themselves for a moment. Then they were silent. He called to them again. But no one moved. “All right,” he shouted at them in English. “Have it your own way then. Stay with Craig and see where it lands you.” He turned to me. “They’re your responsibility now, Craig.” He drew a line with the heel of his boot across the ice of the ledge. “You’ll camp above this line. Any mutineer that crosses this line will be shot. Understand? You’ll be issued with tents and stores. Once a day, at midday, you’ll send two men to collect rations. Bonomi.”

  The little Italian started. “Si, signore.”

  “Can you cook?”

  “A leetle. But I am not—”

  “You’ll cook for the officers then. Go down and report to Vaksdal. The rest of you get back up the ledge. Go on. Get moving.” He made a threatening gesture with the gun. “Go an. Go an.” I could almost hear the Nazi Raus! Raus! echoing the violence of his voice.

  “What about the boats?” I asked.

  Bland looked at me. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were bright. He no longer looked in the least boyish. He had the mean look of something that’s been cornered. “The boats will remain with me. I’ll look after them for you.” He turned to Judie then and said, “You’d better stay with your boy-friend.”

  Judie turned without answering him. He watched her and there was a strange look in his eyes. It wasn’t remorse. I think perhaps it was regret—a sudden sense of sadness for what might have been. Gerda had recovered consciousness and was staggering to her feet. I got two of the men and we picked Howe up. He was just beginning to come round. His upper lip was swollen and pulpy and his right arm was bruised, otherwise he seemed all right. The rest of the crews had already moved up the slope of the ice ledge. We followed.

  Bland took no chances with the men. He got right on with the issuing of tents and stores. I imagine he picked the best of everything for himself and his companions, but there was still plenty for us. I set the men to levelling platforms for the tents and cutting into the ice wall at the back of the ledge to provide extra shelter, for when it began to blow again it would be terribly exposed up there on that ledge.

  As the day wore on, Judie’s attitude began to worry me. Only once did she speak to me and then it was to upbraid me for not doing something about Bland when he’d faced us with his gun. When I tried to explain to her that there was nothing I could have done, she turned away angrily. Her face was pale and tense. She seemed bitter and resentful. It was almost as though she were blaming me for what had happened.

  She and Gerda were given a tent to themselves. As soon as it was erected, Judie crawled into it. And that was the last I saw of her that day. Once when I passed I heard the sound of sobbing. I hesitated, wondering whether to go in and try to comfort her. But someone called to me and I passed on. Setting up camp on that ledge was a job that occupied all my attention. I had no time to worry about her.

  That night, after the evening meal, as I lay in my tent talking to Howe and McPhee and Kalstad who shared it, Gerda crawled in. “What are you going to do, Duncan?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “But you must do something.”

  “Not yet,” I answered. She was sitting close to Howe and I saw her hand was holding his. It made me think of Judie. I asked Gerda whether she were all right.

  “Ja. I think so. But she is not very happy.” She peered at me uncertainly in the half light. “It is not very nice her position, I think. Also she feel you must do something. You make her speak to the men. She have to bare her soul in front of them all, so that they will follow you and not Bland. Now she think you must—” She stopped uncertainly.

  “Must what?” I asked.

  “Please do not be offended, Duncan. It is so difficult, not in my own language. But she feel—that you must justify the men’s faith, that you must take control. It—it is not that she do not believe in you. I am sure of that. But—you must try to understand. It is terrible for her, this position.”

  “What does she expect me to do?” I asked harshly. I was very tired.

  “I do not know. She is not clear in her mind, I think. You see it is all a terrible muddle for her. Bland is her husband. She know he murder her father. She is in love with you, and Bland, whom you save from dying alone, now controls everything.”

  “Gerda’s right,” Howe said, his words blurred through his thickened lips. “They’re both right. We’ve got to do something.” That was what he had been saying before she came in.

  “Yes, but what?” I demanded irritably. “We’ve no weapons. Altogether Bland has three rifles and about a thousand rounds of ammunition. Also, he’s not afraid to use them. There’s no period of darkness in which we can surprise him. As for the men, they’re well fed and for the first time for days they feel secure. When supplies get short and they get desperate, then maybe we can rush Bland.”

  “Perhaps it is too late then,” Gerda said. “This berg may break out of the pack in the next storm. Then Bland will get away in one of the boats and stove in the rest. His one chance is to be the sole survivor.” It was almost as though Howe were speaking through her, but he remained huddled in his blankets, sucking at his swollen lips.

  “We’ll just have to wait,” I answered stubbornly. “Don’t worry. Time and the ice will wear him down. Anyway, I’m not risking anyone’s life, my own included, in some premature attempt to regain control of the stores. I suggest you all get some sleep now.” And I rolled over in my blankets. Gerda stayed talking to Howe for some time. Then she left and there was silence in the tent, a silence that was dominated all the time by the grinding and crashing of the berg’s advance through the pack, a violent pandemonium of sound that was paralleled by a constant quivering of the berg itself, a quivering that was felt through the whole body as one lay on the ice floor of the ledge. And then Howe produced an iron stanchion and with a file began working away at the tip of it. The rasp of the file and grinding of the ice seemed to tear at my nerves as I fell asleep.

  I won’t attempt to give a day-to-day account of our sojourn on the iceberg. One day was very much like another, varying only in the intensity of cold and the strength and direction of the wind. For myself it was a period of loneliness and waiting. Technically I was in command. But it was not an easy command. The men of Hval 4 were all right. I held them through Gerda. But with the others it was different. Even to the Tauer III men, whom I had commanded on the run out from Capetown, I was an outsider. Only the fact that they were Tönsberg men and believed what Judie had told them about her father’s death kept them with us. Tempering every decision was the fear that some of these men might break away and join Bland. This became increasingly a source of worry as Bland’s ration issue became less and the monotony of our existence grew. Bland had the boats and the stores. They represented hope and a full belly. The men knew from Bonomi that in Bland’s camp food and tobacco were plentiful. And once the men started to break away, it would become a stampede. Orders became little more than requests and all the time Judie kept to her tent and refused to speak to me.

  I worried about Judie a lot. I worried about Howe, too. He took no interest in the work of the camp and made no effort to help. He hardly stirred from the tent. He was morose and silent, seemingly occupied with his own thoughts. And all the time he whittled away at the iron, working the end to a point with a double edge like a spear. The grating of the file seemed to rasp at my nerves till I could stand it no longer. “For God’s sake,” I snapped at him, “stop it—do you hear?”

  He stared at me sullenly and went on working at the tip of it. McPhee rolled over in his blankets, snatched the stanchion from him and flung it out of the tent. “Noo, will ye let us get some sleep, ye crazy loon.”

  Howe said nothing, but later that night I woke to the rasp of the file. I cursed him then, spending all my pent-up anger on him. He let me go on shouting at him and when I had f
inished he said quietly, “What would you do if Bland had killed your father?” And then, as though he’d been bottling it all up inside him, he started to tell me about Nordahl, how he’d come to see him at Newcastle, how he’d bought him a boat when he was twenty-one, how he’d taken him out to Grytviken for a season. “If I’d been his legitimate son he couldn’t have done more for me. And then after the war he gave me this job. Do you think I don’t know what I have to do? And I’d have done it, too. I’d have done it by now if it hadn’t been for Vaksdal. I’d have shot him dead here on this ledge. But Vaksdal had to interfere, damn his bloody hide. Why did he have to stop me? Why didn’t he let me do it then?” His voice had risen now. “I had him. I’d only to pull the trigger. Bland would have been dead by now if it hadn’t been for Vaksdal. Vaksdal deserves to die. If I can’t kill Bland without Vaksdal, then I’ll—”

  There was a muttered curse and McPhee sat up. “Will ye shut up, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I tell you, I’ll kill them both if I have to. I’ll kill them all if they—”

  “Shut up, do ye hear!”

  But Howe’s voice went on and on, talking about killing, eternally talking about killing. I fell asleep to the drone of his voice and woke in the morning to the rasp of the file. It was enough to drive a man crazy.

  I told Gerda what he was up to, but whenever she came into the tent he hid the stanchion under his blankets. When she asked about it, his face puckered up like a kid about to cry. He hadn’t wanted her to know. I saw that at once, saw the struggle going on inside him between his love of her and the need to justify his existence by avenging the one man he’d loved. He wasn’t really sane. Every flicker of emotion was mirrored instantly in his features. And when Gerda took the wretched thing away from him, he behaved like a kid whose favourite toy has been confiscated. He had it back by evening and was filing at it with desperate energy, till the rasp of it drove us nearly crazy and McPhee tore the iron out of his hands and flung it out over the ledge on to the ice below. Howe burst into tears then. But by next day he was at work on another stanchion. By then we were too tired to care and the rasp of the file seemed to merge with the grinding of the ice as we fell asleep in a coma of exhaustion.