Iced In

by Chris Turney

  I walk along the side of the ship, the beams of light from the windows piercing the gloom. It feels unearthly. The hiss of the snowflakes blowing across the deck remind me just how alone we really are.

  There have been some good developments during the day. The wind has let up, and the icebergs have come to a standstill. And now we’ve stopped drifting to the shore; there’s enough ice packed between us and the coast to stop the ship smashing on the rocks. That’s a massive relief. Otherwise we’d be dealing with a completely different scenario.

  I can just make out the muffled singing and laughter on board. I look in through one of the windows. After the sumptuous Christmas meal cooked by Nicola and Brad, everyone has moved to the lounge. Chris, Eleanor, and Erik are singing a carol next to the tree, Stay the Dog sitting attentively next to them, red and green antlers perched on the mascot’s head. Annette and Cara are seated in the far corner chatting to Kerry; Robert is showing off the card tricks he’s been taught by Graeme. The team are relaxing, enjoying the end of the day. We’re surrounded by snow and ice. It doesn’t get any more festive than that.

  Brad walks across the lounge, still wearing his Santa outfit. Completely lost in character, crying, “Ho, ho, ho,” he gave out the gifts from the tree this afternoon. During the lead-up to the expedition I asked everyone to bring a small gift for a Christmas lucky dip. The presents were a mixed bag. I did rather well—someone had generously bought a bottle of wine worth far more than the suggested $10 value. Poor Greg, though, opened his elaborately wrapped item and found one of the expedition fridge magnets inside.

  The immediate threats have gone for now but this fog is a worry. Earlier today the barometer was showing rising atmospheric pressure, suggesting the forecasted low was tracking to the north, away from our location. Everything changed in the afternoon. The pressure held steady, but the wind swung round to the north and with it this fog has rolled in. In the Southern Hemisphere, the air in low-pressure systems flows in a clockwise direction, the opposite to their northern counterparts. As a result, you can sense their approach when the wind switches to the north; after it’s passed, the wind is funneled up from the south, slamming any vessel in its path with blasts of frigid polar air. It looks like the low is now heading our way, and we’re forecast a blizzard with wind speeds over forty-five knots. I don’t even want to think about what it’s going to do to all that sea ice out there.

  I look up at the weathervane. If it would just swing to the west, we might still be able to get out of here on our own.

  Shift, you bastard, shift.

  I have no idea how Shackleton survived months of this. One day is enough for me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Home of the Blizzard

  The blizzard is far worse than I feared. Through the driving sleet and snow, I can just make out Chris on the other side of the Zodiac.

  Chris is looking toward me. He’s gulping for air as he shouts something, his words carried away by the storm-force winds screaming between us.

  “What?” I bellow back.

  He tries again. “This is ridiculous.”

  I know what he’s saying. It’s Boxing Day morning. Most normal people would be lying in bed after a day of over-indulgence. We, on the other hand, are stuck on a ship, 1,400 miles from anywhere, surrounded by sea ice and bergs. It’s only eight o’clock, and I’m having the air choked out of me by a raging snowstorm.

  We’re checking the lashings of the Zodiacs on the rear deck. They seem firm enough, and I’m sorely tempted to let them be and hope for the best, but in these winds you can never be sure. With the slightest slack, they’ll rapidly unravel. The last thing we need is twenty-foot-long inflatables breaking loose and flying off the deck.

  The wind shrieks through the rigging.

  Today’s weather chart makes sobering viewing. Just like topographic maps, the closer the barometric pressure lines, the steeper the change. This morning’s chart shows a tightly jammed low out to the west heading our way, meaning what’s happening now is just the start. The atmospheric pressure has dropped fifteen millibars over the last few hours and with it the winds have cranked up. The Shokalskiy is now being buffeted by sixty-plus-mile-per-hour winds and it looks set to stay this way for most of the day.

  It’s a good job we’re not in open water. We’d have towering waves to contend with, as well.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  There’s a momentary drop in the wind and I shout to Chris: “All good on this side, I’ll try the next Zodiac.”

  He nods in acknowledgment, and I move on to the last remaining inflatable.

  This blizzard is more violent than anything I’ve ever been caught in before. The deck is treacherously icy and I hold on tight, grabbing anything to keep my balance. The wind on the other side of the ship’s funnel is even more fierce, blowing vicious darts of ice in my face. I gasp in shock and get down on all fours, keeping low. There’s a very real chance one or both of us might get blown off our feet, and the last thing we need is a broken limb—or worse. Fragments of ice hurtle off the rigging. I make sure my snow goggles are firmly in place and drop my head. Only one word can sum this up: violent.

  A distant roar of wind warns me another blast is about to hit. It builds in strength, howling and screeching around the ship. I can feel the Shokalskiy shaking as if it’s about to be torn out of the ice.

  Come on, you bastard! I scream at the ropes, and finally feel the knot tighten. With the inflatable secure, everything is locked down. Thank Christ for that. Chris makes to come over but I wave him away: don’t bother; it’s all good. There’s no point shouting; he’ll never hear me. Chris gets my meaning and moves to the shelter of a nearby doorway. I’m out of breath by the time I reach him.

  “This is bloody crazy weather,” he says.

  It is bloody crazy, but we’re done. When the winds worsen, at least we know everything is lashed as securely as possible.

  “I need a coffee,” I shout, and heave open the door into the back of the lounge.

  We step from the raging apocalypse into another world. Inside, all is calm and warm, lights ablaze. It’s almost too warm. Ben Fisk is cleaning up, and greets us as we fall into the room: “Morning, guys. Bit wild out there?”

  I smile to myself. Ben is one of life’s positive people. Always upbeat, he’s the first to volunteer for any task, going out of his way to find out what needs to be done. It’s typical Ben would be one of the first up and helping out on Boxing Day.

  “Morning, Ben.” I shake myself clear of snow. “Is the coffee machine on?”

  “Turned it on a few minutes ago. Should be warmed up by now.”

  I’m gasping for a coffee. Early on in our planning I insisted we have decent coffee on the expedition. No crappy instant. I’m a caffeine junkie, and I knew many of the others are too—if we were going to fuel this expedition properly we had to have a near-inexhaustible supply of good beans. Behind the bar, I’ve set up a Breville espresso machine and grinder.

  Without asking, I make a long black for Chris. He takes the steaming cup gratefully, the aroma filling the room.

  We collapse on the sofas and savor what has to be the best damn coffee in the world.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, the media had learned about our predicament.

  The first we knew about it was during Christmas dinner when Vlad called for me over the tannoy.

  “Chris, Chris, please come to bridge.”

  Faces turned toward me. I smiled back weakly, knowing it must be important if I was being asked for now. I rose from the table, leaning over Annette’s shoulder to give her a kiss. “Don’t worry love, it’ll be fine.”

  I climbed the three flights of stairs to the bridge nervously.

  Vlad met me at the door. “Call for you, Chris.” He signaled to the phone next to the chart table.

  It was a journalist wanting to know whether we were okay.

  It completely caught me off guard. I did the only thing I could th
ink of: I stalled for time.

  “Oh fine, fine,” I replied. “We’ve run into some thicker-than-expected ice, so we’re just waiting for a change in wind and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “So nothing to be concerned about?”

  It was bizarre speaking to someone while we’re . . . trapped. The journalist was talking to me as if I was just down the road.

  “Oh no, we’re all good. Just having dinner. Everyone’s in fine spirits.” I wished the journalist a happy Christmas and put the phone down.

  I hoped it was just a case of an enthusiastic journalist on a slow news day, maybe checking the ship’s location online and seeing we hadn’t moved.

  No chance.

  Then we learned the authorities had put out a press release. It’s causing unintended mayhem. The ship is being inundated with calls. There are Russian reports that we’ve been hit by an iceberg, that we’re sinking, that several people have died. This morning a confused newspaper article came out in Australia. At first, I didn’t recognize what it was describing: a tourist ship on some sort of botched historic recreation. I’m struggling to reconcile our expedition with how it’s being reported; the journalist hadn’t bothered to do the most cursory of research. There’s a danger the story is about to become very twisted, very quickly.

  What is a difficult situation has now become a whole heap worse. We have enough to be getting on with without journalists firing out lazy reports. The Endurance expedition never had to deal with this. When Shackleton and his men were caught, they were off the map and no one knew what they were grappling with. The newspapers could speculate and criticize, sure, but the men on the expedition didn’t have to deal with any of it at the time. They just concentrated on the one and only important thing: getting through it together.

  The conditions are too bad to go outside again, so I send a message to the head of the Australian Antarctic Division via the ship’s email; we need to coordinate our efforts to minimize any more garbled stories being published. The last thing we need is the crap being scared out of everyone at home. I hope we get a response soon.

  I’m nervous about how the team is going to take this. Breakfast hasn’t finished yet, but already family members and friends are starting to call the Shokalskiy in panic, jamming the only phone in the bridge and preventing the authorities getting through to us. If this continues, it threatens to wreak havoc with morale. Christmas helped keep everyone’s minds off the situation. Now it’s passed, we need to keep everyone busy. We don’t need panic. We could be here for a while yet.

  “Chris, can I speak to you?”

  I turn to see Mary chasing me down the corridor.

  I breathe deeply. Here we go. “Morning, Mary. Everything all right?”

  Just behind her, volunteer Rob steps through a door, slamming it shut on the raging storm outside. A flurry of snow follows him in, the notices on the walls momentarily flapping in the wind. Brushing off his camera and ice-covered hat, Rob mutters about the weather.

  “Have you seen this article?” Mary holds up a printout from a newspaper website, shaking it crossly. “It’s complete rubbish. What is wrong with them? We’re not a tourist ship. We’re a science expedition. Any journalist worth their salt could have found that out.”

  I sigh with relief. I could give her a big hug.

  “I know. I’ve just seen it. I’ve no idea what they’re on about. How are the others taking it?”

  “The same. They’re incensed. What are we going to do about it?”

  I’m energized by the morning briefing. Rather than being despondent, the team are fired up. There’s an old notion in expedition circles that you need a bogeyman on the team, someone to bond against. We don’t have anyone like that, but no matter—the newspaper article has done the same trick. It’s had an electrifying effect on morale, taking the focus off the blizzard outside. We need to respond. We need to tell everyone what we’re doing. I would never have dared believe it.

  Janet is particularly cross. “If we don’t do anything, they’ll continue to make a hash of it.”

  I see lots of nodding heads.

  Greg sums it up nicely: “We can push back on this. Don’t let them take control of our story. We need to tell everyone we’re all right and the expedition is scientific.”

  We all agree. Alok, Laurence, and Andrew have already started sending in their own reports to The Guardian and the BBC. I don’t know what they’re saying, but anything will be better than the garbage we’ve seen this morning.

  Our social-media network seems an obvious way to reach out: Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Vine, YouTube, and the blogs. We’ve been posting daily science updates to all of these. Now we can use them to tell everyone we’re all right. Alongside these efforts, Tracey has the great idea of writing an article for the online newspaper The Conversation, to counter the screwy views at home.

  We will tell our story.

  Reassurance is the name of the game. “If you have a satellite phone, please do feel free to call friends and families and tell them everything is okay; it will hopefully put their minds at rest. We also have the office phone and can open this up for a few hours for calls. Nikki, can we put up a schedule in the lounge?”

  * * *

  The pressure of the ice hit the Endurance in waves with a noise likened to a “train passing or a heavy sea on a rocky shore.” Each time, the ship would shake and the timbers groan. There was nowhere to hide. It must have been a terrifying reminder of the danger the men found themselves in. At any moment, the ship could be crushed and everyone with it. Nightwatchmen were posted to alert the others of impending danger and keep the stoves alight; Shackleton’s burner required attention every half-hour, and the men would anticipate an interrogation about the conditions outside. The Anglo-Irishman was soon preparing for the worst. As early as 31 July he asked Orde-Lees to make a list of supplies to sustain the men on the ice for seventy-two days and store them on deck in case they needed to abandon ship.

  It was an unsettling time, and the men were desperate to find ways to anticipate what might happen next: rumbles in the distance meant ice floes were colliding and might threaten the vessel; falling snow and light drift might signify an approaching blizzard. To help keep their minds off the horrors outside, Hurley wrote, “At first the gramophone proved a godsend, [but] no sooner did the music begin than the ice-pressure commenced, and the vessel began to quiver and creak . . . The belief became so strong that eventually the gramophone was placed under a ban.” No more records were played for fear it would be the end of the Endurance.

  Unfortunately, the pressure around the hull was just one of many risks for the Endurance. The floes around the ship were large, but the icebergs in their vicinity were enormous. One moment they were frozen around the ship, the next they were heading off at great speed, threatening to collide with the Endurance. Eight miles from the ship they spotted a “monster,” a berg 180 feet high, ploughing through the sea ice. Other smaller bergs came dangerously close. Ship’s carpenter Harry McNeish described one near-collision: “We had a rather narrow squeak with a berg this morning. It passed us about half a mile away going NE. It caused a lot of pressure but is well away now.” McNeish was not a man with a sunny disposition, but this comment is remarkably positive. “Half a mile” is as close as you want your vessel to get to a moving berg. It’s one thing waiting trapped in the ice, entirely another for your ship to get smashed to bits with you on it.

  * * *

  Over the next few hours, the wind continues to increase in intensity. I can feel the ship responding. It’s not just being buffeted—something else is going on. It’s almost like we’re being plucked from the ice. I realize the Shokalskiy is starting to tilt. It’s only slight at first, the sensation subtle, but it’s definitely there.

  Up on the bridge, I walk over to the window and look down.

  The wind is blowing from the north. Finding their path blocked, the ice floes are rafting up, piling alongside the starboard side of the ves
sel.

  The visibility is bad. If anything, it’s worse than last night. We can’t see any of the icebergs or what they’re doing, but they’re somewhere out there. I squint into the gloom, but it’s futile. The radar has become our only eyes. Involuntarily I find myself checking the screen every few minutes. I’m not the only one. Bald-headed chief mate Nikolai is on the bridge. A good-natured man, Nikolai is normally supremely confident in the ability of the ship to weather any conditions, but even he is making a regular passage between the radar and the windows.

  “It’s okay,” he says reassuringly, almost to himself. The bergs glow ominously green, but so far they seem to be staying put. That’s a relief. If one or more of these Goliaths make a beeline for the ship, we won’t have long to react. I hope to God they don’t. The last thing we want to do is evacuate the Shokalskiy in these conditions.

  The wind is screaming again. The tilt meter on the wall is showing the ship at 1.5 degrees. I can feel it. I pace the room nervously, something I always do when I need to think.

  I go down to find the kids. Both are in their cabin: Robert watching a film on his iPad, Cara reading. Annette and I are fiercely protective of them. We need to keep them as safe as possible in this situation.

  “Guys, no going up on deck today. It’s really wild outside and I have to know you’re both safe. Is that okay?”

  “Fine, Dad,” says Cara, barely looking up.

  “Sure, Dad,” says Robert cheerily, completely unfazed by my instructions. Dad sounds like he’s making a fuss about nothing.

  Kids.

  It’s a relief to know they’re not completely freaked out by what’s happening outside their window.

  This weather is mad. It’s like something out of a bad movie. There’s a howling wind outside, we have massive icebergs within a couple of miles off the starboard side, and there’s almost no visibility. And to make it worse, the constant pressure from the ice is pushing the ship over.