by Chris Turney
* * *
Greg caught me in the corridor shortly after lunch: “Chris, can we meet with Igor? He’s keen to go over our options.”
“Yes, absolutely.” I haven’t seen much of Igor in the last twenty-four hours, basically since Andrew’s visit to his cabin. But now the hoped-for arrival of the Xue Long hasn’t come to pass, it’s important we all sit down and discuss where to go from here.
Half an hour later, I’m crossing a threadbare carpet to sit at the table in the captain’s cabin. It’s the first time I’ve been past the door. I’m struck by the sparse, almost austere decoration. A few books lie neatly stacked on the floor, a map on the wall, some pictures on the side, and not a lot else. This is Igor’s private space, effectively his home, and there’s very little of the man anywhere to be seen.
I turn my attention to the haggard, sun-tanned faces of the three other men in the room. Chris, Greg, and Igor look back at me. The last five days have been wearing, and who knows when we’re going to get out of here. Hopefully after this meeting we’ll have a better idea. We have a lot to talk about and we need to do so freely.
Greg starts. “It’s been a busy few hours. The RCC wants information on how best to proceed.”
He sums up the questions the team at the rescue center have. Their immediate concern is whether we remain in imminent danger. It’s not whether icebergs are in our vicinity; they want to know if they’re moving around.
Thankfully, they aren’t at the moment. The nearest bergs lie just a couple of miles off the Shokalskiy but they don’t appear to have moved recently.
“If that’s the case,” continues Greg, “they will release the Astrolabe so it can resume its voyage to Hobart. But if critical, they say they have room to evacuate twenty-one passengers by helicopter.”
What does that mean? If we need to evacuate, surely we need to get everyone off, not just twenty-one. Are we meant to start drawing lots? Everyone is going to get home, not just some. My family, the team, everyone. We all have to be safe.
The Chinese are remaining on station. There is, of course, the one elephant in the room.
“Is the Xue Long stuck?” I ask.
“Perhaps,” says Igor seriously and shrugs.
I grimace. The one ship that we can see could be in the same predicament as us. The situation might now be twice as bad.
For the RCC, the focus of the rescue now falls to the Australian icebreaker. Igor is keen for the Aurora Australis to push on. It will be able to break through. It will reach us. He’s almost imploring us. The Australian captain, however, is arguing they’re no more capable than the Xue Long. If the Chinese vessel is struggling, his won’t get through.
Igor disagrees, shaking his head: “They can do more. The Australians know these waters better than anyone. Their captain will be better able to find a way through the thinner, weaker floes. They should continue.”
Greg makes notes.
“Otherwise we wait for westerly wind,” Igor states matter-of-factly.
My hopes rise. If the wind does swing round, the pressure of the sea ice around Shokalskiy would immediately ease. A strong westerly wind could open up a lead of water as quickly as everything closed in.
I pull out the latest weather forecasts we’ve downloaded, and we compare them to the synoptic charts from the bridge. They all show the same thing: a low-pressure trough is sitting to the north of us, and with it easterly winds for several more days. There’s no prospect of escape.
This is going to take a monumental effort to manage. Boredom and frustration could easily become major problems if we spend days cooped up, even with exercising off the ship. We need volunteers to offer classes and fill the hours. Ben Maddison has done an amazing job with Nikki so far, but now we need to plan activities that stretch over days. We’ve already had offers. Eleanor is keen to start cutting up the ocean sediment cores we took in Commonwealth Bay. Naysa and Alicia have suggested Spanish lessons, Andrew photography classes. These will all fill precious hours. The video diaries should help too. Anything to keep people occupied and safe.
And in the meantime?
“We watch.”
That means time on the bridge. Those bergs haven’t moved recently, but I’m skeptical they’re lodged on the seabed. The water around here should be several hundred feet deep. It’s highly unlikely they have that much submerged ice. If the icebergs start moving again . . .
What happened to the Endurance is all too clear in my mind.
* * *
After ten months trapped in sea ice, the Endurance had zigzagged 1,000 miles around the Weddell Sea. Seven degrees of latitude separated the men from their point of first imprisonment; ten months amid the restless, grinding ice. But with the arrival of the spring sun, Shackleton and his men met a new and terrifying prospect. Rather than finding themselves released by melting ice, the breaking floes jostled one another with renewed enthusiasm, creating new pressure ridges that squeezed the Endurance once again. Hurley described the strain on the vessel:
The decks gaped, doors refused to open or shut. The floor coverings buckled and the iron floor plates in the engine room bulged and sprung from their settings . . . we began to rise from the ice, much after the manner of a gigantic pip squeezed between the fingers.
No one was more aware of the danger they faced than McNeish, who at times “thought it was not possible the ship would stand it.” During one bout of pressure, he feared “it won’t do so much longer as we have sprung a leak. I am working all night trying to stop the pressure getting worse.”
For the Boss, the men had to keep positive and busy. They weren’t allowed to dwell on their situation; they had to do something about it. All hands were put to the pumps, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the water. Trenches were cut around the ship to try to relieve the pressure on the hull. None of it made any difference. The vicelike grip of the ice was too much for the Endurance. The three lifeboats on board were taken off the ship and hauled to a safe distance.
By 27 October 1915, it was clear the Endurance couldn’t take any more. To Shackleton “the ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck” and he lamented in his diary:
It is hard to write what I feel. To a sailor his ship is more than a floating home, and in the Endurance I had centred ambitions, hopes and desires. Now, straining and groaning, her timbers cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient life . . . she was doomed. No ship built by human hands could have withstood the strain. I ordered all hands out on the floe.
For most of the time “he stood on the upper deck holding onto the rigging smoking a cigarette with a serious but somewhat unconquered air.” The men salvaged what they could, dumping supplies on the ice. It was a depressing sight watching the ship, their home, slowly have the remaining life crushed out of her, the hold filling with water as Hurley captured the last moments on film. But she did not sink. Held in the grip of the ice, the Endurance was “well down but by no means entirely submerged” when the emergency lighting suddenly switched on, seeming to “transmit a final signal of farewell.” Watching from the ice, Orde-Lees confided in his diary that “even Wild, as courageous a man as there is amongst us, admitted it gave him a pain in the stomach.”
Just when the men on the Endurance didn’t think it could get any worse, it did. The A-factor stepped up a notch. The men were about to find out just how bad things could get in the Antarctic.
* * *
Five days into our enforced stay, I’m starting to question my sanity. The A-factor is running me ragged. I know we have to build it into our planning but the range of possibilities for what might happen is numbing. For now, we’re all right. But the worst-case scenarios, most of them with the prospect of little to no warning, terrify me.
It’s eight in the evening, and I’m in the lecture room. I’m standing in front of the team, about to start my evening briefing. The room is packed, and it feels claustrophobic, but my family’s expectant faces immediately catch my attent
ion.
This really wasn’t such a great idea. Why on earth did I bring them here of all places?
Late yesterday, we were cheering as the icebreaker Xue Long smashed its way through the sea ice toward the Shokalskiy. Our release seemed only a matter of time. We’re going home.
Now the Chinese vessel has been stopped on the horizon and quite possibly trapped. The ice is too thick. Nobody can reach us.
I have to try to explain what happens next, but I have no real idea of how we’re going to get out. With the forecast showing easterly winds, the pressure around the Shokalskiy isn’t going to let up. The Xue Long was our one realistic hope of breaking out of here in the next few days.
The enormity of our situation appears to have sunk in during the day. This isn’t just a slight delay; no one is getting out of here anytime soon. And with this realization, there’s a palpable change in the mood. With Christmas gone, the team focus is threatening to disappear. With an indeterminate timeline, the drudgery and tension of life on a stranded ship is taking its toll. We’re completely at the mercy of the elements and everyone can sense it. The storms, the bergs, the rip in the hull—all we’ve experienced is throwing our situation into sharp relief. We’re as vulnerable as you can be. How much can the Shokalskiy reasonably take? For that matter, how much can we take?
There are no longer any faces smiling at me. Even Kerry seems deflated by the failure of the Xue Long.
“The good news is, the icebergs have stopped moving around us and probably grounded on the seabed.”
Faint smiles are shared. I don’t draw attention to the convoy of icebergs off the ship’s stern. I can’t.
“Although the Xue Long can’t get through, the captain has decided to stay on station to make sure we’re safe.”
That’s what he’s saying. He’s quite likely stuck as well. The ship hasn’t moved one little bit in twenty-four hours.
“We can still be broken out. We’ll just have to wait for the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, to arrive.”
There’s a murmur across the room.
“So how long will it be?” someone asks.
I don’t want to tell them this, but delay is the least of our problems. Igor is now talking about a fifty-fifty chance the Shokalskiy might not get out at all without a break in the winds. The ship could remain trapped for years, meaning we will need to evacuate. How and when I don’t know. The Australians don’t have a helicopter, which means we need the Chinese, the same Chinese who appear trapped on the horizon. That’s just made any evacuation a whole heap more challenging.
Greg stands up at the back of the room. Quietly spoken, he says, “At least five days,” and sits down promptly.
There’s an audible gasp across the room. In spite of all that’s befallen the Shokalskiy, the first talk of a longer delay seems to have made our predicament more real. The younger guys—normally smiling and laughing—sit stony-faced. Joan appears almost in tears. Annette, sitting next to her, offers a comforting hand.
Think of Shackleton. Keep it positive. Keep it hopeful.
“Remember,” I say, “the weather can change at any moment. We’re keeping a close eye on the forecasts and if the winds reverse, we’re out of here. If all else fails, the American icebreaker Polar Star is in Sydney and can reach us in two weeks.” That’s one bit of good news that came through a few hours ago, but the timeline is horrendous. There’s a palpable air of shock in the room, but I keep going. “The Polar Star is capable of getting through twenty-one feet of ice so won’t have any problems with what’s outside.”
After a few final words on housekeeping, the briefing is over, and everyone shuffles out.
That could have gone better, I think, but at least we were honest with them. For the most part.
I daren’t share my greatest fears. No one knows what those other icebergs are going to do, and the weather forecast looks crap.
Am I holding it together? Am I losing the group?
If anyone knew how worried I was, things would only get worse on board. I hope most of it’s in my head. We’ll be all right. I have to stay positive.
But I’m starting to doubt myself. I can’t help but think over all that’s happened, going through it all in my mind, time and time again. How can it have got so bad? It looked good when we were sailing in to the Hodgemans. We had the best comms available. All the satellite imagery showed clear, open water.
Why did that bloody ice have to sweep in so fast?
Annette looks toward me, worried. I smile at her from across the room.
It’ll be fine.
The only happy face appears to be Kerry-Lee’s, the Chinese banker.
“Kerry-Lee, was that okay?” I ask, concerned she may not have understood everything.
She beams back at me. “Oh, yes. I okay. Tomorrow more hopeful, yes?”
“Yes.” I smile to myself. At least someone’s all right.
As I climb upstairs, my thoughts are interrupted. Two of the volunteers, Peter and John, stop me in the corridor. They’re worried about the delay and whether they’re being told everything. I try to reassure them, but Greg joins us. Frustration suddenly erupts. Greg loses his temper.
“Of course, we’re not going to get home when scheduled. It’s bloody obvious, isn’t it? We’ve been held up five days, so we’re going to be at least five days late. It could be a lot, lot worse. Take responsibility and work it out for yourself.”
The corridor is packed with onlookers by now, and there’s a shocked silence as Greg storms off. I’d never guessed he was feeling the pressure. He seemed to be doing so well. A little distant at times, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary.
If Greg’s this stressed, we’re in even worse trouble than I thought.
Everyone else seems to be thinking the same. Terrified looks are exchanged along the corridor. People are starting to realize that this is more than just a temporary hold-up; we’re not in a safe situation.
I need to take the heat out of what’s just happened.
I offer a faltering apology and after promising fresh news tomorrow, I wearily climb the stairs to the bridge in search of Greg. I close the door on everyone else. Words are said. It’s a bruising half-hour.
Afterward, I search out the kids in their cabin. Cara and Robert are sitting on a bunk with the iPad.
“Hi, Dad. How’s it going?” asks Cara. “Want to join us for a movie?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Normality . . . or as close as I’m going to get.
“Make way,” I demand, determined to sound as calm as possible. They smile and silently shuffle apart. I drop into the middle, hugging them both, and settle down for the rest of the evening.
I’m never letting you go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Teamwork
The Shokalskiy isn’t getting out of here anytime soon.
Everyone is sensing it, even Greg.
The morning after his outburst, Greg knocks on my cabin door and apologizes. I’m glad Annette has already left for breakfast. It’s big of Greg to do this, but he’s a private man.
“That’s okay, Greg. Forget it happened. Let’s just move on.”
The stress isn’t just telling on him; we’re all feeling it.
Chris joins us shortly after. We sit down to plan the morning briefing. I lay out the latest satellite sea-ice imagery downloaded from the top deck an hour ago. It makes grim viewing. Where there was thick, decade-old ice out to the north of the Mertz Glacier, there’s a large, gaping hole of open water. It’s the same region where some of the biggest increases in sea ice have been reported in recent years. No wonder we can’t get out. All this ice has been dumped along the eastern side of Commonwealth Bay by the Boxing Day winds. And we’re slap bang in the middle of it. The weather charts show that the day before we were trapped, a tightly jammed finger of barometric pressure stretched over this vast region, driving the broken ice right into our path. It means the sea ice was following hard on our heels as we sailed
into the Hodgemans. We were already trapped when we arrived; we just didn’t know it. Whether the breakout of sea ice is from climate change seems a moot point at the moment.
“It looks like this might become fast ice,” muses Chris as he pores over the images. “Shit, we’ve been caught by a major realignment of the Antarctic coastline. This could be here for a long time yet.”
“If so,” says Greg, “we might have to accept the Shokalskiy will remain stuck without some serious ice-breaking capability. I can’t believe the Aurora or the Xue Long are going to reach us on their own.”
Not good.
If the Shokalskiy isn’t released, the only other real possibility is a helicopter evacuation—and that means working with Captain Wang on the trapped Xue Long.
I reach for my coffee. I slept fitfully during the night and feel groggy with tiredness. This is my second cup, and it’s not even touching the sides.
“The alternative is the Polar Star,” Greg continues. “She could get through.” Igor has told us the Russian owners of the Shokalskiy have been in contact with the U.S. Coast Guard, who run the biggest icebreaker of them all. En route to the Ross Sea from Seattle and about to arrive in Sydney, the Polar Star is a god in these waters. Its distinctive red and white hull is known to all in the Antarctic. If anyone can get us out it’s the Polar Star. But it could be another fortnight.
That’s a heck of a long time to keep the team together.
We’re showing signs of fracturing already and it’s only been five days. And to make it worse, the bridge monitors show us surrounded by bergs that bear an uncanny resemblance to prowling sharks. At the moment, they’re keeping at bay. With another two weeks, who knows?
