"This is a place for dreamers, where reality is like a dream and the dream becomes the reality." (Andrea Stolowitz, Antarktikos)
Prologue, Wednesday, March 21st, 1912
He was staggering in the howling blizzard, dazzled by pain, cold and exhaustion, struggling against the temptation to give in to the frozen nothingness. His will, his drive, his dreams had been concentrated into the mechanical act of lifting one foot after another, again and again, without knowing why he persisted with the blind stubbornness of a dying animal.
The sledging harness cut into his shoulders and his hips. The sting of his raw flesh, worsened by the friction of his clothes, wrung from his aching eyes tears that instantly froze and added to his discomfort. Between his frost-rimmed lashes, he could see the silhouettes of his two remaining companions, who hauled and slipped and crawled and stood again, as clumsy and obstinate as insects on the uneven surface. His right foot was gone, his empty stomach did not bother him any more, he didn't even feel his dislocated shoulder. He had no strength left to lament the loss of two good friends and the terrible disappointment that was waiting for him at the Pole… Great God! That was an awful place! Death had become unimportant to him. He had proved that he was not too old for the job, and that he was as tough and strong as younger men. Reduced to a tiny spot of light, his consciousness was no longer able to perceive anything, apart from the exhausting effort of walking, the rasping sound of his breath, the soft swish of the sled runners, the muffled sound of his footsteps. He stumbled, and fell on his knees, once more. The jolt stopped his companions in their traces and they collapsed in turn, too tired to remove their harnesses.
Slowly, spurred by some unconscious automatism, he stretched his numb members, like a beetle that didn't want to die. Hampered by the icy shell in which he was encased, he made a superhuman effort to stand up at last and move again, before being swallowed by the whirling void. He opened his mouth and felt the taste of blood on his cracked lips. The wind took his voice away…
"Wilson!"
"I'm fine, Con."
"Bowers!"
"…"
"Birdie!"
"I'm here, sir."
They were near one another, almost touching, each of them already lost in his own misery. He thought briefly of Dante's Inferno: "Their eyes, which were only moist, inwardly, before, gushed at the lids, and the frost iced fast the tears, between them, and sealed them up again…"
Who could say that hell was a burning place?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Bundled up in his thick red polar garments, Harriman Nelson was watching the vast expense of placid, glassy water that stretched around the Seaview, revelling in the pristine beauty of a clear Antarctic summer day. The surfaced submarine was slowly heading north after a successful and exceptionally uneventful cruise beyond the Antarctic circle, in search of evidence of global warming. The huge glaciers were melting and the water had percolated into the ice, acting as a lubricant and speeding their journey to the sea[1]. As a result, the Ross Ice Shelf had become unstable and was calving icebergs at a rate never seen before. The eastern part of the ice front had receded beyond the most southern point of Victoria Land, leaving Ross Island and McMurdo Sound free of ice during the short summer for the first time in thousands of years.
The mission was coming to its end without incident. Hundreds of icebergs had been measured, photographed and scanned with a GPR[2], thousands of ice cores had been collected and nobody had been hurt in the process. They were almost ready to go home, and the redheaded admiral felt utterly grateful for these peaceful days of fruitful scientific work.
Beside him, Captain Crane was taking the bearing of the now-too-familiar Mount Erebus. It was more a farewell gesture than a necessity since their powerful grey lady was guided by the latest computer-aided navigation systems, inertial platforms and GPS; but during the two months of the mission, he had become strangely attached to the huge volcano, and its persistent gas plume. Towering above the ice-clad Ross Island and its two scientific bases, it had been a beacon for the early explorers and the impassive witness to their exploits and their ordeals. The shores of the island still bore the prints of their passing; ghostly vestiges stood, almost untouched, on the black sands of Cape Evans, Discovery Point and Hut Point, and it was said that the wind blowing through the planks of those weather-battered dwellings still carried the faint voices of long-dead men. Nelson remembered the never-extinguished lamp that burned in the lounge at Scott base, New Zealand'sAntarctic research station, to guide Captain Scott[3] home when he came back from the South Pole. Nobody seemed to find it strange or silly to wait for a man lost for almost a hundred years in the wastes of the Ross Ice Shelf.
Alone on the bridge save for the two silent lookouts, Nelson and Crane enjoyed their last moments of peace in an amiable companionship, so entranced by the panorama and the gorgeous radiance of the light that either would have viewed any attempt at conversation as a blasphemy. Each was strongly aware of the other's presence, and welcomed it. They had been friends for years, "the old couple" some of the crew dared say when they were out of hearing. Their understanding went beyond words. They never voiced their feelings towards each other, yet both knew that behind the Navy formality were genuine tenderness and trust, something neither of them wanted to discuss for fear of breaking the fragile spell.
Above their heads, the sun shone in a cloudless sky. The air was crisp and cold and eerily still. The wind had abated during the night and the only audible sounds were the low hum of the engines and the occasional bump of a floe against the hull as the mighty vessel sailed through the final remnants of the pack. Nelson and Crane were equally captivated by this ever-changing scene of glorious beauty, the light of the sun breaking on the ice in myriads of jewels, the contrast between the dark shades of the open water and the blinding whiteness of the floes.
"Control room to bridge."
Strangely out of place, the radar operator's warning shattered the silence. Like puppets coming back to life, the two men woke from their reverie as the metallic voice startled them.
"Skipper, I have an interesting echo in the 1-1-0, range five miles, a weirdly-shaped iceberg".
Nelson took his binoculars and scrutinized the horizon until his delicate blue eyes became watery while Crane went down to ask for more data. Eventually, the admiral caught sight of a pale, blurred silhouette that materialized out of the haze like a ghost ship.
"Admiral, sir…" Crane's voice crackled over the PA system. "Can you join me in the control room, please?"
Nelson slid down the ladder into the control room where Lee and the Executive Officer Chip Morton were gathered around the radar screen, urging the operator to adjust his settings until the echo fit into the real-time satellite map of the area.
"Here it is. IDed C27-a." Crane ran his hands through his thick black curly hair. "A rather small one but strangely shaped. Calved three month ago, tracked by NASA satellites since. It's an interestingly slow traveller. Collided with the huge 'C25' and broke in two. The smaller part is no longer visible. Probably thawed."
As they were used to giants the size of a mountain range, this solitary scrap of a cataclysmic collapse wouldn't have attracted much attention, but for its strange silhouette.
"Come to course 110."
"Course 110, aye sir," came the inboard planesman[4]'s quiet answer.
"Sharkey, have the flying sub ready in ten minutes," the admiral ordered. "I'd like to have a closer look. Chip, I want a landing party ready with the GPR. Pass the word."
"Aye sir."
"Lee, would you like to be my co-pilot?"
"I'd be delighted, sir."
The captain flashed a bright smile to his friend. Both knew, as well as the men on watch in the control room, that this little excursion was not required. They had enough data to fulfill the craziest dreams of an entire army of workaholic glaciologists, but everyone on board the Seaview was aware of Nelson's relentless curiosity and uncannily successful hunches.
As soon as FS-1 was ready, Nelson and Crane took their seats in the cockpit and began the pre-launch verifications while Sharkey closed the hatch above their heads.
"Belt fastened, Lee?"
"Aye sir."
"I know you'll love this last flight, lad."
"It's only a huge ice cube," Lee teased gently.
Nelson sighed, and his head tilted to the left, in an unconscious posture of annoyance. He mechanically rubbed his right temple, as his other hand drummed an angry tattoo on the knob of the joystick.
"I can't get tired of the Antarctic. So austere and lonely a place… It's as remote and hostile as another planet but with a surreal beauty of its own. I can't believe that we are destroying it, as well as the rest of the Earth. Great God! When will mankind understand that it's almost too late? See…The Ross Ice Shelf is disintegrating; the places Scott and Shackleton roamed a century ago have collapsed into the sea. The icecap is melting. Remember our latest mission in Antarctica!"
A two month campaign in the Weddell Sea and Drake Passage had highlighted changes in fauna and flora in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula, due to a sharp decrease in the salinity of sea water. The environmental impact was already affecting the shipping industry, and the waterside countries of the Antarctic Ocean were complaining of dramatic modifications in the wind regime and pluviometry, let alone a significant rise in the high tide level on the most exposed shores.
Crane touched Nelson's arm, and felt the slight trembling of the muscles. The admiral always became upset when he contemplated the damage inflicted by man's greed upon the sensitive ecosystems of the Earth.
"Easy Harry…"
With a huge sigh, Nelson tried to relax. The use of his first name by Crane was a signal he always felt compelled to obey. While Lee was going through the last items of the checklist, he fastened his belt and seized the controls.
"All right, Lee... You must think I'm fighting windmills, like an old quixotic fool. I can't help it! Never mind. Let's have a look at this beauty before going home... to the politicians and their blindness."
"I understand. They give me the creeps, sometimes. How far will they go until they see what they have done to the world? Well… All green, sir, we can fly."
A disembodied voice brought them back to immediate reality.
"Come in FS-1, do you read me?"
"FS-1 to Seaview, loud and clear. We are ready to launch. Nelson out."
They heard the very audible "clank" of the docking clamps as they released their grasp and Nelson gingerly steered the small yellow craft down into the cold, shady waters of the Antarctic Ocean. As soon as they were clear of the huge submarine, Nelson pulled back on the controls and FS-1 dashed up to the glittering mirror of the surface.
The berg was clearly distinguishable on the dark blue sea, a long and narrow silhouette poised on its own reflection. With nothing to do but watch, Crane marvelled at the natural forces that had shaped the ice into this exquisite evocation of a burial Viking ship, with its pointed prow and stern. These were vestiges of a double row of pressure ridges resulting from the confrontation of seasonal sea ice of the Ross Sea with the permanent ice of the ice shelf itself. Between them, an even, flat surface had been preserved, twice as long as the Seaview's bridge.
As the submarine completed her approach, Nelson flew FS-1 in low circles above the gleaming chunk of ice, in search of a secure landing place for the scientists. He spotted a gentle slope on the leeward side of the berg, already occupied by Adelie penguins, where the inflatable boats could easily land without risking being crushed by the powerful rise and fall of the swell.
Crane observed the landing party working on deck, loading their gear into the boats. From his vantage point, they looked like clumsy red parasites in their parkas and boots, and he wondered what the ever present killer whales would think of the noisy, foul-smelling invaders who were destroying their environment. Despite appearances, they were well trained after months of practice and worked together like one man. The task was quickly completed. The two overloaded craft shoved off and made a beeline towards the towering ice vessel, leaving a v-shaped wake on the still water.
The landing and unloading were fairly easy. Three men, a sailor known for his climbing skills and two civilian technicians, scrambled their way to the terrace with ice-axes. In no time, they had rigged a hauling-system and pulled the sledge and the three crates of scientific instruments up the slope. After the boats had been securely moored to the ice, the three remaining sailors joined the party which was already busy opening the crates and loading the sledge. They connected a GPS and a laptop to the radar unit and unfolded the antenna that was to transmit the data to the Seaview's more powerful computers. A man donned the sledging harness and waved towards the flying sub. Another leaned over the small computer while the rest of the party strode along the ice with poles and flags to prepare the survey grid.
Nelson said quietly:
"Back to Seaview, lad. I want to be there when they get the first pictures."
"Aren't you tired yet of probing square miles of ice?"
"Of course not, Lee. Never! I'm a scientist, a treasure hunter. Every day I wake up hoping that it will be THE day I'm waiting for. Bits of knowledge are my gold nuggets and I'm still dreaming of a major breakthrough, even after all these years. Well… I know what you're thinking when you scowl at me like that. Am I being bombastic again?"
"I wouldn't say that, sir, but…" Crane smiled fondly at his friend. "Just a little bit, sometimes. This berg is no more than another crumb of the Ross Ice Shelf, whatever its shape is…"
"Let's say that it's an old man's whim, then. This crumb, as you call it, speaks to me and I want to know why."
As soon as FS-1 was safely docked, Nelson and Crane went to the lab where the two embarked scientists, a glaciologist and a GPR specialist, were already working on the computers. After so many hours of monotonous ice scanning, Lee was not as interested as the admiral, but, always eager to please him, he was very careful not to show his impatience. Feeling Lee's presence behind him, Nelson yielded to his enthusiasm and began to lecture about GPR technology, addressing nobody in particular.
"GPR data are acquired by transmitting pulses of radar energy into a ground from a surface antenna, reflecting the energy of buried objects or ice layers and then detecting the reflected waves on the ground surface with a receiving antenna. The receiving pulses are amplified, processed and recorded to…"
"We all know how GPR works, " Lee whispered softly.
"I'm sorry. I…"
"It's okay."
The GPR specialist, a young man with a mane of curly russet hair and sharp brown eyes, invited them to come closer. The first data were being processed, and unreadable parallel lines appeared on the screen.
"Don't expect miracles," he said in a strangely high-pitched voice. "If there is a buried object in the ice, say a meteorite or a dead seal, we can obtain 3D high-resolution images provided the calibration is correct, but all that we are likely to discover today, as in most of those bergs, is a typical stratification pattern of annual ice layers."
They stared without comment. As his back was beginning to cramp, Lee squirmed uncomfortably in his chair before leaning briefly against Nelson's shoulder. The shorter man tensed but did not move away. These small marks of familiarity were not uncommon, especially when facing danger side by side had strengthened the need to express the almost filial bond between them, but they were confined to the intimacy of private life. Nelson frowned. That small slip in Lee's usually reserved behaviour meant only one thing: he was still hurting, and, faithful to his habits, had kept it to himself.
Reading Nelson's body language with his usual accuracy, Lee shifted his position, but it was too late. The questioning blues eyes were assessing his condition and he could see that Nelson was deeply concerned and clearly miffed by his lack of trust.
"I'm fine," he said, answering the unspoken question. Nelson rolled exasperated eyes and turned back to the screen with a heavy sigh.
The "old couple…" thought Lee with a thin smile.
As a team, they were the ideal complement to each other: one short-tempered and passionate, the other easy-going and self-controlled. Lee's practical mind perfectly matched Nelson's abounding and somehow unpredictable intellect. Yet, their obvious attachment to one another thrived in spite of their differences, unexpectedly surviving innumerable tests and trials, even after they had been at each other's throats on particularly gruelling missions. Unlike the gutter press, the crew-members knew better than gossiping about their uncommon closeness. People who didn't know their personal history tended to judge their intimacy unsettling in that it was very exclusive and from a modern point of view, a bit anachronistic. However, Lee was a notorious ladies' man even though he often flaunted his hostility to the idea of forming long-term relationships while working for O.N.I., and Nelson was a loner who had never moved on after losing his wife. It was no secret that Nelson considered Lee his dearest friend and spiritual heir, and often behaved like an overprotective mother-hen, even though he was not able to put his fatherly inclination into words.
They had been acquainted since Lee's Annapolis days, and there had always been an undercurrent of sympathy between them, but it was during their time together on board the Catfish[5] that their mutual regard had blossomed into the deepest friendship. Lee Crane worshiped his captain and the earth he walked on, but he had never admitted it to himself until that fatal evening, the memory of which was still fresh in his mind.
Nelson was still married then, and Lee was the XO he had chosen above all others, even the well-connected sons of old Navy dynasties, for his talent and charisma. They had previously served together on board the Nautilus[6],when Lee was on his first assignment, and worked together like a well-trained team. Nelson, who was already thinking of a submarine especially designed for research purposes, had involved Lee in the creative process. Most of their shore leaves were spent in Nelson's office, sketching, dreaming and computing, until the wee hours of the night. They were so engrossed in their projects, so happy in their own special world, that Nelson didn't understand how dangerous it was for his marriage. His wife was pregnant and none too pleased to be taken for granted while she needed special care and attention. As strong-willed and belligerent as her husband, she took to flooding his inbox with mail whenever she wanted to be noticed, until he realized what his behaviour was doing to their relationship.
He was trying to control the damage and make amends, for he loved her dearly in spite of his excessive dedication to work, when the Catfish was ordered to the North Atlantic for a three-month cruise to check out suspicious Russian mining activity in International waters. It couldn't come at a worse time. Nelson and his angry, dejected wife didn't part on the best of terms. To make things harder, the Catfish, like all other nuclear submarines, had to remain silent for the duration of the patrol. It meant that everyone on board would only receive weekly 40 word "familygrams" from their relatives, but wouldn't be allowed to write back for a long time. The rules were clear. Each man had to choose whether he wanted serious news included in his personal messages, but it was up to the senior officers to decide if he should be given a "familygram" that might affect his morale and performance. Deaths, births or family crises were kept from the crew until they got back, or screened by the captain and the XO. However, Nelson had assigned no one to check his own personal communications.
The Catfish was in the third week of her mission when the shattering blow came in the form of a private encrypted message, which the skipper alone was allowed to decipher. Nobody paid much attention to Nelson's absence until the end of Lee's watch, when everyone in the Control Room realized that he had been nowhere to be seen for almost four hours, and did not answer when Sparks called to inform him that the cause of an electromagnetic interference that had been plaguing the sonar for some time had been found at last.
Slightly worried, Lee decided to investigate. Usually he joined Nelson after his watch for a cup of strong coffee and a chat in his cabin. A man of regular habits when at sea, Nelson never broke the well-established routine both of them looked forward to at the end of a boring patrol day. They took advantage of those private moments to discuss issues of concern, point out potential sources of trouble and review the events of the past hours, make plans for the upcoming shore leave, or just sit there, sipping the scorching beverage in friendly silence.
Lee headed directly to the captain's quarters, and entered the cabin without knocking.
"Damn it!"
The stench of spilled alcohol and cold smoke assaulted his nostrils as he almost tripped over a limp body sprawled on the floor. Cursing profusely, he groped for the light switch and choked at the sight of a blind drunk and dishevelled Nelson lying in a puddle of whisky, among the shards of a broken glass. Dead to the world, the captain was clutching the framed picture of his wife to his chest. On his desk, an overflowing ashtray and an empty bottle beside a crumpled sheet of paper told part of the tale.
Lee quickly brushed away the debris, put the picture back on the shelf where it belonged, and checked the captain's vital signs. Finding nothing but a small bump on the side of his head, he decided that the best thing to do was to put him to bed and let him sleep it off. Calling the boat's doctor was out of the question, given the state Nelson was in. He was a lot slimmer in those days, and Lee did not find it hard to lift his prone body and carefully heft him onto his bunk before clearing the mess, and erase all evidence of this major breach of Navy regulations, so unlike his usually strict behaviour.
Nelson stirred and moaned in his drunken stupor. Crane drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, staring in disbelief at his devastated friend.
"What's wrong with you? Do you want to be court-martialled for bringing alcohol on board?" he asked softly, not expecting an answer.
Nelson opened red-rimmed eyes. Lee felt shocked to see this tough man, his friend, his mentor, crying like a heartbroken child.
"Doesn't matter any more…"
"It does for me. How did you…"
"Smuggled at Pearl… A gift… Leave me alone!"
"But why?"
"Message… On my desk. Read it if you want to, and leave me f… alone… And keep it to yourself, please. I beg you... leave me alone…"
Lee fetched the discarded piece of paper on the desk and unfolded it with slightly shaking hands, knowing that whatever was written there, it had been bad enough to ground his unflappable captain. He quickly skipped the familiar headers of a typical COMSUBLANT[7] communication to read the body of the message, and his heart sank as the formal military prose began to make sense.
"It is with deep regret that I inform you of the passing of your wife, Mrs. Kathleen Murray Nelson, killed in a car accident…"
Tears welled up in his eyes when he understood what Nelson would have to face in the days to come. The grief of loss would be hard enough to bear for this very private and sensitive man, but Lee knew that the endless hours they had spent locked in Nelson's office had been a serious bone of contention with his beloved though neglected wife. Now that she was gone, with her unborn child, nothing would lessen the burden of guilt. The result of this work, the research submarine he had designed, would ever be a reminder of his personal failure as a family man. Unable to read further, Lee stepped to the bunk, and reached for his friend's shoulder.
"I'm truly sorry, Harry. I should have been with you. It's so unfair!"
"I know how you feel and I'm grateful for that, but I just want to be alone for a few hours."
Nelson closed his eyes and seemed to slip back into oblivion.
"I'd do anything to ease your pain, my dearest friend," Lee murmured, convinced that the unconscious man couldn't hear him any more. "For there is nobody in my life whom I admire more than you…"
He almost jumped out of his skin when a cold hand clasped his wrist. The voice that came from the bunk was barely audible.
"You've already done much, lad."
Since that day, Lee Crane was the only chink in Nelson's armour, and his enemies knew how to play on this sensitive string…
Lee returned to the present with a start.
"Now we're performing the last adjustments, assuming that we are on known ground. I don't think we are about to find anything different from the usual configuration of the Ross Ice Shelf..." droned the GPR operator, who was clearly bored by the extra-work.
"Can we know where this ice comes from?" Nelson asked.
"Well… as a matter of fact, yes. Before his disappearance, the other half of the berg has been investigated by a New Zealand team. It contained a 28 year old device encased in the ice. Once exhumed, it turned to be one of the AWS[8] units installed along the 170°E meridian in 1985, the one the Brits call Via Dolorosa."
Nelson nodded with a knowing smile, but, for fear of an extended lecture, nobody asked him to explain the reasons of this strange appellation.
An hour passed by without anything happening, and Lee became so restless that Nelson guessed he was in more pain than he was willing to admit. Leaving his chair he touched the younger man's arm.
"Lee, I'd like to have a word with you right now. Dr. Mawson, we'll be in my cabin if you need us. You can call me any time."
"I don't know what you're expecting, but if there is anything else than ice in this berg, we'll find it."
As soon as they were in his cabin, Nelson got the coffee maker started, while Lee slowly removed his shirt and sat on a chair.
"You are still in pain," Nelson said reproachfully.
"I'm fine, sir, really."
"I don't believe you. And don't sir me when we are alone, Lee. We are friends. Why didn't you tell me? It's been almost three months since you came back from that f… uh… mission, and you're still hurting. At least, you should have told Jamie."
"It's been rough but somewhat less than usual. Nothing worth fussing about, you know."
"I'm not fussy, I care. You're behaving like a petulant schoolboy. Do you mind if I ask Jamie to join us? He is very interested in my… special gift."
"Only if he doesn't take me to sickbay afterwards."
"All right then, I call him while you remove your tee-shirt. I don't need any interference. Loosen your belt, will you. I want you to breathe freely."
Lee shot a amused glance to his friend. His resistance always elicited the same mother-hen response, and he secretly enjoyed it.
Jamie came at once, as if he had waited the call, and sat quietly in the only vacant chair. Lee's warning frown prevented him from commenting the fading bruises that decorated the captain's back, but disapproval was written all over his face.
Nelson stood behind Lee and put his hands on his shoulders, slowly massaging the taut muscles of his neck with both thumbs. His watchful gaze roamed over the lean body, in search of new wounds. Lee was tall and well built but significantly underweight, and his soft tanned skin wore the marks of an agitated history. Nelson cringed at the sight of one particularly nasty scar just above Lee's right hip. This one was of his making. He still couldn't believe that he had been able to shoot his precious captain, two years ago, when a malevolent ghost from World War II had taken control of his mind. Krueger's spirit was too strong to be disobeyed, but he couldn't forgive himself, and still had nightmares, something he had never told anyone, not even Lee. He knew that the nagging guilt made him overprotective and controlling around Lee, but couldn't help it. His chosen heir from the moment he first looked at him, Lee fulfilled the affective needs that had survived the wreckage of his personal life.
"Tell me where it hurts most."
Lee tensed slightly under his hands, and Nelson realized he had been distractedly rubbing his shoulders for an embarrassingly long time.
"Just where your hands are. They are incredibly warm, how do you do that?"
"That's the way it works, even if I don't know why."
Some years ago, Nelson had discovered that he had healing hands. His rational brain refused to believe it at first and he didn't want to think about it, let alone developing the skill further, but Lee's frequent health problems had made him change his mind. He had been graced with a rare gift; it was his duty to use it just as he used his other aptitudes for the good of his fellowmen. Yet the level of intimacy required for his gift to work was too high for his guarded nature. Thus he reserved his talent for those he knew best, in particular, his accident-prone captain.
"What did they do to you?"
"Nothing Harry, I swear! It was a rather uneventful mission but I fell on my back when I escaped and…"
"And you are the worst pig-headed stoic I've ever known!"
"I had to make the boat ready for the Antarctic cruise and I was sure I'd get over it, eventually."
"Obviously, you have not. Your back is very tight."
"I assure you it's not as bad as you may think. I…"
"Stop talking now, I need to concentrate."
Nelson closed his eyes and let the energy flow through his palms, acutely aware of his patient's reactions, the slow breathing, and the slackening of the muscles, the complete relaxation that would make his task easier. He knew that Lee would be almost asleep before he was done, and felt strangely moved by this proof of trust, for Lee was usually a very reserved man, almost aloof, even with women, hiding himself behind protective walls for fear that his vulnerability might be revealed. Some words of George Bernard Shaw crossed his mind, unwelcome but disconcertingly appropriate to the situation: "My affection for you is the nearest I ever came to homosexuality.[9]" Nelson had nobody in his life, but Lee and his sister Edith. He had dated a few women over the years, but nothing serious had happened, and the hope of starting a family of his own had turned to ashes. Therefore, Lee had become the focal point of his existence, and he had never felt uneasy about it. Neither had Lee. Favouritism was not well-seen in the Navy, but neither of them usually minded it. Their closeness occasionally sparked vile comments among their enemies. He knew that "Nelson's Folly" sometimes referred to Lee as well as his technologically advanced submarine, and Lee, who belonged to a more sexually confident generation, did not even hesitate to add his own cheeky innuendos.
"Never ever! Even if we were stranded on a desert island without hope of rescue," he used to say, with a mischievous grin and his irresistible under-the-lashes gaze, "but having said that…"
He had lost it only once when a drunken journalist had called him "Lady Hamilton"… The man had sustained a badly broken jaw, and Nelson had to cajole the brass in order to avoid repercussions, but it had been highly satisfying, and nobody questioned Lee's virility now. At least when he was there to hear it.
They worked well together, and he wanted to believe that was all that counted.
The ancient Greeks had so many names to represent the richness of human love in all its variant modes, Eros, Agápe, Philia… What was the English word for the longing for a heir to pass down his knowledge?
Nelson shrugged the thought away. It was time to break the spell. There were places in his heart where he didn't want to go, memories he didn't want to revive. Brooding on his lost hopes was a luxury he couldn't afford.
This part of his existence was over.
A runaway car had put an end to it.
"How do you feel now?"
Lee stretched out with a huge sigh of relief, and put his clothes on, unaware of the troubled look on Nelson's face.
"You could make a fortune with this gift."
"Certainly not! The cost of energy is too high. I must not be doing it right, since I'm always exhausted after a session like this one."
Lee instantly voiced his concern.
"I should have known better…"
"Stop it! I'll survive. Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"No thanks, Harry, I'd better go and see what's going on in the Control Room. But… speaking of coffee, may I remind you what Jamie says about the relation between caffeine and heart arrhythmia?"
"Don't go there, laddy mine."
"He's right, though, and you know it," the doctor said with a smirk. "Anyway, Harry, I'm amazed. We'll have to talk about it, as soon as you have time. Thanks a lot for the show, and don't ask me if I'd like a cup of coffee. And… Lee… I assume you won't go to sickbay for a small check up?"
"Certainly not! I'm fine! "
"Shoo, both of you! Stop arguing, or do it out of my cabin! I'll see you later, Lee."
"Aye aye sir."
With a smile that could have made the stones melt, and an affectionate twinkle in his golden eyes, Lee went back to his captain's duties, and a thoughtful Jamie returned to his lair…
In the Control Room, the watch officer and the sonar operators were discussing the movie they had seen the previous evening. In the radio shack, Sparks was speaking in a low voice to the leader of the landing party. The unoccupied planesman kept an eye on his instruments as he whistled an old tune to the annoyance of his tone deaf supervisor. A hush fell when the captain came in, but conversation resumed almost at once. The atmosphere was exceptionally relaxed and quiet as if the boat herself was waiting…
"There!"
For three hours Nelson had been listening to the explanations of Dr. Manfred Mawson[10], the glaciologist, and James McKenzie, the GPR specialist. The assigned area had been almost entirely surveyed and the three men were feeling tired, especially Nelson, who was aching for a smoke. His eyes were stinging after having stared at the screen for too long. The air was heavy with the scents of sweat and cold coffee, and the occasional input from the landing team was not enough to prevent his thoughts from going adrift.
Mawson suddenly pointed a spot on the monitor.
Nelson leaned towards the screen where a slight, linear structure was taking form against the greyness of the ice. Mawson began to type frantically on his keyboard and the picture cleared, showing more lines and a grossly cone-shaped shadow that seemed to overlap a complex pattern of undefined irregularities. While typing, he excitedly talked to the GPR operator, asking for another sweep of the disturbance. In a few minutes, the tension in the lab had become almost palpable.
Nelson reached for the nearest intercom mike to call Lee in a voice choked with excitement. The captain responded immediately, knowing better than make his friend wait when he was in that state. Taking his place behind the seated admiral, he peered at the screen, trying to decipher the random blobs that were disturbing the familiar stratigraphy.
"What do you think it is?"
"Most probably some stuff forgotten by the people who installed the station, in spite of the Antarctic treaty forbidding the scientists from leaving waste… including human waste," Nelson answered gruffly.
"I don't think so," Mawson said with a tremor of anticipation in his voice. "There is more to it than mere rubbish. And it's too deep. We will make another pass using ultra-dense grid methodology. It won't take too long. The area of interest seems fairly limited. As for the dating method, I'll use the stratigraphy for a start."
He clicked on some cryptic commands, and a vertical axis labelled in years appeared on the left of the screen.
"According to what we know of the ice in this area of the Ross Ice Shelf, I'd say that the most deeply buried objects are at least one hundred years old."
He opened a new window on his computer. Nelson recognized a map of the Ross Ice Shelf criss-crossed by red and green arrows. In the background, he could hear McKenzie giving his instructions to the landing party.
His pulse began to race as an idea started to take form in his mind.
"Lee…"
If it was what he suspected, he wanted to share with Lee the emotion of the discovery. The younger man gave him an understanding nod.
"These vectors show both direction and speed of the ice along the 170°E meridian."
Mawson typed a few commands and a line of red spots appeared along the said meridian.
"These are the AWS units installed in 1985. And this one is the one that had been found in the melted part of our berg."
As the mouse hovered over the only blinking mark, a number and a set of coordinates appeared in a tooltip.
"Here are its ARGOS ID and its latitude and longitude. As far as I know, the distance between this AWS unit and the present anomaly does not exceed one mile. So! We know were it was in 1985. The first attempts to measure the movement of the region's glaciers were made by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910. Thanks to years of extensive studies, we can use mathematical models to simulate the movement and behaviour of the ice during the latest century. Thus we will get a pretty good approximation of the original location of the area of concern. It will take some time but the program can run in the background."
He switched back to the GPR 3D rendering.
"Well! What do we have here?"
The picture now was incredibly confused, showing overlapping shadows of different density, some very well-defined lines and a strange cylinder-shaped object that was neatly detaching itself from the environment.
"Metal…" McKenzie proposed.
"What do you think it is?" asked Lee, who was finding Nelson's enthusiasm infectious. A can?"
"A Nansen cooker."
Nelson's voice sounded unnaturally loud and hoarse in the shocked silence that followed his statement. Mawson and McKenzie gaped at him as the truth gradually dawned on them. Lee was the only one left in the dark, and did not take it well.
"What the blazes is a Nansen cooker?"
"It's a cooking apparatus specially designed by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen for the Polar Regions. It consists of a cooking pot placed inside an outer annular container with a heating-lamp that consumes paraffin in a vaporised state. The principle is fairly simple: the heated gases provided by the lamp circulate about the central cooking-pot, after passing up inside the outer cooker, descend again on the outside, thus giving up most of their calorific energy before reaching the open air. It's made of aluminum as thin as possible to save weight. Nansen cookers have been used by most of the polar explorers during the first half of the 20th century."
Lee gasped with astonishment as the significance of the discovery sank in.
That means that we have found a campsite dating to the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration…"
Nelson eagerly resumed his explanations, the fingers of his left hand nervously playing with the packet of cigarettes in his breast pocket.
"What do we know so far? The GPR has detected the presence of what we can reasonably identify as human-made objects in a hundred year old ice layer. If you are interested in the history of polar exploration, you must know that last year the Norwegians and the British celebrated the hundredth anniversary of Scott and Amundsen's expeditions. Amundsen started from the Bay of Whales, which was an indentation of the ice shelf. Although it was risky to dwell on the ice, his choice proved to be a wise one, for he was 60 miles closer to the South Pole than Scott, who had established his base on Ross Island. Amundsen pioneered a new route to the Polar Plateau, whereas Scott, who followed the 170°E meridian, walked in Shackleton's footsteps on a path that would lead him to ascend the formidable Beardmore Glacier."
"That's what we were told when we have visited his hut at Cape Evans. Amundsen won the race."
"It's not that simple, Lee. It was not a race. Their objectives were poles apart, if you allow me the pun."
Warming up for his story, Nelson explained how Amundsen was focused on reaching the South Pole, while Scott, on the other hand, made a point of carrying out extensive scientific research. Their conceptions of polar travel were quite different, and it was obvious in retrospect that Amundsen was certain to win provided it was a race, something Scott always denied. Amundsen was used to the harsh conditions of Polar Regions, he had lived for two years with the Inuit when he was trying to navigate the Northwest Passage, and he had no qualms about eating his dogs when they became useless.
"Amundsen was the first to reach the Pole as everyone knows. Scott and his four companions arrived one month and three days later, on January 17th 1912."
Captivated by Nelson's fervour and ability to convey his passion, Lee did not realize he was gaping at him like a mesmerized schoolboy.
"Already tired by two and a half gruelling months on the ice, Scott and his party, who were manhauling, due to the breakdown of their motor sledges and the demise of their ponies, were devastated to discover the Norwegian tent at the South Pole. A dejected Scott wrote in his diary: 'Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle[11]. I wonder if we can do it'. He knew that the odds were against him, and he should have turned back sooner, like Shackleton did in 1909. Unfortunately, on their way back, Scott and his party ran into the worst weather imaginable, enduring day after day of temperatures in the -30F to -40F. The snow was so cold it felt like sand under the sledge runners. Recently, a study written by a polar historian suggested that their depots had been depleted by the returning support parties, and another study stated that 1912 had been the coldest year in one century. Robert Falcon Scott, Edward Adrian Wilson and Henry Bowers struggled back until March 21st when they set up camp for the last time at latitude 79°40'S, eleven miles from their major depot, eleven miles from safety."
Nelson's voice caught in his throat.
"There were only three of them left, and they were in a very tight corner, out of fuel, starving and exhausted."
The first to die, Nelson went on, had been Edgar Evans who succumbed to a concussion at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. One month later, Titus Oates who suffered from frostbite and gangrene, decided to sacrifice himself in order to save his comrades by walking in a blizzard. According to Scott's diary, his parting words were "I'm just going outside and may be some time".
"It's almost too good to be true", Nelson commented with a snort. "Those words, as recorded by Scott, have caused Oates to be remembered as the epitome of the English hero. But he should have done it earlier. At this stage of the journey, it was too late. Scott was too weak to walk further, even though Bowers and Wilson were strong enough to dash to the depot and save their skins as soon as the blizzard ended."
It had been proved that a blizzard could not last that long. The katabatic winds did not blow from the south for more than three or four days in a row, yet the three men stayed together in their tent for more than a week, and Scott gave the bad weather as a pretext.
"One can assume their loyalty to one another prevailed in the end." Nelson and Lee exchanged a knowing look.
"March 29th 1912 is the last date recorded in Scott's journals. He was the last to die, and not as peacefully as Wilson and Bowers."
Their tent was found eight months later by a research party led by Edward L. Atkinson and Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Alongside the bodies, they discovered 35 pounds of rock samples Scott and his companions had not abandoned in spite of their exhaustion and their growing weakness, among which was a fossil of Glossopteris Flora, the plant that helped to give credit to Eduard Suess' theory of a supercontinent… Lee felt that Nelson was ready to go on and on about it. A discreet nudge brought the admiral back to his topic.
"Scott wrote until the end, facing death with courage and dignity, revealing his concern for the future of the families they had left behind. I don't think we can imagine the sufferings these men had to endure on the return journey. It's beyond words. That's why the 170°E meridian has been named the Via Dolorosa by some authors."
A heavy silence settled in, only broken by the faint drone of the computers, and the familiar background noise of the submarine's engines. Sensitive to Nelson's unexpected emotion, Lee moved closer, to share the moment with him. Nelson the scientist was deeply touched by this very human story of pluck and courage that could have inspired the verse carved on the memorial cross erected on top of Observation Hill by a member of the expedition "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield[12]"… It could have been a scientist's motto.
Mawson was the first to regain his composure as an icon began to blink in the task bar of his computer.
"Let's see the result of the simulation".
He opened the window again and a soft whistle escaped his lips.
"79°45'S! It's likely that we have found remains of Scott's activities, even his last camp, although the area had been visited from 1901 to 1915 by at least three other expeditions."
"What do you think of this huge anomaly overlapping the whole site?"
"It's definitely ice, according to the GPR, but it extends through several strata. See... It looks as if wind-driven snow has accumulated against its southern face."
"A pressure ridge?"
"Nope. An igloo or a cairn. We can make out the building blocks of compacted snow."
"Wait! There is something else."
McKenzie took the mouse and began to adjust the settings of the rendering program until new forms materialized. Nelson and Lee were the first to put words to what they were seeing.
"Bones…"
"Three skulls."
McKenzie and Mawson acquiesced quietly.
"They are probably intact, but the signal reflected by the bones is more powerful[13]." That's why we see only three skeletons."
"Are you sure that they are human? Not some seals stowed there as a food depot?" asked Lee.
"I'm the biologist here. They are unquestionably human," Nelson answered dryly. "Look… The man who lies in the middle has his left arm stretched across one of the others. The forearm is neatly broken. If I remember Atkinson's report, this must be Scott. And the cairn is the monument their comrades built above the tent."
He distractedly massaged the back of his head, ruffling his hair. Lee perceived the waves of emotion that were overwhelming his friend, while he raked his memory for the exact words.
"That's it! 'Bowers and Wilson were sleeping in their bags. Scott had thrown back the flaps of his bag at the end. His left hand stretched over Wilson, his life-long friend[14]'… I think it's Cherry-Garrard who gave the most detailed account of the discovery. And Tryggve Gran, the Norwegian member of the expedition, said in an interview that Scott looked like 'he had fought hard at the moment of death'. He also mentioned the broken arm. 'Then I heard a noise... like a pistol shot... I was told this was Scott's arm breaking as they raised it to take away the journals strapped under his arm[15].'"
Nelson discreetly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, while Lee marvelled at his capacity to quote long passages of books he had not opened since his boyhood.
"We have found the resting place of an English gentleman.[16]"
Nelson regained consciousness, wondering what had awakened him. It had been a demanding day, with the emotions of their discoveries, and the subsequent discussions that had gone on late into the night, after the return of the landing party. Relying on his memories of numerous readings on the topic, he had filled in his audience on the history of Antarctic exploration. Then, with Mawson and McKenzie's help, he had planned another survey of the iceberg.
Everyone on board felt as excited as if they had discovered another Tutankhamen…
The familiar vibration of the engines, the gentle humming of the ventilation had lulled him to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. The desk lamp was still on and…
Startled, he looked at the broad-shouldered man who was sitting in his chair, and his heart sank. Who was he? Another Krueger? A figment of his imagination? Whoever he was, his presence did not bode well for peace and quiet aboard the Seaview. The grey lady had had her share of unwanted ghostly visitors, and the outcome was usually bad. Half expecting a violent reaction from the spectre, Nelson threw his legs over the side of his bunk.
The man didn't even flinch. His strong hands, quietly crossed in front of him, twitched imperceptibly, but he did not show fear or aggressiveness. He just stared, his thick-lashed dark-blue eyes shining in the light.
"Who are you? How did you come aboard?"
The man blinked. Reassured by his calmness, Nelson took a closer look at him, overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity. The stranger was in his forties, with a rather boyish face, brown hair already thinning, a slightly turned-up nose, and a sensitive mouth. His eyes were of a very rare shade of blue, almost purple, with a dark ring around the iris and a thoughtful, melancholic expression. He was clad in a somewhat nondescript Navy uniform with a rounded collar shirt and a black tie.
"I've been a prisoner of the ice for a hundred years," he said in a soft, low voice with an old-fashioned British sounding accent Nelson recognized as Devonian.
"Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want of me?"
The stranger's thick eyebrows shot upward in astonishment.
"Please slow down. I'll answer all your questions in time, but… don't tell me you are afraid of me…"
"Well... I…"
Nelson cleared his throat, in an effort to hide his discomfort.
"You are not our first visitor and…"
"You can't read my mind, but I can read yours, and I know what you are referring to. Be assured I don't mean you any harm. You're a kind and righteous man. I've just come to ask you a favour, but there will be no retaliation if you refuse. Anyway I don't think you will, for what I want will cost you nothing, just a few minutes of your time."
"WHO are you?"
"I think you already know, Admiral. My friends call me Con."
For one whole minute, Nelson remained too stunned to speak or even think. He had recognized his visitor as Robert Falcon Scott as soon as his eyes had met his sincere, searching gaze, but his rational mind refused to believe he was actually talking to him, even though he knew such things might happen. Krueger's memory was still painful. But there was something in Scott that made him fundamentally different from the unwanted guests who occasionally wreaked havoc on board. He radiated serenity and sadness, and the gentle probing of his mind did not feel like an intrusion.
"The iceberg you are currently studying contains the vestiges of my last camp, and as long as my body and my friends' stay encased in the ice, our spirits will remain earthbound. It's been very long… Too long. But the ice will melt soon, and we will be freed."
"It will be a matter of a few weeks now. Are your friends still… uh… like you?"
"Yes, they too have been hovering around our resting place for all these years. But they are not strong enough to manifest themselves in a visible way. That's why they sent me.
"What will become of you after… after the ice thaws?"
"I don't know, but whatever it is, I'm not afraid of it. I assume we will just disappear into the void. I'm not a believer. As a captain, I performed my religious duties but I'd rather read Darwin's Origins of Species than the Holy Bible. That said, I really don't know what will happen. I'm not omniscient, you see, I'm not like the spirit who tried to take over your… friend's body. How can I describe the state I'm in, right now? Something like a print, the fading evidence of what I was a hundred years ago. A small bundle of energy that will dissolve into nothing as soon as the ice melts and my body is destroyed. I've chosen to appear as I was the day of my departure, and not as I was when I died, because it would be too... distressing for you to see what that awful journey has done to me..."
The bright blue eyes filled with so much sorrow that Nelson instinctively reached out to touch Scott's hands. His fingers met the cold surface of his desk.
"You can't touch me. I'm too… thin. Unlike the man who harmed you so much two years ago, I have no strength… and no will to do anything that would bring trouble to your ship."
"Boat."
The word escaped Nelson's lips before he could hold it back. His visitor tilted his head to one side with a faintly amused expression.
"Boat…"
"Submarines are called boats."
"Interesting."
The silence settled in. Scott seemed to fade slightly as if maintaining a visible form was a huge strain on him.
"I've not much time left. My reserves are almost exhausted. Although I can read some of your thoughts, I can't access your memory, unless you let me in. There are many things I'd like to ask you before I am gone for ever. I'll limit myself to a few questions."
"I'll do my best."
"Thank you. First of all: did my letters reach their destination?"
"Yes they did. Every one of them."
"And my Message to the Public?"
"I do not remember the exact figures, but I can tell you that the response was tremendous. The fundraising was so successful that there was enough money left, after the families had been taken care of, for Debenham and Priestley[17] to found the Scott Research Polar Institute in Cambridge, as a depot of polar information, a centre from which expeditions could draw on support and knowledge, and a memorial to your final voyage."
"At least my last hours of existence will be free of guilt. How did my wife and my son cope with my… demise?"
"You would have been proud of your son. Sir Peter was an artist, a naval officer and above all, one of the most influent conservationists in the world[18]. He had a long and happy life, gloriously following your footsteps. As for Kathleen, she remarried ten years later, and did well enough, although she grieved for you all her life. Yet, she never indulged in self-pity. She conceived happiness as a duty, and she stuck to it."
"Exactly as I remember her…"
Can ghosts cry? Nelson thought he saw tears in the kind blue eyes.
"Her second son was a devoted defender of your memory when it was necessary to put things right with some journalist in quest of fame at your expense."
"I won't comment on that. No time left. Just one thing: what became of Amundsen after he came home?"
"He toured for some time all over the world to give lectures on his expedition. He was not a very happy man, I gather. He died in a plane crash in 1928, trying to find stranded men on the ice near the North Pole."
"I'm becoming too weak to speak. Just think. I'll read your mind. Tell me about Shackleton and the men I've worked with. Tell me about Wilson and Bowers' families. Tell me about the world. Did Germany set off to war eventually?"
Nelson tried to bring his memories back while Scott held him under his unwavering gaze. When he felt he could not remember anything more, Scott released his grip on his mind. His mobile features reflected a mix of emotions, ranging from relief to intense grief.
"Thank you, Admiral."
"I'm sorry for the bad news, but I can't put a filter on my memories."
"Don't worry, I'm fine."
These were Lee's words. The sudden rush of emotion almost sent Nelson off his feet. Scott's antennas rose again. A dreamy smile spread across his face.
"The powerful admiral has his Achilles' heel. So! Let's get to the point. What I expect of you, if you agree, is very simple… It's for my friends. To make them happy for the last time since they are genuine and fervent Christians. I'd like you or your captain to read the sea burial service for us before you leave. Can you do that for us?"
Nelson stood and made as if to touch Scott's shoulder, but once more, his hand met only with air.
"Of course I will!
"I didn't doubt you for a second. My friends are utterly grateful. You don't feel their presence but they are here too."
Scott walked around the desk. Nelson could see that they were almost the same height, but Scott's body was narrow-hipped and fit.
"There is something I want to tell you as a goodbye gift. Something I've learned the hard way. One never knows when one's time comes. I really believed I would see my loved ones again, and when I realized it was too late to tell them how much I cared for them, it was really, really awful. I wrote letters but…"
Once more Nelson thought he saw moisture in the bright blue eyes.
"You must not make the same mistake!"
"I already did."
"I know, and I'm sorry for that, but there is somebody else. If you care for someone, tell him!"
"Tomorrow morning. Lee will read the service." Nelson knew he was hedging, but he did not want to discuss his relationship with Lee, even with a friendly ghost.
"Right. My friends and I thank you with all our hearts. You must give me your word for the other thing too. Tell your captain how much you're proud of him, tell him before it is too late. I've read his mind too. He has lost his father when he was a child, and life has not been kind to him before he joined the Navy. He needs to know he is important and cared for."
"I'll talk to Lee, I promise."
"Give me your hands, then."
"But…"
"I think I can muster enough energy for a handshake…"
Scott held out his hands, and Nelson felt the gentle pressure of his fingers.
"Don't waste time. These are my parting words. Farewell, farewell, my friend."
With the warm and sunny smile Nelson remembered well, Scott retreated into the darkness.
Epilogue, Wednesday, January 18, 2012
"…UNTO Almighty God we commend the soul of ours brothers departed, and we commit their bodies to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.…"
All engines stopped, the Seaview was drifting at a safe distance from the ship-like iceberg. Lee's clear and controlled voice reverberated on the sapphire sea, as he read the sea burial service from the sail. The whole crew stood at attention on the deck, in their red polar parkas.
Lee closed his book.
"Firing party, attention. Fire three volleys! Ready, aim, fire; aim, fire; aim, fire."
The three volleys echoed loudly over the water, and the men who were able to sing launched into "Onward Christian Soldiers", Scott's favourite hymn.
Then the order to resume sail was given, and the crew began to disband. Nelson dismissed the lookouts.
"Lee, I want to talk to you before we dive."
Chip Morton and the other officers followed the lookouts down the conning ladder. When he was sure they were alone, Nelson put his hands on Lee's shoulders, and stared directly into his eyes. The captain bowed his head to look back at him. His gaze softened.
"Lee… I think we've got along very well during all these years, in spite of some beyond-our-control incidents."
Intrigued by his friend's unusual behaviour, Lee acquiesced silently. Somewhere under their feet, the submarine was coming back to life. His eyes drifted to the almost indiscernible skyline, dominated by the powerful Mount Erebus. Another beautiful Antarctic day in spite of the late season. Another evidence of the global warming…
"What do you think?"
"I… I agree, sir. But why do you ask?"
"Because I've met someone… Someone who has taught me a lesson. I've already told you about him."
"Scott's ghost?"
"I will never know whether he was a ghost or a very vivid dream. But I'm sure he was right. Lee… when we come home, I'll have a word with my lawyers. I'm over fifty, and I don't want…"
Instantly worried, Lee grasped Nelson's arms.
"What's wrong, Harry?"
"Nothing's wrong, but the world is a dangerous place to live, and I'm not a model of prudence. Who knows how long I will carry on without going over the edge? One day alive, the next dead. You're not the first to nag me about my heart…"
A killer whale surfaced off the starboard side, and blew a plume of mist, a big scarred fellow they had already met during the two previous days. His high dorsal fin ripped through the glittering water as he disappeared into the deep.
"When I die, the Institute, Seaview, and all my belongings will be yours, Lee. I've already provided for Edith."
"Admiral! I don't even want to think of it."
"Lee… Talking has never killed anyone."
Nelson put an arm around Lee's shoulders, and made him turn to face the sea. His weathered features were very serious, but his eyes had a warm glow.
"Lee, I love you more than anybody else, more than a father loves his son. All these years you've been the loyal and perfect friend every man would dream of. Friends, enemies, partners, rivals, blood brothers, that's all we been to one another, and I had to tell you how you were important to me, before it is too late. I had to make sure you know what I feel about you, how proud I am. That's what Scott taught me. Never wait for better days to do the right thing."
Lee didn't answer, but his intense golden eyes reflected his feelings. He did not want to ponder the outcome of Nelson's decision. All that mattered right now was the deep, affectionate, understanding relationship they shared. Suddenly unable to bear the intensity of his emotions, he gave Nelson's shoulder a playful squeeze.
"Must I plot a course to the nearest desert island?"
"Lee! How dare you?"
Laughing heartily, the admiral clapped Lee's back, eliciting an exclamation of feigned pain.
"Take her down. It's time to go home."
As soon as Lee's head disappeared through the hatch, Nelson looked at the iceberg which was slowly drifting away to an unknown destination, like the funeral bark of a very ancient ruler.
"Good bye, Con."
The wind carried nothing but the faint response of a sea bird…
"AMUNDSEN: One day a great crystal barge will break away and carry you, Scott, like a Viking king surrounded by his lieutenants. Then together you'll sail northwards at last, into the warm seas, into the sun again. North, towards home…" (Ted Tally, Terra Nova,1977)
Finis
[1] The dislocation of the Ross Ice Shelf has yet to be proved but I wrote this story as if I was a science-fiction author of the sixties.
[2] Ground Penetrating Radar
[3] Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), English explorer, died on the Ross Ice Shelf during his trip back from the South Pole, only 11 miles away from the vital "One Ton" supply depot.
[4] The inboard, or near, planesman commonly operates the horizontal, wing-like planes on the boat's bow or sail, steering the boat up or down. He also handles the vertical rudder at the stern of the boat, which controls turning to left and right.
[5] The real Catfish (SS-339) has ended her agitated life in Grytviken Sound (South Georgia). Grytviken being Ernest Shackleton's resting place, it seemed a nice choice of name… Although it's not in the series, I need this addition to build my own universe.
[6] I know that the USS Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 but… it may be another Nautilus…
[7] Commander Submarine Force Atlantic
[8] Automatic Weather Station
[9] George Bernard Shaw to Kathleen Scott.
[10] I could not help paying this little homage to Douglas Mawson, the Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer.
[11] Robert Falcon Scott's diary : January 17, 1912 entry.
[12] Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses.
[13] The idea that the radar signal will produce a picture of the skeleton, gun, or whatever, is a Hollywood myth but myths are the stuff fanfiction is made of.
[14] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
[15] Tryggve Gran, BBC interview.
[16] In 2001, glaciologist Charles R. Bentley estimated that the tent with the bodies was under about 75 feet (23 m) of ice and about 30 miles (48 km) from the point where they died; he speculated that in about 275 years the bodies would reach the Ross Sea, and perhaps float away inside an iceberg. I exaggerated the effects of global warming.
[17] Scientists, members of Scott's expedition.
[18] Sir Peter Scott was one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund, and designed its famous panda logo.