Antarctica by Peter Lerangis Read Free Book Online

Mansfield said.
    “He nearly died,” Nesbit added.
    They were advancing. Slowly. Like wolves around a poor little lamb.
    Philip cowered. “Yes, well, I wasn’t too happy with that turn of events myself.”
    “You are despicable,” Pete Hayes growled, “sneaky, lazy, selfish, filthy —”
    “I am not filthy!” Philip protested. “But I am sick and injured, and frightfully hungry —”
    A twisted smile grew across Kennedy’s face. “Say, I’m hungry, too, men … how about y’all?”
    “Sure would be nice to have something besides seal, wouldn’t it?” Ruppenthal said. “Somethin’ tender and fat — you know, the way Philip is, on account of his hiding out in the storeroom, eating our good food.”
    “He sure looks like a well-fed pig,” O’Malley added. “Prob’ly just as tasty, too.”
    Their jokes were sick. Simply disgusting.
    Philip sat up. “Yes, I admit to a youthful zeal for the photographic arts, and I deeply apologize if I have offended anyone — but it is hardly the occasion for such morbid humor.”
    “I imagine he’d be pretty soft,” Sanders guessed.
    “Oily, too,” Cranston said.
    Ruppenthal nodded. “You’d need a lot of barbecue sauce to cover the stink.”
    Barbarians. Visigoths. Cannibals.
    Philip stood up, his blankets and tarps still draped around him, and backpedaled out of the tent. “M-m-m-may I remind you, s-s-sirs, we are gentlemen. We can s-s-s-settle our hunger issues like rational, courteous b-b-beings —”
    “LU-U-U-UNCH!” cried Ruppenthal.
    Like slavering beasts, they sprang.
    Philip spun. He bolted away.
    He hadn’t seen the stove directly behind him.
    He slammed against it and fell to the ice in a clatter of coal, wood, and blubber-blackened steel. “Stop! This is inhuman! I am not edible! I am an Englishman!”
    He rolled himself into a ball and braced for the sacrifice.
    But the men did not come nearer.
    Philip parted his elbows. Cautiously he peeked out.
    Flummerfelt was the first to laugh — a long, brutish Hawwww most likely honed to perfection on some hog farm in Iowa.
    The men erupted, doubling over, slapping one another’s backs and pointing. Rejoicing at his humiliation — as if he were some cheap vaudeville performer. Even Lombardo and the Greek were up and about, enjoying a guffaw or two at his expense.
    “Gotcha, didn’t we?” Sanders brayed.
    Philip stood up. He calmly brushed himself off. He would not let them see his embarrassment. Even though his clothes were frozen through and his entire body felt bruised and stiff, he still had his dignity.
    “I didn’t believe you,” he said. “Not for a moment.”
    He was dreaming of plum pudding with heavy cream when the dogs woke him next morning. One of the larger ones — Agamemnon or Hypocrite or some blasted Greek name — was licking his face, slobbering bacteria into every cut and pimple.
    Philip sat up. He felt as if his head had been smacked between cement blocks.
    He lay back down.
    They were all bustling around him. They were always bustling.
    “Fifteen minutes for breakfast, and then into the traces, men!” Captain Barth shouted.
    “Thank you,” Philip grumbled, “but I think I’ll stay here.”
    Colin sat next to him. “How are you feeling?”
    “So kind of you to ask. Dreadful.”
    “Ready to pull, or do we need to put you in the boat with Lombardo, Andrew, and Oppenheim?”
    “Anything but Oppenheim.”
    Colin smiled. “You’re a lot tougher than I gave you credit for. Andrew’s dead to the world.”
    “Andrew was bitten. I merely froze.” Philip slowly rose to his feet, his shirtsleeve falling far down over his hands. “You gave me your clothes yesterday, didn’t you?”
    “They were spares.”
    “After that cruel treatment I received, you fed me and made sure I was warm. I shan’t forget that.”
    “Look, it wasn’t a proposal of marriage, Philip. I was looking out for Andrew, and you happened to be in the tent, too.”
    “Thanks anyway.”
    Colin