Antarctica by Peter Lerangis Read Free Book Online Page B

ligaments — he’ll have a whopping bruise for a while, but that’s about it. He’s one lucky kid.”
    “Brave, too,” said Captain Barth.
    Jack nodded. Andrew would need bravery. And good health.
    What came next would require both in spades.
    “What now, Father?” Colin asked.
    “We can’t stay here,” Jack said. “The ice isn’t stable enough — especially if the weather turns warmer.”
    “We have to decide something fast, Jack,” Captain Barth said. “To keep the peace.”
    Raised voices echoed from the men’s encampment — Lombardo and Ruppenthal, Nigel and Philip, Oppenheim and Rivera — arguing, taunting, everyone at the end of his tether.
    Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a small American flag wrapped around a crumpled, water-soaked sheet of paper. Carefully he unfolded the paper and read the India ink inscription on top.

    Below it was a neatly drawn map of Antarctica, the coasts in great topographical detail, the interior a blank expanse of white.
    Walden had planned to map every inch of the Antarctic shoreline. He would move slowly, returning to the mainland for fuel when necessary.
    The two men had met in Argentina. For good luck, each had agreed to give the other a souvenir. Walden had given Jack the flag and the map. Jack, distracted by problems, had returned nothing — and had been haunted by that ever since. A broken gesture had power. It worked on your mind in quiet ways, weakening your resolve and your courage.
    Now the map might come in handy.
    “Gather, men!” Jack called out.
    “What’s the plan?” Ruppenthal called out.
    “Put to and sail out of here, I’ll bet,” Siegal said.
    “We can’t sail these dinghies in this mess,” Windham said. “We’ll capsize.”
    “Pop, I say retreat to a stabler floe and wait out the summer,” Mansfield suggested. “In a couple of months the Ross Sea will freeze up right to the ocean, which’ll give us another fifty miles or so of ice —”
    “A couple of months?” Cranston snapped. “We can’t survive here that long!”
    “Death never takes the wise man by surprise,” Oppenheim shouted. “He is always ready to go!”
    “Listen up — I have Chappy Walden’s map and itinerary,” Jack announced. “He left three weeks after we did, sailing west to circumnavigate Antarctica and map the coast. He drew his route for me on this sheet, pinpointing dates and locations. If he has stuck to his schedule, he should be approaching the Ross Sea right around now.”
    “So … we stay here and wait for him?” Philip asked.
    “Right, and wave to ’im wif our ’ankies?” Nigel said. “Yoo-hoo! Captain Wa-a-a-alden!”
    “Staying here, we have little chance of seeing him or being seen,” Jack said. “If we sail now, making our way slowly through the brash —”
    “And bergs,” Mansfield interrupted.
    “— we’ll reach the shelf ice in two or three days. Fewer if we’re lucky. One thing we know about Walden — he’ll be hugging the coast. Chances are good we’ll cross paths.”
    “How close to the shore?” Oppenheim blurted out. “Can anyone really know that?”
    The commotion stopped, and all eyes turned to Oppenheim.
    “What are the real odds of two vessels actually crossing paths in this vast sea?” Oppenheim pressed on. “And what if we don’t find him? We marry the penguins and settle in?”
    He was making sense. His words were brutal and honest.
    Looking at Oppenheim’s face, Jack realized that “crazy” was an easy label. Oppenheim was a rational man with an impossible task — to function as a human without any hope and faith. In his eyes, Jack saw the despair of every man in the crew. And, possibly, their future.
    “If all else fails,” Jack said, “we make our way along the western coast until we reach the Antarctic peninsula— which we will follow north to Deception Island. There we’ll find a whaling station.”
    “How many miles away is Deception Island?” Andrew chimed in from the