Death on the Ice (10 page)

‘Very well.’

Scott looked at the ship, where most of the men would remain quartered during the long night, at the growing pile of stores next to it, much of it being ferried to Gregory’s Villa. He didn’t want to take the chance of losing everything if the crushing winter ice took
Discovery
. Having already been trapped firm in the pack for a few days and subsequently lost in fast-freezing seas with a panicking crew, he had fresh respect for the power and capriciousness of frozen water. The polar dictum was correct: you couldn’t trust the ice.

‘Steady.’

Scott glanced north, the albedo from the sheets of smooth ice that caught the sun hurting his eyes, causing him to squint. Despite the glare from some of the surfaces, the smokeless, unsullied air was so preternaturally clear, the light so piercingly sharp, he could make out distant waves of sastrugi and even the seracs on the distant mountains, the fractured columns of ice-like pillars. It’s a scene from
Childe Harold
, Shackleton had said, when he first gazed on this spot. The brooding conical shape of Mt Erebus with its sulphurous plume, and its aptly named companion, Mt Terror, much of it clear of snow, giving it a dark, sinister aspect, certainly lent the landscape menace.

Following the example of the pioneers before him, Scott blunted the impact of the unknown by christening the unfamiliar with hieratic zeal. The tip of the peninsula was now Cape Armitage, to the north of that, anchors held
Discovery
in Winter Quarter Bay, The Gap gave easy access to the ice barrier and the peak now charted as Observation Hill would enable the base group to watch over the ice barrier for any sledger’s return. Castle Rock was an outcrop that straddled the ridge of the peninsula. It was like naming the Stations of the Southern Cross.

And yet sometimes, he looked at this place and felt the terror of early pagans contemplating the night sky. Perhaps they were pathetic to attempt to subdue it with their charts and bearings and friendly names. Antarctica was vast, brooding and hostile and it just was. Whatever tiny marks men could leave on it could and would be swept away with ease in no time.

‘Go.’

Shackleton had barely begun the consonant when he launched himself off the crest and began poling frantically, pushing on either side of his body, like a crazed gondolier.

Scott yelled in protest at the gamesmanship and flung himself forward.

The pair plummeted down the slope, the huge wooden skis riding easily over the smooth surface, gathering speed as they went. Scott adopted a similar knee-bent position to Shackleton, who had clearly been watching Skelton, and he felt the wind keening in his face.

Around halfway down the incline he began to catch Shackleton, who had turned to his left slightly, losing vertical progress, before swinging to the right. Scott, gaining on him rapidly, suddenly appreciated what the Irishman was doing: slowing down to keep control. A vision of his colliding with the cairn—or worse, the penguin—suddenly came to him, a repeat of the ignominy of the balloon ascent.

He also threw his weight to the right and felt the ski edge dig into the snow and steadied himself with his single pole. There was a satisfying shushing sound, and a spray of ice arced up behind him. He shifted his body again, pleased at the way he had carved a smooth turn. He was within yards of Shackleton now, and able to check his progress.

As he tried the next swoop, his right heel slipped, turning inwards and he felt the tendons strain. He moved his shoulders to correct the roll and pushed with his stick, but in that second his whole gait collapsed and the skis crossed with a loud clack, catapulting him forward.

His face hit the snow and its icy substratum, only the woollen balaclava saving him from damage. He rolled twice, and came to rest, his lungs burning. Shackleton hadn’t noticed and continued on his way. Scott was facing down the slope, with a mess of skies and limbs behind him. The thick layers of clothing had absorbed much of the impact. It was only when he tried to shuffle round that the pain, like a bradawl, stabbed behind his kneecap, caused him to gasp.

With excessive care, he pulled his legs round so he could reach the bindings. A yell of victory told him Shackleton had made the cairn. Scott touched his knee. Even through the Burberry and britches he could feel the pudding-like swelling and when he pressed, the flash of fire brought tears to his eyes. Not only tears of pain, but of frustration. He was no doctor, but even Scott knew he wouldn’t be leading a dogsledding expedition to Cape Crozier any time soon. Robert Falcon Scott’s first polar season was finished before it had begun.

W
HEN LAWRENCE OATES ALIGHTED
from the train at Sudbury, a hearty cheer issued from the crowded platform. For a moment he looked around, puzzled, till a hand clapped his back. ‘Well done, sir, well done.’

Now he could see familiar faces in the group, neighbours and employees of the house. He had assumed the gathering meant it was simply a busy day for the railway, but it seemed all of Essex and half of Suffolk had turned out to welcome him.

‘Proud of you, Mr Laurie.’

‘Thank you.’ He smiled at the well-wisher and positioned his crutches in under his arms. ‘Can I get through?’ He looked for a porter, but the crowd was pressing closer. ‘I have some bags—’

‘Don’t you worry there, Mr Laurie. Make way, make way.’ It was the reassuring barrel shape of Davies, the family coachman, and behind him one of the grooms. Hal, that was it. The lad had gained a foot in height.

‘Hal, I have a trunk—’

The groom leapt up on to the train and relieved the conductor of the case, while Davies gently took an arm and led him through the crush of people. ‘Have the rig here, sir. Can you manage?’

Oates nodded, but in truth using the crutches without being able to get a good swing was tricky and the sheer number of people made that difficult. As he shuffled forward he was forced to put some weight on his damaged thigh and the twinge told him the healing wasn’t complete yet.

‘Do you mind?’ Davies said, shouldering aside one of the more persistent admirers.

‘Hold on,’ said Oates, spotting a young lad hovering at the rear. He hadn’t recognised him without a cap and his father’s gun, broken, tucked at his elbow. ‘Sam. Sam Aylett, Come here.’

Sam, who was barely sixteen and thin as a whippet, squeezed through. ‘Sir. Welcome home, Mr Laurie.’

‘Is your father here?’ He scanned the crowd for the man’s friendly, weather-tanned face. ‘No? Tell him to come and see me at the house, will you?’

The boy’s head dropped and he mumbled.

‘What?’

‘Dad’s dead, sir.’

Oates felt his mind scrabble. Dead? Death was something he was used to out on the veldt, but he hadn’t imagined it coming to Gestingthorpe in his absence. ‘When? How?’

‘Month or more. His heart, sir.’

‘My God.’ He doubted the man was much past fifty. ‘I wanted to  …’ He lifted the boy’s chin. ‘How’s your mother?’

‘Bearing up. You know. Bit of a shock, Mr Laurie.’

‘I’ll say so. Listen to me, Sam. Your father saved my life. Whatever shooting I was able to do, I did it because of him and the poor pheasants and rabbits of the estate. He was a good teacher and a fine man. Do you understand?’

The boy sniffled. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

Gamekeeper Henry Aylett, Sam’s father, had taught the younger Oates the rudiments of country life. He wasn’t much taken with trapping stoats or weasels or indeed trudging the perimeters at dusk or dawn looking for evidence of poachers, but the fishing and the shooting he had taken to with ease. ‘I’d like you and your mother to come and see me up at the house. You’ll do that?’ Sam nodded. ‘Good.’ He made the boy shake his hand. ‘Tell your mother. Make sure it’s soon.’

It took another five minutes to clear the crowd and get into the game cart. Hal loaded the trunk, strapped it down, and stood tiger at the rear.

Davies took the reins and started out for Gestingthorpe Hall at a brisk trot, the sleek Hackney in the limbers pulling the load with speed and grace. Soon they crossed from Suffolk into Essex and Oates took a breath of his home county’s air.

‘Good to have you back, Mr Laurie. Been in the wars. If you’ll pardon the expression.’

‘Yes, I suppose I have rather. What on earth were all those people doing there at the station? How did they know?’

‘Been in all the newspapers about you. Been an outcry that you didn’t get a medal.’ He turned around. ‘Your mother will be pleased to see you. Shocked, but pleased.’

‘I won’t have the crutches for too much longer, Davies. Be back in the saddle before too long.’

The look the coachman gave him was all too familiar. Lawrence Oates wouldn’t be the judge of that. It would be up to the Mistress.

It was a lustrous day, the deep green of the hedgerows startling after the paler, sun-bleached colours of the South African interior. They passed duck ponds and thatched cottages, twisted ancient oaks and willows bent over lazy streams, fields of unripe corn and, on the sunnier slopes, saffron crocuses were being planted by lines of crook-backed women and children. The drivers of various gigs and dogcarts raised their hats as they recognised one of Gestingthorpe’s carriages. Oates was glad his mother hadn’t sent the rather grand Victoria she kept for funerals and other special occasions.

Oates found his eyes closing as the sun warmed his face. The sounds were gentle, unthreatening; the smells, from orchard and farmyard, familiar yet vivid; the palette the comforting one from his childhood, not that of a wild, unpredictable foreign country. Oates sighed to himself. He really was home.

As they neared Gestingthorpe, bunting and flags began to appear on the high hedgerows of the twisting lanes. Oates paid it no attention, till he saw a handwritten sign, welcoming him home by name. Another mile further on, as they turned into the hamlet, a cluster of locals applauded, and a bunch of flowers was thrown into the cart. The bells of the church began to ring as Davies turned the horse into the driveway, past the severely clipped yew hedges and the lake where he had launched his leaky wooden ships only a few years before. There, beyond the lawns and the holly hedges, was the great house itself.

Oates was pleased to see it, still draped in Virginia creeper and with its backdrop of proud elms and the avenue of two-hundred-year-old beeches to one side. The front lawn was as verdant as ever, but much of it was obscured by rows of tables that had been placed on it. The trestles were covered in gingham cloth and jugs of lemonade. There were more flags outside the entrance porch of the house, and at least thirty people who were stamping and whistling. Bryan, his excitable younger brother, was first to greet him, sprinting out of the doorway in a tangle of gangly limbs. ‘Laurie, welcome home. Maybe you can talk some sense into Mother now, about what she wants me to do with myself. Her—’

‘Now, now, Mr Bryan, don’t rush out all your problems,’ said Davies reprovingly. ‘It’s as nothing to what your brother has been through.’

Standing demurely in the shadows were his sisters, Violet and Lillian, both looking radiant and healthy. Stanley, the butler, was behind them, with Billings, his footman, and Mrs Melton, the cook, to his left. Oates raised a hand to his sisters and they waved back, but he could tell from their expressions something wasn’t right. With Bryan hindering rather than helping, Davies guided him down and Oates positioned the crutches, telling Bryan not to make too much of a fuss about them, that they were mainly for show.

His mother finally appeared, as graceful and regal as ever, but looking far brighter than he recalled. The sombre clothes she had adopted since her husband’s death were gone, replaced by sunny yellows and creams and she was sporting the first full grin he had seen for quite some time. As she stepped forward, however, her smile faded. A hand went to her mouth. Oates realised at once what he must look like to his sisters and mother. Thin, bedraggled, crippled; a shadow of the fit young man she had sent off to Ireland.

‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.

‘Davies, get these people out of here.’

Davies hesitated, not sure he had heard the Mistress correctly.

‘There will be no party. Stanley,’ she hissed over her shoulder. ‘Make sure the children go off with some lemonade and biscuits.’ She cocked her head, as if just noticing a strange sound. ‘And tell the vicar to stop the bells.’ A hard, bitter edge appeared in her voice and she gripped his shoulder, wincing at the feel of bone. Her eyes glistened with moisture. ‘This is how Great Britain sends its heroes home, is it?’

‘Carrie, I’m fine—’

She stepped towards him, and he caught the citrusy smell of her favourite perfume, so delicate compared to other women’s. Caroline Oates reached up and touched his face and said: ‘Don’t worry, Laurie, you’re home now. And safe.’

Much as he had looked forward to seeing his mother, Oates felt the familiar crushing sensation in his chest as she ushered him inside, snapping off orders to the staff. If Oates was to do the full convalescence as advised by the army doctors, it was going to be a long six months.

There was eventually a party, of course, several weeks after Lawrence Oates returned, once Caroline was certain her son could take the strain of frivolity and adulation. As Oates told his brother: ‘It’s more likely the strain of chicken broth and bad poetry will carry me off.’ His sisters’ regime had been unrelenting, with three a.m. feeds and copious quantities of Tennyson. Oates found he particularly hated
The Charge of The Light Brigade—
hardly the British army’s proudest moment—although he quite liked the restlessness and grit of
Ulysses
. At least by the fourth time of reading.

The postponed celebration was finally held on a Saturday, and all the outlying villages emptied as people came to pay their respects. Oates was amused and embarrassed by the sheer number. Bryan estimated there were 120 children, or perhaps more, ‘but they won’t sit still to be counted’—which was hardly surprising, given the swings, donkeys and coconut shys they had been provided with—and Oates handed out nearly that many pouches of fine tobacco to the many male well-wishers. Lillian and Violet had spent the previous evening and morning supervising the maids tying small but elegant posies for the ladies.