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of Gerda's. There is no point,' I said.
The others,' he whispered. 'I shall die here. You must leave me and go on.'
'You're not going to die,' I told him. But I didn't believe it. I knew we were
a ll going to die.
As night came on we made a blubber fire, and though we practically choked ou
rselves with the acrid fumes, we managed to cook the rest of the meat. Kalst
ad refused to have any. Shortly after that I went to sleep. For the first ti
me for days I slept like a log without dreams or any disturbance. It was mor e
a coma than sleep, for I was numb all over with no feeling at all in my fe et.
When I woke it was clear and sunny. A channel two miles wide separated us f
rom the iceberg where the sea-leopard lay. To the north and west the pack s
eemed to have closed again in a solid mass. When I crawled back into the te nt
again I saw that Kalstad was dead. The skin of his forehead was waxen un der
the dirt. His mouth was slightly open in the stiff mat of his beard and his
eyes stared at me sightlessly. I felt his hands. They were rigid and q uite
cold.
I roused the others, and we buried him there in the snow. For him the strug
gle was over. 'Now we go on, Ja?' Vaksdal had seen the wide channel of wate r.
He accepted the loss of the sea-leopard and the inevitability of going f
orward until we dropped. His eyes were running and horribly inflamed, so th at
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they seemed rimmed by raw flesh. His long beard looked dirty against the
transparent pallor of his gaunt face. Both he and Keller were suffering fr om
the beginnings of frost-bite due to walking in the snow after Bland had taken
their boots. Yet they were willing to go on. They were tougher than I
was. I just wanted to crawl into my tent and die as Kalstad had died.
But somewhere there is always a last flicker of energy. We took one tent, our
sleeping-bags and the rifle. Everything had to be carried. Before leaving, w e
ate the blubber off the stove over which we'd cooked the last of the meat t he
night before. Then I got out the compass, set our course and we started of f,
leaving Kalstad to his lonely vigil in the ice, just as we had left Gerda.
We were all very weak. We took it in turns to use the skis. But soon we had to
discard them, for we hadn't the strength to hold our balance, and the e xtra
weight on our legs when we had to lift them over broken outcrops of cl ear ice
was too much. The food we'd had caused us great pain. So did our fe et. We
were all suffering from frost-bite now. Keller weakened rapidly and only the
fact that I refused to give in until the two Norwegians were beate n kept me
going.
Our progress was painfully slow. Constant detours had to be made round patc
hes of open water. But the ice was fairly flat. By midday we had made somet
hing like two miles, but by then Keller had to be supported between the two of
us. The glare was like a red-hot needle against my eyeballs. I began to see
things that weren't there. At times the landscape vanished into a blur of
blinding white. It was the beginning of snow blindness.
If we'd only had some definite goal it would have given an impetus to our s
truggle. But there was no goal, only a vague hope that none of us believed in.
There was no point in going on. I found myself dogged by an overwhelmin g
desire to drop in the snow and let the relief of death steal over me. The
longing for death became an obsession that completely replaced any hope of
finding survivors from the Southern Cross or the store of whalemeat the cr ew
had landed. It was a thing that had to be fought together with exhaustio n,
the griping pains of hunger and the aching stab of my eyes.
That night Keller wanted to be left behind. He said he was too weak to go o n.
But we couldn't leave him. There was only the one tent. We had to go on
together or stop and die together. Vaksdal told him he was a coward. He did
n't deserve to be called that, but it had its effect and he came on with us
. There is an entry in my log made that morning which reads: 14th Day. We a
re going on. But this is the last day we can hope to move. Those on the ice
berg will run out of food today. God help them. Barely able to stand up for
weakness, we made about a mile that morning. My eyes had become so bad tha t I
could hardly see to lay a course. Keller was barely conscious as he stu mbled
on with his arms about our necks. At times he was actually delirious as he
walked, babbling incoherently in Norwegian. Vaksdal and I were in lit tle
better case.
Shortly after midday we pitched our tent for the last time. It was whilst we
were doing this that Vaksdal seized my arm and pointed into the snow-glare.
Pingvin,' he croaked. Penguins? That meant food. I followed the line of his
arm, screwing up my eyes against the glare. Several dark dots hovered in th e
mirage of ice, waving their flippers. I picked up the rifle. God give me s
trength to shoot straight. The gun was incredibly heavy. The barrel wavered.
I could not get the sights to stay for a second on the target. I told Vaksd al
to kneel in the snow and I rested the barrel on his shoulder. The penguin s
were waving their flippers over their heads and vaguely, like sounds in a
dream, I heard shouts. The trigger was heavy. I couldn't see the sights prop
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erly and the shouts kept ringing in my ears.
Then suddenly I knew they weren't penguins. Penguins didn't wave their flip
pers over their heads. Those shouts were real. I dropped the gun and starte d
forward. The figures melted, lost in a mirage of light that wavered uncon
trollably. It was all a dream. There was no substance in those dark dots ag
ainst the snow. I was delirious and imagining things. I knew this was the e nd
even as I stumbled forward at a ridiculous, wobbly run. I heard hoarse r aven
croaks coming from my throat. Then I stumbled and pitched forward. The snow
was soft. A wonderful lethargy stole through me. I knew I must strugg le to my
feet. But I hadn't the strength. And I didn't want to. I didn't wa nt to
struggle any more. I remember I thought for a moment of Judie, dying of
starvation up there on the ledge of the iceberg. But there was nothing I
could do about it - nothing. I was finished. And slowly - luxuriously - un
consciousness came like a blanket to cover me.
I woke to the warmth and the smell of food. A spoon was pushed between my c
racked lips. My gorge rose as I tried to swallow the hot liquid. I opened m y
eyes. Pain flamed at the back of my eyeballs. Captain Eide was bending ov er
me. I couldn't believe it at first. I was convinced that I was dead. But then
he was forcing hot liquid between my teeth again and I knew that I wa s alive
and that I'd linked up with the survivors of the Southern Cross. Hi s face
came and went in front of me and I heard a croaking sound that was m y own
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