February 9, 1910
BLIND.
He was blind. He couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t feel (the whale, where was the whale?) because the water was hungry; first it sucked the heat from him and then it went after his life. “F — fahh — ther!” he cried out. “Ah — I ca — nn’t —”
The darkness lifted. He saw shadows, foam. Whitecaps. Two shapes.
Philip, flailing.
Father, going under.
His fingers closed around his father’s shirt and he pulled.
Philip tried to swim toward them. He was blue. His eyes were strangely wide and luminous, as if the lids had been peeled away. Reaching out weakly, he too tried to hold up Father.
“S-Save … yourselves,” Father said.
“W-We do this t-together, Father.” Saltwater rushed into Colin’s mouth. He was sinking, losing his senses. “Ph — ilip?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
“For —?”
“S-Saving our lives. For … rowing out of … the m-m-maelstrom.”
There. Colin had owed him that.
Behind Philip’s head, the gray shape loomed toward them.
Colin felt no fear. It was time.
He prayed silently that the water would take them before the whale did. That they would be claimed by the sea, the way Mother had been claimed.
But the shape was gaining steadily.
As the fog rolled aside, Colin saw it clearly.
It was not a whale.
It was a prow.
“C-Colin … ?” Philip coughed.
A good high one, fanning back to outline a broad beam.
The hull was encrusted with barnacles and smeared with blood. Five stout square-rigged masts emerged from the fog, interlaced with staysails. Attached to the ship’s bowsprit was a figurehead, a wooden statue of a mermaid. Two towering metal winches hunched over gunwales laden with long rowboats, racks of spears, and harpoons. Along the bow, peeling gold-and-green letters spelled out the name NOBADEER.
A whaling ship, full-tilt after a catch.
“H-H-Help —” Philip sputtered.
Colin tried to cry out, but his voice was frozen.
The ship’s crew stood at the port bow, facing away from Colin and Philip, searching the seas ahead. As the bow cut swiftly through the water, it smashed through the floating remnants of the Horace Putney.
The water closed around Colin like a fist (why, Lord) and he realized he would die within hailing distance of a ship that by all odds shouldn’t be here, and whose disappearance meant the certain death of the entire expedition.
“W-W-W —” Father said.
“What?”
“WAVE!”
Colin raised an arm limply. The beam of the Nobadeer glided past them now, sending a powerful wake.
“C-Col— lin —” Philip said. “Look. Up.”
As they rose on the wake, Colin saw over the starboard gunwale. The men were swarming the masts, pulling at halyards, slackening the sails.
The ship was losing speed.
One by one, sailors in striped shirts gathered at the port rail like sparrows on a telephone wire. They waved and pointed, shouting incoherently.
A lifeboat began to swing, and then it slowly descended. Over the side peered two men, goggle-eyed with surprise, as if having suddenly come upon flamingos. One had a robust red beard and the other was clean-shaven and craggy-faced. Both were enormous fellows, burly and well fed. Colin had forgotten that men could be that big.
“Ahoy! Cavortin with the merpeople, are ye?” called Red Beard.
“Oh, no, a Br —Briton!” Philip’s eyes rolled upward and he sank.
The lifeboat splashed down. The men immediately rowed toward Philip with powerful synchronized strokes.
“Up ye go, matey!” Crag Face reached into the water, fished out Philip, and plopped him roughly in the boat. “All right, the old man next!”
Father was too weak to reach upward.
“Didn’t eat our sausage this morning, did we?” Red Face said, yanking Father on board, and then Colin.
Colin fell to the floor of the ship. Father was immobile but breathing. Philip was blue.
“Shall we take the lift, Mr. Harkness?” asked Crag Face.
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Bardsley,” Red Beard answered.
They hung onto Colin’s words and asked him to repeat himself constantly. They interrupted his tale with shouts of “Garn!” and “Bloody ’ell!” and “Good God!” and other more colorful phrases that made even Colin blush.
The sailors’ quarters, the fo’c’sle, was small and warm and cramped, and it stank of fish and whale meat. Colin felt he could live here forever.
Father was sitting on a wooden stool, sipping strong tea. He wore a black wool watch cap on his head and two thick blankets around his torso and legs. His feet were nestled in a metal pail of hot water.
Philip lay passed out on a cot.
“So, let me ’ear ye straight,” Harkness said. “Y’say the mutiny come after the return of the South Pole team —”
“And then the ship sunk,” Bardsley added, “and then come the trek across ice — and the whirlpool —”
Colin could hardly believe the story himself. It had the pace and the outlandishness of an oft-told fairy tale, and he felt as if he were back home, outside the school, trading stories with his friends. He sipped his tea and tried not to burst out laughing. “Yes. Then Philip rowed us out — somehow — all by himself. He saved our lives.”
“Just in time for the whale,” Bardsley said.
“And the rescue by yours trulies,” Harkness added.
“But yer shipmates is stranded in some cove south-by-southwest,” Bardsley said, “and ’alf yer crew’s back in the Ross Sea, if they’re still alive.”
“Yes,” Colin said, lifting the cup to his lips.
“And if you could help,” Father said, “we’d be sure the United States government found out about your deed.”
They were silent. Staring at Father uncomprehendingly.
“Yer ain’t serious, are ye?” asked Bardsley.
“Ye’re pulling our leg,” said another sailor. “Like, maybe ye was just out ’ere a-fishin’?”
Harkness exploded with laughter, sending a spray of Assam tea across the room.
A good part of it landed on Philip. He woke up with a start. “Oh! Oh bloody yes, take me already! How many times must I put up with these confessions —”
Philip blinked. He swallowed his words and looked around, the tea dripping off his brow and onto his lips. “Oh. Hello. Is it teatime?”
Bardsley belched a laugh. And now all the sailors joined in, doubling over, slapping one another’s backs, snorting and spitting and stomping their feet until Colin began to worry about the decking.
“I have seen the underworld,” Philip murmured, “and it looks and smells like a fo’c’sle.”
“Ye three ain’t exac’ly gardenias yerselves,” Bardsley grumbled.
“Colin ’ere tells us you’re a ’ero,” Harkness said, wiping his brow.
“You’re — British, aren’t you?” Philip said.
“English,” Harkness said proudly. “Me accent give it away?”
“Do you … happen to know who I am?”
Harkness leaned in. The laughter had died down and now every man joined in examining Philip’s face.
“Yeah …” Harkness said, his eyes widening. “Yeah!”
Philip moaned. “Oh, I knew it …”
“Blimey, lads!” Harkness slapped his forehead. “We were supposed to bag us a whale. And ’ere we go pickin’ up the Prince of Wales!”
“Hooo-haaahahah!” Bardsley bellowed, setting off another round of laughter.
“WHO LET THE MONKEYS ON THE SHIP?”
The voice cut through the noise.
All laughter ceased. Polished black leather boots stomped down onto the ladder, followed by a cape made of thick, boiled wool with a brocaded edge. A golden scabbard clanked loudly on silk breeches as the man descended.
At bottom he turned to face the men. He resembled an old pirate king, still stuck in the nineteenth century. His eyes were coal-black, floating in the shadow of a heavy brow, and a long mane of silver-black hair streamed thickly beneath a beaver-skin hat. His nose’s journey from forehead to lip had been detoured at least three times, and a long scar under his right eye locked a permanent lopsided grimace onto his face.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n —” Bardsley said.
“Silence!” the man shouted, his eyes fixed on Jack. “I be Coffin. Captain Rhadamanthus Increase Coffin.”
“Jack Winslow,” Father said without flinching. “My son, Colin, and Master Philip Westfall.”
“A deep pleasure, I’m sure, Your Highness,” Philip said. “Er, Holiness — Captaincy —”
“They’re in fine workin’ order now, Cap’n,” Bardsley insisted. “Able seamen, all three. But y’see, there’s just a few more of ’em a-stranded on a cove not very far from ’ere at all —”
“You nattering chowderhead, more crew means more sailors to pay!” Captain Coffin thundered.
“Exac’ly wha’ we told ’em, Cap’n,” Harkness quickly said. “No pickin’ up strangers wha’ are starvin’ in coves. Cap’n Coffin wou’n’t allow it, no, sir — we knew we could speak f’yer, Cap’n, seein’ as we knows yer mind —”
Liar.
Colin bolted up from his seat, but Jack held him back.
Captain Coffin shot Harkness a look that could slice steel, then turned back to Jack. “I can’t pay ye but an eight hundredth lay — a thousandth each to the boys — but don’t let me hear ye complain. Y’oughter be grateful ’tain’t nothing!”
“Fine!” Philip blurted out. “Quite reasonable indeed.”
“Have ye a bath and a shave, ye look like somethin’ wha’ escaped the madhouse.” Coffin turned away, his cape billowing out. “Now, Harkness, let’s bag us a whale or two — and on the Sabbath day, ye’ll set us on a course to find those other men!”
As the Captain stomped abovedecks, Harkness gave Colin a smile and wink.