5 OCTOBER 1911 – BUENOS AIRES
‘Back to the bergs,’ says Captain Nilsen, passing his callused hands down the front of his shirt and surveying the muddy waters of the Rio de la Plata for the last time. Spring is already upon them and summer will surely follow on its heels, but where they’re heading, he’ll need his woollens, waterproofs and reindeer-skin anorak.
Much has been left to Nilsen’s discretion once they set sail from the Bay of Whales in mid-February. Amundsen’s only request is that the ship be back as early as possible in 1912.
It was never meant to be a pleasure cruise. With barely enough men to sail the ship, the crew have battled waves that reach the sky, hurricane winds, snow squalls and fog while navigating around more than 500 icebergs on their journey across the Southern Pacific to Cape Horn and up the coast of South America to Buenos Aires. A full set of her sails completely worn out, the Fram had shuddered into port, with the direst challenge still ahead.
‘We arrived as paupers and leave as princes,’ says Lieutenant Gjertsen cheerily.
‘I feel more like Noah,’ says Nilsen, looking rather forlornly about him at the sheep and pigs. Housed in a weatherproof hut on deck, the animals communicate their confusion about their new surroundings in a far more muted fashion than the dogs on the voyage from Norway, and leave a lot less mess to clean up.
Nilsen does not need the crew to remind him of the agony of their arrival in Buenos Aires two months after leaving the ice. It wasn’t so much that they were paupers – they were more like beggars, with barely enough provisions to feed themselves and certainly no money to purchase even a side of beef. To make matters worse, the expedition funds that should have been waiting for them had not arrived.
‘I do hope Amundsen has found a mighty mountain in Antarctica that he can name in honour of our beloved compatriot and benefactor.’
Gjertsen agrees. ‘God bless Don Pedro.’
Don Pedro Christophersen, Norwegian businessman and diplomat, had certainly answered the call in their hour of need, not only supplying provisions and fuel but also generously covering the costs of repainting the ship, refurbishing her engine and repairing the damage that is inevitable when a ship travels such immense distances around the globe without dropping anchor.
Don Pedro has also offered to send a rescue mission should the Fram not reappear with her full contingent by a certain date. Well, we won’t let it come to that, thinks Nilsen, thrusting out his jaw.
Their course is set. They’ll travel back along their original westward route, doing battle with the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties yet again, rounding the Horn and passing within sight of the Kerguelen Islands, where they will yet attempt to land.
Nilsen is impatient. He’s fulfilled his end of the bargain and even completed the oceanographical cruise in the South Atlantic that Amundsen asked for. A total of 891 water samples and temperature readings have been collected at various locations, as well as countless phials of sand and silt from the seabed and over 190 specimens of plankton. They’ve already been packaged up and sent to Norway. Whoever wants them is welcome to them thinks Nilsen. I’ve done my part.
The captain hopes that Amundsen has done his part.
‘He’ll be thinking of setting out, I should think,’ Nilsen says to Gjertsen. ‘Amundsen needs to prove himself for all our sakes. I don’t much like the idea of returning home empty-handed. Not with Amundsen’s little change of plan to explain to the nation.’
‘Touch wood, it all works out,’ Gjertsen says.
Nilsen grasps the wheel with enthusiasm. He has no desire to take sole responsibility for the expedition. But that is what will happen if Amundsen has perished during his quest for glory. Nilsen gives an involuntary shudder. Of course, a worse scenario would be if Framheim (and all who have made it home these past nine months) has crumbled into the sea. The captain quickly steers his thoughts away from possible catastrophes.
‘I wonder how my little friend Madeiro is getting on,’ he says suddenly.