They’ve seen it on the bridge, too, or maybe they’re seeing even worse. The engines whine, dragging the ship to a stop. Amy’s got her arm around the weeping passenger, attempting to calm her, and I look up at the bridge and see that most of the crew has disappeared, probably down to the Zodiacs. High above, a flare explodes, bathing us all in a pale-red glow. In this burst of sanguine light, I see that this is not the only body; there are dozens of blue jackets bobbing in the water among chunks of ice, bodies floating facedown in the churning slush.
We’re too late. As a second flare fires into the sky, I strain my eyes but still can’t see the ship, just gloom and icebergs and penguins scattered about on distant floes. And then, as my eyes adjust—and maybe as my mind adjusts—I realize that those figures on the ice aren’t penguins at all. They’re humans, passengers, dozens and dozens of them—some crouching on patches of breaking ice, others waving their arms for help.
From the stern, cranes whir, preparing to drop the first of our eight Zodiacs into the ice-packed water. Amy is leading the woman toward the staterooms, and I start heading belowdecks. Suddenly I stop, remembering Richard’s binoculars. They are far superior to anything we crew members have, and they could make all the difference in helping me locate Keller.
I race up to the lounge, searching frantically for Richard. I don’t see him, but Kate is there. We instantly make eye contact, and as I rush across the lounge, she meets me halfway.
“Richard—where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she says, looking surprised, as if just realizing she hasn’t seen him for a while. “I’ve gotten our room ready for passengers, so I don’t think he’s—”
“Find him,” I tell her. “Tell him we need his binoculars. Give them to a crew member to pass on to me. Okay?”
“Okay.” I see her nod her head before I’m off again.
Down below, at the open loading hatch, I look up at Captain Wylander, standing at the controls just outside the bridge, struggling to find an ice sheet large enough and thick enough to hold hundreds of stranded passengers. We need a pathway—a bridge of ice, or even a river of seawater—that we can follow to the Australis and its victims. Yet right now I see only large floes and patches of slush lurking everywhere, conditions that are impossible to traverse easily either by foot or by Zodiac. We’ll have to manage it somehow.
I think of our ice landing, only days ago—that one had been challenge enough, but at least we’d been able to choose the field of ice; we’d been in control. And the Cormorant is by no means an icebreaker—in unstable waters, at the wrong speed or angle, a large berg could pierce even a reinforced hull, and then we’d be in no better shape than the Australis. The stabilizing fins that soften our ride through waters like the Drake are vulnerable to the ice, and the Cormorant has no defense in place to safeguard the propellers. Our ship is prepared to rub shoulders with icebergs, but she’s in no position to push them around.
And I know that if the ice gets too thick or the winds too extreme, our captain will not risk damage to the ship; we’ll have to retreat. With the temperature dropping and the winds shoving ice floes roughly into one another, I need to find Keller as quickly as possible. We might have only one chance.
I’m sure Keller is still on board. He’ll put the passengers first, even if it means going down with the ship. And, given the options, on board may well be the safest place—though it’s clear that no one ended up in the water, on the ice, by choice. It already looks as though things are a lot worse than we’ve prepared for.
Wylander is now maneuvering the Cormorant into a large expanse of white, stretching unbroken for at least a hundred yards, and as the cracking of ice stops and the ship comes to a halt, I look up to see his signal. It’s time.
We lower the gangplank, and I step down to a relatively stable section of ice; as one of the lighter crew members, I’d volunteered to be first, though I’m sure everyone knows I have other reasons. About fifty yards in the distance, a dozen passengers are gathered together on the ice, but the Australis herself is still only a dim glow of lights in the fog beyond. Those who are on this patch of ice should be able to make their way over. Some are already hurrying toward us. I hear Glenn’s voice on the PA system, telling the Australis passengers who we are, urging calm, exhorting them to follow our instructions.
But they are exhausted and panicked, and still coming forward—to keep them safe, we need to slow them down, spread them out. As I step forward carefully on the ice—poking it with a sharp trekking pole, hoping the pole won’t meet with slush or weak ice, keeping my ears on alert for that dreadful splintering noise—I wonder whether the other naturalists are as calm as they look. Despite our training, and despite the knowledge, in the deepest parts of our minds, that something like this could happen, I don’t think we ever really believed it would.