The Ice-Cold Heaven by Mirko Bonné

Author:Mirko Bonné [BONNé, MIRKO]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000; FIC014000; FIC047000; FIC014000; FIC002000
ISBN: 9781468308426
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2013-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

26

THE ANTARCTIC CLOCK

AT A TEMPERATURE OF BETWEEN THIRTY AND FORTY DEGREES below, unexpected things start to happen. I pour out a beaker of boiling water and it freezes before it smashes on the ground. If you blink for too long, your eyelids freeze shut, a shock that’s momentary but terrifying. After spending a long time outside, we snuggle up to the stove like a gang of cats. And if you lick the clothes you’ve taken off and press that spot against the cabin wall, the jacket or the pullover stays hanging there as if by magic. You shouldn’t think that after a certain temperature it stops making a difference whether the air is at minus twenty or minus thirty-seven. It’s a difference equivalent to that between spring and high summer, just at the end of the scale where there are no seasons.

At the close of May and in the middle of June, between the 125th and 145th days in the ice, we put on two contests that draw in the whole crew despite the ever more bitter cold. For days, the men have been leveling a playing field on the lee side of the ship, and once the six storm lamps on deck have been directed onto it, Sir Ernest, who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be the referee, blows the whistle for a full ninety-minute football match in the crepuscular floodlight: the Vahsel Bay Wanderers, wearing white vests over their snowsuits, versus Weddell Sea United, the strong favorites because their team has got one more pair of snow goggles.

VB WANDERERS

Manager: F. Wild—Substitutes: A. Kerr, G. Marston, H. McNeish

Goalkeeper T. Crean

Right center half R. James Left center half J. Vincent

Right back T. McLeod Left back F. Wild

Center midfield A. Cheetham

Right midfield M. Blackboro Left midfield L. Hussey

Right wing H. Hudson Left wing J. McIlroy

Center forward W. How

* Center forward W. Bakewell

Left wing T. McCarthy Right wing A. Macklin

Left midfield F. Hurley Right midfield E. Holness

Center midfield L. Greenstreet

Left back L. Rickenson Right back J. Wordie

Left center half R. Clark

Right center half F. Worsley

Goalkeeper T. Orde-Lees

WS UNITED

Manager: F. Worsley—Substitutes: C. Green, W. Stevenson

Weddell Sea United don’t initially manage to profit from their advantage. But it quickly becomes clear that the match is going to be decided on the right wing, where doctors Mack and Mick are fighting an exciting duel. However, when Weddell Sea’s most reliable bastion, player-manager “Wuzzles” Worsley, subs himself off at halftime, at 4–3 down, and pushes Charles Green into his position for the restart, the team’s shape begins to come apart. Other than a few isolated counterattacks led by the unsynchronized strike-duo of McCarthy and Bakewell, United aren’t able to string anything together. Green stubbornly refuses to move more than a yard in any direction. The departure of goalkeeper Orde-Lees (after taking a ball in the temple from Vahsel Bay center forward How) completes the debacle. Wild, Hussey and I score twice each for the Wanderers, and the match ends 9–4. A walkover. No one is shown a yellow card for dangerous play, but everybody gets one for complaining.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.