Dead Reckoning

[jisbell00]

Dead Reckoning


If you were coming back from the Antarctic,
your ship crushed in the ice and all your men –
who hauled the lifeboats and the tents, who saw
the sled dogs die, who waited out the Moon –
arrived at open water, it might be
you were three hundred miles from land. And that,

bare rock. It might be, on the open ocean,
the sky was hidden and dead reckoning
kept you from death. It might be all the crew
were in those wave-washed lifeboats as the ice
formed crusts upon the hull, and you could not
outlast five minutes on that narrow deck,

to fight it. Yet you stayed alive. You ate
a mix of milk and pemmican amid
and on the ballast rocks. Those rocks would shift
to each rogue wave. The waves came crashing in
where you lay in the hold. Yet you came through
to bare rock, where you left your men for rescue

and sailed eight hundred more miles through the ice,
to where South Georgia saw a bit of grass
to host a whaling station. It might be
your crew were so near death that three of them
could not traverse that island. But three did.
You climbed those peaks. You crossed that ice with screws

wedged in your boots for grip, for thirty-six
more hours without a tent, or food, or slumber,
or compass, till you heard that whaling station’s
shrill whistle in the morning. In the end,
it took four tries to reach the frozen rock
you’d left your men on. Every one yet lived.

[Firebird]

Hi John, I enjoyed this retelling of Shackleton’s incredible journey and eventual rescue of his men, and all those ‘might bes’. I also liked the ‘Dead Reckoning’ idea as their method of navigation and that it can lead to an accumulation of errors as in the recounting of stories - clever stuff.

Enjoyed.

Cheers,

Tristan

[jisbell00]

Wow, my phone just deleted my entire comment.
In any case, yes, what an incredible journey ! It transcends the telling, as you note about the title. I also enjoyed the word dead in there. Thank you also for liking the mights - I’ve taken flak for that word before now.

Cheers,
John