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"Such very dapper gentlemen," remarked Cherry.
The small troop of Adele penguins hesitated in formation, were overtaken by a further squadron at quick march, and set forth again, intent on the cracking sea ice and the ocean beyond. Their pace was swift, a surprisingly effective if comical waddle, and the early curiosity they had expressed in Discovery hut and its occupants was now almost entirely absent. From the bay, the occasional thunder of calving bergs rang through the still air. It was late summer in the Antarctic, the ice was melting, and the penguins had mere weeks to raise a living chick to adulthood before the winter storms scoured the ice and rock on which they stood.
In another world, warmer and further north, less barren, devoid of the layers of Wolsey undergarments, heavy weight sweaters and gabardine outers which gave every expedition member the rotund appearance of a middle aged country squire, Cherry was a dapper gentleman himself. He had worn his dinner jacket, exquisitely tailored to his lanky frame, at every fundraising dinner and social gathering between London and Port Chalmers. Under duress, Oates had attended one, in Australia, still wearing his coaling boots.
His feet now were encased in three pairs of socks and bulky finnesko, padded against the cold, in appearance as disreputable as any derelict Irishman. He was, he thought, a long way from the newly minted cavalry officer who had sailed to Ireland with his regimentals as carefully packed as a bride's trousseau.
"Ah, Birdie," said Cherry cheerfully, to the crunch of ice behind them.
"Cherry," Bowers acknowledged. "Farmer. Wool-gathering?"
Oates acknowledged the insult with a tip of his head, eyes firmly on the parade of penguins.
"How goes the weather today, Birdie?" Cherry asked.
"Temperature's up again. No wind to speak of," Bowers said cheerfully. He shared with Dr Wilson, Bill, the daily task of recording temperature and wind peed from the instruments erected below the slope of the volcano, a full half-mile from the hut. "What ho? Released from the stables, Soldier?"
"Observing our companions," said Cherry. "Really, such quaint, cheery little beasts they are, always full of pluck."
"Unlike our ponies," said Oates.
"Well, I am sure all will be well in your capable hands," said Bowers cheerfully. "Oh, look out! Watch that little fellow go."
The penguin in question had dropped to his belly and was positively scooting along the ice, propelled, with remarkable agility, by flailing flippers and thrusting feet.
"A regular comedian," Bowers added, clearly impressed.
"What gallant individuals these Adele penguins are," Cherry said. The line of penguins was thinning, and the last stragglers were struggling over the heaped ice by the side of the hut. "Nothing but ice and rock, and yet here they live, making the very best of things."
That last penguin was making tough going of the ice.
"A nest, a wife, a chick, and all the ocean to wander," Bowers said. "What more can a penguin need? They are such joyous little beggars."
"One can hardly say the domestic life of the penguin is one of homely comfort," said Cherry, amused. He had said, once and briefly, that the smell of the stables reminded him of his family home, and that he never gave a thought to the permeating scent of tobacco, all the grooms smoked like chimneys.
"Yet one cannot but admire such creatures, so eminently suited to the environment, and so devoted to their families. It is hard not to see the hand of God in such harmonious organisation," said Birdie.
Oates took a meditative draw on his pipe. Smoke hung in the thin, cold air, aromatic and homely.
"I believe Birdie inclining more and more towards the thin ice of socialism," Cherry said. "Soon, Titus, he will be declaiming all life sacred, the sedition of the antipodes a miracle of free thinking, and the tax on inherited wealth a necessary evil."
Bowers tugged at his chin strap.
"And universal suffrage," Cherry added.
"I should not go so far!" Bowers said, stung. "Although observe these creatures, so cheerfully content without the structures of monarchy and government, and reflect that a Christian outlook - by which I mean the hard work and fellow feeling expressed so well by these wonderful little beasts - surely proves that the divine law which is their sole governance provides for a life of perfect happiness. Nothing to do except housekeep and fish, and yet never have I seen a happier family life."
The last remaining penguin was clearly unsteady on its feet, limping, although still gamely following the rest. Oates, studying its ramshackle gait, gave it another day, perhaps two, before it collapsed in its tracks.
"Bowers, for shame!" Cherry said. "Theft, adultery, vices I shall not name - Levick is, I believe, taking comprehensive notes on the subject. He plans a monograph," Cherry said. "In Greek."
"In Greek?" Birdie said, startled.
Oates snorted, inadvertently peppering the ice with a scatter of embers. Briefly, he glanced sideways, meeting Cherry's eyes above Bowers' head.
"Surely there is not the slightest scientific advance to be gained in investigating the intimate domestic life of so dignified a bird!" Bowers declaimed, straightening.
"Is it not equally absurd to be investigating rock which has lain undisturbed for thousands of years, measure the variation in a temperature constantly below freezing, or dredge creatures almost invisible to the naked eye from a depth of ocean where man may never walk?" asked Cherry. "Who are we to determine what may be of value to a scientist?"
"Well, of course there is value in such geologicalising," said Bowers. "And to determine the wonder of creation in the infinite variety of life, above and below the ocean..." There was a yearning note in his vote, an echo of the small boy who had returned home after his first voyage with a stuffed albatross and a collection of seagull appendages. These not entirely perfectly preserved specimens, he had recounted one evening at mess, had gone sadly unappreciated by his mother and sisters.
"And of course one must take specimens," Bowers said. He shuffled one foot, an unexpected hesitation in the forthright and energetic Scotsman. "It always seems such a shame to shoot such cheerful little beggars. Yet there is nothing I think nicer than a meal of well-cooked penguin," he added stoutly.
"And if I am not mistaken, that is the dinner bell," Cherry said. "Bowers, you are done with science for the moment? Titus?"
Oates inclined his head in acknowledgement, and in a rustle of waxed cotton and the scratch of boots on ice, the other two departed. Bowers saying, enthusiastic, "Indeed, Bill says that should one only obtain an Emperor's egg, in the earliest stages of development, the descent of birds from dinosaurs should be visible in the embryo. But the retrieving of it - that would be a manful task indeed..."
Alone, Oates advanced towards the solitary penguin. It watched his advance with one cocked, beady eye, stanced upright, webbed feet splayed firmly on the ice. Heavily muscled along the shanks of its legs, like all the penguins it was leaner than it would have been a month earlier, worn by constant trips to the sea and the unending urge to feed and succour its chicks. "Enduring the inevitable consequences of matrimony?" Oates muttered, rueful and sympathetic.
The suppurating wound sliced across the webbing of its left foot came close to separating one clawed toe, and the tendon was fully severed. When the penguin shifted, the easier to regard Oates' approach, the toe dragged against ice, already shrunk and blackened although the wound was recent. Blood poisoning would, Oates suspected, kill it sooner rather than later, or the dragging exhaustion of traversing the tumbled ice of the route between rookery and ocean.
Carefully, Oates knocked out his pipe, and placed it in his pocket. A swift snap of the neck would do the job perfectly, lethal and painless.
The penguin looked up, regarding him with unflinching interest. It shuffled a step closer. A penguin, like a horse, was an unthinking beast, knowing only the treadmill of ice and sea and egg. He would have to allow, Oates thought, for the thickness of his dog skin mittens, there was cruelty only in botching the job.
As neatly as any formal farewell, the penguin bobbed its head at him, turned its back, and set off for the ocean. Its back was as straight as its rolling gait would allow, its stiff wings balancing the long, muscled length of its body, its head high. The ice underfoot was cracked and uneven, riven with pressure ridges, but the penguin, undaunted, marched onwards as bravely as any wounded soldier with the pride of the regiment at stake.
Oates let it go.