Onto the Ice, October - 19th November 1933
The next few days saw the barometer fall swiftly and Professor Caine, although seasick, grow even more animated with the advent of so many new and possibly unique phenomena to observe. On the eighth night out, several investigators woke to loud banging from forward in the ship. Battling the winds and the rolling seas, they made their way to the forward cargo holds, where two of the engines for the Boeing had broken there bonds and were crashing around the cargo hold. With considerable risk to themselves, they made the engines secure and notified the rest of the ship. The Boeing aircraft (the Shackleton) was damaged beyond repair and the engines too badly damaged for repair without a full workshop. Further investigation by Malcolm indicated yet more sabotage!The ship moved onwards in to the pack ice. The cold grew more intense and, at times, the crush of the ice threatened to hold the ship in its grip and destroy it. Still the plucky little Gabrielle moved South. On the morning of the 6th November, they came across a wreck held fast in the ice, the Wallaroo, a whaler which had gone missing last Autumn. The investigators rowed across to, well, investigate, finding a grisly scene. The ships boilers had exploded and remains were scattered in much of the ship. Several skeletons had been laid out on the aft deck of the ship. In the captains cabin, they found the ships log and several gold coins with an unknown sea creature depicted upon them, together with a key. the key allowed them to retrieve the ships liquor store, a dozen bottles of whisky. They returned to the Gabrielle, more aware than ever of the dangers they would face in the coming months, particularly after spotting the wreck of the Wallaroos life raft entombed in the ice less than two miles from the ships final grave.
The Gabrielle continued on her way, pushing through the pack ice into the Ross Sea. After a few days, the ice lead the ship was following began to freeze up, trapping the ship and necessitating the use of dynamite to clear a passage, which was a risky proposition given the lack of explosives expertise amongst the crew. However, after two days of blasting (and some minor wounds to the investigators) a passage was cleared and the ship continued to inch forwards, reaching landfall on Ross Island on the 14th of November. The next few days were filled with frantic activity, setting up a temporary base camp, unloading supplies and seeking routes up the ice barrier to safer ground. The work was dangerous and served as an introduction to the difficulties of working on the ice to many of the investigators. Jack Sorrell found time to play with penguins and Professor Caine installed his equipment (which mainly consists of an armchair). After a couple of days, the unloading of the ship was complete and the move to a more permanent base further up the ice shelf started, with the planes flying constantly in the eternal daylight. Unfortunately, the ice shelf took a hand in the expeditions fortunes, as, on the 18th, it began to break up around the camp. Although no lives were lost, a large quantity of aviation fuel (nearly half the expeditions supply) was lost to a watery grave. An emergency withdrawal up the ice to the second base camp was completed with little further incident and the investigators found themselves in cramped conditions but alive on the barrier ice. The next few days were spent trying to make the camp, if not comfortable, at least survivable (which I personally do not think is a word).
A Shock in the Lightest Night, 20 - 27th November 1933
At 3 am on the 20th, a thin clangour from the radio was heard. Realizing that this was the radio mayday signal (which apparently they had been told while sailing South, a fact that the universe had only just discovered), the investigators ran to the radio in the meeting hall. they were in time to hear Hopewell, of the Lexington expedition, broadcasting that their camp was under attack. The message was punctuated by two gunshots before the radio ominously fell silent. Starkweather, suddenly every inch the heroic adventurer, galvanized the camp into action, organizing an impromptu rescue mission. In reality, as he strutted about being imperious, Moore quietly managed the loading of sledges and crewed the rescue attempt. The investigators set off on the dash to reach the other camp, eight miles away. After an uneventful trip, they arrived to find a scene of devastation. A pall of smoke hung over the camp, from burnt fuel and tents. Men were clearing up as best possible but the situation appeared under control. Starkweather headed for the main hall to see Alicia, surreptitiously accompanied by Professor Caine and Piotr Ivanoff, as Zachariah Shuttlebolt went to the medical tent. Jack Sorrell, meanwhile, looked to the dogs, together with Tuvinnen, a Finnish member of the Lexington expedition. At the main hall, a furious argument broke out, lasting for some time. In the medical tent, Shuttlebolt discovered two men under guard, who, it transpired, were the perpetrators of the chaos in the camp. One, Bradbury, was unconscious in some kind of catatonic stupor. Interviewing the conscious man, Dinsdale, the doctor soon came to the same conclusion as the Lexington medic - he had suffered temporary madness, brought on by the isolation and the snow. According to Dinsdale, he had awoken to find the camp crawling with spiders and in his single-minded determination to eradicate these horrors (his own personal phobia) he had managed to set fire to the camp and shoot members of his own expedition. Surprisingly, the men he had shot seemed to bear him little ill will. Professor Caine, meanwhile, went in search of a pipe. Sorrell learnt much the same as the doctor, while Ivanoff heard a rum tale of an apparent suicide on the trip out, with a sailor called Bicks suddenly starting to scream for no reason before jumping to his death over the side of the ship. At this point, the 'discussion' in the main hall reached critical mass and Starkweather stormed out, gathering the rescue party to him and setting off back to his own camp.Back at their own base, the investigators briefed Moore on the situation, pointing out that the Lexington camp had little choice but to return home. Over the next couple of days, it became apparent that Moore had a different idea, as he realized that combining forces would allow both camps to achieve their aims to some extent, with the plane of the Lexington expedition and the power and food of the Starkweather-Moore expedition complementing each other. the only difficulty with his plan was the antipathy between the two expedition leaders. Despite the aid of Ivanoff, a bargain was struck between the rival expeditions and the Lexington crew gradually joined the Starkweather-Moore camp on thanksgiving day (23rd November). Four days later, Starkweather flew out to the top of Beardmore Glacier, mostly as an exercise in providing some excitement for the press back home. Meanwhile, the investigators set off for the foothills of the Miskatonic Mountains, together with several members of the Lexington expedition, to set up their main base camp and to try to find the camp of the ill-fated previous Miskatonic University expedition.