Play@YSDC

Wearing his favourite Panama hat, smoking a large cigar, Professor Graves strolls up the gang plank. "Good day all," he says cheerfully. Seeing Kitt posing for the camera he doffs his hat and with a beaming smile says "prettier than the fashion models of Paris."

SS Gabrielle – Hudson River, New York.
2:00pm – Monday 11th September 1933

At exactly two o’clock in the afternoon of Monday 11th September the Starkweather-Moore Expedition to the Antarctic finally gets underway. The SS Gabrielle signals it’s farewell loudly to the stevedores, reporters and relatives lining Pier 74 as it pulls slowly away from the docks. Guided at first by tugs belonging to the port authority, she is towed past the glittering new skyscrapers of downtown. A collection of small boats follow the steamer along the Hudson, as despite the mishaps that have marred their preparations, both the public and the press of New York are keen to get a glimpse of the expedition before they leave.

By the time she signals a salute as she passes the Statue of Liberty the Gabrielle is moving under her own steam, her reciprocating steam engine pushing her up to an eleven knot cruising speed as she turns south along the Eastern Seaboard. The sky is covered with high thin clouds and the sea is a little choppy, but the Gabrielle is a large ship, so such seas are not enough to cause her passengers discomfort as they line her sides watching the great city of New York shrink into the distance.

4:00pm:

An hour or so later James Starkweather and Professor Moore gather the entire expedition into the very crowded crew mess, Starkweather produces some bottles of champagne and soon the corks are flying and the champagne flowing as most of the jubilant team put the mishaps of the previous weeks behind them. New York is behind them, the icy continent of Antarctica ahead, in a few short weeks they will stand where only a handful of men have ever stood before.

Olof is happy that they finally are underway. Hopefully all the past troubles are behind them. "Antarctica here we come!" Olof says to himself.

Kitt tries to watch how much she drinks but she's used to beer and not champagne and quite quickly becomes giggly drunk. She leans in towards Jack and starts babbling excitedly about a dozen different matters, sliding from topic to topic with mad abandon before suddenly deciding that Jack wasn't interested at all in what she had to say and slinking off.

Well, that was ... odd,, Jack thinks. He didn't mean to brush Kitt off, but he really had never known very well how to react to someone drunker than he was, especially a young girl like her. Whatever you ended up saying to someone as gone as she seemed to be would come back to bite you. You said something nice, it'd come out flirty and lecherous. You said something profound, she'd forget it. Oh, but if you said something halfway curt, she'd never forget that.

The bubbly was never Jack's thing anyway, and he's already annoyed one person. He decides to go make himself known to the radio operator. They'd have to become fairly good friends over the next months. Jack wasn't a pro, but he did know something about radio operating, and he hoped that some shop talk would help him make nice.

After watching New York disappear in the distance, Sean unloads his things into his room.

Later joining the party in the crew mess, he finally feels a bit of adrenaline and relief that this whole thing finally got underway. Watching New York disappear into the distance was beautiful both in appearance and what it meant, an escape from the troubles of the time.

Sean raises his glass to any around him.

"To a safe and exciting journey!"

"Here here!" says Callum. He knocks back the last of his champagne, and reaches for another glass.

"Are we there yet?" he jokes to Professor Moore.

Olof laughs at Callum's joke. "Well, seriously, when are we estimated to arrive at our cold destination? I seem to have forgot what you said during your briefing." The engineer wonders if Starkweather will try to speed up the voyage so that the ship can catch up with the Lexington expedition.

McRaven sits nursing his champagne with some of the other pilots. Out the corner of his eye, he notices Kitt get more and more drunk. He sits in amazement as she seems to come on the grizzled reporter, who seems non-plussed and hesitant.

Then just like a pocket of turbulence can drop a plane, she drops the reporter and staggers out.

"That broad is way too flakey" Says Mcraven to the other pilots assembled "I hope she gets it together when we get there"

James, finding Callums sense of humor refreshing after the last few tense days, is pleased everyone apears to be getting into the swing of things "I am sure Kitt will be less flakey once she sobers up a little" "I hope" he adds smiling

Both arms against the guard rail, Isugtag watched the silouhette of New York city slowly go by. His lit pipe in the corner of his mouth, the big Inuit simply gazed at the vanishing senery. For many abord the ship, leaving the urban center for some frozen wasteland was both exciting and worrying. For Isugtag, it was comforthing. Big cities were simply too... alien to him. He felt uncomfortable in them. They were too impredictable. The past few weeks he had spent in New York had drained him to the core... that and the nightmares hadn't help at all. The fact they had simply came and gone, without any reason he couldn't think of, simply made him even more uneasy.

True to his nature, Isugtag had kept mostly to himself the whole time. He had helped with cargo, and had attented every meeting as he had been required. But beside that, he had crawled into his own little bubble of silence, satisfied in simply watching his surroundings from afar.

Around him, everyone buzzed with excitement about the journey. The South Pole! The last untamed land. The only place man had yet to conquer. Grey Wolf was slowly starting to wonder if embarking on this trip was truly a good choice. It wasn't so much all the strange events surrounding their departure that had him worried. It wasn't Lawrence's ravings, or Douglas' death. It was what he had seen in his mind's eye. The mountains. That feeling. Something was waiting for them.

Straigthening back up, Isugtag tapped his pipe, upside down, agaisnt the railing, watching the ashes tumble down into the dark waters.

"On a more serious note Professor Moore, I think would be wise to continue to be security conscious. We should restrict access to vital parts of the ship. I'm sure that the expedition members are quite trustworthy, but the ships crew are, as yet, unknown to us, and any one of them could be a saboteur.."

SS Gabrielle – Radio Room


While most of the rest of the expedition continue the celebration in the mess, Jack heads up to the Radio room, where he finds Louis Laroche, the SS Gabrielle’s radioman Robert Macllvaine, and the Bosun Roger Blunt

Louis looks a little less grumpy now that the voyage is underway, he looks up as Jack enters, “Hello Jack, I’m just taking a look at the equipment. I won’t get my hands on our radios for two months so I thought I’d spend some time with Robert here.”


Robert Macllvaine working the SS Gabrielle’s radio equipment.

Meanwhile, back in the mess...

Moore nods in agreement with Callum, “You are probably right, but you must remember that we are guests on this ship, and so must allow the Captain and his officers to make such decisions.”

“The engine room is off limits to the expedition team, and to some of the crew; while the cargo holds are now mostly sealed and shouldn’t need accessing except by the dog handlers and suchlike until we reach the ice.”

***********

Ralph Dewitt agrees with James, “I’m sure Kitt’ll be fine she seems a good pilot, can’t see what she sees in Jack though.”

Ralph has had a soft spot for Kitt since the trip to test the aeroplanes, and has obviously started to become a little jealous of both Jack and Richard Greene.

***********

Chatting to others in the team, particularly the experienced Peter Sykes, Olof learns that the Gabrielle can't travel much faster than it's 11 knot cruising speed anyway, the same speed as Acacia's ship the SS Tallahassee. So they are unlikely to make up the distance before the pack-ice is reached.

Once the ice is reached though, it will require luck as well as good judgement by the captains to plot a course through, so the two day head start hopefully won't make any difference.

"I'm a bit of a radio man myself," Jack says, "though, of course, nowhere near as skilled as you gents. It's mostly just been a hobby with me, and one I don't get an awful lot of practice with."

He grins a little. "Oh, don't worry about me. No story to transmit yet--though those'll come soon enough. I mainly, um, just wanted to get away from the crowd, y'know? Never really good at parties."

"It is a shame that this has become a race of sorts. The scientific part is easily forgotten in these ventures. They become a symbol of national pride instead or in this case, personal pride. Who knows if we need assistance on the ice, the Lexington expedition is the only nearby help we can get. It's a shame that we're alienating them." Olof sips on his champagne.

Robert Macllvaine talking to Jack in the radio room:

Macllvaine shakes Jack’s hand, “Hey any help or advice you can give will be well received. Where we’re going the more people know how to work the radios, the better.”

“I’ll be transmitting your stories for you while you’re on the Gabrielle, then Louis will do it once you reach the Antarctic. The messages will still be relayed via the Gabrielle though.”

“We’re transmitting to the Kingsport Head Radio Station; they’ll pass your stories onto your newspaper. Mr Starkweather and Professor Moore will be making regular ‘radio broadcasts to the world’ I hear Mr Starkweather is very excited about it. They’ll only be every few days though, and not as in depth as your wires.”

“More like ‘well here we are in the Pacific, and it’s very windy!’”

“Unless there’s an emergency, you should be able to use the radio room any time your leaders aren’t broadcasting. Do you know morse? I don’t mind you sending your own stories if you do.”


************

Peter Sykes talking to Olof, in the Mess:

Sykes looks thoughtful, then says, “I’m sure our illustrious leaders will put aside their petty differences in an emergency. It’s all very well playing games while we’re safe in New York, but people’s lives are at stake of the ice. There's no harm in a friendly race though.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time on whaling ships, the rivalries between captains can be pretty fierce, as you can probably imagine. But in a crisis everybody pulls together, I’m sure it’ll be the same here. Besides Starkweather has a reputation for being a good man in a crisis.”


Sykes laughs, “Of course that’s assuming that our Miss Lexington had nothing to do with Commander Douglas’ murder, if she did then all bets are off I suppose.”

Olof does not comment Sykes last joke. The thought of Miss Lexington murdering the commander seems ridiculous, but when Olof ponders the thought it seems at least plausible. There is motive and since it probably was Lexington who tipped the Treasury Department. Who can say what she's capable of? And then there's the matter of the mysterious death of her father... Olof suddenly gets a feeling of dread and excuses himself to Sykes and gets out on deck to get some fresh air.