IC: Chapter One - September At Last

[Ghost_1971]

"Well if this is going to be our 'Last Night of Freedom', I say lets drink our way into captivity. There must be somewhere we can get some good, hard liquor from."

"I make some discreet enquiries. One of these dock workers must know something."

Callum strides over to a group of locals, subtely offering a $10 bill for the location of a bar.

[Decrepit]

"Just as long as someone keeps me from getting married again if we run into any women," Jack quips. "That's how that happened the last two times."

[Raiko]

Using the $10 bill Callum has no problem extracting the locations of several nearby speakeasies from the grateful New-Yorker, if anything prohibition seems to have increased the number of bars and clubs in Manhattan, even here in the heart of the downtown district.

Callum and Jack are joined in their Last Night of Freedom by the Sorensen brothers, who Callum has got to know well since the violent formal dinner. The two ghostly pale Norwegians are excellent companions despite the older brother’s total lack of humour (exasperated even more today, as he has learnt that he requires two fillings before departure).

Nil’s much more companionable younger brother Gunnar more than makes up for the older Sorensen’s brooding presence, and together they are good company. It is also obvious that they are both extremely competent and experienced polar explorers; clearly the expedition will be in good hands when it reaches the ice.

When the four explorers arrive very late back at the Amherst, very are all in excellent spirits, even Nils seems merrier after several strong drinks.

And Jack seems to have avoided marriage, for now.


OOC: I’m writing a post for the following morning now, will post again soon.

[Raiko]

The Rose Room, Amherst Hotel - New York
08:00am - Saturday 2nd September, 1933

The entire expedition party meets the next morning, September 2nd, at eight o'clock in the Amherst Hotel's Rose Room. Although most of the expedition members attended the formal dinner, this is the first time everyone has actually been in one place at one time. Several long tables are laid out, with breakfast steaming on a buffet sideboard. Pots of cold water, hot coffee, juice, and tea fixings are available. A large chalkboard stands at the front of the room.

Starkweather and Moore arrive a few minutes after eight.

[Decrepit]

An unkempt Jack sits mournfully slouched in his seat, head cradled in hands, dreading the onrush of Moore and Starkweather's words.

[Henrik]

Olof appreciates the large breakfast buffet and eats with good appetite. Who knows when he will be dining as good as this next time?

[Ghost_1971]

Oh god. My aching head!

Callum slowly downs his third coffee of the morning and tucks into his fried breakfast.

At least the food's good. Should take a bit of the edge off the boring meeting.

[Steerpike]

McRaven looks up from breakfast as some of the revellers came in. Chuckling to himself, he continues to finishes his breakfast and pours over some technical specs for the boeing 247

[Raiko]

It takes Starkweather an age to get from the Rose Room’s entrance to the chalkboard, it seems he wants to greet each expedition member personally with a firm handshake and plenty of back-slapping. The famous explorer has been noticeably absent for much of the time, since his friend Lawrence met his tragic end, and quite subdued even when he was around.

The arrival of the SS Gabrielle seems to have ended that though. The Starkweather of old is back: loud, confident and full of infectious, though pompous enthusiasm; he seems to be positively buoyed the arrival of the expedition’s ship, and keen to get things back onto track. Starkweather is particularly full of enthusiasm when he greets Isugtag, McRaven, and each of the two doctors, “Excellent show! Without you sir, I’m sure that this expedition would have been doomed from the beginning!”

There is considerably less feeling in his greeting of Kitt, although he is still typically polite, “That was delightfully quick thinking of you my dear, though I imagine that you must need that, when you’re up there in your little aeroplane.”

By the time the leader eventually makes it to the front the room is buzzing, Starkweather’s bubbly mixture of gung-ho arrogance, having rubbed off on everyone.

“Gentlemen! And our good lady Miss Knight of course, finally after all these long months of planning and preparation, the time of departure is almost upon us.”

“In less then two weeks we shall set sail from this great city upon our fantastic odyssey, and into the history books we will go – alongside heroes such as Amundsen and Scott…”

Starkweather’s talk goes on to last for just over thirty minutes in all. He is like an excited child talking about a prized new toy throughout. The presentation is similar to the one that he gave at the ill-fated formal dinner, but with much more detail as he discusses the route of the Gabrielle, and also the expedition's plans once they reach the ice. Making extensive use if the large chalkboard, he enthuses greatly over the cutting edge technology that will be used by the expedition, and also the tremendous array of knowledge and experience that “this great and illustrious team bring with you.”

Shortly before he runs out of superlatives to use, Starkweather is joined at the front of the room by Professor Moore, clipboard and a large pile of maps in hand.


Starkweather nods to his friend then says, “Before Professor Moore takes over, I’d like to introduce you all to our new photographer.” Starkweather points to a gentleman sat at one of the tables, “William Turner as some of you will know, had to return home to England unexpectedly, due to a death in the family. But we are lucky enough to be joined by Sean Mcphearson, an award winning photographer who’s work has graced the pages of both the New York Times, and the National Geographic magazine amongst other places.”

“I’m sure that you will all make him feel at home, Mr Mcphearson has joined us at very short notice, for which he has my everlasting gratitude.”

[BlackGoat]

Sean nervously forced a smile as he looked around at the attending members. He was flattered to be introduced so highly for his past successes, however it had been nearly 2 years since Sean had any major work.

"I'm honored to be here"

[Ghost_1971]

"Welcome to the 'Circus' Sean." quips Callum. "I'll look forward to seeing your work."

[OrionUK]

James is slowley sipping his rather weak tea, after Starkweather has finished his talk and introduction of the new team member James goes over to shake Sean's hand and wish him a warm welcome.

[Decrepit]

"So, Sean," Jack says wrily, and without any but the barest trace of professional territorialness, "are you working fo the expedition or for one of my rivals?"

[Raiko]

Starkweather moves to one of the tables and sits himself down next to James, as Professor Moore takes over the talking. Before he begins in earnest he introduces each expedition member, inviting them to stand up and speak a few words about themselves and their specialties. Every team member rises in turn and provides a bit of detail about themselves. Once everyone has finished Moore clears his throat and begins his speech.

“Mr Starkweather plans to return north on February the first.”

Moore pauses and points to the large map of Antarctica, dominated by huge uncharted expanses, that Starkweather has left hanging over the chalkboard. He grins and says, “I think that we should be able to fill in a lot of this before then, don’t you agree? In any case we shall try to cover as much territory as possible, in the time that we are on the ice.”

“We may be sharing the ice with three other expeditions, they each have their own itineraries of course, and Mr Starkweather would prefer that we stay out of each others way, if at all possible. In any case none of them have any plans to push inland across the Miskatonic Mountains, as far as I know.”

“Richard Byrd will be on his second expedition to the Antarctic continent, they should have been there already, but the current economical climate has meant that they have been delayed by twelve months. Byrd plans to use two ships, his command ship will be the 8200 ton cargo vessel the Jacob Ruppert, and it will be supported by the Bear of Oakland, a 700 ton icebreaker.”

“Bear of Oakland will be departing from Boston about a week after our own departure, while the faster Jacob Ruppert will remain in port until mid-October. They will use Byrd’s previous base “Little America” and plan to spend a whole year on the ice.”

“Lincoln Ellsworth’s expedition will also be operating from Byrd’s Little America base. As most of you will know they have worked together before, crossing the North Pole aboard the dirigible Norge in 1926. Ellsworth’s vessel, the 400 ton Wyatt Earp, has already departed for Antarctica this July, but we expect to reach the ice-pack at roughly the same time as he does. Ellsworth will be using his aircraft, a Northrup Monoplane called the Polar Star, to make various exploratory flights across the continent.”

Moore takes a little time to show the planned areas of exploration of each American party on the large map, Little America is located on the opposite side of the Ross Sea from the Starkweather-Moore expedition's planned base near Ross Island. “Finally the Barsmeier-Falken Expedition will be making use of the German Airship, the Graf Zeppelin to survey the continent from the air. I know rather less about their plans than those of the two American Parties, but I have met Joseph Meyer, one of their leaders very briefly some years ago, he seemed a decent enough chap.”

Starkweather nudges James and mutters, “Decent for a damn Hun, that is!”

“Quite,” Moore raises his eyebrows before continuing, “What I do know is that they will be based near to the Weddell Sea, and they will have the support of a specialised tender for the airship. As they’ll on the opposite side of the continent from our where our initial base will be located, I anticipate that we’ll have less chance of any contact with the Germans, then with the two other American expeditions.”

"We have two weeks remaining before we set sail. That isn't much time, and I'm afraid some things have rather fallen through the cracks. Between now and then I shall be calling upon each of you to lend your expertise toward our successful departure. I trust that you are willing to help? I've drawn up a number of lists, and there will doubtless be more when these are finished.”

“I’d like you to work in groups, and each group cross-check the contents of one these lists against the cargo that is being loaded onto the Gabrielle. I am sure that you will all agree that it would be terrible if we should arrive in Antarctica, only to realise that some vital piece of equipment has mistakenly been left here in New-York!”

“Our aviation team, both pilots and engineers, are excused this task as they will be leaving us this afternoon to inspect our four aircraft.”

[Charles Graves]

Moore's last point strikes a chord with Graves. He resolves to draw up an even more detailed list of any scientific equipment he may need. It would indeed be a tragedy to miss out on a potentially landmark discovery because he'd forgotten to bring something!

[Steerpike]

McRaven raises his hand slightly to catch Moores attention.

"How much time do we have to try out the 247s? If we have the time at all, I would really love to do some low level flights, and some night time landings...get used to putting these birds down in extreme conditions, we are going to encounter zero visibilty and zero ceiling out there...whiteout landings they call them. I just want to be ready"

[Raiko]

"You will have up to four days to inspect and test the Boeings Mr McRaven, you can fly them as you see fit in that time. After that they must be transported to the ship."

When none of the expedition members step forward to take one of the lists, Moore says "Is there some difficulty?"

"Come, come! We've a lot to do! The season won't wait, you know! In a few weeks we'll all be living by our wits; don't you want to be certain that everything is ready when the time comes? I do, and I'm sure all of you gentlemen do too."

"I hope that nobody here is afraid of a little hard work, because if you are prehaps you've signed up for the wrong expedition."

[Mister Juan]

As Isugtag took a seat, next to McRaven, he felt slightly uncomfortable. The Inuit was an outdoors man, and had rarely spent so much time within the confine of a city. With each day that passed, he missed the fresh air and the wind in his hair. The time spent at sea would be a welcomed change from the craziness of New York city... even if Isugtag knew he had no boating experience.

The past week's events, as well as the new task Moore had given him, were rather fresh in his mind. He that some expedition members had did a little digging in Lawrence's background, but he hadn't persued the issue any further. If there was something he should know, he'd be informed.

Even if he knew very well that the odds of something "dangerous" happening once more, like a crazed gunman, were terribly slim, since he had taken down Lawrence at the dinner party, Isugtag had worn one of his service revolver at all time. He had, after all, been appointed Seargent-At-Arms. If things turned dangerous, it was his duty to act.

With a sigh, he brush the thought aside.

As Moore invited each members to present themselves, Isugtag rose to his feet. Rather tall, with broad shoulders and rolled up sleeves that showed powerful arms, the Inuit looked even more imposing than at the last meeting. His long black and gray hair were pulled into a pony tail, showing two long scars running on the right side of his face. Altough his english was understandable, it was obvious it wasn't his first tongue.

"Gentlemen, Miss" he said with a polite nod "as most of you now know, I am Isugtag Amaruq. I will be one of your guides... and your Seargent-At-Arms. If you ever have any question about polar survival technics, and gear, I will be glad to help you."

Before sitting, he almost bowed forward. "Thank you" he added, taking his seat.

Taking his pipe out of one of his pocket, the Inuit started to absentmindedly chew it's end.

When Moore finally called on the expedition members to help with the cargo, Isugtag immediatly rose to the job. He had felt rather useless in the past few days, and a bit of exercise would only do him some good. Quickly scanning the manifest, he picked up list #4.

[Henrik]

Olof had listened with interest. He raised his hand.

"Is it possible to have a look at Professor Pabodie's drilling equipment? I have so far only read about the marvelous device!"

Olof picks up list #2. the food supplies. He is very interested in seeing the drill work for himself.

OOC: I did a little editing. I hope it's okay. Olof is of course very interesting in checking out the drill...

[Ghost_1971]

"Excuse me Isugtag? Can I come and help you with that?" Enquires Callum. "Only if you dont mind though. Its just there are is a lot of equipment on there I would like to look at, and as we are sharing a cabin on board, it would be great to work with you for a while?.