Call of the White (25 page)

Even though I was sweating with the effort, the distance between me and the receding millipede didn't seem to be lessening. I had been marching for a good five minutes before finally I noticed Reena's hand outstretched at her side making our hand signal for, ‘Are you OK?' I watched as she looked round at the team behind her and then did a double take as she noticed there was one missing. Era swung around on her skis in shock to find that I wasn't behind her, then looked up to spot me in the distance. Reena raised her ski pole towards me to check if I was OK. I paused in relief, crossing my poles above my head in reply so that they would all stop and wait for me. I ploughed on towards them as fast as I could but felt a little easier now that I knew that I would catch up. Pulling up behind Era I panted with the effort. ‘You've all got to look behind you,' I gasped. ‘I could have been in real trouble and none of you would have known. You could have left me behind.'

The girls all looked sheepish, shuffling on their skis. ‘Are you OK?' asked Reena, concerned.

‘I'm fine,' I puffed. ‘Just remember to look behind you.'

I was genuinely annoyed but when we continued I found myself laughing quietly as I noticed Reena checking behind her after every few paces. In fact, for the rest of the day the team looked as if they'd developed a serious twitch, each of them glancing over their shoulder every few minutes. I was glad. We were approaching the section of our route that skimmed a large area of known crevassing. Planes flying to the South Pole from Patriot Hills had been able to see extensive holes and fissures in the ice from the air and recorded the coordinates. We were heading for a navigation marker that would lead us around the northern fringes of this crevasse field before we turned southwards. The dog-leg added a day, perhaps more, to our journey and I wondered if there was any room to cut the corner. ‘Good question,' Steve had responded when I'd asked him during our regular call with Patriot Hills. ‘And a really bad idea.' As he described the size and extent of the crevassing that had been seen from the air, I felt a chill crawl down my spine and clasp my stomach. Our only protection from crevasses was vigilance.

I briefed the team to keep an eye open for any suspicious slumps in the snow, linear features or anything unusual and as we set off the next day, I could see that the girls were all periodically scanning the surface ahead and around us. Privately, I held little hope of us being able to detect anything until we were literally upon it. The snow around us was streaked with sastrugi which had been getting more pronounced over the last few days. Looking to my right or left as we skied, the ground seemed to be corrugated into delicate ripples so that it looked like the sea on a calm day. Each rise reflected a different shade of light so that the ground was no longer a uniform white but a collage of muted tones like the brush-strokes of a watercolour. Larger sastrugi protruded from the ripples, forming ice-sculptures that kept us amused. To me the porpoise-like curve of these larger waves were motionless sea monsters slipping through the frozen sea of ice; to Kylie they were groups of turtles crawling on each other's backs, as if scrabbling to escape the snow beneath, and to Steph they were surrealist artworks worthy of Gaudí. When we passed close to one of these bigger sastrugi Reena would prod it with her ski pole, as if checking it was dead. ‘I see them as fish,' she explained later. ‘So I make an eye with the end of my ski pole.' Kylie was delighted with the idea and followed behind Reena drawing a smile on the ice fish beneath their new eyes. I watched all this from my place at the back of the line, amused by the thought of our route across Antarctica marked out by these animated imaginings.

‘Whooooohmp.'

The sound of a muted thump rose from the snow beneath my ski and rolled away from us like the crash of thunder. I felt the snowpack move under my feet, as if the whole section I stood on had sunk. A surge of adrenalin shot through me like an electric shock, so sudden that it was physically painful. My mind silently yelled, ‘Crevasse!' and I scuttled forward on my skis half expecting the ground to be falling away behind me. I turned and studied the snow – it all looked exactly as it had before, unchanged. I breathed deeply to calm my racing heart. This was not a crevasse opening up beneath me but the snowpack settling under the addition of our weight as we passed over it. Steph was in front of me in the line and had heard the same noise. She looked down at the snow beneath our skis before turning to me, ‘What was that?' I could hear the panic in her voice.

‘It's just the snow settling,' I said casually, deliberately hiding my own fright. I had warned the team that we might hear this sort of thing but I expected that experiencing it for real would be unnerving for everyone, including me. Twenty minutes later the same thing happened again. I noticed Steph suddenly speed forward on her skis, moving closer to the person in front. She looked round at me in fear but didn't say anything this time. I kept my head down as if I hadn't heard it. Over the next three days we experienced the same sensation repeatedly. Each time my brain calmed my instinct with logic but there was still a quiet voice of fear wondering why we had only experienced the snowpack settling now, along the very section of our route that we knew was so close to a crevasse field. No logic in the world could stem the surge of adrenalin that flooded through me each time I set foot on some snow and heard the same sickening thump. I was amazed at the calmness of the rest of the team. ‘Doesn't it bother you?' I asked Era at a break.

‘You've told us not to worry about it, so I don't,' she replied simply.

I didn't know whether to be flattered or alarmed at the faith she put in my assessment.

As the noises from the snow continued, the sastrugi got bigger and the weather closed in. We were close now to the navigation marker and I could feel the expectation within the team. It wasn't that there would be anything to see at the navigation point but after 13 days of simply travelling it was a novelty to feel that we would be arriving somewhere, even if it was just an arbitrary point on the map. The cloud had muted the light so that there was no definition or contrast in the snow. It was difficult to pick out the sastrugi if they cast no shadow so we found ourselves tripping over unseen obstacles of ice. Steph was the first to fall. Her right ski slid suddenly away from her, slipping down the back of an invisible sastrugi and she fell heavily, trailing her left ski through the air in an impressive arc. Those behind and in front of her in the line tried to shuffle forward to help but were hampered by their own skis as well as their sledges. Era was the next to fall. I happened to be looking across the top of our line when I saw two ski-tips, still parallel, flash in the space where Era's head had been. Era was leading so the line stopped immediately but she was quick to get back on her feet, brushing the snow from her hat as she let everyone know she was unhurt.

Not long after, Era stopped again. I peered down the line, assuming she had fallen, then saw the crossed poles above her head. I stepped out of our tracks and skied towards the front of the line to see what was wrong. Kylie was bouncing on her skis, arms above her head in triumph, ‘We've arrived!' she whooped. Era had disconnected from her sledge and was shuffling about on her skis, hunched over her GPS unit. She stopped and looked up, ‘The navigation marker is right here,' she announced, pointing down at the spot where she stood. I skied over and marked a cross in the snow with a gloved finger, ‘X marks the spot.'

Now we had something to look at. As the team laughed and patted each other on the back, I gazed southward at the grey, smudged horizon and for a rare instant allowed myself to think of the South Pole. Our goal was still more than 600 kilometres away but in that instant as we turned to face the south, head on, for the first time, the pole felt closer than ever.

Pointing Fingers

I squinted into the glare and tried to concentrate on the small black square that danced and flickered in the distance. I could see it clearly from the corner of my eye only to have it disappear if I looked at it directly. Frustration rose in my chest. We should have been able to see our resupply by now; could this be it? I glanced down at the GPS unit in my hand. Usually we navigated by compass because the batteries in the GPS ran down too quickly in the cold but this was a special occasion. We were within a nautical mile of our resupply. Somewhere out on the ice were three large red duffle bags and the GPS, unlike a compass, would be able to guide us straight to them. ‘There's a big cairn of snow marked with flags,' the operator at Patriot Hills had told me over the satellite phone the night before. ‘You will be able to see it from at least a kilometre away,' he reported. The display on the GPS told me that we were now only 800 metres away. Why couldn't we see the resupply yet?

A feeling of dread rolled itself into a fist in my gut as my mind blazed through worst case scenarios. It was all too conceivable that we had made some terrible navigational error; that we were actually miles away from where we thought we were; that some sub-space magnetic storm had thrown our satellite-fixed positions into disarray and we had unwittingly already passed our vital resupply depot. Locating three bags in the vastness of Antarctica suddenly seemed ridiculous and our failure to find them, inevitable. But then there was that slight flicker of black from the corner of my eye. Could it be a flag? I felt myself speeding up, lengthening my strides in my eagerness to find out.

I glanced behind me at the team. A gap was opening up in front of Helen and I knew she'd be angry at me for increasing the pace but I ignored the concern. If this was the depot then we had only 300 metres to go. I felt myself racing now, a flood of energy surging through my muscles, a wave of joy rising at the sudden feeling of freedom. Glancing over my shoulder I noticed Steph and Reena had broken out of our habitual single file and were pulling up beside me – they had seen the flag, too. I grinned at them from behind my balaclava and we pushed forward together. With 100 metres to go there was no mistaking that the black dot was indeed a flag. This had to be our resupply, what else would be out here? We charged, flat out, over the remaining ground as the girls whooped congratulations to each other, the words smothered by the wind and our face-coverings, but jubilant nonetheless.

The depot was no more than a pair of crossed flags above a heap of red bags partially covered in snow and ice. The flags sat just a few feet above the ground and I marvelled at the fact that I had seen their flickering forms from so far away – two tiny black dots in this universe of white. Era and Steph had kicked off their skis and were hugging each other. Steph was quick to pull the hated face mask away from her skin so that it hung to one side and revealed the coating of ice that had built up on the inside. Reena too had ripped her balaclava away so that it framed her face with a fringe of thick icicles. Usually we were careful not to disturb our painstakingly arranged face-coverings but arriving at the resupply we pushed them aside, knowing that we'd promised ourselves a rest day once we reached the depot. After 15 days of skiing, a full 36 hours of blissful lassitude stretched ahead of us.

Helen and Kylie arrived a little behind the others but were soon joining in the celebrations, pushing aside goggles and masks to grin at each other with ice-wet faces and snow-dusted hair. We gathered together by the depot, resting our team camera on a ski to take a group photograph. Looking at that photograph now you can see the glee radiating from our faces. It wasn't just the fact that we were looking forward to a long rest; the fact that we had reached the resupply (and a day earlier than expected at that) was a huge source of pride. Having skied over 200 nautical miles we weren't yet quite halfway to the South Pole but somehow it felt as if, by reaching this point in our journey, we had proved ourselves worthy of being here in Antarctica at all. So many people had expressed so many doubts, that reaching our resupply felt like a vindication.

Still grinning with elation, we pulled our sledges a short distance from the flagged depot and fell into our normal tent routine. The wind was no more than a cooling breath and the sun warmed our backs through our jackets as we worked. I caught sight of the splotchy forms of the Thiel Mountains away to our west and couldn't help pausing to run my eyes over their crooked faces. We'd first spotted them the day before and they had accompanied us ever since like benevolent guardians, shady forms making tooth-like indentations in the line between snow and sky. Rising no more than a thumb's width above the horizon, they appeared to hover just a little above the ground, sometimes floating over their own reflections so that they formed distorted diamond shapes sharpening to points resting on the snow. The near-permanent mirage made it difficult to ever get a true sense of what we were looking at. It was already difficult to pin down size and scale in this vast featureless plain but now even the light was unreliable, twisting and morphing to change the form of whatever we looked at so that nothing was ever still, nothing ever definite. It added to the surreal nature of our monochrome world, always more dream than substance.

As much as we were looking forward to slumping in our sleeping bags for the longest sleep of our lives, I was keen to get organised before we relaxed. Our first job was to strip our equipment and sledges of every scrap of rubbish, uneaten rations and unwanted or unused kit that we didn't want to carry for the second half of the expedition. Everything we planned to leave behind was collected together in an empty resupply bag. We would leave it at the depot to be collected by plane later in the season. As the girls dispersed to sort through their sledges I was shocked when Era produced more than 10 kilograms of uneaten day bags. ‘I'm sorry Felicity,' Era apologised. Her eyes were lowered as she spoke and she looked sheepish. ‘I do try but I just can't eat that much food in a day.'

‘I know it's hard Era, but if your body doesn't get all this nutrition now you will suffer later on.'

‘But I feel fine,' she began to argue. I cut her off, ‘You might feel fine now but it's a gradual effect. By the time you actually feel low on energy it will be too late to do anything about it. You have to replenish your energy every day.'

‘I know, I know,' she replied impatiently. She had heard the same lecture a hundred times – a fact which made it even more infuriating that she continued to ignore the advice. ‘I will try harder,' she promised. I couldn't be too hard on Era as most team members had struggled to a greater or lesser extent to finish all our daily rations – even I had a kilogram of uneaten peanuts in my sledge that I hadn't managed to eat – but Era was the smallest, physically, in the team and I worried that she was the most likely to suffer from exhaustion if she didn't eat a proper intake of protein, carbohydrate and fat.

Steph, dressed in her thermal tights and elf-like booties, was the first to delve into the resupply bags. Her head totally disappeared within the cavernous bags so that her bum was stuck high into the air; she looked like an ardent sale shopper looking for a bargain. She eventually emerged, brandishing aloft a well-sealed waterproof bag in the air above her head like a trophy. ‘Oh my God. Clean underwear,' she exclaimed, her voice wavering with excitement.

She delivered the various bags to their respective owners in the tents and I could hear the squeals of delight and exclaims of relief as they were gratefully received. It was our first change of clothes in three weeks. ‘I can
smell
detergent,' I heard Reena enthuse as she ripped open her bag of undies. ‘Mmm, it's like fresh flowers.' The fact that the smell of newly washed clothes seemed to hang in the air inside the tents for the rest of the evening is an indication of just how dirty we were. In the resupply we also found the modest treats we had packed for ourselves: a party pack of cheesy nachos, a block of cheddar and a fruit cake.

After eating exactly the same food, every day, for 15 days, the thought of something different to eat was as mouth-watering as the finest delicacy. We gathered together in one tent to gorge ourselves on the treats, as well as the choicest bits from Era's excess rations. While squeezed together, munching and laughing, we rang Patriot Hills for our daily call and triumphantly announced our arrival at the resupply. ‘Well done, girls!' congratulated the operator. ‘You've done really, really well. Everyone here is very proud of you!' The praise made seven already grinning faces beam even more.

The operator handed the satellite telephone to the doctor who was standing by to check on our medical condition. Helen asked to speak to him and as she started describing the difficulties she'd been having with her blisters I could hear her voice begin to crack with emotion at the memory of the pain she'd endured while skiing. Suddenly Helen let the satellite phone fall from her hand and covered her face as she broke into a loud sob. I passed the telephone to Era and pulled Helen towards me into a hug. I felt her body shake as she cried quietly and I hoped she was releasing some of the frustration she felt at the condition of her feet. When Helen recovered, she decided, after a long consultation with the doctor, that the blisters on her feet were infected and that she should take antibiotics. I disagreed with the diagnosis. Helen's toes were the pink of newly formed skin rather than the red of infection but I couldn't see what harm it would do to have Helen take antibiotics if she wanted to and so said nothing. I had no idea what a mistake this would turn out to be.

The satellite phone was passed around the tent as one team member after another gave a detailed account of their aches and pains. Listening to the report given by the women, it sounded as if we were all on the brink of hospitalisation. A sore muscle was described as a ‘sprain', an aching hip as a ‘strain' – neither of which was strictly true.

‘There seem to be quite a few concerns,' the doctor warned me at the end of the call. ‘I know you've been making great progress but you might want to think about slowing the pace and taking some more rest days. Remember you don't have to ski. It's OK to walk.'

I was grateful for the doctor's advice but also resented his insinuation that I was pushing the team too hard. I spent my whole day pondering the fitness of the team and the options available to us from walking rather than skiing (which so far hadn't been practical due to the soft snow), to having a rest day, to the redistribution of weight in our sledges, to stopping early, to starting late. Despite the bleak picture the team had painted of their condition to the doctor the reality was that they were actually in great shape considering the distance we had covered. All the injuries were minor, only one or two women were taking painkillers regularly and we were still moving well. To expect to be without any injury whatsoever after skiing more than 300 kilometres was simply unrealistic. The phone call made me realise that I had to make sure the team understood how well they were doing. If they began to think we were a hobbling bunch of invalids this would affect their confidence and fragile morale.

Later that evening I noticed Kylie standing apart from the tent looking absently at the mountains. The hood of her down jacket was pulled tight around her face to keep her ears warm but her tightly plaited pigtails still protruded from either side of her jaw, the ends dusted with snow. She smiled as I approached and we both watched the silver reflection of the sun that smeared the tops of the mountains. ‘I hobbled into camp, literally hobbled,' she said.

I made a sympathetic noise but was confused. I had watched Kylie ski the last few hundred yards to the depot and although she had been slow, she hadn't been limping – but it was unlike Kylie to exaggerate. She seemed generally subdued and I wondered if there was something else on her mind. ‘Is everything OK?' I asked tentatively. ‘In the tent, I mean.'

Kylie looked at her feet which were smoothing rounds into the snow and hesitated before replying. I could tell that she was fighting her natural instinct to say nothing. She didn't want to complain or make a fuss. She looked up and I could see tears in her eyes. ‘Helen is an awesome lady but if she isn't talking, she's snoring.' I saw her look at me to judge my reaction. Both Kylie and Helen had made pointed comments about each other to me repeatedly since we had left Punta. They were never overtly critical of each other but it was clear that their relationship was tense.

I put my hand on her shoulder in sympathy and I could see the relief in her body language as she continued. I listened as she let go of the irritations that had been building over the last few weeks. ‘From the moment we wake up we're hearing about her blisters and although I'm really sympathetic – it must be awful – I just wish we could talk about something else sometimes. There's just no escape.' Her eyes searched the horizon as if looking for the right words. ‘I'm sorry Felicity, I'm just feeling a bit sorry for myself.'

I smiled at her and put my arm round her shoulders. ‘That's OK. It's allowed.' I knew that Kylie was not being malicious. This was not a clash of personality, just the result of living so closely with one another for so long. ‘Kylie, I can mix around the tent groups. I'll say that it was always in the plan to move everyone around at this stage so that no one will ever know that you have said anything but in the mix I'll make sure that you and Helen are in different tents.'

Before I had finished Kylie was already shaking her head, ‘No, I've realised that my challenge on this expedition is not physical, it's mental. For me it won't be the skiing or the distance or the cold that will be the struggle, it will be this.' I didn't entirely understand her reasoning and emphasised how easy it would be to make a reshuffle of the groups seem completely natural but she was adamant, ‘This is my test,' she said. ‘It'll be fine.'