Call of the White (27 page)

‘Reena,' I continued. ‘Your friends say “Buck up, Reena!” We all laughed at what appeared to be a rather brutal message but Reena explained that the meaning had been slightly lost in translation. ‘Buck up' is a term of warm encouragement in India.

There was a message for Kylie but Tim seemed a bit confused. ‘This one seems to be in code,' he said. ‘AB12SA4.' I repeated the code to Kylie who laughed loudly before explaining. ‘It's the rugby score! All Blacks twelve, South Africa four.'

In the morning the sky was as grey as the snow. The dark shadow of the mountains away to our west was the only indication of the position of the horizon. As I stood in the ruins of our camp, the tent already rolled and secured to the top of my sledge, I faced southwards and carefully pushed my balaclava and goggles into place, making sure that every layer overlapped to leave not the tiniest gap. The wind blew gently but consistently in my face, already pressing the cold material of my balaclava onto my skin. It was going to be a tough day and I sensed that the team thought the same. They were unusually subdued as they pressed their boots into their ski bindings, pulled on gloves and adjusted sledge harnesses. I gathered them together for a rallying cry, pronouncing each word carefully and slowly so that they would hear me over the wind. ‘One day at a time. Let's make this the best day yet.' There was a muffled cheer and we led off, leaning ourselves forward in our harnesses to feel the tug of newly laden sledges for the first time. With rations and fuel for 23 days our sledges were heavier at that point than at any other on the expedition and we were all a bit nervous about what difference it would make to the exertion of the day.

We fell into line and moved forward slowly into the murk. The cloud cover had obliterated all contrast in the snow surface so that we tripped over unseen sastrugi and were forced to focus on the back of the sledge in front simply to give us an indication of whether we were stepping up or down. With nothing to look at and no possibility of talking to each other, each of us disappeared into our own internal worlds, lost in our own thoughts. It was a flat-light day of the worst kind that made time slow to a crawl. It felt like we were barely moving and I would have despaired if not for a few private glances at the GPS which showed that we were actually right on our target for the day.

After leading her leg of the day, Steph was keen to know how fast she had been going but I feigned ignorance. ‘It's just that it felt like I was going really, really slowly,' she pleaded. Stepping out of the line and slowing down so that she was skiing next to me, she leaned forward conspiratorially, somehow guessing that I knew more than I was letting on. ‘Was it less than two nautical miles?' she asked. I laughed but said nothing. ‘Don't tell me it was less than one nautical mile,' she exclaimed, horrified. ‘I'll shoot myself if I was going slower than that.' Concentrating too much on me and not on her skiing, Steph's probing was ended by a fall.

Reena, leading the line, paused to check we were OK but I waved her on as I helped Steph to her feet. Disentangling all her elasticated attachments took longer than I anticipated and, by the time we were moving again, the team were already quite a long way ahead. As we watched the ribbon of skiers ahead of us, the line seemed to bend in a curve to the right. The group stopped and even from a distance we could see there was some discussion going on. Skiing towards the team in silence Steph and I watched as the theatre unfolded. Two figures branched off to the left, while a third continued towards the right. The two remaining figures looked undecided, following the determined figure to the right before changing their mind and veering left. Realising she was outnumbered the determined solitary figure eventually gave in and followed the others on their bearing to the left. Steph and I laughed together at the performance. ‘See,' shouted Steph, ‘you leave them for five minutes and it's chaos.'

The weather stayed flat and gloomy for the rest of the day. Featureless cloud cover formed milky swirls around the sun so that it was as faint as the moon. At the end of the fifth leg we stopped for our seven-minute break and I decided to let the others in on the secret of our progress. Skiing to the front of the halted group, I ripped open the front of my face mask and unhitched my sledge. The team looked at me suspiciously; this was bizarre behaviour when we still had at least 90 minutes of skiing to go. ‘Guys, I have some good news and some better news.' I held the GPS aloft, displaying the distance we had travelled since our last camp. ‘We've already skied twelve nautical miles, which is four more than our target for the day.' I watched with delight as Sophia's mouth literally fell open in surprise.

‘Wow!' shouted Reena, releasing a booming laugh of shock.

‘And the better news is that I don't think we should go any further today, so this is camp.' There were cheers of agreement all round and a ripple of chatter as everyone pulled icy masks from their faces and fished warm jackets from their sledges. No one could believe that we had been travelling at our normal pace; it had felt so slow. I hoped the surprise had made a point about our perception of our speed – it could be very deceptive.

As we rolled out the tents and set up camp for the night the mood within the team felt buoyant. Helen had finally agreed to take the stronger painkillers along with her antibiotics that morning and the release from the pain in her feet was like an epiphany. She danced around the camp, laughing and joking like the Helen we knew. Kylie too was on top form. Before setting out that morning we had worked together on a new position of her boot in her ski binding. The unnatural position would eventually ruin the boot but it had given Kylie instant relief. It looked like we had found a solution to the ‘evil ski' at last and Kylie was delighted. I smiled in pleasure to see Helen and Kylie arm in arm as they took pictures with Reena outside their tent. My chest swelled with sudden emotion. ‘Everything is going to be OK,' I told myself with relief.

Ironic then, that the next day started with a crisis.

Sitting in the porch of the tent, my head still thick with sleep, I was working with cold, unresponsive fingers at the laces of my boots when I heard footsteps in the snow outside. With a blast of cold air and a flurry of snow, Kylie unzipped the tent door and perched herself on a ledge of snow in the porch opposite me. She pushed her hat back from a forehead creased with lines of worry. She looked nervous. ‘I think we might have accidentally left some food bags behind,' she said in a quiet voice. A shot of panic flew through me like a lightning bolt. I paused to get my instant reaction under control before replying. It was too early to panic; I needed more information. I followed Kylie out of the tent to where Helen and Reena were already outside busy with their sledges. They came over as I approached and I noticed the expression on Reena's face. She looked heartbroken and already close to tears.

‘I should have all the breakfast bags but I'm five short,' Kylie started to explain. Each bag not only contained breakfast for the three of them but also the sports drinks that we mixed into our water for additional carbohydrate and calories as well as the daily ration of toilet tissue. Five bags short would mean five days in which half the team would be starting a day skiing without having eaten; and five days in which they would have significantly less carbohydrates to keep them going.

‘There's no reason why they shouldn't be here,' Helen interrupted. ‘They were all in a pile at the back of the tent for Kylie to pack in her sledge.'

‘I packed what was left out for me,' Kylie retorted quickly. ‘I didn't leave anything outside the tent. There was nothing left behind.'

‘It would have been better if we'd known about it yesterday. I don't think we should conceal things from each other,' Helen continued pointedly.

I saw the colour in Kylie's face change, ‘I haven't concealed anything. I said to you in the tent last night that I thought there weren't enough food bags in my sledge but I couldn't check it out till this morning. There was no point saying anything until I knew for sure.'

I listened in silence but as the exchange got heated I stepped in.

‘I don't care whose fault it was,' I said coldly. ‘What matters now is solutions. I want to see every single food bag you have, laid out in piles so that I can see exactly what we're missing.'

‘We've already checked. We have everything except the breakfast bags that Kylie was supposed to pack in her sledge,' answered Helen.

‘I want to see for myself,' I replied firmly, glaring at the three of them.

They turned to empty their sledges and I returned to my tent, squatting in the porch as I asked the rest of the team to sort out any spare ration bags we had, particularly breakfast bags.

Reena, Kylie and Helen stood to one side like disgraced soldiers as I counted the food bags they had laid out in the snow. ‘Are you sure this is everything?' I asked without looking at them. ‘Have you checked in the tent? Does this include today's rations?' They nodded glumly. They were missing five entire breakfast bags. Making rapid calculations in my head I worked out that we had just enough emergency rations to see them through to the end of the expedition – if our progress stayed on target – but it would mean that the team were without any spares whatsoever and just increased the pressure on us to reach the South Pole by Day 38 as planned. I let out a long breath of relief but with the relief came anger. This was exactly the kind of flippant carelessness that I had warned against from the start and it came from the most experienced members of the team who should know better. I turned to face the girls as they stood in a row like guilty schoolchildren. ‘This is a major fuck-up,' I said in a steady but emphatic voice. ‘This carelessness could have cost us the expedition.' I paused to study their faces. It was clear from their mortified expressions that I didn't have to press home the seriousness of the mistake.

‘We left the bags outside the tent for Kylie to pack,' insisted Helen.

I cut her off. ‘I don't care, Helen. You are all responsible. I'm responsible for not triple-checking what you told me you'd packed. What annoys me more than the mistake is that all three of you have stood here blaming each other.'

Kylie and Helen looked at each other. Reena started to cry. ‘We're sorry Felicity,' she said in a quiet voice. I didn't want apologies. I was too angry for that. Sorry was easy after the event; what I needed was for these mistakes not to happen in the first place. I paused for a second, pressing my lips together. There was clearly no point in venting my frustration at them; they already felt bad enough.

‘Now that we've found a solution, the worst possible outcome of this is that it causes a rift between you. Don't let that happen. You can't change what has happened but you can change how you deal with it. Each of you need to forgive each other, accept that it was a mistake and move on. We've still got a long way to go and I need you guys working together. OK?'

There were murmurs of agreement. Helen's shoulders were shaking and I knew she was crying behind her goggles.

‘And for God's sake, be more careful. We can't afford any more mistakes.'

I turned away and busied myself with my sledge. I wondered if I had been too reasonable but there seemed little point in shouting and screaming. They knew what a lucky escape we'd had. I kicked myself for my own part in it. Thinking back to the day we had sorted the resupply I had let Helen talk me through what they had done but I hadn't checked for myself. I should have made sure I laid eyes on every single food bag. I sighed in frustration. It felt like I couldn't win. On the one hand I didn't want to be a complete control freak; it was important that the team did things for themselves and that I trusted them. But then, on the other hand, the expedition had nearly come to an early close because I hadn't personally checked on every detail. Perhaps I had been too trusting in my novice team. Perhaps it was me who was getting nonchalant.

As we set off towards another metal grey smudge of a horizon I tucked myself into my usual position at the back of the line and fumed silently within my hood and face-covering. I knew I had to concentrate on getting rid of the pointless anger that still gripped my insides.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shiver. I concentrated on my fingers for a moment. They had got cold and needed some attention. I wrapped my numb digits inside my palm and shook the warm blood in my arm down into my fist by punching the air beneath me as I skied. I was usually warm enough when skiing but now I could feel the chill on my back and down my thighs. I shortened my stride, picking up my feet to make my body work harder and warm itself with the extra exertion. Glancing down the line I noticed that Kylie was wearing her mitts, which was unusual, and Sophia hadn't taken off her fleece, which she would normally have done by this stage in the leg. The cause dawned on me gradually. We were moving very slowly. The line was all bunched up so that I could hear the occasional tap of a ski-tip on the sledge in front and several members were shaking their arms or hopping on their skis to keep warm. I waved an outstretched ski pole to send a message down the line to Helen, who was leading, to speed up slightly.

The line stopped abruptly as Helen readjusted her clothing before moving on again at a noticeably quicker pace. We were skiing quite fast but I was warming up and I was sure the pace would settle before long. As the minutes passed I felt the stretch in my muscles as I struggled to keep up with the sledge in front. I noticed some gaps opening up in the line and felt myself breaking into a sweat. The pace showed no sign of slowing; in fact, it seemed to be getting faster. We were now skiing flat out, something we never did. What was going on? After ten minutes, with no let up in the pace and the line beginning to break up, I waved my outstretched arm giving the signal for slowing down. The line stopped abruptly and I saw ski poles being thrown into the snow by someone at the front. Alarmed, I skied past the team to the front of the line to find Helen in a state. ‘I don't know what you want from me anymore,' she shouted at the team in general. ‘I'm obviously completely incompetent to lead the team.'