Call of the White (32 page)

I wasn't the only one watching the horizon restlessly. We were all experiencing the most frustrating case of being ‘so near and yet so far'. On the map we were barely a finger's width from the South Pole and in our minds we were already there. We had passed the 89th parallel and after skiing six and a half degrees since leaving the coast, covering the last degree seemed to be little more than a formality. And yet the last degree was still a full 60 nautical miles that we would have to ski, mile by painful mile. We were impatient now to be finished and that was the source of the frustration. I knew that the team were already day-dreaming about our arrival at 90 degrees south. We had already been warned that as a non-scientific expedition the rules were that we were not allowed to use any of the facilities at the station but it didn't stop us fantasising about flush toilets, fresh food and perhaps even a shower. There were more practical reasons to be anxious to finish, too. We were beginning to run low on essential supplies. We had started rationing toothpaste because it had run so low, toilet paper was being carefully watched and some people were now using empty zip-lock ration bags in place of the Louis Poo-uittons because they had run out.

The next day felt like the last day of school. There was a euphoria running between us, an irrepressible excitement. At just 20 nautical miles from the South Pole, we all expected to see some sign of the station in the next ten hours of skiing. It was a calm and sunny day, the sort of weather that would usually have us stripping off layers and cursing our steamed goggles but it was noticeably colder than ever. After a break I barely had time to warm up completely before it was time to stop again. I worked my fingers inside my mitts constantly to ward off frostbite and wriggled my toes in my boots as I skied, just to make sure I could still feel them.

Nobody talked to each other during the breaks; everyone concentrated on keeping warm. I stood scanning the horizon as I munched on mouthfuls of popcorn. My chewing slowed as I realised what I could see. On the horizon was a dark rectangle and a little distance away from it, a white dome that was catching the light. I looked away for a moment before finding the shapes again to reassure myself that this wasn't a case of wishful thinking. During the expedition we had seen distant sastrugi form all sorts of shapes but this time there was something different. The rectangle was too perfect to be shadow or mirage, the white dome too prominent to be merely another block of ice. The shapes were definitely man-made. I was looking at the South Pole.

I spoke to no one in particular, ‘Guys, can anyone else see something over there?' I pointed towards the shapes with my ski pole, holding it steady as the others followed my line of sight. With my other hand I switched on my GPS. The South Pole was a little over 12 nautical miles away.

Kylie was the first to react. She flung her arms in the air and let out a huge cheer. She shuffled towards me on her skis and flung her arms around my neck. ‘We've made it!' she bellowed.

Reena was frustrated, ‘Where? I don't see anything.' I leant over her shoulder so that her eyes followed the line of my ski pole and I guided her gaze towards the right section of the horizon. ‘Oh, oh, oh, yes! I see it!' The three of us tried to pick out landmarks near the shapes so that the others could find them too but by the end of our break they had still seen nothing.

Helen was silent. ‘It's easy to mistake sastrugi or shadows for anything out here,' she said sceptically as we skied on.

I watched the shapes as we moved. After a while they disappeared and I worried that perhaps I had imagined it after all. Eventually they reappeared and I realised that in fact we were skiing over unseen undulations and gentle hills. We could see the distant station as we reached the high ground but it would disappear from view as we crossed the shallow valleys in between. As our view of the South Pole returned I noticed another white shape on the far side of the rectangle. It was too equally spaced to be a coincidence, it had to be another building. My eyes were so transfixed on the ephemeral vision to our left that my neck began to hurt. I forced myself to look away, promising that I would only take a peek in the base's direction once every ten minutes. I lasted about 30 seconds before my eyes automatically flicked towards the rectangle. It looked more solid now with defined edges and what appeared to be a tower, or perhaps a cloud, hovering above it. During our fourth leg the dark rectangle had disappeared but we were heading directly for a tall plume of smoke or steam that rose from the ice. As we approached our fifth break of the day there was not only a clear line of buildings ahead of us but several spherical communication domes and at least one outbuilding, which appeared to have a chimney belching steam into the air.

‘So, is there anyone who can't see that now?' I exclaimed loudly as we pulled our sledges together for a break. Era had made a mental note of her exact position when she had first spotted the base; she had been just over 5 nautical miles from the South Pole according to our GPS. ‘So, tall people can see it from twelve nautical miles away; short people from only five nautical miles away,' she stated matter-of-factly.

Despite the sunshine, Era had been cold all day. She had permanently adopted my big down mitts that had been packed for emergencies but I had noticed that she still spent a good five minutes pumping the air with her fists as we continued after breaks to encourage the blood to circulate and warm her hands. Helen had let gaps open up in front of her in the line several times during the day and I could tell from Sophia's brittle body language that she was concentrating hard on her knee. I considered what to do.

We had one more leg of skiing before we would normally stop for the day but if all went well we would be barely 3 nautical miles from the end of the South Pole station's VHF antenna, a long cable hung above ground on regularly spaced steel masts. Once we reached the end of the antenna we would have to ski into the base itself to reach the actual South Pole. Estimates on the distance from the end of the antenna into the base were a bit sketchy but Steve in Patriot Hills thought it to be approximately an extra 4 nautical miles. To extend our day by another 7 nautical miles didn't sound like a lot but it represented another three hours' skiing at least. It seemed like an unnecessary pressure to put on an already cold and exhausted team and besides, I wasn't in any hurry for the expedition to be over. I wanted us to enjoy our arrival rather than collapse on the finish line in a lifeless heap.

However, if we were going to stop short of the South Pole I didn't want to be camped in the station's backyard. We would need to keep our distance. As our GPS flashed that we were 3 nautical miles from the end of the antenna I skied along the line to stop next to Steph, who was leading the final leg of the day. The buildings were now large on the horizon and unmistakable.

‘I don't want to get too close tonight, so what do you think? Is this a suitable spot for our last night?'

We both simultaneously glanced up at the sun blazing in an indigo sky surrounded by wisps of milky white cloud. To our left were the unfamiliar colours and angles of the station, while to our right was the same uninterrupted division of blue and white that we had become used to.

‘Perfect,' she replied.

As I reported the news to the team that we were stopping as usual there wasn't a single murmur of disagreement; the team seemed to be pleased with the decision. ‘I could not go further today,' said Sophia. ‘This is far enough.'

‘I think it's nice that we have one last night on our own,' added Helen.

Even so, as we fell into our well-rehearsed tent routine I couldn't help glancing up at the distant station buildings and wondering if we should have pressed on.

It was very rare that Sophia wrote in our team journal but Day 37 was special. She was prompted not by our proximity to our goal but because it was her 37th birthday. ‘Counted my blessings for having such great weather for our last day of long skiing, although body and mind are feeling exhausted. Can't ask for a better way to celebrate my birthday in Antarctica and a great team to be with,' she recorded.

We woke on Day 38 knowing that it would be the last day of our expedition. After a lazy morning indulging ourselves in that thought, by the time we began to pack up it seemed that the team were suddenly in a hurry to be moving again. There was a buoyant atmosphere as we packed away the tents and attached ourselves to our sledges.

Despite the banter and laughter, I noticed the others occasionally stop to stand and stare at the station buildings. I couldn't help doing the same myself. The cloud of steam still bellowed above the base but I couldn't detect any movement. I felt a knot of anxiety in my stomach but couldn't isolate why I should be feeling so nervous. Once we had packed up, we moved off as normal. Helen was navigating and still following the GPS arrow pointing us towards the end of the antenna.

The station buildings away to our left didn't seem to be getting any larger but to our right a large black splodge appeared in the sky. As, one by one, the team ahead of me spotted it a few ski poles were raised to point it out but there was no halt to our forward progress. We all watched as the dark shape slowly lumbered towards us, revealing itself gradually as a large Hercules, a fat-bellied cargo plane similar to the one that had flown us into Antarctica. It seemed to pass right in front of us as we skied but was probably in reality a few dozen kilometres away. It glided ridiculously slowly, leaving what looked to be the narrowest band of blue between the snow and its greyish hull. I wondered if the crew flying the plane had spotted us, a line of seven black dots far below them. We heard the faintest of mechanical thunders as the plane merged into the base and was gone. I noticed with annoyance that my goggles had steamed up so that I couldn't see the base properly. I pushed a gloved finger awkwardly under the rim of my goggles to try to clear my vision before realising that it was not my goggles affecting my sight but a fine mist that had descended like a fog over the base. The mist grew, crawling across the sky until sun dogs appeared around the sun in the way that cartoonists emphasise the sparkle of a diamond. The sight made me smile to myself: I liked the fact that our arrival at the South Pole would be accompanied by the sun dogs and haloes that had patiently watched our progress over the last 38 days.

We stopped for a break and Steph took over the lead. She didn't need the GPS anymore; we could see fine black marks in the snow ahead marking out the antenna we had been told to aim for. Steve had given me clear instructions for our arrival at the South Pole station. Once we reached the end of the antenna we were to follow the green flag markers to the ceremonial pole, but as we neared the antenna Steph slowed in confusion. I skied towards the front of the line and stood next to her as we both lifted our goggles for a better look. To our left the antenna stretched away to a cluster of buildings in the far distance but it was clear that the main base lay quite a way ahead of us and slightly to the left. In front of the buildings was a wide area of groomed snow, presumably the runway, but between us and our destination was a multi-coloured forest of flags. Starting with the closest green flag I tried to trace a route through the perplexity of flapping markers but found every discernable route was interrupted with another line, a large gap or groups of crossed flags which seemed unrelated to any others. Slowly the rest of the team drew around us and we all looked on together in bewilderment. Looking down at my feet I noticed a set of old ski tracks in the snow roughly following the line of the antenna away to our left. It seemed as good a direction as any so we followed the tracks.

Now skiing directly towards the base for the first time, the scale of the buildings became clear and we could see vehicles moving around. It was hard to be sure but I thought I could see figures on the balconies of some of the buildings. It all looked very industrial; the buildings were square blocks of blues and reds encased in what looked like scaffolding. Old shipping containers were lined up in rows in front of the buildings as well as large wooden cable-rolls looking like oversized cotton reels. It became obvious that the large building to our right was the main base. The closer we got, the larger it loomed out of the snow. Raised above the ground on stilts it appeared to be at least three storeys high, its annexes arranged to form the shape of a capital E. The plane we had seen earlier was standing next to the side of the building closest to us and thrumming impatiently. I'd heard that the engines of these big planes were never switched off at the South Pole because it was so cold that there was no guarantee they would start again. Instead the plane was unloaded and reloaded on the runway with the engines still rolling. As we marched forward, another large cargo plane appeared in the sky and for a moment seemed to hang in the air alongside us before landing with a roar, its engines kicking up a large plume of snow.

Steph stopped the line and beckoned me to the front. ‘Felicity, I think it should be you that leads us in,' she said. ‘You're the one that started all this.' I looked at Era and Reena who had stopped behind Steph. They both nodded in agreement. I felt touched at the gesture and, lifting my fist in our habitual signal, checked that everyone was OK before I forged onwards towards the base at the front of the line. As we skied, my eyes searched the buildings for any sign of the ceremonial South Pole. I had seen pictures of it a hundred times; a silver sphere on a red and white striped barber's pole surrounded by the flags of the Antarctic Treaty nations. Instead I noticed figures moving about the base, the all-too-familiar smell of aviation fuel and even the faintest hint of rock music coming from somewhere.

We'd come to the end of the antenna but I still couldn't see a clear line of green flags to follow. It seemed obvious that we would need to veer right towards the main building at some point so I followed my nose, leading the team vaguely towards the runway. I'd barely turned in that direction before I became aware of a snowmobile heading towards us at high speed. Riding pillion was a passenger waving at us frantically. I stopped, leaning on my ski poles as I waited for the snowmobile to reach us. The passenger leapt from his seat, trotting to a halt in front of me and sticking out his bare hand in greeting. I struggled for a second to shake my mitt free of my ski pole before pulling out my hand and shaking his. The stranger's hand felt very warm.