The Man who Missed the War (29 page)

Anxious as they were for any turn in their fortunes which offered a prospect of their eventual return to civilisation, there was little cause for rejoicing over the likelihood of being able to land in the Antarctic. The atlas showed that the great Sub-Continent had been neatly divided into segments, the largest of which were dependencies of Australia, Britain and Norway. Most of the coastline was marked, while many bays and promontories had been given names, but there were no towns and, so far as Philip knew, no permanent settlements of any kind—nothing but a few scattered whaling stations which were occupied only during the southern summer—and the Antarctic winter was rapidly approaching.

At the beginning of March the raft entered the area of ice-floes
which for ever fringes the mysterious Southern Continent. Sometimes they were wide, flat stretches and at others large ice islands that towered from the water, their cliffs shimmering in the pale sunshine and often pierced with deep blue caves. The castaways soon came to know when they were approaching one of these great ice masses well before they actually sighted it, as the snow on them threw a whitish reflection into the sky, and the temperature always fell by several degrees.

Whenever they were in the vicinity of the floes and bergs they kept themselves shut up to preserve as far as possible the warmth of their quarters, but at such times they found plenty to do, as they were now preparing clothes and equipment to enable them to face the rigours of the Antarctic. Fortunately, they had a considerable variety of materials, and Philip had always heard that the best protection against extreme cold lay not in very thick garments but in many layers of thin ones, so they planned their outfits accordingly; and, in addition, made themselves warm hoods and big padded fingerless gloves such as boxers wear.

On the 25th of March they made landfall, after having covered an erratic course of not less than 10,000 miles since leaving North-West Africa, at an average drift of about twenty-five miles a day. The coast that rose before them was grim in the extreme. It consisted mainly of the permanent ice foot formed by great glaciers pushing outward, from which huge chunks broke off each year to float away and melt in the warmer waters to the north; but here and there it was intersected by bays of stark, black basalt rocks. At intervals along the coast there rose extinct volcanoes, the sides of which glistened with snow and ice, except where sheer cliffs exposed the dark rock of which they were composed. On the 27th, in a flurry of light snow, the raft grated on the pebbly beach of one of the small bays.

Philip at once threw out their home-made anchor, and, as it was still before midday, they went ashore to climb a five hundred foot hill that lay only about a mile from the beach, to see what was to be seen from it.

The walk and climb took longer than they had expected, so when they got to the top of the hill they had little leisure to remain there if they were to get home before dark, yet time enough to take in the uninspiring scene. To the south there was a range
of mountains, rearing snowy heights to the leaden sky; while to the east and west stretched the rugged inhospitable coast, behind which lay a rolling tundra, whose hollows were already filled with snow. Despondently and, for them, in an unusually long silence, they made their way back to the raft.

From fear of depressing Gloria, Philip had said little about the Antarctic while they were drifting towards it, so she had pictured it as very similar to Alaska, of which she had read accounts at home; cold and desolate perhaps, but at least sparsely peopled with fur trappers and Eskimoes who had sledges and dogs. She had also expected great pine forests inhabited by reindeer, wolves, foxes, bears and many other animals. Instead, the stark emptiness came as a shock, and she found something appalling in its dreadful silence.

That night Philip explained why it was that such a great difference existed between the territories in the neighbourhood of the two Poles. Although the central Arctic is a great empty ocean, the bulk of the ice cap never melts and each winter stretches down unbroken to the northern lands of America and Russia so men and animals from both continents have always had easy access to its outer fringe, and on the lands within the Arctic Circle there has never been any bar to such hardy types of vegetation spreading as will withstand the rigours of the climate. On the other hand, the Antarctic, although a vast land mass far bigger than Europe and also coated in ice and snow for the greater part of the year, is entirely cut off by sea from all the other continents and has no aboriginal tribes such as the Eskimoes living in it. Owing to the sea barrier, no land animals have ever migrated there, and even the indigenous vegetable life is of the lowest forms.

Yet, in some way that Philip could not explain it seemed even worse than he had anticipated, and, although he tried to talk cheerfully about the whaling stations that must lie somewhere along the coast, they both recognised without discussing the matter that it would be absolute madness to attempt to reach one of them until the coming of spring.

They went ashore again several times during the next few days, explored the bays adjacent to the one in which the raft was anchored, and struggled up to the summits of four more hills,
but nowhere could they discern any trace of men ever having set foot in that part of the world. By the end of a week a fringe of ice had begun to form along the coast, and by late April the raft was firmly frozen in, with several miles of ice stretching out into the open sea beyond it.

Philip took the elementary precautions, which were all that one with so little knowledge of Antarctic conditions could do, such as keeping two holes in the ice open for fishing, and they settled down to face the hardships of the winter. The days were already becoming absurdly short, and soon the sun, if it appeared at all, was only a pale ball low on the horizon for an hour or two a day.

Two problems which had already caused them some concern now began to assume really troublesome proportions; the one was snow-glare and the other condensation. To protect their eyes they made canvas masks with narrow cross slits and never came out of their living quarters without wearing them The iron cargo containers in which they lived proved a more difficult proposition as, owing to the intense cold, the iron had now become not only redhot to the naked touch but sweated from the heat of the stoves, so that the floors gradually became covered with pools of water. To get over this Philip knocked a number of cases to pieces and remade them into low wide benches upon which bedding and other items could be kept permanently out of the wet. The water was then allowed to accumulate and mopped up into buckets each morning.

The cold outside was bitter if there was the least wind blowing, but otherwise the lowness of the temperature did not unduly worry them, although they had to be careful about frostbite. This was quite harmless if taken in time but caused very severe pain if even temporarily neglected. It always took effect without the slightest warning, the blood draining away from the afflicted part and leaving a white patch on the skin. If the circulation were at once restored all was well otherwise when the bite thawed out the place swelled up alarmingly and later became a most painful blister. After learning this from bitter experience they made it a routine to examine each other’s faces for these dangerous white patches every ten minutes or so, when they ventured out from the shelter of their quarters.

The raft had long since been snowed up, and to get in and out of it they now had to traverse a long, sloping tunnel which they had made through twenty feet of snow. Down at the bottom of this they were as warm as Eskimoes in an igloo, and they soon discovered the wisdom of the Eskimo practice of passing the greater part of the long night of the Arctic winter by eating infrequently but very heavily, then sleeping until they felt really hungry again.

Whenever they did venture outside they found a fantastically bizarre world of unrelieved whiteness. The swelling of the ice as it froze ever thicker caused it to crack and erupt like a volcano hurling huge chunks of lava into the air, and often altering the landscape to seaward in a single night to such an extent that it was barely recognisable. Had the raft been frozen in while still out in the open sea it would inevitably have been slowly crushed to matchwood or rent to pieces by one of these terrible ice-quakes which seemed to shake the whole bay; but, fortunately, it had beached itself on a flat strand of pebbles, so there was hardly any ice under it. It had been forced up a little and tilted sharply to one side, but sustained no damage, and every blizzard buried it deeper under the great layer of snow that protected its inmates from the almost unbelievable degree of cold above.

Yet this grim world was not entirely uninhabited. Large colonies of seals were frequently to be seen lying placidly on the ice of the bay, and flocks of big Emperor Penguins stood about, chattering importantly. Both were absurdly tame, and soon after their arrival with some reluctance, Philip slew his first seal with a hatchet. The fresh meat proved a most welcome change from their tinned fare, and they found its liver to be a real delicacy; so henceforth seal became a staple item of their menu.

The icy wilderness also proved a constant source of new beauties. Sometimes the sun, a low red disc, and the moon, a yellow globe, were both up together; at others double haloes appeared, or the lights of the Aurora Australis flashed in weird and bewildering patterns to the south. For nearly two months at the height of the Antarctic winter, the sun did not come above the horizon at all, and only a faint greyness dimmed the bright starlight for an hour or two at midday Then the long twilights came again; a dawn that merged imperceptibly into sunset, while
the mountains of the frozen world were tinged with the most resplendent and glowing colours.

At last the days began to lengthen, and they slowly set about preparations for their journey. They made another small tent, similar to that they had abandoned to the land-crabs in Africa, two more knapsacks and a three-layer double sleeping-bag; and went into the most minute particulars as to how much weight they could carry and the selection down to the smallest item of things they meant to take with them.

Snow falls became less frequent, the sun mounted higher in the heavens each day, and its warmth began to melt the accumulated snow of winter, while the tunnel down to the raft grew shorter and shorter until finally it disappeared. Early in October noises like the reports of big guns far away to the north told them that the thaw had really set in; the great ice barrier was cracking up, and huge chunks of it were flaking off as icebergs to float away and melt in the warmer water.

By mid-October they were impatient to be off. The sooner they could reach a whaling station the sooner they would stand a chance of getting to Australia and so home. They had had no news of the outer world for many months, and both were anxious to know how the war was going. Philip never forgot the strange vision that had come to him in the storm, and he felt that, if he were to be of any use to his country, as the Canon had so clearly stated he would be, his first job was to get back to it. In consequence, when a good spell of weather set in, although the nights were still cold and snow still occasionally fell, they decided to set out, and on October the 17th, for the second time, they abandoned the security and comfort of the old raft.

Philip had determined the latitude and longitude of the bay in which they had wintered as 67° 30’ South and 77° 10’ East, so they were in Princess Elizabeth Land and about 150 miles east of a great bay marked on the map as the MacKenzie Sea. He felt that this was much the most likely spot anywhere within a thousand miles of them in which to find a whaling station, so they set off westward along the coast towards it.

For the first four days the weather remained good and their journey was uneventful. The going was easier than it had been along the sandy African shore, and no scorching sun had
compelled them to waste several hours each day, so in the four days they reckoned that they had accomplished nearly two-thirds of their journey. At the point they had now reached the map, which they had torn from Philip’s atlas, showed a great cape running out into the sea, and beyond it the big bay that was their goal. To follow the coastline would have meant at least two days’ hard marching, whereas by heading inland across the base of the cape it appeared that the bay could be reached in one; so on the fifth morning they decided to take the short cut.

Up to midday the ground was very similar to the surface they had already traversed, but its character then began to change. Almost unnoticeably at first it sloped upward, until they found themselves plodding up quite stiff slopes, on which patches of snow were still lying; the land became broken with ugly fissures which they had either to jump or make considerable détours to by-pass. In consequence, evening was upon them before they realised how late it was, and before they could even get a glimpse of the sea beyond the ridge they were compelled to camp for the night on these black, barren uplands.

During the night the weather broke, and it snowed again. Philip was not unduly alarmed because he knew it was too late for blizzards and that at this season of the year it was unlikely to go on snowing for long. But it was worrying all the same, since the ground was now snow-covered, and it would be difficult to pick a way among the rocks over its treacherous whiteness.

Within half an hour of their setting out his worst fears were realised. Gloria gave a cry, grabbed at his arm, missed it and fell. As she tried to stand again, she moaned, and to their utmost consternation it was soon apparent that she had sprained her ankle.

She found it quite impossible to walk, and Philip could not carry her as well as the store of food upon which their lives depended. The only course was to make camp again so that she could rest her foot and hope that it would be well enough for her to proceed the next day.

Judging by the swelling and puffiness that soon appeared, the sprain was a bad one, and the only treatment of which they could think—snow compresses—seemed to have no effect. Gloria still could not stand the following morning, so they spent a second
miserable day huddling under the bivouac tent on the windswept ridge that had been their undoing.