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  Birtles returned to camp one morning, furious. ‘Hurley, if these niggers are not going to show us their witchcraft, I’ll have to show ’em some of mine.’ And with that he took a full tin of benzene from the car and walked off towards their camp. I followed with some apprehension. He entered the water just upriver of the blacks’ camp and poured out the benzene. Then, leaving the empty tin in the bush, he walked into the camp, which was no more than a series of campfires and bark shelters. Once he had the attention of the blacks, he took a burning stick from their fire and tossed it into the river at the spot where the gasoline had now gathered. There was a wall of flame followed by screams as the natives fled the camp.

  I thought the exercise a cruel failure, but next day they were back. That evening, by the light of several large campfires, I filmed the ochre-painted bodies of the men in a spectacle of dancing and chanting which few white people could ever have seen. Birtles was ecstatic.

  Not long after, a black walked into our camp and handed over a crumpled grimy envelope with a letter from my mother. She must have been trying to make up for her previous interference, because she told me Shackleton had been sending cables to confirm I would join his expedition, but I needed to be in Buenos Aires in several weeks. Shackleton had previously announced a ‘Trans-Antarctic’ expedition, but I had no idea what this meant. It didn’t matter; it was Shackleton. With Scott gone, Shackleton was the most famous Briton alive. I cabled my acceptance from the tiny police station at Burketown.

  Birtles and I arrived back in Sydney with the Ford full of spears, shields, kangaroo skins and other trophies of our journey. He received a lot of publicity. I was busy arranging passage on a ship to South America.

  My mother had that same surprised look on her face as she opened the front door to see the pile of boxes I had stacked on the verandah. She let out a little cry and, stepping outside, threw her arms around me, cameras, parcels and all. I couldn’t move and couldn’t return the hug without risk of dropping fragile lenses and glass plates.

  Just one cup of tea later and I was out the door on my way to Harrington’s and Kodak’s offices for cinefilm reels, boxes of glass plates, colour dyes, flash powder, battery packs, bottles of chemicals and other supplies for Shackleton’s expedition. While at Kodak, I found the AAE negatives and colour lantern slides that Mawson had been on my back to give him.

  It was late by the time I made it back home and my mother was in bed. I fell asleep in the lounge room and didn’t wake until midday. The next few days were spent unpacking from the Birtles trip and working out what Harrington’s and Kodak were able to supply. Amazingly, they were willing to supply me on credit just on the basis of the Shackleton name, even though they were still owed monies from the AAE.

  Birtles insisted on us putting in long hours together looking at the glass plates and film from our outback journey. He was keen to have photographs for a book. After labouring all night under the ruby lamp, I emerged from the Kodak building in the wee hours of the morning and was taken aback to see broadsheets at the newsstands emblazoned with the headline: AUSTRALIA AT WAR. Others, who had not been absent from civilisation as I had, were expecting this announcement. Britain was going to stand up to Germany and send troops to defend little Belgium.

  The mood in the street following the declaration of war was different to anything I had experienced. The conversations I listened to over the next few days at Harrington’s and Kodak were charged with an intensity I could not fathom. Britain was mobilising its armed forces for a war on the continent. It seemed so remote, though I was drawn in by speculation the British navy would not allow the Shackleton expedition to leave England for some months, at least until the crisis in Europe was resolved. Colleagues my age and younger, mild-mannered fellows, counter jumpers and office clerks, were pledging their enlistment to serve overseas in a British Empire Force that our politicians were promising the mother country. Meanwhile, I waited anxiously for a cable from Shackleton.

  Within days newspapers announced an Australian Imperial Force would leave for Europe as soon as it could be assembled, lest it arrive too late and the war be over. The following week there were reports Australian forces had raided and occupied German territories in New Guinea. Before I had time for misgivings, I received word that Endurance, Shackleton’s main expedition vessel, had left England bound for Buenos Aires, and I was expected to meet it there by mid-October.

  Ma put up with my comings and goings. She had enjoyed reading the excited newspaper reports about Birtles and our adventures in the outback. Now over dinner she looked nonplussed as to whether I should be taking my chances with Shackleton or enlisting.

  ‘Your pa would have none of this recruiting young Australian men to fight for all those kings and kaisers in Europe!’

  During these hectic days, Birtles and I were feted at a series of dinners and public functions. These were not my cup of tea, but I was impressed at how well Birtles brushed up in a white shirt, stiff collar and dinner jacket, and how he could string together a few well-received words. Invariably someone would start singing ‘God Save the King’ and people who barely knew each other would be shaking hands and back slapping with great gusto. I became used to saying a few words to accompany my lantern slides.

  It was on such an occasion that I found myself conversing in a small group that included Elsa Stewart. I saw her again at another function, and then another. She did not actually converse, but she was there. Only after a number of these encounters did she tell me very quietly that her name was Elsa. She often accompanied her father to public talks and knew who I was, she said. I ventured to think she was actually interested in me. She was as pretty and perfect a picture as could be composed with very fair skin and short wavy brown hair. Elsa was tiny; when we stood alongside each other she came up no higher than my chest. Elsa had once worked as an assistant in a photographic studio and thought the photographs of mine which she had seen in the newspapers were fabulous. Though I had precious little time for a day off, I asked her if she would meet me at Watsons Bay and help photograph some harbour scenes. To my delight, she agreed. She looked immaculate in the photographs I took and bore patiently all my tinkering and fiddling with the camera and tripod while waiting for the right light. My hobby had always been a solo activity, but here was someone who actually enjoyed our time together and was a pleasure to be with.

  Being part of the Shackleton expedition gave me renewed sense of purpose at a time when all the talk was of war. I was going to the Antarctic and I was going with Shackleton. These were heady days and with time pressing in on me, I became obsessed with the idea that Elsa and I should become engaged before my departure. The papers were full of young army recruits announcing their engagement. Once this idea had occurred to me, it just grew and grew in my head. But I wasn’t sure how to achieve this. There was no one I could discuss this with—certainly not Ma, who was rarely even-tempered—about what I was doing, who with, and why I was never at home. In the end, after rehearsing it a thousand times in my head, I spoke with Elsa in a teahouse in Hyde Park.

  ‘How do you think we do together, you and I?’

  ‘Frank, we do fine. That is, if you enjoy being with me.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t enjoy being with you?’

  ‘Well, you are awfully busy. I might be in your way at times, but if ever you need someone to help with your cameras, you know you can ask me anything—and you said I was a quick learner.’

  ‘I enjoy it when you’re in the way,’ I assured her. ‘And you look after the glass plates a lot better than some of those camera-club clowns. But I bet your folks don’t like you spending too much time with me. I don’t exactly have a regular job, do I?’

  ‘Daddy doesn’t know you; they’ve hardly met you. They do think you are awfully clever, though.’

  ‘Clever for someone who hasn’t had much of an education.’

  ‘That’s not what they think.’ She raised her head from her teacup to meet my eye. ‘You could come for dinn
er so they could get to know you.’

  ‘I’d like that—but there may be no time. Between Mawson’s demands and Shackleton I hardly have time to sleep. Ma says she never sees me. I say, Elsa, if, um, if I write letters to you when I’m away, will you write to me care of the expedition?’

  ‘Yes, Frank—of course I will.’

  ‘But you may have to write even if you haven’t heard from me for a while. We’ll be out of port for several months.’

  ‘I’m not a very good letter writer, Frank, and I won’t have much news that you’ll be interested in, but I can write if you tell me where to send letters.’

  ‘And, Elsa . . .’ I paused, not quite sure how to say it. ‘Do you think we get on?’

  ‘Oh yes, Frank. I’m quiet, that’s all. All my friends say I’m quiet as a mouse.’

  ‘My friends say I’m as quiet as an elephant. In our expedition hut everyone complained it was my voice and stomping around that woke them up.’

  ‘I think you need a loud voice when you are showing films.’

  ‘Elsa, the films from this Shackleton trip, I think they could make quite an income, quite a steady income. They’ll do better than the Mawson film. I think your father might be surprised. Elsa, do you think . . . what if we were to become engaged?’

  ‘Engaged?’ Elsa looked quite startled.

  I drew a breath. ‘To be married, I mean. Would you marry me? I mean, not right now, we would just be engaged until I return. Then we could be married. We could spend more time together after the expedition.’

  There was an awkward silence, during which Elsa’s eyes stayed fixed on her teacup.

  I was too shy to reach for Elsa’s hands, which in any case were clasped firmly in her lap. I stared at my own rough calloused hands with brown chemical-stained fingernails. I needed to go to the barber and my hair, I knew, was springing out everywhere. My shirt had not been starched and my collar was too tight. I was a stupid ignorant oaf.

  But Elsa’s head was nodding and, when I looked closer, I realised she was wiping away tears with her handkerchief. At last she looked up and spoke, but all I heard was a squeak. What had I done to cause this? Our eyes met and, unnerved, I looked away. Then I heard her whisper, ‘Yes, Frank,’ and I realised that she was accepting me. Now I was able to move from my seat; I stepped around the table to kiss Elsa on the cheek, the first time I had kissed a girl.

  Elsa lived on the other side of town from me in Double Bay. Her parents were very kind and I expect were relieved when they realised there could be no wedding for at least two years. Elsa came home to meet Ma and they got on well together. I purchased a ring but it was too large for Elsa and had to be altered.

  Elsa happily agreed to take on my correspondence with the AAE and the suppliers of my photographic equipment. This was a far safer proposition than relying on Ma. In a short time I was needed back in the Kodak darkroom, where I worked with the scent of Elsa’s perfume lingering on my jacket. The future was looking bright.

  ●

  In mid-September 1914, I boarded SS Remuera bound for South America. Only when I was inspecting the vessel’s wall charts did I realise Buenos Aires was on the eastern coast of South America and that I would be sailing around Cape Horn. The ship’s captain was keen to meet me.

  ‘And don’t you worry about Admiral von Spee,’ he said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Who is Admiral von Spee?’

  ‘You haven’t read the papers? The German navy has been sinking our merchant ships in the south-east Pacific. We’re going to have to give him the slip.’

  Part III

  7

  With Shackleton, 1914–1916

  After SS Remuera steamed out through the Heads of Sydney Harbour I slept solidly for two days. I had the rare luxury of a cabin to myself. Stretched full-length on my bunk, I read the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Prospectus, which Shackleton had sent me. He was seeking to raise sixty thousand pounds! This was a phenomenal sum, even compared to the debts Mawson had run up. I was beginning to understand the advantages that came with the fame of a Shackleton. What possible return could there be for investors advancing these sums for others to risk their lives in remote parts of the globe?

  The stated object of the expedition in the prospectus was little help: ‘To cross the Antarctic from sea to sea securing for the British flag the honour of being the first carried across the South Polar Continent.’

  The prospectus explained: ‘This expedition is the natural sequel to former British expeditions which sought chiefly to attain the South Pole such as that led by Sir Ernest Shackleton in 1907–09 and that which resulted in Captain Scott’s great achievement and tragic end.’ It did not mention that Amundsen had reached the South Pole first.

  According to the prospectus, the vessel Endurance would land a party on the Weddell Sea coast of Antarctica, from where six men would sledge to the South Pole. My jaw dropped as I read on. The same party would continue across the continent to the Ross Sea, from where Scott had reached the pole. As the official photographer, I would be one of the six accompanying Shackleton. This was fifteen hundred miles—almost three times the distance I had covered with Bage and Azzi! And I was done in at the end of that trip. Of course, Shackleton was taking dogs. This was the only way such a distance could be achieved. Scott had fallen short, though Amundsen had shown that with dogs it could be done. But there could be no support crew or food depots on Shackleton’s plan, at least not until well after the pole had been reached. The food needed for six men and dog teams over that distance would be enormous. A separate party coming from the Ross Sea would lay supply depots for the return journey. It occurred to me the six-man polar party could have no certainty, at least not until it was too late, that the Ross Sea party had even landed, let alone established any food depots.

  I thought back to the agony of running out of food with Bage and Azzi, and being unable to find Southern Cross Depot, a depot we had ourselves established several weeks earlier. How would you find a depot when you were uncertain it even existed? More worryingly, while rough maps now existed of the area between the Ross Sea and the South Pole, there was no knowledge whatsoever of what lay between the pole and the Weddell Sea. No one had ever been there.

  It was a little late to be giving these practicalities any thought. Remuera was not going to turn around. I wondered what on earth had compelled me to cable Shackleton, a man I had not even met, to say I would go with him. I only knew two of the crew, Frank Wild and Frank Bickerton. No one else from the AAE was going. Frank Wild’s reason for going I could understand, as he was a thoroughly rugged seafaring type who knew Shackleton and had spent more time in the Antarctic than any living soul. The aptly named Wild was out of place in civilisation.

  The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Shackleton’s plan had Buckley’s chance of succeeding. It sounded as doomed as Burke and Wills trying to cross Australia on foot. In fact, our journey would be a greater distance, required climbing several thousand feet, was a more arid desert than that of Central Australia with not even a witchetty grub to eat, and without fuel there was no water.

  I couldn’t see the importance of crossing the centre of the Antarctic. If we were unable to achieve this goal, it would not concern me. My pictures would still be unique and, photographically, the coast was of much greater interest. But I was going to need to look after myself to make sure I got back with my photographs. My friends on the AAE, Mertz and Ninnis, had not returned at all, and they’d had dogs to pull sledges and Mertz was a champion skier. Alone in my cabin I began to feel that Ma had been right: I was irresponsible. I should have canvassed the Shackleton plan with Mawson.

  When I’d told him of my intention to join the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, he said he had doubts about Shackleton. I had figured his lack of support was due to my not having finished the pictures for his lecture tours, but it now occurred to me he might have had good reason for his concern.

  While I had been a
way in the outback, my mother had collected the frequent newspaper articles on Shackleton and I had bundled these into my trunk to read on the Remuera. Reading the stories, I realised I was part of something bigger than I could have imagined.

  If Sir Ernest succeeds he will have added a new glory to the record of British Polar Exploration. He will have achieved the last great geographical feat that it remains for man to accomplish.

  As anxious as I was, it was hard to resist being part of something as exciting as this, and with such a revered figure as Shackleton.

  I had ample time on board to rehearse my first conversation with the great explorer. I would not be ‘cap in hand’ as I had been with Mawson in 1911. Without my cinefilm and photographs, there was no prospect of any financial return for Shackleton’s backers; in fact, there might not be an expedition at all. They had requested my services. There was no one else with my experience at capturing sharp landscape and action photographs in polar conditions; certainly no other photographer who could sledge that distance. And, I would tell Shackleton, I needed control over the developing and editing stages. Additionally, I would demand a share of the profits. It was his expedition, but they would be my photographs. I had not travelled halfway around the world for wages only. What could Shackleton say? The more I thought about it, the more determined I became to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement, and the more surprised I was that on such a vital matter Shackleton had appointed me without submitting written terms.

  There was a lot on my mind as the Remuera made its way across the Pacific. I wrote a letter to Elsa to be posted in New Zealand. I was relieved that, while away, I would receive letters from Elsa just as Mawson on the AAE had the pleasure of mail from his Paquita. Now Mawson and Paquita were married. With my twenty-ninth birthday approaching, it would be embarrassing to receive no mail from a lady friend. But would Elsa wait eighteen months? I had promised I would return as soon as possible, but I had not dared tell her what I suspected—that I was likely to be away considerably longer than this.