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  Pa persuaded the bank to give us a loan.

  It wasn’t long before I realised this was a mistake. The debts were bigger than Henry had let on and by then I was paying wages for twelve girls who were hand-colouring postcards in the shop premises which I was leasing. Paying the bills was pretty tight. Pa helped out with some of the more pressing accounts.

  Pa by then was a frequent visitor to the shop. We hadn’t had a row for a long time. He was better than me at juggling our accounts week to week and chasing up payments due. He said I ruffled people’s feathers and didn’t know how to keep the bank manager happy. It was easier to leave that to him. He must have been worried about losing the family money. He wouldn’t pay himself a wage. We worked shoulder to shoulder, but in all too brief a time things came unstuck.

  One lunchtime Pa and I had been going through the accounts. Some of our suppliers were writing very stern letters. There were threats of bankruptcy. It made me jumpy when I could see Pa getting anxious. It was a boiling-hot day just weeks before Christmas 1907. That time of year there was always a lot happening at the union and Pa had to head back for some important meetings. He left the shop and caught a tram up George Street back to Trades Hall. But he never reached his office. When the tram pulled up at King Street he fell unconscious off his seat. His heart had given way and he was dead. I heard the passengers complained they were made to hop off and catch another tram.

  No one came to the shop to tell me so I only found out when I arrived home that night.

  Ma was a wreck. She collapsed on the lounge and there was nothing I could do to help. ‘He wasn’t old, he wasn’t old,’ she sobbed.

  I worked the next day and didn’t shut the shop until the day of the funeral. My brothers and sisters gave me a hard time over that. They didn’t know things were that tight I couldn’t afford to close.

  Pa’s wake was marred by arguments with my siblings which left me feeling very isolated. I was bereft in my heart, and in my head I knew I was facing financial ruin. Losing Pa was the end of the cash flow for the business. Within months I had laid off most of the staff.

  Things got worse. By 1910 the postcard market collapsed. My customers were mostly small retail outlets and one by one they closed down, leaving me unpaid. The big outlets for postcards, John Sands and Swains, survived by undercutting the market and they wouldn’t deal with me. I owed Harrington’s more than I could repay.

  Having this experience at only twenty-five certainly had a lifelong effect on me. Afterwards, if people thought I was too mercenary or driven by a desire to line my pockets, I wasn’t apologetic. I enjoyed being paid for the work I did, even if I loved doing it. I had an abiding fear of debt.

  Greater than these misfortunes was that my brothers and sisters no longer talked to me. Pa’s estate was in the red. Their inheritance was gone and it looked like Ma would have to move again. Dreams so quickly turned into nightmares.

  Part II

  2

  With Mawson, 1911

  It was just before closing when my friend Henri Mallard burst in the shop door.

  ‘Frank, you’re going to be famous! You’re going to thank me for this—if you survive, that is!’

  ‘Henri, I don’t need more risky photographs. I need to sell what I have.’

  ‘No, listen: there’s an Australian expedition going to Antarctica. Douglas Mawson is in charge. If you bothered to read the paper you’d know about it. Anyway, they need a photographer. They’ve asked me, but of course I can’t go.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? Too bloody dangerous! And too bloody cold. But you’re used to the cold. You never even heat the shop. Anyhow, I said you would be my first pick. You have to write to Mawson.’

  I shrugged. ‘I know nothing about it. And I’m stuck here.’

  ‘What is there to know? It’s a scientific expedition to set up bases and explore the place.’

  ‘Your boss at Harrington’s wouldn’t let me go—I owe ’em too much money,’ I said, though I was starting to feel torn by the idea.

  ‘Frank, think about it. If Mawson picks you, Harrington’s have to let you go.’

  I did think about it, all night—and the more I thought about it, the more the idea filled my head. Mawson was famous. He was an Australian hero. He’d been to Antarctica with Shackleton. To travel to an uncharted continent and be the first to capture photographs of an unknown landscape would be an epic adventure.

  By the next day, the idea of disappearing into the Antarctic had begun to seem the solution to all my woes. It would be an escape from creditors and the damned postcard business. Creditors would have a lot of trouble serving court papers in the Antarctic. If the expedition was successful, my reputation would be made. And if I failed to return from the frozen south, well then nothing else mattered.

  I fancied I had some prospects of being appointed, but I also knew there would be better credentialed and more experienced contenders. How could I get the jump on them? Now that the idea had taken a hold on me I did not like the idea of leaving things to chance or, worse still, of missing out. Henri told me that while the expedition had wealthy backers, it was short of funds and Mawson was still out on the public-speaking circuit raising money. I knew all about money being tight.

  In September 1911 I penned a letter direct to Dr Douglas Mawson and offered what I hoped would be my trump card: I would provide my services ‘absolutely free’. My board and lodging would be met by the expedition. I knew if I had the good fortune to reach Antarctica and return alive that my photographs would command a high price.

  My letter secured an interview with Dr Mawson, but only just; he agreed to meet me at Central Station in Sydney for ten minutes before he boarded the train back to Adelaide. Plainly he did not consider me a serious prospect. So I bought a return ticket to Moss Vale, two hours along the route; this, I reasoned, would give me the time I needed.

  At Central Station I was able to pick out Mawson from his picture in the newspapers. A tall and fit-looking gentleman, he was lugging two suitcases along the platform. He was dressed more smartly than I had thought necessary for myself, and looked quite formal in a three-piece suit and necktie with a very white starched winged collar. We shook hands and I grabbed one of his bags and led him to his compartment. I’d hoped to impress him with my initiative in arranging to share his carriage for a couple of hours. Instead he looked tired and was a little curt when he interrupted my spiel to ask, ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘Cook? Yes, yes, I can cook. No one’s died yet!’ Dr Mawson didn’t even smile. ‘And a lot of the time over an open campfire.’

  ‘Won’t be open campfires where we are going.’

  That was stupid of me.

  ‘Have you ever been outside Australia?’ Mawson wanted to know.

  ‘Well, no, but I’ve toured the coastline doing landscape and ocean photography. I’ve taken pictures in some bitterly cold and exposed places.’

  ‘Have you ever travelled at sea?’

  ‘I’ve lived and worked on a ship for months at a time,’ I replied, which was true, if misleading. ‘And I can turn my hand to most things.’

  ‘What about cinematography?’

  ‘I don’t see any problems there. I’m up with the latest technical equipment.’

  ‘But it’s not even mentioned in your letter. The public expect moving pictures, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure I can do it.’

  ‘Well it’s essential. The expedition funders expect me to recoup their monies. I’ll be publishing a book with photographic plates in colour as well as black and white. There’ll be the usual lecture tours, but with moving pictures and lantern slides. Gone are the days when people are satisfied with sketches and watercolours.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘The public want the latest in everything. That’s what sells. That’s the business I’m in.’

  ‘And what line of business was your father in?’

  ‘A printer. He was a printer.’ I knew not to mention
he was a union man.

  ‘And where were you educated?’

  I stumbled over this question until Mawson saved me by pointing out we had both grown up in Glebe. He then described the hardships of working on the ice, but these concerned me not a bit. As I departed at Moss Vale his parting words were, ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Three days later I received a telegram: YOU ARE ACCEPTED STOP MAWSON.

  My excitement knew no bounds. Not only was I accepted, but at Mawson’s request and at his cost I was to immediately attend the film company Gaumont & Co for training in use of the cinematograph—of which, in truth, I had little idea.

  Then out of the blue came a letter from Mawson:

  I am not at this time able to confirm your appointment. I am concerned with your health and have doubts as to whether you will be sufficiently fit for the demanding work of the expedition.

  I was aghast. What could have happened to change his mind about me? Was someone out to deliberately foil my escape? But who? My creditors? Why would someone oppose me just when I had a chance of success—why did people always get in the way of my achieving something?

  I wrote back to Mawson, querying his sudden change of heart. He replied, enquiring if there was a chance I or anyone I was close to had shown any sign of consumption. In my reply I assured Mawson someone was badmouthing me. At twenty-six I had never in my life visited a doctor; I offered to undergo a full medical examination.

  This I did. The medical tests came up all clear. I sent the results to Mawson, and waited impatiently.

  Finally in late October I received a letter from Dr Mawson offering me a formal contract, but which stipulated the expedition would own copyright in all my photographic work. Instead, I was to receive a salary of three hundred pounds—though as far as I could tell, no money would be received by me for at least a year and a half after the return of the expedition. I was in no position to argue and quickly agreed. I was left stewing as to who had slandered me to my new boss; it was not until I was to join Shackleton that the truth was revealed.

  Within four weeks I was required to assemble in Sydney all the cameras, lenses, filters, glass plates, developing trays, film, chemicals and incidentals to provide the photographic services required for more than a year. At the same time I finalised my business affairs. I leaned heavily on the goodwill engendered by my appointment to the Australian Antarctic Expedition to stave off bankruptcy. Henri persuaded Harrington’s to write off my debt. I assigned my lease on the shop in lieu of monies owed. Other creditors came to the party on the promise of publicity and ‘guaranteed’ orders for materials by the expedition.

  My mother greeted the news of my appointment and imminent departure with unsurprising gloominess.

  ‘Don’t you know, Jamie, ’alf the people who go to those places do not return, and for their poor family it’s years not knowing if they’re dead or alive.’

  I heard nothing from the rest of the family, none of whom came to farewell me at the crowded dock in Sydney in late November.

  The expedition vessel Aurora had been chartered out of London and was being fitted and stocked in Hobart. I was one of several AAE members travelling together from Sydney to Hobart to join the ship. There were an awful lot of doctors, professors and academic boffins at the farewell in Sydney. These were colleagues of the other expedition members appointed by Mawson. It dawned on me that, though they were mostly close to my own age, they were all university men, with degrees in various sciences; geology, biology, meteorology and so on. They were going to be my companions at close quarters. How would they regard someone who had not even finished school? It was only when assembled for the newspaper photographers that these gentlemen even acknowledged me. Two—Archie (Dad) McLean and Les Whetter—were medical doctors. Johnnie Hunter and Charles Harrisson were biologists and one young fellow, Charles Laseron, said he was a taxidermist, which I confess had me stumped. Three gents were wireless operators; they seemed friendly enough.

  I was standing off to one side when a young fellow approached me.

  ‘Hello, Les Blake’s my name. You must be Hurley, the photographer.’

  ‘Yes, official photographer.’

  ‘I’m new, I’ve come down from Brisbane . . . I’m the ca-ca-cartographer . . . well, a geologist, really.’

  I found myself stuck for words and enormously self-conscious. What had I got myself into? I had no more knowledge of the Antarctic than one could read in the newspaper. I was nervous an official would drag me away as an imposter. But no one did.

  In Hobart I had my second meeting with Dr Mawson. He was cheery enough as I went through the stock of camera gear which I had to bring on board Aurora. He made plain the importance of my role to the financial success of the expedition: whatever we achieved, there had to be pictures. I came away strongly encouraged. More daunting for me was being introduced to the other expedition members. There were thirty-one of us selected by Mawson. Unlike most of the expeditioners, I also took the trouble to learn the names of Aurora’s twenty-four man crew.

  One of the oldest on the expedition was Aurora herself. Built in 1876, most of her life had been spent in Newfoundland as part of a sealing fleet. At one hundred and sixty-five feet, she didn’t look big enough for the people milling around and boxes of cargo stacked alongside. From bow to stern she was a floating time machine. She had a dark hull of solid oak, but large steel plates had been bolted onto the bow for cutting into ice. She had three masts. The foremast was of the old-fashioned square-rigged style with wooden cross spars. The main mast and mizzenmast, however, had been schooner-rigged with low-slung booms for triangular sails, ideal for going into the wind. Finally, and most importantly for navigating in ice, she had a single-boiler steam engine. Its chimney stack protruded unattractively near the stern.

  Dr Mawson called all expedition members on board. He introduced Captain Davis, a pale thin bearded fellow in naval uniform who was in charge of Aurora. He quickly became known as ‘Gloomy’ for his complete lack of humour. Next the Doctor introduced Frank Wild, who had previously explored Antarctica with Scott and Shackleton. Wild had a small but solid build and exuded competence. Mawson then made the first of his many speeches to us.

  ‘In my hand I have a cable bearing the good wishes of His Majesty George V. Our expedition has the blessing and support of each state and even the present federal Labor government.’ There was a titter of laughter. ‘It is the first of its kind by the Commonwealth of Australia. Its success depends on each of you fulfilling the responsibilities for which you were selected.’

  Mawson continued with more pointed remarks.

  ‘We can expect adverse conditions. Your diligence and preparation are not just required but are matters of life and death. And let me remind you that, whatever your special skill, you are all expected to provide labour for the expedition. There is no room on board for servants.’

  It was soon apparent that Mawson had in mind the immediate labour required for the hundreds of boxes of goods and equipment on the dock to be opened, catalogued and shipped on board. Each of Mawson’s Antarctic bases was to be independent of the other and able to subsist for eighteen months. Every item had to be coded and packed for each separate base. I gathered Antarctic weather wasn’t conducive to a leisurely unpack and there would be no time to search for missing ‘doll’s eyes, toothpicks and left-handed hammers’.

  My thoughts began to lift from personal concerns to broader anxieties like how to start a cooking fire when living on ice; could a fellow answer the call of nature without risk of frostbite; if we would have guns to ward off polar bears. I was smart enough to keep these anxieties to myself. I wondered if Mawson would do an Amundsen and suddenly announce we were actually going to the South Pole! Would we come across Captain Scott’s British expedition or the plucky Norwegians? The newspapers were waiting anxiously to learn which of these expeditions would first reach the pole.

  With men like Scott, Shackleton and Mawson, the British dominated the field of Ant
arctic exploration. Our expedition was made up mostly by men from Australia. Each day I grew more excited to be part of this pioneering discovery of the last unknown continent. If successful, it would be one of the first-ever achievements by our new nation, just ten years old. There was a sense we all shared that each of us had been selected on merit and for our youth. Each person contributed a special skill. It made me determined I would excel. I may not have had a university education, but I was a daredevil with a camera and would prove it to the world. But then doubts would come flooding in. The disconcerting fact was that I had never before touched snow let alone taken a photograph in alpine conditions. How did one photograph snow? Would there be enough light and what would happen when the sun disappeared for months at a time? I dared not ask these questions of Mawson, and hoped they would not be asked of me before I knew the answer.

  I made sure I was conspicuous among those who put their back into lugging the heaviest loads on board. Some of the fellows looked to have spent little time doing manual labour. Here was something I could do alongside the best of them. Mawson, too, even though he was the boss, got stuck into the lifting and carrying. We worked from first light sometimes till eleven in the evening. No union rules here. Pa would not have approved. I noted that despite Aurora being completely crammed, Mawson had brought on board an extensive library from geological science to books of verse by Tennyson and Coleridge. In Lithgow I had become an avid reader of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Poe and Dickens. I determined I would work my way through Mawson’s collection of volumes.

  On the few occasions we were given leave to stretch our legs in Hobart, we were instantly recognised by the general populace. Mention of Aurora resulted in us being regarded as celebrities. I found myself swept along in a wave of excitement with my new colleagues. Before I knew it, Azzi Webb—our Kiwi magnetician—and I were entertaining three young ladies over fresh strawberries and cream in the parlour of a fruit shop. This was a marvel in itself, considering I was usually painfully shy around women.