Endurance Read online

  For me the icebergs represent a new challenge: to capture their purity and grandeur in a landscape where there is little to indicate their true dimensions to the human eye. I experiment with foregrounds through Aurora’s rigging but the scenes are overcrowded. I have more success strapping the cinematograph facedown below the bowsprit. As I wind the film through the camera, the steel bow of Aurora cuts through the floe, splitting and rolling the ice port and starboard.

  The floe continues to increase and through blustery winds and fog emerges not land but a wall of ice a hundred feet high which bookends Aurora. We turn starboard and retreat, heading west at the same time. We look for every opportunity to push southwards. Days go by. New Year’s Day 1912 comes and goes. We keep sailing westwards, looking for any sight of land. We are knocking on the edge of the unknown world: ‘Here, there be dragons.’

  On 8 January Aurora rounds an ice wall and there before us is a broad stretch of water dotted with islands and a rocky promontory in the distance. As we draw closer the promontory turns out to be a series of islands in front of a low rocky shore which Mawson names Mackellar Islets and Commonwealth Bay respectively. We head for this piece of exposed land fringed by ice. The whaleboat is lowered and I push myself forwards, holding my camera. Mawson gives me the nod and with Frank Wild, our astronomer Bob Bage and a few others we are rowing past islets and bergs to the shore. Some of the islets are just bare rock crowded with seals and penguins. Other more exposed islets have the appearance of collapsed puddings covered with thick white icing from layers of sea spray.

  Once past the islands we row into a fine inlet. One hundred yards wide and four hundred yards long, the inlet is sheltered but not deep enough for Aurora. From the whaleboat we look down through crystal-clear water to rocks covered in bright green seagrasses. Excited penguins dive beneath our boat in the freezing waters. Nearer shore the depth reduces until I am looking down about forty feet, then twenty, then ten, to stones and trailing seagrasses.

  The keel of the boat scrapes on rocks. Mawson at the bow steps ashore. There is an unholy ruckus behind him as we jostle to be first to follow. On the icy rock my feet go from under me and I am suddenly the centre of attention as I land on my backside. ‘Well, Hurley,’ says Mawson, ‘you are the first human to sit on Terre Adelie!’

  3

  Terre Adelie, 1912

  We landed without ceremony, certainly in my case, and took stock of what we could see. We walked southwards across the rock and ice, slightly apart, like actors walking to the edge of a stage and peering into the void. Unused to solid ground my legs stumbled on its uneven surface, which seemed to sway beneath me. There was no breeze and without the sound of wind in the rigging and waves buffeting the hull there was an eeriness to the silence. I could hear the rustle of my Burberry outer garments and the sound of my breath as it formed clouds of vapour.

  There were no inhabitants of this shore, no spear or gunfire resisted our arrival. There were no human defenders, no skulls and crossbones or dragons to warn us off. Our binoculars revealed no hidden pairs of eyes peering from the dark shadows of the gloomy landscape. No people lived in this place. There had been no humans ever to visit this part of the Antarctic continent for thousands of miles in either direction. This place, the very base of planet Earth, was repellent to humankind. It was an arid desert. There was no water to drink and virtually nothing to eat in the long winter. Apart from penguins and seals, there were few summer visitors. In winter even the sun stayed away and darkness prevailed. Virtually the whole of this land of ancient rocks lay hidden deep below mountains and chasms of ice.

  The Antarctic mountain ranges were much higher than the Australian Alps but permanently under ice. Glacial freezing swelled in the winter and pushed ice northwards off high plateaus, gouging and churning to the sea with the brute force of glaciers. The sea froze, then in summer broke up and launched gigantic bergs across the oceans. I learned from Mawson these glaciers carried rocks and stones he hoped would unlock secrets from the frozen heart of the continent. Like all geologists he was after fossils, impressions of the animate on the inanimate. He must be an optimist, I thought, to come to this place.

  Having seen nothing of the Antarctic continent but ice cliffs I felt huge relief to come ashore on solid rocky ground. One could live and build a house on rock. I did not see how habitation could be made on ice. Mawson named this place Cape Denison.

  Despite the desolation that greeted us we knew that somewhere on the far extremes of this icy wasteland there were two parties of Europeans, if they were still alive, desperate for fame and glory, fighting the blizzard to be first to reach the southernmost axis of the planet. Much later we learned Amundsen had reached the South Pole some three weeks earlier and was on his way back to his ship, Fram. Scott was still a week away from reaching the pole and the bitter realisation there was no reward for second in such a race.

  Cape Denison offered us a bare toehold on the edge of the continent. The rock that formed the cape, said Mawson, was ancient gneiss, folded and gnarled by pressure from the ice plate. Denuded of ice and snow, the cape extended for half a mile in each direction. A series of large boulders just south of the cape appeared to hold back a collar of plate ice and glacial moraine. To the east and west the plate ice ran down to the sea. In both directions ice rose from the sea in steep cliffs up to one hundred and fifty feet high. Mawson messaged Aurora that we would make this our winter base. There were of course no alternatives and no more time. The whaleboat returned for the first load of equipment and supplies.

  It was only as the first boatload was coming ashore that Antarctica signalled its opposition to our landing. From the stillness above the ridge a wind sprang up and was soon whipping our faces with drift ice at a vicious forty miles an hour. It picked up and doubled its velocity to reach gusts of eighty miles an hour, which knocked us to the ground. Other than Mawson, Wild and Davis, none of us had experienced anything like this. The gale was completely disabling and brought unloading to a halt. Once we were all in the whaleboat we cast off and were blown back to Aurora, which was struggling to stand off the cape in foaming seas. This was almost a premature end to the expedition. We were badly knocked about as we came alongside, but got aboard safely. Captain Davis made for nearby ice cliffs to shelter from the wind.

  We dropped anchor to ride out what we believed was a freak storm. Two days passed before the Antarctic blizzard gave pause and we made a second attempt at unloading. Countless trips in an overloaded whaleboat saw only one case tumble into the bay. Over six days, interrupted by fierce storms, boxes of foodstuffs and supplies for a two-year stay were stacked on the ice, along with panels for the construction of two huts, twenty tonnes of coal briquettes and hundreds of large benzene tins with which we erected an impromptu shelter, but only for non-smokers.

  ‘See you next year, Hurley.’ Frank Wild and Charles Harrisson both shook my hand in farewell. They were leaving. Wild was in charge of setting up the AAE western base. More than that, our only link to civilisation, the Aurora under Captain Davis, was departing with Wild’s party to search for a suitable landing site before the seas froze.

  I was disappointed to see Wild go, as he was more approachable than Mawson. I would miss his practical down-to-earth manner.

  Davis, we found out much later, steamed to the west for a month without sight of any suitable landing place. Running low on coal, he decided to return to Hobart for the winter. Frank Wild, however, would not admit defeat and instructed Davis to drop him and his party on the iceshelf. He and his men used a flying fox to lift some thirty-six tonnes of supplies to the very top of the cliff, where they made camp an unknown distance from land and without any natural shelter from the blizzard. There they stayed for over a year.

  Back at Cape Denison the eighteen of us stood on the ice, wondering if we had seen our last of Aurora. It was nine o’clock in the evening, and still light as we pitched camp. For some lads it was their first time in a tent.

  No one slept t
oo well that night, and by 5 a.m. we had started the desperate race to erect living quarters. Nothing was straightforward in those temperatures. Many jobs could only be done by the temporary removal of mitts and gloves, and soon we had our first experiences with frostbite. Metal tools were impossible to hold. Putting nails or drill bits between your lips was a mistake only made once. Goggles fogged up, but unprotected eyes watered continuously and caused snow blindness. Sweat froze, but cement for hut foundations refused to set. Pre-cut timber for walls and joists no longer fitted, having been warped by constant drenching with seawater on board ship. Moisture of any kind quickly froze and filled drill and bolt holes rock hard so redrilling was required. Steel drill tips became brittle from extreme cold and shattered under pressure. The permafrost ground was so hard dynamite was needed to blast foundation stump holes, but once in position dynamite sticks would freeze inside a minute, unnerving us as to whether unexploded charges were still ‘live’.

  For two weeks we worked eighteen-hour days, often to midnight, to erect a hut. I was in my element. I took no photographs and instead moved boulders to build foundations, bolted floor joists and assembled wall frames. As walls went up some shelter was gained, but using hammer and nails on the windward side was a misery and could only be endured for limited periods. I found I was one of the most skilled members of the party at joinery, metalwork and electrical work. Despite multiple university degrees and doctorates, most of my colleagues were bungling amateurs with a hammer or saw. But I joked they knew other important things, which I didn’t, like the names of rocks. Dr Mertz was one of the most enthusiastic as he nailed up the ceiling from the inside using four-inch nails, until interrupted by the cries of Bickerton, our engineer, who had been sitting on the roof.

  Having assumed responsibility for assembling the main stove, I took Mawson to one side. ‘Doc, the stove fittings are not in any of the boxes. Did they come ashore?’

  He looked at me very sternly. ‘Hurley, they have to be if we are to get through the winter.’

  I returned to my search, but a few hours later reported again to Mawson the parts were nowhere to be found.

  ‘I can tell you, Hurley, the stove fittings for this hut are not on Aurora!’

  Then it occurred to me. I said, ‘I know where they are. They’re in the box that slid off the whaleboat.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Doc, I’ve checked everything here. That must be where they are. Azzi and I both saw the box go overboard.’

  At low tide Mawson and Azzi pushed off in the boat and prodded the kelp with oars for almost an hour. A shout from Azzi confirmed they could see the box, but despite hooks and ropes it could not be raised. I was gobsmacked when Mawson stood up, dropped his trousers and ripped off his jumper and undershirt. I was sorry my camera was not handy. There was a splash as Mawson dropped into the bay. Azzi looked most agitated. Mawson’s legs gripped and lifted the box which Azzi hauled on board, followed by Mawson, who flew up over the side and dressed in world-record time.

  Mawson was shivering noisily in a sleeping bag in his tent when I informed him the box had been opened and contained tins of strawberry jam. It was one of the few occasions I heard him swear.

  The fittings were eventually located and I soon had the stove operating as the hut went up around it. Shortly before completion, however, the learned bacteriologist Dr McLean was blown off the roof while working in gale-force winds. He grabbed at the chimney as he slid past, causing the recently installed internal stovepipe to oscillate wildly. Inside the hut the stove and flue began shaking violently. Ninnis bravely grabbed and held the hot stovepipe until it came away in his arms and he was blackened in a cloud of soot. McLean landed harmlessly in snowdrift.

  By the end of January the hut was complete. Mawson instructed me to ready my camera and we all gathered outside. The Union Jack was hoisted and the Australian flag alongside. ‘I hereby take possession of this land,’ said Mawson, raising his voice above the roar of the wind, ‘on behalf of the king and the British Empire!’ At my insistence the men removed their thick woollen helmets for the occasion. I yelled, ‘Will you lot stop bloody shivering and stand still!’ I allowed an exposure of less than half a second and captured the moment on a glass plate. Quickly the men gave three cheers then scrambled back inside before their ears froze. ‘King George won’t be coming here too soon,’ I said to Azzi.

  In the morning we woke to find stockpiles of fine drift snow had blown in during the night and buried a number of sleepers. There was a lot of plugging of gaps and cracks to be done to seal the hut from the blizzard. Our hut was twenty-four feet square. Three sides each had three sets of double bunks and Mawson had his own smallish room. The cooking area occupied most of the fourth side and in the middle of the room was a long trestle table for meals which between times served for all manner of scientific work, research and entertainment.

  In the north-western corner of the hut a small room was constructed five feet by five feet. This was my darkroom. I built a series of narrow shelves along one wall to store my chemicals. On my left I installed a workbench with a slight downwards slope, like a desk. This was for brushing and cutting and touching up negatives and plates. In the right-hand corner was a small sink for developing. Once inside and with the door shut I had my own private space where I could be alone and undisturbed under the dull red glow of my developing lamp. There was only room for one person standing or perched on a stool. I could move neither forwards nor backwards, but could turn around and work freely for hours at a time. Working as I did in darkness, its small confines were of little account. In the winter, when there was no sun and when outside activities were limited if not impossible, it was my universe where I lived and worked. It was my darkroom in the hut under the snow in the dark world.

  Immediately on the leeward side of our hut was constructed a workroom which had initially been intended for a separate eastern base. Our sleeping quarters had a door through to the workroom from which one could exit to an enclosed verandah which had the latrine at one end and a door to outside at the other.

  I felt great relief on completion of the hut. For all the ferocity of the winds, we could now survive for a year with the rations we had and the abundance of seal and penguin meat in the summer months. However, in the event of any catastrophe we could not reach civilisation for at least one whole year. No boat could reach us until the summer thaw. Only Gloomy Davis and his crew knew our location. Only Gloomy would be able to find us. No one spoke about this. We had to trust he would make it back to Hobart and return safely the following year. He was such a prickly navy man, which I surmised came with the burden of knowing we relied on him for our lives.

  I was unused to the society generated from the eighteen of us being thrust together so closely in the hut. We mostly called each other by surnames or nicknames. My nickname was Hoyle. I was allocated a bunk adjoining my darkroom. Mawson, of course, had his room. There was then a peculiar pecking order, not unlike the Dewey System, by which the scientists arranged themselves on upper and lower bunks around the walls of the hut: biologist, geologist, meteorologist and so on. Living outside the hut we had nineteen dogs. They were great company for all of us and in due course we had sledging teams and our own personal favourites.

  My friend Azzi was in charge of magnetic observations. His work had to be done hundreds of yards away from our living quarters so as to avoid distortions caused by metal machinery and equipment. Setting and reading magnetographs could take Azzi up to an hour or more. Together we built two tiny huts. Both had standing room only for two men. They looked like privies, a ‘his’ and a ‘hers’ in the snow. Walking back with Azzi from the magnetograph huts one day, the dogs commenced a wild howling. They were chained on the northern side of the hut. We saw them straining at their leads to escape a huge monster advancing on them. At that distance we could not tell what it was or where it had come from. We ran to the hut calling at the top of our voices but none inside could hear. One dog alone was strai
ning at his leash in the face of the monster and keeping it temporarily at bay, even though it was at least ten times his size. As we drew closer we could see the dog was Johnson, one of the smallest of the pack but with the biggest heart, and the monster which towered above him was a huge sea elephant bull.

  Bob Bage emerged from the hut with a rifle and the sea elephant was quickly killed. He measured eighteen feet long and weighed two tonne. Laseron needed help to skin the creature before the carcass froze. A block and tackle was required to lift off the meat and blubber, which was then cut up by Ninnis and Mertz and stored for the dogs. The skeleton and skin went to the biologists. That night, Johnson received an extra serving for his bravery.

  One thing the dogs did not like was incessant wind. None of us, including Mawson, had any experience of a wind of such constantly high velocity. It blew for days at a time above a hundred miles an hour and gusting at times well above this. The anemometer recorded gusts up to two hundred miles an hour. The blizzard always came from the south, sweeping over the top of the polar plateau and roaring down the slope to the water’s edge on Commonwealth Bay. It screamed as it discovered our wood and iron hut perched precariously above the shoreline, and it ripped frantically at our roof and chimney. It howled in the wire stays that braced the chimney against its ferocity, and rattled and shook the hut’s walls. Its shrieking drowned out voices in the open air and made hard work of normal conversation inside the hut. It stole from us any object lying loose on the ground. Gloves and mitts were such frequent casualties that mitts had to be strapped to our jackets.

  If we went out in a blizzard without crampons attached to our boots the wind would slide and drag us into the bay. We learned the art of leaning on the wind as we walked. For short distances it was easier to crawl.