Call of the White (19 page)

Reena shocked everyone by returning to the hostel with her hair, which normally fell a long way down her back in a near-permanent plait, cropped in a bob just below her ears. She was grinning but had tears in her eyes; it had clearly been an emotional ordeal. Most of the team had decided to cut their hair short before the expedition. We all knew that we had two months ahead of us with unwashed hair stuffed under close-fitting hats. Long hair would be difficult to manage and would probably be so knotted and matted on our return that it would need to be cut off anyway. While for most of us it had been a trivial decision, for Reena it had a lot more significance. ‘In India,' she explained, ‘long hair is seen as a sign of virtue. In the films, if the woman has short hair and make-up it is clear that she is no good.' It was the first time in her life that her hair had ever been cut and although we all reassured her that it looked great – which it did – she was nervous about the reaction at home. She wouldn't let us send her picture to her husband. ‘He will see it soon enough,' she said, but I suspected she was hoping that by the time she saw her husband again, her hair would have grown back.

Our flight from Punta to Antarctica was scheduled for 12 November but the flights from South America to Patriot Hills, the ALE base camp in Antarctica, are notorious for delays. Safety is paramount and so it is not uncommon for the crew to wait days, sometimes weeks, for a suitable weather window. On the eve of our departure we were ready, but I secretly hoped the flight would be cancelled the next morning. The idea of having a completely free day was appealing. We got up early for breakfast and sat together drinking coffee as we waited for the promised phone call from ALE. I allowed myself to think about what I would do in my free day and considered the possibility of going back to bed or finding a sunny spot to sit and enjoy my book or perhaps indulge in some calorific coffee and cake at the inviting cafe I had spotted in Punta. The phone rang in the kitchen and the anticipation was so tangible, it felt as if the room was suddenly full of static. The hostel owner answered and held out the receiver to me. It was ALE.

‘I've just spoken to the pilots,' said the voice on the line. ‘It was a bit windy at Patriot Hills this morning but conditions this afternoon are looking good, so the flight will be leaving today on schedule.'

The voice paused, expecting a reaction.

‘Oh good,' I managed feebly.

‘So if you can get your guys ready, we'll be coming to pick you up in forty-five minutes.'

I was aware of the girls in the room, watching me for a response. Before the voice had finished I gave them a silent grin and thumbs up so that by the time I put down the phone most of them had already disappeared up the stairs. I could hear Kim chattering loudly in excitement and Reena's booming laugh. Steph stopped to give me a hug and Kylie whooped as she squeezed my shoulders on her way past. I sat down in the empty room listening to the chaos upstairs and finished my coffee. I took a deep breath. This was it, we were on our way.

The Great Storm

The inside of an Ilyushin is reassuringly Russian, with deep carpeted seats, tiny myopic portholes and veins of industrial wiring running along the inside walls. The Russian loadmaster, with a comically bushy moustache and grey rings round his sagging eyes, watched us all fiercely from his perch beside a backdrop of twitching dials. Strapped into our seats, we were arranged before him in rows as if this was the opening act of a play and he was the only actor. The plane lurched forward and trundled down the taxiway. The roar and vibration of the engines enveloped us, making communication impossible. As the noise crescendoed, the plane lurched again and took off at such an angle that those of us inside were tilted backward like astronauts being shot into space. I got a glimpse of brown fields through our nearest window as the plane banked and then the ground was gone – we wouldn't see earth or greenery again for weeks.

About six hours later I woke the team just before we were due to land to make sure they were all prepared for stepping out into
–
20ºC. It sounds paradoxical, but as well as needing warm down jackets
and fleecy neck-gaiters for the cold, they also needed suncream and sunglasses for protection from the sun. The air temperature in
Antarctica may be well below freezing but the sun is extremely strong and there is little natural ozone protection from harmful UV rays, so
it is incredibly easy to get severely sunburned and snow-blind. The
plane landed in a thunder of engines and as the crew prised open the
door, we waited for our first glimpse of Antarctica.

Rather than a blast of cold air, it was the sunshine that hit me first. I squinted behind my sunglasses, trying to filter out the glare as I stepped onto the hard ice of the runway. Behind the plane and stretching in a long curve away to our left were the Ellsworth Mountains, a wall of angular peaks smothered with heavy drapes of snow. In places ice oozed imperceptibly slowly from high plateaux, so that it appeared suspended in mid flow; the flawless white fractured with crevasses that revealed a watery blue beneath. The steeper faces were ice free and the rocks reflected the sun so that they seemed to have a golden sheen. Beneath the mountains was a large area of bare ice so old and compressed that it was a striking powder blue. Kept clear of snow by the wind whistling down the mountainsides, it was this strip of ice that was used as a runway. The fierce sun made the ice look wet and highlighted the hundreds of fist-sized dimples that textured its surface. Beyond the ice, almost a kilometre away, was a small camp. At its centre, beneath a tall metal mast, was a small, square Portakabin strapped to the ice with wire rope. This was the communications box and the hub of ALE's operation on the ice. Surrounding it were a number of small store tents, rows of even smaller geodesic tents used for staff accommodation and a number of Portakabins on skis that were used as workshops or towed behind tractors as part of convoys across the continent. Large machinery trundled across the camp carrying cargo from the plane and staff zipped about on colourful snowmobiles.

It had been six years since I had last been in Antarctica but as I breathed in the familiar smells of the continent – a peculiar mix of aviation fuel and suncream – I knew that we had arrived. Looking around for the team I spotted them standing together in the shadow of the plane's wing. In their identical red jackets they looked like a huddle of disorientated schoolchildren who had been overdressed for an outing in the cold. They looked very small and very lost. I could hear Kim repeating ‘Oh my God, oh my God,' over and over to herself like a mantra as she turned slowly on the spot to take in the view. Half walking, half skating in my grip-less ski boots across the ice towards them, I pointed out the flagged route that led from the runway to the camp and we followed the long line of ALE staff heading in the same direction.

As the sun blazed unwinking in the sky, we were soon sweating in our layers of fleece-lined, down-padded and extra-insulated layers and had stripped down to thermals and salopettes. A tractor with paddled caterpillar tracks towing large trailers full of cargo deposited our bags on the fringes of the camp and we busied ourselves sorting out our equipment and putting up our two expedition tents on Antarctic ice for the first time. Our bright red tents and sledges flecked with the green Kaspersky Lab logo looked violently colourful against the white and blue of Antarctica. We monopolised a small area, slightly set apart from the rest of the cluster of tents and buildings and it was soon being referred to as Camp Kaspersky.

We'd brought some wine and treats with us from Punta for our first evening, to celebrate not only our arrival but also Steph's 27th birthday. All eight of us squeezed into one tent, sharing cake cut with a penknife and handed around on a plastic lid, drinking red wine out of the lids of our thermos flasks and laughing too loud in the hushed base camp. I revelled in the glorious joy of the moment, a time and place, a feeling of euphoria that I stored up in my mind like a time capsule to remember in the days and weeks ahead.

When Kylie announced that it was way past 1 a.m., the sun outside
was still blazing as brightly as at midday on a Mediterranean beach. I had forgotten how disorientating 24-hour daylight could be, and how easy it was to lose track of time completely. The announcement broke up our little party (I suspect to the relief of the rest of the camp) and the team shuffled over to the toilet tent in ones and twos. I stood with Helen and watched the trail of tiny women in huge jackets beetling across the site. ‘They look like an invasion of little red munchkins,' she laughed. I wondered warily for a moment what we must look like to the rest of Patriot Hills. No wonder ALE was remaining cautious: we didn't look like a team capable of skiing to the South Pole. If we were to convince anyone that we were serious, I thought grimly, we couldn't afford to make any mistakes now that we were in Antarctica.

The same thought crossed my mind as we prepared to leave Patriot Hills for a day ski the following morning. Naturally, the team was slow to get ready. As a group the team had always struggled with personal administration and I often felt like a cross between a nanny and a headmistress. Nerves about our first day in Antarctica made everyone flustered and brought back bad habits. We had planned a week of acclimatisation at Patriot Hills for precisely this reason. The idea was to introduce everyone slowly to the Antarctic environment, one step at a time. I wouldn't have been concerned about our disorganisation that morning except for the need I felt to demonstrate to ALE that we were capable of looking after ourselves. I remembered the disaster in Norway when the Norwegian film crew had filmed our departure on the mini-expedition – I didn't want a repeat.

Once everyone was on their skis I gathered the group together and reiterated the importance of feeling sorry before the event. It would only take a second of carelessness to get injured but any slight mistake could mean the end of the expedition. I went through a checklist, making sure everyone had spare gloves and goggles, easily accessible food and water, suncream and a warm jacket. We were going to ski slowly, travelling in single file and taking regular breaks. At each break I encouraged the team to check each other's faces for any signs that skin had been exposed to the super-cooled air and I made sure that everyone was still able to feel fingers and toes, that they weren't too hot or too cold, that they were eating and drinking at the breaks and still talking coherently. I felt like an over-protective mother hen, skiing up and down the line shepherding them all forwards. We had a few false starts but within an hour or so the group was moving well together and I began to relax.

The wind had picked up since the night before. It blew steadily against our backs, dragging loose snow across the surface in a continuous flow along the ground. The surface wasn't smooth but had been worn by the wind into sastrugi, wave formations carved into the snow. The sharp, clean lines of the ripples were as perfect as the petals of a flower. They caught the sunlight, creating shade and texture so that the ground was flecked with pale pink and purple as well as flashes of pure white. Above us the bold blue of the sky was ribbed with bands of cloud and while to our right we were accompanied always by the golden Ellsworth Mountains, to our left there was nothing but horizon.

Eight hours later, the wind which had blown the snow along the ground as we set out had risen in strength to fling the fine white powder into the air and create a haze that extended above our heads. The team emerged from the blowing snow to arrive back at Patriot Hills like a returning army. They looked magnificent and I felt as proud of them as I would if they had just conquered the South Pole in a day. As the girls defrosted I checked for any injury or mishap. Kim had a slight spot of frostnip just under her eye. Little more than a chilblain, it had risen into a tiny pale blister that stood out on her dark skin. It wasn't serious but as I gently pointed it out, her hand shot to her face in panic as if she had been stung. It was probably caused by a miniscule gap between her goggles and her balaclava. ‘It will heal completely in a couple of days. Just make sure you keep it well covered and you can sew some extra material onto the bottom of your goggles just to cover any gaps,' I reassured her. The next time I saw Kim she had the largest plaster she could find in our first aid kit covering her cheek and had attached a huge section of neoprene to the bottom of her goggles. She was clearly not taking any chances.

The wind increased through the night so that we woke to find the tents dancing erratically above our heads, bulging and writhing with each gust. The noise was a constant roar and even when we were all sitting inside the same tiny tent, not more than a few feet from each other, we had to shout to be heard. I pulled on my hat, jacket and boots and ventured outside to find that the world had disappeared completely into a fury of white. It was like walking into a cross between a gale and a thick fog. Looking towards the base camp, I could only see the shady outlines of the tents nearest to us and one or two dark, indistinct figures struggling against the wind.

The plan had been to depart on a mini-expedition in the local area that morning but seeing the weather I decided to postpone for the day. While I accepted that the team needed to be able to deal with conditions like this without fear, I also didn't want our first tent routine in Antarctica to be in a 40-knot wind and risk something going terribly wrong. The vision of one of our tents flying across Antarctica particularly haunted me.

That night I slept fitfully. The wind had increased steadily throughout the day and was now punctuated by vicious gusts that pummelled the tent so hard that it strained against its anchors. We'd shovelled so much snow around the tent to weigh it down that it was almost buried and ALE had used a snowplough to build a wall of snow around our two tents for protection, but still the wind thundered over our barricades and blasted our shelters. The tents that had seemed so hardy now felt extremely fragile. Every few minutes a change in the sound of the tent would make me peer nervously out of my sleeping bag. Getting out of that personal cocoon of warmth is an absolute last resort when it is
–
20ºC outside but the tent was our lifeline, and when I noticed one corner of the tent bulge inwards, the thought of it being damaged had me out into the cold in seconds.

Once outside I realised a lot of the snow that we had dug onto the tent had been blown away. Grabbing a snow shovel I called through the tent to Steph to come and help me. Together we shovelled snow onto both of the tents but it was clear we needed more hands. As I ducked into the tent to rouse the rest of the team a gust flattened the tent, breaking the poles in several places. Steph and I stumbled in the wind to find and isolate the broken ends of the poles to stop them ripping through the tent fabric – but we were too late. I shouted across to the rest of the team, ‘We need you out here!' I didn't know if they could hear me but I knew Era and Sophia were desperately flinging on boots and jackets inside the collapsed tent, anxious to help. In the meantime Steph and I grappled with the billowing tent material. The gusts hit us at regular intervals and it was all we could do to keep a grip on the straining fabric and stop it flying away. My fingers cramped in pain as we pulled against the wind with all our strength and I yelled again to the team for help. Era emerged from the tent and stood in shock for a moment looking at our ripped and misshapen tent, not sure what to do. Sophia was right behind her and didn't hesitate. She flung herself prostrate across the tent just as another gust pulled at the material like a kite in a storm. I saw Era lose her balance and fall to the ground, the violence and force of the gust taking her by surprise.

Still cowering from the latest onslaught I felt someone fall against me. It was Kylie, closely followed by Helen; they'd both, thankfully, heard my calls for help. As the gust passed, the wind eased enough to be able to shout instructions to the whole team. ‘After the next gust, get the poles out!' I shrieked over the noise of the storm, ‘but when the wind blows, just hang on to the tent.' It was as much as I could say before the next squall hit us and we all braced ourselves, trying to stop the jagged ends of the broken poles tearing the tent fabric. We struggled together to get the shattered poles out of their sleeves without making the damage worse. It was awkward. We were working against the tension in the tent and every few seconds work was stopped by an explosion of wind, during which we could do nothing but hang on to the free material. Kim and Reena arrived and stood close behind me waiting for instructions. ‘Grab the poles,' I yelled to them both before we were all forced to crouch on the ground by another blast of ice-filled wind. When I looked up I found Kim standing behind me expectantly waiting for further instructions with a ski pole gripped in each fist. I looked at her wide-eyed with incredulity for a moment. ‘Not ski poles!' I shouted over the wind, ‘Tent poles. Grab the tent poles!'