Call of the White (29 page)

We'd been warned about the sastrugi beyond the 87th line of latitude. There had been no shortage of tales about sastrugi taller than a man and so big that they could be seen from space. We'd had continuous sastrugi for the last four or five days but nothing that had warranted lifting the sledges by hand or any serious diversions from our habitually straight course. Even so, everyone was a little apprehensive about what lay ahead, each of us imagining our own personal nightmare.

It started with just one or two notably large sastrugi, clusters of perfectly curved, motionless waves all folded over each other to form large barrier-like sculptures. Sometimes they formed a ramp so that we were able to pass straight over them, like climbing over an ornate hump-backed bridge, but most of the time we were simply able to ski around them. Then, without noticing exactly when the change occurred, it seemed like one big sastrugi simply ran into another and by Day 27 we were completely surrounded by choppy peaks and miniature mountain ranges. Not only were the peaks and rises taller but the troughs were deeper and it became impossible to find a route between them that avoided the rough ground completely.

‘It's like skiing across a giant, frozen meringue,' Helen commented flatly during a break. The metaphor made me laugh. It was a perfect visual description of the landscape around us but somehow seemed far too flippant for something causing us so much exhausting effort. ‘We've entered sastrugi land,' she continued in the same flat voice.

I couldn't help but notice a ring of doom in her tone that made everyone survey the horizon sombrely for a second. Although the sastrugi were not as huge as those reported from previous seasons (and none of us could say whether they were big enough to be visible from space), they were certainly big enough to completely obscure Era from view on occasion and to make taking a turn at the front of the line even more demanding than usual. As well as keeping a close eye on our bearing southwards, the navigator had to pick a route through the never-ending obstacle course of sastrugi.

Most of us stuck to a relatively straight line, forging through the choppy ground and only deviating for the largest dips or rises. Kylie was different. She went to great lengths to lead the team around every lump and bump so that our tracks formed more of a squiggle than a dart. Although everyone appreciated her efforts to find the flattest route, it gradually dawned on us all that we were travelling miles further than necessary. I watched with private amusement as one day Era, skiing second in line, took decisive action. Ignoring Kylie's elaborate detours she crashed over the sastrugi creating her own, more direct route. At first the team weren't sure who to follow – you could almost hear the sound of critical thinking taking place – but eventually the entire line fell in behind Era taking the shorter route, unwilling to expend any effort skiing so much as one stride more than strictly necessary. Out in front, Kylie remained completely oblivious to the silent mutiny taking place behind her.

Unfortunately, no amount of careful route-finding could avoid all the uneven ground completely. We became used to coming across steep drops, our ski-tips protruding over the edge of the wind-sculpted ice like ski jumpers. The drops became known as ‘penguin-jumps' because each of us in turn hesitated at the lip before committing ourselves, just like penguins leaping after each other into the sea. The drops were never more than a metre or two but they were never straightforward; there was often a second drop immediately after the first or a series of sharp fins of ice radiating across the run-out. Negotiating the penguin-jumps would be tough enough on skis without the extra burden of a fully laden sledge thundering at your heels. Mindful of the fact that until eight months ago few of the girls had so much as seen a pair of cross-country skis, I was anxious in case someone slipped and broke a bone or badly twisted an ankle. In fact, they each tackled the terrain with calm determination and – I noted with pride – surprising skill considering their lack of experience.

Skill there might have been but not grace. As sledges became jammed between ice formations, or slid off the sastrugi in unexpected directions, we scrambled to help each other but in our haste skis were often crossed, ski poles were jabbed into feet and harnesses became entangled. If someone's sledge was stuck after a penguin-jump it was often too late to prevent the next in line crashing into the back of them. It wasn't long before there were some spectacular falls. Steph launched herself from the top of one penguin-jump with a little too much enthusiasm and found her skis running up the far side of the trough. Unable to correct herself she fell, her head hitting the ground first with an audible crack. On another sastrugi Era misjudged the height of the drop and her ski-tips speared vertically into the snow beneath her, leaving her to fall woodenly over her own toes, face-planting spectacularly into the snowdrift.

Adding to the difficulty was the fact that the arrival of sastrugi land had not brought an end to the hills. As we closed in on the summit of the latest hill each of us would plead with our own deities to make it the last we would climb in Antarctica, only to be disappointed as another brownish strip of dirty-looking snow appeared on the horizon, signifying another hill in the distance. The repeated falls and the jerks of the sledges on our harnesses as we clambered over the uneven terrain put extra pressure on our already sore joints. It was clear to everyone that our bodies were beginning to feel the kilometres we had covered. We joked about the soreness in our muscles and the fact that we felt at least twice our age but the banter hid a deeper unspoken concern; we still had just under 200 nautical miles to cover and if we didn't reach an end to either the hills or sastrugi land soon, it was inevitable that something in our bodies was going to give.

Reena, at the front of the line, flung her ski poles into a cross above her head, stopping where she stood. The rest of the team slowly concertinaed into a cluster around her, pulling their sledges alongside them to form makeshift benches. I found myself standing next to Sophia who was eating from her snack bag with automaton determination.

‘How are you doing, Sophia?' I asked casually.

She looked up and shrugged, ‘The sastrugis are not so good. I have to be careful of my knee.'

I had forgotten that the year before I met Sophia she had had reconstructive surgery on the ligaments around her knee. It had been a serious operation and although Sophia rarely made reference to it, I got the impression that it weighed on her mind much more than she allowed us to know. Sophia's face was hidden behind her goggles and mask but her tone was full of concern.

‘Every step I worry might be my last on this expedition,' she said quietly.

It took me a moment to understand the meaning of her words but the realisation was chilling. The rough ground was putting such pressure on her reconstructed ligaments that every step she took carried the potential of serious injury. Before I had time to think of a reply our brief break was called to an end. There was no time to probe further but as we reformed our line and began our next leg, my thoughts dwelled on Sophia's words. I felt terrible for not checking on her sooner. Sophia was so competent and self-contained that it had been easy to assume that she was fine. I had been watching others in the team so closely for any signs of trouble that I hadn't appreciated the danger the rough ground put on Sophia's relatively recent injury. The tone in Sophia's voice had been unmistakeable. She was clearly seriously concerned about the ability of her fragile knee to withstand the continual punishment of the sastrugi. I knew Sophia well enough to know that her words had not been dramatic for effect; she had stated only the facts. I watched her ski in the line ahead of me and knew that each placement of her ski-clad foot would be careful and deliberate. I had absolute confidence in Sophia that she would not be taking any chances but now I shared in her anxiety. I calculated that Sophia, with her shorter stride, took at least 30,000 steps in a day; each one carried the potential for harm. I couldn't imagine the mental strength required to concentrate so completely on one action for so long. That alone must have been exhausting. I kicked myself for not taking better care of her.

I took the opportunity to talk to Sophia in the tent that evening while Steph and Era were out with their Louis Poo-uittons. Sophia looked serious as we talked, resting her eyes on the stoves and pans of water at her feet as she spoke. ‘I feel a lot of pressure from home and I don't want to let them down,' she admitted. ‘The president will not be happy if I don't get to the South Pole.' Sophia had met the president of Singapore for dinner before she departed for the expedition. I knew that she took the expectations of her country very seriously but I had no idea that it weighed quite so heavily on her. ‘Don't worry, Sophia. We will get you there,' I comforted her. ‘Even if we have to put you in a sledge and pull you, we will get you to the South Pole.' She laughed at the image and I wondered for a second if she would let us do such a thing if it came to it. I felt immense admiration for Sophia. She had not found the expedition easy but she had approached its challenges with an unflagging strength of mind.

Sophia was quietly more focused and driven than anyone else on the team. She wasn't vocal about her determination but it burned within her, occasionally showing itself in flashes so fierce that in anyone else would be intimidating. With Sophia, the quest for the South Pole was clearly personal.

I met Steph outside the tent and together we sorted through the contents of the four sledges in our tent group, lightening the load for Sophia (to reduce the pressure on her knee) and for Era (to reduce the decline in her energy levels). With only 13 days' food and fuel remaining, Steph and I were able to split the rest of the weight between us so that neither sledge would be unmanageably heavy. I didn't want to load anybody, including myself, with so much weight that they couldn't keep up.

Back inside the tent I told Era and Sophia what we had done. I was worried that they would be offended. ‘It's not that I think either of you is incapable but I want to make sure both of you get to the South Pole and with seven of us to share the weight it seems silly to have you both pulling more than necessary.' I waited for their reaction.

Sophia shrugged, ‘It's not necessary,' she said turning back to the stoves as she spoke, ‘but I don't mind if that's what you think is best.'

Era too was pragmatic. ‘It's only the same as we did for Helen when she was not well.'

I nodded earnestly. ‘Exactly,' I said. I was glad that they had both seen it this way. I had worked with teams in the past who had seen it as a weakness to accept help, even at the expense of reaching their goal. I was keen that our team maintain a very different culture, one where the success of the team as a whole went before any personal ego or pride. Even so, I wasn't sure that the reduced weight would have any bearing on Sophia's knee. The problem was more the danger of a sudden twisting or jarring than the weight of her sledge. ‘At least I have something to think about while I am skiing,' she smiled.

After a month on the ice and having covered more than 400 nautical miles, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep our minds occupied. All day, every day, we marched through an unchanging landscape, repeating the same movements again and again, surrounded by the same six people, following the same routines. Our existence was a video running on a continual loop. Smothered in protective layers and usually partially blind thanks to the ice in our goggles we were forced to spend the majority of our time inside our own heads. Thinking is an ability that we normally take for granted. It is something we are usually barely aware of and yet the expedition highlighted the vital importance of a busy mind to our sanity. During the first week I'd found the time to think as we skied to be a pleasure. After nearly two years of frantic preparation and planning for the expedition it was a relief to finally be able to mentally run through everything that had happened. My mind fizzed with the remaining logistical plans for the expedition, thoughts of loose ends in the UK that needed to be resolved and worries about what lay ahead for the team. I thought a lot about Kim and the day that had resulted in her frostbite. I scrutinised my memories to piece together what exactly had happened and whether in retrospect there was anything I should have done differently that could have prevented the outcome. I allowed my mind to analyse a whole range of decisions I had made throughout the expedition, agonising over some, reaffirming others and making resolutions about decisions I knew I would have to make in the future.

Eventually, the tempo of my mental fizz slowed to no more than background static. I became more aware of the rhythm of pushing one foot in front of the other, hearing nothing but my own breathing and occasionally the beating of my heart. Gradually, it felt as if I had entered a state of greater calm and clarity and I began to think about the bigger questions. Perhaps it is because there is so little to look at in the surrounding landscape that your mind begins to look inwards instead, into the rich landscape of your own soul. As is my nature, the first thing my brain focused on was all the periods in my life of which I am ashamed. I found myself inwardly squirming as I remembered conversations or actions that embarrassed me but which I could recall in vivid detail. Sometimes it was almost a blessed respite to be interrupted from my reveries by the arrival of a seven-minute break which provided a distraction from this mental self-flagellation.

Then I began to ponder the critical decisions I had made in my life, from the subjects I had read at university and the career I had chosen, to the man I want to spend my life with. I imagined whole other lives that might have been my fate if I had acted differently or made other choices. As Era put it, ‘Antarctica makes you think of the forks in your life.' The process was engrossing but emotionally exhausting. I rarely allowed myself to think too deeply or for too long about my family. Memories of spending time at home were like finding a plump, juicy olive in a bowl of couscous. I'd fall on it greedily, enjoying the sensation of being transported thousands of miles to my home but then I'd reluctantly force myself to carefully pack the thoughts and memories away. Thinking of home made me feel lonely and homesick and I couldn't afford to be either.