Call of the White (31 page)

Around me what had started as a gloomy day of flat bluish light split open to let rays of sunshine illuminate the landscape like spotlights on a theatre stage. As the cracks in the cloud grew larger to reveal the indigo blue of the sky, a halo emerged around the sun, glowing with particular ferocity where it coincided with sun dogs. It reminded me of the glare of the sun reflected from glass buildings. At these brighter points, mirror images of the halo branched outwards like smiles in all four directions, meeting each other with a touch as light as a kiss. I was entranced and as I glanced down the line strung out in front of me I noticed that everybody's eyes were transfixed on this shimmering display. Once again diamond dust hung suspended in the air around us. I looked directly upwards through a tunnel of sparkles and noticed a new addition to our solar display. All the sun dogs and haloes we had seen until now had been split into prismatic colours but now a circle of white light stretched in a horizontal plane from the sun, as if the sun were the diamond in a colourless ring. I gazed in amazement at this completion of our light show and noticed that the horizontal halo was studded with pale globes of white light, like echoes of our star. I wasn't sure if perhaps I had looked at the sun for too long and that these were echoes in my retina rather than in the sky but as the team stopped for a break I asked Reena, ‘Can you see that?'

She nodded enthusiastically. ‘It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,' she said in awe.

That evening, with the whole team squeezed into one tent, I baldly outlined the problem of the missing miles and our options. ‘I need you all to be absolutely honest with me, and yourselves, about how you are feeling and what our goals should be. We've come this far so it would be a shame to blow it now after a month of effort. It feels like we are close but there is still plenty of time for things to wrong.'

There was silence in the tent. Era looked around to see if anyone else was about to speak before taking the floor.

‘I've actually been thinking that it would be wrong of me to celebrate Christmas with you. It is a Christian festival and I am a Muslim. So please everyone, do not give me presents or wish me Happy Christmas or give me special food.'

I frowned, taken by surprise. ‘Era, we're not going to have a party in one tent and leave you alone in the other.' The idea appalled me.

‘I've thought about that. I thought if I have the video camera I can film you. That means I have a reason to be in the tent but it is clear that I am not there to celebrate Christmas.'

I sighed. I didn't like the idea; it seemed divisive but I didn't feel I could argue. The discussion continued and seemed to boil down to whether or not to have a rest day.

‘I just want to get on with it,' said Reena. ‘A rest day seems like an unnecessary delay. I feel strong enough to continue without a day off.' As each team member in turn expressed their opinion, most seemed to agree with Reena.

Finally, I turned to Sophia. In many ways the expedition had been harder on her than on anyone else and I respected her judgement. She thought for a moment, eyes lowered. ‘I think we keep going,' she said.

The conversation continued but I mentally withdrew, taking the opportunity to mull over what had been said. The eagerness of the team to abandon the rest day had surprised me. I was aware that it was my turn to speak.

‘OK, this is what we'll do. We'll carry on without a rest day but if I think we need a break I will simply call a halt for the following day. Is that OK with everyone?' I looked at each in turn and waited for their nod of agreement. ‘I want to be clear that we are in no hurry. We have plenty of food as long as we continue as planned. There is no rush and our primary concern, as always, is making sure we are all fit and healthy.' I looked at Era for a moment. ‘And regarding Christmas, I don't think it is right to celebrate if not all of us can do so. I think Christmas should just be a normal day for us. We can eat together but it will be a celebration of reaching 89 degrees, or whatever, rather than Christmas so that Era can join in. Is that OK, Era?'

She seemed reluctant but nodded, ‘OK.'

While the others chatted I took the opportunity to leave the tent with my Louis Poo-uitton. It felt good to stand up straight after the last few hours hunched inside the tent. I squinted, the combination of glare from the snow and the cold wind blowing in my face making my eyes water instantly. I glanced at the sun but the spectacular haloes I'd enjoyed all day had disappeared. The sun was alone in the sky, marooned in the endless blue just as we were alone on the polar plateau, marooned in the endless white.

The Last Degree

Still lying prone in my sleeping bag I gradually became aware of my surroundings and silently listened to Era and Sophia moving around in the tent.

‘Happy Christmas, Sophia,' I called out eventually.

‘Happy Christmas!' she replied.

‘Happy eighty-ninth parallel, Era' I added, careful to make the point that I was not wishing her any unwanted Christian greetings. She laughed, appreciating the distinction. ‘Happy eighty-ninth parallel, Felicity.'

‘Happy Christmas, Sophia and Felicity,' croaked Steph, barely audible through the layers of her sleeping bag. We all laughed. By now we were used to the fact that Steph was not her best in the mornings. The tent was filled with a bright orange light, a sure sign that it was a sunny day outside. Taking a deep breath I flung the top of my sleeping bag aside and exposed myself to the cold air. It wasn't as bad as I had expected, much milder than we had become used to since we had arrived on the polar plateau. There was a crescendo of crunching footfalls outside the tent. ‘We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!' three familiar voices half sang, half shouted through the still air.

Kylie's red cheeks framed with blonde plaits grinned through the vent at the end of the tent above the kitchen. ‘It's already late Christmas Day in New Zealand now, so is it OK if I make my call home this morning rather than waiting until tonight?' she asked. Having agreed that Christmas was not going to be a rest day, the one seasonal gift we had decided to allow ourselves was a phone call home. Steph placed the satellite phone into Kylie's hand which appeared through the front vent. The hand and the phone disappeared, and Kylie's footsteps crunched in the snow as she retreated to her tent to make the precious call.

I glanced at my watch and worked out that my own family would be gathering in the narrow kitchen at Crofton for a late Christmas brunch. I could picture the scene, repeated exactly, year after year. There would be Handel drifting through from the front room accompanied by noisy complaints from my brother and sister, eager to play their own choice of music. My dad would be busy at the far end of the kitchen checking on the huge bird that had been slow roasting since the early hours while my mother, already elegantly dressed in something sparkly, would be flittering around the house lighting sweet-scented candles and dressing the large wooden dining table for lunch. I longed to be home with them. At that moment the simple pleasures of warmth and comfort and family appeared, unquestionably, to be the greatest aspirations in life. Our quest for the South Pole seemed, in comparison, to be an empty and worthless vanity.

Not for the first time I was struck by the irony of my perverse psyche. When at home all I could think about was the next adventure, the thrill of returning to Antarctica, the memory of the wonders of the South, but now that I was here my greatest wish was to be sitting in that wonderfully decorated room at Crofton with the warmth of a fire and the taste of good food, surrounded by those who are important to me. Compared to the scenes that I knew were taking place a thousand miles away, I felt cold, dirty and miserable.

‘Hello darling.' My mother spoke quietly with a calm that told me how much the call meant to her. The sound of her voice made every emotion that I had subconsciously suppressed rise to the surface and fill my chest. For a moment I couldn't speak, it was like my breath had been taken from me. I tried to talk but there was only a staccato cough, I felt strangled. Aware of Steph, Sophia and Era in the tent with me, tactfully busying themselves with the morning chores, I turned myself towards the walls of the tent so that they couldn't see my face.

I regained my voice, ‘Hello Mum. Happy Christmas.' I wiped away the silent and unwanted tears that I couldn't stop. ‘I wish I was there with you all.'

‘I know darling, we all miss you too.' Sensing my tears, Mum filled the silence with news of the family's day.

My brother was handed the phone and he croaked a Christmas carol in his low voice in which I could hear the excesses of the night before. My sister interrupted, fizzing with excitement about the expedition, ‘We've been following the website. You are all doing so well. We're all so proud of you, Felicity.'

I wanted to reply but my voice had been replaced with a swelling, pulsating pain in my throat. The tears rolled down my face quicker than I could wipe them away and my nose began to run. The phone call ended and I sat for a moment staring blankly at the phone still in my hands. Wiping my face I turned back to the tent, swinging my legs into the porch to pull on my boots. Steph squeezed past me pausing briefly to ask if I was OK. I grinned at her gratefully and nodded. It was hard to be transported home but speaking to my family had filled me with new determination. They had reminded me of the real Felicity that existed beyond being the leader of this expedition. ‘Five more days,' I told myself. ‘Keep it together for just five more days.'

Christmas Day, Day 34 to us, turned out to be a long day on skis. At the end of it, the team pitched the tents in silence, each of us concentrating on getting our jobs done as quickly as possible, anxious to be in the warm where we could finally remove the ice-encrusted face masks and clothing that had felt like our own personal prisons all day. Nobody had the energy for much celebrating but we gathered in one tent to eat together. I had saved my favourite meal as a treat – probably the only time in my life that I will eat chicken tikka masala for Christmas dinner.

Helen surprised us all with a Christmas tree made out of sleeping mat and hung with tiny stockings of dark blue fleece, stitched together with red cotton from our repair kit. Each stocking had an initial embroidered onto the front of it and a small roll of paper inside. ‘There is one for each of you,' said Helen with obvious pride.

‘When did you do this?' asked Reena in awe.

Helen shrugged off the question, ‘Each night I've been doing a bit in my sleeping bag.'

Reena looked at her wide-eyed, mouth open. None of us could imagine how Helen had had the energy to stay awake any longer than necessary, never mind do something as mentally taxing as sew tiny pieces of fleece together with such care. Most of us were asleep before our heads hit the ground each evening and barely had the brain power for conversation much less for being creative. It was an extremely touching gesture and the team were delighted.

‘Aww, look at the tiny little stockings!' cooed Steph.

I looked anxiously at Era, worried whether this gesture
would contradict her strict rules regarding Christmas, but she was clapping her hands together impatiently, her face alight in excitement. ‘Have I got one?' she asked as the tree was slowly turned so that everyone could see.

‘Helen, this is awesome!' enthused Kylie.

Sitting closest to Helen, Kylie enfolded her in a big hug on behalf of the team and I noticed Helen welling up. ‘Well, I have been such a monster this trip, I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for putting up with me.'

Era was the first to open the roll of paper inside her stocking. In pencil Helen had written sentences about her, each one beginning with a letter of her name:

E – Era simply glides over the top of any sastrugi in her path

R – Radiant smile at all times under her mask, goggles, down jacket etc.

A – Antarctic arithmetician who counts our every nautical mile

We all listened, munching on our dinner as each of us read out Helen's careful observations, alternately nodding in agreement or laughing at the ridiculous truth of her words. I felt myself relaxing in the warm glow of our camaraderie and was struck by the surrealism of seven women sitting in a tent on Christmas evening laughing together in our 40-day-old clothes and plaster-patched feet. Despite the distraction of Helen's gift, the thought of the next day's exertion was never far from our minds and we were all anxious to be in bed. After a quick group photograph outside the tent, bunched around the miniature Christmas tree, we drifted away to our sleeping bags.

The polar plateau hadn't lived up to its name. We were still climbing hill after hill although the slopes weren't as obvious as they had been. The undulating ground made Era furious, ‘They should call it the Polar Bowl or the Polar Hump,' she fumed. ‘This is clearly not the polar plateau.' At least we had left sastrugi land behind. None of us could remember exactly when the sastrugi had disappeared but the ground was definitely smoother now. It felt as if the snow was more granulated, the carpet of white glittering brilliantly as if scattered with crystals. If I squinted I could almost imagine that we were skiing across a vast Caribbean beach of white sand rather than snow. Small lumps of crystals began to appear on undulations in the snow, like bobbles on an old woollen jumper. Soon these ice flowers spread to cover the entire landscape so that the ground had the texture of a cat's tongue. The wind continued to blow directly into our faces and chilblains began to appear despite the careful face protection. Everyone wore the fleece-lined smocks which earlier in the expedition had barely been needed.

Struggling with the ice around her face mask Steph missed her mouth while trying to drink during a break and spilled some water down the front of her face mask. A few legs later she complained about having a cold chin. Kylie, next in line, solved the problem by tucking her spare glove into Steph's face-covering so that it formed an extra couple of layers around her jaw. Seemingly satisfied, Steph continued with a Bruce Forsyth profile; it looked ridiculous, but she didn't care. Era too was struggling. From the back I noticed that she was repeatedly falling behind. I stepped out of the team's tracks to ski alongside the line and catch up with her but the sudden exertion left me breathless. The altitude still occasionally took me by surprise. Pushing my thighs harder I slowly caught up with Era. She was wearing her windproof under her fleece-lined smock and the down mitts I had lent her the day before. ‘I'm OK,' she said in response to my question as I drew level with her. ‘Just a bit tired.'

Fishing inside my jacket I surreptitiously switched on the GPS and checked on our progress. It had been a slow day and although it was already late afternoon we had only completed half of our target distance for that day. ‘We need to push on a bit if we are going to hit our target for today,' I said gently. ‘Do you think you can do that without exhausting yourself?' Era nodded, already starting to close the gap in front of her.

Where we had used to count down the minutes in anticipation of our next break, the cold now made breaks an unwelcome interruption in the business of keeping warm. We each dreaded the moment we would stop skiing and instantly begin to freeze. Laboriously pulling on the down jackets that were kept accessible on the top of our sledges, the breaks were a series of unpleasant tasks, from disturbing our temperamental face masks to eat and drink, to baring our bottoms for a pee and finally, being obliged to remove the delicious warmth of the down jacket as we set off once more. Knowing that we would eventually warm up again as we skied was no consolation for those first few minutes after a break when fingers were numb and joints were stiff with cold.

I was glad it was Reena out in front for the last leg of the day. She had a peculiar knack of being able to set a pace that felt slow and steady and yet covered more ground than anyone else. I knew I could rely on her to cover a solid 2 nautical miles in the next hour – it was what we needed to reach our target for the day.

Reena didn't let me down. I glanced at the GPS as we finished the leg – we'd travelled 15.2 nautical miles since our last camp. If we could manage another four days like this, we would be at the pole. Steph slumped on her sledge beside me as we stopped, leaning back with her arms and legs hanging wide, head back in a flamboyant expression of exhaustion. Later on, as we pitched the tent, she pulled back her face mask to reveal her chin and neck, which had got cold earlier in the day; her skin was an angry crimson. The water that had spilt from her water bottle had turned to ice next to her skin and given her a cold injury. The skin hadn't blistered, so it wasn't serious frostbite, but it spread like a birthmark over a large area. She would need to look after it to stop it getting any worse. As Steph inspected her injury in our tiny team mirror she was at first horrified, then worried and finally surprisingly relaxed about it. The next morning as we prepared to leave the tent I helped Steph bandage up the affected area which had been left to air overnight. Most of the bandage tape in our first aid kit had been used up to cover blisters, which left us with only gaffer tape. Placing some gauze over the discoloured skin I taped it into place as best I could. The gaffer tape was reluctant to stick to her skin (‘It's probably all the layers of dirt,' joked Steph) so I had to place layer over layer until it finally stuck. As the bottom half of her face was gradually covered in tape we couldn't help laughing. It looked like she had a bad case of lockjaw. We were distracted from the taping by a sudden outburst from Era at the other end of the tent, ‘Shit! My mask has dry-frozen.' Steph and I looked at each other, startled, before breaking into laughter. Era looked up confused.

‘I don't think I have ever heard you swear,' laughed Steph. ‘What is your husband going to think when we send you back swearing like a soldier?'

Era smiled with pretend menace. ‘He has already seen me angry.'

Even though, rationally, I knew it was too early to expect to see any evidence of the South Pole ahead of us, I still couldn't help scanning the horizon. The South Pole is not an unmarked spot on the landscape; it is now the site of one of the largest scientific research stations in Antarctica. The American-run Amundsen-Scott Station has operated year-round at the South Pole since 1957. During the summer over 300 people work on the base, a population that diminishes to just 100 during the winter. It was Day 36 and I hoped that, even though we were too far away to see the station itself, we might see outlying research sites, storage buildings or perhaps even the tracks of vehicles. In fact, we saw nothing.