The Nature of Ice (5 page)

Chad shakes his head. ‘Doesn't take long, does it? Will we see you up there?'

‘After the day I've had, fella, the only happy hour I'll be having is a nap.'

Chad lines the D8 up for a second run parallel to the first. He watches the Hägglund wind up the hill towards the fuel farm. Chad's waiting to see whether
Ginger
and
Gadget
, the new Casa planes, will perform as well as the old TwinO tters.

Wind buffets the cab. Chad turns up the music. He can hazard a guess at the day's slushy from the choice of music the job privileges them to play: a member of
The Whalers
who, complete with harmonicas, Hawaiian guitars and tropical shirts, have cut their first demo tape. Wailers is right, Chad thinks, the band's signature song the product of hours of racket from the music practice shed.

The Whalers
croon while Chad provides the bass.
The
frozen sea. The frozen sea. When we said goodbye
—he catches a sudden movement over the top of the blade and jams on the floor brake. He yanks the steering control to avoid the figure crouching directly in his path. The right track locks and the D8 slides like a chord on
The Whalers'
guitar. Steel grousers warble over a slick of ice. The woman before him grabs at her equipment, tumbling over herself in an attempt to leap clear.
The Whalers
strums. Chad yells. The woman skates on one knee, legs tangled with those of her tripod. How the twenty-tonner doesn't collect her he'll never know, but the D8 completes one lithe and graceful loop before easing to a stop.

‘Are you hurt?' he shouts, jumping down from the cab.

The woman scrambles to her feet, her clothing caked in snow. ‘I'm okay. Are you alright?'

He picks up her camera from the snow. The housing of the lens comes apart in his hands. ‘That ain't good.'

‘An understatement,' she says wryly, though the words catch in her throat and when she collects the pieces from him Chad sees her hands are trembling.

He's about to offer to take the lens back to the station, to see what can be done, but is seized by a sudden urge to shake her. ‘What the hell were you doing there? I nearly wiped you out.' When she takes a step back, he realises he's shouting.

‘I'm very sorry,' she says. ‘I was trying to get a close-up of the blade. I misjudged the distance,' she adds, sheepishly.

‘Misjudged the distance! Do you make a practice of springing out in front of moving vehicles?'

The wind carries her answer away, leaving only the residue of an accent. The squall blows back her hair to uncover a birthmark stamped upon her cheek and throat. The other side of her face is as white as her tangle of blonde hair. He finds himself mesmerised. She retrieves her bags and shakes snow from her fallen hat.

‘How long have you been out here?' he asks.

‘Not long.'

‘Apart from it being a no-no,' Chad speaks evenly, ‘it's not a smart idea to be out on the sea ice alone, particularly in weather like this.'

She slides on her hat and rearranges her hair around her face. ‘Please. You won't say anything, will you?'

He may be many things, but a dobber he's not. ‘Come on,' he says. ‘I'll drive you back to the station.'

They trudge across the ice, her body leaning into the squall at the same angle as his own. Chad climbs onto the track of the bulldozer and holds the door open against a gust that given half a chance would tear it from its hinges. She clambers up beside him but halts at the sight of the single-person cab.

‘I get a bit claustrophobic. Do you mind if I walk?'

‘I can't leave you out here on your own. Please get in, before we both freeze.' He slides her survival pack onto the floor beside the single seat. ‘Sit up on the ledge and nurse your gear. There's enough room.'

Chad is grateful for the engine noise that drowns out any need for talk. What other joker hits his forties still burdened with the shyness of his teenage years? She sits at his right, squeezed between his bulk and the door, her legs straddling the steering clutch. Each time she attempts to sit upright her head grazes the roof. She hunches, one arm hugging her tripod, the other clasped around the camera bag as if it, too, were under siege. Her body doesn't stop shivering—from cold or shock or discomfort at the confinement, he can't tell. She seems clueless about what the place can dish out. He gives the woman a sideways glare, but if she registers his disdain she does a fine job of ignoring it. She scowls through the window at the pail of sky. Her birthmark radiates across her white cheek as fierce as a burn. Stay on in Antarctica to escape the summer airheads at home? Call him a luckless bastard; he never was one for timing.

‘MCGONIGAL. PERFECT TIMING.' THE STATION leader lowers his head to look over the rim of his glasses. ‘How would you like to play tour guide over summer?'

Chad casts Malcolm Ball a look of despair. ‘Passenger ships already?'

Malcolm gives a manic shake of his head. ‘Not on your Nellie.' He concentrates on placing a stack of loose pages into the bite of Jaws, his beloved electric stapler. He rubs a thumb over the copper staple that transforms the corner of the page into an equilateral triangle. You could run a set of parallel rules over Malcolm's desk and find not a blade of paper out of place.

‘Freya Jorgensen.'

Chad shrugs.

‘Photographer. Tall girl.' Malcolm goes to pat his cheek but apparently thinks better of it and sweeps a hand through his number two crew cut. ‘Mop of fair hair. Run into her?'

‘Almost.'

‘The thing is, Chad, she's emailed me with all the places she wants to photograph.' He fans the stapled pages. ‘A list as long as your bloody arm. She'll be lucky to get out to half of them. I've already told her she can't go gallivanting off on her own. It's Freya's first time south. We'll see how she goes on field training later in the week with Simon, but I'd like a qualified trip leader, someone with your know-how, to go out with her, keep an eye on things.'

Keep her alive, he means. ‘What about the work on the summer accommodation module? Isn't that why I've been asked to stay on?'

Malcolm shakes his head again. ‘It won't be every day, nothing like that. She can hook up with the seal team once a week, the skua mob will let her tag along if they can ever get their act together. Just now and then, when you see your way to setting up the boys and letting things roll for a day or two. The building work takes priority. I'll tell Freya that she'll need to slot in with your schedule.' Malcolm waits for a moment. ‘What's the problem, McGonigal?' He gets an edge to his voice when things don't go his way. ‘Your boys are all crack tradesmen, aren't they?'

‘You know they are.'

‘Adam Singer would jump at the chance if I gave him the nod. He's taken quite a shine to Freya and her project.'

‘I bet he has.' The Predator, is the name those Adam trained with in Hobart call him on the quiet. Bullshit artist or Casanova, in two weeks at the station Adam has already mentioned enough conquests to make Chad feel inadequate.

‘Come on,' Malcolm urges, ‘you and I are used to juggling balls for the Division. Any other time you'd be panting to get off the station.'

Clearly taking Chad's grunt as a yes, Malcolm runs a neat line of correction fluid over jottings in the margin of one page. Both of them know Chad has no recourse. Ultimately, the station leader calls the shots.

‘Let's see. You'll be able to bike it on quads as long as the sea ice is good. Freya's project has been allocated five hours' helicopter time. That should get you out to some choice spots. You never know, you might end up large as life on some art gallery wall, immortalised in print alongside Frank Hurley's photos.' He rolls up the pages and loops an elastic band around them, once, twice, three times to be sure.

Chad can feel his hackles rise.

‘I know you'll like this.' Malcolm lowers his voice as he leans across the desk. ‘There's a chance I can get the two of you out on
Ginger
or
Gadget
later in the summer. Up to the plateau, Amery Ice Shelf, Beaver Lake.' He presents the scroll to Chad on a platter of upturned hands. ‘No promises, mind.'

Chad can't help himself: he takes the roll and smacks the edge of the desk with the same flick he'd use to nail a fly. ‘Always glad to help, Malcolm.' Dislodged by the sudden movement, loose papers billow and waft across the trim and tidy desk.

Ski training

February 1912

SKI TRAINING WAS A DISASTER waiting to happen.

‘It's all well and good for you, X,' Walter Hannam, the big wireless operator, grumbled. ‘We weren't all born Swiss long-jump ski champions.'

The trouble, Douglas realised, was that few Australians had encountered snow before, let alone trying to move about with eight-foot wooden planks lashed to their boots. Douglas could see the group losing heart while Xavier Mertz, the embodiment of optimism and goodwill, insisted they relocate to a higher rise where they could make use of the gradient down to the hut.

‘We make our own championship!' X sang. Douglas gave a half-hearted nod of approval and away they went, the vaudeville ski patrol shuffling like penguins behind their instructor, Douglas bringing up the rear.

Snow sparkled, the ice cliffs shone, snow petrels in their dozens swept across a sky gilded with evening sun. Over at the headland, Frank Hurley stood caped beneath his black cloth, his camera's cyclopean eye framing the landscape.

Commonwealth Bay was a glorious place when the wind stopped blowing. The men had asked him about the uncanny pattern of wind—how one could stand in relative calm while thirty yards away another would be blown off his feet in a gust. At times the harbour had been struck with ferocious squalls, when, at the same time, the foreshore registered nothing more than a whisper of breeze. No one but Douglas had reason to wonder at the uniquely fickle nature of Commonwealth Bay—his men, first-timers, assumed this weather was normal for Antarctica. Ninnis joked that they needn't bother filling the gaps in the hut walls—already the verandahs were knee-deep in snowdrift; in another month, Ninnis said, the snow banked around the outside of the building would be
up to pussy's bow
.

Another sixty weddell seals had come ashore during the day to join the hundred-odd lounging on the ice. Along the foreshore, two adélie penguins shot out of the water and sped off on their bellies before striding off to feed their fledgling chicks. Penguins were leaving Commonwealth Bay and would not return until next spring. Tomorrow, if the weather held, he would have the men start stockpiling—five hundred adélie carcasses to supplement their diet, ward off scurvy through the dark months of winter.

Mertz demonstrated the stance again, crouching to a squat and shifting his body weight forward. He eased down the hill, made a clean sweep in the snow and came to a stop near the back wall of the hut. Douglas applauded with the others.

‘Who'll give that a crack?' Walter Hannam said.

Mertz gave a nod of encouragement to Johnny Hunter. Though Hunter initially tucked himself down low, he shot up like a duck the moment gravity took hold. He hadn't travelled nine yards before he keeled to one side. Douglas watched two more men topple like skittles and tumble down the slope with limbs and skis akimbo. Hannam collapsed in the snow, his raucous laugh echoing across the bay and setting off the dogs. ‘Championship! Championship!' Hannam roared at each man who fell.

Mertz loomed over Douglas, panting in his thick accent his latest English word, ‘Golly!' He added, ‘I bet our chief will make the
A-one
sportsman.'

Enough was enough. Douglas unbuckled his straps. ‘I didn't bring men all this damned way to break arms and legs in the name of sport.'

A wild squeal rang out and Douglas looked up to see Walter Hannam tobogganing towards the hut, his hefty body prone along the length of a single ski. Men dived clear; Hannam shot past, hooting and shouting and slapping his thigh—his glee cut short when he registered the hut's back wall fast approaching.

Douglas closed his eyes.

‘Championship! Championship!' the onlookers roared, then cackled hysterically when Hannam careened into the hut.

‘Have the men pack away the gear,' Douglas barked at Mertz. ‘They won't be needing skis again.'

He dumped his own skis near the hut and strode away, choosing to seek out Hurley's company by the rocks over that of a crestfallen ski instructor and a now-subdued group of men.

Beyond the hut the Greenland dogs sat stretched along the length of their chains, looking perfectly at home. Ginger lolled on the rocks licking her paws, Basilisk and Gadget sat blinking at the yolk of the sun. Douglas always marvelled at the warmth trapped inside those dense, matted coats. To be so naturally adapted. To be so well equipped. There was no clear explanation as to why so many had perished.

They had begun with forty-nine dogs. Frank Wild had taken eight for his western base but that still left half the original count dead. Mertz and Ninnis had spoken of the voyage out from London on
Aurora
, some dogs collapsing with distemper while one beast turned rabid and roamed the decks after tearing free of its chains.
It was kill or be
killed
, X explained.

Between the group's setting up the radio relay station at Macquarie Island and arriving at Commonwealth Bay, ten dogs had died. Fitting and foaming at the mouth, paroxysms of shivering, some of their faces disfigured with lockjaw— illnesses the likes of which no one had seen before. Doctors McLean and Whetter's post-mortem diagnosed gastric inflammation, collapsed lungs, a gangrenous appendix. It was as if some hidden evil had poisoned their bodies from the inside out.

Hurley stood at his tripod, sunlight catching the glass of his camera. ‘Hannam survive his field training?' He grinned.