VALLEY OF SHADES AND SHADOWS

 

With the lockdown imposed throughout the shire by the state government, Hamish was not permitted to take train or car to the big smoke.  Relieved to have video conferencing at nine o’clock was far more civilised, rather than drive at a hundred miles an hour along the highway in six lanes of traffic.  His accounting position with a building materials company could be effected just as well at home with fewer interruptions.  Later he would hop onto his ride-on mower up and down the narrow grass embankment of his property next to the lane. Then over the paddocks adjacent to the stables and riding the manure into the soft chocolate-coloured earth as mulch, while Maisie would shovel out the stable’s night soil and pile it up outside, manure and sawdust laced with horse piss, then transfer some of it to their fence-line, much to the pleasure of sneaky, plump brown, wary-eyed rabbits that at dawn and dusk would scurry up to the barn in search of hay and frantically scrabble into the soil for roots to gnaw.  Or into the squelchy black silt accruing in the pebbly gutter of rainwater, even duck through a hole in the back of the barn, where the ground began to slope down towards the copse of cypress trees.

 

Maisie had always loved horses, worked with them, now too stout to mount them and ride gracefully as she used to in regional gymkhanas.  Girded up in wet-weather gear and gumboots, she had urged Hamish to take up an agistment business:  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll organise, you’ll keep us alive on your salary.  Weekends we can both work the horses and build the business.’

 

Which he was willing to do, given he was now working from home and boasted flexitime.

 

Close to birthing season, time was nerve-wracking for Maisie:  hectic but exciting, heart-rending on occasions.  At such times she kept constant vigil on which mare would drop the first foal.  Nellie, the youngest and smallest of her seven horses, was two years junior but it hurt still that Empress, a very caring mother and her own favourite horse, had lost both foals in the previous two seasons.  Maizie gambled on the younger mare but led both companions back to the snug warmth of the stable bales rather than rug them up in their bluish grey coats in the slush and mud of the paddock.  Instead, she would use the small grassy enclosure outside the lounge window and string up a lantern for her all-night vigil.

 

Maisie strove to keep awake in the subdued light of the lounge, fully dressed in heavy weather gear and alert through the long, long night, listening for any sounds and hearing only the metallic creaking and knocking of the corrugated shed in the driving wind and the last passenger train rushing back from the City, then a goods train rumbling ever louder around ten o’clock, accentuated by frightening reverberations echoing across the otherwise sleepy Valley.  But this birthing procedure she wouldn’t interfere with, unless critical.  Till she sensed in the shining arc of light outdoors, Nellie circling, making slow, awkward movements to lie down.

 

Nelly, the smallest of the inseminated mares, the youngest too, therefore chivvied along by the others, now had her lengthy tail plaited by her mistress.  Though nudged and necked by the more obviously pregnant Empress, she too would venture into the narrow gap between the fence-line and the parallel stand of cypress trees.  Nelly had observed one of the bigger fillies scratching her back on a bent bough of cypress, turned around, then backed into the low-slung but still bushy enough cypress trunk and eased her spine back and forth, back and forth, scratching her white hide.

 

What tickled Josie most was to watch Nelly backing into the stand of cypress trees, foliage in a feathery flutter in the fitful cold winds and rubbing her rump and back against the flapping branches.  Or she’d roll on the ground, legs in the air, whereas Empress, older, plumper, stood in the same stance barely moving, eyes closing, more inclined to pull down a branch with her teeth and snaffle the leaves, or stand with one hind hoof raised as if arthritic.

 

Time had stood still through the darkness, yet Nelly knew instinctively what to do, licking the black gunk off the young thing’s prone body.  Maisie was immediately aware of the gooey, stringy, crimson after-birth hanging down, almost to the ground.  Nelly’s hind legs were streaked with blood and watery pink splotches.  Looked yukky to the untrained eye, but Maisie allowed the mum to spruce up a bit before ministering the injection to close up the uterus so the after-birth would heal.  Fortunately, she had plaited Holly’s long, straw-coloured tail in tight twists of a mauve ribbon so it didn’t interfere with the delivery.  Three days later, spindly legs so wobbly, so lanky, the young colt was careering around the enclosure anxiously watched by Nelly, who could only move gingerly towards her new-born streak of excitement due to the muddy patches on the neighbouring paddock.

 

Those braided tails of different colours reminded Josie of her own childhood days a decade ago at the local Shetland Pony Club, where she notched up several victories over three furlongs.  The red and yellow rosettes were still pinned on her bedroom wall, the crash helmet in some dusty corner of the old shed.  She had loved the competitive atmosphere, especially cantering away from the boys in the final furlong.  Desperate to beat her, some of the lads were too gung-ho with their heels. Nowadays, though, some of those same riding schools were being called out for poor working conditions and overworking their horses.  Claims about riding school cruelty saddened, angered, disenchanted her.  She vowed she’d one day get a job with the RSPCA.

 

 

While Hamish played second fiddle to Maisie with the horses, he was developing a reputation on-line for his colour photography, in particular his sharp close-ups of birds, many of which were taken among the eucalypts of their own establishment, Osprey Stables:  a pair of crimson and cobalt blue Crimson Rosellas foraging for seed and Josie’s favourite regularly perching close to her bedroom window, a serious-faced kookaburra that stayed sternly on the one branch for ten minutes before suddenly bursting out with a wild, haunting racket of ascending laughter, the cheeky wagtails down by the horses’ hooves snapping up insects thrown up by the horses.  He didn’t have to wander far to take a photo of a duck’s nest lodged high up on a bald, tarnished white gum tree stripped of bark that had three boughs sawn off in such a way as to leave flat ledges on which the birds would land.

 

Among most satisfying but lucky shots was that of a large male King Parrot:  scarlet head and underbelly, green wings and a blue tail, that chanced to be flying toward the kitchen window ledge where Hamish, fortuitously camera in hand, scored a beaut close-up.  And the reverberative, manic laughter of the two regulars, kookaburras as solemn as wise old grumps, sitting on fence posts and singing, no, squawking in unison ever upwards towards the heavens.  And that persistent little bugger, smallest member of the wren family that had no tail, tapping its beak on the dining room window and spooking their fox terrier within.

 

Whereas Josie loved the constant surround of birdsong, she was inconsolable for

hours whenever one of her favourites, the bold but cheeky white-breasted wagtail,

flew head first against her bedroom window and lay there with blood on its

beak, eyes still staring open but very dead, neck broken; splash happy the sparrows and white-breasted wagtails bopping about on the membrane of the imposing circular water tank lifted as the volume of falling rain mounted.  Road-kill she also found too dreadful to mention, whether it be that red fox whose intestines were splayed across the narrow road one evening, twisted grin and bared teeth its final grimace in the gutter or the cuddly hairy-nosed wombat snugly curled up in long grass roadside, as if asleep or the low-flying maggies crushed on a winding hillside road.

 

 

‘Why doesn’t Dad use the bathroom instead of pissing on the grapefruit tree?’ 

 

‘Josie, wash your tongue out with soap!’

 

‘But that’s disgusting.’

 

‘How else are you going to get your protein, if you don’t eat your meat?’

 

‘Oh, Mum, you’re always on about protein?  That’s so boring.  You know I don’t

really need building up.  What’s more, I’m a committed vegetarian.’  The teenager

sighed.  ‘Say, Mum, tell me about our ancestors again. Oh, come on, please!’’

 

‘O for goodness sakes!’ Maisie laughed, eyes looking up at the ceiling. ‘This for the umpteenth time. Well, let’s see . . . My old gran told us our ancestors hailed from Inverness, Highlanders who came out by boat from Scotland some time in the 1850’s.  On account of the prospects being better out here in the bush, as they calls these green rural areas under-developed.  Back home a terrible potato famine had taken hold.  You see, we Scots useter depend on our crop of taters to keep us from starvation’s door.  But we was blessed that in this strange new world, it just so happened they were crying out for labourers to fill so many vacancies.  Our folks were starving because landlords had raised their rent, forcing out hundreds an hundreds of poor tenants, just so as those greedy masters could turn their land over to sheep, for it was the wool trade what was providing rich pickings in them times. 

 

Eventually, our folk put down roots here, what was called the Great Valley of Victoria.  Hardly any of them could’ve known much about farming, but went searching for a life free from dreadful hardship n injustices back home.’

 

‘But that’s so mean.  Why couldn’t the rich offer to help the starving poor?’

 

‘Och ae, the terrible unjustnesses of it all.’  Maisie shook her head in disbelief. 

‘Stinks to high heaven, that does.  Any rate, when those poor blighters walked

hereabouts from Melbourne, what was often called Smellbourne in them days, with

all their worldly possessions and stopped in their tracks by this vast wilderness they

must’ve been half-wits.  Gippsland was so covered thick with trees you’d never set

eyes on before, that you couldn’t barely move.  Giants with funny names like

eucalypts, so huge and soaring skywards they blacked out the light of day . . . swamp

gums, messmates, blackwoods . . . Worse still, old Gran said, this entire valley was

over-run with dingoes, packs of wild dogs that could tear you from limb to

limb.  They’d hunted out all the wild life, which left the settlers precious little to eat

but berries growing wild.  They must’ve gone rooting around in the scrub for nuts or

seeds, possibly mushrooms. Any rate, first up the settlers had to kill the

residents, which I mean ter say was them blasted dingoes.  Which they did with guns.’

 

‘Too right,’ nodded Hamish, walking in from the stable from which the mating wagtails were pinching straw in their beaks to firm up their nest in the gutter.

 

‘Hi, darl!  Next come the trappers on the lookout for wallaby skins.  Them fellers got themselves a quick fortune, so bought up some land.  Any wallabies that survived the slaughter moved on.  Gradually, adventurers passing through, what they called selectors, also bought up a few acres, then began big-time the serious operation of clearing it themselves with family or a gang of mates.’

 

‘Yeah, indeed, this were all timber country, heavily forested,’ Hamish broke in. ‘Like

a fortress.  How those splitters carved

through so many deep-rooted trees of massive girth … weight … height, I’ll never

know, poor buggers.  Course it was teamwork, what done it.  Blokes needed a cross-

cut saw, a pair ov’ em each side o’ the trunk, sometimes six or eight fellers all up.

Our people could na settle here till they’d shot every last dingo dead.’

 

‘Aw, Pa, how could they be so cruel?’

 

‘Josie, imagine yer ma had just born you a sister.  Do you think that bairn would be safe in the bush with all them dingo scavengers on the prowl?  They was ferocious killers.  Would have gobbled you up, soon as look at yer,’ he chuckled.

 

‘Och, Hamish, don’t talk ter the lassie like that.  You’ll scare her half to death.’

 

‘But it was their natural habitat, Pa.  For hundreds and hundreds of years.’

 

‘That’s as maybe.  But where do you s’pose the possums and wallabies, koalas and bandicoots was hanging out?  They was all wiped out in this area by them bloody dingoes.  Any rate, there was plenty more bird life.  Under the canopy like, what with the maggies, kookaburras laughing their heads off like lunatics, lyre birds imitating the warbling of other birds.  Oh and the whipbird I use ter hear when I was your age, cracking its sharp whip call that went echoing on the wind through the forest.  Would you believe, back then there was platypus a-plenty in the wetlands and spiny echidnas and lizards with blue tongues that could get under your feet on the forest floor?’

 

‘But the valley’s as vast as the sky.  So much space opening out in several shades:  greens and blues, sometimes reds and purples.  Snow-capped mountains way over there, rolling green hills on our side.  You can see across to both sides of the Valley – when it’s not foggy or a burning-off day or heavily overcast with rain clouds.’

 

‘Not then you couldn’t.  Look around, luv.  Impossible to credit these beaut green hills was once the legacy of ancient growth timber and oh so slowly transformed into rich farmland.  Nowadays dairy farms extend as far as the eye can see, dotted about on them hillsides, thanks to the grit and muscle of our forbears.  Worked their backsides off knocking up simple huts of slabs and bark using axes and saws, surviving on flour, tea and sugar.  ‘Just remember too, the gut-churnin voyage out here weren’t no picnic in the heather, what with all the sickness n death, vermin, polluted water for drinkin n washin in.  Jeez!  Battlers, they wuz called.  And rightly so.’

 

 

Time was, about a dozen years before, when Hamish was none too comfortable with his six year-old daughter; a bit of a softie, he reckoned.  Often he found himself telling the story of Josie and the ‘Cappertillas’, where the curious youngster had stumbled upon a clump of caterpillars. 

 

One August afternoon, Josie espied on their Yellow Box gum tree a strange black lump in the fork of a branch just above head high.  She prised the branches of red flowers apart to make a closer examination.  Of what might have been a lump of black tar, except for slight twitches of tiny, thin projections, presumably tails, yellow, which meant the little round reddish-brown bobble at the other end was the head.  She thought she could make out the teeniest dots for eyes.  And the silvery varnish on the black body swayed in the wind with the other – what?  Fifty of the little critters – ‘Capertillars’!  All bunched in a greyish black blob, bodies black with a silver zip down their spine, laced round one another in the fork of a branch of their own Yellow Box gum, literally sticking together.  And as the brisk wind gusted and the fork swayed, so the caterpillars darted minuscule yellow tails – for balance or warning?

 

Agh, yuk!  Sickened at first, Josie couldn’t snatch her eyes from this weirdo scene.  Why clinging on day after day in bucking winds?  Eating what, for goodness sake?  Yet fascinated, she peered up through the window of leafy branches, transfixed.  All of a frown, she noted these worm-like creatures now bound around one another at all angles, some lying almost cross-wise; writhing a tad as if agitated, seemed black in body but with a greyish sheen when sighted in a ray of sunshine and a white spot and silvery thin hairs.

 

Course, she pleaded to bring the little critters indoors.  ‘Don’t touch!’ screeched Maisie, rubbing hands on pinnie to dry as she stared across the lawn to the fence-line  ‘Nasties!  Very poisonous.’

 

‘Oh, but Mum . .  !

 

‘Just get away from there quick smart before they spit at you!’

 

‘They’re not doing any harm, Mum.  Just bunching up in a slimy heap.’

 

‘Josie, get away!’ bellowed Hamish, suddenly emerging from the roughly knocked-up corrugated shed that shook and rattled in the wind.  ‘You heard what your mother said!  Don’t touch!’  So searing his voice, the girl’s face crunched into tears.  In a softer, matter-of-fact voice, as he approached:  ‘They not be poisonous, but these larvae can cause problems.  Give you an itchy skin.  Whatever you do, don’t rub your eyes!  I’ll go heat up some boilin water n soap n scald em ter death.’

 

‘Oh, Dad, you can’t do that.  That’s so cruel and horrible!’

 

‘Can’t have em build a nest in the bark nor gnawing down in them roots.  They’re killing the tree, as it is.  Every blasted branch is stripped bare.’

 

Josie whimpering, pleading almost:  ‘But they’re not harming us.’

 

‘Not yet.  But these capertillars, as you calls em, are larvae of them sawflies.’

 

‘So?’

 

‘Can’t you see, lass?  They’ve already stripped this beautiful tree of its bark.  Even the beaut red flowers are dull and droopy.  Those slimy critters o’ yourn have shaved pale these branches for food.  Either they’re now gone underground or they’re still eating their way through the trunk to the roots.  When the sawflies leave you a rash on the arm, then you’ll know it, my girl.  Between you n me, yer Mum’s agistment n breeding business will go down the gurgler if those hairs you seed on the caterpillars get up the nostrils of her beloved thoroughbreds.’

 

‘Why so?’

 

‘We’ll lose everythink:  the horses would die, we could na longer afford to run the farm, we’d lose the reputation of both our horses and our business.’

 

 

No matter how many times she’d surveyed the hills on this side of the valley, Josie never tired of that vista, tranquil, still as a canvas, somehow perfect in its harmonious pattern of generously rounded hills and stands of eucalypts, even the shades of green were different, peaceful now but for the vociferous sweep of birdsong but often moody, fast-changing, wispy mists floating through the ravines of interlocking hills.  Even now the leaves on the evergreen cypresses had developed a yellowish tinge.  Sometimes the brazen arc of a rainbow would embrace the whole valley, would disappear suddenly, then mysteriously shine through a few minutes later, arcing over the vast valley floor with an implant of warmth.  How fascinating it was, wondered Josie, when the further side of the valley with its impenetrable forest, ski slopes, abandoned mineshafts silhouetted on the horizon, jagging into the pallid blue sky.

 

Scaredy Cat she was when those thickset guardian gums loomed up black in the darkness, yet now close up she saw these ancient time-servers as ribbed deep red like veins neath their cracked, withering bark and the base of the trunk like an elephantine foot skewed, twisting away from what was, hopefully, a secure, deep-rooted buttress.  So suddenly would the gusts of wind blow up, Josie instinctively bit her lip at the twin giants astride the opening of their driveway that acted as a gateway to her domain, yet vulnerable to sudden surges of windy blasts.  Ancient they looked, black bark tearing away in ribs or peeling off in strips or harbouring tatty spider webs in knot holes like closed eyes where the dreaded black Huntsman might lurk.

 

Up close, the base of these wizened old trees that Dad called messmates and Josie stringybarks – that sounded a likelier name for a tree - with four or five thick boughs stretching way high up.  At ground level Josie could tuck her fingers under the bark and easily prise away the scab.  Windy nights would always toss long, slender branches and thin twigs onto the lawns, hedges and flower beds.

 

To the west, across the narrow road banked by long grass cut every three months by council tractor to lessen the danger of fire hazard, rose a slight incline, where a herd of some eighty Friesians were grazing along the ridge, which offered another plane, another perspective.  To be broken now and again by some mad bikie hothead, usually Jed Crabtree, burning by at full throttle, front wheel saluting Josie with front wheel raised at forty-five degrees off the bitumen surface, grit edging the runnels of mud, wild grasses, weeds and water.  Speed limit 80 k, but on these scarcely used narrow minor roads, country drivers ripped along, sometimes leaving road-kill of a crushed magpie or grey-furred rabbit or hairy-nosed wombat on the grass verge where the pesky rabbits scrabbled away nights.   Josie would never forget the tortured rictus of a red fox grinning up at her, dead to the world, its innards spewing out on the tarmac.

 

Up close, Josie could claw a bracket of bark without any resistance but a cracking sound of dead matter.  Look up slightly and she could trace the deep dark grooves in the crusty bark which gave it a reddish, heat-blackened look, imagining that one day a violent squall would bring smashing down one of these old fellers onto the family’s pale green tiled roof.  Josie shuddered, hardly dared think of it, not even comforted when old Bert, a nonagenarian who’d left Italy in 1945 at the end of the war, dismissed such an idea.  ‘She’ll be right for many more years yet.  Them roots run deep, very deep.’  Still the ancient stalwart stood firm amid its litter of flimsy twigs and firmer, straighter sticks to use as supports for the climbing broad beans and raspberry canes or long, kinky branches with buds ready to burst forth in flower.  An open wound that sometimes oozed blobs of red gum.  Further down the lane another haunt for the wild ducks was a huge stump of dead wood with a sawn-off head and three-pronged boughs sawn off at the hip.  Bared of its outer casing, the stout grey stump with a hollowed heart and three upward limbs acting as safe landing offered a frequent stop-over and look-out for ducks and chattering classes of other avians.

 

Early dawnings in warmer weather she’d wake up and promptly open the blinds to savour the calming comfort of lush green grasses of their lawns and nature strip and the dull green of gum leaves furled down against the wind.  Then in December the old stringybark would take on a more youthful look with an array of white flowers.

 

 

Jed Taggart, who was five years older, lived on the newish estate the other side of the village.  Neat but very small regulation-type houses, cramped close together, though some brightened up with neatly tended but small gardens.  More noticeable were gardens often neglected with clapped-out cars rusting, even the old cranky school bus grounded on the muddy driveway, once elegant plants now straggly or strangling, browned-off.

 

‘You’d best steer clear of the likes of him, my girl,’ advised Hamish.  ‘He’ll be a shady character up to no good.’  Suddenly saw Jed’s old man in his mind’s eye.  A conman who always had some beef about the neighbours.  It was known locally the man kept a rifle in his laundry.  ‘How does he earn his bread by the way?’

 

‘Oh, this and that,’ Josie shrugged.  ‘You know.’

 

Willing to defend Jed, Josie couldn’t easily read the oddball, his swagger, his bragadaccio, as Bert would say, brashness, brassiness?  How did he pay his way?

 

‘No, lassie, I don’t.  But I do know there’s a whisper round the village that he’s the culprit breaking into folks’ cars on weekends, burns em out on the highway, then ditches em on the side of the road n cadges a lift back home with a mate on stand-by with mobile phone.  Hasn’t he got anything better to do with all that spare time?’

 

‘Any feller who speaks up about cruelty to animals can’t be all bad,’ she was bold enough to reply, pouting with indignation.

 

‘That’s as maybe.  But what does he do to keep the bailiff from the door?  Even his long-suffering mother washes her hands of  ‘im.’

 

‘Oh, Dad, that’s not fair!’  Though willing to defend Jed, she couldn’t easily answer her father’s question.  How did he pay his way?  Odd jobs on his uncle’s farm, driving the old man’s tractor, though he didn’t have a licence; acting with Traffic Control as a lollipop man resurfacing the highway up north.  Risked breaking the speed limit on Friday nights to beat it back home for the weekend.

 

‘There’s a rumour that he’s stirring the possums at the goat farm.’

 

‘Someone has to.  It’s disgusting, disgraceful, unethical.  Male kids being bludgeoned to death with a metal pole.  How callous is that?  Just because they don’t’t milk.  You can’t blame the younger generation from mounting a crusade to protect them!’

 

‘I haven’t heard nothin about bludgeonin goats.’

 

‘Dad, I don’t think you understand.  My generation are much more aware of cruelty and exploitation of animals in captivity.  We have a network of supporters who feel compelled to call out farmers guilty of maltreatment wherever.’

 

Almost a whisper:  ‘Jeez!’  So that’s what’s bin distractin youse.’  He walked to the nearest chair and sat down awkwardly as if in a daze.  More heatedly:  ‘But youse never said nothing!’  Again whispery:  ‘So unlike my own daughter.’

 

‘I’m truly sorry, Dad, but it’s a cruel world out there.’

 

After several seconds:  ‘I can’t believe the local goat farm are exploitin their animals.  Such a thrivin venue for family groups . . . school visits . . . tiny tots.’  Josie sighed, shrugged in exasperation.  ‘Besides, Josie, you’re forgettin somethin.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Haven’t you noticed the price of goat’s meat today?  All the We serve goat ads?  There’s plenty of dough to be made from thieving goats n floggin em off at exorbitant prices.  Is this Jed feller floggin goats on the sly?  Answer me, Josie.’

 

 

It was after midnight when the marauders broke in; shadowy shapes, none of them

appeared locals, some even from Melbourne an hour’s drive away down the highway.

Walked straight up the driveway to the sheds and barns, where they clicked on their torches at the sudden skitter and rustle of a mob of bleating, panicky goats. 

 

Jed was stooping down, appearing to search for some marker on their undersides,

when he heard footsteps crunching louder, then all of a sudden the beam from an arc

lamp lit up the sheds:  ‘Hey, what the bloody hell’s going on here?  Who the hell

are you lot, busting in and scaring my animals to death?  This is private property.

Now beat it before I call the police!’

 

Jed was curious, or at least playing it cool or aiming for some effect. ‘I don’t see no

male goats ‘ere, mate.  What’s the story?’

 

‘None of your concern, chum.  We run a clean business here, not a bloody health

farm.  Now clear off this land before I call the police!’

 

Gradually, the young night-time manager’s eyes began to focus more clearly: the

number of intruders seemed to increase as

shadows materialised in the glaring light.  Perhaps seventy.  Wearing black gear.  With mottoes he could just make out: 

EAT a PLANT, SAVE a PLANT;

WINGS ARE FOR FLYING, NOT FRYING.

‘O oh, Vegan gear.’

 

‘But I’m making it my business, see?  We heard all baby male goats were shot

through the ‘ead with a bolt gun or bludgeoned ter death with a metal pole.  Some of

me mates swear they’ve ‘eard about agonisin convulsions of baby goats hardly a few

weeks old dyin in their own blood.’

 

‘That’s a downright lie!’ retorted the manager, trying to hold back his mounting fury.

‘Then you heard wrong!’

 

But when he realised a handful of these protesters were pointing their video cameras

at him, he knew he had to calm down, muttering to his three co-workers on the

evening shift to keep their hands behind them; otherwise these activists could claim

the video footage might suggest the activists had been physically pushed away, which

could be construed as assault.

 

‘This is dairy country.  We supply milk and cheese.  What’s more, all my workers and

that includes myself, love our three thousand she-goats and we take great care of

them.  Our goats actually enjoy getting attached to the rotary milker and having

a good feed at the same time.  We keep them in those open barns yonder.  By the way,

my name is Howard,’ turning away.  ‘I don’t eat meat either, mate.  Come, see for

yourself our happy free-ranging goats.’  

 

‘Yeah, that’s what we’re here for,’ scowled Jed, who spat on the ground as if he didn’t

believe a word of it.  Nor would he acknowledge Howard’s claim of animal welfare,

as his troupe wound slowly down Capra Farm’s rutted driveway.

 

‘I reckon we stuck it up ‘im all right, the uppity sod.  Though it’s just occurred to me someone’s tipped im off.  What d’jer reckon, Jose?  Hey, get wiv it, babe. You’ve been misery guts tonight.’

 

As they walked down the hill together into the dark, Josie couldn’t see Jed’s face in

shadow, but as he turned towards her, she read his sneer and bristling anger.

 

 

A hail of harassment by vegan activists acted as a scourge on the goat farm lasting some four tiresome months:  abusive phone calls and death threats; three goats and one lamb stolen and driven away in a car boot; Angelica kidnapped but reclaimed in

another car boot; a third was found in an activist’s home with a nappy covering its

rear end to stop the discharge spoiling the carpets; the Capra Café was closed down;

several staff lost their jobs; those on the evening milking round were constantly

startled and heckled by jeering trespassers under cover of darkness:  ‘We know where

 you live!’ they yelled; the business, the whole operation, was targeted.  Activists

 continued to spread rumours about young male kids being bludgeoned to death.

 

Of course, the café closed down.  A small body of retainers was kept on for the

milking roster.  Jed was reported as claiming, ‘I don’t care a brass razoo if you stick

me in jug.  I’ll be happy as Larry inside than animals banged up in captivity.’

 

      Michael Small, December 12, 2020                       

FOOTSTEPS ECHO IN ANTARCTIC MEMORY

Some seventy years have passed by since Ron Avery’s selection as medical officer with Australia’s Antarctic Expedition.  Even today those fond memories of sixteen months attached to the Antarctic Division are still frozen in time, resonating crystal clear in his fogging memory bank.

Unheralded, the Aurora cast off from Hobart’s wharves and glided down the Derwent estuary on the Australia Day weekend, virtually at the height of the Australian summer, so as to reach Antarctica before too much sea ice that might delay the relief party due to arrive the following summer.  The diesel-powered Danish ship, painted a striking red, was not an ice-breaker but ice-strengthened with reversible pitch-screw:  that is, when the chosen few approached the tumultuous seas of the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties, the ship would be operated by a leadsman from the crow’s nest to mount and hack a way forward and back, forward and back through the floating pack ice further south that might hinder progress.  Nowadays the Danish vessel is equipped with helipads to avoid the relief team being delayed by rucks of pack ice.

‘Who’ll be the first bloke to spot an iceberg?’ challenged the medico in a jocular manner.

‘Getting ahead of yourself, ain’t yer, doc?  Mate, we’re still on the bloody Derwent!’

As a young boy brought up in Victoria, Ron was an avid reader of derring do adventures that fuelled his vivid imagination.  Fortunate also to attend a school unusual for offering a curriculum that encompassed the lives of scientists and explorers.  Jumping out at those adolescents the sci-fi fantasy world of Buck Rogers; then later the gritty Polar explorations of such heroic icemen as Sir Ernest Shackleton, Sir Douglas Mawson, Norway’s Roald Amundsen and the legendary Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic.

This particular division, all men in those days as well as first-timers to the sixth continent, fell under the auspices of the Government Department of Supply. They undertook a week of exercises and getting-to-know-you bonding at the Antarctic Division headquarters in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, the main aim of which was to test for compatibility amongst the recruits, most of whom had camped in tents about St Kilda.  One would-be expeditioner, not long out of boarding school, was struck off the list charged with excessive drinking at a country hotel.

Several technically qualified recruits reported back to their employer, presumably to justify their absence or gain promotion in their companies.  Others didn’t feel inclined to submit a report on their sixteen-month experience, a carefree attitude that in those days seemed par for the course.  Keen and conscientious, though, was the medico, Doctor Ron Avery, then in his thirties, who would eventually make a submission based on many experiments he’d begun during that week of initiation.

In addition to the medical officer and the O i/c, Greg Slattery, whose leadership style would prove more egalitarian than hierarchical, that year’s team comprised the 2 o i/c, a science teacher by profession; a qualified chef; diesel mechanics (usually referred to as diesos), who were responsible for running the electric generators, station lighting and the warm store for food as well as the maintenance and fuelling of vehicles; radio operators; physicists; a geologist searching for minerals, such as copper, gold, zinc, lead, chromium, magnesium and coal, although an international ban was enforced on mining; a glaciologist working on the Totten Glacier to research whether bedrock or lakes of water lay beneath the ice; other scientists would investigate the amount of snowfall and its impact; observers of the Auroral light show would be measuring cosmic rays to test for colour; and a magnetometrist, who aimed to measure the depth of snow from ice cones in order to gauge the proportion of gases in bubbles trapped in the ice.  And today it is those bubbles of gas that are fascinating scientists for the information they contain on those far-distant aeons before the emergence of the dinosaur on planet Earth.

As well as their individual roles and areas of expertise, all members of the group would participate in essential operational duties to run the station.

Already getting into their surprise treat of German schnapps and Australian cold beer, the mood of the team would become more apprehensive, though, twenty-four hours out of Hobart:  a marked drop in the temperature and a steep rise in the breakers now crashing against the sides of the Aurora.  As the vessel heeled, faces turned pale and stomachs lurched, causing much nervous high-pitched merriment.

Driving ever south onwards to the Antarctic Convergence, that curious phenomenon where the temperate waves clashed with the chilled seas from Antarctica.  Suddenly, the gigantic wide-winged albatross that had followed in their wake for several hours was given an escort by black and white Cape pigeons and small brown petrels that seemed to walk on water with their web feet.  Ron remembers in particular the greedy skewer gulls with brown plumage on the tops of their wings that would tussle into plastic garbage bags and fly squawking after the titbits of food that he threw out to them.

But there was some muttering amongst the lads about the ‘boss cocky’.  O i/c Greg Slattery had no wish to run a ‘wet’ ship, where alcohol was readily available, whereas every one of the Antarctic hands thirsted for it.  The fact that the O i/c did not pull rank and assert his own preference on this issue was keenly noticed.  Declared one of the older recruits, Reg Hartley:  ‘The top brass must strike the right tone early; otherwise he’ll quickly lose respect.’

As snow began to tumble, the captain informed the men of the 60-degree mark that confirmed they had reached the region of Antarctica.  At such rip-roaring news, most of them broke into a jig and backslapping glee, further enhanced by the sighting of their first, though very small, iceberg bobbing on those icy greyish swells.

Spotting icebergs soon became a popular pastime among the men on deck, as they approached landfall at Casey Station.  Hereabouts, running along the coast of Wilkes Land, the bergs were not pointed as in the Arctic, but quite often almost tabular in their horizontal reach.  In effect, it was the fascinating array of shapes among drifting floes, from small lumps of icing sugar jinking along to thick bastions of towers and turrets as well as sloping runways for sportive seals that left the men spellbound.

In the far distance that jagged, pallid blue outline held Greg Slattery, the O i/c, in thrall for several silent minutes.  This is my Shangri-la, he reflected.  Whenever I walk on that virginal snow alone, I must look back at my very own footprints to reassure myself I am really grounded here on this pristine land.  Nanook of the Far South, he chuckled.  That faint, floaty, fluid image would haunt him for the rest of his life as something otherworldly, mystical even, that appealed to his deeper self; utterly different from those later balding years of frequent flashbacks to days and nights of cold and dark, then blinding white vistas all about or solid blocks of glass blue ice.

Now two weeks after leaving Hobart, the Aurora was closing in on Commonwealth Bay, through driving snow, poor visibility and treacherous waves that lashed out if you dared run the gauntlet across deck.  Sailing through the islands of Dumont d’Urville - the French area of Antarctica - the recruits were blown away by huge colonies of Adelie penguins, all of which would stand up one by one and flap their wings in protest at the intrusion.  In vain, though, the men cast about for those massive sperm whales that once graced these waters before the harpoonists did their grisly blubber work of wholesale slaughter. 

From Dumont d’Urville to Commonwealth Bay, the restless recruits learned there is no sure thing as night-time in Antarctica.  Sound sleep is but a dream.  Bucking ice floes slamming into the Aurora, the skipper eventually found calmer waters whereby the men could glimpse the French Ile des Petrels situated in the South Magnetic Pole and at long last the grey shadow of the Polar icecap, soaring through the mist to 3,000 feet.

But on closer inspection they were all gob-smacked, disgusted, shocked by the hideous volume of trash scudding down steep slopes now utterly despoiled.  Whatever happened to their long-held image of pristine beauty?

Antarctic Division arrived in colder climes at Casey already wearing headgear, whereas the cheery homeward-bound group went bareheaded.  Such a contrast presented Ron Avery, the medical officer, with the first example of acclimatization in this frozen continent, which by chance was his own chosen area for research at the station.  Already he had his personal projects mapped out as well as the task of carrying out periodical tests on the men, some of which he had completed in that first week of bonding, thanks to The Antarctic Committee generously supplying the equipment that he required.  He would measure, for example, the increase in oxygen consumption.  Using the Harpenden skin-fold test, he found that the thickness of skin increased in August, whereas in that same month, body weight decreased.  For measuring subcutaneous fat, he used callipers, whereby he found that blood pressure and pulse rate both decreased in August.  He concluded that the excretion of urine increased in cold stress (as it would in Canberra!) and the size of the epidermis of a gloveless hand increased due to the expansion of elastic tissue.

Early on at the base - in effect, a scientific station handed over by the Americans – the medico recorded that the men’s adrenalin rose at first, a reaction probably due to the stress of being so isolated in such a lonely, remote place, but soon settled back to result in scarcely any increase.  He also noted that Eskimo skin stays warmer than Caucasian skin in cold weather, since fingers and toes turn cold to keep the body warm.  So he considered the question:  Was the men’s acclimatization due to the increase in cold or their degree of fitness?  For the step test to measure physical fitness, which involved every man stepping up and down on a shallow platform, one disgruntled recruit refused:  ‘Seems to me that this so-called exercise is more of a competitive sport,’ he whinged, as if he might be labelled non-sporty or unfit.  Or a bush whacking sloth.

The medico had made a point of packing multi-vitamin pills for the recruits, though the provisions of fruit and vegetables were sufficient, so it was up to them if they availed themselves of the pills; however, there was only one month’s supply of fresh fruit.  Throughout those sixteen months, he was relieved not to perform any extractions of teeth and only once applied a temporary filling.

So many memories come flooding back to Ron today, sitting rugged-up in his rocker:  the waves romping high when a giant wandering albatross that had followed the ship for several hours, most likely hunting for scraps tossed from the kitchen or sighting a shoal of Atlantic cod pursuing their vessel, suddenly found itself floundering, frantically flapping wings for desperate levitation to gain wind currents, trapped between curling crests of whip-lashed waves.  Then the uncanny quietness that gave way to the ringing in one’s ears, winds racing across the frozen ice, and by contrast the sheets of ice striking land and being thrust way above them and that thrill when by himself he chanced to glance over Aurora’s side at that very moment the massive dark greyish-brown back of a whale breached the surface, probably humpback.

 

Casey was one of three Australian stations in Antarctica, the other two being Mawson and Davis.  Which made Australia the largest possessor of Antarctic territory.  It had originally been constructed by American explorers, whose Government later handed it over to the Australian Government.  It was then redesigned for scientific purposes, with a fresh contingent of men signed on every year.  A few years later, women were also encouraged to apply for selection.

Always heated by water to 8 degrees, the individual metal huts with thick walls for insulation stretched out in one long row, standing on rods of steel resembling scaffolding to keep the building free from the snow banking up; instead, the snow would flurry beneath the building. Facing prevailing winds, an incurving steel case wrapped over the structure to provide a passageway running beneath a sheltered cover-way, much appreciated when they were ‘blizzed’ in.  In addition to his own hut with ‘donga’ (sleeping bed with storage compartments beneath), the medical officer worked in the adjacent medical unit, with his books, equipment, test results and medical records.

A separate steel building containing diesel fuel used for electricity brought by the supply ship was situated some distance away for safety.  Diesel fuel now replaced dogs with sledges, although there remained at the station one experienced bitch named Mukluck and her female pup, Jen.  Occasionally, out in the field, Jen would hover on the edge of the ice and decide not to cross it, which was a good enough sign for the men to do likewise, lest they tumble down into the dark depths of a crevasse.

For recreational time-out, the doctor loved to clip on his skis and glide out past the frozen melt lake towards a lone rising mound in the distance, always keeping the station in sight.  He was assisted by one of the diesos, who drove the tractor over the sastrugi or raised mounds to flatten them which when frozen had hard edges to make hard pack snow.  A pump was run through a hose inserted in the melt lake and drinkable water collected in a tank on the back of a tractor.  The paw prints of the two dogs were also a very useful aid, as they hardened after the tractor had blown away the powder snow. Then the skier would glide back downhill.  Rarely did other personnel go skiing, oddly enough, but everyone enjoyed taking a turn at driving one of the two Nodwell tractor trains with caterpillar wheels, shoveling the accumulation of snow away from the station and leveling the surface.  

Tempers might occasionally fray, but certainly some of the men acted less jaunty, more withdrawn. 
Generally, though, morale amongst the men struck a very happy-go-lucky note. There were plenty of distractions offered in the recreation hut, especially in the evenings.  Billiards and darts provided popular competitive activities.  While Karlsberg was adjudged a more agreeable tipple than Aussie ale, home brew, a recreational habit of Australians, offered an alternative boon for drinkers, as did wine nights.  The O i/c, a science graduate, organised the concoction of  'homers' on two nights a week, which helped to redeem him for his wowserism in the eyes of most members.  The various ingredients were brought along with the men on the red ship.  The medico, a non-drinker, hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with damage to someone's eye caused by popping corks.  Twice a week films were screened by means of a projector.

To withstand the bitter cold, the men were fitted out in garments made of windproof ventile; that’s to say, jackets and trousers made from cotton cloth, windproof, not waterproof; and wolverine fur round the hood.  If they were working on field trips outside, they’d obviously wear a parka, trousers, mitts and multi-layered Mukluck boots (multi-layered Eskimo boots that shared the same name as one of the dogs), but overalls if they were working within the station.  For walking around inside, the men wore heavy-weave army-type uniforms.  If they embarked on a field trip, they had to be wary of any undulating tracts of land or a crevasse hidden beneath loose snow or the fragility of ice.  Sloping land leading to the Circe Dome situated on the horizon of this generally flat landscape was too distant for a casual excursion or ‘jolly’.  The cold air could catch at your throat or as the 2 i/c would mutter:  ‘It’s enough to freeze yer bollocks!’  Yet ironically, not one member of this Antarctic expedition caught a cold - in a smallish group, there’s no cold virus circulating.

But even those winter wonderlands lighting up the last wilderness on Earth have a dark side.  An utter whiteout of the whole continent, it appeared:  the White Continent.  You couldn’t see beyond a blinding white, snow-encrusted scape.  Land and sky melded as one, the same tracery. Distances became impossible to gauge with any degree of accuracy.  The unvarying quality of such strong light became monotonous, then menacing.  It now became imperative to wear goggles tinted orange to protect your eyes against the ultra-violet light.  However, snow blindness did not become a problem for this expedition – no-one’s eyeballs were burnt; no-one experienced blinding pain.  Nor did any member of the team suffer from the tip of his nose turning black with frostbite.

Nevertheless, the men were advised that the impact of isolation during those long, dark, freezing winter months might prove a severe problem for some.  Years before, Edward Evans, one of Shackleton’s captains, had warned of that ‘nervous ill-health which afflicts almost everyone confined in a small space.’  So it wasn’t too much of a shock as the year’s recruits approached winter, when suddenly the qualified cook, a former RAF chap, stubbornly refused to carry out his culinary duties and submitted his resignation.  What a nerve!  Surely he couldn’t get away with such an act of defiance.  Yet all this while he had proved very capable of regularly conjuring up a first-class meal as well as preparing a memorable mid-winter dinner special.  Of course, there was no such consequence as a court martial in those days; instead, he was given other regular duties like the rest of the group.

‘He should be made i/c dunnies,’ muttered the 2 i/c, Jake Emberly, but it was the Department of Supply that would have the final word, not the Antarctic Division, so the cook was not charged with any offence and his name placed on the job roster, not only as cooking aid but also for washing-up and laying the table.  Traditionally, the cook was given a portion of the whale oil, a ‘slushy’, a valuable commodity, so a perk for him.  Mercifully, all those newly seconded cooks were wise enough to seek inspiration from the cookbook, not the hazy memory of their own mother’s cooking. 

Due to the dangerous obstacle of floating pack ice, supply ships could not get through to the Antarctic station unless they ran on diesel.  Most food that would keep well was stored outside on a scaffolding of platforms, while some that did not require freezing was kept in the ‘warm store’, conveniently housed inside in one of the long station doorways.  For the annual expedition, a whole year’s supply of fruit and vegetables was provided at the outset of the southbound voyage, although the amount of fresh fruit would last a mere month.

 

By contrast, the opposite situation had arisen during Mawson’s historic race to reach the South Magnetic Pole, whereby he warned his men they’d have to live off meat and blubber from Weddell seals and roasted hearts of the Adelie penguins.  And when he had to choose between dogs and ponies to haul his sledges, he chose ponies because dog meat was not fit for human consumption.

Another danger lurking, about which the men were constantly reminded, was sheets of ice cracking up beneath drifts of snow.  In previous expeditions to find the South Pole, for instance, both men and ponies had to be hauled out by harnesses or ropes.  One of Shackleton’s ponies, Socks, was swallowed up in the twinkling of an eye by the deep black hole of a crevasse that cracked open beneath a deceptively shallow mantle of snow.  Which would have been even more disastrous for that expedition, had it not been for the harness on Sock’s sledge of supplies snapping at the maw’s edge.  Never was a moan heard from that poor old pony falling swiftly to his doom.

It was anticipated that a huge celebration on mid-winter’s day would provide a special highlight before the beginning of the end of the grim dark days.  The men donned boaters and cut out white stripes to stick on their jackets, as if they’d breezed in from the 1920’s. The one disappointment was, ironically, Aurora’s damp squib of a display – a mixing of colours but only green translucent.  ‘Aurora didn’t fire up,’ lamented one wag.  ‘Not even a sniff of a crescendo, utterly unlike the fireworks display banging away on floodlit Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

Today a large framed b & w photo hanging up in Ron’s study reveals all but two of the younger men sporting black beards and most a piratical gleam in the eye.

Wintering in Antarctica, even the 2 i/c himself, Jake Emberly, turned very hostile towards other members of the division, so much so that he appeared more of a hindrance than an assistant to the O i/c.  On the voyage down to Casey, he’d appeared a cheerful, outgoing Catholic chappie, but in those bleak winter months his own temperament was very broody and negative.  Yet when the relief party arrived to take occupation of Casey station, his personality again changed.  Suddenly, he was the life and soul of the party.

Back in May, though, at the commencement of the Aussie footy season, the cutting edge of the wind sliced Emberly’s breath into shallow gasps snatched from his throat.  The air was so fresh, so pure, without that familiar taint of lemon or eucalyptus wafting from a cluster of gum trees.  Although hardly speaking, apart from occasional grunts and nods, his nostrils were twitching as he sniffed back the mucus, the impulse of misery behind his eyes forcing him close to tears.  Kicking his heels, he should’ve been kicking a ball, an oval Sherrin that he’d plucked from the sky and offered to Tim, the younger of the twins and keener, more nimble on his pins even at seven; whereas Kev was timid, too clumsy even to take a mark that inevitably bounced off his pigeon chest.  All these snow-bound Saturdays were unbearable to him, such long, dark days that hamstrung his meditation.  Saturday arvo had him summoning up those beloved times in the outer, shouting for the Magpies, even glancing suddenly at anxious Kev on his seat wriggling in shame at the antics of his loudmouth dad.  These foreign days he was actually touched by the memory of his own so distant son, such a disappointment.  And Rita insisting on the teary lad going to private school, in spite of all the bullying . . .

Then there was Hedley Wiggins, nicknamed Cracker Jack, with a morose, distracted air, found himself hooked on the bizarre habit of breaking lead pencils in half.  He certainly didn’t open up to the medico.  In fact, rarely spoke to anyone.  Why the  hell did I insist on getting engaged before leaving The Big Smoke?  I sensed that little minx had a tarty side.  Couldn’t help herself.  A year was too bloody long for her to hang about, but I’d hardly got to know her.  Bugger it!  I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell to be granted compassionate leave.  In any case, there are a few married blokes stuck out here having a whale of a time, glad of the break from domestic bliss!  Me?  I’m well and truly rooted for another . . . what?  Fifty-odd days!  Jeez, gimme a break!

Such neurotic behaviour was all very strange.  Tempers might fray, though generally the tempo was calm.  Indeed, several of the men became less jaunty, more withdrawn.  But there was some compensation:  films were screened by means of a projector; twice a week billiards and darts were popular activities; there was at least one wine night each week.  Indoor races down the aerodynamic corridor were very popular, especially an imitation of the annual Stawell Gift foot race held in western Victoria.

Moreover, everyone was kept busy, rostered for duties. The least desired task was ‘crapper’ duty.  Big 44-gallon oil drums containing wood chips to burn the ‘crapper fuel’, namely excrement, were set on fire; whereas the urinal or ‘pissaphone’ was a simple affair erected on the outside wall of the recreation room – you were warned never to mix urine with diesel!  

For many of the men, the real bonus of the expedition was easy access to radio communication with loved ones and friends.  ‘To get a wyssa’ was a common expression for obtaining a telegraph code; ‘to get a horny wyssa’ was to contact a loved one.  You only had to be reminded of Emily Shackleton’s year-long separation from her husband half a century earlier, where no communication but letter-writing was feasible, whereas a member of this expedition could simply put in a request for the ‘scheds’ (schedules) and enjoy radio communication at any time, night or day, barring electronic interference.

On Christmas Day, to everyone’s surprise, the cook’s behaviour turned absolutely bizarre.  Once more he offered his culinary skills to prepare a magnificent Christmas dinner, but the men, bitterly recalling Cook’s Resignation Day, as they then termed his cop-out, emphatically disallowed this abrupt change of attitude, scoffing at such hypocrisy. 

‘The man’s a nutter, an oddball!  He’s cooked his goose this time,’ muttered the 2 i/c.

‘Good one, Jake!  Let him lie on the bed he’s made for himself,’ chuckled Wiggins.

‘We ought to take him round the corner an’ knuckle’im,’ said the chief diesel mechanic, whose nickname was Diesel due to his impressive biceps.  ‘He lost the men’s respect long ago.’  Whereupon he spat out his disgust.

‘Whoa there!’ replied the O i/c, just then walking towards the servery. ‘We shouldn’t do anything to make him worse . . .’

 ‘Lest we have to cage him,’ muttered the 2 i/c. 

‘I say, steady on, old boy.  We certainly can’t have that, Jake, as well you know.’

  

To be sure, most of the men revelled in the romance of the Antarctic with its stunning otherworldly mystique, its pristine beauty, but not its dark spells of depression and moodiness and those extremities of physical hardship, your ears ringing in winds whipped up in fury.  With the gradual return of summer and the general tone of the station, the success of the expedition eased into calmer waters.

In mid-August, 2019 the aged medico stumbled across a brief news clip in The Australian:

In the Arctic Circle, one of the last pristine environments on Earth, fragments of plastic are found in high concentrations in Arctic seawater and microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky.

                                                                                                               Michael Small, June 6, 2020

 

 

‘We ought to take him round the yardarm an’ knuckle ‘im,’ said the chief diesel mechanic.

Two weeks after leaving Melbourne on a humid Australia Day weekend in late January, the Antarctic Division arrived in colder climes off Casey Station already wearing headgear, whereas the retiring homeward-bound group, who appeared very toey about being jammed in by the ruckus of pack ice causing several days’ delay, went bareheaded.  Such a contrast in attitude towards headgear presented the medical officer with the first example of acclimatization in this frozen continent, which by chance was his own chosen area for research at the station.  Already he had his personal projects mapped out.  These included the task of carrying out periodical tests on the men, some of which he had performed in that first week of interaction.

 Dr Avery would measure, for example, the increase in oxygen consumption by men working in a more rarefied atmosphere.  Using the Harpenden skin-fold test, he found that the thickness of skin increased in August, whereas in that same month, body weight decreased.  For measuring subcutaneous fat, he used callipers, whereby he found that blood pressure and pulse rate both decreased in August.  He concluded that the excretion of urine increased in cold stress (as it would in wintry Canberra!) and the size of the epidermis of a gloveless hand increased due to the expansion of elastic tissue.

Early on at the base - in effect, a scientific station handed over by the Americans – Dr Avery recorded that the men’s adrenalin rose at first, a reaction probably due to the stress of being so isolated in such a lonely, remote place, but soon settled back to result in scarcely any increase.  He also noted that Eskimo skin stays warmer than Caucasian skin in cold weather, since fingers and toes turn cold to keep the body warm.  So he considered the question:  Was the men’s acclimatization due to the increase in cold or their degree of fitness?  For the step test to measure physical fitness, which involved every man stepping up and down on a shallow platform, one disgruntled recruit refused:  ‘Seems to me that this so-called exercise is more of a competitive sport,’ Forbes Judson whinged, as if he might be labelled non-sporty or unfit.  Or a bushwhacking sloth.

Avery had made a point of packing multi-vitamin pills for the recruits, though the provisions of fruit and vegetables were sufficient, so it was up to them if they availed themselves of the pills; however, there was only one month’s supply of fresh fruit as opposed to an abundance of tinned products.  Throughout those thirteen months, he was relieved not to perform any extractions of teeth and only once applied a temporary filling.

So many memories came flooding back to the medico:  waves romping high when a giant wandering albatross that had followed the ship for hundreds of hours, most likely hunting for scraps tossed from the kitchen or sighting a shoal of Atlantic cod, suddenly found itself floundering, frantically flapping wings for desperate levitation to gain wind currents, trapped between curling crests of waves whiplashed along.  Then the uncanny quietness that gave way to the ringing in one’s ears, winds racing across the frozen ice, and by contrast the sheets of ice striking land and being thrust way above them and that thrill when by himself he chanced to look over the side of the vessel at that very moment the massive dark greyish-brown back of a whale breeched the surface, probably humpback. 

Casey was one of three Australian stations in Antarctica, the other two being Mawson and Davis.  Which made Australia the largest possessor of Antarctic territory.  It had originally been constructed by American explorers, whose Government later handed it over to the Australian Government.  The site was then redesigned for scientific purposes, a fresh contingent of men signing on for one year.  A few years later, women would also be selected.

Fresh water was piped from a nearby melt lake.  For ‘the Water Run’, a tractor with water tank was driven to the lake, a bore put down and fresh water pumped up through a pipe.  Continually heated by water at 8 degrees, the individual metal huts with thick walls for insulation stretched out in one long row, standing on rods of steel resembling scaffolding to keep the building off the snow banking up; instead, the snow would flurry under the building.  An incurving steel case wrapped over the structure to provide a passageway running beneath a sheltered cover-way, much appreciated when the men were ‘blizzed’ in. 

In addition to his own hut with ‘donga’ (a sleeping bunk with storage compartments beneath), the medico worked in the adjacent medical unit, with his books, laboratory equipment acquired by the Antarctic Committee, test results and medical records.  Here he performed his test for cold stress, whereby a younger recruit was asked to lie stationary on the bed for one hour in ten degrees.  He also treated for hypothermia another young man, who was ‘under the weather’ after staggering around in the snow. Two huts were reserved for the mess and recreation.

A separate steel building containing diesel fuel used for electricity brought by the supply ship was situated some distance away for safety.  Diesel fuel now replaced the sledges drawn by two huskies, although there remained at the station one experienced bitch named Mukluk and her female pup.  Occasionally, out in the field, Mukluk would hover on the edge of the ice and decide not to cross it, which was a good enough sign for the men to do likewise, lest they tumble down into the dark depths of a crevasse.  Sledge dogs invariably seemed comfortably oriented towards human beings.

For recreational time-out, the doctor loved to clip on his skis and glide out past the melt lake towards a lone rising mound in the distance, always keeping the station and meteorological balloons in sight, the low drift blowing in his face.  He was assisted by one of the diesos, who obligingly drove the tractor to force down the hard-edged sastrugi to make hard-packed snow.  Occasionally, the medico found himself driving the tractor through a snowdrift but couldn’t see the exact whereabouts of the marker, a 44 gallon drum, due to the almost blinding white-out.  The paw prints of the two dogs were also a very useful aid, as they hardened after the tractor had blown away the powder snow that covered them.  Then he’d glide back downhill.  Rarely did other personnel go skiing, oddly enough, but everyone enjoyed taking a turn at driving the Nodwell tractor train with caterpillar wheels, shoving the accumulation of snow away from the station in different directions to retain some semblance of evenness. 

To withstand the bitter cold, the men’s outer garments were ventile windproof, not waterproof.  If they were working on field trips outside, they’d obviously wear a parka with wolverine fur around the hood, trousers, mitts and multi-layered Mukluck boots (Eskimo boots), but overalls if they were working within the station.  For walking around inside, the men wore heavy-weave army-type uniforms.  If they went on a field trip, they had to be wary of any undulating tracts of land or a crevasse hidden beneath loose snow or the fragility of ice.  The landmark of the Circe Dome beyond the horizon of this generally flat landscape was too distant for a casual excursion or ‘jolly’.  The cold air could catch at your throat or as the 2 i/c would mutter:  ‘It’s enough to freeze yer bollocks!’  Yet ironically, not one member of this Antarctic expedition caught a cold - in a smallish group, there’s no cold virus circulating.

But even those winter wonderlands lighting up the last wilderness on Earth have a dark side.  An utter whiteout of the whole continent, it appeared:  the White Continent.  You couldn’t see beyond a blinding white snowscape.  Land and sky melded as one, the same tracery.  Distances became impossible to gauge with any degree of accuracy.  The unvarying quality of such strong glare became monotonous, then menacing.  It was now imperative to wear goggles tinted orange to protect your eyes against the ultra-violet light, which also enabled you to differentiate surfaces, so that you didn’t trip base over apex as your foot or ski struck a mound.  However, snow blindness did not become a concern for this expedition – no-one’s eyeballs were burnt; no-one suffered blinding pain.  Nor did any member of the team experience the tip of his nose turning black with frostbite.  Two members were disoriented, however.  One young man looking decidedly under the weather suffered a severe case of the staggers, while a second turned shivery with hypothermia.

Nevertheless, the men were advised that the impact of isolation during those long, dark, freezing winter months might prove a severe problem for some.  Years before, Edward Evans, one of Shackleton’s captains, had warned of that ‘nervous ill-health that afflicts almost everyone confined in a small space.’  On Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition, Bertram Armytage, who was genuinely concerned for the welfare of the ponies, became extremely upset when a pony died.  As a colonial, he also fell foul of the aristocratic Brocklehurst and was overlooked for promotion.  Awarded a medal by Edward VII for his contribution to the Antarctic expedition, he shot himself in the head at the Melbourne Club.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock as the year’s recruits approached winter, when suddenly the qualified cook, a former RAF bloke, stubbornly refused to carry out his culinary duties and submitted his resignation.  What a nerve!  Surely he couldn’t get away with such an act of defiance.  Yet all this while he had proved very capable of regularly conjuring up a first-class meal as well as preparing a memorable mid-winter dinner special.  Of course, there was no such consequence as a court martial in those days; instead, he was kept under supervision and given other regular duties like the rest of the company.

‘He should be made i/c dunnies,’ muttered the 2 i/c, but it was the Department of Supply that would have the final word, not the Antarctic Division, so the cook was not charged with any offence; instead, his name was scribbled on the job roster.

Consequently, the o i/c, a science teacher in Civvy Street, drew up a roster of extra duties for the rest of the men, who would take turns to be ‘the slushy’, attending not only to the cooking but also the washing-up and laying the table.  Traditionally, the cook was given a portion of the whale oil, a ‘slushy’, a valuable commodity, so a goodly perk for him.  Fortunately, all those newly seconded cooks were wise enough to seek inspiration from the cookbook, not the memory of their own mothers’ cooking. 

Due to the dangerous obstacle of floating pack ice, supply ships could not get through to the Antarctic station unless they ran on diesel.  These days the difficulty of negotiating the pack ice is solved by the installation of helipads on deck.  Most food that would keep well was stored outside on a scaffolding of platforms, while some that did not require freezing was kept in the ‘warm store’, conveniently housed inside in one of the long station doorways.  For the annual expedition, a whole year’s supply of fruit and vegetables was provided at the outset of the southbound voyage, although the amount of fresh fruit would last a mere month.

 

By contrast, the opposite situation had arisen during Mawson’s historic race to reach the South Magnetic Pole, whereby he warned his men they’d have to live off meat and blubber from Weddell seals and roasted hearts of the Adelie penguins. 

Another danger lurking about which they were constantly reminded was sheets of ice cracking up beneath drifts of snow.  In previous expeditions to find the South Pole, for instance, both men and ponies had to be hauled out by harnesses or ropes.  One of Shackleton’s ponies, Socks, was swallowed up in the twinkling of an eye by a deep black hole of a crevasse that cracked open beneath a deceptively shallow mantle of snow.  Which would have been even more disastrous for that expedition, had it not been for the harness on Sock’s sledge of supplies snapping at the maw’s edge.  Never was a moan heard from that poor old pony falling to his doom.

It was anticipated that a huge celebration on mid-winter’s day would provide a special highlight before the beginning of the end of those grim dark days.  The men donned boaters and cut out white stripes to stick on their jackets, as if they’d just breezed in from the 1920’s.  One stunning disappointment was, ironically, Aurora’s damp squib of a display – a mixing of colours with only green translucent.  ‘Aurora didn’t light up,’ lamented one wag. 

Not even a sniff of a crescendo, thinks old Ron Avery years later, such as floodlit fireworks banging ablaze atop Sydney Harbour Bridge.  A b & w crowded photo brought out by Ron reveals all but two of the younger men sporting black beards and chequered shirts Canadian lumberjack style with a piratical gleam in the eye.

Wintering in Antarctica, even the 2 i/c himself, Jake Emberly, turned very hostile towards fellow members of the Division, so much so that he appeared more of a hindrance than an assistant to the o i/c.  On the voyage down to Casey, he’d appeared a cheerful, outgoing chappie, but in those bleak winter months his own temperament was very broody and negative.  Yet when the relief party arrived in January to take occupation of Casey Station, his personality again changed dramatically.  Suddenly, he was the life and soul of the party.

Back in May, though, at the commencement of the Aussie footy season, the cutting edge of the wind sliced Emberly’s breath into shallow gasps snatched from his throat.  The air was so fresh, so pure, without a taint of lemon or eucalyptus wafting from a cluster of gum trees.  Although hardly speaking, apart from occasional grunts and nods, his nostrils were twitching as he sniffed back the mucus, the impulse of misery behind his eyes forcing him close to tears.  Kicking his heels, he should’ve been kicking a ball, an oval Sherrin that he’d plucked from the sky and offered to Tim, the younger of the twins and keener, more nimble on his pins even at seven; whereas Kev was timid, too clumsy even to take a mark that inevitably bounced off his pigeon chest.  All these snow-bound Saturdays were unbearable to Emberly, such long, dark days that hamstrung his meditation.  Saturday arvo had him summoning up those times in the outer, shouting for the Magpies, even glancing suddenly at anxious Kev on his seat wriggling in shame at the antics of his loudmouth dad.  These foreign days he was actually touched by the memory of his own so distant son, such a disappointment.  And Rita insisting on the lad going to private school, in spite of all the rumoured bullying.

Another bloke, Hedley Wiggins, nicknamed Diesel due to his bulging biceps, with a morose, distracted air, found himself hooked on the habit of breaking lead pencils in half.  He certainly didn’t open up to the medico about the black dog.  In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone.  Why the hell did I insist on getting engaged before leaving The Big Smoke? I sensed that little minx had a tarty side.  Couldn’t help herself.  A year was too bloody long for her to hang about.  And I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell to be granted compassionate leave.  In any case, there are a few married blokes stuck out here and they’re all happy campers, glad for the break from domestic bliss!  Me?  I’m well and truly rooted for another coupla months!  Jeez!

Such neurotic behaviour was all very strange among doughty volunteers.  Tempers  might occasionally fray, but certainly some of the men acted less jaunty, more withdrawn.  Generally, though, morale amongst the team struck a very happy-go-lucky note.  There were plenty of distractions offered in the recreation hut, especially in the evenings.  Billiards and darts provided popular competitive activities.  While Karlsberg was adjudged a more agreeable tipple than Aussie ale, home brew, a recreational habit of Australians, offered an alternative boon for drinkers, as did weekly wine nights.  The o i/c, a science graduate, organised the concoction of ‘homers’ on two nights a week, the various ingredients brought with them on the red ship.  The medico, a non-drinker himself, hoped that he wouldn’t have to deal with damage to someone’s eye caused by popping corks.  Twice a week films were screened by means of a projector.  And Aussies’ love of sport was reflected in the annual Stawell Gift, a foot race over 110 metres held in western Victoria, which the men imitated by taking turns one at a time by racing down the central passageway of the main building to record the fastest time.

Moreover, everyone was kept busy, rostered for duties. The least desired task was ‘crapper’ duty.  Big 44-gallon oil drums containing wood chips to burn the ‘crapper fuel’, namely excrement, were set on fire; whereas the urinal or ‘pissaphone’ was a simple affair erected on the outside wall of the recreation room – it wasn’t permissible to mix urine with diesel.  

For many of the men, the real bonus of the expedition was easy access to radio communication with loved ones and friends.  ‘To get a wyssa’ was a common expression for obtaining a telegraph code; ‘to get a horny wyssa’ was to contact a loved one.  You only had to be reminded of Emily Shackleton’s year-long separation from her husband half a century earlier, where no communication but letter-writing was feasible, whereas a member of this expedition could simply make a request for the ‘scheds’ (the schedules) and enjoy radio communication at any time, night or day, barring electronic interference.

In Antarctic summertime Ron Avery relished a brisk swim close to the shore line or stealthy walk across floating pack ice in sight of the station, where he might strike lucky with a visit from the skewer gulls, a relative of the seagull but larger and somewhat aggressive, recognizable by their light brown breast and darker brown wings.  Even in those distant days, they’d tussle into plastic garbage bags.  The medico would feign to toss them some food in one direction, only to toss it in another and they’d squawk and flap after it.  Once he spotted a small petrel capable of walking on water, thanks to its webfeet.  Sometimes he’d notice a tall, dignified Emperor Penguin reconnoitring the station.  More unusual, a seal flopped up on their doorstep.  Most charming, especially in breeding season, the nearby rookery of small Adelie penguins with their black and white stomachs and comical waddling, named for the wife of the French explorer, Dumont d’Urville.

On Christmas Day, to everyone’s surprise, the cook once more made a show of offering his culinary skills to prepare, in his words, ‘a magnificent Christmas dinner’.

Except that the men, bitterly recalling Cook’s Resignation Day, as they had labelled it, emphatically disallowed this abrupt change of attitude, scoffing at such hypocrisy.

‘Let him lie on the bed he’s made for himself,’ muttered the 2 i/c, Jake Emberly.

‘We ought to take him round the corner an’ knuckle ‘im,’ Diesel spat out.  ‘He lost the men’s respect long ago.’

‘Whoa there!’ replied one of the radio operators.  ‘We shouldn’t do anything to make him worse, lest we have to stick him in a cage.’

‘Nonsense, man, no way!’ was the immediate response from the o i/c. ‘Tell that to the marines, but not to the head honchos of the Antarctic Division.’

With the gradual return of summer and the prospect of RTA, Return To Australia, sailing back home to the snug warmth of Hobart, the general tone of the station eased into calmer waters. 

Fast forward to mid-August, 2019: Ron Avery, the aged medico, was startled, bewildered, deeply saddened.  He’d suddenly stumbled across a brief news clip in The Australian on that other Polar continent:

In the Arctic Circle, one of the last pristine environments on Earth, fragments of plastic are found in high concentrations in Arctic seawater and microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky.                                                  

Michael Small                                                             August 4-October 3, 2019