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