The Nature of Ice Read online

  Tommo squeals, throws down his carving knife and holds up a finger plump as a frankfurter, the tip burst and bloodied. ‘Faaark!’

  Sandy sighs. ‘Call the Doc, someone. Anyone.’ He looks out at the empty dining room. ‘Never mind, I’ll do it myself.’

  Chad raises his hand. ‘I’ve got it, Sandy.’ He turns to Freya. ‘I’ll help if I’m wanted. Your call.’ And off he marches towards the phone.

  FREYA SPENDS HER AFTERNOON break in the lounge, still draped in her apron, shoes kicked off. She pulls a book from the library shelf—Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries—kicks off her shoes and spreads out across two easy chairs.

  Marcus says she owes her presence here not just to Frank Hurley but to Douglas Mawson and John King Davis, Antarctic pioneers after whom two of Australia’s continental stations were named. A portrait of a gaunt-looking Davis hangs framed in the station foyer, a young face prematurely aged by dourness. 1884–1967. Master of the Aurora 1911–14. Second in Command of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

  Freya yawns as she leafs through Mawson’s diary, her eyes heavy as she scans photos and hut notices: Members of the Staff will be appointed in succession to the special posts of cook, messman and nightwatchman. Duties commence at 7 a.m. and continue until the washing and cleaning are completed in the evening—

  ‘Douglas Mawson.’ The station leader’s voice jolts her back to full consciousness. Malcolm stands in the light, casting his shadow across the open pages. ‘A fellow we can all look up to. Thankfully no curried seal or penguin fricassee on our menu, but each man took his turn helping in the kitchen, just as we do today. Wouldn’t we all give our eyeteeth to be on an expedition like that?’

  Freya offers a feeble smile. ‘I doubt he invited too many women along.’

  ‘True,’ Malcolm slides the chairs into an orderly circle, ‘though Mawson was an egalitarian. No class distinctions on his expedition. They were all expected to put their shoulders to the wheel.’ Malcolm scoops up the magazines scattered on the coffee table. He is, Freya decides, a touch too industrious for his own good.

  ‘Sorted out your itinerary with Mr McGonigal?’ he says.

  Freya hesitates. ‘Adam Singer mentioned that he’d love the chance to help. Perhaps he and I—’

  ‘It’s Singer’s first time at Davis. Chad’s been coming to Antarctica since the sledging days. He knows the Vestfolds like the back of his hand. He has a great deal of knowledge to impart, once you chisel your way through that outer shell.’

  ‘He doesn’t appear very keen,’ Freya says in desperation.

  ‘McGonigal? All bluff and bluster. He’d set up camp out on the ice if he had his way.’

  ‘Really?’ she says, unconvinced.

  ‘There are some ripsnorting tales from the Heroic Era,’ he says, dismissing further comment on the topic of Chad. ‘Always been a big fan of Mawson and Davis, outstanding achievers the pair of them. They made a good team, at least in the early years. Not always an easy alliance—one man driven by a passion for science, the other responsible for the safety of his ship and crew.’ Malcolm pauses. ‘Not unlike the daily trials of a station leader.’

  He returns the magazines to the cupboard and sorts them into evenly sized stacks.

  ‘Hours of riveting reading up there.’ He gestures to the bookshelves. ‘If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, you can’t do better than Mawson’s journal. Davis’s is floating somewhere round the traps.’ Malcolm sidles between the chairs and plucks a lilac-coloured volume from the bookcase, handing it to Freya as though it were a required text. ‘Blockbusters, the pair of’em.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  He returns to the magazine cupboard and snaps the doors shut. ‘Better than wasting your time on this mind-numbing rot.’

  Everything shipshape and stowed away, Malcolm evaporates from the lounge as suddenly as he materialised. He leaves Freya feeling she should sit up straight, improve her posture, find better things to do than slouch about in socks. Blockbusters. She wouldn’t put it past him to follow up with study questions.

  FOLLOWING DINNER, A GROUP DRIFTS in from the dining room to gather around the bar. A clack of pool balls reverberates through the lounge, lights flood the dartboard, Meteorology vs Whitecoats chalked up on the blackboard. Chad McGonigal keeps to the sidelines, rinsing empty beer bottles for recycling. The help-yourself fridge is filled to the gills with homebrew—Adélie Ale, Davis Draught, Blizz Bitter and more. Bottling nights are a production assembly line rarely short of volunteers.

  According to Fling, wintering sparkie and brewmaster extraordinaire, the reputation of Davis beer has gained international renown, confirmed by a tourist icebreaker that called in last summer. ‘’Twas only a matter of time,’ he declares to those gathered at the bar. Chad listens to Fling ease from his usual Scottish brogue into his best Texan drawl, mimicking the couple that had declined tea and coffee. ‘Howzabout a li’lla’ that holm-broo y’awl got stashed away.’ Always good for a yarn, is Fling.

  ‘Wouldn’t you know,’ the brewmaster continues, reverting to his Glaswegian lilt, ‘before Chad could summon up a fresh tray of glasses, we had a score of Americans, six German neurologists, and a family of Italians sporting designer jackets with sealskin trims forming a queue from the bar, out through the lounge and clogging up the entry to the cold porch. Even the two wee bairns waited in line. Chad, is that not God’s truth?’

  Chad nods. Fling empties his glass. ‘Poor old Chad’s morning tour of the station was reduced to a smattering of teetotallers.’

  ‘The fewer the better,’ Chad says, though his words are drowned out by laughter.

  Charlie makes a space for the new arrival. ‘Here she is, the little battler. Survived your day as super slushy, Freya?’

  ‘Barely. Thanks for helping out this morning.’

  ‘Chad,’ Charlie calls. ‘Get the girl a drink before she drops in her tracks.’

  But Freya doesn’t need his help; she stands at the fridge scanning the homebrew before holding up a bottle marked Ginger Beer.

  ‘Kicks like a mule,’ Fling boasts.

  The recycled bottle still wears the remnants of a Japanese beer label. Chad watches Freya carrying the bottle at arm’s length in case the fermented brew, like a dodgy firework, explodes unannounced.

  He studies her as she uncaps the bottle and pours herself a drink, the sight of the foaming liquid washing his thoughts back to his own homebrewing days.

  He remembers the pinch of sunburned skin pink with calamine lotion on a night too hot for a ten-year-old to sleep indoors. Lying in a canvas swag his father had rigged between two trees, he could spy Orion through the mosquito mesh. If he concentrated hard he could add up each star that winked—his count roundly broken by an almighty blast from the boatshed. At the second explosion he sat up, resigned to a third. His latest batch of ginger beer had blown its caps.

  He could hear the old man up on the verandah, Thar she blows, Sal.

  Ma’s belly laugh could fill all five rooms of the shack, roly-poly down the hill to the beach and still have enough in reserve to make the seagulls on the point stand to attention.

  After breakfast Chad and Ma would be faced with the aftermath, their rubber thongs squelching on the sticky cement. Don’t go near the broken glass, love. Ma would wear a stoic grimace as she gallantly carried the survivors from the shed and stacked them out of harm’s way beneath the tank stand, arguing that as she came protected by an inbuilt layer of cushioning, she was best equipped to transport any live ammunition.

  Even then, Chad understood his family summers were special, better by a mile than his schoolmates’ back in town. Sacrosanct these things that are numbered, he thinks now, summers with all three of them together the grab-’em-while-they-last kind.

  ‘Earth to McGonigal!’ Simon stands at the whiteboard with his marker pen poised. ‘You putting on a flick tonight?’

  ‘Ask Freya. Slushy’s choice.’

  ‘Amelie,’ Freya announces. />
  ‘New one on me,’ spouts Fling, who hasn’t watched a film since Chad’s known him.

  ‘Chick flick,’ two of the dart players cry out in unison.

  At the end of the bar, Kittie jumps up in support of Freya. ‘Amelie is a wonderful movie. European films are so much more creative and uplifting than the formulaic crap Hollywood spits out.’

  ‘Chick flick with subtitles,’ the met boys shout.

  ‘I’ve seen it. It’s good,’ Chad offers, though no one but Freya acknowledges him with a smile.

  Simon adds a line beneath the film title: Slushy’s choice. Uplifting and creative.

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ Charlie says. ‘Drive’em away in their droves?’

  Chad leaves the banter, intending to secure a good seat at the end of an aisle.

  Freya trails him to the theatre door. ‘I was wondering if you’d have any time this week. To come out.’

  Chad shrugs. Freya Jorgensen has some ground to make up before she can start asking any favours of him.

  ‘I was thinking we could head out to one of the islands. If that sounds alright.’ She begins to squirm, starts to walk away.

  It feels a niggardly kind of win. ‘Sounds okay.’

  A release of breath. ‘First day of good weather?’

  Chad gestures to Kittie. ‘Have your mate put in an order.’

  CHAD LINGERS IN THE THEATRE while the closing credits of Amelie roll up the screen. His seventh winter on the ice was the year the film was made. How many more winters would he put his hand up for, he who had always planned to see the world? He switches off the player and slips the DVD back onto the shelf. He runs his palm across the leather satchels that line the theatre walls. He likes the texture of the cases that house the old sixteen-millimetre movie reels; faded delivery stickers—railway express, films urgent—speak of their commercial days. Chad savours the smell of age trapped in the leather, the sense of preservation in the straps and buckles that hold the cans in place. Film was on its way out when he began his time down here. The collection would be gone altogether, shipped back to Australia lock, stock and two smoking barrels, if not for a few sentimental stalwarts like himself who refuse to surrender to change.

  This past winter, he’d screened a golden oldie twice a week. He’d fed each reel through the jaws of a fickle reconditioned beast that would, given half a chance, chew up every splice and spit out rags of film. He’d arrived at the theatre ahead of time to fill baskets with Roses chocolates and chips—it was as close as he could imagine to hosting his own party.

  Chad cherishes the quality of film, the texture of the grain, the imperfections and scratches that stream down the screen and give it charm. He finds magical the razzle-dazzle, star-crossed lovers, women’s satin gowns. He is drawn dizzily, hopelessly, to happy-ever-afters and uncomplicated lives.

  He gathers a handful of mugs left between the chairs and makes his way from the theatre, dimming all the lights but one. A red glow spills from the glass of the projection booth. He hears the soft slurring of breath, the nasal intake of air, an ebb before each exhalation. Hair falls across her blemished cheek, her face a porcelain mask against the crimson light. Freya Jorgensen slumps in the back row, legs limp, arms folded across her chest, a rag doll out for the count.

  Hell let loose

  May 1912

  THOSE RASCAL DOGS HAD BROKEN out of the verandah again. They emerged through the drift, slipping and slithering over polished ice, exhilarated to come across an ambulatory man dragging an extinguished lantern and groping on all fours to find his way home. Pavlova inspected Douglas’s rear while Ginger and Gadget nosed the rime of ice lining his burberry helmet. In a blizzard, the forty yards from the Stevenson meteorological screen back to the hut might be a blanket of mist spread across the sea for all he could see through the drift.

  The whistling of wind formed a song, a ceaseless whine that pervaded men’s dreams and did its best to drown out every thought. He wore fur mittens, two pairs of woollen socks, and still his toes and fingers throbbed. Wind savaged the body, seared any flesh left uncovered. The men of winter quarters could be likened to a band of painted warriors, at one against the foe, their cheeks and brows scarred with lines of frostnip. Twice now Hurley had paid the price of operating his camera without a glove, his fingertips blackened from freezing.

  Douglas patted at a shape to gain a bearing. Wind and snowdrift had scoured the boxes of food stacked along the wall of the hut, carving grooves through softer portions of the wooden casing and leaving harder fibres raised in relief. An identical process of abrasion hardened and polished the surrounding territory, channelling snow and ice into east– west ridges of sastrugi—the frozen waves a source of direction for a purblind man.

  He climbed the snow bank against the western wall and eased his body down through the roof’s newly installed trapdoor.

  At Commonwealth Bay, abdication to the elements came in incremental acts of surrender. They had given up shovelling snowdrift from the hut’s main entry; they had let that verandah go.

  By 11.45 at night the wind sounded terrific. Timbers shimmied, the hut cracked as if set to explode. When Douglas emerged from his cabin, the crowd around Hyde Park Corner—the meeting place named by Ninnis—looked a solemn gathering indeed. John Close, the expedition’s so-called physical fitness expert, ten years older than his application claimed and too often disposed to idleness, looked ashen-faced.

  ‘What is it?’ Douglas asked.

  ‘This wind could sweep away the whole blooming show.’ Close’s voice sounded reedy and thin. ‘Could lift the hut clean up and dump it in the sea.’

  On a good day, Douglas found Close’s timorous nature farcical—the acetylene generator for the lights would explode, they’d all perish from scurvy, if the stove ran down they would surely freeze to death in their sleeping bags. Send him out in a blizzard to collect the day’s ice and you’d think he’d been banished. But tonight …D ouglas couldn’t help asking himself where they would find refuge if the hut gave way. By the volume of shrieks the gusts were nearing one hundred and fifty miles an hour. It seemed unbelievable that air could flow so swiftly.

  ‘Not me alone what’s concerned.’ Close sniffed. ‘You ask the boys.’

  Azi Webb, the chief magnetician, unfolded some jottings from his pocket. ‘Bage and I did the calculations. Eighty pound of wind to the square foot will stress the roof rafters about six thousand pounds per square inch. The full strength of the timber.’

  ‘How does that rate in wind speed?’

  ‘One hundred and thirty miles an hour, or thereabouts.’

  ‘The only thing holding her in place,’ Bage said, ‘is the volume of snow banked around the walls.’

  ‘Not this one.’ Ninnis thumped the wall beside his bunk. He was right: the prevailing wind quickly blasted away any accumulation of snow on the hut’s southern side.

  ‘I was saying to the boys—God willing, we’re all still here tomorrow—that we could build a snow bank,’ the meteorologist Cecil Madigan said. ‘If we stack a crescent of benzine fuel cases, say, ten yards behind the hut, the wind should dump snow between it and the back wall.’

  ‘Put the hut in a better lee,’ Douglas said. He should have thought of it himself. He left the group and pulled down the meteorological log: the day’s minimum –21°F. He lingered over the monthly averages, the figures belying the wind’s fury.

  February 26.6 mph

  March 49.0 mph

  April 51.6 mph

  He tried and tried again to summon memories of a world not ravaged by wind. A civilised world with freshly laundered clothes, polished fruit upon a sideboard, the softness of a woman’s hand. But even his image of Paquita had dimmed, as if the features of her sweet and gentle face, the detail of her frock, were permanently veiled by snowdrift. Through these wretched months he’d written not a word to Paquita—what, of consequence, could a letter tell? That her fiancé and his men had been reduced to trogladytes, confined to a h
ut entombed in snow? That he, who once had hauled a sledge twelve hundred miles to the south magnetic pole—that wandering point on the earth’s surface where the magnetic field rises vertically—knew naught of any landmark beyond the rise? No one outside this dismal realm could fathom conditions so brutal that the simplest task—retrieving a recording, collecting daily ice— demanded superhuman effort. The wireless masts lay fallow on the ground; the lower segments were no sooner raised than wind chafed the rope supports and he ordered them to be pulled down again. When he cast his memory back to his first Antarctic winter with Shackleton, he could recall the bitter cold, but never at Cape Royds had he known this unremitting fury. Here at Commonwealth Bay, the wind ripped and rent, bent and bullied; it had torn their whaleboat from its anchors and delivered it across the frozen harbour to kingdom come. Douglas shook his head. He would write no such letter lest the very act of doing so administered defeat.

  The hut quaked. Wind shrilled. Douglas totted up wind speeds for the first half of May and estimated the average at sixty-four miles an hour.

  He entered Hell let loose in the midnight record and placed the log back on the shelf. Winter hadn’t even begun.

  Collecting ice from the glacier at winter quarters

  A THOUSAND

  RIVERS

  FREYA KICKS OFF HER MUDDY boots, opens her studio door, strews her gear across the floor and kneels beside the heater. It’s nine at night and she’s exhausted. Exhilarated. In truth, she’s also relieved to have got through the afternoon without giving in. She would not have guessed, this morning, how rapidly the weather could turn, or how a minus-thirty windchill could chew through so many camera batteries. The cold had drained her own reserves.

  This morning, they had driven out across the ice in perfect sunshine. There wasn’t a breath of wind as she and Chad McGonigal tramped around the island in silence, he sitting down a respectable distance away each time she stopped to photograph the antics of courting penguins. She followed Chad’s example and kept to herself, her novice’s delight at the sight of so many penguins held in check by the muteness of her guide. They’d stopped for lunch at three o’clock, the dissonant brays and squawks from nearby penguins suddenly comical beside their own silence. She had laughed aloud, then turned to Chad: It’s a noisy business, impressing a mate. Chad had grunted and pointed at a male suitor making an elaborate display of building a nest. The adélie waddled industriously up and down the slope, ferrying a single stone at a time. They watched him posture before his would-be mate, dip his head low in rhythmic waves and finally place each stone just so. She looks smitten to me, Freya had said; the female bowed her head in concert with his moves. But no. Female adélies are a fickle lot, Chad muttered. She’ll as easily up and march away if he doesn’t get it right.