by Hamish Ross
PART III
8
ANTARCTIC INTERLUDE
Unarm, Eros, the long day’s task is done . . .
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Five weeks after he left the Army, Mayne was in Montevideo, awaiting the arrival of Mike Sadler and John Tonkin. By signing a two-year contract to work in Antarctica, he had deferred a long-term career decision; he had also opted for a further period in the comradeship of men rather than family or wider society. It would be a life lived very much in the open, in an inhospitable environment. Whimsy may have prompted his decision, but he was giving himself time to think; he was returning to a wilderness – this time to a snow desert; and he intended to write.
In a letter to his mother, Mayne said that he had been offered an interesting job, but his letter revealed nothing about the nature of that job. Omitting detail may have been a continuation of wartime practice; it may also have been because, in some quarters, it was felt a degree of secrecy should continue to surround what the UK was doing in Antarctica, for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey was more important in terms of its political and strategic purposes than its scientific ones.
Antarctica was of strategic importance to Britain in time of war. The area had been the scene of naval encounters during the First World War, and continued to be important in the Second World War for the control of shipping lanes around Cape Horn. But, in addition, Britain had an issue of sovereignty over what were then called the Falkland Island Dependencies (now South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory) against competing claims from both Argentina and Chile to parts of Antarctica. Political developments in the 1940s in Argentina in particular were of concern to Britain lest that country take control of the southern side of the Drake Passage. To forestall these countries setting up bases in areas that were considered important to British interests, in 1943 the government inaugurated Operation Tabarin.1
An inter-departmental expedition committee was set up, drawn from the Colonial Office, Admiralty, Foreign Office, War Transport, Crown Agents and a section within the Colonial Office which was studying biology in the Southern Ocean. Operation Tabarin came under the command of Cdr Marr RNVR. The intention was to establish a number of bases. During 1943–4, Base A was set up at Port Lockroy and Base B on Deception Island; the following year, these two bases were restored and a third, Base D, was set up in Hope Bay in northern Graham Land. When Cdr Marr had to return to the UK in early 1945 due to ill health, his replacement, Capt Taylor, was provided by the Army. But with the end of hostilities in 1945, Operation Tabarin was renamed the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and came under the command of Cdr Bingham RN. His orders were to restore these three bases and, as top priority, set up a new base on Laurie Island. He was also ordered to place depots in unoccupied Sandy Fjord Bay on Coronation Island, on Argentine Island and Debenham Island. Finally, he was to establish a base in Marguerite Bay on Stonington Island.
There were competing interests, however. The group who had gone to Base A in 1943–4 found a metal Argentine flag left by the ship Primero de Mayo a few months earlier. Confirmation of what the survey could expect by way of political intent on the part of other countries with an interest in the region appears in Cdr Bingham’s final report. He revealed that in the year following the survey’s arrival both Argentina and Chile sent expeditions to establish bases. Shortly after the survey set up a base in Admiralty Bay on King George Island, a Chilean ship arrived with an expedition and found themselves forestalled. Similarly, when an Argentine group landed at Port Lockroy they found an ‘occupation party’ of two men already there, forcing them to move to an alternative area which Bingham, in his report, wrote, ‘can, I think, be considered to be in a most unsuitable place, and of little political and less strategic importance’.2 He also confirmed that when these expeditions landed they were being challenged by the survey. In his opinion the Chileans and Argentinians had put up ‘an opposition show’ to test the reactions of the survey. But the scale of these countries’ expeditions was larger than that of the UK Survey: the Argentines mustered six ships, and the Chileans a frigate and two transports.
Falkland Islands Dependencies 1945–6
So at the end of the war, the UK’s strategy remained as it had been: asserting its sovereignty over these territories but shading the emphasis of its purposes from the military connotations of the Operation Tabarin expedition to the claims of science. This was also a useful device, because there had been two strands of British interest in Antarctica since the beginning of the century. The Scott and Shackleton expeditions represented the imperialist strand of British interest, and the lesser-known Scotia expedition of Bruce represented scientific interest. Hence, in late 1945, the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey was a quasi-military group of some thirty members, part service personnel, part civilians, commanded by a naval officer who was a surgeon-commander with experience in the Antarctic and a second-in-command who had commanded 1 SAS; as well as surveyors, geologists, meteorologists, some carrying out general scientific work, telegraphists and two other former officers of the SAS.
Most of the expedition’s members and all its supplies were to converge by different ships on Montevideo. However, Bingham and Mayne travelled by air.
Airline schedules were skeletal immediately after the war and Mayne’s route took him via Portugal, West Africa and Brazil to Uruguay, where he arrived on 8 December. The first ship carrying personnel and supplies for the expedition, Empire Might, was not due to arrive until 17 December. The British Embassy facilitated local organisational affairs, so Bingham and his second-in-command were able to enjoy an indolent few days, though Bingham, shortly after their arrival, suffered from a bout of tonsillitis and took to his bed. And Mayne, in his hotel, on Saturday 15 December, following what would have been standard practice on explorations and expeditions, began to write a journal. It is probably the longest sustained personal record-keeping that he undertook. Coming as it did within months of the end of the war, it is of considerable interest.
Very little is known about this period of Mayne’s life; and in the only book where it was dealt with – almost entirely from hearsay – the account turns out to be fantasy.3 The greater part of what has been written about Mayne over the years is based on anecdotal reports. There are problems, however, with relying too heavily on this approach, particularly in the case of someone of his status and stature: for one, there are inconsistencies, and respondents may also have an agenda; and in our society, an aura surrounds the warrior hero which tends to generate hyperbole. Here, in his journal, Mayne wrote with insight about others and himself, providing a touchstone against which some of what has subsequently been written about him can be tested. It is written in an informal style, for the most part, and its syntax reflects the speech patterns of his part of Ireland.
While Mayne wrote his first entry on 15 December 1945, he chose as the starting point for his thoughts the Sunday at Chelmsford when he left the army. He briefly summarised the intervening weeks: he had had a week at home, then he flew first to Portugal then via West Africa to Natal in Brazil, where he stayed for a few days. Something occurred there that stayed with him. He had gone to an open-air cinema, but he felt that the film was not very good and so he, ‘spent most of the time watching Orion. He looked just like an old friend, even though he was upside down with Sirius higher than Pleiades.’4
On 26 November, in Natal, Mayne wrote to one of his former soldiers, Billy Hull. Hull had been his most recent driver in the regiment, and he also came from Newtownards. He had asked Mayne to help him obtain the let of a property in Newtownards, which was owned by the Mayne family. In his letter, Mayne reassured Hull that he had enquired about the legal position concerning the house and advised him what next he should do. His letter shows the continuing commitment that Mayne felt to those who had served under him and who requested his assistance, for he did not leave matters there: he gave Hull his address with the survey lest fu
rther follow-up was required.5
From Natal he went south in Brazill and had several days in Rio de Janeiro, sightseeing and swimming, before arriving in Montevideo. It was a time for rest and recuperation and his journal records the trivia of a lazy few days. Mayne relaxed, went swimming – one day he stayed too long in the sun – and in the evenings dined and socialised with members of the British community. He had drinks in the English Club with Peter Swan, the Press Officer at the British Embassy. After war-ravaged Europe, he contrasted the South American lifestyle when he took Pirrie Geddes out to dinner at Las Palmas: ‘melon and ham tournedos and strawberries with lashings of cream. They certainly do feed themselves well in this country’. One Saturday night he wrote, ‘I ate the largest steak I have ever seen, or at least ate most of it. It weighed about two pounds, a snack as far as the Uruguayans are concerned.’6
Mayne anticipated the arrival of his two colleagues from the SAS, and he planned the kind of welcome for them that would have confounded some of those who have written about him in the past:
I haven’t yet regretted signing on for this business. I’m looking forward to seeing Sadler and Tonkin again. They are due on Monday. I have arranged a party for Tuesday night. Pirrie is finding another couple of girls. I imagine we will probably still be here next week.
Bingham has recovered from his tonsillitis. He got up yesterday, celebrated his return quite successfully, or appeared to have when I saw him last night.7
The writer of these words had been the commanding officer who, months or a year earlier, had objected to having women at a party in the mess. However, his perception of the dedication that was required from each individual if the unit was to function in war was not motivated by misogyny, as we have already seen. But many have made this wrong assumption. It is perfectly clear from the early pages of his journal onwards that he appreciated the company of women. On two occasions Mayne wrote about someone called Eileen, who may have served on the Embassy staff. In the first reference to her he simply put it, ‘started to think about Eileen’, and in the second, ‘Eileen looked very well this morning’. On another occasion he had lunch in the home of a Briton who had a Uruguayan wife; also invited was someone whom Mayne described as ‘a most amazing-looking Englishwoman’. But, in addition to her looks, he thought her lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others worthy of note, for he wrote that she proclaimed that ‘the food was so pleasant that Lucy, the wife, might almost be English’. She continued categorising throughout the meal, asking finally, ‘if the pudding had been tinned by Swifts?’
On 17 December, Mayne learned that the Empire Might would not now arrive, it was said, until Friday, so ‘I have cancelled the party I arranged for Tonkin and Sadler.’ But he assuaged his disappointment that night. Mayne’s journal gives proof (as it were) that, in terms of the two groups that life-insurance companies divided people into at the time – those who were teetotal and those who took ‘an occasional refreshment’ – he was firmly in the latter category, for such was the degree of refreshment he achieved that, when he picked up his pen to record his thoughts in the early hours of the morning, his writing became completely illegible. It is as though he wrote in snatches over some hours, because towards the end it becomes legible. While his psychomotor skills were severely impaired, he had reached the point where the imbiber experiences great lucidity of thought:
It is 4 o’clock now I am blathering somewhat by my sobriety.
How do you prove that you are sober?
It is about time everyone went to bed.
I am the only person who is not asleep.8
Then he went on to make an eloquent case for drinking. Acting as solicitor for the defence, he put forward the prosecution’s case for drinking only in moderation, then countered it with the argument for immoderate drinking – but with a caveat. First he asked the question, ‘How do you become a sensible person who drinks merely when there is reason?’ Then he delivered the response, ‘Why shouldn’t you drink as long as you are not a NUISANCE. A bad thing if you get pickled; you shouldn’t.’ And, having disposed of the argument, his final statement simply reads, ‘Started to think about Eileen’.
But in his sobriety, Mayne gives insights into his kind of drinking and his attitude to it. Agnostic he may have been, but behind that lay a Presbyterian moral rectitude and concern about public propriety; for he monitored his drinking. On one occasion he recorded ruefully – admitting it required five asprins to cure his headache – ‘Five gin and tonics and one gin and vermouth is overmuch before lunch.’ At 5.25 a.m. on the last Wednesday before Christmas, regretting the excesses of the night before – though his concession to abstinence would not have impressed a liver specialist – he wrote, ‘I’m only going to drink beer until I leave these South American shores.’ Later, he thought better of that undertaking. After Tonkin and Sadler had joined the group, and each member of the survey had been allocated to one of three ships for the first leg of the trip south, the night before Sadler was due to sail, Mayne went round to Sadler’s hotel, the Florida.
We left there about 4.30 and unfortunately instead of having a spot of sleep started talking and drinking with O’Sullivan until 7.00 when we went round to Las Palmas where I had some more gin and then on to the Swans, cocktails and lots too much whisky. I wasn’t sober. Went into town and talked and drank until Sadler went aboard at 6.00. Much too long a day.9
However, it was not simply hangover-induced guilt that prompted those thoughts, for he recalled, when at home four weeks earlier, a ‘usual unfortunate Saturday’, and another time referred to a memorable spree six years before, of which he had but a hazy memory. While Mayne undoubtedly had a high tolerance level, his drinking was social, not solitary. He was not dependent on it; and he certainly anticipated a drought when he signed a two-year contract to work in Antarctica. His last reference to drink was written on 27 December; for the next two and a half months there was none.
On 18 December, the day after his binge, he revealed that he was suffering from the effects of an injury that had been sustained years earlier.
Incidentally, walking around Las Palmas my back didn’t hurt me. I felt that I was missing an old friend; knew there was something wrong. A doctor would probably diagnose it as still anaesthetised.10
It was when he was in Italy that Mayne, in a letter home, had referred to treatment for a back injury. His sister Barbara, a nurse, wrote back in some concern, but, replying on 20 October 1943, he played it down, and, of course, he did not reveal the problem to anyone in the unit. When and how the injury happened is unknown, but it was a chronic condition that got progressively worse during the following two years.
In his journal entry of that same day, 18 December, there is an arresting statement. Mayne recorded that he intended to write a novel in Antarctica, which he was entitling ‘The Growth of a Unit’. That he intended to write at length is not surprising. He had written up the unit’s war diaries and reports since the days of the Special Raiding Squadron. But his choice of title, ‘The Growth of a Unit’, is interesting: it has a resonance with both the title of the chronicle of the unit, ‘Birth, Growth and Maturity of 1st SAS Regiment’, and the final chapter of Pleydell’s book Born of the Desert, which is subtitled ‘The Growth of a Unit’ and deals very briefly with the period after Mayne took over. Now, Pleydell’s book was published by Collins in 1945, so Lt Col Ian Collins at Airborne Headquarters would have known of it and would certainly have discussed it with Mayne. Then again, Mayne and Pleydell had corresponded, so Mayne’s provisional title was no accident. However, his decision to opt for the novel form rather than a historical account of the development of the SAS is more surprising. He did have the chronicle in his possession (whether he took it with him for this expedition is unknown), and it gives names, dates and reports of significant operations, and so he could have attempted a first-hand account. But the choice of the novel form allowed him a distancing device. Mayne was not self-serving in his written and oral accounts of actio
n; on the contrary, he was laconic, self-effacing, and played down his own importance. This was not false modesty: for example, in his journal, which he wrote simply for himself, he recalled his short leave at home after being demobilised. On the Saturday, he had ended up in the Belfast Arts Club where, he said, the President had welcomed him. He described his feelings in one word: ‘embarrassing’. No, an autobiographical account was not his style.
Pleasant as those early weeks were, Mayne was keen to get underway, and he was looking forward to the experience. Before the other members of the expedition arrived, he wrote of two stories he had heard which amused him: one was by a Jimmy Scott, about huskies eating their traces; another was by Bingham, about the care one must take in selecting the books to be taken out on sledges (as to the texture of the paper), because nothing was to be wasted. Huskies from Labrador had been brought to Antarctica and used successfully the previous year in north Graham Land, when Base D had been established, and Bingham had played an important part in their acquisition and training.
On 20 December, the first of the members of the expedition to arrive disembarked from the Trepassey and a theme began to emerge in Mayne’s journal which has recurred throughout this book: his assessment of others. Shrewd judgement of people is often considered to be one of the characteristics of a successful leader; a characteristic that is, of course, associated with leadership in a wide range of activity, and not at all confined to the military. Mayne’s views in the journal are particularly interesting because he was in a transition stage from the SAS to the survey; he would have to make adjustments, accepting and working with personnel in whose selection he had played no part: