Call of the White

by Aston, Felicity

  Even though it was now nine in the evening the sun was still high in the sky and warming the tent, the light filtering through the red fabric so that, inside, everything looked a homely orange and we felt warm enough to sit around without the additional heat of the stove. Era was preparing for prayer in the far corner of the tent. She had already spent half an hour silently washing her feet, arms and face with a baby wipe dipped in a dish of water. Pulling down the sleeves of her thermal so that they covered her wrists, she had put on a pair of gloves and pulled up her socks so that her legs were entirely covered. Then she pulled a neck gaiter over her head so that it formed a tight headscarf around her face and neck. As a faithful Muslim she had put a lot of thought into how to carry out the obligations of her religion during the expedition. Usually she would be expected to pray five times a day but while travelling this was reduced to three; once in the morning and twice in the evening. Finding east (the direction of Mecca that Muslims must face to pray) was easy enough with a compass but calculating the right time to pray was a little harder because it is usually determined by dusk and dawn – something that is a little tricky when living in 24-hour daylight. Taking advice, Era had been told to use the prayer times from the nearest landmass that experienced night – in our case South America. Fortunately, Patriot Hills chooses to operate on South American time and so we followed suit, which made Era’s calculations just a little easier.

  I had learned about Islam at school but I had never personally witnessed Muslim prayer before. With all four of us confined to the small space inside the tent it was impossible to give Era any privacy as she prayed and although it felt like an intrusion to be present, I also have to admit that it was fascinating. Sat on her knees, Era repeatedly bowed, touching her head to the floor. Sitting upright she turned her head first one way, then the other, all the while muttering prayer softly to herself. It was a little strange at first, all of us falling into respectful but awkward silence, but eventually it became just another daily occurrence.

  The highlight of our evenings was undoubtedly our daily satellite phone call with Patriot Hills. We took it in turns to report our position, the progress we had made and our intentions for the following day. Usually there was then time for a brief gossip, hearing any news from the camp and passing on our own. The radio operator had requested a joke from us each day and promised one of his own in return. Steph made our first satellite phone call and was ready with her joke after the formalities were over. ‘What goes white, black, white, black, white, black, white, black?’

  There was silence on the line so she continued, ‘A penguin rolling down a hill.’

  There was a burst of laughter down the phone, revealing that there were a number of people standing in the communications box to listen to our first report. When the laughter had died down the operator asked if we had any issues.

  ‘No,’ answered Steph. ‘We’re all absolutely great.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked the operator. ‘You have no issues to report?’

  ‘No,’ said Steph. ‘We’re all good.’

  ‘No issues at all?’ tried the operator one more time. He sounded almost disappointed, as if the fact that we had not suffered a major calamity in our first day was somewhat unexpected.

  The nadir of our evenings, dreaded by all, was the inescapable call of nature. Most expedition teams simply wander a discreet distance from their tents and dig a hole in the snow but for us, things were made slightly more complicated by our decision to remove all our solid human waste throughout the entire expedition. A friend had kindly sourced bags for us designed specifically for the purpose. They were made from a silver, reflective plastic and were the size and shape of a large ziplock freezer bag. The bag was used like a toilet before being securely sealed and placed under our sledge bags, distinctly separate from any rations or equipment. The contents of the bags froze rapidly so that the system wasn’t as awful in practice as it sounds in theory. For most of us this was a daily occurrence but Steph astonished us all by announcing that she only needed to go once a week. ‘Once a week?’ I repeated in amazement. ‘Steph, that doesn’t sound healthy.’

  Adamant that she knew her own body, Steph had confidently brought with her only one bag for every four days but as Helen began to complain that she thought the protein powder was giving her diarrhoea, Steph began to panic, ‘Oh no, I absolutely cannot get diarrhoea. I haven’t got enough bags for that.’

  As each of us left the tent at various intervals through the evening, clutching our little silver bags, Kylie joked that it looked like we were off for a night out with a glittery clutch bag. ‘I still remember Era and Steph in Norway, wading through a blizzard clasping their designer Louis Vuitton handbags,’ I laughed.

  ‘These are our Louis Poo-uittons,’ someone replied. It was the perfect nickname and it stuck. Popping out of the tent with a Louis Poo-uitton may have been unpleasant but what we all dreaded more than anything else was needing to get up during the ‘night’. It may not have been dark outside but it was still far colder than the average home freezer. Once comfortably wrapped in the warmth of a sleeping bag, the idea of exposing yourself to the merciless cold outside seemed unnecessarily cruel but, unless you were willing to accept a sleepless night trying to ignore the inevitable, there was no option. On the rare occasions I was forced to sleepily put on hat, jacket and boots to head outside while the others were sleeping, I bizarrely found it quite liberating. Having safely stowed my Louis in my sledge, I would stand for a while with my hands tucked under my arms to warm them, facing out of the wind and gazing at the surreal world that surrounded us. These were the only moments during the entire expedition when I could be alone and I treasured them. They felt special, private and unobserved, a moment for which I had Antarctica completely to myself. Wearing just the thermals I slept in and a down jacket, I’d stand until I could feel the burn of the cold on the skin of my legs before reluctantly climbing back into the shelter of the tent and the delicious warmth of my sleeping bag.

  We woke to a second day in Antarctica with clear skies and beautiful sunshine. There was a slight breeze but it was warm enough for most of us to ski in just a thermal top with a thin windproof smock over the top. I couldn’t believe our luck to have such wonderful weather but not everyone was as pleased. I overheard Era expressing her disappointment at the lack of heroic weather. ‘I’m worried it will be too easy if the weather is good all the way.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Era,’ I interrupted. ‘We still have a long way to go and I promise you it won’t be easy.’

  She thought for a second, ‘Felicity, I think we should ski faster and for longer than we did yesterday.’

  Helen was quick to respond, clearly alarmed, ‘We need to keep it slow and steady so that everyone can keep up.’

  I tried to reassure them both. ‘We’ll find a pace that suits everyone but,’ I continued, addressing Helen to reassure her, ‘we certainly won’t be shooting off anywhere. We’ll do exactly what we did yesterday, perhaps a little slower if anything.’

  Steph led the first leg and kept a really even, manageable pace but I kept a particular eye on Kylie. The previous evening she had mentioned a pain across the top of her left foot. She wasn’t overly concerned about it but it seemed a little early to be getting injured. When the pain got worse during the second day she tried cutting an insole from her sleeping mat to cushion her foot but this didn’t seem to make much difference. By the end of the third day the pain was so bad that she sat in the tent in the evening with her foot propped up on a pile of kit, wrapped in ice. ‘My heel is rolling off the ski with every step,’ she explained. ‘I’ve packed out my heel with sleeping mat and bandaged up my foot but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. I think it might be something wrong with the binding on my ski.’

  We took a look at her left ski, comparing it to Reena’s. The binding looked like it was in the right place and mounted in a correct, straight position on the ski. There were no signs that there was anythin
g wrong but Kylie was adamant that it was the ski and not her skiing style that was causing the problem. Reena agreed to swap skis with Kylie. I was a little uncomfortable with the arrangement, worried that this was just passing on the problem rather than solving it, but there seemed to be little alternative. The snow was too soft to make walking a realistic option, and for now at least, the swap seemed to resolve the issue. After a day with the suspect ski, Reena was completely unbothered and Kylie reported an instant improvement in her foot.

  The rest of the team were also starting to have problems with their feet. ‘My official blister count is three on both soles of my feet and my fourth toe on my right foot,’ wrote Era in our team journal. She wasn’t the only one. I held a regular ‘blister clinic’ in the tent, making sure that I saw everyone’s feet, and offered advice on how to look after them. I don’t profess to have expert knowledge on the subject but over the years I’ve done a lot of miles with blistered feet and have learned a thing or two about dealing with them. They seem like such a triviality and yet without healthy feet, it is impossible to ski or walk. If blisters aren’t looked after they can become infected or become major wounds that are excruciatingly painful. The humble blister can easily put an end to an expedition.

  Each evening I encouraged the girls to take off their socks and make sure their feet were warm and dry. We’d tape up any hot spots, drain any blisters and let them air overnight to harden before padding them the next morning. For Era, Sophia and Steph, blisters were an entirely new experience and so I was extremely hands-on. Reena, Kylie and Helen were more experienced so, bar enquiring after their feet, I let them look after their own. However, it gradually became clear that Helen in particular was having trouble. She’d mentioned several times that she had a few blisters but had given the impression she was coping until one day she repeatedly asked the team to slow down using our agreed hand signals. It got to the point that we were moving slowly and yet Helen was still allowing a gap to open up between herself and the sledge in front. I skied along the side of the group until I caught up with her and fell in alongside. ‘My feet are completely shredded,’ she admitted and I could tell that she was close to tears. That evening I asked to take a look at her feet. They were still recovering from the long trek she had completed in Namibia just before the expedition; her heels were covered in dry, cracked skin and her toes were pink with scar tissue where she had had several blisters. The nails on her big toes were blackened and misshapen; it was clear that it was just a matter of time before they would peel off. Two new blisters had formed on the outside of each big toe, close to the knuckle. They looked sore but not critical. ‘So are you going to drain them tonight so that the skin can harden for tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’ve been leaving the blister intact to protect the skin underneath,’ she replied.

  I was horrified. Leaving the blister in place would have been unnecessarily painful. ‘Are you taking painkillers?’

  ‘No, I’m not used to taking drugs so I don’t want to take anything unless I absolutely have to.’

  I encouraged her to drain the blister and take some paracetamol to make skiing less painful but she was steadfast in her objection. I could see that the conversation was making her emotional. ‘If I had known I was coming here, I would never have gone to Namibia,’ she admitted sadly. ‘It just seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.’

  Helen was paying the price for taking on two such serious expeditions back to back. It wasn’t just the physical impact of Namibia that she had underestimated; it was clear that there was a mental and emotional price to pay as well. It gradually became obvious that Helen wasn’t herself. Normally happy and positive, the laughter seemed a little strained and she became very negative about the smallest of details. I could see that the expedition was already harder, mentally and physically, than she had prepared for and I was worried for her. One evening I made a point of finding a private moment to ask her how she was finding it. ‘To be honest, Felicity, I’m eighteen years older than some members of this team, and today I felt it.’ I gave her a hug of encouragement. ‘I’m just worried that I’m not giving you the support you expected,’ she continued. It was true that I was surprised at how difficult Helen was finding the expedition but I tutted at her concern. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s our turn to support you. You just need to concentrate on maintaining those feet and getting to the South Pole.’

  Helen wasn’t the only surprise of the expedition. Kylie, normally incredibly self-sufficient and organised, was revealing herself to be a magnet for accidental disaster. She was full of energy and never deliberately careless but things just seemed to get broken around her. She was in charge of the stoves in her tent and within the first week she had managed to burn her sleeping mat, the tent, a thermos flask, a water bottle and even the leg of her own trousers – while she was wearing them. Each day she listed her latest stream of disasters and I couldn’t help laughing in pure exasperation. She may have been terrible with equipment but she was a master with people. If I ever fell short on the pastoral side of things I knew that Kylie would be filling the gap, ever ready with a comforting hug and a cheering view of the situation.

  Kylie always brought good humour with her but it was Steph who supplied the fun and was the vitality of our team. Her direct observations about the surrealism of our day-to-day life on the ice kept us laughing but as fond as I was of Steph, she was often the cause of intense frustration. Her natural state was one of disorganisation and constant crisis. She’d worked hard to implement some self-discipline and although I recognised her effort I still found myself having occasionally to be quite hard on her, particularly when her belongings began spreading too far out of her corner of the tent, or when she spent too long getting into her sleeping bag at night, procrastinating for hours as she pointlessly fossicked long after everyone else was asleep. Steph’s habitual disarray was highlighted by the contrast with Era’s unfailingly neat habits. Era took her responsibilities within the tent very seriously and was often the one to scold us if we fell below her high standards of personal administration.

  In retrospect the early days of the expedition seemed to have passed in a flash and yet at the time we noted the passing of every moment of the day in exhaustive detail. It was as if we had entered a cosmological hall of mirrors where instead of our reflected images being affected, it was the seconds and minutes of our days that were distorted. Time appeared able to stretch to fill an aeon or contract to last no longer than a click of the fingers. We began talking about 90 minute legs rather than hours as if this was a new unit of time (‘Lets stop in two legs’ time…’; ‘It will take us four legs to get there…’) and in days since departure rather than referring to dates or days of the week (‘We’ll get there on Day 15…’; ‘It happened on Day 3…’). It felt like we had truly stepped outside normal existence. The landscape supported this conclusion. The relentless emptiness was absolute, as if the whole of creation had been wiped clean and we were, quite literally, walking across the great white drawing board of the gods as it waited to be filled with their new handiwork.

  The sky was as unchanging as the horizon. Although the sun moved, it described perfect circles above us so that there was no change in the colour and strength of the light throughout the day. Only the clouds gave any indication of the passage of time. The skies were so big that we could see whole fronts of cloud in their entirety and watch as they slowly advanced towards us. Flat and uniform, like thin blankets cruising through the atmosphere, the shadow of a cloud layer would fall across us as dramatically as a biblical event and as suddenly as an eclipse. Steph stood next to me at one break, munching awkwardly as she peered upwards at the clouds above us. They seemed so low that it was tempting to reach out to try to touch them. ‘I’ve never watched clouds forming before,’ she said in wonder. I could see what she meant. The swirling mists above us seemed to coalesce in front of our eyes, forming and reforming over and over again until they drifted away in a single layer,
like a blind being pulled over the sky. On the horizon the clouds had gathered into vast towers of light and shade. I watched them as we skied onwards and they appeared to grow like candy floss being spun at a fairground. Their centres were dark triangles of shadow surrounded by smudges of grey. As I continued to gaze at them absently my vision warped and wavered as if looking at a magic-eye picture. I grinned in sudden perception. What I was looking at weren’t clouds gathering on the horizon but the tips of distant mountains. It was the first distinctive feature we had seen since leaving the coast ten days before. Leading at the front I turned round and pointed excitedly at the mountains to Kylie a few metres behind me. She looked up from her skis and watched my pantomime. ‘Mountains!’ I shouted, even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me and jabbed towards the horizon again with my mitt. She followed the direction of my outstretched arm, confused, then spotted the apparitions. She nodded at me enthusiastically before turning to Reena behind her to act out a similar pantomime. Surprise and delight rippled down the line, even though there was not so much as a pause in the rhythm of our skiing. I conjured the map of our route into my head and realised that these ghostly mountains to our south must be the Pensacolas, some 100 kilometres away.