It is now my terrible duty to amplify this account by filling in the merciful blanks with what we really saw in the hidden transmontane world— hints of the revelations that have finally driven Danforth to a nervous collapse.
—H.P. Lovecraft
Madness, so they say, is just a relative degree of sanity. After a long spell out in the wilds of Antarctica, one's sanity can be strained from the pressure of constant danger, the long hours of working and from the endless days of boredom spent tent bound when it is bad. Although none of us went “mad” in the traditional sense, it would be true to say that my emotions and feelings were definitely heightened, sitting far above their normal background levels.
After a day of rest we spent Monday dutifully unpacking our specimens from their boxes and checking that everything was properly labeled with its correct field number. All our equipment had to be returned to the supply shed. This involved reporting any damage, doing minor repair jobs, and checking everything off the equipment lists with the store man. We finished this job by about lunchtime.
The total weight of the specimens I had collected for the Western Australian Museum came to nearly 380 kilos. After rewrapping each of my fossils with newspaper and bubble plastic, I carefully packed them into five large wooden crates, screwed down the lids and put my museum's Perth address on each box. The icebreaker ship, transported first back to Christchurch, and then freighted on to Western Australia,
would soon pick these up. They eventually arrived in Perth about three months later with every specimen in good order.
That night, in preparation for departure, we took our bags to Willy Field to weigh them in for the flight, whenever that would be. A late flight back to Christchurch was scheduled that night with us listed as “low priority” passengers. After the airport formalities we returned to Scott Base to uphold the long-standing tradition of ringing the bell and shouting the bar. We stayed up waiting for our call to the airport that never came. So, we kept on partying till well into the wee hours of the morning.
All four of us were feeling the dire effects of homesickness. It was disheartening knowing that our work was completed but that we had to just wait around until placed on a flight home. My state of mind was still on a high from the trip, and perhaps we all enjoyed the comforts of base a little too much. I went to bed disgruntled at about 6:00 A.M. that morning after staying up all night talking and drinking.
The next day we were informed that we were going home that night. Because our bags were still at the airfield each of us had only a limited range of clothing so were prevented from doing the many outdoor fun things that the Scott Base environs has to offer, such as cross-country skiing, long walks on the sea ice, or skidoo rides.
The officer in charge assigned us various base duties to keep our minds off the eternal thought of going home. My first task was to write an article for the Scott Base newsletter on the fossil fishes of Antarctica, which I did in the science lab on their Mac computer. I called the article “Chips of Fishes” and it was published in the following issue of the Scott Base Times. It was absorbing for a short while to bury myself in this task and combine all my thoughts about the fossil fishes in one simple article. Using a computer in Antarctica, even inside the base, meant having to wear a wristband to earth oneself from ever-present static electricity shocks.
We were told later that our scheduled flight home had been cancelled and that we may not get onto another flight for two more days! Somehow we were expecting this. That evening we were all feeling very despondent about the whole situation. We were well and truly experiencing the downside of the long high from the field work. I went to
bed very early, about 9:30 P.M., but didn't sleep very well as it felt uncomfortably warm and stuffy on the base. I suppose our bodies had physiologically adjusted to being in field conditions and were then slowly readjusting to normal again.
During those few days that followed we kept feeling flat. Hanging around the base waiting to go home was excruciatingly monotonous, especially after the adventures, discoveries, and excitement of two months' working by ourselves out in the remote deep field. This passage from Nansen's Farthest North, taken from his time during the long, boring winter months, expresses some of the feelings of anguish that we were going through at the time:
I know this all a morbud (sic) mood; but still this inactive lifeless monotony, without any change wring's (sic) one's very soul. No struggle, no possibility of struggle! All is so still and dead, so stiff and shrunken, under the mantle of ice. Ah! . . . the very soul freezes. What would I not give for a single day of struggle—for even a moment of danger!
On Wednesday, 15 January, we were assigned a highly dangerous mission, one that only people of our high level of academic training and field skills could dare to attempt. Our orders came straight from the top. We had to clean all the outside windows of Scott Base. It was a monotonous job, but I suppose it served the purpose of keeping our minds temporarily off the burning thought of going home. I recall it being a relatively fine day, the late summer sun shining brightly and hardly a puff of wind about, so it actually felt good to be outdoors doing something physical. My mind often reflects on my life as a scientist, combing the far reaches of my hazy memory for all the odd and crazy things I have done in the name of science, like that day when I was totally absorbed cleaning windows.
After lunch we received the welcome news that we would be going home that night. Then, the biggest let-down of my life came only moments later when they added that only Margaret and Brian were scheduled to go on that flight. I felt thoroughly miserable again. Margaret then had some harsh words with the boss there, Dave Geddes (the infamous man who gave me the piss bottle on 7 December), and Dave somehow managed to pull some strings at McMurdo to get the manifest changed so that both Fraka and I were put back on the departure
list for that night. However, despite this good news, there is always some catch! It seemed that our bags would not be going with us. The thought then arose that we would get back to New Zealand, but I would probably have to wait around for several days until my gear arrived, an even more depressing thought when all I wanted was to get back home to Australia and be reunited with my family as quickly as possible.
Priority seating for flights home was always such a hit and miss thing. Anyhow, we were deliriously happy to be scheduled on a flight home once more. Later that evening, we were overjoyed to hear the news that not only were we all confirmed to go on the same flight, but that our baggage would come with us after all!
At about 8:00 P.M. that night we said our last goodbyes to the folks at Scott Base, then drove down the icy road to Willy Field. After several hours' waiting, we finally boarded the Hercules aircraft around 11:30 P.M. for the midnight red-eye special to Christchurch. Once more strapped in like sardines for take-off, we were more than anxious to get that long flight back to civilization behind us. There were only a dozen passengers on the flight that night because it was mostly carrying cargo. After take-off we all spread out to find a comfortable spot to sleep.
I don't remember anything about that flight home, apart from the fact that it took about nine hours. I know I didn't sleep much because I'd left my move too late to grab a comfy spot, so I was sort of hunched over on my seat against my bag. I didn't talk to any of our field party because the noise of the engines was too loud, so I just brooded in my thoughts, catching snatches of broken sleep whenever the tiredness overtook the discomfort of the cramped seating.
The plane touched down on the tarmac in Christchurch at around eight o'clock the next morning. Still dressed in our Antarctic clothing, we were taken back to the DSIR headquarters to change and return our field clothing. I immediately rang Qantas to get myself placed on the next flight back to Sydney, which wasn't until 6:00 P.M. I said my goodbyes to Margaret, Fraka, and Brian; each of us exchanged powerful hugs. Few words were said. We'd shared wonderful experiences that were now set in stone deep within our minds. I felt that we were all strongly bonded by our experiences, that none of us would ever forget each other's friendship from that long expedition.
Everyone went their own way, eager to catch the first available flight home, so I was soon left alone to bide time at the international airport most of the afternoon. I had plenty of time to pick up the obligatory bottle of duty-free grog, buy myself a good book to read and just relax, doing nothing much for the first time in three months.
By 6:00 P.M. the plane was ready to leave for Australia. As we rolled down the runway pointed for good ol' Australia, I felt powerful emotions welling up inside me, churning my stomach and bringing uncontrolled tears to my eyes. This was to be a pattern of unexplained emotional behavior that I had almost no power over for the next few months, and which even now can surface at odd times, like when I'm watching an emotionally powerful movie, or just having strong thoughts about my kids or someone I love. I suppose Antarctica did this to me by raising my inner feelings to heightened levels they'd never before experienced. By facing such extreme challenges, my emotions had been tested to the limit when I'd faced the possibility of death on several occasions, and had hastily pushed these experiences to the back of my mind so as to get on with the job of survival. Eventually they had to surface again, and when they did it was in ways beyond my control.
I arrived in Sydney and was warmly greeted by my brother-in-law, Tony, who put me up for the night in his Drummoyne apartment. It was a groovy apartment with a superb view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which spanned across the first night sky I'd seen in three months, lit up like a Christmas tree. Over a few beers that night I recalled the highlights of the whole trip to him, the first of many such retellings, which after awhile would become almost rote as people asked me the standard question: “How was Antarctica?” They still do, so writing this book is one way I'm dealing with it.
I discovered to my delight that Tony, who worked for Qantas, was going to be my pilot for the flight back home to Perth the next morning. Even better, he managed to have me upgraded to business class for the final leg of my trip home. Just before take-off I was invited into the cockpit and shown to the jump seat where I could indulge my taste for excitement one last time by watching Tony, then one of Qantas' youngest first officers, take the gargantuan plane up into the sky. Later on
arrival I was also able to see him land the great thing safely on the tarmac in Perth—a spectacular way to end a grand adventure.
When I stepped off the plane at Perth airport and saw my wife and kids for the first time in three months, my eight-year-old daughter Sarah immediately burst into uncontrolled laughter, followed by my other kids and my wife. They had never seen me with a beard before, and probably never will again, as it looked really bad. I appeared to them like some scraggy hermit from the mountains of Tibet. My hair was longer than it had ever been, hanging down around my shoulders, and my face sported a weird goatee-like wisp of a beard and a fair moustache. Not a good look.
I was emotionally overcome to see them and after hugs and kisses and tears shed all round, we went back home.
Although Antarctica was now behind me, I was never beyond Antarctica. Not ever again. My life changed from that moment onwards.