We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 116
AUTUMN 2009
ESSAY
Waiting for Mawson
Davis is unsure how long to wait for Mawson. His thoughts drift to Wild and his men, waiting to be collected. He remembers his
unease at leaving them last summer on a floating ice shelf. Begins to imagine the dark sea with an early autumnal freeze-over, blocking his access to Wild’s party, imagines them marooned for another year without food or coal. The images increase his anxiety and he flicks back to the present. Wishing Mawson had made his intentions clear, wishing Mawson would appear.
He is standing on deck of the S Y Aurora, the temperature a little above freezing, a fresh breeze blowing off the ice, and anxiously watching the launch. His men were heading ashore when their engine broke down. He watches them drift out, unsure whether he should slip the chain on the ship and go after them, but they get the engine going again.
He thinks Commonwealth Bay is a queer place. Calm can be whipped into a blizzard with little warning. Katabatic winds had come roaring down from the Antarctic plateau on the day they arrived, churning the seas, swirling sea spray into a thick mist, straining their moorings. The first mate hadn’t secured the cable and it fell to the sea floor with their best anchor, setting the Aurora loose to be blown out to sea among rocks and icebergs. And provoking him to anger. Thankfully, Chief Engineer Gillies’ quick actions soon had the engines throbbing, and Captain Davis was again in control of his vessel.
Responsibility sits heavily on his shoulders. Responsibility for the ship, responsibility for the lives of many. Now, responsibility for a dilemma.
At the hut, the waiting is scratching at men’s nerves; they are homesick. One feels unutterably homesick. Where is Mawson? He had told them to be back by 15th January, now it is the 17th.
Dr Douglas Mawson’s journey was to be the longest, he would take the huskies, and Ninnis and Mertz, who had cared for and trained the dogs. The thought that their leader might not return is unsettling the men; the thought that Ninnis and Mertz might not return is pawing at their hearts. Madigan remembers the last time he saw them, out on the plateau. Mertz had come to his tent and said, Let’s sing a song. They had sung an old German student song.
Each sledging party had returned in high levels of elation. Each had known the joy, but soon the horror of man-hauling sledges, battling wind-whipped ice ridges, sinking deep into snow, forever on the lookout for a snow-bridge ready to collapse to send them hurtling into a yawning crevasse. For weeks they had struggled against blizzards, privation and hunger. Then the delight of returning to the hut in which eighteen of them had lived for a year, dimly lit, clothes hanging everywhere. And
relief that the ship had arrived, bringing letters, fresh fruit and their passage home. Now gloom is permeating; the hut that had felt homely seems temporary, something to be abandoned.
The launch arrives on shore with the ship’s wireless operator, Jeffryes, and crewmen bearing a huge, Oregon-pine, spare ship’s mast. The sight fuels fear among the shore men that some might be left behind for another year.
On learning that Davis has directed the re-erection of a wireless
aerial, Hannam snaps. He had spent the previous year in fruitless attempts to establish radio communication with Australia, and had packed his wireless gear for the ship. A row breaks out between Hannam and Jeffryes. The following day Hannam confronts Davis: if a wireless operator is to remain it should be him, if successful communication with Australia is established, the credit should be his.
Davis is twenty-eight, tall and slender, his hair and beard ginger. The ship’s crew treat him with the ambiguous respect that can attach to any authority. As if he is their parent. He has seen Gray, the second officer, taunting the first mate when he’s trying to be helpful, calling him Smooger. Davis feels he can’t rely on anyone except Gillies.
It is 21st January and he reassures himself that nothing more serious than bad weather has delayed the party. But he has arranged for Madigan and Bage to come to the ship, and asks them to post a notice in the hut announcing the six-man relief party to remain on the ice for another year. Madigan will be in charge, Jeffryes will replace Hannam as wireless operator, Dr McLean will stay, as will Bage, Hodgeman and Bickerton.
No one except Jeffryes, the new chum, wants to stay, yet each man feels duty-bound to consent. Bage had taken a year’s leave from the Australian army and risks losing promotion. Madigan had been awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford and deferred for a year. He is concerned they won’t continue to hold his place.
The bunks vacated just two months ago by Ninnis and Mertz form an L-shape in the southeast corner of the hut, above those of Madigan and Bickerton. The four had named their area Hyde Park corner and it had become a magnet for those wanting to yarn and smoke. Now it is quiet.
Davis knows he can wait no longer than 30th January. Even then he will be cutting things fine, risking the ship and all on board being clutched by sea ice. Risking also the lives of Wild and his seven men, waiting 1100 miles to the west. His anxiety about Wild continues to vie with his worry about Mawson.
The following evening Davis goes ashore, he inspects the wireless mast and finds it sturdy and well stayed. Both wireless men are inside rigging the engine and equipment. They anticipate it could be working in another three or four days, although until the nights are longer there might be too much light for long-range communication.
He wanders up the ice slope behind the hut, hoping to see anything, as if his presence closer to the plateau might conjure Mawson’s appearance. He describes the scene in his diary:
From less than a mile the winter quarters look like a heap of stones. All round to the Southward, the boundless ice sloping up to the skyline, dreary beyond description. To the North, the dark water broken by the snow, or rather ice-covered Mackellar Islands, and a berg here and there on the horizon. It is a wonderful sight, this world of ice and sea. On a fine day it
looks beautiful and little shows what a terrible vast solitude it is, reaching back to the other side of the world, and constantly swept by violent wind and drifts.
Again he tells himself that Mawson and his companions will be all right, while struggling with a desire to march out and make sure.
All sorts of possibilities presented themselves to me as I stood looking southward over that icy slope, and it is useless to try and conceal from myself that I am terribly uneasy having no date on which he may be expected back.
Davis decides to leave instructions for a party to go out and search around the depot on the top of the slope.
A member of the ship’s crew waits for Davis. He rambles towards a group of Adelie penguins and catches one, holding its writhing black and white body in his arms as it slaps him with its flipper. Close by, two penguins fight, one rushing the other, grabbing it by the throat with its beak and hitting it repeatedly.
Two days later Davis feels low and depressed. To stay or to leave? He is irritated with Mawson for not leaving a letter clearly stating his intentions, perhaps he had always meant to allow leeway. He goes ashore and speaks to the men who had searched the vicinity of the five-mile depot. They found nothing.
He rummages in Mawson’s cubicle, and locates a deal box in which Mawson kept papers; he orders it to be taken to the ship.
That afternoon Davis sifts through Mawson’s papers and finds a draft of some instructions to the Captain of the Aurora. Davis reads and rereads, letting the unfinished instructions settle over his conflicted thoughts, gradually emboldening him to act. The draft leaves no doubt that Mawson had intended to return by 15th January.
Davis arranges for the transportation ashore of coal and stores for a year. He decides that another search party will go out, this time for five days. He will take the Aurora to search the coast: There is little hope of finding anyone, I am convinced, but we must satisfy ourselves that nothing possible has been left undone.
Gray, twenty-four years old, is feeling scared. Ninnis and Mertz are his friends and he has been looking forward to seeing them again; he knows his friendship with Ninnis, a fellow Englishman, will be lasting. He blames fate that the two men he regards as personal friends are both adrift.
On 27th January, Hannam hands over the wireless equipment to
Jeffryes; he packs his personal gear, leaves the hut, and moves into a cabin on the Aurora. The same day Jeffryes moves from the ship to the hut. During the short period of semi-darkness each night, Hannam is not tucked up in his bunk. Instead, he sits by the ship’s radio receiver listening in on Jeffryes trying to make contact with Macquarie Island. The ship doesn’t have a transmitter, all Hannam can do is to listen. And hope. If radio contact can be established before the ship leaves, Hannam
will make sure he claims credit. Afterwards it will be more tricky.
Hannam has moved from one tense environment to another. Men in the hut were getting edgy, but at least the building was stable and the environment familiar. The ship, though, is at the mercy of howling winds and seas rising up into great sheets. Each of the ship’s anchors now sits on the floor of Commonwealth Bay together with many fathoms of parted cable, leaving Davis reliant on a small kedge anchor. This soon
breaks, forcing them to keep the Aurora steaming continuously. In strong gusts the ship swings violently, the man at the wheel struggling to regain control. Sometimes, with her nose into the wind the ship will not move an inch, even with her engines going full throttle. Below decks, Gillies urges the men to keep shovelling coal.
Spray is swept from waves, thickening the air. Captain Davis is worn out from constant worry and his eyes are sore from peering through spindrift. But preparations are complete for the relief party, and the thought comes to him that Mawson will probably turn up now, It generally is the way. He comforts himself with this presentiment.
At 4 am on 29th January, Hannam sits with headphones on, irritated with Jeffryes, and thinking, He’s tuning too low, he will lose power fast. He, Hannam, should be the one on shore with the transmitter.
Two hours later, Davis stands on the bridge gazing towards shore under clear skies, willing the appearance of a flag on the hut’s mast to signify Mawson’s return. In vain.
They steam east along minimally chartered coastline, among rocky reefs, passing huge icebergs, up to a mile long. Ice cliffs rise steeply from the water’s edge; occasionally one calves and the sea reverberates with its roar, setting the Aurora rolling. No man would find refuge here, but Davis knows there is a bay further along that might provide access for a party wanting to feed from penguin or seal.
All day the Aurora follows the ice barrier, while flying a kite 500 feet high. Whales shoot up from the sea and smash down, penguins laze on floe ice. Petrels fly overhead. Periodically, Davis orders a pause while distress signals are fired. The report during still moments is shocking. Men in the crow’s nest, and at the telescope, scan the ice. There is no sign of life on the cliff tops, or on heavily crevassed sections of shoreline.
Gray feels dreadful... scanning the snow slopes with telescopes, when one’s friends may be starving within fifty miles.
At 11 pm the sky is golden: the last rays of the sun are sinking in the west as the sun rises in the east. Around midnight Davis orders the ship to turn back.
That morning the kite’s crossbar breaks, sending it diving into the sea. A man on watch sees a black spot on the ice, inland and a long way ahead. Davis checks through the glass, and excitement surges. He orders full steam for the engines. But as the Aurora nears the black spot, it transmutes gradually into a hole in the ice.
The barometer falls, the wind becomes bitterly cold, whipping spray onto the deck, where it freezes. By the time they reach Commonwealth Bay the Aurora is encased in ice. Davis is dispirited, there is no flag on the hut’s wireless mast. Mawson is now fifteen days overdue. God help a man adrift in this accursed country.
Again, they steam back and forth across the bay, the ship ghostly white. Davis’s chief anxiety now is for Wild’s party. He just needs the wind to drop for half an hour; he will send the motor launch ashore for the men and they will leave.
The wind rages for eight days. Often the ship cannot be controlled and washes out to sea. Men regularly hack ice from the decks and riggings, coiled ropes become solid blocks of ice. Water freezes in cabin basins, ink freezes in pens.
For Davis, even sleep brings no solace; he dreams of tempests. Gray, ever ready to joke at Davis’s expense, now feels sorry for him. Hannam, though, is primarily aware of his own strung-out state, and asks Davis how long they are likely to wait.
Until the... sinks. We will all wish that we were in Mawson’s place, as if he is on the plateau, his troubles are over and ours are only commencing.
The response sends Hannam scurrying, more desperate than earlier to take something for his nerves.
On shore, men are terrified the Aurora will leave without them. Each morning they brave ice-ridden winds to watch the ship: an eerie white structure, flung about on tempestuous black seas. They are packed, ready for the call; they know their opportunity to board, if it comes, might be brief.
The hut, so often filled with laughter, now reeks of sadness. Nine men will leave, six will stay behind. Thoughts of the other three are ever present, hope ever thinning. One man, who has been chosen to leave, writes, It is dreadful this breaking up of all our ties, the parting of comrades under such circumstances.
In the early hours of 8th February the wind moderates and by 9 am the sea is calm. Goodbyes will be hurried. The launch makes trips ashore for men and personal gear. Madigan, Bickerton and McLean also journey to the ship and, reluctant to disembark, have to be ushered back onto the launch. McLean writes later: It was a melancholy business... we felt we were left behind.
Six men climb a rocky hill, waving flags as the ship steams off to the northwest, and Gray dips the ensign. They continue to watch as she diminishes on the horizon.
Jeffryes had been directed to send a wireless message hourly until midnight, beginning at 8 pm; Hannam is at his post on the ship ready to receive. A message begins coming through, and Hannam claims to have experienced the biggest shock he’s ever had. The message reads:
To Capt Davis
Aurora
Arrived safely at hut. Mertz & Ninnis dead. Return & pick up all hands.
Sgd
Dr Mawson
Davis orders the ship turned, thankful that at least Mawson is alive. They pound back against a rising wind, the crew getting on with their usual work. But their minds are distracted. Gray thinks: Nothing can be worse than having the last glimmer of hope stamped out and knowing the dreadful truth that both Ninnis and Mertz are dead. He remembers meeting Ninnis’s parents and reflects on the shock they will experience, hoping
they may find some comfort in knowing their son died a hero. Gray imagines Mawson, staggering across the plateau alone: what agony he must have suffered. But he is also the man who bears full responsibility for the disaster... no rest for his troubled mind on reaching the hut.
As they near Commonwealth Bay the wind freshens to a gale. And here they are again, steaming back and forth, blizzard-tossed. Every time they get close to shore, men on deck wave flags; Hannam sits at the radio waiting to hear further instructions. Nothing. As the hours pass, Davis begins to rage. Wishing they’d never received the message, cursing Mawson for recalling them. Certain they will lose Wild for the sake of taking
off a party who are in perfect safety. He feels worn out and a heap of nerves.
After six hours Davis calls a meeting and put his proposition: to leave to collect Wild. No one argues against him.
To his diary, Hannam confides his sadness at leaving behind the
wireless gear.
Madigan remembers Mertz, he remembers the language exercises they used to set each other, in English and German. He remembers how easily they could converse, despite uncertainty attached to individual words. He lies in bed at right angles to Bickerton, below the empty bunks of Mertz and Ninnis, and hears Bickerton sobbing under his blankets.
NOTES:
I am grateful to the State Library of Victoria, the Mitchell Library NSW and the Australian Antarctic Division Library for access to the following Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-14) diaries, from which material for this story has been drawn:
Davis, John King, SLV, MS 8311, Jnl 3232/5
Gray, Percival, ML MSS 2893
Hannam, Walter, ML MSS 384
Laseron, Charles, ML MSS 385
McLean, Archibald, ML, MSS 382/1
Taylor, SGR, copy held by Australian Antarctic Division Library
Material relating to Cecil Madigan was taken from Vixere Fortes: a Family Archive, generously made available by the Madigan family.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Thank you to Dr Elizabeth Leane, University of Tasmania, for making me aware of the difficulties during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition’s second year. Thanks also to Bruce Hull and Mark Pharaoh for helping along the way.
DR LYNETTE WILLSHIRE is a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, who has worked extensively with groups. She has a longstanding interest in Antarctica and is attempting to
unravel experiences of Mawson and his men during the second year of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-14). In the 2008/2009 summer Lynn fulfilled her dream of visiting Antarctica.
Island, PO Box 210, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7006 Australia
Ph: (03) 6226 2325 Fax: (03) 6226 2172
E-mail: island.magazine@utas.edu.au