Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We had an English accent competition, easily won by an amiable Norwegian-American graduate
student called Lars who was subsequently disqualified when he revealed that he had lived in Bri-
tain for five years. Lars had opted to sleep in the covered snow trench we had built - a terrible mis-
take, as it turned out, because it rained ice on him all night. He planted a Norwegian flag outside
and called the trench Framheim after Amundsen's base camp. Late in the night Lars and I strapped
on cross-country skis and headed out over the ice shelf. He reminded me of a big shaggy dog.
When we awoke next morning, great snowdrifts had formed around the tents. I had forgotten to
stow my waterbottle in my sleeping bag, and the water had frozen. Everything had frozen. But it
didn't matter. Trotsky was labouring over some feeble joke while rehydrating sachets of oatmeal
when Frozen Sausage and Mike reappeared. They were talking about 'scenario training', so after
despatching the oatmeal we struck camp and headed off.
A handful of new recruits were waiting in the hut. 'Right,' said Mike as we arranged crates in
a circle and sat on them. 'Go round the circle, introduce yourself and say something personal, like
whether you prefer blondes.'
This was a difficult question. I began compiling a mental list of ex-boyfriends to see if it re-
vealed a predilection for a particular hair colour. Once I got back to 1990 I became muddled as to
who came where, so I had to fish out a pen and straighten the wrapper of a granola bar, and write a
column of names next to a column of dates, with a third column for hair colour. In some instances
I seemed to have an extremely hazy recollection of hair, and of course there was the boxer in 1989
who was totally bald, so he had to be struck off the list altogether. I was engrossed in this important
task when Mike called my name.
'Um,' I stammered, 'can't seem to find any evidence of a preference for blonds . . .' I pulled
myself together. 'No beards though.' Everyone looked at me, hatchet-faced.
Scenario training involved responding to a simulated plane crash outside the hut. We were asked
to list our skills, so that roles could be allocated. Between them, the navy men had almost every
known skill covered, and they suggested helpfully that my role could be to write the bestselling
topic of the disaster after the event. In the end I was consigned to communications. Having rigged
up the HF antenna from bamboo poles in the snow and headed off a short burst of machine-gun
fire, I found the Field Operations Communications Center on the airwaves and checked in our
party, disguising my English accent in case I said the wrong thing. 'Reading you loud and clear,
Sara', came the crackling reply. Trotsky and the others were busy stretchering a supine Bill into
the hut, so I strolled about - no doubt in gross dereliction of duty - and enjoyed the scenery. It
was a clear morning and I could pick out Mount Discovery and Mount Morning as well as White
Island, Black Island and Minna Bluff. It was all starting to look familiar.
∗
Back at base, a series of urgent messages were waiting. I had been invited to the Italian station
at Terra Nova Bay a couple of hundred miles away, and a helicopter would be leaving the next
day. Although I had liaised with the head of the Italian Antarctic programme, Mario Zuccelli, from
London, and he had invited me to Terra Nova Bay, I hadn't been expecting the visit to material-
