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In good spirits, I checked in for the fifth time for my flight to CWA, but after a long morning
had drained away it was postponed all over again, this time for at least a week, as the one Hercules
on station had developed a serious ailment. I felt interminably depressed, as I didn't want to spend
New Year on base. I retrieved my bags and decided on impulse to call into Helicopter Operations
to see Robin, the helicopter queen and the personification of American can-do culture.
I had been intending to visit a group of geologists at Lake Mackay, and decided to try to get
out to them while waiting for the next plane to Seismic Man's camp. Ross, the project leader, had
invited me, and as it was only an hour away by helicopter at 76 degrees south 162 degrees east I
knew I could catch a lift fairly easily. Ross had listened patiently to garbled radio messages from
various parts of the continent announcing my imminent arrival, an event which had never taken
place. Robin studied her schedule for a few moments, seized a pencil and inscribed W-002 in large
letters on the manifest of one of the last helicopters before the holiday. It was heading for a camp
further inland. 'They can drop you off,' she said cheerily. 'Happy New Year.'
An hour later I was clamped into the back of a helicopter following McMurdo Sound in the dir-
ection of Terra Nova Bay and listening to the pilots arguing about whether an eruption of Erebus
would offer better odds than either of them scoring at the McMurdo New Year's Eve party.
The small camp was empty when I arrived, a Marie Celeste of the ice, and before I took off my
headset the pilot asked doubtfully, 'Will you be okay?', shouting out of the window as an after-
thought, 'Mind the crevasses, won't you?' It was a still and cloudless day, only five below, and the
surface of the ice was hesitantly yielding, like a block of butter on a spring morning. I took off my
parka, hat and gloves and contemplated the scene.
They had pitched camp in a large embayment covered by sea ice facing the Mackay Glacier
Tongue. Mount England and the granite and dolerite cliffs opposite, striped in glossy chocolate
browns, cast squat shadows over the streaky cliffs of the glaciers and the frozen folds of sea, and in
the middle five small tents spread into a crescent. Above, an arc of lenticular clouds floated against
the Wedgwood sky. I cannot say it was beautiful; it was beyond all that.
Like all the best camps, there was no generator. After a few minutes, however, I heard the buzz
of a snowmobile. When I turned around I saw a bearded figure riding along towing a sledge loaded
with pans of ice.
'Welcome to the tropics,' he said as he got off, hand extended.
The other four were working out at their dive hole, so we unloaded the sledge and drove across.
It was only five minutes away, near the walls of the glacier, and they were crowded around a bright
yellow machine which looked like a large lawnmower. I soon learnt that this contraption ruled
camp with an iron rod. Operated by remote control, it went down to the seabed and took pictures,
and all their science depended on it. They were studying the release of debris from the glacier and
its dispersal into the marine environment. The vehicle was the only thing in camp which ever got
a wash.
Everyone had sunburnt faces and white eyelids. One of the three graduate students (who de-
scribed themselves as 'pipettes') was a Lancastrian studying for his doctorate in the States. Mike
was six-and-a-half feet tall and taciturn, though when he spoke it was through a wry grin, and he
was committed to Wigan, his home town. He had found a spot on the map not far away called
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