Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
7 April, 1937 to 10 April, 1937
Wednesday April 7th, 1937 (Written much later…) Dear Diary: we should have stuck to being tourists at Wotansberg. Having turned in early on Tuesday evening, the first thing I knew was being bounced out of bed as if an earthquake had struck the place. But the light cables were not swinging when we switched our pocket torches on – and in a few seconds Helen and I were horribly sure it was nothing so mundane. There seemed to be a high, thin howling coming from all directions, something like we heard when the Moon Island wind tunnel had harmonic problems – but neither Maria or Molly could hear it, though Molly has the best hearing of us all despite her fondness for ridiculously powerful firearms. I opened my senses just a crack and instantly regretted it; the impression I got was that the complex was filling up as if with floodwater welling up from below – and it was something far more malevolent. Helen yelled that someone had opened up that portal: it was getting very clear that this was soon not going to be a place for healthy living furs. How we got out is still rather confused; once Molly and Maria understood what was going on they rather took charge as despite our protective rituals Helen and I were almost “punch-drunk” by the time we reached the surface. We found Ritter Leopold there along with Wurm, Mindel and Riss and three other researchers – evidently they had been prepared for such catastrophes as there were knapsacks of provisions, and I noted the Director had one of those satchels they use to carry rolls of film. In ten minutes the base was evacuated – those that came up from the lower levels in time. There were great aurora-like discharges hanging in the skies above us like spectral lightning dancing above the mountain peaks in the intense cold of the Antarctic midnight. Evidently it was Mr. Klammer’s team that had decided to go one better than their rivals and make the scientific breakthrough – unfortunately they had broken through into something that should have been left undisturbed. The Junkers 52 took off laden with irreplaceable records and about half the surviving staff, not including us. To their credit, the Director and his team were not on it either – but neither were we left exactly stranded. There were large hangar-like structures built of snow blocks metres thick that we had thought were for the aircraft – but not all of them were. By the light of magnesium flares the doors were opened (sliding on solid cast ice runners with graphite powder lubricant by the looks of it) and two bulky shapes were revealed. Maria’s ears went right up – she has driven tankettes back in Italy and recognised the German “light tractor” which she whispered enviously was a much bigger and more powerful vehicle than anything Italy has in service as a tank, even though these models have no turret but a boxy cargo superstructure instead. Getting them started was an urgent job, but fortunately the buildings were “heated” to only a couple of degrees below freezing and the special Polar grade oil had not frozen into candle-wax. There were eight of us and two vehicles; I suggested Helen or me went in one each as I had a horrid certainly there would be something to defend against that the armour plate would be no protection for us. So we had a Spontoon trained Warrior Priestess in each vehicle – I went with Molly, Maria and Riss to drive (it was no time to start driving lessons or asking what the German-labelled controls do) while Helen squeezed into the back cargo section of the other tractor with Herr Leopold and the other two hares. The engines started up smoothly, big Maybach diesels such as we have seen on cargo ships and we left the shelter of the open snow hangars eerily lit by the mocking aurora dancing high above us. Skis and supplies were stowed in the back, and the tracks gripped well in the hard snow as we moved out along the ancient lake-shore. We had not gone a mile when it happened. There was a feeling as of pressure building – and something that looked to my senses like an eruption of shadows as viscous as any erupting oil-well rose above the site of the expedition. I started the protective rituals I had used under Krupmark, knowing I was definitely on my own like a rear-gunner fighting off a squadron of fighters – or more like a single Spontoonie wielding a puny broom against a jungle full of land-crabs that had suddenly turned both carnivorous and lethally venomous. How we got away I doubt I will ever know. The armoured tractors kept running, and Maria managed to swap places with Riss (Molly holding the pedal down while they changed over) for the hare to scramble back and add what he could to our protection. It was nearly an hour before we broke free of the influence, by which time we were climbing far up the valley heading North. I think I must have passed out with exhaustion sometime after that – at least I woke up with Molly shaking me and the light of dawn already on the highest peaks. Almost immediately I saw we had swapped one set of troubles for another. I remember hearing the armoured tractors had made it here under their own power, and indeed they are far too big for the JU-52 to carry even slung underneath. That must have been awhile ago; the valley ahead was narrow with great gullies sweeping up thousands of feet - and a slide of rock and ice had come down to choke the pass with a jumble of ten-foot boulders. The tractors had no chance of getting through that. No doubt a construction team of furs with dynamite could clear the way in a couple of days, but it was quite beyond our powers. I already felt as if I had been running a beach marathon with a pack on, but got out with the rest to look at the problem. There were steep slopes we could scramble up to get around the landslide, but from then on we would be on our own paws till it grew smooth enough to ski. Sir Leopold estimated we were two hundred kilometres from Wotansberg. There is nowhere nearly flat enough around here for the JU-52 to land, even if they sent it back to look for us. Still – we had all escaped with our lives and sanity, and that was more than I had hoped to do. Being confronted “only” with the mundane hazards of the Antarctic on meagre resources came almost of a relief; I think I was actually shaking with half-hysterical laughter. Nobody much seemed to mind. Helen was drooping like a rug and the three hares were reeling like heavyweight boxers having barely won on points. Their style is a little too much like opening a door by head-butting it rather than picking the lock – with enough power you could do it but failure leaves only a headache. One thing we are taught in Songmark is in the event of air crash, shipwreck or equivalent, to stay with the wreck if possible – it is generally the first thing rescuers find, and may provide shelter. With our predicament it would do us little good for rescuers to see us, as there is nowhere to pick us up anyway. Shelter was another matter – the armoured tractors’ engines kept them tolerably warm while the fuel lasts and us out of the wind. Sir Leopold recommended we back up a hundred yards to hopefully be clear of any more rocks falling down the gulley and we agreed a few hours of rest. I for one needed it. After a pint of hot beef-tea all round from vacuum flasks we curled up on the seats and I was asleep again in minutes. Around mid-day we waved farewell to the brave little engines that had carried us up to near the pass, and shouldered our packs and skis for the long trek. The first bit was certainly hard, climbing over the landslide. We have scrambled and raced over most things, but Songmark is short of sliding ice and snow to practice on. Some of the blocks were precariously balanced, and we did our best to stay well clear. That took us thirty minutes to cover three hundred yards, picking out a zigzag route between the collapsed areas. Then we were onto smoother ice, fortunately not a crevassed glacier but making decent speed towards the pass itself, rising in sweeping steps of rock above us. Evidently there must have been a lot more snow covering the obstacles the day the tractors came over from the other direction. Our watches read six o’clock local time when at last we were on the windswept col with the great peaks rising up to unguessed heights above us. The air was definitely thin; we must have easily been at sixteen thousand feet and I was only glad we had acclimatised for a few days before. Certainly we were all panting, especially Sir Leopold who is rather more than twice our age though certainly in good trim. Maria noted it was a pity we had not done this at Christmas; there would be constant daylight then and no worrying about getting caught out by nightfall. It was a case of “more haste less speed”, and though one sees newsreels of furs heading down such slopes at forty miles an hour, that is on a known skiing resort and not somewhere a fall can spell disaster. Rather galling; we could have just launched down the steady slope but there were enough half buried hazards in terms of rocks, ice cracks and soft patches of powder-snow to slow us to walking pace. Two hours of that and the sun was going down: fortunately we had picked out a sheltered corner of the valley that did not look too much like an avalanche chute. Regular Polar expeditions have sledges to haul that are big enough to hold full camping equipment – heavy tents tough enough to survive the conditions out here. We at least had shovels, big aluminium snow-shovels that we rapidly used to excavate a snow-trench then roofed over with a tarpaulin supported by the skis and shovels, finishing off the top with snow blocks. Out of the wind it was not so bad, and once the oil lamps were lit and a meal underway things started to look up. It was cold – but poking one’s snout of the shelter exposed it to the full freeze of the clear skies, with very little between us and the chill of space except a quarter of earth’s atmosphere. Having a layer of snow and canvas on top seemed a flimsy enough shelter but one that made a surprising difference. It was a strange evening; the snow-trench was little over a yard at its widest and four long and we packed in as close as we could for warmth. Outside it must have been forty below, and even inside our body heat and the stoves could not melt the snow on our boots. Definitely a chilly evening! With eight of us piled in together there was a certain amount of mutual padding but toes and ears were decidedly chilled. Some time in the night I recognised by the fur texture I was more or less lying on Herr Leopold – I think my ears were too chilled to blush. Actually, I could not help thinking about what might happen if I put on my half-Siamese fur pattern and met Herr Leopold again at some other friendly party. It is a tempting idea for a chilly night but for one thing; it would remind him almost certainly of my scent as Lady Allworthy and anyway, after June I hope to be Tailfast again and not doing anything like that. Neither did any of us invite the admittedly handsome and sturdy hares to do anything of the sort, though Molly has noted several times before that both male lepines and deer are bucks. Still, everyone was exhausted. I doubt anyone got much sleep even so: it was simply too cold and one had the option of trying to keep in the centre of the pile and be squashed or stay outside and freeze – how I remembered a similar chilly Spontoon beach with our whole class marooned on Main Island from our first year, and thinking it was quite cold enough then! Of course a fur can perish of wet and cold exposure quite as fatally as sub-zero Polar chill, and then we were soaked to the skin and less warmly clad. It was definitely a relief when dawn arrived; getting up and moving proved awfully hard, with paws that hardly wanted to move let alone buckle on skis. If we thought it was cold in the snow-trench, the first step out into a calm Antarctic dawn after a clear night had us gasping to get back in and very unwilling to collapse our shelter to get the skis and shovels back. In about an hour we had all packed, strapped our boots into the ski bindings and started to literally make tracks down the valley. It took us another two days to get to Wotansberg. All I really recall of those days was the biting chill and tiredness – we never felt warm either moving or at rest, and once out of the mountains we were out on the featureless ice plains and going up as much as downhill. While the skies were clear we could navigate and map our progress by taking back-bearings from the peaks we had left, but on the second day the sky smeared over with an icy haze and we were left on dubious compass readings and dead reckoning. It was almost sunset of our third day out from the doomed dig that an aircraft found us – one of the Junkers 52s flew low, evidently scouring the route between here and the pass. To be honest, had we been anywhere but on that direct route we would have been done for. Fortunately Songmark open-water navigation courses work just as well in a featureless desert, whether of ice or sand. The ground was too rough for the Junkers to land but it flew off having dropped us a parachute package of tough steel thermos flasks with hot coffee and chocolate – nothing has ever tasted finer! Much encouraged, we followed the direction of flight and in an hour spotted a cone of searchlights in the dusk lighting the ice-hazed skies like one of those aerial beacons that stretch across continents now to guide benighted aircraft along their routes. At nearly midnight we arrived, having eaten our meal cold and pushed on in the moonlight rather than spend another night out on the ice – and indeed on the ice shelf it was too hard to dig the sort of shelters we had before. Rather a blur of congratulations, proffered hot drinks, checks from anxious medical personnel and a hot, deep bath followed – I was in no state to be keeping detailed notes. A hundred and thirty miles in direct line across the Antarctic, mostly on our own paws (and skis) – at least, I recall thinking before falling asleep, this time our Tutors should be pleased with the trip! Saturday 10th April, 1937 A definitely leisured day, back in our old rooms at Wotansberg. I think all us slept till lunchtime, only waking with ravenous hunger. Our original ski instructors Trudi and Helga were waiting at our bedsides, with a nurse to examine us. Molly has a case of frost-nip in the ears but nothing severe, and a night’s sleep followed by a hearty breakfast/luncheon did much for our other needs. Days of strain and minor tumbles on the ice have left us as about one collective bruise, and we hardly feel like demonstrating any hula dances for the time being. It was rather a shock realising why the rooms seem so quiet; Helga confirmed that our tourist group went home yesterday, leaving us as having effectively missed the plane home! She assured us that we will get back, courtesy of Herr Director who has been asking after us. He may be twice our age and more, but boars are proverbially tough and as I remember very well, he is in excellent condition. Supper was quite a grand occasion with all the survivors present – and the support staff who had been out searching for us. Alas, Miss Muller was not one of those who got out of the ancient city. Her memory and that of twenty others was toasted and remembered; both Ritter Leopold and Herr G led the toast to “fallen comrades”. Maria whispered in Spontoonie that it was easy to forget they had been in a rival faction and we had warned everyone to stay clear of that portal. I suppose it is not always easy or comfortable being right – let alone being proved so in such a decisive manner. There was a “photo call” with Herr G and the Director shaking our paws, then the good meal and such took its toll on us and we begged leave to get back to our beds. Actually, we had an hour and another excellent bath to help us feel a little less like shipwreck survivors. Last night had been our first bath in over a week, but there had been little time for any grooming – I think I was asleep as soon as my fur was half-way dried and my head touched the pillow. Going to sleep with damp fur is a guaranteed way to wake up looking as tangled as a haystack but today we could take rather more time over things, especially Molly and myself. A week’s growth of fur itches awfully. Helen is not feeling happy about this trip; she never did. But the archaeologists would certainly have opened that portal with or without us – at least we can say “I told you so” which is no real comfort but does rather boost our reputations. Not that being best friends with these furs would be well-received in some quarters. Molly was more sarcastic, and being something of a fan of the Pulp comics speculated on whether Miss Muller and her companions will be listed in Berlin as martyrs to science having met their heroic end battling the stinging tentacles of the giant electrical penguins the Pulps claim infest the Antarctic. Had Molly been able to truly see what was there she would not have used quite that phrase, and neither Helen nor I felt like explaining it. next |