ANOTHER VOICE

Survival of the not so fit in the frozen sub-Antarctic wastes

MATTHEW PARRIS

Marion Dufresne .OK,' said the chief at Port-aux- Francais. 'It's the first time you have led, I think? See what confidence I have in you.'

More confidence, in fact, than I had in myself, but it didn't do to say so. This was my chance for a final walk into the moun- tains before the ship, the Marion Dufresne, already at anchor offshore, took me away. An Englishman with only four months' acquaintance with the French sub-Antarctic island of Kerguelen would not normally be entrusted with the care of two total novices on a two-day walk to a mountain shelter and back, but there was nobody else available. My team, two passengers from the Marion, had placed their faith in me.

They were an odd pair. Marc, a young photographer, had joined the ship, hopeful of pictures of these little-known islands. Tall, good-looking, solidly built and apparently fit, he was raring to go. Daniel, a sculptor in his fifties, gave every appearance of a Daddy Cool beamed back from the 1970s. He had been commissioned to create a sculpture for the base at Kerguelen, but it had immediate- ly become clear that he could hardly do so in five days so he had redefined his mission as a journey for inspiration — and possibly a rock: something he might chisel on return. It was unclear how this wispy-bearded, elfin figure with a little canvas rucksack, shiny blue, ankle-length plastic boots and a bobble hat was going to lift, let alone transport, his rock. We made an unlikely team.

Still, the weather was calm and the walk across a windy, stone-strewn plain to the foot of the mountains should only take a couple of hours. Once we had waded across the river, it was but two or three hours up the great Studer Valley to our overnight shelter by a windy lake. I collected food, and a walkie-talkie — which I did not know how to use — from the BCR radio room. I watched furtively while the radio officer tried it out. It seemed you pushed a button when you wanted to speak.

Allons!' I cried jauntily to my team, point- ing towards a gap in the mountains which I supposed might be the Studer Valley; and we set out. Marc began to limp: an old knee injury, he said. Daniel danced off, antique rucksack askew, gazing towards the rock horizon with a look of rapt anticipation.

The sky was blue, but the air was way below freezing. Before the desert-like plain comes a huge bog punctuated by countless vicious little sinking bogs camouflaged by moss. 'Frozen solid,' I said, before sailing across one. Behind me, Marc went straight through the ice, up to his thighs. Daniel, who alternated between panic and ecstasy, switched briefly to panic. We helped Marc out, redistributing some of his load among us as his knee worsened. The wind was in our faces, but not strong, and we made it easily to the Studer Valley.

`We cross the river?' breathed Daniel, back in ecstasy mode.

`Ah,' I said, 'there's a point.' There was indeed, but I had only the vaguest idea where it was. It matters where you cross. A young man was killed near there when he chose too deep a stretch. We followed the river until I saw what I seemed to remem- ber as a familiar crossing place. 'Here!' I announced. We crossed. Even Daniel kept his feet dry. My team's confidence in me rose. But Marc was now in real pain.

We made it up that majestic valley and found the shelter: an old sea-container, cus- tomised into an iron cabin with no windows. We marvelled at the nearby waterfall: a river drops a thousand feet in three great falls into a huge black gorge. Eyes burning, Daniel stared at the rock. It was hard to know what to say to a man in his condition.

That night I managed to contact the base (as is required) by VHF. I now felt confi- dent — pace the weather — of our return on the morrow. We ate; Mark with a bag of snow round his knee, Daniel silent, absorbed. It was a cold, starry night when we turned in, but before dawn I awoke to hear snow stinging the steel shell of our container, then the wind, great blasts fol- lowed by terrifying silences, shaking the whole cabin.

We pushed open our iron door to find a foot of snow driven by a vile wind. At least it would be at our back on the return jour- ney. Daniel and I took much of Marc's heavy stuff, including his absurd Eiffel Tower of a tripod, and we set forth. It was tough, but, driven by the wind, we stumbled on down the river. 'Where did we cross?' asked Daniel.

`Er . . . here!' I said, anything but sure it was there because the snow had altered everything and was now settling on the part-frozen river, making the depth impos- sible to gauge. Daniel put one bootee in. `No!' he cried, 'too deep for my boots!' `Bugger your boots,' I thought. 'The river has risen in the night,' I said, authori- tatively, and plunged in first. With Marc I made it over. Daniel got a few yards in, then started skipping across in a strange, manic fashion, at great speed — spurred on, we later found out, by the icy water in his boots. Soon Marc fell into another bog, followed by Daniel. I slipped badly on iced moss. We limped on.

We emerged from the valley. Never say pace the weather' in Kerguelen because the weather won't be pace'd. The wind went berserk. This was, we were to learn, an 80 mph west wind, and carrying so much snow, and with such force, that it was impos- sible to see more than 50 yards — or to look back into the wind at all. Poor Daniel's feet had frozen, and any thought of collecting a rock had vanished.

What direction should we take? 'I have a compass,' ventured Marc. 'But I don't have a map,' I thought. `No need,' I said gaily. 'I have an innate sense of direction. Everybody here has remarked on it.' Inwardly my heart sank. One must not be theatrical, but you can die in these conditions. We were very alone. `Well,' I thought, 'the wind's usually westerly. the base is sort of east, so, backs to the storm. all those masts should be difficult to miss.'

`This way,' 1 said, pointing firmly as Marc blew over. I had learnt to sit down fast, for felled by the blast you can roll away like tumbleweed; and in blowing snow, when you can't look back, it's easy to lose one another in seconds. But, stumbling and staggering and falling into bogs, we some- how kept together. In fact my two friends were stalwart.

After two hours we could still see noth- ing. When the others weren't looking I would peer around urgently in the hope of seeing a mast. 'Shouldn't we be there by now?' asked Marc.

`We are,' I said, on a whim, 'I sense it. Soon we'll see the base.' We lurched on into a small lake.

Then, in a brief respite between snow- blasts, I saw a mast. Casually, withdrawing from the lake, I mentioned that we were home. Soon we were.

In the shower afterwards I realised that the entire back half of me — from heel to buttocks to ears — had turned orange in the cold. 'You knew the way!' said Daniel, ecstatically, over a bowl of tea later. I shrugged modestly in my best Gallic fashion.