1912 (33 page)

Magnetism would be a feature of the extensive observation program. Although Shackleton's British team claimed to have reached the South Magnetic Pole area, there were mutterings they might have fallen short; David and Mawson were unsure. Charles Chree, director of the Kew Observatory, wrote to David and said that, regardless, ‘Every one, I am sure, appreciates the truly heroic quest made by you & Dr Mawson…We want a little poetry and adventure in science to show to the public that scientific men are not machines.' Mawson was determined to resolve the issue, preferably without heroics. He needed the expedition to approach the South Magnetic Pole from another direction and to be led by an expert. Just as Amundsen had, Mawson approached the Terrestrial Magnetism department at the Carnegie Institute for advice. After some deliberation they suggested Eric Webb, a trained magnetic observer, who after a five-month secondment at the Institute joined Mawson in Australia.

Mawson was all too aware that scientific results in themselves could not compete against what David had called the ‘microbe of sport'. It was important to follow Shackleton's example and engage people with a strong visual record of the expedition: the BAE had shown just how powerful photographs were for scientific work and in exciting the public. Fate would deliver the expedition Frank Hurley, then a little-known photographer based in Sydney. Hurley had purchased a Kodak box brownie camera when he was seventeen and by his early twenties was running a postcard business in Sydney.

At twenty-five Hurley cornered Mawson in a train compartment and talked non-stop through the journey. His enthusiasm was infectious. Three days later Hurley was hired and charged with a wider remit than that of his day job: he was to keep a film record of the expedition's exploits. Unfamiliar with this new technology, called a cinematograph, he learned to operate the hand-cranked movie camera in just a few days. The expedition now had a dedicated professional photographer who would go on to repeatedly put himself in danger for the best possible shot, and who scribbled above his Antarctic work bench ‘Near enough is not good enough.'

With stores and staff appointed, financing once again became the priority. After Mawson's presentation, the Royal Geographical Society marked their approval by contributing £500—the same as was given to Scott—while the promise of shares in future mineral discoveries helped secure thousands more pounds from investors. Several of the Australian state governments chipped in, offering a total of £18,500, while the federal government matched the funds provided to Shackleton, £5000—followed up later with a further £5000—but New Zealand controversially declined. Significantly, the British government also chipped in £2000. With loans and grants, Mawson could count on £39,000. Although considerably short of the £48,000 target, he had his expedition—and it was all arranged in just one year.

To maintain public interest in the enterprise—and keep funds flowing—Mawson looked to Scott's motorised sledges for supporting work on the ice. After reviewing the designs of the vehicles, however, he regretfully concluded they would not do. Instead, Mawson thought flight might be a better money-spinner. It was a shrewd move. Only ten years before, the
Wright Brothers had famously made the first powered flight; the technology had advanced swiftly since then, and with it public excitement about the possibilities of air travel.

Scott's wife, Kathleen, was an enthusiast and encouraged Mawson to take a plane for reconnaissance purposes. An unimpressed Skelton wrote to Scott in 1911: ‘Mawson is apparently taking an airplane with him and a soldier called Watkins to fly in it,—really it is very silly,—wonderful flights have been made this year,—but we haven't got anywhere near the so-called conquest of the air yet, even in Europe, and going up in the Antarctic seems to me to be only asking for trouble.'

Negotiating with the manufacturer Vickers, Mawson acquired a single-winged two-seater with skis for landing on ice for under £1000, on credit. The pilot Hugh Evelyn Watkins told
Flight
magazine, ‘it is doubtful if the airplane will be used for the final dash to the Pole, as it would have to surmount the great ice barrier.' Although Mawson had no designs on the South Geographic Pole, the magazine ended on the exasperated note: ‘What hope is there of surmounting it if it could not be done by aeroplane?' Regardless, the plane was shipped to Australia, with much fanfare.

Wild wrote of this episode in his unpublished memoirs: ‘Like almost all British explorers, Mawson had found a great difficulty in raising the necessary funds for his expedition…and he had planned to use the aeroplane to assist in this. For this purpose a huge marquee was erected on the race course, thousands of invitations sent out, and a sufficiency of refreshments of every kind provided for the guests. The Governor of South Australia promised to attend with his family, and to open the proceedings by taking the first of a series of short flights which would be given during the day at a charge of £5 a trip.'

The plane was checked over and all appeared well. Watkins and Wild took the opportunity for one last test flight the next morning:

The plane took off all right and had climbed to 500 ft when in making a turn it suddenly side slipped. We were almost down before Watkins got the plane straightened out, and the sensation was far from pleasant. We climbed again to about 150 feet when the plane put its nose down and dived. We were then over the centre of the race course and as the earth rushed at us, all my past life did not panorama before me. I felt no fear, just had time to think ‘Frank old boy your days of exploration are done,' when we struck, and the plane fell over on its back on top of us. A heavy weight was on my chest and I could hardly breathe but was fully conscious. One leg was touching a hot cylinder and I was drenched in oil and petrol and in horrible dread that the machine would burst into flames. I lay it seemed a very long time when I heard Watkins grunt and then gasp out ‘Poor old bus, she's jiggered up!'

The plane was a write-off and the event had to be cancelled. Mawson was unimpressed and blamed Watkins for the accident, ‘as he had been very late at the Naval and Military Club the night before'. Although the plane could no longer fly, the engine and body were salvaged and shipped to Antarctica to be used as an ‘air tractor'. In the
Sydney Morning Herald
, Watkins was said to be ‘keenly disappointed': this was the first time he had ever had a serious accident. He returned to England and promptly had another crash. When the war came the Royal Flying Corp decided to overlook him for service.

With much excitement, the residents of the island state of Tasmania turned out in droves to farewell the heavily laden
Aurora
when it headed south from Hobart, on 2 December 1911. It had been an extraordinary year. Mawson had somehow managed to raise the necessary funds; appoint a team of
scientists, engineers and ship's crew; buy and provision a vessel; and obtain enough equipment and supplies to sustain a scientific expedition in the field for fourteen months.

Remarkably the original plan, as put to the RGS, remained largely intact. There was one small exception: one of the bases would now be established on remote, subantarctic Macquarie Island, so it could operate as a relay station for Antarctic wireless messages and undertake scientific study. And because Macquarie Island fell under the jurisdiction of the Tasmanian state government, permission had to be obtained to work there; worryingly for Mawson, this was granted just five days before the
Aurora
left Hobart. Refusal would have thrown the whole expedition into chaos.

Weathering a violent gale south of Tasmania, the
Aurora
sighted Macquarie Island in nine days. Almost immediately the men saw a beached sealing vessel. The
Clyde
had been wrecked on a reef after a particularly bad storm and the sealers on board had been stranded for months with barrels of oil collected from fur and elephant seals on the island. The shipwrecked men were waiting to be rescued when the
Aurora
arrived—and Mawson was not one to pass up an opportunity to offset his costs. He negotiated their repatriation to Australia on a second, smaller expedition vessel that was returning to Tasmania. All the men had to do was pay for the cost of the charter.

Negotiations complete, a wireless mast was quickly erected on the island, and on a promontory at the northern end expedition members unloaded enough building materials, supplies and scientific equipment to support five men over the next year. Davis had some doubts about the leader of the group, the meteorologist George Ainsworth. On arrival Davis suggested that, in selecting the site of the base, ‘it would be well to ask the islanders their opinion as having lived on the island they would probably know the sheltered spots. This idea was ridiculed by
this gentleman who informed me with great dignity that what Ferrel—some meteorologist who had never been to the island—said was good enough for him. Well I am glad I shall not be with Ainsworth—he is an ass.'

But at least Mawson was reassured that this phase of the expedition was complete. The rest of the Australasian expedition could push on south.

The omens were good as the
Aurora
went south from Macquarie Island. For the first couple of days the sun came out and there was only a light northerly wind, allowing the men a well-earned break after two punishing weeks building the base on Macquarie Island. It was time to consider what might lie ahead, off the map. Some questioned whether there was even any land between Cape Adare and von Drygalski's Kaiser Wilhelm II Land.

The little known about the region was almost entirely based on reports made more than seventy years earlier. When Ross had found his path to the South Magnetic Pole checked by the mountains of Victoria Land, French and American fleets were exploring the icy seas to the west, south of Australia. The French were led by Jules Sébastien César Dumont D'Urville, who headed south from Hobart in 1839 and, after weaving his way around numerous tabular bergs, came across land.

Setting foot on a small island at what he called Pointe Géologie, D'Urville raised the flag and claimed the area for France. For the first time a piece of Antarctica was named after love, with the French leader bestowing the title Adelie Land, ‘to perpetuate…my deep and lasting gratitude to my devoted wife'. After a brief stay collecting geological samples and a few unfortunate penguins, the French left, only to
come across an American expedition led by the controversial Charles Wilkes.

If there were a prize for an Antarctic expedition with the poorest preparation and lowest morale, Wilkes's effort would be a strong contender. His ships were ill equipped for the icy conditions and, though he claimed to have a scientific agenda, Wilkes went out of his way to lose as many of the expedition scientists as possible before heading south. When the French and American ships met one another, they kept going—in opposite directions. After the encounter the Americans completed an impressive 1700-kilometre voyage, much of it through dangerous pack ice surrounding what we now know to be the eastern Antarctic. On returning home Wilkes confidently proclaimed he had discovered a continent in the south and, perhaps not unreasonably, expected to be welcomed as a hero. Instead, the American found himself mired in controversy, his reliability as an observer questioned, his leadership disputed.