Blazing Ice (28 page)

“Yes.”

Eight at the breakfast round table would be heading out soon. Rick would see us off, then head home for the States.

“So we're going to have to come up with work-arounds,” I said, managing a calm tone. “Let's start with flags. Rick, how many green flags do we have coming?”

“One thousand, five hundred.” Rick's spreadsheet mind dipped into his archive. I couldn't ask for a more meticulous coordinator.

“And they're ten-footers, right?”

“Right.”

“How many can Science Support spare us?” I asked.

“Six hundred and fifty,” he said, right back at me. “But they're only eight-footers. Air Field Management will give us 950, also eight-footers.”

Our flags were durable, quality-made items on poles stout enough to withstand gales and tall enough to remain visible after years of snow accumulation. We depended on those flags. Others would depend on them for years to come.

“And both Science and Air Field will send us off with theirs, and accept our ten-footers in a month or so?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Rick, take Greg and Judy. Get the flags down to the staging area on the sea ice this morning. We'll load them up this afternoon. What else you got?” I asked, expecting news of other missing items on the boat.

“Air Field asks who's going to pay for the labor to cut two feet off our ten-footers?” Rick reported.

I sighed. “Cut me two feet off of one of the eight-footers, would you please? Make it the top two feet with the green banner still on it. I'll see if they really want a two-foot flag.”

That drew a laugh around the table. The rest did not. Corporate Safety had issued a new rule prohibiting anyone from lifting over forty pounds, or working above four feet without tying off. The forty and four rule. Safety required an elaborate, written justification for any variance.

“Over the next few days, be careful who's watching. Let's get out of town before paper work grinds us to a halt.”

The day was gray, the same color as the sea ice we stood on at our staging area just off-shore from town. There was no wind. Air Field's spindly flag
poles, each as big as my little finger, lay on the ice strapped down to a pallet. I pulled one out of the bundle and the bamboo stick snapped in two.

Stretch lay down on the ice, working on one sled's running gear. When he finished his job, he crawled out and joined me by the milvan, which was a standard shipping container that served as our parts supply sled.

“You wanted to see me?” Stretch asked, business-like. At six feet, five inches he stood a good two inches taller than me, and now close enough to me that I could speak softly.

Stretch had served on the Defense Early Warning, or DEW, line project in the Canadian Arctic years ago. He later became a sergeant in the combat infantry in Vietnam, though he'd wanted helicopters. He returned from that war to Wisconsin for farming, and he raised a beautiful daughter who'd since grown into a sharp, professional woman in the information technology world.

Stretch was a deep thinker. When he acted, he acted deliberately. Give him the information he needed, and he'd bring any mission to a successful conclusion. Yet he shunned the madness of crowds. His current reading interests included biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. I'd brought a book or two with me this year, specifically to share with Stretch.

“Stretch, two new guys this year have asked who takes charge if I'm unable to carry on. I haven't answered them yet, but I'm about to. And I want your buy-in. If something happens to me on the trail, I want you to take charge. Whether that means go forward or come back, that'll be for you to decide.”

Stretch's eyes bored into mine. “I am surprised. And I'm flattered you have such faith in me.”

“I always have, Stretch. From the days we first ran the radar out to GAW. Just you and me. And ever since then. You studied the maps, and ran your own GPS. You, of all, have a better idea of where we are at any time. The rest of the job is a gimme. You know the machines. Folks respect you. What say you?”

“Very well, I will,” he consented.

I didn't intend to announce my choice, exactly. Teasing on the trail, such as might arise from my announcement, we could do without. But I told Stretch that he was my designate last year, too. Stretch's eyebrows rose at this new knowledge. The question didn't come up then, so I hadn't mentioned it. I simply placed his name in an envelope stored in the cubby by my bunk. Another of the crew would unseal that envelope if it was necessary.

This season, with the subject in the open, I advised my boss of my plans. But he declared the decision as to my replacement would be his and his boss's.

“You're not hearing me,” I hurled back. This was not about job-title changes and paperwork and approvals and policies and procedures and human resources and other irrelevancies. “I'm talking about a bad situation in the field that requires an instant leader and change of command.”

Eight of us had just enough room to shuffle around our own galley. Some sat on the bench mounted along the wall, behind the narrow board that was our dining table. Others sat on stools, and some leaned against the kitchen counter. With nine of us today, the ninth being Rick, somebody had to stand back in one of the bunkrooms to hear.

“Tom and Greg have both asked, ‘Who's in charge if something should happen to you?' A legitimate question, it deserves an answer.”

Tom, at sixty-four, was the oldest of our crew. Greg, at thirty-three, was the youngest. We joked that I hired Greg because I hired Tom … to bring down the average age of the whole crew, or
they
would not let us go. All of us together averaged 51½ years old.

Small group dynamics in remote field settings were a natural concern of Tom's. But he understood the traverse business was not solely a mountaineering proposition. He also understood we were dealing with big machines on an industrial scale.

Independently, Greg asked the same question. Greg, however, was totally new to our group. I'd sought advice on his marine background from my friends who were marines. One Desert Storm veteran observed from Greg's resume that he'd been given command of an amphibious assault vehicle company, as a second lieutenant.

“That's rare, and speaks well for him. Company commands usually go to captains,” my friend explained. “The other stuff tells me the Marines invested pretty high-power training in him. They don't do that for everybody.” He referred to Greg's training in Anti-Terrorism tactics and command. Greg's question came natural for a marine.

I cleared my throat. “Among our combined talent, we've got all we need to deal with any situation. At this stage, I'm not particularly important …
except I've a better feel than any of us for the ground ahead. But down the trail, my incapacity for any reason could happen.” Thinking of Brian in
Linda
, Bwana Kim in the Shear Zone, and the three close encounters last year, I began with the ultimate “incapacity.” “If I die, my first wish is that my body be left where it is. My wife understands that. Although at the time, we were thinking of letting the coyotes have at my bones …”

That raised a smile or two.

“But if you must move my dead body for whatever reason, know that my second wish is that I be cremated.”

More smiles linked the dying wish of Robert Service's poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”

“That's out of the way … In the event of my incapacity, a marked envelope in my cubby contains my instructions for succession. I want one person to open that envelope and read it at the appropriate time. Stretch, you be that one who opens the envelope. Call McMurdo after that, if you want.”

Stretch nodded. The one word penned on the paper sealed inside that envelope read: “S-T-R-E-T-C-H.”

If they had to turn back for whatever reason, flags planted every quarter mile pointed the way home. Tom, Greg, and John V. had not been on that trail. They couldn't visualize that elegant simplicity stretching 738 miles from McMurdo. I pointed to maps and distance charts posted on our galley walls. All anyone needed to know about getting back to McMurdo from the top of the Leverett was there. If they wanted more, route notes and operations reports stored in the cabinet above the comms desk would give it.

None of us knew what the ground beyond our farthest south was like. Part of our job was to find out. But all my research on those last three hundred miles traveled with us, and I'd brief them on the ground ahead at appropriate times on the trail. Now I showed them where that information resided on our computer's desktop. Anyone was free to access it, without a password, at any time.

“As a final note,” I explained, “in the event of my incapacity, the best of us to interpret those digital maps and coordinate lists is Tom Lyman.” I hadn't spoken of that to Stretch, but he just learned he'd not be alone.

“This afternoon we'll start staging sled trains to Williams Field along the Pegasus Snow Road. We're going to launch from Willy sooner that you think.”

All our tractors and sleds lined up head-to-tail on the Williams Field road at the “city limits.” The fleet weighed in at 933,000 pounds, our heaviest launch weight ever. For now we parked, with engines idling. It was picture time.

Dave Bresnahan showed up. After we'd won our funding in April, I extended Dave my formal offer to join us. We'd discussed the possibility for over a year. NSF stood to win, for it did not have anybody within its walls that knew traversing by experience. How unlike the French program that was. It had Patrice Godon. On the other hand, we'd get to pick Dave's brain in the field and fathom the bureaucratic mysteries that propelled us. A few days before my deadline, Dave opted out for the very good reason of other needs of his family. I immediately phoned Greg Feleppa: “You're hired.”

Dave generously threw us a party two evenings before in McMurdo, dates and friends only. The intimate affair at the comfortable NSF quarters brought Ice stories out of all of us.

Ann Hawthorne, an NSF grantee photographer, also showed up. We'd become close friends, and she held the respected position in my family of “honorary auntie” to my two children. The striking gray-haired woman, half-hillbilly and half–southern belle, once remarked that she and I were fraternal twins, separated by birth.

Ann took the pictures that morning. The long line of tractors and sleds defined her horizon. In her foreground, our disorderly crew bore smiling, hopeful faces. A warm sun lit her subjects under a bright blue sky on the chill November day.

After we stood for the picture, I walked across the snow to my waiting tractor, smiling at a message George Blaisdell sent me that morning: “Take the big scalp this time.” George and Dave fought the intramural battles for us at NSF that sent us out to the field to fight for ourselves. Now, looking forward to the unknown future, I felt pretty good. There was nothing more we could do to be ready. I climbed into
Fritzy
's cab, repeating to myself once again, “There is no other job. This is the job.”

A cesium clock on board a Navstar satellite overhead signaled my GPS the time was precisely 1100 hours local.

“Mac-Ops, Mac-Ops … South Pole traverse.”

“Go ahead, South Pole Traverse, this is Mac-Ops.”

“Mac-Ops, South Pole Traverse is departing McMurdo at 1100 hours on the eleventh day of the eleventh month for the South Pole, with all souls, tractors, and sleds as previously noted. Estimated time of return … sometime in January or February 2006.”

“Copy all, Traverse. Good luck. Mac-Ops clear.”

“Traverse clear.”

Switching to our own frequency, I called Greg at the head of the line: “Take us out!”

The PistenBully crawled forward slowly, pulling a long rope tether tied to two snowmobiles on red plastic sleds. Greg captained our radar and flagging team this year. We'd recently named his vehicle
Wrong Way
.

Brad pulled in behind Greg, running the new Case tractor. We named that one
Red Rider
. Brad pulled the living and energy module sleds. Behind those, he towed a steel tank sled. And behind that, he pulled a single CRREL spreader bar sled hitched to the two bladder sleds. Each bladder rode on its own red plastic sheet. All together, Brad pulled seven thousand gallons of fuel in addition to the modules.

Judy rolled out next in the
Elephant Man
. John V. rode with her as passenger for the time being. The
Elephant Man
pulled our food van and another steel fuel tank sled.

I swung into line with
Fritzy
and its rear-mounted crane, pulling our spare parts van and two steel fuel tank sleds.

Stretch followed in Pole's MT865, which hadn't been flown to Pole last year after all. He pulled a flatbed sled loaded with a skid-steer tractor and its accessories. Hitched behind the flatbed sled was a ninety-cubic yard capacity belly-dump trailer on tracks specially designed for hauling snow at South Pole Station. It weighed sixty-two thousand pounds, cleared eight feet high when empty, and ran thirty feet long assembled. Since it was painted all white, we called the trailer
Snow White
, or sometimes
Black Beauty
. Everything in Stretch's train, including his tractor, was deliverable cargo.

Russ brought up the rear with
Quadzilla
, our first Case tractor. He pulled a CRREL spreader bar sled, which in turn pulled four steel fuel tank sleds, paired two by two on either side of the spreader.

Ann's pictures show that right after we rounded the post marking BI-SP, less than a quarter mile off the Willy Road, the weather sat down on us.

Greg lay a track to the right of the green flag line that took us out to the Shear Zone. He looked for flags in front of him, but through the blowing snow they appeared and disappeared. The rest of us had tractors to look at. It had to be quite a storm before we lost sight of a whole tractor a hundred yards ahead. It wasn't that kind of storm yet, but the light was flat enough that I couldn't make out the
Elephant Man
's tracks. I focused instead on Judy's tank sled, closed the distance, and readied to stop in case she did. Then I settled back in my seat, and breathed a heavy sigh, happy to be underway.