the island where Victor Campbell was stranded for eight months with five men in their summer clothes and two monthsâ rations during the Antarctic winter of 1912. They suffered from a painful condition they called âigloo backâ, their lives so troglodytic and their faces so caked with blubber that they were recognisable only by their voices. Yet they enjoyed concerts on Saturday nights, and issued copies of a newspaper called The Adélie Mail .
Victor Campbell was an Old Etonian, a scientist and first officer on the Terra Nova on Scottâs second expedition. He went to Antarctica partly because his marriage was rocky. Having been conveyed to the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf by the Terra Nova in January 1911, the intention of the Eastern Party, which consisted of Campbell, three seamen and two officers, was to carry out extensive surveying work, but they failed to find an eastern landing. Initiative being the key to Antarctic science then as now, they went north to Cape Adare instead.
On the way, much to the surprise of both groups, they met Amundsen and the other Norwegians in the Bay of Whales. When the watchman of the Fram â clearly a man who liked to hedge his bets â saw the Terra Nova sailing past, he brought out his Jarman gun, which he loaded with six bullets, and an English phrasebook from which he quickly learnt to say âHello, how are you this morning?â The encounter was cordial, and they inspected each otherâs quarters. The British were astonished at the efficiency with which the Norwegians handled their dogs, and Amundsen recorded in his diary that after the visitors left all the Norwegians caught colds.
At Cape Adare, Campbell and his five men waved the ship goodbye and renamed themselves the Northern Party. After a fruitful season the Terra Nova picked them up again and dropped them at what became Inexpressible Island, supposedly for six weeks. But when it came to fetch them that time, it failed to get through the pack ice and returned to New Zealand, leaving Campbell and his men marooned in an ice hole for eight months.
Then men got used to a meat and fat diet, though its high acid content meant that some frequently wet themselves. After eight months on the edge of endurance they had to trek 230 miles back to the hut on Ross Island, and when they got there, they learnt that Scott and the others had perished.
Beyond the island, a flash of colour caught my eye. I realised it must be the Italian station, crouched on the edge of Terra Nova Bay. In five minutes the rotor was shuddering to a stop on the helipad in front of the base.
The main building was on stilts, with Prussian blue corrugated metal walls, a Siena orange roof and Beaubourgesque chimneys. From it emerged Mario. He was a dark-haired and olive-skinned man in his late forties, wearing glasses and a permanently hunted expression. He welcomed me, looking anxiously over my shoulder at the helicopter cargo, of which there was very little. We walked in, but he was distracted, so I tried to keep a low profile, not an easy task when thrust among forty Italians eager for new blood. I was introduced to almost everyone at once, and propelled into the Operations Room â la sala comando . It was a long narrow room with one continuous window overlooking the helipad and a great sweeping panorama encompassing the whole bay, frozen as far as the Campbell Ice Tongue and metamorphosing beyond that into the beckoning turquoise of open water. Presiding over it all was Mount Melbourne, the 2900-metre volcanic cone named by Ross after the British prime minister. It dominated the Italian presence as completely as Mount Erebus dominated the Americans and the New Zealanders. The operations room was run like a wartime bunker by Gaetano, a wiry lieutenant-colonel aged around thirty who flew about the room, spluttering like a grenade, and gave the impression of constant and almost fatal overwork. He thrust a VHF radio into my hand
Victor Campbell was an Old Etonian, a scientist and first officer on the Terra Nova on Scottâs second expedition. He went to Antarctica partly because his marriage was rocky. Having been conveyed to the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf by the Terra Nova in January 1911, the intention of the Eastern Party, which consisted of Campbell, three seamen and two officers, was to carry out extensive surveying work, but they failed to find an eastern landing. Initiative being the key to Antarctic science then as now, they went north to Cape Adare instead.
On the way, much to the surprise of both groups, they met Amundsen and the other Norwegians in the Bay of Whales. When the watchman of the Fram â clearly a man who liked to hedge his bets â saw the Terra Nova sailing past, he brought out his Jarman gun, which he loaded with six bullets, and an English phrasebook from which he quickly learnt to say âHello, how are you this morning?â The encounter was cordial, and they inspected each otherâs quarters. The British were astonished at the efficiency with which the Norwegians handled their dogs, and Amundsen recorded in his diary that after the visitors left all the Norwegians caught colds.
At Cape Adare, Campbell and his five men waved the ship goodbye and renamed themselves the Northern Party. After a fruitful season the Terra Nova picked them up again and dropped them at what became Inexpressible Island, supposedly for six weeks. But when it came to fetch them that time, it failed to get through the pack ice and returned to New Zealand, leaving Campbell and his men marooned in an ice hole for eight months.
Then men got used to a meat and fat diet, though its high acid content meant that some frequently wet themselves. After eight months on the edge of endurance they had to trek 230 miles back to the hut on Ross Island, and when they got there, they learnt that Scott and the others had perished.
Beyond the island, a flash of colour caught my eye. I realised it must be the Italian station, crouched on the edge of Terra Nova Bay. In five minutes the rotor was shuddering to a stop on the helipad in front of the base.
The main building was on stilts, with Prussian blue corrugated metal walls, a Siena orange roof and Beaubourgesque chimneys. From it emerged Mario. He was a dark-haired and olive-skinned man in his late forties, wearing glasses and a permanently hunted expression. He welcomed me, looking anxiously over my shoulder at the helicopter cargo, of which there was very little. We walked in, but he was distracted, so I tried to keep a low profile, not an easy task when thrust among forty Italians eager for new blood. I was introduced to almost everyone at once, and propelled into the Operations Room â la sala comando . It was a long narrow room with one continuous window overlooking the helipad and a great sweeping panorama encompassing the whole bay, frozen as far as the Campbell Ice Tongue and metamorphosing beyond that into the beckoning turquoise of open water. Presiding over it all was Mount Melbourne, the 2900-metre volcanic cone named by Ross after the British prime minister. It dominated the Italian presence as completely as Mount Erebus dominated the Americans and the New Zealanders. The operations room was run like a wartime bunker by Gaetano, a wiry lieutenant-colonel aged around thirty who flew about the room, spluttering like a grenade, and gave the impression of constant and almost fatal overwork. He thrust a VHF radio into my hand
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