The Pole of Inaccessibility

by Alan Bronston

  ***

  Vladimir Sokolov sat on the sled watching as the dogs leaped out in front of him. On one side Geoff jogged along, on the other side, Frodo. The Russian marveled at the conditioning these two must have to be able to keep up with Huskies, though they were slowed by the sleds that were weighted down with gear. The two ran along to help the dogs in their toil, holding on and pushing as they trotted. The dogs were harnessed in a fan-hitch configuration rather than in tandem, and they were spread out along side each other in Greenlandic style, as Geoff preferred the maneuverability afforded with that setup, thinking it allowed the team to wheel to the right or left in a tighter radius. This he felt was a decided advantage when encountering crevasses, despite what others complained of, that having the dogs all spread out would increase the chance that one or a couple of them could stray into the hidden menace. The dogs, he however found, had an uncanny ability to sense the danger and bypass it. Geoff had tried to make the Russian comfortable on that point, upon which he was found to have much anxiety.

  There was a cacophony of sound that accompanied their passage. At the onset the dogs barked wildly, their enthusiasm to be going infectious. Once underway, the dogs quieted except for their panting, but the sled groaned under the weight and from the cold. The sustrugi, as always, rasped with the friction applied to the brittle surface. The handlers called their instructions to the Huskies. The humans conversed over the noise with each other. When they stopped, the silence was remarkable in contrast.

  The sky when they started was again that almost surreal azure that seemed to have the depth and texture of thick glass. The light that filtered through gave dimension to the things of their limited universe; ice, rock, dog, and man, that normally wouldn’t be apparent to their sight. And those added dimensions passed beyond the physical senses, the sight of everything in this uncanny light also filled their eyes with a sense of the ineffable, as if they too were lifted to a higher place in the purity of this light.

  In this light Sokolov observed his companions and the straining Huskies. He was inclined to love the dogs for themselves in any light, but in this light they looked as if they were Gods’ own dogs. It had been decades since he had allowed himself to ponder God, there being altogether too many subjects upon which he was embattled with his government already, but in this light he dared to think, and wondered if he were now somehow closer to the Supreme Being. It was supposed in his country that as a man who studied the mechanics of the physical universe, he would have dismissed any though of a higher power as unscientific and superstitious. On the contrary, he felt like every discovery brought him closer to the God of his fathers, and further from the godless state of the socialists. The more he learned of the harmony of nature, the larger the place he saw carved out for the one thing that tied it all together, that set it in motion, and that gave it meaning.

  Some of this beneficence even shone onto his travelling partners. Frodo became almost a sympathetic character, as in this light his better nature was illuminated, and the meaner elements remained opaque. Geoff regained his simple and pure affability. He recognized that Sokolov, despite his lengthy tenure on the ice, was decidedly out of his element and made every effort to make him comfortable. Sokolov began to find the world making sense again, which only added to the incongruity of his perception. To find the world making sense and meaning in its most inhospitable place was in and of itself contradictory. But it was a contradiction that he was coming to appreciate.

  Frodo relayed to Geoff the details of his encounter with the camp at Beardmore, why he went there, how he ended up with Sokolov, how they parted and consequently found themselves together again. Hearing the story told from the perspective of the environmentalist allowed the Russian to see the strange man in different way, and while not altogether approving of him, he understood his passion.

  Geoff responded by making good natured jests of the affair, designed to poke fun at Frodo, but without the intention of causing him any real discomfiture. He enjoyed the story for its entertainment value without commenting on the ramifications implicit in the outcome.

  The dog teams first made their way to Cape Royds where Shacklton had erected his hut on the expedition of 1907. After spending the dark of winter in that hut the expedition hauled their materials to McMurdo on the precise track that the teams now followed. They found the hut exactly as it was left in the midst of the Adelie Penguin rookeries of which it was surrounded. They didn’t stay long. The peak of the summer was fast approaching and the sea ice could begin break up at any time. As it was they were pushing their luck on that score, but only needed one more day to cross the open sea ice, and Geoff was confident. They turned to the west and headed for the coast of the Royal Society mountain range and Hogback Hill where the glaciers that wend their way from the Polar Plateau finally broke upon the winter ice, their tongues protruding into the Ross Sea. After that it was straight north following the coast to Terra Nova Bay. It was easier to travel on the annual ice for as long as it lasted. The hope was that even after it broke up there would be enough still attached to land for the trip there and back. If not, it would make for a rugged trip over broken glaciers and even dry land.

  The group made camp the first night on the sea ice halfway from Cape Royds to the coast. Through the night the groans of pressure being translated through the ice resounded just below their ears as they lay in the tents. There was a perceptible rise and fall as the waves moved underneath. This settled the question, there was little time left and the coast must be obtained as quickly as possible. They broke camp earlier than they had intended and ran for the mountains. Soon leads, fingers of open water, began to appear on the surface and Sokolov thought they were finished, but Geoff only rearranged the dogs into a tandem formation, and the lead dog leaped over the openings with the others following.

  Once they reached the Hogback they ascended the Wilson-Piedmont glacier, which ran parallel to the coast. From there they watched as the ocean opened up beneath where they had stood only hours before. Sokolov momentarily lost the sense of well being he had acquired, but seeing the indominatable Kiwi laughing at the perceived danger as if it were exactly what he’d planned, Sokolov again began to relax. He came to the conclusion that these people he was with were either insane, or very, very adept at this mode of surviving. Perhaps one depended upon the other.

  When they stopped to camp the second day there were clouds streaming across the sky and the now open sea was whipped to green foam. The dogs were tethered a distance apart from each other, so each could dig out its hollow where it curled up to stay warm. By getting the bulk of their body mass below the top level of the snow they could tuck paws and nose underneath, with only the thick fur exposed to the wind. The drifting snow soon covered the huskies with a shield against the blow, and the dogs slept comfortably in their cocoons.

  Geoff, Frodo, and Sokolov shared a tent, a large mountaineering dome that was supplied by Frodo. Geoff wanted to take a Scott tent, the canvas and wood traditional shelter of the Antarctic explorer, but Frodo prevailed in the argument on the grounds that it was lighter and the dogs needn’t be overworked for traditions sake. It was also roomier, which turned out to be a good thing, since they were to be hunkered down for two days before the weather would permit them to move.

  Sandwiched as they were side by side in their sleeping bags through the storm with little to do but feed the dogs, eat, and melt snow for water, Sokolov began to lose the reticence that had been so long instilled in him. The dog handler spoke in the melodic tones of the unaffected New Zealander, which inspired both confidence and confidentiality. He and Frodo talked incessantly, but neither pushed the Russian to speak himself, as it seemed obvious that he kept quiet not out of any ill feeling towards them, rather there was some powerful constraint on his ability to do so. But after an interlude when neither the activist nor the dog handler had anything to say, Sokolov ventured to fill the void.

  “When I was 16 years of age, I was taken from the schoo
l where I was being prepared for the university and was marched to the Polish frontier to fight the Nazis. It was January of 1945 and the division I was with was the first to enter Warsaw. The devastation we encountered was indescribable. But as we marched through the terrible winter I shared a tent, not such a tent as this one, but still a tent you see; with two other boys of my age. While we were alone in this tent we never spoke of the horrors we had witnessed on the journey. We spoke only of our homes, our lives, our loves, and our families. It was not so different from this, when we were in this tent. It is strange to say of that most horrific of times, but I miss those moments in that tent, and remember that part of the nightmare fondly.”

  “That’s what mates are for, Mate; to see you through. Sounds like you had some good ones, I’d dare say,” Geoff ventured kindly.

  “Yes, they were,” Sokolov agreed with a sigh. “One was killed in Germany; the other was promoted but then later sent to the camps of the Gulag. He was never heard from again.”

  “But you did go to the University, after that?” Frodo asked, trying to move the conversation away from its unpleasant turn.

  “Yes, I went there. And I graduated with high honors. So much so that I was placed in the Directorate that was tasked with developing atomic weaponry. I had no say in the matter, but my feelings on this subject could not be concealed and eventually I was sent to where I could still do valuable, but less sensitive, work. I wonder that I did not join the fate of my tent-mate in the Gulag system.”

  Finding that Sokolov was both an objector as well as a founder of nuclear energy was fascinating to Frodo, who had many questions for him. In this fashion much of the time under the wind driven tent was spent. It took some little while for Sokolov to be able to speak without measuring, censuring his words. But he eventually found himself falling into camaraderie with these two new tent-mates, and when the conversation shifted away from his past, he began to join in when their discourse shifted to less unfortunate circumstances.

  “By the by,” Geoff asked Frodo, “what of the girls?”

  “Gone,” said Frodo without too much remorse for his loss. “Can’t say I blame them. That whack-job Thumper sure made things hot for us.”

  Neither of his two companions felt it necessary to debate the level of wackiness requisite to be part of that tribe, and courteously kept silent.

  “Still,” Frodo went on after a pause, “I’d rather not have gotten so unceremoniously dumped for that Aussie.”

  Geoff made a firm sign of affirmation.

  “Always a bugger when an Aukker gets the better.”

  “Well, you know, I have spent worse time in worse places with less enjoyable company,” Frodo said, the tone of his voice in the tent suggesting there was a wink going along with it, “but I’m not sorry to be looking out for just myself right now. Damn, it’s good to be free!”

  Both Sokolov and Geoff burst with laughter.

  “So this is the freedom I struggle so hard to find,” Sokolov said, joking for the first time in as long as he could remember. “Very good, then. I will endeavor to be worthy of it.”

  “Don’t laugh, Mate,” Geoff said, laughing himself. “It doesn’t get any better than this, seriously.”

  “It’s true,” Frodo agreed. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, there’s always something that gets its claws dug into you that keeps your time from being your own. Just being out in the open air with nothing to worry about but your days’ destination is as free as free gets.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way,” Geoff said approvingly, “since your continued freedom after the days’ destination is still very much in question, in case you’d forgotten.”

  “I had actually, and I intend to continue to do so,” Frodo said, contentedly dismissing this triviality. “Tomorrow’s always another day.”

  The conversation carried on in this vein until each began to doze off. During the second night the storm began to abate and as he drifted in and out of sleep, Sokolov dreamed of endless horizons of white, the barking of the dogs, and the gentle rocking of the sled as it moved on into forever. It was a very comfortable dream, and he slept as peacefully as he ever had.