Mid/Rats - ANTARCTICA 1973

Long shadows reach out from Erebus

and Observation Hill.

The bright sunlight sears into a burning bronze orb

as it rotates through another 12 hour stint at Willy Field.

In the diffused light the ice contrasts into

brilliant greens against the whiteness of snow hills,

that are tinged in blue

So much beauty here

at the bottom of the world.

The direction is unsure because

everywhere you point leads South

Unless you point at your feet.

It's midnight and I am hungry.

I look back from the Sound towards Mac-Town,

a muddy red volcanic smudge on the skyline.

But no tell-tale plume of diesel smoke is spotted

rising above the now sunken and sludgy glacier road

The Kiwi Express is nowhere to be seen.

I hunker more into my combat jacket

and both sides of my mouth are frozen into my beard

as the chill of the long shadow reaches me

this is as close as sunset ever gets.

Far out into the frozen reaches of the annual shelf

an Icebreaker goes about her business

maybe the Edisto or the Northwind?

we haven't seen her yet

but Dave Hazard the Loadmaster

reckons she's out there somewhere

clearing a path through the ice for the Sea Bees.

The "Ice Runway" should last another week they tell us,

but the seals and penguins

have become a daily problem

bouncing up out of hidden ice holes

and sleeping in the sun on the taxi-way.

The penguins (Emperors) aren't a problem,

they belly surf to 'hell and gone'

at the first sound of an inbound aircraft

but the seals MMMmmm.

Soft, sluggish and very oily and smelly.

There's so much harsh, rugged beauty here,

so much unexplored frontier and wilderness.

Almost every day a new Mountain Range is being discovered,

or climbed, or explored. Tourists would pay serious money

just to be standing where I am standing now

A real moment in history.

In two days time it will be "Camel Back"

and we'll celebrate the first half of the season completed

as well as the medal ceremony.

But right now it's midnight and I'm cold, tired and hungry

Where the fuck are our Mid/Rats?

©Copyright October 2003 by Mike Subritzky

NEW ZEALAND

Mid/Rats = an Antarcticanism for Midnight Rations