Into White Silence Read online

  Award-winning Australian writer Anthony Eaton has long been fascinated with both the history and the reality of Antarctica. So when in 2005 he was offered the chance to spend six weeks travelling to and from Casey Station in Wilkes Land, Antarctica, he leapt at the opportunity. During that voyage he became both enchanted and cowed by the power and beauty of Antarctica, and the impact it has on the minds and hearts of those who are lucky enough to experience it. Into White Silence is the result of that voyage.

  Anthony is the author of eleven novels for various readerships. He has twice won the Western Australian Premier’s Award, holds a PhD in creative writing, and teaches at the University of Canberra in the ACT, where he lives with his wife and son.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Into White Silence

  ePub ISBN 9781742743509

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australian Antarctic Division's Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.

  A Random House book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Woolshed Press in 2008

  This edition published by Random House Australia in 2011

  Copyright © Anthony Eaton 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any

  person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by

  any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the

  statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording,

  scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior

  written permission of Random House Australia.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at

  www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Author: Eaton, Anthony, 1972–

  Title: Into white silence / Anthony Eaton

  Edition: 2nd ed.

  ISBN: 978 1 74275 254 9 (pbk)

  Subjects: Antarctica – Fiction

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Cover images by Getty Images and iStockphoto

  To the men and women of the 59th ANARE.

  Thanks for a fantastic experience.

  Men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons. Some are actuated simply by a love of adventure, some have the keen thirst for scientific knowledge, and others again are drawn away from the trodden paths by the ‘lure of little voices’, the mysterious fascination with the unknown …

  Sir Ernest Shackleton

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Imprint Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Members of the 1922 Raven Expedition

  The Polar Exploration Vessel Raven

  Built Norway 1920

  Edward Patrick O’Rourke – Lineage

  William Downes – Lineage and Descendants

  Author’s Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Bibliography

  Members of the 1922 Raven Expedition

  EXPEDITION PERSONNEL

  Expedition Leader

  First Officer

  Second Officer

  Expedition Meteorologist

  Expedition Cartographer

  Expedition Zoologist

  Expedition Geologist

  Expedition Photographer

  Expedition Surgeon

  Carpenter

  Carpenter

  Ski Instructor

  Dog Handler

  Dog Handler

  Edward Rourke

  Capt. (retd) George Smythe-Davis

  Lieut. (retd) William Downes

  Alexander Holdsworthy

  Douglas King

  Dr Gregory Shannon-Stacey

  Michael Burke

  Randolph Lawson

  Dr George Dalby

  Lawrence Moreton

  William Moreton

  Per Petersen

  Ivan Gregorivich Petrokoff

  Piotre Dimitri Petrokoff

  SHIP’S STAFF

  Captain

  Ship’s Bosun

  Ship’s Engineer

  Cook

  Ship’s Steward

  Capt. James McLaren

  Richard Ryan

  Charles Weymouth

  Samuel Piper

  Stanley O’Hanlon

  CREW MEMBERS

  James Armitage

  Arthur Beale

  Daniel Carston

  Peter Grace

  Henry Griffith

  Thomas Irvine

  Jimmy James

  David Lacey

  Jack McDonald

  Joseph Smith

  Ernest Tockson

  Thomas Walsh

  Isaac [surname unknown]

  The Polar Exploration Vessel Raven

  COMPARTMENTS

  1 Upper Fo’castle

  2 Lower Fo’castle

  3 Main Deckhouse

  4 ’Tween Deck

  5 Main Companionway

  6 Wardroom

  7 Lower Hold

  8 Propeller Tunnel

  9 Engine Room

  10 Boiler

  11 Coal Bunker

  12 Water Tank

  13 Water Tank

  14 Kennels

  15 Galley

  16 Cook’s Cabin

  17 Steward / Bosun

  18 Chartroom

  19 Biologist / Zoologist

  20 Cartographer / Geologist

  21 Engineer / Photographer

  22 2nd Mate / Meteorologist

  23 Surgeon

  24 First Officer

  25 Captain’s Cabin

  26 Expedition Leader’s Cabin

  27 Stores

  28 Darkroom / Brig

  29 Chain Locker

  FIXTURES

  30 Forward Hatch

  31 Funnel

  32 Main Hatch

  33 Helm

  34 Steering Gear

  35 Wardroom Skylights

  36 Engine

  Built Norway 1920

&nbs
p; PORT VIEW

  MAIN DECK

  DECKHOUSE / ’TWEEN DECK / WARDROOM

  LOWER HOLD

  Edward Patrick O’Rourke – Lineage

  William Downes – Lineage and Descendants

  AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

  For almost two years now, the small leather-bound journal of Lieutenant William Downes has been sitting on a corner of my writing desk, defying me. I must confess that I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve sat here in the twenty months since the diary came into my possession, leafing through its pages and then staring out my study window at the distant Brindabella Mountains, sometimes for hours, trying to come to terms with the horrors contained within it.

  Words are strange things. As a writer, it is something of a perpetual puzzle to me, how a few scrawled glyphs on a piece of paper can contain so much power over the human imagination. That such visceral experiences as love and hate and fear and pride and despair can be so easily bound to the page is a mystery which only deepens the further I explore it. The journal of William Downes is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

  To look at, the journal is unremarkable: slightly smaller and thicker than a modern B-format paperback, housed within an unadorned red leather cover, tattered and watermarked from its years of frozen internment. Inside these unassuming wrappings there is page after page of the Lieutenant’s elegant copperplate handwriting, documenting, with a journalistic eye for detail and an air of almost detached nonchalance, the events that occurred aboard the Polar Exploration Vessel Raven during the expedition of 1921–1922.

  The handwriting is itself worthy of note: right up to the final entry, wherein he outlines the last enigmatic re-appearance of the Ice Man on the evening of 30th June 1922, Downes’ hand remains steady, graceful and somehow resolute, despite all that was occurring around him. At no point is there the telltale tremor of terror, the shake of a hand nervously fighting both the intense cold and the trepidation of almost certain death. Even his final words; … and so I too shall step out, into white silence are formed with the same confidence as his first.

  But all this is beside the point. My purpose in writing this foreword is not to lecture you on the vagaries and power of the written word, however fascinating I find the subject, but rather to allow me the opportunity to outline, explain and apologise for the liberty I took in removing the journal of William Downes from the station library at Casey Antarctic Base during my sojourn there in the summer of 2005–06.

  Stealing from libraries is not something I make a habit of – especially from one as remote and important as that at Casey. An account of the mystery of the Raven and the fate of those aboard it, however, was something too enticing to leave behind. I should also confess that my original motive in appropriating the journal was not pure. My intention was to use it to form a work around the basis of Downes’ experience that I could claim as my own fiction. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up; the secrecy that had surrounded the preparations and departure of Edward Rourke and his company, combined with the disaster that followed, meant that the story of the Raven had been lost. What better opportunity could there be for a writer who happened to find himself in possession of the only remaining document detailing the fate of the ship and all those souls aboard it?

  Upon my return to Australia, though, an odd thing happened; the more I considered the contents of the journal and the more I wrestled with the ethics of what I had done by removing it, unauthorised, from its custodians at Casey Station, the harder it became to appropriate the story to my own ends. Each time I began to write ‘My Antarctic book’ – as I came to refer to it – I’d find myself a mere thousand or so words into the first chapter and unable to continue, haunted by the feeling I was doing Downes and those who perished with him a disservice that flew in the face of the Almighty.

  At about this time the nightmares began; night after night I’d wake, always in the small hours and always filled with this sense of unspeakable dread. Dawn would find my pillow soaked with sweat and my sheets a choking tangle about me. My poor wife had, on occasions, to move to another room just to get a decent evening’s rest. On waking, I could never recall the exact cause of my dread but only a sense of unshakable, all-pervading cold; a chill from the very marrow of my bones which set my teeth on edge and tightened the breath in my lungs.

  And so it has continued, for the twenty months since I stepped off the gangplank of the Aurora Australis and back into the real world in late 2005. Over time the nightmares have become fewer, but no less lacking in intensity. And always, every morning when I enter my study and switch on my computer, Downes’ journal is there to greet me. Accusing. Defying.

  Which is how you come to hold this book in your hands. For whatever reason – call it luck, or fate, or karma – the gods have chosen to entangle my voice, and indeed my life, with that of the late Lieutenant William Downes and his ill-fated crewmates. Finally, after much self-doubt and internal debate, I have come to realise that the only way I can free myself of this entanglement is to allow this story – his story – to be told.

  Ideally, I should like to have been able to present the journal to you in its complete form – unabridged and without comment. It quickly became clear to me, however, that not only would large sections of Downes’ writing make for exceptionally dull reading – bills of lading, detailed plans for the distribution of supplies to inland depots and that sort of thing – but also that there were holes in his narrative which needed to be filled. Perhaps, I told myself, this was the real reason I spent that summer two years ago so far from home, on the ice-sculpted shores of Newcombe Bay, so that when the time came to tell this story I’d have the voice, the experience and the wherewithal to be able to do justice to this extraordinary piece of history and to capture the terrible, tragic beauty of Downes and his fate.

  Wherever possible, I have allowed the Lieutenant to speak for himself – his words capture the immensity and futility of his situation far better than mine ever could. From time to time, though, I’ve found it necessary to draw upon my own experiences and research to frame the scenes for you, to fill in the gaps and silences behind Downes’ writings. For this, I beg your indulgence.

  Anthony Eaton

  Canberra

  May, 2008

  ONE

  LIEUTENANT WILLIAM DOWNES ARRIVES IN HOBART. TIME’S CLOUDED PERSPECTIVE. AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH. THE BATTLE OF BULLECOURT. THE PEV RAVEN. A MYSTERIOUS INVITATION.

  October, 1921

  Hobart, Tasmania

  The SS Loongana steamed slowly up the Derwent River towards its berth at the Salamanca Wharf, and Lieutenant (retired) William Downes, a young man distinguished by his service in France during the Great War, leaned on the portside rail, watching the city of Hobart slip slowly past in the hazy, late-afternoon light. In the distance the monolithic bulk of Mount Wellington, its summit shrouded in cloud, cast a long shadow across the city, rendering the waters of the river to inky blackness.

  And me? In my turn, I watch Lieutenant Downes, as I have so many times these last two years. I watch him in my mind’s eye, my perceptions of him filtered through the veil of time and across the vault of many years now past.

  In my research, among the documents and effects that I managed to uncover, I came across a photograph of Downes taken somewhere in Europe, sometime during the war. Faded and grainy, it shows a group of seven men all clad in military garb, sitting in comradely repose upon a low stone wall which appears to be the shattered remains of an old farmhouse. Most clutch cigarettes and two sport rakish moustaches of the sort only young men of that era could consider fashionable.

  They wear their filthy uniforms with a kind of weary pride. Their slouch hats are, almost to a man, tilted to jaunty angles and their carbine rifles slung carelessly on their shoulders or, in a couple of cases, propped against the stonework beside them. All are smiling, grinning for the camera as if to convey to the viewer the impression that they find this whole debacle something of a joke. But the
smiles don’t touch their eyes. In those there is a kind of terrible distance – similar to what you see in the faces of men who’ve looked into the void of death and then somehow returned.

  On the back, in handwriting I’ve come to know well, a brief inscription reads: ‘Me and the lads after B/crt. Terrible affair. L. and B. no longer.’ I know from other photographs that William Downes is the first man on the left but there is no clue to the identities or fates of the other six. It is easy to hope that all made it safely home again and returned from that meat-grinder of a war to farms and families and sweethearts, but of course, given the monstrous capacity of the First World War to devour young men, such a possibility is unlikely.

  Downes, though, did return, and attained for himself a modest covering of glory along the way. According to official Army records, on 11th April 1917, during the hellish mauling of the first battle of Bullecourt, Downes was among the handful of infantry in the Australian 4th Brigade who managed, despite the abject failure of the much-vaunted British tanks, to find a path across the wire-laden no-man’s-land and secure a section of the German trench system that made up the famous Hindenburg Line.

  As the battle continued to go sour, and as 2300 members of the 4th Brigade fell to the German machine guns, it became clear to Downes and his compatriots occupying the enemy lines that their position was rapidly becoming untenable and so they fell back towards their own forces, fighting a desperate rearguard action the whole way. In the course of this their captain, one George Smythe-Davis, was injured, taking a bullet in the upper part of his left thigh.