Once more the cruel Antarctic calls me back To set my foot where no man yet did go O memories of nineteen eight of taking chances tempting fate And the happy days we spent in McMurdo
So we dropped our anchor off Adélie Land And we built a hut to stand the winter gale And when the sun returned again the air rang out with sounds of men And Greenland huskies eager for the trail
From Aladdin’s cave we started on our way Our friends they bid goodbye and turned for home Xavier Mertz was there with me and Cherub Ninnis just we three Were left to carry on our fate unknown
The black crevasse claimed Ninnis and his dogs It claimed our food our fuel it claimed our tent I never heard one single sound, just by chance I turned around As Ninnis to his death in silence went
Defeat and death now stared us in the face We had one lightweight tent and that was all Just to stay alive we knew we’d have to kill the dogs for food How were we to know that they’d be our downfall
A leaden glare now spread across the land And neither shape nor feature reached our eyes And nothing left to eat only deadly poison meat For my brave friend death has no disguise
He wears the mask of illness on his face He wears the cloak of silence at the trace One night he bit his finger through and spat it out in the snow His cries of madness caused my blood to freeze
When I awoke next morning he was dead The wreckage of his body stiff and cold I have to try and reach firm ground at least my diary must be found That someday this sad story may be told
The soles of my feet became detached Teeth, nails, muscles all are gone Down icy pits I fell through space till brought up by my harness trace Give up give up there’s no point in going on
Three weeks I staggered on across the ice Then a cairn of snow by sheer chance I struck A letter there told the tale of searching men that very day Even now I can’t believe my luck
My pulse was racing as I saw the men My journey at an end no more to do My skeleton was easily raised and gently on the sledge was laid My God they cried which one of them are you?
And later tears were wet upon their cheeks And my own eyes fill with the telling of the tale And on that bleak and distant shore the blizzard blows for evermore For those in icy tombs out on the trail
notes by Andy Irvine "A song of mine about the great Australian Geologist and Antarctic explorer who, after travelling with Shackleton in 1907-09, led his own expedition to Adélie Land, a previously unexplored part of the Antarctic continent. His extraordinary courage in getting back to base after the death of his two companions made a big impression on me."