RADIO BOND WITH BYRD EXPEDITION

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6946, 27 June 1929, Page 7

RADIO BOND WITH BYRD EXPEDITION

Pleasure from 2YA

ANTARCTIC NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS

WELCOME INTERLUDE. United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Received Wednesday, 9.15 P-™. BAY OF WHALES, June 23. (Special to Press Association from the Byrd expedition by Russell Owen). One of tho welcome interruptions m the monotony of our existence during the long night is listening to the broadcast from New Zealand. It conics in after we go to bed, each bunk being lighted by a candle, so that wo can read. It is just after ten . when premonitary buzzes and clicks in the loud speaker fastened to the top partition warn us that music is about to conic 2300 miles over the sea. New Zealand is the nearest inhabited land and tho voices and music seem, somehow, .to break down our sense of isolation for ft few minutes while we snuggle down in our sleeping bags and think, many things that have no connection with the Antarctic. We can almost see inside ol' the broadcasting studio in Wellington. We can imagine what the men and women look like. It is part of the world wc have left and it adds somewhat to the piquancy of our enjoyment that they cannot completely visualise our environment; that they cannot realise the pleasure they give a group of men so cut off from a civilised community. A rasping roar comes from the loud speaker, and then, as it is tuned down, tho gay notes of the orchestra playing dance music come floating into the room. Back there nro cabarets, filled with men and women whirling merrily about, and many homes where those listening to the same music sit before cheerful wood fires. They uro clad, m garments which wc have almost forgotten, laughing as they talk, probably entirely unconscious that far south oi them is this little group getting far moro enjoyment from the music which they hear. It is our invisible bond with the world of comfort and security, invisible but none tho less real, because it has its roots in our memory and in our anticipations. Our world is one of soft moonlight on an undulating and shadowy surface of snow. Tho night is cold and Clear and the sky a deep bowl of velvet, set with stai'3. A few streamers of the aurora dart across tho sky, stabbing the darkness with tremulous fingers of light and how different is our homo from theirs’. On the top bunk, where tho air is warmest, is a man in his underclothes, leaning back against an ingenious sloping board which ho can raise when ho turns in for tho night. He is writing a diary by tho light of .tho candle, stopping now and then to listen and smile a broad smile of satisfaction at some new and lilting measure which reaches us from so far over the sea. Ho has a picturesque beard and his own wife would hardly recoguise in him tho trim figure in uniform who seven months ago walked the streets of Dunedin. In the lower bunk across the way lies a figuro in his sleeping bag, for it quickly gets cold near the floor when tno fire dies down. Ho is thinking who knows what thoughts, probably of flying, for his whole world is aviation. Next to him is a man with a beard and a bald, shaved head, which he has covered with a mutch cap, reading Shakespeare. Ho is a scientist but he looks moro like a pirate. Sometimes there is the sound of a woman’s voice and it sounds odd, so long has it been since we havo lived where there aic women. This is a masculine world, the one place on the globe where women have never been. Thcro is a queer impersonal intenseness in listening to her. It fades and becomes almost lost before it returns and sometimes it docs not return but moves further and further away and then is silent. We wait a little longer, hoping it will come again but the tubes merely crackle anc. snap exasperatingly. The door is opened, books are resumed and one by one tho lights go out and the only sound is the sigh of the wind in the chimney pipes.