Heading Home with the Choristers – Bernard Stonehouse
Over fifty days after leaving base, we were on our way home. Three nights and two days of gale had held us down, giving us the lie-up we needed after a week’s hard running. Now we were ready to move on. That morning the wind had dropped, tent canvas no longer flapped, drifting snow was stilled, and the sun shone warmly through the peak of the tent. We emerged to a glorious day — calm, clear and brilliant.
Alert to our movements, the dogs rose as we did, popping up from the snowdrifts that had built up around them, stretching, yawning, shaking ice from their matted fur, greeting us with warmth and wagging tails. They watched as we dug out tents, boxes, sledges and traces, growling sotto voce to each other, from time to time setting up the chorus of song that bonded them as a community — three teams of nine, offering friendship without question to the four men who moved among them. Harnessing brought them to a crescendo of excitement. As the first team moved off, those remaining leapt in their traces. I had often wished I could raise even half their blessed enthusiasm at the start of the hard day’s sledging.
My team was the Choristers, a nickname earned by their penchant for bursting into song. From time to time I sang to them, and during the ten-minute breaks they sang to me and to each other. I sang Hymns Ancient and Modern, Handel, Gilbert and Sullivan, Schubert, and a Bing Crosby-Andrews Sisters medley.