Codes of Survival -Scripts - a series of short factionalized stories based
on historical events in the Subantarctic Islands written by Lloyd Godman
to accompany the exhibition and installation - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman
Codes of
Survival - Scripts
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1996 - Explosion!
The sound kept echoing through
my brain as if my head was a
chamber of endless hallways.
Boooom! Booom!
The bang and crash of crumpled
iron sheets falling to
the ground, rolling across the
grass with extraordinary speed,
the crack of burning dry timber
as the hut was completely
destroyed in minutes.
But there before us was only the
heaving ocean, the deep
rhythmus thud of the diesel engine
like a heart deep in the hull below us driving the
ship through the swells and the cry of gulls as we steamed back home.
It was an empty feeling, a journey with a wasted
purpose. In an unplanned and strange manner, we had become
another part in the extraordinary
history of the Auckland Islands.
But then the vision kept returned
to me again. I just could not
extinguish it. The sight of the
cylinders bursting into fire balls, white hot balls of exploding gas,
orange flashes red flickering. Shattering glass. The brightness of the
fire light in a gray landscape.
But it was the memory that had more effect than any talking
we could do. Boooom! Booom!
I just could not get the sound out of my head. It was firmly
etched in permanently, as a reoccuring flash back. The whole episode had been like a scene from a Geoff Murphy Movie.
The hut just blew to pieces in a
series of explosions and a fire that burned the rest to the
ground. All the stores and our equipment destroyed
in seconds. Quite unbelievable!
The boat had nearly been ready to embark on the journey
back to New Zealand, and we were to be left on
Enderby Island  for some considerable time during our
research project. The expedition had taken so long to
plan and organize, it seemed ironic it had lasted such a short
period of time. We kept asking the question if it had actually
started. It had been a relief to have the last boxes of stores finally off the boat and safe in the hut. What an
asset the computer equipment would have been on the project.
At that point I was finally resolved to the fact that the
expedition was happening.
It was a cool day, with a low grey sky and constant biting
wind from the south west.
We had lit the gas heater to warm the hut and were on the
beach fare welling the crew when it
happened. It appears there was a gas leak that had filled
the hut and built up until there was the unexpected blast.
Boooom! Booom!
The memory flashed back again! All we could do was watch
the hut burn up and make sure the last
flames and embers were extinguished. We had stacked up the
remains and place large rocks on the charred twisted
corrugated iron to stop it blowing away in notoriously strong
the winds that lash the islands.So with empty hearts, all our possessions and dreams
gone ,all we could do was return
to New Zealand with nothing started, on the boat that
had brought us down just hour before.
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