Lewis Pugh - Achieving the Impossible

ACHIEVING
THE IMPOSSIBLE

LEWIS GORDON PUGH

Our Blue Future
London

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without prior permission from
the publisher or copyright holder.

Lewis Gordon Pugh, 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Originally Published in Great Britain in 2010 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.

This edition published by
Our Blue Future
75 Wells Street
London, United Kingdom
WIT 3QH

Print ISBN 978-0-620-57286-6

eBook ISBN 978-0-620-57287-3

PICTURE CREDITS
Courtesy of Margery Pugh:
Courtesy of Kim Howard:
Courtesy of the author:
Courtesy of Veronique Carantois:
Courtesy of Else M. Lundal:
Courtesy of Gill Stamrood:
Courtesy of Monique Andersson:
Courtesy of Terge Eggum:
WWF:
Courtesy of Michael Walker:
Courtesy of Todd Pitock:
Courtesy of Jason Roberts:
Courtesy of Fred Kalborg:
Courtesy of Yvette Gilbert:

Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

To my parents, who inspired me so much

The names of soldiers of the British SAS have been changed to protect their identity. The places and grid references referred to in the chapters on the SAS have also been changed in accordance with the Official Secrets Act.

Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink. I try not to think about it as I stand on the edge of the ice, preparing myself to plunge into the sea. Great depths dont normally hold any fear for me, but this is different.

The water is black, inky black, and so impenetrable that even if my goggles do not mist up, Ill be unable to see even my hand stretched out in front of me. All around me, the ice is cracking up. Its beautiful and terrifying: cracks can appear beneath your feet with little warning. Fall unprepared into one of these and youll freeze.

And its cold unimaginably cold. Other than my red ski jacket, Im wearing nothing but Speedo swimming trunks, a swimming cap and my goggles: no wetsuit; no nothing. The sea water is minus 1.7C. It will sap the warmth from my body in seconds.

The one-kilometre swim in the coldest ocean on earth will take almost 20 minutes. If my body fails me, I will almost certainly die. But this is not simply about my body but also about my mind if it takes me to the right place, I will survive. I do everything I can to tell myself that I will make it. I have to stay focused, in control. I tell myself that I am going to do this; there is no other place on this earth I would rather be.

Preparation is everything, and Ive been preparing for this for years. Ever since I was a little boy, Id been drawn to the Poles. I knew that one day I would undertake something in the polar regions that no one had ever attempted. During my training Id learned to elevate my core body temperature. The most effective way Ive found to do this originates from my time in the British Special Air Service, the SAS.

I close my eyes and imagine myself in the belly of a Hercules, flying at 1,000 metres, thirty of us waiting for our turn to drop into the dead of night. Once Id seen a fellow soldier slip at the exit door and get caught, half-in, half-out. It was the terror on his face and his scream for help that stayed with me. Dont look down, we were told. Jump as far out as you can. And when you are about to hit the deck, remember keep your knees together!

In my mind, the groaning of the ice becomes the steady drone of the aircrafts engines. I imagine myself checking and re-checking my parachute gear; in reality my fingers are feeling for the wires and sensors that are taped to my skin to measure my core body temperature and my heart rate and save me from death just as surely as a parachute saves a soldier.

My heart beats a little faster. I conjure up the smell of the Hercules, that mixture of aviation fuel and sweat. Five minutes to drop zone! Five minutes to drop zone! On the ice there are instructions too. Ten seconds to swim! Ten seconds to swim!

The door of the Hercules is pulled open. The men have lined up in front of me. Over their heads I can see the stars outside. My mouth goes dry.

In this state, a strange thing happens. I am standing barefoot and virtually naked on ice, and the air temperature is zero degrees, yet I am heating up. Reacting to the messages from my brain, my core body temperature begins to rise. Without that change the one-kilometre swim would be impossible.

Professor Tim Noakes, one of the worlds most respected sports scientists, is standing in a small inflatable boat five metres from where I will begin this swim looking at the data on his computer. In this incredibly hostile part of the world, he is my protector. But I am barely conscious of him and the rest of the small team who have made this journey with me to the top of the world, or of the Russian guard at my left shoulder clutching his AK-47. He and his two comrades are here to protect me from polar bears. But when we spoke earlier in the day, I warned them that they could only let off a round to frighten away a bear, they could not shoot at it; we are the visitors here, after all.

I remove my ski jacket and step towards the water. A rush of air smacks my face. There isnt time for fear now. The jump is everything. The lights at the aircraft door turn red.

Red on!

Seconds later they change.

Green on! GO, GO, GO!

The men in front of me tumble from the plane. I shuffle forward as quickly as possible, and now its my turn. I cant look back. I jump onto a small ledge, a few inches below the water. I pause for a second, then hurl myself forward.

Suddenly Im falling in my mind through the night from the Hercules, but in reality into the icy waters of the North Pole.

On 15 July 1993, my father passed away. He was seventy-two; I was twenty-three. The call from the Booth Memorial Hospital in Cape Town came just before midnight. Mum was in bed but not asleep and, unknown to me, she had answered the telephone to a nuisance caller a few nights previously so, thinking it might be the same man, she didnt pick up.

Is this Lewis? the nurse asked, because by now the hospital staff knew us well. My father had spent the last six years in hospital.

Yes, I replied.

Youd better get over here soon. Your dad may not have long to go.

Mum picked up the phone in her room just as the nurse was hanging up. Only a friend, I said.

From the time wed moved from Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape to Cape Town eight years before, Id watched my mother nurse my father, make daily visits when he was hospitalized, and continue to love him even when his Alzheimers meant he could give very little in return.

Mum watched Dad go from being this great man, who had risen to the rank of Surgeon Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and with whom she had shared a wonderful life, to becoming a very different and greatly diminished person. Towards the end my father hardly ate and a couple of his teeth had fallen out. His emaciated body reminded me of photographs of victims of Auschwitz or one of the other concentration camps and hed had a broken wrist that couldnt be properly re-set.

That last indignity was especially tough on a man who had been an accomplished orthopaedic surgeon. Yet there are memories from this dark time that I treasure: how he always managed to smile on seeing me walk into his hospital bedroom and make so obvious his enjoyment of the ice cream that I brought. He would hold my hand as we spoke and, for a while, it seemed like he was his old self. How are you, my boy? he would say. Even towards the end, when his walk had become a shuffle, I would dress him and we would stroll around the nearby Molteno Reservoir. On those days he would be the father I always knew: polite, interested in what was going on in my life and an inspiration to me.