THE MAN WHO WAS BURIED ALIVE (and survived to tell the tale).

Not many people are buried in a snowdrift for five months and come out alive.

But then not many people have the stamina of Augustine Courtauld, a young stockbroker from London.

In 1930, bored of his day job, he volunteered to join an expedition to conduct weather observations at Icecap Station, a purpose-built post atop the Greenland ice cap.

Icecap Station: Courtauld is buried alive

It was 2,600m above sea level and 112 miles west of the expedition's main base. And it was very, very cold.

Weather data was desperately needed for Arctic Greenland: the quickest air route from Europe to North America was over the ice cap, but no one knew what the weather was like, particularly in winter.

Augustine Courtauld went to find out.

He traveled from the coast with a party whose task was to supply the weather station with enough food and fuel for two men.

‘But atrocious weather had so slowed down the journey that most of the food intended for the station was eaten on the way there. It looked as if the place would have to be closed down.’ So wrote one of the men from the supply party.

Courtauld thought it would be a shame to abandon the expedition, simply because there was almost no food.

'I worked out,' he wrote, 'that I could last out alone for five months. As I had frostbite in my toes, I had no wish to make the journey back. So I decided to stay on my own and keep the station going.'

Frostbitten toes is an eccentric reason for choosing to stay on the Greenland ice cap in midwinter, but to Courtauld it had a certain logic.

Soon after settling in to his new home it began to snow. Hard.

The small tent was buried by drifting snow until only the tip of the ventilator pipe poked above the surface: for the last six weeks of his mission, Courtauld was completely snowed in and effectively buried alive.

Gino Watkins digging out Augustine Courtauld

His supplies of food and fuel were by now exhausted and he had no communication with the outside world. But he had faith in his ultimate rescue. He wrote afterwards:

‘As each month passed without relief, I felt more and more certain of its arrival. By the time I was snowed in I had no doubts on the matter, which was a great comfort to my mind. I will not attempt any explanation of this, but leave it as a fact, which was very clear to me during that time, that while powerless to help myself, some outer force was in action on my side and I wasn't fated to leave my bones on the Greenland ice cap.’

He didn’t despair; instead, he dreamed of roaring fires and his wife singing to him. He also prayed that Gino Watkins, his would-be rescuer, was on his way.

‘I began to feel complete confidence,’ he wrote. ‘I knew that even if Gino was having to wait for better weather, he wouldn’t let me down. I began to realize that I should not be left to die.  I came to know that I was held by Everlasting Arms

On May 5th, exactly five months since he was left alone, the Primus gave its last gasp. ‘Very soon, there was a noise like a football match overhead. They had come!’

That first cigar tasted good.

‘A hole of brilliant daylight appeared in the roof.  There was Gino’s voice saying: “Put these on”.  He handed me a pair of snow-glasses.  How different it was from the last time I had seen the outside world!  It was May and now dazzling sunshine.  I had not realized it would be like this. 

‘They lost no time in pulling me out and I found I was quite all right.  My legs were a bit weak ... We set out for home next day.  I rode on a sledge the whole way, reading The Count of Monte Cristo.  Conditions were good and we completed the journey in five days; it had taken us six weeks on the way up”.

Courtauld declined to return to his former life as a stockbroker after his Greenland experience. Instead, he undertook an extraordinary 600 mile open boat journey in an 18ft whaleboat down the unmapped and uninhabited Greenland coastline.

It was not an easy journey, but it was more interesting than sitting behind an office desk in the city of London.