Named after Sebastián de Ocampo, the navigator who first proved Cuba was an island, this base is meant to delineate borders. It is a true bastion of the revolution, frozen into the continent's ice shell, and a dagger aimed at the southern flank of the Argentine possessions around Alexander Island and at the Italian invaders on Galindez Island. Its perimeter is a network of deep trenches and machine-gun pillboxes reinforced with pykrete.

Cuban soldiers, veterans of partisan wars in tropical jungles, have found themselves in a hell entirely alien to them. Their revolutionary fire is undergoing its harshest test - the test of the Exile. Their main enemy is not the treacherous fascist, but the continent itself: the relentless wind and the monotony of the white expanse, driving one mad faster than any counter-propaganda.

But they are not alone. Shoulder to shoulder with them stand Chilean marines - a small detachment sent here as mentors. They teach the Cubans the scrupulous art of weapon maintenance in conditions of extreme cold, where ordinary lubricant turns to glue, and condensation can freeze a bolt shut for good. They teach how to cross a glacier without falling into a hidden crevasse, and how to distinguish stable shelf ice from the deadly trap of drifting floes. They see in their students an unbending will, but also a dangerous inexperience. Perhaps one day, the Cuban soldier in Antarctica will truly be the equal of the Chilean marine, but only if they can learn to defeat an enemy that has neither a flag nor an ideology.