Shackleton's Heroes (18 page)

Wild:

In late October Mackintosh and Joyce's parties added provisions to those already at the Minna Bluff depot and went back to Hut Point to pick up more supplies. With a southerly wind behind them and lighter loads (having deposited stores at the Bluff depot), the trek back was much quicker than coming out. Diary entries casually mention some of the hardships they endured.

In one diary entry by Joyce we learn of his party finding a note written in 1912, left by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, for Scott. Cherry-Garrard was the youngest member of Scott's
Terra Nova
Expedition. In early 1912, while Scott's party was struggling back from the South Pole, Cherry-Garrard made a supply run to a depot called ‘One Ton Depot', about 140 miles from Hut Point – he had hoped he might meet Scott returning from the Pole.

Joyce:

Spencer-Smith: ‘Spent the morning playing hunt the crevasse. Wild went down 2 little ones. We spotted 12 in all, including 4 or 5 large ones ranging from 7 to 30 feet width.'
22

Joyce:

The dogs at Cape Evans had not been used, except for taking stores to Hut Point in September. This was in spite of Joyce's experience with dogs – he first worked with them on Scott's 1901–04
Discovery
Expedition and then again on Shackleton's 1907–09
Nimrod
Expedition. Richards, in one of his interviews, tells us that they had decided not to use the dogs because they felt that men and dogs were not compatible. The pace of a man hauling a sledge with a heavy load behind him was just trudge, trudge, with one foot a few inches in front of another in the snow. Dogs liked to go at a reasonable trot when they were pulling sledges. They thought it would be quite impossible to marry the two.
24

It is not clear why they then decided, in late October, to start using the dogs to help with the sledge-hauling. Joyce wrote there were five dogs used but only four were taken, Oscar, Gunner, Con and Towser.

Richards recalled that it was not Mackintosh's idea to take the dogs. He tells us that he (Richards) persuaded Joyce to try out the four dogs and that Joyce then had to ‘sell' the notion to Mackintosh. The dogs were then brought from Cape Evans to Hut Point and they required some time to adapt themselves to the men's slower rate of progress, but to Richards the decision to take them was justified. He wrote later: ‘None of us who made the southern journey will ever forget those faithful friends of the dog world – Con, Gunner, Oscar and Towser.'
25

The men enjoyed travelling with the dogs, yelling instructions such as ‘Ready' for the dogs to stand and be ready to start, ‘Mush' for the dogs to go, ‘Ha' to turn right, ‘Gee' to turn left and ‘Whoa' to stop.
26
Oscar was Richards's favourite. He described him as a powerful brute, a massive dog at about 110 lb, but not a lovely-looking dog. He had a broad leonine head and a low ‘criminal type' forehead. Richards thought he was disliked by the
other dogs on account of his homosexual activities. To Richards he was a lazy brute usually but ‘when the chips were down he came through, when the other three chucked their hands in'.

Gunner (called Gunboat by some of the men) was as big as Oscar. Towser was the lightest and not much use for pulling in Richards view. Those three were Canadian huskies and Richards remembered them as lazy and quarrelsome, with no interest in hunting seals or anything else. Whereas Con was a samoyed dog and completely different in character. Richards described him as a ‘good living dog', lively and keen on hunting seals. He believed that the other three dogs ‘hated his guts' and they often tried to kill him.
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But as far as he and the others were concerned, in the sledging, they all did ‘yeoman's service'.
28

Neither Joyce nor any of the others write on the sledging arrangement used at this time. From photographs we can see the dogs usually travelled in single file, not a fan formation, harnessed onto one rope back to the sledge. At the front of them was the leading man who the dogs followed. The other men were attached to the sledge separately, not in single file like the dogs.

Joyce:

Hayward: ‘23–27 Oct 15. Arrived Hut Point after very favourable run back. Have decided to make use of dogs next trip.'
30

From late October through to late December the two parties trekked out to the Barrier and to the Bluff depot, also loading up other depots on the way.
Mackintosh's party (he, Spencer-Smith and Wild) would now not return to Hut Point, preferring to pick up supplies from other depots on the Barrier, such as the one at Safety Camp, and go back south from there. Joyce's party, now with the dogs, would return to Hut Point on a number of occasions.

Some of the men maintained a daily log over these three months but most of their notes relate to day-to-day activities, or simple aspects of their existence. Wild seems to keep his peace with Mackintosh as there is no mention of any arguments, although he often included diary comments on Mackintosh, for dropping and losing things, and acting irrationally. Spencer-Smith often wrote of his thoughts and his dreams. Hayward's diary entries, so detailed when he first arrived in Antarctica and on his early sledging journeys of February and March 1915, had now become quite brief, and devoid of any reference to his fiancée, but he regularly made a note of the distance travelled each day.

Mackintosh gave Joyce instructions to place more stores at the Bluff depot:

• Stores to be left at the Bluff by each unit (3 men) to be 159 lbs. To enable you to undertake this five of the dogs will be used each day to pull a weight equal to 70 lbs, their ration to be 1.5 lbs per diem
  .
  §
   
  
• To enable two efficient sledge parties, they should consist of yourself (in charge) Hayward and Gaze. For the other party, Richards, Cope & Jack with the dogs
  .
   
  
• The party under you then can pull the load according to the programme (560 lbs), while the other party with the dogs should easily manage that amount or I hope over without undue overloading
  .
  

Joyce:

Wild:

Spencer-Smith:

Hayward:

Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild seemed to enjoy each other's company. Spencer-Smith made diary notes on their debates, such as on ‘Home Rule',
45
on the sledge-meter,
46
and with ‘the Skipper about laymen taking scientific observations'.
47
There is no diary note of any conversations between Mackintosh and Wild; however, it is not hard to imagine that they would have discussed their shared Bedfordshire connection and their naval experiences. Mackintosh was at Bedford Modern School from 1891 to 1894.
48
Wild lived at Eversholt, a tiny village in Bedfordshire, from 1884 to 1894. Mackintosh served as an officer on a number of ships, working for the merchant shipping company P&O from 1900 to 1909, and Wild served with the Royal Navy on battleships, cruisers and gunboats, from 1895 to 1913.
49
50
But, from a Mackintosh diary note from the year before, we have some insight into the conversation between these three men: