The Worst Journey in the World (23 page)

On the 26th we sledged back to the ship for our last load, and said
good-bye on the sea-ice to those men with whom we had already worked so
long, to Campbell and his five companions who were to suffer so much, to
cheery Pennell and his ship's company.

Before we left, Scott thanked Pennell and his men "for their splendid
work. They have behaved like bricks, and a finer lot of men never sailed
in a ship.... It was a little sad to say farewell to all these good
fellows and Campbell and his men. I do most heartily trust that all will
be successful in their ventures, for indeed their unselfishness and their
generous high spirit deserve reward. God bless them."

Four of that Depôt party were never to see these men again, and Pennell,
Commander of the Queen Mary, went down with his ship in the battle of
Jutland.

Two days later, January 28, we sledged our first loads on to the Barrier.
By that day we had done nearly ninety miles of relay work, first from the
ship at Glacier Tongue to our camp off Hut Point, and then onwards. Those
first days of sledging were wonderful! What memories they must have
brought to Scott and Wilson when to us, who had never seen them before,
these much-discussed landmarks were almost like old friends. As we made
our way over the frozen sea every seal-hole was of interest, and every
type of wind-swept snow a novelty. The peak of Terror opened out behind
the crater of Erebus, and we walked under Castle Rock and Danger Slope
until, rounding the promontory, we saw the little jagged Hut Point, and
on it the cross placed there to Vince's memory, all unchanged. There was
the old Discovery hut and the Bay in which the Discovery lay, and from
which she was almost miraculously freed at the last moment, only to be
flung upon the shoal which runs out from the Point, where some tins of
the old Discovery days lie on the bottom still and glint in the evening
sun. And round about the Bay were the Heights of which we had read,
Observation Hill, and Crater Hill separated from it by The Gap—through
which the wind was streaming; of course it was, for this must be the
famous Hut Point wind.

A few hundred more blizzards had swept over it since those days, but it
was all just the same, even to Ferrar's little stakes placed across the
glacierets to mark their movement, more, even to the footsteps still
plainly visible on the slopes.

The ponies were dragging up to 900 lbs. each these days, and though they
did not seem to be unduly distressed, two of them soon showed signs of
lameness. This caused some anxiety, but the trouble was mended by rest.
On the whole, though the surface was hard, I think we were giving them
too much weight.

The sea-ice off Hut Point and Observation Hill was already very
dangerous, and had we then had the experience and knowledge of sea-ice
with which we can now look back, it is probable that we should not have
slept so easily upon its surface. Parties travelling to Hut Point and
beyond in summer must keep well out from the Point and Cape Armitage. But
all haste was being made to transport the necessary stores on to the
Barrier surface, where a big home depôt could be made, so far as we could
judge, in safety. The pressure ridges in the sea-ice between Cape
Armitage and Pram Point, which are formed by the movement of the Barrier,
were large, and in some of the hollows countless seals were playing in
the water. Judging by the size of these ridges and by the thickness of
this ice when it broke up, the ice south of Hut Point was at least two
years old.

I well remember the day we took the first of our loads on to the Barrier.
I expect we were all a little excited, for to walk upon the Barrier for
the first time was indeed an adventure: what kind of surface was it, and
how about these beastly crevasses of which we had read so much? Scott was
ahead, and so far as we could see there was nothing but the same level of
ice all round—when suddenly he was above us, walking up the sloping and
quite invisible drift. A minute after and our ponies and sledges were up
and over the tide crack, and beneath us soft and yielding snow, very
different from the hard wind-swept surface of the frozen sea, which we
had just left. Really it was rather prosaic and a tame entrance. But the
Barrier is a tricky place, and it takes years to get to know her.

On our outward journey this day Oates did his best to kill a seal. My own
tent was promised some kidneys if we were good, and our mouths watered
with the prospect of the hoosh before us. The seal had been left for
dead, and when on our homeward way we neared the place of his demise
Titus went off to carve our dinner from him. The next thing we saw was
the seal lolloping straight for his hole, while Oates did his best to
stab him. The quarry made off safely not much hurt, for, as we discovered
later, a clasp-knife is quite useless to kill a seal. Oates returned with
a bad cut, as his hand had slipped down the knife; and it was a long time
before he was allowed to forget it.

This Barrier, which we were to know so well, was soft, too soft for the
ponies, and apparently flat. Only to our left, some hundreds of yards
distant, there were two little snowy mounds. We got out the telescope
which we carried, but could make nothing of them. While we held our
ponies Scott walked towards them, and soon we saw him brushing away snow
and uncovering something dark beneath. They were tents, obviously left by
Shackleton or his men when the Nimrod was embarking his Southern party
from the Barrier. They were snowed up outside, and iced up inside almost
to the caps. Afterwards we dug them out, a good evening's work. The
fabric was absolutely rotten, we just tore it down with our hands, but
the bamboos and caps were as sound as ever. When we had dug down to the
floor-cloth we found everything intact as when it was left. The cooker
was there and a primus—Scott lighted it and cooked a meal; we often used
it afterwards. And there were Rowntree's cocoa, Bovril, Brand's extract
of beef, sheep's tongues, cheese and biscuits—all open to the snow and
all quite good. We ate them for several days. There is something
impressive in these first meals off food which has been exposed for
years.

It was on a Saturday, January 28, that we took our first load a short
half-mile on to the Barrier and left it at a place afterwards known as
the Fodder Depôt. Two days later we moved our camp 1 mile 1200 yards
farther on to the Barrier and here was erected the main depôt, known as
Safety Camp. 'Safety' because it was supposed that even if a phenomenal
break-up of sea-ice should occur, and take with it part of the Barrier,
this place would remain. Subsequent events proved the supposition well
founded. This short bit of Barrier sledging gave all of us food for
thought, for the surface was appallingly soft, and the poor ponies were
sinking deep. It was obvious that no animals could last long under such
conditions. But somehow Shackleton had got his four a long way.

There was now no hurry, for there was plenty of food. It was only when we
went on from here that we must economize food and travel fast. It was
determined to give the ponies a rest while we made the depôt and
rearranged sledges, which we did on the following day. We had with us one
pair of pony snow-shoes, a circle of wire as a foundation, hooped round
with bamboo, and with beckets of the same material. The surface suggested
their trial, which was completely successful. The question of snow-shoes
had been long and anxiously considered, and shoes for all the ponies were
at Cape Evans; but as we had so lately landed from the ship the ponies
had not been trained in their use, and they had not been brought.

Scott immediately sent Wilson and Meares with a dog-team to see whether
the sea-ice would allow them to reach Cape Evans and bring back shoes for
the other ponies. Meanwhile the next morning saw us trying to accustom
the animals to wearing snow-shoes by exercising them in the one pair we
possessed. But it seemed no use continuing to do this after the dog party
came in. They had found the sea-ice gone between Glacier Tongue and
Winter Quarters and so were empty-handed. They reported that a crevasse
at the edge of the Tongue had opened under the sledge, which had tilted
back into the crevasse but had run over it. These Glacier Tongue
crevasses are shallow things; Gran fell into one later and walked out of
the side of the Tongue on to the sea-ice beyond!

It was determined to start on the following day with five weeks'
provisions for men and animals; to go forward for about fourteen days,
depôt two weeks' provisions and return. Most unfortunately Atkinson would
have to be left behind with Crean to look after him. He had chafed his
foot, and the chafe had suppurated. To his great disappointment there was
no alternative but to lie up. Luckily we had another tent, and there was
the cooker and primus we had dug out of Shackleton's tent. Poor Crean was
to spend his spare time in bringing up loads from the Fodder Depôt to
Safety Camp and, worse still from his point of view, dig a hole downwards
into the Barrier for scientific observations!

We left the following morning, February 2, and marched on a patchy
surface for five miles (Camp 4). The temperature was above zero and Scott
decided to see whether the surface was not better at night. On the whole,
it is problematical whether this is the case—we came to the conclusion
later that the ideal surface for pulling a sledge on ski was found at a
temperature of about +16°. But there is no doubt whatever that ponies
should do their work at night, when the temperature is colder, and rest
and sleep when the sun has its greatest altitude and power. And so we
camped and turned in to our sleeping-bags at 4 P.M. and marched again
soon after midnight, doing five miles before and five miles after lunch:
lunch, if you please, being about 1 A.M., and a very good time, for just
then the daylight seemed to be thin and bleak and one always felt the
cold.

Our road lay eastwards through the Strait, some twenty-five miles in
width, which runs between the low, rather uninteresting scarp of White
Island to the south, and the beautiful slopes of Erebus and Terror to the
north. This part of the Barrier is stagnant, but the main stream in front
of us, unchecked by land, flows uninterruptedly northwards towards the
Ross Sea. Only where the stream presses against the Bluff, White Island
and, most important of all, Cape Crozier, and rubs itself against the
nearly stationary ice upon which we were travelling, pressures and
rendings take place, forming some nasty crevasses. It was intended to
steer nearly east until this line was crossed some distance north of
White Island, and then steer due south.

It is most difficult on a large snow surface to say whether it is flat.
Certainly there are plenty of big crevasses for several miles in this
neighbourhood, though they are generally well covered, and we found only
very small ones on this outward journey. I am inclined to think there are
also some considerable pressure waves. As we came up to Camp 5 we
floundered into a pocket of soft snow in which one pony after another
plunged deeper and deeper until they were buried up to their bellies and
could move no more. I suppose it was an old crevasse filled with soft
snow, or perhaps one of the pressure-ridge hollows which had been
recently drifted up. My own pony somehow got through with his sledge to
the other side, and every moment I expected the ground to fall below us
and a chasm to swallow us up. The others had to be unharnessed and led
out. The only set of snow-shoes was then put on to Bowers' big pony and
he went back and drew the stranded sledges out. Beyond we pitched our
camp.

On February 3-4 we marched for ten miles to Camp 6. In the last five
miles we crossed several crevasses, our first; and I heard Oates ask some
one what they looked like. "Black as hell," he said, but we saw no more
just now, for this march carried us beyond the line of pressure which
runs between White Island and Cape Crozier. This halt was called Corner
Camp, as we turned here and marched due south. Corner Camp will be heard
of again and again in this story: it is thirty miles from Hut Point.

By 4 P.M. it was blowing our first Barrier blizzard. We were to find out
afterwards that a Corner Camp blizzard blows nearly as often as a Hut
Point wind. The Bluff seems to be the breeding-place for these
disturbances, which pour out towards the sea by way of Cape Crozier.
Corner Camp is in the direct line between the two.

One summer blizzard is much like another. The temperature, never very
low, rises, and you are not cold in the tent. Sometimes a blizzard is a
very welcome rest: after weeks of hard pulling, dragging yourself awake
each morning, feeling as though you had only just gone to sleep, with
the mental strain perhaps which work among crevasses entails, it is most
pleasant to be put to bed for two or three days. You may sleep
dreamlessly nearly all the time, rousing out for meals, or waking
occasionally to hear from the soft warmth of your reindeer bag the deep
boom of the tent flapping in the wind, or drowsily you may visit other
parts of the world, while the drifting snow purrs against the green tent
at your head.

But outside there is raging chaos. It is blowing a full gale: the air is
full of falling snow, and the wind drives this along and adds to it the
loose snow which is lying on the surface of the Barrier. Fight your way a
few steps away from the tent, and it will be gone. Lose your sense of
direction and there is nothing to guide you back. Expose your face and
hands to the wind, and they will very soon be frost-bitten. And this at
midsummer. Imagine the added cold of spring and autumn: the cold and
darkness of winter.

The animals suffer most, and during this first blizzard all our ponies
were weakened, and two of them became practically useless. It must be
remembered that they had stood for five weeks upon a heaving deck; they
had been through one very bad gale: the time during which we were
unloading the ship was limited, and since that time they had dragged
heavy loads the greater part of 200 miles. Nothing was left undone for
them which we could manage, but necessarily the Antarctic is a grim place
for ponies. I think Scott felt the sufferings of the ponies more than the
animals themselves. It was different for the dogs. These fairly warm
blizzards were only a rest for them. Snugly curled up in a hole in the
snow they allowed themselves to be drifted over. Bieleglas and Vaida, two
half brothers who pulled side by side, always insisted upon sharing one
hole, and for greater warmth one would lie on the top of the other. At
intervals of two hours or so they fraternally changed places.