The Worst Journey in the World (30 page)

But I have a very distinct recollection that the whales were not all
Killers, and that some, at any rate, were Bottle-nosed whales. This was
impressed upon me by one of the most dramatic moments of that night and
day.

We made our way very slowly, sometimes waiting twenty minutes for the
floe on which we were to touch the next one in the direction we were
trying to go, but before us in the distance was a region of sea-ice which
appeared to slope gradually up on to the fast Barrier beyond. As we got
nearer we saw a dark line appear at intervals between the two. This we
considered was a crevasse at the edge of the Barrier which was opening
and shutting with the very big swell which was running, and on which all
the floes were bobbing up and down. We told one another that we could
rush the ponies over this as it closed.

We approached the Barrier and began to rise up on the sloping floes which
had edged the Barrier and so on to small bergs which had calved from the
Barrier itself. Leaving Crean with the ponies, Bowers and I went forward
to prospect, and rose on to a berg from which we hoped to reach the
Barrier.

I can never forget the scene that met us. Between us and the Barrier was
a lane of some fifty yards wide, a seething cauldron. Bergs were calving
off as we watched: and capsizing: and hitting other bergs, splitting into
two and falling apart. The Killers filled the whole place. Looking
downwards into a hole between our berg and the next, a hole not bigger
than a small room, we saw at least six whales. They were so crowded that
they could only lie so as to get their snouts out of the water, and my
memory is that their snouts were bottle-nosed. At this moment our berg
split into two parts and we hastily retreated to the lower and safer
floes.

Now in the Zoological Report of the Discovery Expedition Wilson states
that the true identity of the Bottle-nosed whale (Hyperoodon rostrata) in
Antarctic Seas has not been conclusively established. But that inasmuch
as it certainly frequents seas so far as 48° S. latitude it is probable
that certain whales which he and other members of that expedition saw
frequenting the edge of the ice were, as they appeared to be,
Bottle-nosed whales. For my part, without great knowledge of whales, I am
convinced that these whales which lay but twenty feet below us were
whales of this species.

After our rescue by Scott we pitched our tents, as has been described, at
least half a mile from the fast edge of the Barrier. All night long, or
as it really was, early morning, the Killers were snorting and blowing
under the Barrier, and sometimes, it seemed, under our tents. Time and
again some member of the party went out of the tent to see if the Barrier
had not broken farther back, but there was no visible change, and it must
have been that the apparently solid ice on which we were, was split up by
crevasses by the big swell which had been running, and that round us,
hidden by snow bridges, were leads of water in which whales were cruising
in search of seal.

The next day most of the ice had gone out to sea, and I do not think the
whales were so numerous. The most noticeable thing about them that day
was the organization shown by the band of whales which appeared after
Bowers' pony, Uncle Bill, had fallen between two floes, and we were
trying to get him towards the Barrier. "Good God, look at the whales,"
said some one, and there, in a pool of water behind the floe on which we
were working, lay twelve great whales in perfect line, facing the floe.
And out in front of them, like the captain of a company of soldiers, was
another. As we turned they dived as one whale, led by the big fellow in
front, and we certainly expected that they would attack the floe on which
we stood. Whether they never did so, or whether they tried and failed,
for the floes here were fifteen or sixteen feet thick, I do not know; we
never saw them again.

One other incident of those days is worth recalling. "Cherry, Crean,
we're floating out to sea," was the startling awakening from Bowers,
standing in his socks outside the tent at 4.30 A.M. that Wednesday
morning. And indeed at first sight on getting outside the tent it looked
a quite hopeless situation. I thought it was madness to try and save the
ponies and gear when, it seemed, the only chance at all of saving the men
was an immediate rush for the Barrier, and I said so. "Well, I'm going to
try," was Bowers' answer, and, quixotic or no, he largely succeeded. I
never knew a man who treated difficulties with such scorn.

There must be some of my companions who look back upon Hut Point with a
peculiar fondness, such as men get for places where they have experienced
great joys and great trials. And Hut Point has an atmosphere of its own.
I do not know what it is. Partly aesthetic, for the sea and great
mountains, and the glorious colour effects which prevail in spring and
autumn, would fascinate the least imaginative; partly mysterious, with
the Great Barrier knocking at your door, and the smoke of Erebus by day
and the curtain of Aurora by night; partly the associations of the
place—the old hut, the old landmarks, so familiar to those who know the
history of the Discovery Expedition, the stakes in the snow, the holes
for which ice was dug to water the ship, Vince's Cross on the Point. Now
there is another Cross, on Observation Hill.

And yet when we first arrived the hut was comfortless enough. Wilson and
Meares and Gran had been there some days; they had found some old bricks
and a grid, and there was an open blubber fire in the middle of the
floor. There was no outlet for the smoke and smuts and it was impossible
to see your neighbour, to speak without coughing, or to open your eyes
long before they began to smart. Atkinson and Crean had cleared the floor
of ice in our absence, but the space between the lower and upper roofs
was solid with blue ice, and the lower roof sagged down in places in a
dangerous way. The wind howled continuously and to say that the hut was
cold is a very mild expression of the reality.

This hut was built by the Discovery Expedition, who themselves lived in
the ship which lay off the shore frozen into the sea-ice, as a workroom
and as a refuge in case of shipwreck. It was useful to them in some ways,
but was too large to heat with the amount of coal available, and was
rather a white elephant. Scott wrote of it that "on the whole our large
hut has been and will be of use to us, but its uses are never likely to
be of such importance as to render it indispensable, nor cause it to be
said that circumstances have justified the outlay made on it, or the
expenditure of space and trouble in bringing it to its final home. It is
here now, however, and here it will stand for many a long year with such
supplies as will afford the necessaries of life to any less fortunate
party who may follow in our footsteps and be forced to search for food
and shelter."
^[122]

Well! It was to be more useful to Scott in 1910 to 1913 than he imagined
in 1902. We found the place with its verandah complete, the remains of
the two magnetic huts and a rubbish heap. It was wonderful what that
rubbish heap yielded up. Bricks to build a blubber stove, a sheet of iron
to put over the top of it, a length of stove piping to form a chimney.
Somehow somebody made cement, and built the bricks together, and one of
the magnetic huts gave up its asbestos sheeting to insulate the chimney
from the woodwork of the roofs. An old door made a cook's table, old
cases turned upside down made seats. The provisions left by the Discovery
were biscuits contained in some forty large packing cases. These we piled
up across the middle of our house as a bulkhead and the old Discovery
winter awning was dug out of the snow outside and fixed against the wall
thus made to keep the warmth in. At night we cleared the floor space and
spread our bags.

The two precious survivors of the eight ponies with which we started on
our journey were housed in the verandah, which was made wind-proof and
snow-proof. The more truculent dogs lay tethered outside, the more docile
were allowed their freedom, but even so the dog fights were not
infrequent. We had one poor little dog, Makaka by name. When unloading
the ship this dog had been overrun by the sledge which he was helping to
pull; he suffered again when the team of dogs fell down the crevasse, and
was now partially paralysed. He was a wretched object, for the hair
refused to grow on his hind quarters, but he was a real sportsman and had
no idea of giving in. Meares and I went out one night when it was blowing
hard, attracted by the cries of a dog. It was Makaka who had ventured to
climb a steep slope and was now afraid to return. When the dogs finally
returned to Cape Evans, Makaka was allowed to run by the side of the
team; but when Cape Evans was reached he was gone. Search failed to find
him and, after some weeks, hope of him was abandoned. But a month
afterwards Gran and Debenham went over to Hut Point, and here at the
entrance of the hut they found Makaka, pitifully weak but able to bark to
them. He must have lived on seal, but how he did so in that condition is
a mystery.

The reader may ask how it was that being so near our Winter Quarters at
Cape Evans we were unable to reach them immediately. Cape Evans is
fifteen miles across the sea from Hut Point, and though both huts are on
the same island—Hut Point being at the end of a peninsula and Cape Evans
on the remains of a flow of lava which juts out into the sea—the land
which joins the two has never yet been crossed by a sledge party owing to
the great ice falls which cover the slopes of Erebus. A glance at the map
will show that although Hut Point is surrounded with sea, or sea-ice, on
every side except that of Arrival Heights, the Barrier abuts upon the Hut
Point Peninsula to the south beyond Pram Point. Thus there is always
communication with the Barrier by a devious route by which indeed we had
just arrived, but farther progress north is cut off until the cold
temperature of the autumn and winter causes the open sea to freeze. We
arrived at Hut Point on March 5 and Scott expected to be able to cross on
the newly-frozen ice by about March 21. However, it was nearly a month
after that when the first party could pass to Cape Evans, and then only
the Bays were frozen and the Sound was still open water, owing to the
winds which swept the ice out to sea almost as soon as it was formed.

On the top of all the anxieties which had oppressed him lately Scott had
a great fear that a swell so phenomenal as to break up Glacier Tongue, a
landmark which had probably been there for centuries, might have swept
away our hut at Cape Evans. He was so alarmed about it that he told
Wilson and myself to prepare to form a sledging party with him to
penetrate the Erebus icefalls and reach Cape Evans. "Went yesterday to
Castle Rock with Wilson to see what chance there might be of getting to
Cape Evans. The day was bright and it was quite warm walking in the sun.
There is no doubt the route to Cape Evans lies over the worst corner of
Erebus. From this distance (some 7 or 8 miles at least) the whole
mountain side looks a mass of crevasses, but a route might be found at a
level of 3000 or 4000 feet."
^[123]
After some days the project was
abandoned as being hopeless.

On March 8 Bowers led a party to bring in the gear and provisions which
had been left at Disaster Camp, the material, that is, which had been
rescued from the sea-ice. They were away three days and found the pulling
very hard. "At the corner of the bay the Barrier was buckled into round
ridges which took a couple of hours to cross. We marched for some time
alongside an enormous crevasse, which lay like a street near us. I
examined it at one point which must have been 15 feet wide, and though it
was impossible to see the bottom for snow cornices it was undoubtedly
open as I could hear a seal blowing below."
^[124]

Bowers' letter describes them dragging their heavy load up the slope to
Castle Rock: "It took us all the morning to reach Saddle Camp with the
loads in two journeys. I found a steady plod up a steep hill without
spells is better and less exhausting than a rush and a number of rests.
This theory I put into practice with great success. I don't know whether
everybody saw eye to eye with me over the idea of getting to the top
without a spell. After the second sledge was up Atkinson said: 'I don't
mind you as a rule, but there are times when I positively hate you.'"

Defoe could have written another Robinson Crusoe with Hut Point instead
of San Juan Fernandez. Our sledging supplies were mostly exhausted and we
depended upon the seals we could kill for food, fuel and light. We were
smutty as sweeps from the blubber we burned; and a more
blackguard-looking crew would have been hard to find. We spent our fine
days killing, cutting up and carrying in seal when we could find them, or
climbing the various interesting hills and craters which abound here, and
our evenings in long discussions which seldom settled anything. Some
looked after dogs, and others after ponies; some made geological
collections; others sketched the wonderful sunsets; but before and above
all we ate and slept. We must have spent a good twelve hours asleep in
our bags every day after our six weeks' sledging. And we rested. Perhaps
this is not everybody's notion of a very good time, but it was good
enough for us.

The Weddell seal which frequents the seas which fringe the Antarctic
continent was a standby for most of our wants; for he can at a pinch
provide not only meat to eat, fuel for your fire and oil for your lamp,
but also leather for your finnesko and an antidote to scurvy. As he lies
out on the sea-ice, a great ungainly shape, nothing short of an actual
prod will persuade him to take much notice of an Antarctic explorer. Even
then he is as likely as not to yawn in your face and go to sleep again.
His instincts are all to avoid the water when alarmed, for he knows his
enemies the killer whales live there: but if you drive him into the water
he is transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a thing of beauty and
grace, which can travel and turn with extreme celerity and which can
successfully chase the fish on which he feeds.