THE
WORST JOURNEY
IN THE
WORLD
ANTARCTIC 1910-1913
Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Vol. 11.
THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
ANTARCTIC I 910-19 13
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries
http://www.archive.org/details/worstjourneyinwo02
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THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
ANTARCTIC
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APSLEY CHEKK
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WITH PANORAMAS, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS iii IHi LATE UOCTOR EDWARD A. WILSON AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION
r- -— VOLUMES VOLUME TWO
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY
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THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
ANTARCTIC
1910— 1913
BY
APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD
WITH PANORAMAS, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE LATE DOCTOR EDWARD A. WILSON AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION
IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME TWO
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY
First published 1922
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE
Spring ........ 301
CHAPTER IX
The Polar Journey. I. The Barrier Stage . '3^7
CHAPTER X
The Polar Journey. II. The Beardmore Glacier . -350
CHAPTER XI
The Polar Journey. III. The Plateau to 87° 32' S. . 368
CHAPTER XII
The Polar Journey. IV. Returning Parties . .380
CHAPTER XIII
Suspense . . . . . . . 408
CHAPTER XIV The Last Winter ...... 436
CHAPTER XV Another Spring ...... 459
vi WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER XVI The Search Journey ...... 472
PAGE
- CHAPTER XVII
The Polar Journey. V. The Pole and After . . 496
CHAPTER XVIII
The Polar Journey. VI. Farthest South . . .527
CHAPTER XIX Never Again ....... 543
GLOSSARY . . . . . . .579
INDEX . ' . . . . . .581
ILLUSTRATIONS
A Halo round the Moon, showing vertical and horizontal shafts
and mock Moons ..... Frontispiece
From a luater-colour drawing by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
FACING PAGE
Camp on the Barrier. November 22, 191 1. A rough sketch
for future use . . . . . .322
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
Parhelia. For description, see text. November 14, 191 1. A
rough sketch for future use . . . .332
From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wihon.
Plate III. The Mountains which lie between the Barrier and
the Plateau as seen on December i, 191 1 . . 338
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon,
A Pony Camp on the Barrier ..... 346 The Dog Teams leaving the Beardmore Glacier. Mount Hope
and the Gateway before them .... 346
Fram photographs by C. S. Wright.
Plate IV. Transit sketch for the Lower Glacier Depot. December 11, 191 1. Showing the Pillar Rock, mainland mountains, the Gateway or Gap, and the beginning of the main Beardmore Glacier outlet on to the Barrier . . 352
From sketches bv Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
Plate V. Mount F. L. Smith and the land to the North-West.
December 12, 191 1 . . ' . . . 354
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
Plate VI. Mount Elizabeth, Mount Anne and Socks Glacier.
December 13, 191 1 ..... 356
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
Mount Patrick. December 16, 191 1 .... 358
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon.
Plate VII. From Mount Deakin to Mount Kinsey, showing the outlet of the Keltic Glacier, and Mount Usher in the distance. December 19, 191 1 .... 362
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wihon .
Our night Camp at the foot of the Buckley Island ice-falls. December 20, 191 1. Buckley Island in the background. Note ablation pits in the snow . . . . 364
From a photograph by C. S. Wright.
The Adams Mountains ..... 382
The First Return Party on the Beardmore Glacier . . 382
From photographs by C. S. Wright.
vii
viii WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
FACING PAGE
Camp below the Cloudmaker. Note pressure ridges in the
middle distance . . . , . . 390
From a photograph by C. S. Wright.
Plate VIII. From Mount Kyffin to Mount Patrick. Decem- ber 14, 191 1 ...... 392
From sketches by Dr. Ediuard A. Wilson. View from Arrival Heights northwards to Cape Evans and the
Dellbridge Islands . . . . . 428
Cape Royds from Cape Barne, with the frozen McMurdo Sound 428
From photographs by F, Debenham.
Cape Evans in Winter. This view is drawn when looking
northwards from under the Ramp . . . 440
From a 'mater-colour draiving by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
North Bay and the snout of the Barne Glacier from Cape Evans 448
From a photograph by F. Debenham.
The Mule Party leaves Cape Evans. October 29, 191 2 . 472
From a photograph by F. Debenham.
The Dog Party leaves Hut Point. November i, 1912 . 478
From a photograph by F. Debenham. "Atch": E. L. Atkinson, commanding the Main Landing
Party after the death of Scott .... 492
"Titus" Oates . . . . . . 492
From photographs by C. 5. Wright. '"
The Tent left by Amundsen at the South Pole (Polheim) . 506
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
Buckley Island, where the fossils were found . . .518
From a photograph by C. S. Wright.
Plate IX. Buckley Island, sketched during the evening of
December 21, 191 1 ..... 522
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
Mount Kyffin, sketched on December 13, 191 1 . . 524
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
Where Evans died, showing the Pillar Rock near which the Lower Glacier Depot was made. Sketched on December II, 191 1 . . . . . . . 526
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
Sledging in a high wind : the floor-cloth of the tent is the sail . 53O' From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
Plate X. Mount LongstafF, sketched on December i, 191 1.
See also Plate HI., p. 338 .... 532
From sketches by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson.
A Blizzard Camp : the half-buried sledge is in the foreground 536
From a sketch by Dr. Edivard A. Wilson,
MAP The Polar Journey ...... 54^
CHAPTER VIII
SPRING
Inside was pandemonium. Most men had gone to bed, and I have a blurred memory of men in pyjamas and dressing-gowns getting hold of me and trying to get the chunks of armour which were my clothes to leave my body. Finally they cut them off and threw them into an angular heap at the foot of my bunk. Next morning they were a sodden mass weighing 24 lbs. Bread and jam, and cocoa ; showers of questions ; " You know this is the hardest journey ever made," from Scott ; a broken record of George Robey on the gramophone which started us laugh- ing until in our weak state we found it difficult to stop. I have no doubt that I had not stood the journey as well as Wilson : my jaw had dropped when I came in, so they tell me. Then into my warm blanket bag, and I managed to keep awake just long enough to think that Paradise must feel something like this.
We slept ten thousand thousand years, were wakened to find everybody at breakfast, and passed a wonderful day, lazying about, half asleep and wholly happy, listening to the news and answering questions. "We are looked upon as beings who have come from another world. This afternoon I had a shave after soaking my face in a hot sponge, and then a bath. Lashly had already cut my hair. Bill looks very thin and we are all very blear-eyed from want of sleep. I have not much appetite, my mouth is very dry and throat sore with a troublesome hacking cough which I have had all the journey. My taste is gone. We are
301
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getting badly spoiled, but our beds are the height of all our pleasures." ^
But this did not last long :
" Another very happy day doing nothing. After falling asleep two or three times I went to bed, read Kim, and slept. About two hours after each meal we all want another, and after a tremendous supper last night we had another meal before turning in. I have my taste back but all our fingers are impossible, they might be so many pieces of lead except for the pins and needles feeling in them which we have also got in our feet. My toes are very bulbous and some toe-nails are coming off. My left heel is one big burst blister. Going straight out of a warm bed into a strong wind outside nearly bowled me over. I felt quite faint, and pulled myself together thinking it was all nerves : but it began to come on again and I had to make for the hut as quickly as possible. Birdie is now full of schemes for doing the trip again next year. Bill says it is too great a risk in the darkness, and he will not con- sider it, though he thinks that to go in August might be possible."^
And again a day or two later :
" I came in covered with a red rash which is rather ticklish. My ankles and knees are a bit puffy, but my feet are not so painful as Bill's and Birdie's. Hands itch a bit. We must be very weak and worn out, though I think Birdie is the strongest of us. He seems to be picking up very quickly. Bill is still very worn and rather haggard. The kindness of everybody would spoil an angel." ^
I have put these personal experiences down from my diary because they are the only contemporary record I possess. Scott's own diary at this time contains the state- ment: " The Crozier party returned last night after endur- ing for five weeks the hardest conditions on record. They looked more weather-worn than any one I have yet seen. Their faces were scarred and wrinkled, their eyes dull, their hands whitened and creased with the constant ex- Dosure to damp and cold, yet the scars of frost-bite were
1 My own diary. 2 j^jj^ 3 j^,-^^
SPRING 303
very few . . . to-day after a night's rest our travellers are very different in appearance and mental capacity." ^
" Atch has been lost in a blizzard," was the news which we got as soon as we could grasp anything. Since then he has spent a year of war in the North Sea, seen the Dar- danelles campaign, and much fighting in France, and has been blown up in a monitor. I doubt whether he does not reckon that night the worst of the lot. He ought to have been blown into hundreds of little bits, but always like some hardy indiarubber ball he turns up again, a little dented, but with the same tough elasticity which refuses to be hurt. And with the same quiet voice he volunteers for the next, and tells you how splendid everybody was except himself.
It was the blizzard of July 4, when we were lying in the windless bight on our way to Cape Crozier, and we knew it must be blowing all round us. At any rate it was blowing at Cape Evans, though it eased up in the after- noon, and Atkinson and Taylor went up the Ramp to read the thermometers there. They returned without great difficulty, and some discussion seems to have arisen as to whether it was possible to read the two screens on the sea- ice. Atkinson said he would go and read that in North Bay : Gran said he was going to South Bay. They started independently at 5.30 p.m. Gran returned an hour and a quarter afterwards. He had gone about two hundred yards.
Atkinson had not gone much farther when he decided that he had better give it up, so he turned and faced the wind, steering by keeping it on his cheek. We discovered afterwards that the wind does not blow quite in the same direction at the end of the Cape as it does just where the hut lies. Perhaps it was this, perhaps his left leg carried him a little farther than his right, perhaps it was that the numbing effect of a blizzard on a man's brain was already having its effect, certainly Atkinson does not know him- self, but instead of striking the Cape which ran across his true front, he found himself by an old fish trap which
1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 361.
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he knew was 200 yards out on the sea-ice. He made a great effort to steady himself and make for the Cape, but any one who has stood in a bhzzard will understand how difficult that is. The snow was a blanket raging all round him, and it was quite dark. He walked on, and found nothing. *
Everything else is vague. Hour after hour he staggered about : he got his hand badly frost-bitten : he found press- ure : he fell over it : he was crawling in it, on his hands and knees. Stumbling, tumbling, tripping, buffeted by the endless lash of the wind, sprawling through miles of punishing snow, he still seems to have kept his brain working. He found an island, thought it was Inaccessible, spent ages in coasting along it, lost it, found more pressure, and crawled along it. He found another island, and the same horrible, almost senseless, search went on. Under the lee of some rocks he waited for a time. His clothing was thin though he had his wind-clothes, and, a horrible thought if this was to go on, he had boots on his feet instead of warm finnesko. Here also he kicked out a hole in a drift where he might have more chance if he were forced to lie down. For sleep is the end of men who get lost in blizzards. Though he did not know it he must now have been out more than four hours.
There was little chance for him if the blizzard con- tinued, but hope revived when the moon showed in a partial lull. It is wonderful that he was sufficiently active to grasp the significance of this, and groping back in his brain he found he could remember the bearing of the moon from Cape Evans when he went to bed the night before. The hut must be somewhere over there : this must be Inaccessible Island ! He left the island and made in that direction, but the blizzard came down again with added force and the moon was blotted out. He tried to return to the island and failed : then he stumbled on another island, perhaps the same one, and waited. Again the lull came, and again he set off, and walked and walked, until he re- cognized Inaccessible Island on his left. Clearly he must have been under Great Razorback Island and this is some
SPRING 305
four miles from Cape Evans. The moon still showed, and on he walked and then at last he saw a flame.
Atkinson's continued absence was not noticed at the hut until dinner was nearly over at 7.15 ; that is, until he had been absent about two hours. The wind at Cape Evans had dropped though it was thick all round, and no great anxiety was felt : some went out and shouted, others went north with a lantern, and Day arranged to light a paraffin flare on Wind Vane Hill. Atkinson never ex- perienced this lull, and having seen the way blizzards will sweep down the Strait though the coastline is compara- tively clear and calm, I can understand how he was in the thick of it all the time. I feel convinced that most of these blizzards are local affairs. The party which had gone north returned at 9.30 without news, and Scott became seriously alarmed. Between 9.30 and 10 six search parties started out. But time was passing and Atkinson had been away more than six hours.
The light which Atkinson had seen was a flare of tow soaked in petrol lit by Day at Cape Evans. He corrected his course and before long was under the rock upon which Day could be seen working like some lanky devil in one of Dante's hells. Atkinson shouted again and again but could not attract his attention, and finally walked almost into the hut before he was found by two men searching the Cape. "It was all my own damned fault," he said, "but Scott never slanged me at all." I really think we should all have been as merciful ! Wouldn't you?
And that was that : but he had a beastly hand.
Theoretically the sun returned to us on August 23. Practically there was nothing to be seen except blinding drift. But we saw his upper limb two days later. In Scott's words the daylight came "rushing" at us. Two spring journeys were contemplated ; and with preparations for the Polar Journey, and the ordinary routine work of the sta- tion, everybody had as much on his hands as he could get through.
Lieutenant Evans, Gran and Forde volunteered to go out to Corner Camp and dig out this depot as well as that
X
3o6 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
of Safety Camp. They started on September 9 and camped on the sea-ice beyond Cape Armitage that night, the mini- mum temperature being -45°. They dug out Safety Camp next morning, and marched on towards Corner Camp. The minimum that night was - 62.3°. The next even- ing they made their night camp as a bhzzard was coming up, the temperature at the same time being - 34.5° and minimum for the night - 40°. This is an extremely low temperature for a blizzard. They made a start in a very cold wind the next afternoon (September 12) and camped at 8.30 P.M. That night was bitterly cold and they found that the minimum showed - 73.3° for that night. Evans re- ports adversely on the use of the eider-down bag and inner tent, but here none of our Winter Journey men would agree with him.^ Most of September 1 3th was spent in digging out Corner Camp which they left at 5 p.m., intend- ing to travel back to Hut Point without stopping except for meals. They marched all through that night with two halts for meals and arrived at Hut Point at 3 p.m. on Sep- tember 14, having covered a distance of 34.6 statute miles. They reached Cape Evans the following day after an ab- sence of 6^ days.^
During this journey Forde got his hand badly frost- bitten which necessitated his return in the Terra Nova in March 19 12. He owed a good deal to the skilful treat- ment Atkinson gave it.
Wilson was still looking grey and drawn some days, and I was not too fit, but Bowers was indefatigable. Soon after we got in from Cape Crozier he heard that Scott was going over to the Western Mountains : somehow or other he persuaded Scott to take him, and they started with Sea- man Evans and Simpson on September 15 on what Scott calls "a remarkably pleasant and instructive little spring journey," ^ and what Bowers called a jolly picnic.
This picnic started from the hut in a - 40° tempera- ture, dragging 180 lbs. per man, mainly composed of stores for the geological party of the summer. They pene-
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 293. ^ Ibid. pp. 291-297 ; written by Lieutenant Evans. ^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 409.
SPRING 307
trated as far north as Dunlop Island and turned back from there on September 24, reaching Cape Evans on Septem- ber 29, marching twenty-one miles (statute) into a blizzard wind with occasional storms of drift and a temperature of- 16°: and they marched a little too long; for a storm of drift came against them and they had to camp. It is never very easy pitching a tent on sea-ice because there is not very much snow on the ice : on this occasion it was only after they had detached the inner tent, which was fas- tened to the bamboos, that they could hold the bamboos, and then it was only inch by inch that they got the outer cover on. At 9 p.m. the drift took off though the wind was as strong as ever, and they decided to make for Cape Evans. They arrived at 1.15 a.m. after one of the most strenuous days which Scott could remember : and that meant a good deal. Simpson's face was a sight ! During his absence Griffith Taylor became meteorologist-in-chief. He was a greedy scientist, and he also wielded a fluent pen. Conse- quently his output during the year and a half which he spent with us was large, and ranged from the results of the two excellent scientific journeys which he led in the Western Mountains, to this work during the latter half of September. He was a most valued contributor to The South Polar Times, and his prose and poetry both had a bite which was never equalled by any other of our amateur journalists. When his pen was still, his tongue wagged, and the arguments he led were legion. The hut was a merrier place for his presence. When the weather was good he might be seen striding over the rocks with a complete disregard of the effect on his clothes: he wore through a pair of boots quicker than anybody I have ever known, and his socks had to be mended with string. Ice movement and erosion were also of interest to him, and almost every day he spent some time in studying the slopes and huge ice-cliffs of the Barne Glacier, and other points of interest. With equal ferocity he would throw himself into his curtained bunk because he was bored, or emerge from it to take part in some argument which was troubling the table. His diary must have been almost as long as the
3o8 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
reports he wrote for Scott of his geological explorations. He was a demon note-taker, and he had a passion for being equipped so that he could cope with any observation which might turn up. Thus Old Griffon a sledge journey- might have notebooks protruding from every pocket, and hung about his person, a sundial, a prismatic compass, a sheath knife, a pair of binoculars, a geological hammer, chronometer, pedometer, camera, aneroid and other items of surveying gear, as well as his goggles and mitts. And in his hand might be an ice-axe which he used as he went along to the possible advancement of science, but the cer- tain disorganization of his companions.
His gaunt, untamed appearance was atoned for by a halo of good-fellowship which hovered about his head. I am sure he must have been an untidy person to have in your tent : I feel equally sure that his tent-mates would have been sorry to lose him. His gear took up more room than was strictly his share, and his mind also filled up a considerable amount of space. He always bulked large, and when he returned to the Australian Government, which had lent him for the first two sledging seasons, he left a noticeable gap in our company.
From the time we returned from Cape Crozier until now Scott had been full of buck. Our return had taken a weight off his mind : the return of the daylight was stimu- lating to everybody: and to a man of his impatient and impetuous temperament the end of the long period of wait- ing was a relief. Also everything was going well. On Sep- tember lo he writes with a sigh of relief that the detailed plans for the Southern Journey are finished at last. " Every figure has been checked by Bowers, who has been an enor- mous help to me. If the motors are successful, we shall have no difficulty in getting to the Glacier, and if they fail, we shall still get there with any ordinary degree of good fortune. To work three units of four men from that point onwards requires no small provision, but with the proper provision it should take a good deal to stop the attainment of our object. I have tried to take every reasonable possi- bility of misfortune into consideration, and to so organize
SPRING 309
the parties as to be prepared to meet them. I fear to be too sanguine, yet taking everything into consideration I feel that our chances ought to be good." ^
And again he writes: " Of hopeful signs for the future none are more remarkable than the health and spirit of our people. It would be impossible to imagine a more vigorous community, and there does not seem to be a single weak spot in the twelve good men and true who are chosen for the Southern advance. All are now experienced sledge travellers, knit together with a bond of friendship that has never been equalled under such circumstances. Thanks to these people, and more especially to Bowers and Petty Officer Evans, there is not a single detail of our equipment which is not arranged with the utmost care and in accord- ance with the tests of experience." ^
Indeed Bowers had been of the very greatest use to Scott in the working out of these plans. Not only had he all the details of stores at his finger-tips, but he had studied polar clothing and polar food, was full of plans and alter- native plans, and, best of all, refused to be beaten by any problem which presented itself. The actual distribution of weights between dogs, motors and ponies, and between the different ponies, was largely left in his hands. We had only to lead our ponies out on the day of the start and we were sure to find our sledges ready, each with the right load and weight. To the leader of an expedition such a man was worth his weight in gold.
But now Scott became worried and unhappy. We were running things on a fine margin of transport, and during the month before we were due to start mishap followed mishap in the most disgusting way. Three men were more or less incapacitated: Forde with his frozen hand, Clis- sold who concussed himself by a fall from a berg, and Debenham who hurt his knee seriously when playing foot- ball. One of the ponies, Jehu, was such a crock that at one time it was decided not to take him out at all : and very bad opinions were also held of Chinaman. Another dog died of a mysterious disease. " It is trying," writes Scott, "but
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 4.03. ^ Ibid. p. 404.
3IO WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
I am past despondency. Things must take their course."^ And "if this waiting were to continue it looks as though we should become a regular party of ' crocks.' " ^
Then on the top of all this came a bad accident to one of the motor axles on the eve of departure. " To-night the motors were to be taken on to the floe. The drifts made the road very uneven, and the first and best motor overrode its chain; the chain was replaced and the machine pro- ceeded, but just short of the floe was thrust to a steep in- clination by a ridge, and the chain again overrode the sprockets ; this- time by ill fortune Day slipped at the critical moment and without intention jammed the throttle full on. The engine brought up, but there was an ominous trickle of oil under the back axle, and investigation showed that the axle casing (aluminium) had split. The casing had been stripped and brought into the hut: we may be able to do something to it, but time presses. It all goes to show that we want more experience and workshops. I am secretly convinced that we shall not get much help from the motors, yet nothing has ever happened to them that was unavoidable. A little more care and foresight would make them splendid allies. The trouble is that if they fail, no one will ever believe this." ^
In the meantime Meares and Dimitri ran out to Corner Camp from Hut Point twice with the two dog-teams. The first time they journeyed out and back in two days and a night, returning on October 1 5 ; and another very similar run was made before the end of the month.
The motor party was to start first, but was delayed until October 24. They were to wait for us in latitude 80° 30', man-hauling certain loads on if the motors broke down. The two engineers were Day and Lashly, and their two helpers, who steered by pulling on a rope in front, were Lieutenant Evans and Hooper. Scott was " immensely eager that these tractors should succeed, even though they may not be of great help to our Southern advance. A small measure of success will be enough to show their possibili- ties, their ability to revolutionize polar transport."^
1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 425. ^ /^^/^^ p_ ^^y^ 3 /^/^_ p_ ^29.
4 Ibid.ip. 4.38.
SPRING 311
Lashly, as the reader may know by now, was a chief stoker in the Navy, and accompanied Scott on his Plateau Journey in the Discovery days. The following account of the motors' chequered career is from his diary, and for permission to include here both it and the story of the adventures of the Second Return Party, an extraordinarily vivid and simple narrative, I cannot be too grateful.
After the motors had been two days on the sea-ice on their way to Hut Point Lashly writes on 26th October 1911 :
" Kicked off at 9.30; engine going well, surface much better, dropped one can of petrol each and lubricating oil, lunched about two miles from Hut Point. Captain Scott and supporting party came from Cape Evans to help us over blue ice, but they were not required. Got away again after lunch but was delayed by the other sledge not being able to get along, it is beginning to dawn on me the sledges are not powerful enough for the work as it is one continual drag over this sea-ice, perhaps it will improve on the barrier, it seems we are going to be troubled with engine overheating; after we have run about three-quarters to a mile it is necessary to stop at least half an hour to cool the engine down, then we have to close up for a few minutes to allow the carbrutta to warm up or we can't get the petrol to vaporize; we are getting new experiences every day. We arrived at Hut Point and proceeded to Cape Armitage it having come on to snow pretty thickly, so we pitched our tent and waited for the other car to come up, she has been delayed all the afternoon and not made much headway. At 6.30 Mr. Bowers and Mr. Garrard came out to us and told us to come back to Hut Point for the night, where we all enjoyed ourselves with a good hoosh and a nice night with all hands.
"zjth October 191 1.
" This morning being fine made our way out to the cars and got them going after a bit of trouble, the temperature being a bit low. I got away in good style, the surface seems to be improving, it is better for running on but very rough and the overheating is not overcome nor likely to be as far
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as I can see. Just before arriving at the Barrier my car began to develop some strange knocking in the engine, but with the help of the party with us I managed to get on the Barrier, the other car got up the slope in fine style and waited for me to come up ; as my engine is giving trouble we decided to camp, have lunch and see what is the matter. On opening the crank chamber we found the crank brasses broke into little pieces, so there is nothing left to do but replace them with the spare ones ; of course this meant a cold job for Mr. Day and myself, as handling metal on the Barrier is not a thing one looks forward to with pleasure. Anyhow we set about it after Lieutenant Evans and Hooper had rigged up a screen to shelter us a bit, and by lo P.M. we were finished and ready to proceed, but owing to a very low temperature we found it difficult to get the engines to go, so we decided to camp for the night.
" z%th October 1911.
" Turned out and had another go at starting which took some little time owing again to the low temperature. We got away but again the trouble is always staring us in the face, overheating, and the surface is so bad and the pull so heavy and constant that it looks we are in for a rough time. We are continually waiting for one another to come up, and every time we stop something has to be done, my fan got jammed and delayed us some time, but have got it right again. Mr. Evans had to go back for his spare gear owing to some one [not] bringing it out in mistake; he had a good tramp as we were about 1 5 miles out from Hut Point.
" z^th October 191 1.
"Again we got away, but did not get far before the other car began to give trouble. I went back to see what was the matter, it seems the petrol is dirty due perhaps to putting in a new drum, anyhow got her up and camped for lunch. After lunch made a move, and all seemed to be going well when Mr. Day's car gave out at the crank brasses the same as mine, so we shall have to see what is the next best thing to do.
SPRING 313
"10th October 191 1.
"This morning before getting the car on the way had to reconstruct our loads as Mr. Day's car is finished and no more use for further service. We have got all four of us with one car now, things seems to be going fairly well, but we are still troubled with the overheating which means to say half our time is wasted. We can see dawning on us the harness before long. We covered seven miles and camped for the night. We are now about six miles from Corner Camp.
" 3irf October 191 1.
"Got away with difficulty, and nearly reached Corner Camp, but the weather was unkind and forced us to camp early. One thing we have been able to bring along a good supply of pony food and most of the man food, but so far the motor sledges have proved a failure.
" 1st November 191 1.
" Started away with the usual amount of agony, and soon arrived at Corner Camp where we left a note to Captain Scott explaining the cause of our breakdown. I told Mr. Evans to say this sledge won't go much farther. After getting about a mile past Corner Camp my engine gave out finally, so here is an end to the motor sledges. I can't say I am sorry because I am not, and the others are, I think, of the same opinion as myself. We have had a heavy task pulling the heavy sledges up every time we stopped, which was pretty frequent, even now we have to start man-haul- ing we shall not be much more tired than we have already been at night when we had finished. Now comes the man- hauling part of the show, after reorganizing our sledge and taking aboard all the man food we can pull, we started with 1 90 lbs. per man, a strong head wind made it a bit uncom- fortable for getting along, anyhow we made good about three miles and camped for the night. The surface not being very good made the travelling a bit heavy.
"After three days' man-hauling.
" ^tk November 1 9 1 1 .
"Made good about 14^ miles, if the surface would
314 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
only remain as it is now we could get along pretty well. We are now thinking of the ponies being on their way, hope they will get better luck than we had with the motor sledges, but by what I can see they will have a tough time of it.
" dth November 1911. '
" To-day we have worked hard and covered a good distance 1 2 miles, surface rough but slippery, all seems to be going pretty well, but we have generally had enough by the time comes for us to camp.
" jth No'vember 1 9 1 1 .
"We have again made good progress, but the light was very trying, sometimes we could not see at all where we were going. I tried to find some of the Cairns that were built by the Depot Party last year, came upon one this afternoon which is about 20 miles from One Ton Depot, so at the rate we have been travelling we ought to reach there some time to-morrow night. Temperature to-day was pretty low, but we are beginning to get hardened into it now.
"^th No'vember 191 1.
" Made a good start, but the surface is getting softer every day and makes our legs ache ; we arrived at One Ton Depot and camped. Then proceeded to dig out some of the provisions, we have to take on all the man food we can, this is a wild-looking place no doubt, have not seen anything of the ponies.
" ^th No'vember 191 1.
"To-day we have started on the second stage of our journey. Our orders are to proceed one degree south of One Ton Depot and wait for the ponies and dogs to come up with us ; as we have been making good distances each day, the party will hardly overtake us, but we have found to-day the load is much heavier to drag. We have just over 200 lbs. per man, and we have been brought up on several occasions, and to start again required a pretty good strain on the rope, anyhow we done lo^ miles, a pretty good show considering all things.
SPRING 315
" loth No'vember 191 1.
"Again we started off with plenty of vim, but it was jolly tough work, and it begins to tell on all of us ; the surface to-day is covered with soft crystals which don't improve things. To-night Hooper is pretty well done up, but he have stuck it well and I hope he will, although he could not tackle the food in the best of spirits, we know he wanted it. Mr. Evans, Mr. Day and myself could eat more, as we are just beginning to feel the tightening of the belt. Made good 1 1^ miles and we are now building cairns all the way, one about three miles: then again at lunch and one in the afternoon and one at night. This will keep us employed.
"11th No'vember 191 1.
** To-day it has been very heavy work. The surface is very bad and we are pretty well full up, but not with food ; man-hauling is no doubt the hardest work one can do, no wonder the motor sledges could not stand it. I have been thinking of the trials I witnessed of the motor engines in Wolseley's works in Birmingham, they were pretty stiff but nothing compared to the drag of a heavy load on the Barrier surface.
" 12th No'vember 1^11.
"To-day have been similar to the two previous days, but the light have been bad and snow have been falling which do not improve the surface ; we have been doing i o miles a day Geographical and quite enough too as we have all had enough by time it goes Camp.
" 1 2,th No'vember 1 9 1 1 .
"The weather seems to be on the change. Should not be surprised if we don't get a blizzard before long, but of course we don't want that. Hooper seems a bit fagged but he sticks it pretty well. Mr. Day keeps on plodding, his only complaint is should like a little more to eat.
" i^th No'vember 191 1.
"When we started this morning Mr. Evans said we had about 15 miles to go to reach the required distance.
3i6 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
The hauling have been about the same, but the weather is somewhat finer and the blizzard gone off. We did lo miles and camped ; have not seen anything of the main party yet but shall not be surprised to see them at any time,
" i^th November 1911.
"We are camped after doing five miles where we are supposed to be [lat. 80° 32'] ; now we have to wait the others coming up. Mr. Evans is quite proud to think we have arrived before the others caught us, but we don't expect they will be long although we have nothing to be ashamed of as our daily distance have been good. We have built a large cairn this afternoon before turning in. The weather is cold but excellent."
They waited there six days before the pony party arrived, when the Upper Barrier Depot (Mount Hooper) was left in the cairn.
CHAPTER IX
THE POLAR JOURNEY
Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push oiF, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; One equal temper of heroic hearts. Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tennyson, Ulysses.
Take it all in all it is wonderful that the South Pole was reached so soon after the North Pole had been conquered. From Cape Columbia to the North Pole, straight going, is 413 geographical miles, and Peary who took on his expedition 246 dogs, covered this distance in 37 days. From Hut Point to the South Pole and back is 1532 geographical or 1766 statute miles, the distance to the top of the Beardmore Glacier alone being more than 100 miles farther than Peary had to cover to the North Pole. Scott travelled from Hut Point to the South Pole in 75 days, and to the Pole and back to his last camp in 147 days, a period of five months. A. C.-G.
(All miles are geographical unless otherwise stated.)
I. The Barrier Stage
The departure from Cape Evans at 11 p.m. on November i is described by Griffith Taylor, who started a few days later on the second Geological Journey with his own party :
317
3i8 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
"On the 31st October the pony parties started. Two weak ponies led by Atkinson and Keohane were sent off first at 4.30, and I accompanied them for about a mile. Keohane's pony rejoiced in the name of Jimmy Pigg, and he stepped out much better than his fleeter-named mate Jehu. We heard through the telephone of their safe arrival at Hut Point.
"Next morning the Southern Party finished their mail, posting it in the packing case on Atkinson's bunk, and then at 11 a.m. the last party were ready for the Pole. They had packed the sledges overnight, and they took 20 lbs. personal baggage. The Owner had asked me what book he should take. He wanted something fairly filling. I recommended Tyndall's Glaciers — if he wouldn't find it'coolish.' He didn't fancy this ! So then I said, ' Why not take Browning, as I'm doing.?' And I believe that he did so.
"Wright's pony was the first harnessed to its sledge. Chinaman is Jehu's rival for last place, and as some com- pensation is easy to harness. Seaman Evans led Snatcher, who used to rush ahead and take the lead as soon as he was harnessed. Cherry had Michael, a steady goer, and Wil- son led Nobby — the pony rescued from the killer whales in March. Scott led out Snippets to the sledges, and har- nessed him to the foremost, with little Anton's help — only it turned out to be Bowers' sledge! However he trans- ferred in a few minutes and marched off rapidly to the south. Christopher, as usual, behaved like a demon. First they had to trice his front leg up tight under his shoulder, then it took five minutes to throw him. The sledge was brought up and he was harnessed in while his head was held down on the floe. Finally he rose up, still on three legs, and started off galloping as well as he was able. After several violent kicks his foreleg was released, and after more watch-spring flicks with his hind legs he set off fairly steadily. Titus can't stop him when once he has started, and will have to do the fifteen miles in one lap probably !
"Dear old Titus — that was my last memory of him.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 319
Imperturbable as ever ; never hasty, never angry, but soothing that vicious animal, and determined to get the best out of most unpromising material in his endeavour to do his simple duty.
"Bowers was last to leave. His pony, Victor, nervous but not vicious, was soon in the traces. I ran to the end of the Cape and watched the little cavalcade — already strung out into remote units — rapidly fade into the lonely white waste to southward.
"That evening I had a chat with Wilson over the telephone from the Discovery Hut — my last communica- tion with those five gallant spirits." ^
All the ponies arrived at Hut Point by 4 p.m., just in time to escape a stiff blow. Three of them were housed with ourselves inside the hut, the rest being put into the verandah. The march showed that with their loads the speed of the different ponies varied to such an extent that individuals were soon separated by miles. " It reminded me of a regatta or a somewhat disorganized fleet with ships of very unequal speed." ^
It was decided to change to night marching, and the following evening we proceeded in the following order, which was the way of our going for the present. The three slowest ponies started first, namely, Jehu with Atkinson, Chinaman with Wright, James Pigg with Keohane. This party was known as the Baltic Fleet.
Two hours later Scott's party followed ; Scott with Snippets, Wilson with Nobby, and myself with Michael.
Both these parties camped for lunch in the middle of the night's march. After another hour the remaining four men set to work to get Christopher into his sledge ; when he was started they harnessed in their own ponies as quickly as possible and followed, making a non-stop run right through the night's march. It was bad for men and ponies, but it was impossible to camp in the middle of the march owing to Christopher. The composition of this party was, Oates with Christopher, Bowers
^ Taylor, with Scott, The Silver Lining, pp. 325-326, ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 448.
320 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
with Victor, Seaman Evans with Snatcher, Crean with Bones.
Each of these three parties was self-contained with tent, cooker and weekly bag, and the times of starting were so planned that the three parties arrived at the end of the march about the same time.
There was a strong head wind and low drift as we rounded Cape Armitage on our way to the Barrier and the future. Probably there were few of us who did not wonder when we should see the old familiar place again.
Scott's party camped at Safety Camp as the Baltic fleet were getting under weigh again. Soon afterwards Ponting appeared with a dog sledge and a cinematograph, — how anomalous it seemed — which " was up in time to catch the flying rearguard which came along in fine form, Snatcher leading and being stopped every now and again — a won- derful little beast. Christopher had given the usual trouble when harnessed, but was evidently subdued by the Barrier Surface. However, it was not thought advisable to halt him, and so the party fled through in the wake of the ad- vance guard." ^
Immediately afterwards Scott's party packed up. " Good-bye and good luck," from Ponting, a wave of the hand not holding in a frisky pony and we had left the last link with the hut. "The future is in the lap of the gods ; I can think of nothing left undone to deserve success." 2
The general scheme was to average lo miles (11.5 statute) a day from Hut Point to One Ton Depot with the ponies lightly laden. From One Ton to the Gateway a daily average of 13 miles (15 statute) was necessary to carry twenty-four weekly units of food for four men each to the bottom of the glacier. This was the Barrier Stage of the journey, a distance of 369 miles (425 statute) as actually run on our sledge-meter. The twenty-four weekly units of food were to carry the Polar Party and two sup- porting parties forward to their farthest point, and back
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 449. ^ Ibid. p. 446.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 321
again to the bottom of the Beardmore, where three more units were to be left in a depot.^
All went well this first day on the Barrier, and encourag- ing messages left on empty petrol drums told us that the motors were going well when they passed. But the next day we passed five petrol drums which had been dumped. This meant that there was trouble, and some 14 miles from Hut Point we learned that the big end of the No. 2 cylinder of Day's motor had broken, and half a mile beyond we found the motor itself, drifted up with snow, and looking a mournful wreck. The next day's march (Sunday, November 5, a.m.) brought us to Corner Camp. There were a few legs down crevasses during the day but nothing to worry about.
From here we could see to the South an ominous mark in the snow which we hoped might not prove to be the second motor. It was : "the big end of No. i cylinder had cracked, the machine otherwise in good order. Evi- dently the engines are not fitted to working in this climate, a fact that should be certainly capable of correction. One thing is proved ; the system of propulsion is altogether satisfactory." 2 And again: "It is a disappointment. I had hoped better of the machines once they got away on the Barrier Surface." ^
Scott had set his heart upon the success of the motors. He had run them in Norway and Switzerland ; and every- thing was done that care and forethought could suggest. At the back of his mind, I feel sure, was the wish to abolish the cruelty which the use of ponies and dogs necessarily entails. "A small measure of success will be enough to show their possibilities, their ability to revolu- tionize polar transport. Seeing the machines at work to- day [leaving Cape Evans] and remembering that every defect so far shown is purely mechanical, it is impossible not to be convinced of their value. But the trifling mechanical defects and lack of experience show the risk of cutting out trials. A season of experiment with a small
1 See pp. 350, 552-556. 2 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 453. ^ Ibid. p. 452.
Y
322 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
workshop at hand may be all that stands between success and failure."^ I do not believe that Scott built high hopes on these motors : but it was a chance to help those who followed him. Scott was always trying to do that.
Did they succeed or fail .'' They certainly did not help us much, the motor which travelled farthest drawing a heavy load to just beyond Corner Camp. But even so fifty statute miles is fifty miles, and that they did it at all was an enormous advance. The distance travelled included hard and soft surfaces, and we found later when the snow bridges fell in during the summer that this car had crossed safely some broad crevasses. Also they worked in tem- peratures down to - 30° Fahr. All this was to the good, for no motor-driven machine had travelled on the Barrier before. The general design seemed to be right, all that was now wanted was experience. As an experiment they were successful in the South, but Scott never knew their true possibilities ; for they were the direct ancestors of the ' tanks ' in France.
Night-marching had its advantages and disadvantages. The ponies were pulling in the colder part of the day and resting in the warm, which was good. Their coats dried well in the sun, and after a few days to get accustomed to the new conditions, they slept and fed in comparative comfort. On the other hand the pulling surface was un- doubtedly better when the sun was high and the tempera- ture warmer. Taking one thing with another there was no doubt that night-marching was better for ponies, but we seldom if ever tried it man-hauling.
Just now there was an amazing difference between day and night conditions. At midnight one was making short work of everything, nursing fingers after doing up harness with minus temperatures and nasty cold winds : by supper time the next morning we were sitting on our sledges writing up our diaries or meteorological logs, and even dabbling our bare toes in the snow, but not for long 1 Shades of darkness ! How different all this was from what we had been through. My personal impression of
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 438-439.
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 323
this early summer sledging on the Barrier was one of con- stant wonder at its comfort. One had forgotten that a tent could be warm and a sleeping-bag dry : so deep were the contrary impressions that only actual experience was convincing. " It is a sweltering day, the air breathless, the glare intense — one loses sight of the fact that the tempera- ture is low [ - 22°], one's mind seeks comparison in hot sunlit streets and scorching pavements, yet six hours ago my thumb was frost-bitten. All the inconveniences of frozen footwear and damp clothes and sleeping-bags have vanished entirely." ^
We could not expect to get through this windy area of Corner Camp without some bad weather. The wind-blown surface improved, the ponies took their heavier loads with ease, but as we came to our next camp it was banking up to the S.E. and the breeze freshened almost immediately. We built pony walls hurriedly and by the time we had finished supper it was blowing force 5 (a.m. November 6, Camp 4). There was a moderate gale with some drift all day which increased to force 8 with more drift at night. It was impossible to march. The drift took off a bit the next morning, and Meares and Dimitri with the two dog-teams appeared and camped astern of us. This was according to previous plan by which the dog-teams were to start after us and catch us up, since they travelled faster than the ponies. "The snow and drift necessitated digging out ponies again and again to keep them well sheltered from the wind. The walls made a splendid lee, but some sledges at the extremities were buried altogether, and our tent being rather close to windward of our wall got the back eddy and was con- tinually being snowed up above the door. After noon the snow ceased except for surface drift. Snatcher knocked his section of the wall over, and Jehu did so more than ever. All ponies looked pretty miserable, as in spite of the shelter they were bunged up, eyes and all, in drift which had become ice and could not be removed without con- siderable difficulty." ^
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 450. ^ Bowers.
324 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
Towards evening it ceased drifting altogether, but a wind, force 4, kept up with disconcerting regularity. Eventually Atkinson's party got away at midnight. " Castle Rock is still visible, but will be closed by the north end of White Island in the next march — then good- bye to the old landmarks for many a long day." ^
The next day (November 8-9) " started at midnight and had a very pleasant march. Truly sledging in such weather is great. Mounts Discovery and Morning, which we gradually closed, looked fine in the general panorama of mountains. We are now nearly abreast the north end of the Bluff. We all came up to camp together this morning : it looked like a meet of the hounds, and Jehu ran away ! ! 1"^
The next march was just the opposite. Wind force 5 to 6 and falling snow. "The surface was very slippery in parts and on the hard sastrugi it was a case of falling or stumbling continually. The light got so bad that one might have been walking in the clouds for all that could be discerned, and yet it was only snowing slightly. The Bluff became completely obscured, and the usual signs of a blizzard were accentuated.
" At lunch camp Scott packed up and followed us. We overhauled Atkinson about i|- hours later, he having camped, and we were not sorry, as in addition to march- ing against a fresh southerly breeze the light brought a tremendous strain on the eyes in following tracks." ^ A little more than eight miles for the day's total.
We carried these depressing conditions for three more marches, that is till the morning of November 13. The surface was wretched, the weather horrid, the snow per- sistent, covering everything with soft downy flakes, inch upon inch, and mile upon mile. There are glimpses of despondency in the diaries. " If this should come as an exception, our luck will be truly awful. The camp is very silent and cheerless, signs that things are going awry." * *' The weather was horrid, overcast, gloomy, snowy. One's spirits became very low." 5 " I expected these marches to be
^ Bowers. ^ My own diary. ^ Bowers.
* Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 463. ^ Ibid. p. 462.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 325
a little difficult, but not near so bad as to-day."^ Indefi- nite conditions always tried Scott most : positive disasters put him into more cheerful spirits than most. In the big gale coming South when the ship nearly sank, and when we lost one of the cherished motors through the sea-ice, his was one of the few cheerful faces I saw. Even when the ship ran aground off Cape Evans he was not despondent. But this kind of thing irked him. Bowers wrote : "The unpleasant weather and bad surface, and Chinaman's in- disposition, combined to make the outlook unpleasant, and on arrival [in camp] I was not surprised to find that Scott had a grievance. He felt that in arranging the consump- tion of forage his own unit had not been favoured with the same reduction as ours, in fact accused me of putting upon his three horses to save my own. We went through the weights in detail after our meal, and, after a certain amount of argument, decided to carry on as we were going. I can quite understand his feelings, and after our experience of last year a bad day like this makes him fear our beasts are going to fail us. The Talent [i.e. the doctors] exam- ined Chinaman, who begins to show signs of wear. Poor ancient little beggar, he ought to be a pensioner instead of finishing his days on a job of this sort. Jehu looks pretty rocky too, but seeing that we did not expect him to reach the Glacier Tongue, and that he has now done more than 100 miles from Cape Evans, one really does not know what to expect of these creatures. Certainly Titus thinks, as he has always said, that they are the most unsuitable scrap-heap crowd of unfit creatures that could possibly be got together." 2
"The weather was about as poisonous as one could wish ; a fresh breeze and driving snow from the E. with an awful surface. The recently fallen snow thickly covered the ground with powdery stuff that the unfortunate ponies fairly wallowed in. If it was only ourselves to consider I should not mind a bit, but to see our best ponies being hit like this at the start is most distressing. A single march like that of last night must shorten their usefulness by
1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 4.61. ^ Bowers.
326 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
days, and here we are a fortnight out, and barely one- third of the distance to the glacier covered, with every pony showing signs of wear. Victor looks a lean and lanky beast compared with his condition two weeks ago." ^
But the ponies began to go better; and it was about this time that Jehu was styled the Barrier Wonder, and Chinaman the Thunderbolt, " Our four ponies have suf- fered most," writes Bowers. " I don't agree with Titus that it is best to march them right through without a lunch- camp. They were undoubtedly pretty tired, and worst of all did not go their feeds properly. It was a fine warm morning for them (Nov. 13); +15°, our warmest tem- perature hitherto. In the afternoon it came on to snow in large flakes like one would get at home. I have never seen such snow down here before; it makes the surface very bad for the sledges. The ponies' manes and rugs were covered in little knots of ice."
The next march (November 13-14) was rather better, though the going was very deep and heavy, and all the ponies were showing signs of wear and tear. This was followed by a delightfully warm day, and all the animals were standing drowsily in the sunshine. We could see the land far away behind us, the first sight of land we had had for many days. On November 15 we reached One Ton Depot, having travelled a hundred and thirty miles from Hut Point.
The two sledges left standing were still upright, and the tattered remains of a flag flapped over the main cairn. In a salt tin lashed to the bamboo flag-pole was a note from Lieutenant Evans to say that he had gone on with the motor party five days before, and would continue man- hauling to 80° 30' S. and await us there. " He has done something over 30 miles in 2^ days — exceedingly good going." 2 We dug out the cairn, which we found just as we had left it except that there was a big tongue of drift, level with the top of the cairn to leeward, and running about 1 50 yards to N.E., showing that the prevailing wind here is S.W. Nine months before we had sprinkled some
^ Bowers. ^ Scoii's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 1^6^.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 327
oats on the surface of the snow hoping to get a measure- ment of the accretion of snow during the winter. Unfor- tunately we were unable to find the oats again, but other evidence went to show that the snow deposit was very small. A minimum thermometer which was lashed with great care to a framework registered - 73°. After the temperatures already experienced by us on the Barrier during the winter and spring this was surprisingly high, especially as our minimum temperatures were taken under the sledge, which means that the thermometer is shaded from radiation, while this thermometer at One Ton was left open to the sky. On the Winter Journey we found that a shaded thermometer registered - 69° when an un- shaded one registered - 75°, a difference of 6°. All the provisions left here were found to be in excellent condition.
We then had a prolonged council of war. This meant that Scott called Bowers, and perhaps Oates, into our tent after supper was finished in the morning. Somehow these conferences were always rather serio-comic. On this occa- sion, as was usually the case, the question was ponies. It was decided to wait here one day and rest them, as there was ample food. The main discussion centred round the amount of forage to be taken on from here, while the state of the ponies, the amount they could pull and the distance they could go had to be taken into consideration.
"Oates thinks the ponies will get through, but that they have lost condition quicker than he expected. Con- sidering his usually pessimistic attitude this must be thought a hopeful view. Personally I am much more hopeful. I think that a good many of the beasts are actually in better form than when they started, and that there is no need to be alarmed about the remainder, always excepting the v/eak ones which we have always regarded with doubt. Well, we must wait and see how things go."i
The decision made was to take just enough food to get the ponies to the glacier, allowing for the killing of some of them before that date. It was obvious that Jehu and
^ Scau's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 465.
32 8 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
Chinaman could not go very much farther, and it was also necessary that ponies should be killed in order to feed the dogs. The two dog-teams were carrying about a week's pony food, but they were unable to advance more than a fortnight from One Ton without killing ponies.
This decision practically meant that Scott abandoned the idea of taking ponies up the glacier. This was a great relief, for the crevassed state of the lower reaches of the glacier as described by Shackleton led us to believe that the attempt was suicidal. All the winter our brains were exercised to try and devise some method by which the ponies could be driven from behind, and by which the connection between pony and sledge could be loosed if the pony fell into a crevasse, but I confess that there seemed little chance of this happening. From all we saw of the glacier I am convinced that there is no reasonable chance of getting ponies up it, and that dogs could only be driven down it if the way up was most carefully surveyed and kept on the return. I am sure that in this kind of uncer- tainty the mental strain on the leader of a party is less than that on his men. The leader knows quite well what he thinks worth while risking or not : in this case Scott probably was always of the opinion that it would not be worth while taking ponies on to the glacier. The pony leaders, however, only knew that the possibility was ahead of them. I can remember now the relief with which we heard that it was not intended that Wilson should take Nobby, the fittest of our ponies, farther than the Gate- way.
Up to now Christopher had lived up to his reputation, as the following extracts from Bowers' diary will show : "Three times we downed him, and he got up and threw us about, with all four of us hanging on like grim death. He nearly had me under him once ; he seems fearfully strong, but it is a pity he wastes so much good energy. . . . Christopher, as usual, was strapped on three legs and then got down on his knees. He gets more cunning each time, and if he does not succeed in biting or kicking one of us before long it won't be his fault. He
THE POLAR JOURNEY 329
finds the soft snow does not hurt his knees like the sea-ice, and so plunges about on them ad lib. One's finnesko are so slippery that it is difficult to exert full strength on him, and to-day he bowled Oates over and got away altogether. Fortunately the lashing on his fourth leg held fast, and we were able to secure him when he rejoined the other animals. Finally he lay down, and thought he had defeated us, but we had the sledge connected up by that time, and as he got up we rushed him forward before he had time to kick over the traces. . . . Dimitri came and gave us a hand with Chris. Three of us hung on to him while the other two connected up the sledge. We had a struggle for over twenty minutes, and he managed to tread on me, but no damage done. . . . Got Chris in by a dodge. Titus did away with his back strap, and nearly had him away un- aided before he realized that the hated sledge was fast to him. Unfortunately he started off just too soon, and bolted with only one trace fast. This pivoted him to star- board, and he charged the line. I expected a mix-up, but he stopped at the wall between Bones and Snatcher, and we cast off and cleared sledge before trying again. By laying the traces down the side of the sledge instead of ahead we got him off his guard again, and he was away before he knew what had occurred. . . . We had a bad time with Chris again. He remembered having been bluffed before, and could not be got near the sledge at all. Three times he broke away, but fortunately he always ran back among the other ponies, and not out on to the Barrier. Finally we had to down him, and he was so tired with his recent struggles that after one abortive attempt we got him fast and away."
Meanwhile it was not so much the difficulties of sledging as the depressing blank conditions in which our march was so often made, that gave us such troubles as we had. The routine of a tent makes a lot of difference. Scott's tent was a comfortable one to live in, and I was always glad when I was told to join it, and sorry to leave. He was himself extraordinarily quick, and no time was ever lost by his party in camping or breaking camp. He
330 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
was most careful, some said over-careful but I do not think so, that everything should be neat and shipshape, and there was a recognized place for everything. On the Depot Journey we were bidden to see that every particle of snow was beaten off our clothing and finnesko before entering the tent : if it was drifting we had to do this after enter- ing and the snow was carefully cleared off the floor-cloth. Afterwards each tent was supplied with a small brush with which to perform this office. In addition to other obvious advantages this materially helped to keep clothing, fin- nesko, and sleeping-bags dry, and thus prolong the life of furs. "After all is said and done," said Wilson one day after supper, "the best sledger is the man who sees what has to be done, and does it — and says nothing about it," Scott agreed. And if you were "sledging with the Owner " you had to keep your eyes wide open for the little things which cropped up, and do them quickly, and say nothing about them. There is nothing so irritating as the man who is always coming in and informing all and sundry that he has repaired his sledge, or built a wall, or filled the cooker, or mended his socks,
I moved into Scott's tent for the first time in the middle of the Depot Journey, and was enormously impressed by the comfort which a careful routine of this nature evoked. There was a homelike air about the tent at supper time, and, though a lunch camp in the middle of the night is always rather bleak, there was never anything slovenly. Another thing which struck me even more forcibly was the cook- ing. We were of course on just the same ration as the tent from which I had come. I was hungry and said so. " Bad cooking," said Wilson shortly; and so it was. For in two or three days the sharpest edge was off my hunger. Wilson and Scott had learned many a cooking tip in the past, and, instead of the same old meal day by day, the weekly ration was so manoeuvred by a clever cook that it was seldom quite the same meal. Sometimes pemmican plain, or thicker pemmican with some arrowroot mixed with it : at others we surrendered a biscuit and a half apiece and had a dry hoosh, i.e. biscuit fried in pemmican
THE POLAR JOURNEY 331
with a little water added, and a good big cup of cocoa to follow. Dry hooshes also saved oil. There were cocoa and tea upon which to ring the changes, or better still ' teaco ' which combined the stimulating qualities of tea with the food value of cocoa. Then much could be done with the dessert-spoonful of raisins which was our daily whack. They were good soaked in the tea, but best perhaps in with the biscuits and pemmican as a dry hoosh. " You are going far to earn my undying gratitude. Cherry," was a satisfied remark of Scott one evening when, having saved, unbe- knownst to my companions, some of their daily ration of cocoa, arrowroot, sugar and raisins, I made a "chocolate hoosh." But I am afraid he had indigestion next morning. There were meals when we had interesting little talks, as when I find in my diary that : " we had a jolly lunch meal, discussing authors. Barrie, Galsworthy and others are personal friends of Scott. Some one told Max Beerbohm that he was like Captain Scott, and immediately, so Scott assured us, he grew a beard."
But about three weeks out the topics of conversation became threadbare. From then onwards it was often that whole days passed without conversation beyond the routine Camp ho! All ready .^^ Pack up. Spell ho. The latter after some two hours' pulling. When man-hauling we used to start pulling immediately we had the tent down, the sledge packed and our harness over our bodies and ski on our feet. After about a quarter of an hour the effects of the marching would be felt in the warming of hands and feet and the consequent thawing of our mitts and finnesko. We then halted long enough for everybody to adjust their ski and clothing : then on, perhaps for two hours or more, before we halted again.
Since it had been decided to lighten the ponies' weights, we left at least 100 lbs. of pony forage behind when we started from One Ton on the night of November 16-17 on our first i'3-mile march. This was a distinct saving, and instead of 695 lbs. each with which the six stronger ponies left Corner Camp, they now pulled only 625 lbs. Jehu had only 455 lbs. and Chinaman 448 lbs. The dog-teams had
'^r)
332 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
860 lbs. of pony food between them, and according to plan the two teams were to carry 1570 lbs. from One Ton between them. These weights included the sledges, with straps and fittings, which weighed about 45 lbs.
Summer seemed long in coming for we marched into a considerable breeze and the temperature was - 18°. Oates and Seaman Evans had quite a crop of frost-bites. I pointed out to Meares that his nose was gone ; but he left it, saying that he had got tired of it, and it would thaw out by and by. The ponies were going better for their rest. The next day's march was over crusty snow with a layer of loose powdery snow at the top, and a temperature of - 2 1° was chilly. Towards the end of it Scott got frightened that the ponies were not going as well as they should. Another council of war was held, and it was decided that an average of thirteen miles a day must be done at all costs, and that another sack of forage should be dumped here, putting the ponies on short rations later, if necessary. Oates agreed, but said the ponies were going better than he expected : that Jehu and Chinaman might go a week, and almost certainly would go three days. Bowers was always against this dumping. Meanwhile Scott wrote : "It's touch and go whether we scrape up to the glacier ; meanwhile we get along somehow." ^
As a result of one of Christopher's tantrums Bowers re- cords that his sledge-meter was carried away this morning : " I took my sledge-meter into the tent after breakfast and rigged up a fancy lashing with raw hide thongs so as to give it the necessary play with security. A splendid parhelia exhibition was caused by the ice-crystals. Round the sun was a 22° halo [that is a halo 22° from the sun's image], with four mock suns in rainbow colours, and out- side this another halo in complete rainbow colours. Above the sun were the arcs of two other circles touching these halos, and the arcs of the great all-round circle could be seen faintly on either side. Below was a dome-shaped glare of white which contained an exaggerated mock sun, which was as dazzling as the sun himself. Altogether a fine
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i; p: 468:
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 332
example of a pretty common phenomenon down here." And the next day : "We saw the party ahead in inverted mirage some distance above their heads."
In the next three marches we covered our daily 1 3 miles, for the most part without very great difficulty. But poor Jehu was in a bad way, stopping every few hundred yards. It was a funereal business for the leaders of these crock ponies ; and at this stage of the journey Atkinson, Wright and Keohane had many more difficulties than most of us, and the success of their ponies was largely due to their patience and care. Incidentally big icicles formed upon the ponies' noses during the march and Chinaman used Wright's windproof blouse as a handkerchief. During the last of these marches, that is on the morning of Novem- ber 2 1, we saw a massive cairn ahead, and found there the motor party, consisting of Lieutenant Evans, Day, Lashly and Hooper. The cairn was in 80° 32', and under the name Mount Hooper formed our Upper Barrier Depot. We left there three S (summit) rations, two cases of emer- gency biscuits and two cases of oil, which constituted three weekly food units for the three parties which were to advance from the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier. This food was to take them back from 80° 32' to One Ton Camp. We all camped for the night 3 miles farther on: sixteen men, five tents, ^en ponies, twenty-three dogs and thirteen sledges.
The man-hauling party had been waiting for six days ; and, having expected us before, were getting anxious about us. They declared that they were very hungry, and Day, who was always long and thin, looked quite gaunt. Some spare biscuits which we gave them from our tent were car- ried off with gratitude. The rest of us who were driving dogs or leading ponies still found our Barrier ration satisfying.
We had now been out three weeks and had travelled 192 miles, and formed a very good idea as to what the ponies could do. The crocks had done wonderfully : — " We hope Jehu will last three days; he will then be fin- ished in any case and fed to the dogs. It is amusing to see Meares looking eagerly for the chance of a feed for his
334 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
animals ; he has been expecting it daily. On the other hand, Atkinson and Oates are eager to get the poor animal beyond the point at which Shackleton killed his first beast. Reports on Chinaman are very favourable, and it really looks as though the ponies are going to do what is hoped of them." ^ From first to last Nobby, who was rescued from the fioe, was the strongest pony we had, and was now drawing a heavier load than any other pony by 50 lbs. He was a well-shaped, contented kind of animal, misnamed a pony. Indeed several of our beasts were too large to fit this description. Christopher, of course, was wearing him- self out quicker than most, but all of them had lost a lot of weight in spite of the fact that they had all the oats and oil-cake they could eat. Bowers writes of his pony :
"Victor, my pony, has taken to leading the line, like his opposite number last season. He is a steady goer, and as gentle as a dear old sheep. I can hardly realize the strenuous times I had with him only a month ago, when it took about four of us to get him harnessed to a sledge, and two of us every time with all our strength to keep him from bolting when in it. Even at the start of the journey he was as nearly unmanageable as any beast could be, and always liable to bolt from sheer excess of spirits. He is more sober now after three weeks of featureless Barrier, but I think I am more fond of him than ever. He has lost his rotundity, like all the other horses, and is a long-legged, angular beast, very ugly as horses go, but still I would not change him for any other."
The ponies were fed by their leaders at the lunch and supper halts, and by Oates and Bowers during the sleep halt about four hours before we marched. Several of them developed a troublesome habit of swinging their nosebags off, some as soon as they were put on, others in their anxiety to reach the corn still left uneaten in the bottom of the bag. We had to lash their bags on to their headstalls. "Victor got hold of his head rope yesterday, and devoured it: not because he is hungry, as he won't eat all his allowance even now."^
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. pp. 470, 471. ^ Bowers.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 235
The original intention was that Day and Hooper should return from 80° 30', but it was now decided that their unit of four should remain intact for a few days, and constitute a light man-hauling advance party to make the track.
The weather was much more pleasant and we saw the sun most days, while I note only one temperature below - 20° since leaving One Ton. The ponies sank in a cruel distance some days, but we were certainly not overworking them and they had as much food as they could eat. We knew the grim part was to come, but we never realized how grim it was to be. From this Northern Barrier Depot the ponies were mostly drawing less than 500 lbs. and we had hopes of getting through to the glacier without much difficulty. All depended on the weather, and just now it was glorious, and the ponies were going steadily together. Jehu, the crockiest of the crocks, was led back along the track and shot on the evening of November 24, having reached a point at least 15 miles beyond that where Shackleton shot his first pony. When it is considered that it was doubtful whether he could start at all this must be conceded to have been a triumph of horse-management in which both Oates and Atkinson shared, though neither so much as Jehu himself, for he must have had a good spirit to have dragged his poor body so far. "A year's care and good feeding, three weeks' work with good treatment, a reasonable load and a good ration, and then a painless end. If anybody can call that cruel I cannot either understand it or agree with them." Thus Bowers, who continues : "The midnight sun reflected from the snow has started to burn my face and lips. I smear them with hazeline before turning in, and find it a good thing. Wearing goggles has absolutely prevented any recurrence of snow-blindness. Captain Scott says they make me see everything through rose-coloured spectacles."
We said good-bye to Day and Hooper next morning, and they set their faces northwards and homewards.^ Two-
^ A note to Cape Evans is as follows : — My dear Simpson. This goes with Day and Hooper now returning. We are making fair progress and the ponies doing fairly well. I hope we shall get through to the glacier without difficulty, but to make sure I am carrying the dog-teams farther than I intended at first — the teams may be late re- turning, unfit for further work or non-existent. . . . — R. Scott.
336 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
men parties on the Barrier are not much fun. Day had certainly done his best about the motors and they had helped us over a bad bit of initial surface. That night Scott wrote : " Only a few more marches to feel safe in getting to our goal." ^ At the lunch halt on November 26, in lat. 8 1° 3 5', we left our Middle Barrier Depot, containing one week's provisions for each returning unit as at Mount Hooper, a reduction of 200 lbs. in our weights. The march that day was very trying. " It is always rather dismal work walking over the great snow plain when sky and surface merge in one pall of dead whiteness, but it is cheering to be in such good company with everything going on steadily and well." ^
There was no doubt that the animals were tiring, and "a tired animal makes a tired man, I find."^ The next day (November 28) was no better : " the most dismal start imaginable. Thick as a hedge, snow falling and drifting with keen southerly wind."*
Bowers notes : " We have now run down a whole degree of latitude without a fine day, or anything but clouds, mist, and driving snow from the south." We certainly did have some difficult marches, one of the worst effects of which was that we knew we must be making a winding course and we had to pick up our depots on the return somehow. Here is a typical bad morning from Bowers' diary:
"The first four miles of the march were utter misery for me, as Victor, either through lassitude or because he did not like having to plug into the wind, went as slow as a funeral horse. The light was so bad that wearing goggles was most necessary, and the driving snow filled them up as fast as you cleared them. I dropped a long way astern of the cavalcade, could hardly see them at times through the snow, but the fear that Victor, of all the beasts, should give out was like a nightmare. I have always been used to starting later than the others by a quarter of a mile, and catching them up. At the four-mile cairn I was about fed
^ Scoti's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 474. ^ Ibid. p. 475.
^ Ibid. p. 476. * Ibid. p. 476.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 337
up to the neck with it, but I said very little as everybody was so disgusted with the weather and things in general that I saw that I was not the only one in tribulation. Victor turned up trumps after that. He stepped out and led the line in his old place, and at a good swinging pace considering the surface, my temper and spirits improving at every step. In the afternoon he went splendidly again, and finished up by rolling in the snow when I had taken his harness off, a thing he has not done for ten or twelve days. It certainly does not look like exhaustion !"
Indeed these days we were fighting for our marches, and Chinaman who was killed this night seemed well out of it. He reached a point less than 90 miles from the glacier, though this was small comfort to him.
Stumbling and groping our way along as we had been during the last .blizzard we were totally unprepared for the sight which met us during our next march on November 29. The great ramp of mountains which ran to the west of us, and would soon bar our way to the South, partly cleared : and right on top of us it seemed were the triple peaks of Mount Markham. After some 300 miles of bleak, monotonous Barrier it was a wonderful sight indeed. We camped at night in latitude 82° 21' S., four miles beyond Scott's previous Farthest South in 1902. Then they had the best of luck in clear fine weather, which Shackleton has also recorded at this stage of his southern journey.
It is curious to see how depressed all our diaries become when this bad weather obtained, and how quickly we must have cheered up whenever the sun came out. There is no doubt that a similar effect was produced upon the ponies. Truth to tell, the mental strain upon those responsible was very great in these early days, and there is little of outside interest to relieve the mind. The crystal surface which was an invisible carpet yesterday becomes a shining glorious sheet of many colours to-day : the irregularities which caused you so many falls are now quite clear and you step on or over them without a thought : and when there is added some of the most wonderful scenery in the world it
338 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
is hard to recall in the enjoyment of the present how irritable and weary you felt only twenty hours ago. The whisper of the sledge, the hiss of the primus, the smell of the hoosh and the soft folds of your sleeping-bag: how jolly they can all be, and generally were.
I would that I could once again
Around the cooker sit And hearken to its soft refrain
And feel so jolly fit.
Instead of home-life's silken chains,
The uneventful round, I long to be mid snow-swept plains,
In harness, outward bound.
With the pad, pad, pad, of fin'skoed feet. With two hundred pounds per man.
Not enough hoosh or biscuit to eat. Well done, lads ! Up tent ! Outspan.
(Nelson in The South Polar Times.)
Certainlyas we skirted these mountains, range upon range, during the next two marches (November 30 and December i), we felt we could have little cause for complaint. They brought us to lat. 82° 47' S., and here we left our last depot on the Barrier, called the Southern Barrier Depot, with a week's ration for each returning party as usual. "The man food is enough for one week for each returning unit of four men, the next depot beyond being the Middle Barrier Depot, 73 miles north. As we ought easily to do over 100 miles a week on the return journey, there is little likelihood of our having to go on short commons if all goes well." ^ And this was what we all felt — until we found the Polar Party. This was our twenty-seventh camp, and we had been out a month.
It was important that we should have fine clear weather during the next few days when we should be approaching the land. On his previous southern journey Scott had been prevented from reaching the range of mountains which ran along to our right by a huge chasm. This phenomenon is known to geologists as a shear crack and is formed by the
'^ Bowers.
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 339
movement of a glacier away from the land which bounds it. In this case a mass of many hundred miles of Barrier has moved away from the mountains, and the disturbance is correspondingly great. Shackleton has described how he approached the Gateway, as he named the passage between Mount Hope and the mainland, by means of which he passed through on to the Beardmore Glacier. As he and his companions were exploring the way they came upon an enormous chasm, 80 feet wide and 300 feet deep, which barred their path. Moving along to the right they found a place where the chasm was filled with snow, and here they crossed to the land some miles ahead. At our Southern Barrier Depot we reckoned we were some forty- four miles from this Gateway and in three more marches we hoped to be camped under this land.
Christopher was shot at the depot. He was the only pony who did not die instantaneously. Perhaps Oates was not so calm as usual, for Chris was his own horse though such a brute. Just as Oates fired he moved, and charged into the camp with the bullet in his head. He was caught with difHculty, nearly giving Keohane a bad bite, led back and finished. We were well rid of him: while he was strong he fought, and once the Barrier had tamed him, as we were not able to do, he never pulled a fair load. He could have gone several more days, but there was not enough pony food to take all the animals forward. We began to wonder if we had done right to leave so much behind. Each pony provided at least four days' food for the dog-teams, some of them more, and there was quite a lot of fat on them — even on Jehu. This was comforting, as going to prove that their hardships were not too great. Also we put the undercut into our own hoosh, and it was very good, though we had little oil to cook it.
We had been starting later each night, in order that the transition from night to day marching might be gradual. For we intended to march by day when we started pull- ing up the glacier, and there were no ponies to rest when the sun was high. It may be said therefore that our next march was on December 2.
340 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
Before we started Scott walked over to Bowers. " I have come to a decision which will shock you." Victor was to go at the end of the march, because pony food was running so short. Birdie wrote at the end of the day : — He "did a splendid march and kept ahead all day, and as usual marched into camp first, pulling over 450 lbs. easily. It seemed an awful pity to have to shoot a great strong animal, and it seemed like the irony of fate to me, as I had been downed for over-provisioning the ponies with need- less excess of food, and the drastic reductions had been made against my strenuous opposition up to the last. It is poor satisfaction to me to know that I was right now that my horse is dead. Good old Victor 1 He has always had a biscuit out of my ration, and he ate his last before the bullet sent him to his rest. Here ends my second horse in 83° S., not quite so tragically as my first when the sea-ice broke up, but none the less I feel sorry for a beast that has been my constant companion and care for so long. He has done his share in our undertaking anyhow, and may I do my share as well when I get into harness myself.
"The snow has started to fall over his bleak resting- place, and it looks like a blizzard. The outlook is dark, stormy and threatening."
Indeed it had been a dismal march into a blank white wall, and the ponies were sinking badly in the snow, leav- ing holes a full foot deep. The temperature was +17° and the flakes of snow melted when they lay on the dark colours of the tents and our furs. After building the pony walls water was running down our windproofs.
I note " we are doing well on pony meat and go to bed very content." Notwithstanding the fact that we could not do more than heat the meat by throwing it into the pemmi- can we found it sweet and good, though tough. The man- hauling party consisted of Lieut. Evans and Lashly who had lost their motors, and Atkinson and Wright who had lost their ponies. They were really quite hungry by now, and most of us pretty well looked forward to our meals and kept a biscuit to eat in our bags if we could. The pony meat therefore came as a relief. I think we ought to have
THE POLAR JOURNEY 341
depoted more of it on the cairns. As it was, what we did not eat was given to the dogs. With some tins of extra oil and a depoted pony the Polar Party would probably have got home in safety.
On December 3 we roused out at 2.30 a.m. It was thick and snowy. As we breakfasted the blizzard started from the south-east, and was soon blowing force 9, a full gale, with heavy drift. " The strongest wind I have known here in summer." ^ It was impossible to start, but we turned out and made up the pony walls in heavy drift, one of them being blown down three times. By 1.30 p.m. the sun was shining, and the land was clear. We started at 2, with what we thought was Mount Hope showing up ahead, but soon great snow-clouds were banking up and in two hours we were walking in a deep gloom which made it difficult to find the track made by the man-hauling party ahead. By the time we reached the cairn, which was always built at the end of the first four miles, it was blowing hard from the N.N. W. of all the unlikely quarters of the com- pass. Bowers and Scott were on ski.
" I put on my windproof blouse and nosed out the track for two miles, when we suddenly came upon the tent of the leading party. They had camped owing to the difficulty of steering a course in such thick weather. The ponies, however, with the wind abaft the beam were going along splendidly, and Scott thought it worth while to shove on. We therefore carried on another four miles, making ten in all, a good half march, before we camped. On ski it was simply ripping, except for the inability to see anything at all. With the wind behind, and the good sliding surface made by the wind-hardened snow, one fairly slithered along. Camping was less pleasant as it was blowing a gale by that time. We are all in our bags again now, with a good hot meal inside one, and blow high or blow low one might be in a worse place than a reindeer bag." 2
It was all right for the people on ski (and this in itself gave us a certain sense of grievance), but things had not
•'■ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 4-83. ^ Bowers.
342 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
been so easy with the ponies, who were sinking very deeply in places, while we ourselves were sinking well over our ankles. This day we began to cross the great undulations in the Barrier, with the crests some mile apart, which here mark the approach to the land. We had built the walls to the north of the ponies on camping, because the wind was from that direction, but by breakfast on December 4 it was blowing a thick blizzard from the south-east. We began to feel bewildered by these extraordinary weather changes, and not a little exasperated too. Again we could not march, and again we had to dig out the sledges and ponies, and to move them all round to the other side of the walls which we had partly to rebuild. " Oh for the simple man-hauling life 1 " was our thought, and " poor helpless beasts — this is no country for live stock." By this time we could not see the neighbouring tents for the drift. The situation was not improved by the fact that our tent doors, the tents having been pitched for the strong north wind then blowing, were now facing the blizzard, and sheets of snow entered with each individual. The man-hauling party came up just before the worst of the blizzard started. The dogs alone were comfortable,' buried deep beneath the drifted snow. The sailors began to debate who was the Jonah. They said he was the cameras. The great blizzard was brewing all about us.
But at mid-day as though a curtain was rolled back, the thick snow fog cleared off, while at the same time the wind fell calm, and a great mountain appeared almost on the top of us. Far away to the south-east we could distinguish, by looking very carefully, a break in the level Barrier horizon — a new mountain which we reckoned must be at least in latitude 8 6° and very high. Towards it the ranges stretched away, peak upon peak, range upon range, as far as the eye could see. "The mountains surpassed anything I have ever seen : beside the least of these giants Ben Nevis would be a mere mound, and yet they are so immense as to dwarf each other. They are intersected at every turn with mighty glaciers and ice-falls and eternally ice-filled valleys that defy description. So clear was everything that every
THE POLAR JOURNEY 343
rock seemed to stand out, and the effect of the sun as he came round (between us and the mountains) was to make the scene still more beautiful." ^
Altogether we marched eleven miles this day, and camped right in front of the Gateway, which we reckoned to be some thirteen miles away. We saw no crevasses but crossed ten or twelve very large undulations, and estimated that the dips between them were twelve to fifteen feet. Mount Hope was bigger than we expected, and beyond it, stretching out into the Barrier as far as we could see, was a great white line of jagged edges, the chaos of pressure which this vast glacier makes as it flows into the compara- tively stationary ice of the Barrier.
My own pony Michael was shot after we came into camp. He was as attractive a little beast as we had. His light weight helped him on soft surfaces, but his small hoofs let him in farther than most and I notice in Scott's diary that on November 19 the ponies were sinking half- way to the hock, and Michael once or twice almost to the hock itself. A highly strung, spirited animal, his off days took the form of fidgets, during which he would be con- stantly trying to stop and eat snow, and then rush forward to catch up the other ponies. Life was a constant source of wonder to him, and no movement in the camp escaped his notice. Before we had been long on the Barrier he developed mischievous habits and became a rope eater and gnawer of other ponies' fringes, as we called the coloured tassels we hung over their eyes to ward off snow-blindness. However, he was by no means the only culprit, and he lost his own fringe to Nobby quite early in the proceedings. It was not that he was hungry, for he never quite finished his own feed. At any rate he enjoyed the few weeks before he died, pricking up his ears and getting quite excited when anything happened, and the arrival of the dog-teams each morning after he had been tethered sent him to bed with much to dream of. And I must say his master dreamed pretty regularly too. Michael was killed right in front of the Gateway on December 4,just before the big blizzard, which,
^ Bowers.
344 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
though we did not know it, was on the point of breaking upon us, and he was untying his cloth and chewin g up every- thing he could reach to the last. " It was decided after we camped, and he had his feed already on : Meares reported that he had no more food for the dogs. He walked away, and rolled in the snow on the way down, not having done so when we got in. He was just like a naughty child all the way, and pulled all out. He has been a good friend, and has a good record, 82° 23' S. He was a bit done to-day: the blizzard had knocked him. Gallant little Michael ! " ^
As we got into our bags the mountain tops were fuzzy with drift. We wanted one clear day to get across the chasm: one short march and the ponies' task was done. Their food was nearly finished. Scott wrote that night : "We are practically through with the first stage of our journey." ^
"Tuesday, December 5. Camp 30. Noon. We awoke this morning to a raging howling blizzard. The blows we have had hitherto have lacked the very fine powdering snow, that especial feature of the blizzard. To-day we have it fully developed. After a minute or two in the open one is covered from head to foot. The temperature is high, so that what falls or drives against one sticks. The ponies — heads, tails, legs and all parts not protected by their rugs — are covered with ice ; the animals are standing deep in snow, the sledges are almost covered, and huge drifts above the tents. We have had breakfast, rebuilt the walls, and are now again in our bags. One cannot see the next tent, let alone the land. What on earth does such weather mean at this time of year ? It is more than our share of ill-fortune, I think, but the luck may turn yet. . . .
"11 P.M. It has blown hard all day with quite the greatest snowfall I remember. The drifts about the tents are simply huge. The temperature was +27° this fore- noon, and rose to +31° in the afternoon, at which time the snow melted as it fell on anything but the snow, and, as a consequence, there are pools of water on everything, the tents are wet through, also the wind-clothes, night-boots,
^ My own diary. ^ Scou's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 486.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 345
etc. ; water drips from the tent poles and door, lies on the floor-cloth, soaks the sleeping-bags, and makes everything pretty wretched. If a cold snap follows before we have had time to dry our things, we shall be mighty uncom- fortable. Yet after all it would be humorous enough if it were not for the seriousness of delay — we can't afford that, and it's real hard luck that it should come at such a time. The wind shows signs of easing down, but the temperature does not fall and the snow is as wet as ever, not promising signs of abatement.
" Wednesday, December 6. Camp 30. Noon. Miser- able, utterly miserable. We have camped in the ' Slough of Despond.' The tempest rages with unabated violence. The temperature has gone to +23°'^ everything in the tent is soaking. People returning from the outside look exactly as though they had been in a heavy shower of rain. They drip pools on the floor-cloth. The snow is steadily climbing higher about walls, ponies, tents and sledges. The ponies look utterly desolate. Oh ! But this is too crushing, and we are only 12 miles from the glacier. A hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off. What immense patience is needed for such occasions! "^
Bowers describes the situation as follows :
" It is blowing a blizzard such as one might expect to be driven at us by all the powers of darkness. It may be interesting to describe it, as it is my first experience of a really warm blizzard, and I hope to be troubled by cold ones only, or at least moderate ones only, in future as regards temperature.
"When I swung the thermometer this morning I looked and looked again, but unmistakably the tempera- ture was +22° F., above freezing point (out of the sun's direct rays) for the first time since we came down here. What this means to us nobody can conceive. We try to treat it as a huge joke, but our wretched condition might be amusing to read of it later. We are wet through, our tents are wet, our bags which are our life to us and the objects of our greatest care, are wet ; the poor ponies are
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. pp. ^Sd-^i-Sg.
346 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
soaked and shivering far more than they would be ordin- arily in a temperature fifty degrees lower. Our sledges — the parts that are dug out — are wet, our food is wet, every- thing on and around and about us is the same — wet as ourselves and our cold, clammy clothes. Water trickles down the tent poles and only forms icicles in contact with the snow floor. The warmth of our bodies has formed a snow bath in the floor for each of us to lie in. This is a nice little catchwater for stray streams to run into before they freeze. This they cannot do while a warm human lies there, so they remain liquid and the accommodating bag mops them up. When we go out to do the duties of life, fill the cooker, etc., for the next meal, dig out or feed the ponies, or anything else, we are bunged up with snow. Not the driving, sandlike snow we are used to, but great slushy flakes that run down in water immediately and stream off you. The drifts are tremendous, the rest of the show is indescribable. I feel most for the unfortunate animals and am thankful that poor old Victor is spared this. I mended a pair of half mitts to-day, and we are having two meals instead of three. This idleness when one is simply jumping to go on is bad enough for most, but must be worse for Captain Scott. I feel glad that he has Dr. Bill (Wilson) in his tent; there is something always so reassuring about Bill, he comes out best in adversity." ^
"Thursday, December 7. Camp 30. The storm con- tinues and the situation is now serious. One small feed remains for the ponies after to-day, so that we must either march to-morrow or sacrifice the animals. That is not the worst; with the help of the dogs we could get on, without doubt. The serious part is that we have this morning started our Summit rations — that is to say, the food cal- culated from the Glacier Depot has been begun. The first supporting party can only go on a fortnight from this date and so forth." ^
This day was just as warm, and wetter — much wetter. The temperature was +3S-5°y ^^^ °^^ bags were like sponges. The huge drifts had covered everything, includ-
^ Bowers. ^ Scoti's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 489.
A PONY CAMP ON THE BARRIER
THE DOG TEAMS LEAVING THE BEARDMORE GLACIER
THE POLAR JOURNEY 347
ing most of the tent, the pony walls and sledges. At inter- vals we dug our way out and dug up the wretched ponies, and got them on to the top again. "Henceforward our full ration will be 16 oz. biscuit, 12 oz. pemmican, 2 oz. butter, 0.57 oz. coco'a, 3.0 oz. sugar and 0.86 oz. tea. This is the Summit ration, total 34.43 oz., with a little onion powder and salt. I am all for this : Seaman Evans and others are much regretting the loss of chocolate, raisins and cereals. For the first week up the glacier we are to go one biscuit short to provision Meares on the way back. The motors depoted too much and Meares has been brought on far farther than his orders were originally bringing him. Originally he was to be back at Hut Point on December 10. The dogs, however, are getting all the horse that is good for them, and are very fit. He has to average 24 miles a day going back. Michael is well out of this : we are now eating him. He was in excellent condi- tion and tastes very good, though tough." ^
By this time there was little sleep left for us as we lay in our sleeping-bags. Three days generally see these blizzards out, and we hoped much from Friday, December 8. But when we breakfasted at 10 a.m. (we were getting into day- marching routine) wind and snow were monotonously the same. The temperature rose to +34.3°. These tempera- tures and those recorded by Meares on his way home must be a record for the interior of the Barrier. So far as we were concerned it did not much matter now whether it was +40° or +34°. Things did look really gloomy that morning.
But at noon there came a gleam of comfort. The wind dropped, and immediately we were out plunging about, always up to our knees in soft downy snow, and often much farther. First we shifted our tents, digging them up with the greatest care that the shovel might not tear them. The valances were encased in solid ice from the water which had run down. Then we started to find our sledges which were about four feet down : they were dragged out, and everything on them was wringing wet. There was a
^ My own diary.
348 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
gleam of sunshine, which soon gave place to snow and gloom, but we started to make experiments in haulage. Four men on ski managed to move a sledge with four others sitting upon it. Nobby was led out, but sank to his belly. As for the drifts I saw Oates standing behind one, and only his head appeared, and this was all loose snow.
"We are all sitting round now after some tea — it is much better than getting into the bags. I can hardly think that the ponies can pull on, but Titus thinks they can pull to-morrow ; all the food is finished, and what they have had to-day was only what they would not eat out of their last feed yesterday. It is a terrible end — driven to death on no more food, to be then cut up, poor devils. I have swopped the Little Minister with Silas Wright for Dante's Inferno! " ^ The steady patter of the falling snow upon the tents was depressing as we turned in, but the tempera- ture was below freezing.
The next morning (Saturday, December 9) we turned out to a cloudy snowy day at 5.30 a.m. By 8.30 we had hauled the sledges some way out of the camp and started to lead out the ponies. "The horses could hardly move, sank up to their bellies, and finally lay down. They had to be driven, lashed on. It was a grim business."^
My impressions of that day are of groping our way, for Bowers and I were pulling a light sledge ahead to make the track, through a vague white wall. First a confused crowd of men behind us gathered round the leading pony sledge, pushing it forward, the poor beast barely able to struggle out of the holes it made as it plunged forward. The others were induced to follow, and after a start had been made the regular man-hauling party went back to fetch their load. There was not one man there who would willingly have caused pain to a living thing. But what else was to be done — we could not leave our pony depot in that bog. Hour after hour we plugged on : and we dare not halt for lunch, we knew we could never start again. After crossing many waves huge pressure ridges suddenly
^ My own diary, ^ Ibid.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 349
showed themselves all round, and we got on to a steep rise with the coastal chasm on our right hand appearing as a great dip full of enormous pressure. Scott was naturally worried about crevasses, and though we knew there was a way through, the finding of it in the gloom was most difficult. For two hours we zig-zagged about, getting forward it is true, but much bewildered, and once at any rate almost bogged. Scott joined us, and we took off our ski so as to find the crevasses, and if possible a hard way through. Every step we sank about fifteen inches, and often above our knees. Meanwhile Snatcher was saving the situation in snow-shoes, and led the line of ponies. Snippets nearly fell back into a big crevasse, into which his hind quarters fell: but they managed to unharness him, and scramble him out.
I do not know how long we had been going when Scott decided to follow the chasm. We found a big dip with hard ice underneath, and it was probably here that we made the crossing : we could now see the ring of pressure behind us. Almost it was decided to make the depot here, but the ponies still plugged on in the most plucky way, though they had to be driven. Scott settled to go as far as they could be induced to march, and they did won- derfully. We had never thought that they would go a mile : but painfully they marched for eleven hours without a long halt, and covered a distance which we then estimated at seven miles. But our sledge-meters were useless being clogged with the soft snow, and we afterwards came to believe the distance was not so great : probably not more than five. When we had reached a point some two miles from the top of the snow divide which fills the Gateway we camped, thankful to rest, but more thankful still that we need drive those weary ponies no more. Their rest was near. It was a horrid business, and the place was known as Shambles Camp.
Oates came up to Scott as he stood in the shadow of Mount Hope. "Well ! I congratulate you, Titus," said Wilson. "And / thank you, Titus," said Scott.
And that was the end of the Barrier Stage.
CHAPTER X
THE POLAR JOURNEY (continued)
The Southern Journey involves the most important object of the Expedition. . . . One cannot affect to be blind to the situation : the scientific public, as well as the more general public, will gauge the result of the scientific work of the Expedition largely in accordance with the success or failure of the main object. With success all roads will be made easy, all work will receive its proper consideration. With failure even the most brilliant work may be neglected and forgotten, at least for a time. — Scott.
II. The Beardmore Glacier
The ponies had dragged twenty-four weekly units of food for four men to some five miles from the bottom of the glacier, but we were late. For some days we had been eating the Summit ration, that is the food which should not have been touched until the Glacier Depot had been laid, and we were still a day's run from the place where this was to be done : it was of course the result of the blizzard which no one could have expected in December, usually one of the two most settled months. Still more serious was the deep snow which lay like down upon the surface, and into which we sank commonly to our knees, our sledges digging themselves in until the crosspieces were plough- ing through the drift. Shackleton had fine weather, and found blue ice in the bottom reaches of the glacier, and Scott lamented what was unquestionably bad luck.
It was noon of December lo before we had made the readjustments necessary for man-hauling. We left here pony meat for man and dog food, three ten-foot sledges, one twelve-foot sledge, and a good many oddments of
350
THE POLAR JOURNEY 351
clothing and pony gear. We started with three four-man teams, each pulUng for these first few miles about 500 lbs., as follows: (I) Scott, Wilson, Oates, Seaman Evans: (II) Lieut. Evans, Atkinson, Wright, Lashly: (III) Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, Crean, Keohane. The team numbered (II) had been man-hauling together some days, and two members of it, Lieut. Evans and Lashly, had already been man-hauling since the breakdown of the second motor at Corner Camp ; it was certainly not so fit as the other two. In addition to these three sledges the two dog-teams, which had been doing splendid work, were carrying 600 lbs. of our weight as well as the provisions for the Lower Glacier Depot, weighing 200 lbs. It began to look as if Amundsen had chosen the right form of transport.
The Gateway is a gap in the mountains, a side door, as it were, to the great tumbled glacier. By lunch we were on the top of the divide, but it took six hours of the hardest hauling to cover the mile which formed the rise. As long as possible we stuck to ski, but we reached a point at which we could not move the sledges on ski : once we had taken them off we were up to our knees, and the sledges were ploughing the snow which would not support them. But our gear was drying in the bright sunshine, our bags were spread out at every opportunity, and the great jagged cliffs of red granite were welcome to the eyes after 425 statute miles of snow. The Gateway is filled by a giant snow- drift which has been formed between Mount Hope on our left and the mainland on our right. From Shackleton's book we gathered that the Beardmore was a very bad glacier indeed. Once on the top of the divide we lunched, and we descended in the evening, camping at midnight on the edge of the glacier, which we found, as we had feared, covered with soft snow which was so deep as to give no indication whatever of the hard ice which Shackleton found here. "We camped in considerable drift and a blizzard wind, which is still blowing, and I hope will go on, for every hour it is sweeping away inches of this soft powdery snow into which we have been sinking all day." ^
^ My own diary.
352 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
Before setting out on December 1 1 we rigged up the Lower Glacier Depot, three weekly Summit units of pro- visions, two cases of emergency biscuit which was the ration for three weekly units, and two cans of oil. These provisions were calculated to carry the three returning parties as far as the Southern Barrier Depot. We also left one can of spirit, used for lighting the primus, one bottle of medical brandy and certain spare and personal gear not required. On the sledges themselves we stowed eighteen weekly Summit units, besides the three ready bags con- taining the ration for the current week, and the comple- ment of biscuit, for this was ten cases in addition to the three boxes of biscuit which the three parties were using. Then there were eighteen cans of oil, with two cans of lighting spirit and a little additional Christmas fare which Bowers had packed. Every unit of food was worked out for four men for one week.
During this time of deep snow the sledge-meters would not work and we were compelled to estimate the distance marched each day. " It has been a tremendous slog, but I think a most hopeful day. Before starting it took us about two hours to make the depot and then we got straight into the midst of the big pressure. The dogs, with ten cases of biscuit, came behind and pulled very well. We soon caught sight of a big boulder, and Bill and I roped up and went over to it. It was a block of very coarse granite, nearly gneiss, with large crystals of quartz in it, rusty outside and quite pinkish when chipped, and with veins of quartz running through it. It was a vast thing to be carried along on the ice, and looked very typical of the rock round. Instead of keeping under the great cliff where Shackleton made his depot, we steered for Mount Kyffin, that is towards the middle of the glacier, until lunch, when we had probably done about two or three miles. There was a crevasse wherever we went, but we managed to pull on ski and had no one down, and the deep snow saved the dogs." ^ The dog-teams were cer- tainly running very big risks that morning. They turned
1 My own diary.
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back after lunch, having been brought on far longer than had been originally intended, for, as I have said, they were to have been back at Hut Point before now, and their provision allowance would not allow of further advance. Perhaps we rather overestimated the dogs' capacities when Bowers wrote: "The dogs are wonderfully fit and will rush Meares and Dimitri back like the wind. I expect he will be nearly back by Christmas, as they will do about thirty miles a day." But Meares told us when we got back to the hut that the dogs had by no means had an easy journey home. Now, however, "with a whirl and a rush they were off on the homeward trail. I could not see them (being snow-blind), but heard the familiar orders as the last of our animal transport left us." ^
Our difficulties during the next four days were in- creased by the snow-blindness of half the men. The evening we reached the glacier Bowers wrote : " I am afraid I am going to pay dearly for not wearing goggles yesterday when piloting the ponies. My right eye has gone bung, and my left one is pretty dicky. If I am in for a dose of snow glare it will take three or four days to leave me, and I am afraid I am in the ditch this time. It is pain- ful to look at this paper, and my eyes are fairly burning as if some one had thrown sand into them." And then: " I have missed my journal for four days, having been enduring the pains of hell with my eyes as well as doing the most back-breaking work I have ever come up against. ... I was as blind as a bat, and so was Keohane in my team. Cherry pulled alongside me, with Crean and Keo- hane behind. By sticking plaster over my glasses except one small central spot I shut off most light and could see the points of my ski, but the glasses were always fogged with perspiration and my eyes kept on streaming water which cannot be wiped off on the march as a ski stick is held in each hand ; and so heavy were our weights [we had now taken on the weights which had been on the dog sledges] that if any of the pair slacked a hand even, the sledge stopped. It was all we could do to keep the sledge
1 Bowers.
2 A
354 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
moving for short spells of a few hundred yards, the whole concern sinking so deeply into the soft snow as to form a snow-plough. The starting was worse than pulling as it required from ten to fifteen desperate jerks on the harness to move the sledge at all." Many others were also snow- blind, caused partly by the strain of the last march of the ponies, partly by not having realized that now that we were day-marching the sun was more powerful and more precautions should be taken. The cocaine and zinc sul- phate tablets which we had were excellent, but we also found that our tea leaves, which had been boiled twice and would otherwise have been thrown away, relieved the pain if tied into some cotton and kept pressed against the eyes. The tannic acid in the tea acted as an astringent. A snow- blind man can see practically nothing anyhow and so he is not much worse off if a handkerchief is tied over his eyes.
" Beardmore Glacier. Just a tiny note to be taken back by the dogs. Things are not so rosy as they might be, but we keep our spirits up and say the luck must turn. This is only to tell you that I find I can keep up with the rest as well as of old." ^
Then for the first time we were left with our full loads of 800 lbs. a sledge. Even Bowers asked Scott whether he was going to try it without relaying. That night Scott's diary runs :
" It was a very anxious business when we started after lunch, about 4.30. Could we pull our full loads or not.'' My own party got away first, and, to my joy, I found we could make fairly good headway. Every now and again the sledge sank in a soft patch, which brought us up, but we learned to treat such occasions with patience. We got sideways to the sledge and hauled it out, Evans (P.O.) getting out of his ski to get better purchase. The great thing is to keep the sledge moving, and for an hour or more there were dozens of critical moments when it all but stopped, and not a few when it brought up altogether. The latter were very trying and tiring." ^ Altogether it was an encouraging day and we reckoned we had made
^ Scott. ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 497.
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 355
seven miles. Generally it was not Scott's team which made the heaviest weather these days but on December 1 2 they were in greater difficulties than any of us. It was indeed a gruelling day, for the surface was worse than ever and many men were snow-blind. After five hours' work in the morning we were about half a mile forward. We were in a sea of pressure, the waves coming at us from our starboard bow, the distance between the crests not being very great. We could not have advanced at all had it not been for our ski: "on foot one sinks to the knees, and if pulling on a sledge to half way between knee and thigh." ^
On December 13, " the sledges sank in over twelve inches, and all the gear, as well as the thwartship pieces, were acting as breaks. The tugs and heaves we enjoyed, and the number of times we had to get out of our ski to upright the sledge, were trifles compared with the strenuous exertion of every muscle and nerve to keep the wretched drag from stopping when once under weigh ; and then it would stick, and all the starting operations had to be gone through afresh. We did perhaps half a mile in the forenoon. Anticipating a better surface in the after- noon we got a shock. Teddy [Evans] led off half an hour earlier to pilot a way, and Captain Scott tried some fake with his spare runners [he lashed them under the sledge to prevent the cross-pieces ploughing the snow] that in- volved about an hour's work. We had to continually turn our runners up to scrape the ice off them, for in these temperatures they are liable to get warm and melt the snow on them, and that freezes into knobs of ice which act like sandpaper or spikes on a pair of skates. We bust off second full of hope having done so well in the forenoon, but pride goeth [before a fall]. We stuck ten yards from the camp, and nine hours later found us little more than half a mile on. I have never seen a sledge sink so. I have never pulled so hard, or so nearly crushed my inside into my backbone by the everlasting jerking with all my strength on the canvas band round my unfortunate tummy. We were all in the same boat however.
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 499.
2,s^ WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
"I saw Teddy struggling ahead and Scott astern, but we were the worst off as the leading team had topped the rise and I was too blind to pick out a better trail. We fairly played ourselves out that time, and finally had to give it up and relay. Halving the load we went forward about a mile with it, and, leaving that lot, went back for the remainder. So done were my team that we could do little more than pull the half loads. Teddy's team did the same, and though Scott's did not, we camped practically the same time, having gone over our distance three times. Mount Kyffin was still ahead of us to the left : we seemed as if we can never come up with it. To-morrow Scott decided that if we could not move our full loads we would start relaying systematically. It was a most depressing outlook after such a day of strenuous labour." ^ We got soaked with perspiration these days, though generally pulling in vest, pants, and windproof trousers only. Directly we stopped we cooled quickly. Two skuas appeared at lunch, attracted probably by the pony flesh below, but it was a long way from the sea for them to come. On Thursday December 14, Scott wrote : "Indigestion and the soggy condition of my clothes kept me awake for some time last night, and the exceptional exercise gives bad attacks of cramp. Our lips are getting raw and blistered. The eyes of the party are improving, I am glad to say. We are just starting our march with no very hopeful outlook."
But we slogged along with much better results. " Once into the middle of the glacier we had been steering more or less for the Cloudmaker and by supper to-day were well past Mount Kyffin and were about 2000 feet up after an estimated run of 1 1 or 12 statute miles. But the most cheering sign was that the blue ice was gradually coming nearer the surface; at lunch it was two feet down, and at our supper camp only one foot. In pitching our tent Crean broke into a crevasse which ran about a foot in front of the door and there was another at Scott's door. We threw an empty oil can down and it echoed for a
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 357
terribly long time." ^ We spent the morning of December 15 crossing a maze of crevasses though they were well bridged ; I believe all these lower reaches of the glacier are badly crevassed, but the thick snow and our ski kept us from tumbling in. There was a great deal of competi- tion between the teams which was perhaps unavoidable but probably a pity. This day Bowers' diary records, " Did a splendid bust off on ski, leaving Scott in the lurch, and eventually overhauling the party which had left some time before us. All the morning we kept up a steady, even swing which was quite a pleasure." But the same day Scott wrote, "Evans' is now decidedly the slowest unit, though Bowers' is not much faster. We keep up and over- haul either without difficulty." Bowers' team considered themselves quite good, but both teams were satisfied of their own superiority; as a matter of fact Scott's was the faster, as it should have been for it was certainly the heavier of the two.
" It was a very bad light all day, but after lunch it began to get worse, and by 5 o'clock it was snowing hard and we could see nothing. We went on for nearly an hour, steering by the wind and any glimpse of sastrugi, and then, very reluctantly, Scott camped. It looks better now. The surface is much harder and more wind-swept, and as a rule the ice is only six inches underneath. We are beginning to talk about Christmas. We get very thirsty these days in the warm temperatures : we shall feel it farther up when the cold gets into our open pores and sunburnt hands and cracked lips. I am plastering some skin on mine to- night. Our routine now is: turn out 5.30, lunch i, and camp at 7, and we get a short 8 hours' sleep, but we are so dead tired we could sleep half into the next day : we get about 9^ hours' march. Tea at lunch a positive godsend. We are raising the land to the south well, and are about 2500 feet up, latitude about 84° 8' S." 2
The next day, December 16, Bowers wrote: "We have had a really enjoyable day's march, except the latter end of the afternoon. At the outset in the forenoon my
^ My own diary. 2 /^,-^_
358 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
sledge was a bit in the lurch, and Scott drew steadily away from us. I knew I could ordinarily hold my own with him, but for the first two hours we dropped till we were several hundred yards astern ; try as I would to rally up my team we could gain nothing. On examining the runners how- ever we soon discovered the cause by the presence of a thin film of ice. After that we ran easily. The thing one must avoid doing is to touch them with the hand or mitt, as any- thing damp will make ice on them. We usually turn the sledge on its side and scrape one runner at a time with the back of our knives so as to avoid any chance of cutting or chipping them. In the afternoon either the tea or the butter we had at lunch made us so strong that we fairly overran the other team." ^
"We must push on all we can, for we are now 6 days behind Shackleton, all due to that wretched storm. So far, since we got among the disturbances we have not seen such alarming crevasses as I had expected ; certainly dogs could have come up as far as this." ^
"At lunch we could see big pressure ahead having done first over five miles. Soon after lunch, having gone down a bit, we rose among very rough stuff. We plugged on until 4.30, when ski became quite impossible, and we put them on the sledges and started on foot. We imme- diately began putting legs down : one step would be on blue ice and the next two feet down into snow : very hard going. The pressure ahead seemed to stretch right into a big glacier next the Keltic Glacier to the east, and so we altered course for a small bluff point about two-thirds of the way along the base of the Cloudmaker. We were to camp at 6, but did not do so until about 6.30, the last i^ hours in big pressure, crossing big and smaller waves, and hundreds of crevasses which one of us generally found. We are now camped in very big pressure, and with diffi- culty we found a patch big enough to pitch the tent free from crevasses. We are pretty well past the Keltic Glacier which is a vast tumbled mass : there is a long line of ice falls ahead, and I think there is a hard day ahead of us to-
^ Bowers. ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 506.
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 359
morrow among that pressure which must be enormous. We can't go farther inshore here, being under the north end of the Cloudmaker, and a fine mountain it is, rising precipitously above us.^
"Sunday, December 17. Nearly 11 miles. Temp. 12.5°. 3500 feet. We have had an exciting day — this morning was just like the scenic railway at Earl's Court. We got straight on to the big pressure waves, and headed for the humpy rock at the base of the Cloudmaker. It was a hard plug up the waves, very often standing pulls, and all that we could do for a course was a very varied direction. Going down the other side was the exciting part: all we could do was to set the sledge straight, hang on to the straps, give her a little push and rush down the slope, which was sometimes so sheer that the sledge was in the air. Sometimes there was no chance to brake the sledge, and we all had to get on to the top, and we rushed down with the wind whistling in our ears. After three hours of this it levelled out again a bit, and we took the top of a wave, and ran south along it on blue ice : enormous pressure to our right, largely I think caused by the Keltie Glacier. Then we ascended a rise, snowy and crevassed, and camped after doing just under five miles, with big pressure ahead." ^
" In the afternoon we had a hard surface. Scott started off at a great speed, Teddy [Evans] and I following. There was something wrong with my team or my sledge, as we had a desperate job to keep up at first. We did keep up all right, but were heartily glad when after about 2^ hours Scott stopped for a spell. I rearranged our harness, putting Cherry and myself on the long span again, which we had temporarily discarded in the morning. We were both winded and felt wronged. The rearrangement was a success however, and the remainder of the march was a pleasure instead of a desperate struggle. It finished up on fields of blue rippled ice with sharp knife edges, and snow patches few and far between. We are all camped on a small snow patch in the middle of a pale blue rippled sea, about
^ My own diary. ^ Ibid.
36o WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
3600 feet above sea level and past the Cloudmaker, which means that we are half way up the Glacier." ^ We had done 12^ miles (statute).
The Beardmore Glacier is twice as large as the Mala- spina in Alaska, which was the largest known glacier until Shackleton discovered the Beardmore. Those who knew the Ferrar Glacier professed to find the Beardmore un- attractive, but to me at any rate it was grand. Its very vastness, however, tends to dwarf its surroundings, and great tributary glaciers and tumbled ice-falls, which any- where else would have aroused admiration, were almost unnoticed in a stream which stretched in places forty miles from bank to bank. It was only when the theodolite was levelled that we realized how vast were the mountains which surrounded us : one of which we reckoned to be well over twenty thousand feet in height, and many of the others must have approached that measurement. Lieu- tenant Evans and Bowers were surveying whenever the opportunity offered, whilst Wilson sat on the sledge or on his sleeping-bag, and sketched.
Before leaving on the morning of December 18 we bagged off three half-weekly units and made a depot marked by a red flag on a bamboo which was stuck into a small mound. Unfortunately it began to snow in the night and no bearings were taken until the following morning when only the base of the mountains on the west side was visible. We knew we might have difficulty in picking up this depot again, and certainly we all did.
"It was thick, with low stratus clouds in the morn- ing, and snow was falling in large crystals. Our socks and finnesko, hung out to dry, were covered with most beautiful feathery crystals. In the warm weather one gets fairly saturated with perspiration on the march, and foot- gear is always wet, except the outside covering which is as a rule more or less frozen according to existing tempera- ture. On camping at night I shift to night foot-gear as soon as ever the tent is pitched, and generally slip on my windproof blouse, as one cools down like smoke after the
1 Bowers.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 361
exertion of man-hauling a heavy sledge for hours. At lunch camp one's feet often get pretty cold, but this goes off as soon as some hot tea is got into the system. As a rule, even when snowing, one's socks, etc., will dry if there is a bit of a breeze. They are always frozen stiff in the morning and can best be thawed out by bundling the lot [under one's] jersey during breakfast. They can then be put on tolerably warm even if wet.
"We started off on a hard rippled blue surface like a sea frozen intact while the wind was playing on it. It soon got worse and we had to have one and sometimes two hands back to keep the sledge from skidding. Of course it was easy enough stuff to pull on, but the ground was very uneven, and sledges constantly capsized. It did not improve the runners either. There were few crevasses.
"All day we went on in dull cloudy weather with hardly any land visible, and the glacier to be seen only for a short distance. In the afternoon the clouds lifted somewhat and showed us the Adam Mountains. The surface was better for the sledges but worse for us, as there were countless cracks and small crevasses, into which we constantly trod, barking our shins. As the afternoon sun came round the perspiration fairly streamed down, and it was impossible to keep goggles clear. The surface was so slippery and uneven that it was difficult to keep one's foothold. However we did 1 2^ miles, and felt that we had really done a good day's work when we camped. It was not clear enough to survey in the evening, so I took the sledge-meter in hand and worked at it half the night to repair Christopher's damage.^ I ended up by making a fixing of which I was very proud, but did not dare to look at the time, so I don't know how much sleep I missed.
" There is no doubt that Scott knows where to aim for in a glacier, as it was just here that Shackleton had two or three of his worst days' work, in such a maze of crevasses that he said that often a slip meant death for the whole party. He avoids the sides of the glacier and goes nowhere near the snow : he often heads straight for apparent chaos
1 Seep. 332.
362 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
and somehow, when we appear to have reached a cul-de- sac, we find it an open road." ^ However, we all found the trouble on our way back.
" On our right we have now a pretty good view of the Adam, Marshall and Wild Mountains, and their very curious horizontal stratification. Wright has found, amongst bits of wind-blown debris, an undoubted bit of sandstone and a bit of black basalt. We must get to know more of the geology before leaving the glacier finally."^
December 19, +7°. Total height 5800 feet. "Things are certainly looking up, seeing that we have risen 11 00 feet, and marched 17 to 18 statute miles during the day, whereas Shackleton's last march was 13 statute. It was still thick when we turned out at 5.45, but it soon cleared with a fresh southerly wind, and we could see Buckley Island and the land at the head of the glacier just rising. We started late for Birdie wanted to get our sledge- meter dished up : it has been quite a job to-day getting it on, but it rode well this afternoon. We started over the same crevassed stuff, but soon got on to blue ice, and for two hours had a most pleasant pull, and then up a steepish rise sometimes on blue ice and sometimes on snow. After the pleasantest morning we have had, we completed 8^ miles.
"Angles and observations were taken at lunch, and quite a lot of work was done. There is a general getting squared up with gear, for we know that those going on will not have many more days of warm temperatures. At one time to-day I think Scott meant trying the right hand of the island or nunatak, but as we rose this was ob- viously impossible, for there is a huge mass of pressure coming down there. From here the Dominion Range also looks as if it were a nunatak. Some of these mountains, which don't look very big, are huge (since the six thousand feet which we have risen have to be added on to them), and many of them are very grand indeed. The Mill Glacier is a vast thing, with big pressure across it. There also seems to be a big series of ice-falls between Buckley
^ Bowers. ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 509.
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THE POLAR JOURNEY 363
Island and the Dominion Range, for the centre of which Scott is going to-morrow. A pretty hard plug this after- noon, but no disturbance, and gradually we have left the bare ice, and are mostly travelling on neve. Much of the ice is white. I have been writing down angles and times for Birdie, and writing this in the intervals. Scott's heel is troubling him again. [' I have bad bruises on knee and thigh '],! and generally there has been a run on the medical cases for chafes, and minor ailments. There is now a keen southerly wind blowing. It gets a little colder each day, and we are already beginning to feel it on our sunburnt faces and hands." ^
Of the crevasses met in the morning Bowers wrote : *' So far nobody has dropped down the length of his harness, as I did on the Cape Crozier journey. On this blue ice they are pretty conspicuous, and as they are mostly snow-bridged one is well advised to step over any line of snow. With my short legs this was strenuous work, especially as the weight of the sledge would often stop me with a jerk just before my leading foot quite cleared a crevasse, and the next minute one would be struggling out so as to keep the sledge on the move. It is fatal to stop the sledge as nobody waits for stragglers, and you have to pick up your lost ground by strenuous hurry. Of course some one often gets so far down a hole that it is necessary to stop and help him out."
December 20. " To-day has been a great march — over two miles an hour, and on the whole rising a lot. Soon after starting we got on to the most beautiful icy surface, smooth except for cracks and only patches of snow, most of which we could avoid. We came along at a great rate.
"The most interesting thing to see was that the Mill Glacier is not, as was supposed, a tributary, but prob- ably is an outlet falling from this glacier, and a great size. However it was soon covered up with dense black cloud, and there were billows of cloud behind us and below.
"At lunch Birdie made the disastrous discovery that the registering dial of his sledge-meter was off". A screw
^ Scou's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 510. ^ My own diary.
364 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
had shaken out on the bumpy ice, and the clockwork had fallen off. This is serious for it means that one of the three returning parties will have to go without, and their navi- gation will be much more difficult. Birdie is very upset, especially after all the trouble he has taken with it, and the hours which he has sat up. After lunch he and Bill walked back near two miles in the tracks, but could not see it. It was then getting very thick, coming over from the north. "^ " It appeared to be blizzing down the glacier, though clear to the south. The northerly wind drove up a back-draught of snow, and very soon fogged us completely. However we found our way back to camp by the crampon tracks on the blue ice and then packed up to leave." ^
"We started, making a course to hit the east side of the island where there seems to be the only break in the ice-falls which stretch right across. The weather lifted, and we are now camped with the island just to our right, the long strata of coal showing plainly in it, and just in front of us is this steep bit up through the falls. We have done nearly 23 statute miles to-day, pulling 160 lbs. a man.
"This evening has been rather a shock. As I was getting my finnesko on to the top of my ski beyond the tent Scott came up to me, and said that he was afraid he had rather a blow for me. Of course I knew what he was going to say, but could hardly grasp that I was going back — to-morrow night. The returning party is to be Atch, Silas, Keohane and self.
" Scott was very put about, said he had been thinking a lot about it but had come to the conclusion that the sea- men with their special knowledge, would be needed: to rebuild the sledge, I suppose, Wilson told me it was a toss- up whether Titus or I should go on : that being so I think Titus will help him more than I can. I said all I could think of — he seemed so cut up about it, saying ' I think, somehow, it is specially hard on you.' I said I hoped I had not disappointed him, and he caught hold of me and said *No — no — No,' so if that is the case all is well. He told me that at the bottom of the glacier he was
^ My own diary. * Bowers.
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NIGHT CAMP. BUCKLEY ISLAND
December, 20, 19 11
THE POLAR JOURNEY z^s
hardly expecting to go on himself: I don't know what the trouble is, but his foot is troubling him, and also, I think, indigestion." ^
Scott just says in his diary, " I dreaded this necessity of choosing — nothing could be more heartrending." And then he goes on to sum up the situation, " I calculated our programme to start from 85° 10' with 12 units of food and eight men. We ought to be in this position to-morrow night, less one day's food. After all our harassing trouble one cannot but be satisfied with such a prospect." ^
December 21. Upper Glacier Depot. "Started off with a nippy S.Wly. wind in our faces, but bright sun- shine. One's nose and lips being chapped and much skinned with alternate heat and cold, a breeze in the face is absolute agony until you warm up. This does not take long, however, when pulling a sledge, so after the first quarter of an hour more or less one is comfortable unless the wind is very strong.
"We made towards the only place where it seemed possible to cross the mass of pressure ice caused by the junction of the plateau with the glacier, and congested between the nunatak [Buckley Island] and the Dominion Range. Scott had considered at one time going up to westward of the nunatak, but this appeared more chaotic than the other side. We made for a slope close to the end of the island or nunatak, where Shackleton must have got up also ; it is obviously the only place when you look at it from a commanding rise. We did not go quite so close to the land as Shackleton did, and therefore, as had been the case with us all the way up the glacier, found less diffi- culties than he met with. Scott is quite wonderful in his selections of route, as we have escaped excessive dangers and difficulties all along. In this case we had fairly good going, but got into a perfect mass of crevasses into which we all continually fell ; mostly one foot, but often two, and occasionally we went down altogether, some to the length of their harness to be hauled out with the Alpine rope. Most of them could be seen by the strip of snow on
^ My own diary. ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. . p. 5 1 1-5 12.
266 WORST jdURNEY IN THE WORLD
the blue ice. They were often too wide to jump though, and the only thing was to plant your feet on the bridge and try not to tread heavily. As a rule the centre of a bridged crevasse is the safest place, the rotten places are at the edges. We had to go over dozens by hopping right on to the bridge and then over on to the ice. It is a bit of a jar when it gives way under you, but the friendly harness is made to trust one's life to. The Lord only knows how deep these vast chasms go down, they seem to extend into blue black nothingness thousands of feet below.
"Before reaching the rise we had to go up and down many steep slopes, and on the one side the sledges were overrunning us, and on the other it fairly took the juice out of you to reach the top. We saw the stratification on the nunatak which Shackleton supposed to be coal : there was also much sandstone and red granite. I should like to have scratched round these rocks : we may get a chance on our return journey. As we topped each rise we found another one beyond it, and so on.
"About noon some clouds settled in a fog round us, and being fairly in a trough of crevasses we could not get on. Fortunately we found a snow patch to pitch the tents on, but even there were crevasses under us. However, we enjoyed a hearty lunch, and I improved the shining hour by preparing my rations for the Upper Glacier Depot.
"At 3 P.M. it clearei^, and Mount Darwin, a nunatak to the S.W. of the others, could be seen. This we made for, and some two miles on exchanged blue ice for the new snow which was much harder pulling. Scott was fairly wound up, and he went on and on. Every rise topped seemed to fire him with a desire to top the next, and every rise had another beyond and above it. We camped at 8 P.M., all pretty weary, having come up nearly 1500 feet, and done over eleven miles in a S.W. direction. We were south of Mount Darwin in 85° 7' S., and our corrected altitude proved to be 7000 feet above the Barrier. I worked up till a very late hour getting the depot stores ready, and also weighing out and arranging allowances for the returning party, and arranging the stores and dis-
THE POLAR JOURNEY 367
tribution of weights of the two parties going on. The temperature was down to zero to-day, the lowest it has been for some time this summer weather," ^
"There is a very mournful air to-night — those going on and those turning back. Bill came in while I was cooking, to say good-bye. He told me he fully expected to come back with the next party: that he could see Scott was going to take on the strongest fellows, perhaps three seamen. It would be a great disappointment if Bill did not go on." 2
We gave away any gear which we could spare to those going on, and I find the following in my diary:
" I have been trying to give away my spare gear where it may be most acceptable: finnesko to Birdie, pyjama trousers to Bill, and a bag of baccy for Bill to give Scott on Christmas Day, some baccy to Titus, jaeger socks and half my scarf to Crean, and a bit of handkerchief to Birdie. Very tired to-night."
Scott wrote : "We are struggling on, considering all things against odds. The weather is a constant anxiety, otherwise arrangements are working exactly as planned.
" Here we are practically on the summit and up to date in the provision line. We ought to get through." ^
^ Bowers. ^ My own diary. ^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i.'p. ^IT,,
CHAPTER XI
THE POLAR JOURNEY (continued)
People, perhaps, still exist who believe that it is of no importance to explore the unknown polar regions. This, of course, shows ignorance. It is hardly necessary to mention here of what scientific importance it is that these regions should be thoroughly explored. The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness towards light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge ; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer man. — Nansen.
III. The Plateau from Mount Darwin to
Lat. 87° 32' S.
|
First Sledge |
Second Sledge |
|
Scott |
Lieut. Evans |
|
Wilson |
Bowers |
|
Gates |
Lashly |
|
Seaman Evans |
Crean |
For the first week on the plateau Bowers wrote a full diary, which I give below. After December 28 there are little more than fragmentary notes until January 19, the day the party started to return from the Pole. From then until January 25, he wrote fully ; nothing after that until January 29, followed by more fragments to "February 3rd (I suppose)." That is the last entry he made.
But this is not surprising, even in a man of Bowers' energy. The time a man can give to writing under such conditions is limited, and Bowers had a great deal of it to do before he could think of a diary — the meteorological log ; sights for position as well as rating sights for time ; and all the routine work of weights, provisions and depots.
368
THE POLAR JOURNEY 369
He wrote no diary at the Pole, but he made a very full meteorological report while there in addition to working out sights. The wonder is that he kept a diary at all.
From Bowers' Diary
December 22. Midsummer Day. We have had a brilliant day with a temperature about zero and no wind, altogether charming conditions. I rigged up the Upper Glacier Depot after breakfast. We depoted two half-weekly units for return of the two parties, also all crampons and glacier gear, such as ice-axes, crowbar, spare Alpine rope, etc., personal gear, medical, and in fact everything we could dispense with. I left my old finnesko, wind trousers and some other spare gear in a bag for going back.
The two advance parties' weights amounted to 1 90 lbs. per man. They consisted of the permanent weights, twelve weeks' food and oil, spare sledge runners, etc. We said good-bye and sent back messages and photo films with the First Returning Party, which consisted of Atch, Cherry, Silas and Keohane. It was quite touching saying farewell to our good pals — they wished us luck, and Cherry, Atch and Silas quite overwhelmed me.
We went forward, the Owner's team as before consist- ing of Dr. Bill, Titus and [Seaman] Evans, and [Lieut.] Teddy Evans and Lashly coming over to my sledge and tent to join up with Crean and myself. We all left the depot cairn marked with two spare lo-feet sledge runners and a large black flag on one. Our morning march was not so long as usual owing to making up the depot, but we did five miles uphill, hauling our heavier loads more easily than the lighter ones yesterday. A fall in the tem- perature had improved the surface. We had also sand- papered our runners after the tearing up they had had on the glacier ; this made a tremendous difference. The afternoon march brought our total up to 10.6 miles for the day on a S.W. course.
We are steering S.W. with a view to avoiding ice-falls which Shackleton met with. We came across very few cre- vasses ; the few we found were as broad as a street, and
2 B
370 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
crossing them the whole party, sledge and all, would be on the bridge at once. They only gave way at the edges, and we did nothing worse than put our feet through now and then. The surface is all snow now, neve and hard sastrugi, which seem to point to a strong prevalent S.S.E. wind here.
We are well clear of the land now, and it is a beauti- ful evening. I have just taken six photographs of the Dominion Range. We can see many new mountains. Our position by observation is 85° 13' 29" S., 161° 54' 45" E., variation being 175° 45'.
December 23. Turned out at usual time, 5.45 a.m. I am cook this week in our tent. After breakfast built two cairns to mark spot and shoved off at quarter to eight.
We started up a big slope on a S. W. course to avoid the pressure which lay across our track to the southward. It was a pretty useful slog up the rise, at one time it seemed as if we would never top the slope. We stopped for five minutes to look round after 2| hours' hard plugging and about 1 1~ hours later reached the top, from which we could see the distant mountains which have so recently been our companions. They are beginning to look pretty magni- ficent. The top of the great pressure ridge was running roughly S.E. and N.W. : itwas one of a succession of ridges which probably cover an area of fifty or sixty square miles. In this neighbourhood Shackleton met them almost to 86|° south. At the top of the ridge were vast crevasses into which we could have dropped the Terra Nova easily. The bridges were firm, however, except at the sides, though we had frequent stumbles into the conservatory roof, so to speak. The sledges were rushed over them without mishap. We had to head farther west to clear disturbances, and at one time were going W.N.W.
At lunch camp we had done S^ miles, and in the after- noon we completed fifteen on a S.W. course over improved ground. Our routine is to actually haul our sledges for nine hours a day; five in the morning, 7.15 a.m. till i p.m. ; and four in the afternoon, 2.30 P.M.-6.30 p.m. We turn out at 5.45 A.M. just now. The loads are still pretty heavy, but the surface is remarkably good considering all things.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 371
One gets pretty weary towards the end of the day ; all my muscles have had their turn at being [stiffened] up. These hills are giving my back ones a reminder, but they will ache less to-morrow and finally cease to do so, as is the case with legs, etc., which had their turn first.
December 24. Christmas Eve. We started off heading due south this morning, as we are many miles to the west- ward of Shackleton's course and should if anywhere be clear of the ice-falls and pressure. Of course no mortals having been here, one can only conjecture ; as a matter of fact, we found later in the day that we were not clear by any means, and had to do a bit of dodging about to avoid disturbances, as well as mount vast ridges with the tops of them a chaos of crevasses. The tops are pretty hard ice- snow, over which the sledges run easily ; it is quite a holi- day after slogging up the slopes on the softer surface with our heavy loads, which amount to over 190 lbs. per man.
We mark our night camp by two cairns and our lunch camp by single ones. It is doubtful, however, among these ridges, if we will ever pick them up again, and it does not really matter, as we have excellent land for the Upper Glacier Depot. We completed fourteen miles and turned in as usual pretty tired.
December 25. Christmas Day. A strange and strenu- ous Christmas for me, with plenty of snow to look at and very little else. The breeze that had blown in our faces all yesterday blew more freshly to-day, with surface drift. It fairly nipped one's nose and face starting off — until one got warmed up. We had to pull in wind blouses, as though one's body kept warm enough on the march the arms got numbed with the penetrating wind no matter how vigor- ously they were swung. Another thing is that one cannot stop the team on the march to get clothes on and off, so it is better to go the whole hog and be too hot than cause delays. We had the addition of a little pony meat for breakfast to celebrate the day. I am the cook of our tent this week.
We steered south again and struck our friends the crevasses and climbed ridges again. About the middle of
372 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
the morning we were all falling in continually, but Lashly in my team had the worst drop. He fell to the length of his harness and the trace. I was glad that having noticed his rope rather worn, I had given him a new one a few days before. He jerked Crean and me off our feet backwards, and Crean's harness being jammed under the sledge, which was half across an eight-feet bridge, he could do nothing. I was a little afraid of sledge and all going down, but fortunately the crevasse ran diagonally. We could not see Lashly, for a great overhanging piece of ice was over him. Teddy Evans and I cleared Crean and we all three got Lashly up with the Alpine rope cut into the snow sides which overhung the hole. We then got the sledge into safety.
To-day is Lashly's birthday ; he is married and has a family ; is 44 years of age, and due for his pension from the service. He is as strong as most and is an undefeated old sportsman. Being a chief stoker, R.N., his original job was charge of one of the ill-fated motor sledges. [The following is Lashly's own account : "Christmas Day and a good one. We have done 15 miles over a very changing surface. First of all it was very much crevassed and pretty rotten ; we were often in diffi- culties as to which way we should tackle it. I had the mis- fortune to drop clean through, but was stopped with a jerk when at the end of my harness. It was not of course a very nice sensation, especially on Christmas Day, and being my birthday as well. While spinning round in space like I was it took me a few seconds to gather together my thoughts and see what kind of a place I was in. It certainly was not a fairy's place. When I had collected myself I heard some one calling from above, 'Are you all right, Lashly?' I was all right it is true, but I did not care to be dangling in the air on a piece of rope, especially when I looked round and saw what kind of a place it was. It seemed about 50 feet deep and 8 feet wide, and 120 feet long. This infor- mation I had ample time to gain while dangling there. I could measure the width with my ski sticks, as I had them on my wrists. It seemed a long time before I saw the rope
THE POLAR JOURNEY 373
come down alongside me with a bowline in it for me to put my foot in and get dragged out. It was not a job I should care to have to go through often, as by being in the crevasse I had got cold and a bit frost-bitten on the hands and face, which made it more difficult for me to help myself. Any- how Mr. Evans, Bowers and Crean hauled me out and Crean wished me many happy returns of the day, and of course I thanked him politely and the others laughed, but all were pleased I was not hurt bar a bit of a shake. It was funny although they called to the other team to stop they did not hear, but went trudging on and did not know until they looked round just in time to see me arrive on top again. They then waited for us to come up with them. The Captain asked if I was all right and could go on again, which I could honestly say * Yes ' to, and at night when we stopped for dinner I felt I could do two dinners in. Any- how we had a pretty good tuck-in. Dinner consisted of pemmican, biscuits, chocolate eclair, pony meat, plum pudding and crystallized ginger and four caramels each. We none of us could hardly move." ^]
We had done over eight miles at lunch. I had managed to scrape together from the Barrier rations enough extra food to allow us a stick of chocolate each for lunch, with two spoonfuls of raisins each in our tea. In the afternoon we got clear of crevasses pretty soon, but towards the end of the afternoon Captain Scott got fairly wound up and went on and on. The breeze died down and my breath kept fogging my glasses, and our windproofs got oppress- ively warm and altogether things were pretty rotten. At last he stopped and we found we had done 14! miles. He said, "What about fifteen miles for Christmas Day?" so we gladly went on — anything definite is better than|indefi- nite trudging.
We had a great feed which I had kept hidden and out of the official weights since our departure from Winter Quarters. It consisted of a good fat hoosh with pony meat and ground biscuit ; a chocolate hoosh made of water, cocoa, sugar, biscuit, raisins, and thickened with a spoonful
^ Lashly's diary.
374 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
of arrowroot. (This is the most satisfying stuff imaginable.) Then came 2^ square inches of plum-duff each, and a good mug of cocoa washed down the whole. In addition to this we had four caramels each and four squares of crystallized ginger. I positively could not eat all mine, and turned in feeling as if I had made a beast of myself. I wrote up my journal — in fact I should have liked somebody to put me to bed.
December 26. We have seen many new ranges of mountains extending to the S.E. of the Dominion Range. They are very distant, however, and must evidently be the top of those bounding the Barrier. They could only be seen from the tops of the ridges as waves up which we are continually mounting. Our height yesterday morning by hypsometer was 8000 feet. That is our last hypsometer record, as I had the misfortune to break the thermometer. The hypsometer was one of my chief delights, and nobody could have been more disgusted than myself at its breaking. However, we have the aneroid to check the height. We are going gradually up and up. As one would expect, a con- siderable amount of lassitude was felt over breakfast after our feed last night. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was to ship the harness round my poor tummy when we started. As usual a stiff breeze from the south and a tem- perature of - 7° blew in our faces. Strange to say, how- ever, we don't get frost-bitten. I suppose it is the open-air life.
I could not tell if I had a frost-bite on my face now, as it is all scales, so are my lips and nose. A considerable amount of red hair is endeavouring to cover up matters. We crossed several ridges, and after the effects of over- feeding had worn off did a pretty good march of thirteen miles.
[No more Christmas Days, so no more big hooshes.^]
December 27. There is something the matter with our sledge or our team, as we have an awful slog to keep up with the others. I asked Dr. Bill and he said their sledge ran very easily. Ours is nothing but a desperate drag with
1 Lashly's diary.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 375
constant rallies to keep up. We certainly manage to do so, but I am sure we cannot keep this up for long. We are all pretty well done up to-night after doing 13.3 miles.
Our salvation is on the summits of the ridges, where hard neve and sastrugi obtain, and we skip over this slip- pery stuff and make up lost ground easily. In soft snow the other team draw steadily ahead, and it is fairly heart- breaking to know you are putting your life out hour after hour while they go along with little apparent effort.
December 28. The last few days have been absol- utely cloudless, with unbroken sunshine for twenty-four hours. It sounds very nice, but the temperature never comes above zero and what Shackleton called "the pitiless increasing wind " of the great plateau continues to blow at all times from the south. It never ceases, and all night it whistles round the tents, all day it blows in our faces. Sometimes it is S.S.E., or S.E. to S., and sometimes even S. to W., but always southerly, chiefly accompanied by low drift which at night forms quite a deposit round the sledges. We expected this wind, so we must not growl at getting it. It will be great fun sailing the sledges back before it. As far as weather is concerned we have had remarkably fine days up here on this limitless snow plain. I should like to know what there is beneath us — mountains and valleys simply levelled off to the top with ice ? We constantly come across disturbances which I can only imagine are caused by the peaks of ice-covered mountains, and no doubt some of the ice-falls and crevasses are accountable to the same source. Our coming west has not cleared them, as we have seen more disturbances to the west, many miles away. However, they are getting less and less, and are now nothing but featureless rises with apparently no crevasses. Our first two hours' pulling to-day. . . .
From Lashlys Diary
December 29, 191 1. A nasty head wind all day and low drift which accumulates in patches and makes it the deuce of a job to get along. We have got to put in long days to do the distance.
376 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
December 30, 191 1. Sledges going heavy, surface and wind the same as yesterday. We depoted our ski to- night, that is the party returning to-morrow^ when we march in the forenoon and camp to change our sledge runners into I o feet. Done 1 1 miles but a bit stiff.
December 31, 191 1. After doing 7 miles we camped and done the sledges which took us until 1 1 p.m., and we had to dig out to get them done by then, made a depot and saw the old year out and the new year in. We all wondered where we should be next New Year. It was so still and quiet ; the weather was dull and overcast all night, in fact we have not seen much of the sun lately ; it would be so nice if we could sometimes get a glimpse of it, the sun is always cheering.
January 19 12. New Tear's Day. We pushed on as usual, but were rather late getting away, 9.10 — something unusual for us to be as late. The temperature and wind is still very troublesome. We are now ahead of Shackleton's dates and have passed the 87th parallel, so it is only 180 miles to the Pole.
January 2, 19 12. The dragging is still very heavy and we seem to be always climbing higher. We are now over 10,000 feet above sea level. It makes it bad as we don't get enough heat in our food and the tea is not strong enough to run out of the pot. Everything gets cold so quickly, the water boils at about 196° F.
Scott's own diary of this first fortnight on the plateau shows the immense shove of the man : he was getting every inch out of the miles, every ounce out of his companions. Also he was in a hurry, he always was. That blizzard which had delayed him just before the Gateway, and the resulting surfaces which had delayed him in the lower reaches of the glacier ! One can feel the averages running through his brain : so many miles to-day : so many more to-morrow. When shall we come to an end of this pressure } Can we go straight or must we go more west "? And then the great undulating waves with troughs eight miles wide, and the buried mountains, causing whirlpools in the ice — how
THE POLAR JOURNEY 377
immense, and how annoying. The monotonous march : the necessity to keep the mind concentrated to steer amongst disturbances : the reHef of a steady plod when the disturbances cease for a time : then more pressure and more crevasses. Always slog on, slog on. Always a fraction of a mile more. . . . On December 30 he writes, "We have caught up Shackleton's dates." ^
They made wonderful marches, averaging nearly fifteen statute miles (13 geog.) a day for the whole-day marches until the Second Return Party turned back on January 4. Scott writes on December 26, " It seems astonishing to be disappointed with a march of 1 5 (statute) miles when I had contemplated doing little more than 10 with full loads." ^
The Last Returning Party came back with the news that Scott must reach the Pole with the greatest ease. This seemed almost a certainty : and yet it was, as we know now, a false impression. Scott's plans were based on Shackle- ton's averages over the same country. The blizzard came and put him badly behind : but despite this he caught Shackleton up. No doubt the general idea then was that Scott was going to have a much easier time than he had expected. We certainly did not realize then, and I do not think Scott himself had any notion of, the price which had been paid.
Of the three teams of four men each which started from the bottom of the Beardmore, Scott's team was a very long way the strongest : it was the team which, with one addi- tion, went to the Pole. Lieutenant Evans' team had mostly done a lot of man-hauling already : it was hungry and I think a bit stale. Bowers' team was fresh and managed to keep up for the most part, but it was very done at the end of the day. Scott's own team went along with comparative ease. From the top of the glacier two teams went on during the last fortnight of which we have been speaking. The first of them was Scott's unit complete, just as it had pulled up the glacier. The second team consisted, I believe, of the men whom Scott considered to be the strongest ; two from Evans' team, and two from Bowers'. All Scott's team were
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 525. ^ ii,id, p. 521.
378 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
fresh to the extent that they had done no man-hauling until we started up the glacier. But two of the other team, Lieutenant Evans and Lashly, had been man-hauling since the breakdown of the second motor on November i . They had man-hauled four hundred statute miles farther than the rest. Indeed Lashly's man-hauling journey from Corner Camp to beyond 87° 32' S., and back, is one of the great feats of polar travelling.
Surely and not very slowly, Scott's team began to wear down the other team. They were going easily when the others were making heavy weather and were sometimes far behind. During the fortnight they rose, according to the corrected observations, from 7 151 feet (Upper Glacier Depot) to 9392 feet above sea level (Three Degree Depot). The rarefied air of the Plateau with its cold winds and lower temperatures, just now about - 1 0° to - 1 2° at night and - 3° during the day, were having their effect on the second team, as well as the forced marches. This is quite clear from Scott's diary, and from the other diaries also. What did not appear until after the Last Returning Party had turned homewards was that the first team was getting worn out too. This team which had gone so strong up the glacier, which had done those amazingly good marches on the plateau, broke up unexpectedly and in some respects rapidly from the 88th parallel onwards.
Seaman Evans was the first man to crack. He was the heaviest, largest, most muscular man we had, and that was probably one of the main reasons : for his allowance of food was the same as the others. But one mishap which contributed to his collapse seems to have happened during this first fortnight on the plateau. On December 31 the i2-feet sledges were turned into lo-feet ones by stripping off the old scratched runners which had come up the glacier and shipping new lo-feet ones which had been brought for the purpose. This job was done by the seamen, and Evans appears to have had some accident to his hand, which is mentioned several times afterwards.
Meanwhile Scott had to decide whom he was going to take on with him to the Pole, — for it was becoming clear
THE POLAR JOURNEY 379
that in all probability he would reach the Pole : " What castles one builds now hopefully that the Pole is ours," he wrote the day after the supporting party left him. The final advance to the Pole was, according to plan, to have been made by four men. We were organized in four-man units : our rations were made up for four men for a week : our tents held four men : our cookers held four mugs, four pannikins and four spoons. Four days before the Support- ing Party turned, Scott ordered the second sledge of four men to depot their ski. It is clear, I suppose, that at this time he meant the Polar Party to consist of four men. I think there can be no doubt that he meant one of those men to be himself: "for your own ear also, I am exceedingly fit and can go with the best of them," he wrote from the top of the glacier.^
He changed his mind and went forward a party of five : Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates and Seaman Evans. I am sure he wished to take as many men as possible to the Pole. He sent three men back : Lieutenant Evans in charge, and two seamen, Lashly and Crean. It is the vivid story of those three men, who turned on January 4 in latitude 87° 32', which is told by Lashly in the next chapter. Scott wrote home: "A last note from a hopeful position. I think it's going to be all right. We have a fine party going forward and arrangements are all going well." ^
Ten months afterwards we found their bodies.
^ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 513. ^ Ibid. p. 529,
CHAPTER XII
THE POLAR JOURNEY {continued)
THE DEVIL. And these are the creatures in whom you discover what you call a Life Force !
DON JUAN. Yes ; for now comes the most surprising part of the whole business.
THE STATUE. What's that .?
DON JUAN. Why, that you can make any of these cowards brave by simply putting an idea into his head.
THE STATUE. Stuff ! As an old soldier I admit the cowardice: it's as universal as sea sickness, and matters just as little. But that about putting an idea into a man's head is stuff and nonsense. In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.
DON JUAN. That is perhaps why battles are so useless. But men never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a universal purpose — fighting for an idea, as they call it.
Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman.
IV. Returning Parties
Two Dog Teams (Meares and Dimitri) turned back from the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier on December ii, 1911. They reached Hut Point on January 4, 19 12.
First Supporting Party (Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard, Wright, Keohane) turned back in lat. 85° 15' on December 22, 1 9 II . They reached Hut Point January 26, 1 9 1 2 .
Last Supporting Party (Lieut. Evans, Lashly, Crean) turned back in lat. 87° 32' on January 4, 19 12. They reached Hut Point February 22, 19 12.
Of the three teams which started up the Beardmore Glacier the first to return, a fortnight after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the First Supporting
380
THE POLAR JOURNEY 381
Party : the second to return, a month after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the Last Supporting Party. Of the two dog-teams under Meares, which had already turned homewards at the bottom of the glacier after having been brought forward farther than had been intended, I will speak later.^
I am going to say very little about the First Return Party, which consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Keohane and myself. Atkinson was in command, and before we left Scott told him to bring the dog-teams out to meet the Polar Party if, as seemed likely, Meares returned home. Atkin- son is a naval surgeon and you will find this party referred to in Lashly's diary as " the Doctor's."
" It was a sad job saying good-bye. It was thick, snow- ing and drifting clouds when we started back after making the depot, and the last we saw of them as we swung the sledge north was a black dot just disappearing over the next ridge and a big white pressure wave ahead of them. . . . Scott said some nice things when we said good-bye. Anyway he has only to average seven miles a day to get to the Pole on full rations — it's practically a cert for him. I do hope he takes Bill and Birdie. The view over the ice- falls and pressure by the Mill Glacier from the top of the ice-falls is one of the finest things I have ever seen. Atch is doing us proud." ^
No five hundred mile journey down the Beardmore and across the Barrier can be uneventful, even in midsummer. We had the same dreary drag, the same thick weather, fears and anxieties which other parties have had. A touch of the same dysentery and sickness : the same tumbles and crevasses : the same Christmas comforts, a layer of plum pudding at the bottom of our cocoa, and some rocks col- lected from a moraine under the Cloudmaker : the same groping for tracks : the same cairns lost and found, the same snow -blindness and weariness, nightmares, food dreams. . . . Why repeat ? Comparatively speaking it was a very little journey : and yet the distance from Cape Evans
1 See pp. 382, 383, 410, 412. ^ My own diary, December 22, 191 1.
382 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
to the top of the Beardmore Glacier and back is 1 1 64 statute miles. Scott's Southern Journey of 1902-3 was 950 statute miles.
One day only is worth recalling. We got into the same big pressure above the Cloudmaker which both the other parties experienced. But where the other two parties made east to get out of it, we went west at Wright's suggestion : west was right. The day really lives in my memory because of the troubles of Keohane. He fell into crevasses to the full length of his harness eight times in twenty-five minutes. Little wonder he looked a bit dazed. And Atkinson went down into one chasm head foremost : the worst crevasse fall I've ever seen. But luckily the shoulder straps of his harness stood the strain and we pulled him up little the worse.
All three parties off the plateau owed a good deal to Meares, who, on his return with the two dog-teams, built up the cairns which had been obliterated by the big bliz- zard of December 5-8 . The ponies' walls were drifted level with the surface, and Meares himself had an anxious time finding his way home. The dog tracks also helped us a good deal : the dogs were sinking deeply and making heavy weather of it.
At the Barrier Depots we found rather despondent notes from Meares about his progress. To the Southern Barrier Depot he had uncomfortably high temperatures and a very soft surface, and found the cairns drifted up and hard to see. At the Middle Barrier Depot we found a note from him dated December 20. "Thick weather and bliz- zards had delayed him, and once he had got right off the tracks and had been out from his camp hunting for them. They were quite well : a little eye strain from searching for cairns. He was taking a little butter from each bag [of the three depoted weekly units], and with this would have enough to the next depot on short rations." ^ At the Upper Glacier Depot [Mount Hooper] the news from Meares was dated Christmas Eve, in the evening: "The dogs were going slowly but steadily in very soft stuff, especially his
^ My own diary.
ADAMS MOUNTAINS
Cheiry-Garrard, Keohane, Atkinson FIRST RETURN PARTY
THE POLAR JOURNEY 383
last two days. He was running short of food, having only biscuit crumbs, tea, some cornflour, and half a cup of pem- mican. He was therefore taking fifty biscuits, and a day's provisions for two men from each of our units. He had killed one American dog some camps back : if he killed more he was going to kill Krisravitza who he said was the fattest and laziest. We shall take on thirty biscuits short." ^ Meares was to have turned homewards with the two dog-teams in lat. 8 1° 1 5' . Scott took him on to approxi- mately 8 3° 3 5' . The dogs had the ponies on which to feed : to make up the deficiency of man-food we went one biscuit a day short when going up the Beardmore : but the dogs went back slower than was estimated and his provisions were insufficient. It was evident that the dog-teams would arrive too late and be too done to take out the food which had still to be sledged to One Ton for the three parties return- ing from the plateau. It was uncertain whether a man- hauling party with such of this food as they could drag would arrive at the depot before us.^ We might have to travel the 130 geographical miles from One Ton to Hut Point on the little food which was already at that depot and we were saving food by going on short rations to meet this contingency if it arose. Judge therefore our joy when we reached One Ton in the evening of January 1 5 to find three of the five XS rations which were necessary for the three parties. A man-hauling party consisting of Day, Nelson, Hooper and Clissold had brought out this food ; they left a note saying the crevasses near Corner Camp were bad and open. Day and Hooper had reached Cape Evans from the Barrier ^ on December 2 1 : they started out again on this depot-laying trip on December 26.
It is a common experience for men who have been hungry to be ill after reaching plenty of food. Atkinson was not at all well during our journey in to Hut Point, which we reached without difficulty on January 26.
When I was looking for data concerning the return of the Last Supporting Party of which no account has been published, I wrote to Lashly and asked him to meet and
^ My own diary. ^ See p. 412- ^ See p. 335.
384 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
tell me all he could remember. He was very willing, and added that somewhere or other he had a diary which he had written : perhaps it might be of use ? I asked him to send it me, and was sent some dirty thumbed sheets of paper. And this is what I read :
yd January 1912.
Very heavy going to-day. This will be our last night together, as we are to return to-morrow after going on in the forenoon with the party chosen for the Pole, that is Capt. Scott, Dr. Wilson, Capt. Oates, Lieut. Bowers and Taff Evans. The Captain said he was satisfied we were all in good condition, fit to do the journey, but only so many could go on, so it was his wish Mr. Evans, Crean and my- self should return. He was quite aware we should have a very stiff job, but we told him we did not mind that, pro- viding he thought they could reach the Pole with the assist- ance we had been able to give them. The first time I have heard we were having mules coming down to assist us next year. I was offering to remain at Hut Point, to be there if any help was needed, but the Captain said it was his and also Capt. Oates' wish if the mules arrived I was to take charge of and look after them until their return ; but if they did not arrive there was no reason why I should not come to Hut Point and wait their return. We had a long talk with the owner [Scott] in our tent about things in general and he seemed pretty confident of success. He seemed a bit afraid of us getting hung up, but as he said we had a splendid navigator, who he was sure he could trust to pull us through. He also thanked us all heartily for the way we had assisted in the Journey and he should be sorry when we parted. We are of course taking the mail, but what a time before we get back to send it. We are nearly as far as Shackleton was on his Journey. I shall not write more to-night, it is too cold.
\th January 19 12.
We accompanied the Pole party for about five miles and everything seemed to be going pretty well and Capt. Scott said they felt confident they could pull the load quite
THE POLAR JOURNEY 385
well, so there was no more need for us to go on farther ; so we stopped and did all the talking we could in a short time. We wished them every success and a safe return, and asked each one if there was anything we could do for them when we got back, but they were all satisfied they had left nothing undone, so the time came for the last handshake and good-bye. I think we all felt it very much. They then wished us a speedy return and safe, and then they moved off. We gave them three cheers, and watched them for a while until we began to feel cold. Then we turned and started for home. We soon lost sight of each other. We travelled a long time so as to make the best of it while the weather was suitable, as we have to keep up a good pace on the food allowance. It wont do to lay up much. One thing since we left Mt. Darwin, we have had weather we could travel in, although we have not seen the sun much of late. We did 1 3 miles as near as we can guess by the cairns we have passed. We have not got a sledge meter so shall have to go by guess all the way home.
[Owing to the loss of a sledge meter on the Beardmore Glacier one of the three parties had to return without one. A sledge meter gives the navigator his dead reckoning, in- dicating the miles travelled, like the log of a ship. To be deprived of it in a wilderness of snow without landmarks adds enormously to the difficulties and anxieties of a sledge party.]
e^th January 19 12.
We were up and off this morning, the weather being fine but the surface is about the same, the temperature keeps low. We have got to change our pulling billets. Crean has become snow-blind to-day through being leader, so I shall have the job to-morrow, as Mr. Evans seems to get blind rather quickly, so if I lead and he directs me from behind we ought to get along pretty well. I hope my eyes will keep alright. We made good 1 7 miles and camped.
6th yanuary 19 12.
We are making good progress on the surface we have to contend with. We picked up the 3 Degree Depot soon
2 c
386 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
after noon, which puts us up to time. We took our pro- vision for a week. We have got to reach Mt. Darwin Depot, a distance of i2o miles, with 7 days' provisions. We picked up our ski and camped for the night. We have been wondering if the others have got the same wind as us. If so it is right in their face, whereas it is at our back, a treat to what it is facing it. Crean's eyes are pretty bad to-night. Snow-bHndness is an awful complaint, and no one I can assure you looks forward with pleasure when it begins to attack.
"J th "January 19 12.
We have had a very good day as far as travelling goes, the wind has been behind us and is a great help to us. We have been on ski all day for the first time. It seems a good change to footing it, the one thing day after day gets on one's nerves. Crean's eyes are a bit better to-day, but far from being well. The temperature is pretty low, which dont improve the surface for hauling, but we seem to be getting along pretty well. We have no sledge meter so we have to go by guess. Mr. Evans says we done i ^\ miles, but I say 1 6|-. I am not going to over-estimate our day's run, as I am taking charge of the biscuits so that we dont over-step the mark. This we have all agreed to so that we . should exactly know how we stand, from day to day. I am still leading, not very nice as the light is bad. We caught a glimpse of the land to the east of us, but could only have been a mirage.
8M January 1912.
On turning out this morning we found it was blowing a bliz. so it was almost a case of having to remain in camp, but on second thoughts we thought it best to kick ojff as we cant afford to lay up on account of food, so thought it best to push on. I wonder if the Pole Party have experienced this. If so they could not travel as it would be in their face, where we have got it at our back. We have lost the outward bound track, so have decided to make a straight line to Mt. Darwin, which will be on Shackleton's course according to his and Wild's Diary.
THE POLAR JOURNEY 387
[Each of the three parties which went forward up the Beardmore Glacier carried extracts from the above diaries. Wild was Shackleton's right-hand man in his Southern Journey in 1908.]
<^th yanuary 191 2.
Travelling is very difficult, bad light and still blizzing ; it would have been impossible to keep in touch with the cairns in this weather. I am giving 1 2 miles to-night. The weather have moderated a bit and looks a bit more pro- mising. Can see land at times.
loth yanuary 19 12.
The light is still very bad, with a good deal of drift, but we must push on as we are a long way from our depot, but we hope to reach it before our provisions run out. I am keeping a good eye on them. Crean's eyes have got alright again now.
nth yanuary 19 12.
Things are a bit better to-day. Could see the land alright and where to steer for. It is so nice to have some- thing to look at, but I am thinking we shall all have our work cut out to reach the depot before our provisions run short. I am deducting a small portion each meal so that we shall not have to go without altogether if we don't bring up at the proper time. Have done about 14 miles.
izth yanuary 19 12.
The day has been full of adventure. At first we got into some very rough stuff, with plenty of crevasses. Had •to get rid of the ski and put our thinking cap on, as we had not got under way long before we were at the top of sorne ice-falls ; these probably are what Shackleton spoke of. We could see it meant a descent of 600/700 feet, or make a big circuit, which meant a lot of time and a big delay, and this we cant afford just now, so we decided on the descent into the valley. This proved a difficult task, as we had no cram- pons, having left them at Mt. Darwin Depot ; but we managed after a time by getting hold of the sledge each side and allowing her to run into a big lump of pressure
388 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
which was we knew a risky thing to do. It took us up to lunch time to reach the valley, where we camped for lunch, where we all felt greatly relieved, having accomplished the thing safely, no damage to ourselves or the sledge, but we lost one of Crean's ski sticks. Some of the crevasses we crossed were loo to 200 feet wide, but well bridged in the centre, but the edges were very dangerous indeed. This is where the snow and ice begins to roll down the glacier. After starting on our way again we found we had to climb the hill. Things dont look very nice ahead again to-night. We dont seem to be more than a day's run from the depot, but it will surprise me if we reach it by to-morrow night ; if not we shall have to go on short rations, as our supply is nearly run out, and we have not lost any time, but we knew