XII. ACROSS KING GEORGE V LAND
We yearned beyond the skyline.--Kipling
October had passed without offering any opportunities for sledging, and we resolved that in defiance of all but the worst weather a start would be made in November. The 'Aurora' was due to arrive early in January 1913 and the time at our disposal for exploration was slipping away rapidly.
The investigation by sledging journeys of the coastline to the eastward was regarded as of prime importance, for our experience in the 'Aurora' when in those longitudes during the previous year was such as to give little promise of its ever being accomplished from the sea.
Westward, the coast was accessible from the sea; at least for some distance in that direction. Madigan's journey in the springtime had demonstrated that, if anything, the land to the west was steeper, and consequently more windy conditions might be expected there. Further, it was judged that information concerning this region would be forthcoming from the ship, which had cruised westward after leaving Adelie Land in January 1912. The field in that direction was therefore not so promising as that to the east.
On this account the air-tractor sledge, of somewhat doubtful utility, was detailed for use to the westward of Winter Quarters, and, as it was obvious that the engine could only be operated in moderately good weather, its final departure was postponed until December.
The following is a list of the parties which had been arranged and which, now fully equipped, were on the tiptoe of expectation to depart.
(1) A Southern Party composed of Bage (leader), Webb and Hurley. The special feature of their work was to be magnetic observations in the vicinity of the South Magnetic Pole.
(2) A Southern Supporting Party, including Murphy (leader), Hunter and Laseron, who were to accompany the Southern Party as far as possible, returning to Winter Quarters by the end of November.
(3) A Western Party of three men--Bickerton (leader), Hodgeman and Whetter--who were to traverse the coastal highlands west of the Hut. Their intention was to make use of the air-tractor sledge and the departure of the party was fixed for early December.
(4) Stillwell, in charge of a Near Eastern Party, was to map the coastline between Cape Denison and the Mertz Glacier-Tongue, dividing the work into two stages. In the first instance, Close and Hodgeman were to assist him; all three acting partly as supports to the other eastern parties working further afield. After returning to the Hut at the end of November for a further supply of stores, he was to set out again with Close and Laseron in order to complete the work.
(5) An Eastern Coastal Party composed of Madigan (leader), McLean and Correll was to start in early November with the object of investigating the coastline beyond the Mertz Glacier.
(6) Finally, a Far-Eastern Party, assisted by the dogs, was to push out rapidly overland to the southward of Madigan's party, mapping more distant sections of the coastline, beyond the limit to which the latter party would be likely to reach.
As the plans for the execution of such a journey had of necessity to be more provisional than in the case of the others, I determined to undertake it, accompanied by Ninnis and Mertz, both of whom had so ably acquitted themselves throughout the Expedition and, moreover, had always been in charge of the dogs.
November opened with more moderate weather, auguring still better conditions for midsummer. Accordingly November 6 was fixed as the date of final departure for several of the parties. The evening of November 5 was made a special occasion: a farewell dinner, into which everybody entered very heartily.
On the morning of the 6th, however, we found a strong blizzard raging and the landscape blotted out by drift-snow, which did not clear until the afternoon of the following day.
At the first opportunity, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron (supporting the Southern Party) got away, but found the wind so strong at a level of one thousand feet on the glacier that they anchored their sledge and returned to the Hut for the night.
The next morning saw them off finally and, later in the day, the Near-Eastern Party (Stillwell, Close and Hodgeman) and the Eastern Coastal Party (Madigan, McLean and Correll) got under way, though there was still considerable wind.
My own party was to leave on the 9th for, assisted by the dogs, we could easily catch up to the other eastern parties, and it was our intention not to part company with them until all were some distance out on the road together.
The wind increased on the 9th and the air became charged with drift, so we felt sure that those who preceded us would still be camped at Aladdin's Cave, and that the best course was to wait.
At this date the penguin rookeries were full of new-laid eggs, and the popular taste inclined towards omelettes, in the production of which Mertz was a past master. I can recall the clamouring throng who pressed round for the final omelette as Mertz officiated at the stove just before we left on the 10th.
It was a beautiful calm afternoon as the sledge mounted up the long icy slopes. The Southern Party (Bage, Webb and Hurley) were a short distance in advance, but by the help of the dogs we were soon abreast of them. Then Bickerton, who had given Bage's party a pull as far as the three-mile post, bade us good-bye and returned to the Hut where he was to remain in charge with Whetter and Hannam until the return of Murphy's party.
At Aladdin's Cave, while some prepared supper, others selected tanks of food from the depot and packed the sledges. After the meal, the Southern Party bade us farewell and set off at a rapid rate, intending to overhaul their supporting party on the same evening at the Cathedral Grotto, eleven and three-quarter miles from the Hut. Many finishing touches had to be put to our three sledges and two teams of dogs, so that the departure was delayed till next morning.
We were up betimes and a good start was made before anything came of the overcast sky which had formed during the night. The rendezvous appointed for meeting the others, in case we had not previously caught them up, was eighteen miles south-east of Aladdin's Cave. But, with a view to avoiding crevasses as much as possible, a southerly course was followed for several miles, after which it was directed well to the east. In the meantime the wind had arisen and snow commenced to fall soon after noon. In such weather it was impossible to locate the other parties, so a halt was made and the tent pitched after eight miles.
Five days of wind and drift followed, and for the next two days we remained in camp. Then, on the afternoon of the 13th, the drift became less dense, enabling us to move forward on an approximate course to what was judged to be the vicinity of the rendezvous, where we camped again for three days.
Comfortably ensconced in the sleeping-bags, we ate only a small ration of food; the savings being carefully put away for a future "rainy day." Outside, the dogs had at first an unpleasant time until they were buried in snow which sheltered them from the stinging wind. Ninnis and Mertz took turns day by day attending to their needs.
The monotony and disappointment of delay were just becoming acute when the wind fell off, and the afternoon of November 16 turned out gloriously fine.
Several excursions were immediately made in the neighbourhood to seek for the whereabouts of the other parties, but all were unsuccessful. At length it occurred to us that something serious might have happened, so we left our loads and started back at a gallop for Aladdin's Cave with two empty sledges, Mertz careering ahead on skis over the sastrugi field.
Shortly afterwards two black specks were seen away in the north; a glance with the binoculars leaving no doubt as to the identity of the parties. We returned to the loads, and, having picked them up, made a course to the east to intercept the other men.
It was a happy camp that evening!with the three tents pitched together, while we compared our experiences of the previous six days and made plans for the outward journey.
Our sledge-meter had already suffered through bumping over rough ice and sastrugi, and an exchange was made with the stronger one on Stillwell's sledge. A quantity of food was also taken over from him and the loads were finally adjusted.
The details and weights of the equipment on the three sledges belonging to my party are sufficiently interesting to be set out at length below. Most of the items were included in the impedimenta of all our parties, but slight variations were necessary to meet particular stances or to satisfy the whim of an individual.
TOTAL LOAD
The Principal Sledge, 11ft. long, 45 lb.
Fittings for Same: Instrument-box 7 lb. 5 oz.; cooker-box, 7 lb. 6 oz.; kerosene-tray, 3 lb.; mast-attachment, 2 lb. 8 oz.; mast, 1 lb. 16 oz.; spar, 1 lb. 8 oz.; decking (canvas and bamboo), 3 lb. 5 oz.; rigging, 7.5 oz.; 5 leather straps, 5 lb..... 77 lb. 6.5 oz.
Drill Tent, strengthened and attached to poles, also floor-cloth, 33 lb. Spare drill cover, 11 lb. 8 oz........ 44 lb. 8 oz.
Sleeping-bags, 3 one-man bags............ 30 lb. 0 oz.
Cooking gear: Nansen cooker, 11 lb. 3 oz.; 3 mugs, 1 lb. 8 oz., 2 tins, 10 oz.; scales, 0.5 oz.; 3 spoons, 1.5 oz.; matches, 13.5 oz., and damp-proof tin to hold same, 3.7 oz.; "Primus" heater, full, 3 lb. 10 oz.; "Primus" prickers, 2.5 oz.; "Primus" repair outfit, 2 oz.; kerosene tin openers and pourers, 4.5 oz.; spirit for "Primus" in tin, 5 lb. 14 oz., also a ready bottle, full, 1 lb. 5 oz. ........................... 25 lb. 14.2 oz.
Repair Outfit: Spare copper wire, rivets, needles, thread, etc., 1 lb. 14.5 oz.; set of 12 tools, 15.5 oz.; requirements for repairing dog-harness and medically treating the dogs, 3 lb. 8 oz ........................ 6 lb. 6 oz.
Medical Outfit: 6 "Burroughs & Wellcome" first field dressings; absorbent cotton wool; boric wool; pleated lint; pleated bandages, roll bandages; adhesive tape; liquid collodion; "tabloid" ophthalmic drugs for treating snow-blindness; an assortment of "tabloid" drugs for general treatment; canvas case containing scissors, forceps, artery-forceps, scalpel, surgical needles and silk, etc. ........................... 2 lb. 12.3 oz. Photographic outfit: A 1/4-plate, long, extension-camera in a case, with special stiffening board and 36 cut films, 4 lb. 4.5 oz.; adaptor to accommodate camera to theodolite legs, 2 oz.; a water-tight tin with 14 packets, each containing 12 cut films, 3 lb.10 oz. ............................8 lb. 0.5 oz.
Surveying Requirements: A 3" transit theodolite in case, 5 lb. 14 oz.; legs for the same, 3 lb. 6 oz.; sledge-meter, 8 lb.; Tables from Nautical Almanack and book of Logarithmic Tables, 1 lb. 3 oz.; 2 note books, 1 lb. 6 oz.; angle-books, 5 oz.; map-tube, 10 oz.; maps, 6.5 oz.; pencils, 1.5 oz.; dividers and rubber, 1.5 oz.; protractor and set-square, 0.5 oz.; prismatic compass and clinometer, 8.5 oz.; sun-compass (Bage's), 1.5 oz......... 22 lb. 0 oz.
Other Instruments: Zeiss prismatic binoculars X.12, 1 lb. 13.5 oz.; hypsometer, 2 lb. 1 oz.; 2 ordinary and 2 small minimum thermometers, 10 oz.; specimen labels, l oz............. 4 lb. 9.5 oz.
Rifle, 22-bore with cover and cleaner, 3 lb. 3.7 oz.; ammunition, 1 lb. 6 oz.; sheath knife, 5.5 oz.; sharpening stone, 1.5 oz.; fishing line and hooks, 3.5 oz............. 4 lb. 14.7 oz.
Waterproof Clothe-bag, 4 lb. 8 oz., containing 9 pairs of finnesko stuffed with saennegrass, 21 lb.; extra saennegrass, 3 lb.; 3 private kit-bags containing spare clothing, etc., 39 lb.; 4 extra rolls of lampwick for lashings, 1 lb. 3.5 oz.......... 64 lb. 3.5 oz.
Odd gear: Pick, 4 lb. 5 oz.; 2 spades, 8 lb. 4 oz.; ice-axe, 2 lb. 4 oz.; alpine rope (20 metros) 3 lb.; skis (1 pair), 11 lb.; ski-stick, 1 lb. 1 oz.; ski-boots (2 pairs), 6 lb.; attachable crampons for the same, 4 lb.; finnesko-crampons (3 pairs), 9 lb.; 3 man-harnesses, 6 lb. 8 oz.; man-hauling tow-rope, 1 lb. 1 oz.; flags, 9.5 oz.; a water-proof bag to hold oddments, 4 lb. 8 oz. ............................ 61 lb. 8.5 oz.
Beacons: A depot-flag and bamboo pole, 5 lb.; a special metal depot-beacon, mast, flag and stays, 16 lb.; 2 damp-proof tins for depositing records at depots, 7.5 oz.......... 21 lb. 7.5 oz.
Other Sledges: A second sledge decked with Venesta boarding and fitted with straps.................. 55 lb. 0 oz. A third sledge, 12 ft. long and strong rope lashings (spare spars mentioned elsewhere acting as decking)........ 60 lb. 0 oz.
Fuel: Kerosene, 6 gallons in one-gallon tins..... 60 lb. 0 oz.
Food: Man Food: 9 weeks' supplies for 3 men on the ration scale; also 25 lb. weight of special foods--'perks'..... 475 lb. 0 oz.
Dog Food: Dried seal meat, blubber and pemmican; also the weight of the tin and bag-containers.............. 700 lb. 0 oz.
Total........................ 1723 lb. 11.3 oz.
Madigan's and Stillwell's parties broke trail to the east on the morning of the 17th while we were still attending to the sledges and dogs preparatory to departure. It was decided that Gadget, a rather miserable animal, who had shown herself useless as a puller thus far, should be killed. The following dogs then remained:--Basilisk, Shackleton, Ginger Bitch, Franklin, John Bull, Mary, Haldane, Pavlova, Fusilier, Jappy, Ginger, George, Johnson, Castor, Betli and Blizzard.
We went in pursuit of the other six men over a surface of rough sastrugi. The dogs, who were in fine fettle, rushed the sledges along, making frantic efforts to catch up to the parties ahead, who showed as black specks across the white undulating plain.
At noon all lunched together, after which we separated, shaking hands warmly all round and interchanging the sledgers' "Good luck!" Our dogs drew away rapidly to the east, travelling on a slight down grade; the other two parties with their man-hauled sledges following in the same direction. The surface was splendid, the weather conditions were ideal, the pace, if anything, too rapid, for capsizes were apt to occur in racing over high sastrugi. Any doubts as to the capability of the dogs to pull the loads were dispelled; in fact, on this and on many subsequent occasions, two of us were able to sit, each one on a sledge, while the third broke trail ahead.
In sledging over wide, monotonous wastes with dogs as the motive power, it is necessary to have a forerunner, that is, somebody to go ahead and point the way, otherwise the dogs will run aimlessly about. Returning over old tracks, they will pull along steadily and keep a course. In Adelie Land we had no opportunity of verifying this, as the continuous winds soon obliterated the impression of the runners.
If the weather is reasonably good and food is ample, sledging dogs enjoy their work. Their desire to pull is doubtless inborn, implanted in a long line of ancestors who have faithfully served the Esquimaux. We found that the dogs were glad to get their harnesses on and to be led away to the sledge. Really, it was often a case of the dog leading the man, for, as soon as its harness was in place, the impatient animal strained to drag whatever might be attached to the other end of the rope. Before attaching a team of dogs to a sledge, it was necessary to anchor the latter firmly, otherwise in their ardour they would make off with it before everything was ready.
There can be no question as to the value of dogs as a means of traction in the Polar regions, except when travelling continuously over very rugged country, over heavily crevassed areas, or during unusually bad weather. It is in such special stances that the superiority of man-hauling has been proved. Further, in an enterprise where human life is always at stake, it is only fair to put forward the consideration that the dogs represent a reserve of food in case of extreme emergency.
We continued due eastwards until five o'clock on the afternoon of the 17th at an altitude of two thousand six hundred feet. On the crest of a ridge, which bore away in distinct outline, on our left, a fine panorama of coastal scenery was visible. Far off on the eastern horizon the Mertz Glacier Tongue discovered itself in a long wall touched in luminous bands by the south-western sun. A wide valley fell away in front, and beyond it was a deep indentation of the coastline, which would make it necessary for us to follow a more southerly course in order to round its head.
I determined to convey to the other parties my intentions, which had become more defined on seeing this view; and, in the meantime, we halted and treated ourselves to afternoon tea. This innovation in the ordinary routine was extended to a custom by saving a portion of the lunch ration for a "snack" at 5 P.M. on all days when the weather was moderately good. As latitude sights were required at midday and longitude shots at 5 P.M., the arrangement was very convenient, for, while one of us made tea, the other two took the observations.
About 6 P.M. the two man-hauled sledges came up with us, our plans for the future were reviewed and the final instructions were given. We bade our comrades adieu and, turning to the south-east, descended quickly down a long slope leading into the valley. The sky was overcast and it was almost impossible to see the irregularities of the surface. Only a dull-white glare met the eyes, and the first indication of a hillock was to stub one's toes against it, or of a depression to fall into it. We pulled up the dogs at 7.30 P.M. after covering thirteen and a quarter miles in the day.
At 9.45 A.M. on November 18 everything was ready for a fresh start. The other parties could be seen rapidly bearing down on us under full sail, but our willing teams had soon dragged the three sledges over an eminence and out of their sight.
It was a lovely day; almost like a dream after the lengthy months of harassing blizzards. A venturesome skua gull appeared at lunch time, just as an observation for latitude was being taken. By the time Ninnis had unpacked the rifle the bird had flown away.
The direction of the sastrugi was found to vary from that which obtained farther west, owing to a slight swing in the direction of the prevailing wind. The irregularities in the coastline account for this; the wind tending to flow down to sea-level by the nearest route.
To the north-west, behind us, a projecting ridge of rock--Madigan Nunatak--came into sight. From the camp of the previous evening it had evidently been hidden from view by an undulation in the surface.
During the afternoon it was noted that the surface had become very deeply eroded by the wind, troughs three feet in depth being common, into which the sledges frequently capsized. Each of us took it in turn to run ahead, jumping from one sastruga to another. As these were firm and polished by the constant wind, one often slipped with a sudden shock to the ground. Our bodies were well padded with clothing and we were beginning to get into good form, so that these habitual tumbles were taken with the best grace we could muster. I surprised myself during the afternoon, when my turn came as forerunner, by covering two and a half miles at a jog-trot without a break. The grade was slightly downhill and the sledges moved along of their own accord, accelerated by jerks from the dogs, gliding at right angles to the knife-edge crests of the snow-waves.
The roughness of the surface was not without its effect on the sledge-meter, which had to be repaired temporarily. It was a matter of some inconvenience that after this date its records were erroneous and approximate distances were only obtained by checking the readings against absolute observations made for latitude and longitude.
At 5.30 P.M. a dark object stood in salient relief above the white contour of the snowy sky-line on the right. Suppressing our excitement, we pressed on eagerly, changing course so as to approach it. At nine o'clock it resolved itself into the summit of an imposing mountain rising up from a mysterious valley. Aurora Peak, as it was named, was to be a prominent landmark for several days to come.
All were ready to be on the move at 8.45 A.M. on November 19. While Mertz and Ninnis built a cairn of snow, I wrote a note to be left on it in a tin, containing instructions to Stillwell in case he should happen on the locality.
The weather was good and the temperatures were high, ranging at this time (one month from midsummer) between zero and 18 degrees F. When we camped for lunch the air was quite calm and the sun's rays were extremely warm.
The surface became softer and smoother as the afternoon lengthened until Mertz was tempted to put on his skis. He then became forerunner for the remainder of the day.
Mertz, who was skilled in the use of skis, found them of great service on this and on many future occasions. At such times he would relieve Ninnis and myself in the van. On the other hand, over deeply furrowed sastrugi or blue ice, or during a strong wind, unless it were at our backs, skiing was impossible.
Owing to a steeper down grade, the sledges were now commencing to run more freely and improvised brakes were tried, all of which were ineffectual in restraining the dogs. The pace became so hot that a small obstacle would capsize the sledge, causing it to roll over and over down the slope. The dogs, frantically pulling in various directions to keep ahead of the load, became hopelessly entangled in their traces and were dragged along unresistingly until the sledge stopped of its own accord or was arrested by one of us. At length, most of the dogs were allowed to run loose, and, with a man holding on behind and a couple of dogs pulling ahead, the loads were piloted down a steep slope for several miles.
The evening camp was situated at the crest of the last but steepest fall into a wide glacial valley which was clearly seen to sweep northwards past the eastern side of Aurora Peak. Looking back we could define our track winding down in the bed of a long shallow valley, while, uprising on either hand near the rim of the plateau were crevassed bluffs where the ice of the tableland streamed abruptly over the underlying crags.
Ninnis had a touch of snow-blindness which rapidly improved under treatment. The stock cure for this very irritating and painful affection is to place first of all tiny "tabloids" of zinc sulphate and cocaine hydrochloride under the eyelids where they quickly dissolve in the tears, alleviating the smarting, "gritty" sensation which is usually described by the sufferer. He then bandages the eyes and escapes, if he is lucky, into the darkness of his sleeping-bag.
In certain lights one is sure to be attacked more or less severely, and coloured glasses should be worn continually. Unfortunately, goggles are sometimes impracticable on account of the moisture from the breath covering the glasses with an icy film or driving snow clogging them and obscuring the view. For such contingencies narrow slots of various shapes are cut in plates or discs of wood or bone in the Esquimaux fashion. The amount of light reaching the eye can thus be reduced to the limit of moderately clear vision.
The morning of the 20th broke with wind and drift which persisted until after noon. Already everything had been packed up, but, as there was a steep fall in front and crevasses were not far distant, we decided not to start until the air was clear of snow.
When at last a move was possible, it became evident that the dogs could not be trusted to pull the sledges down to the edge of the glacier. So they were tethered to ice-axes while we lowered the sledges one by one, all three checking their speed, assisted by rope brakes round the runners. Finally, the impatient dogs were brought down and harnessed in their accustomed places.
Rapid travelling now commenced over a perfectly smooth surface, sloping gently to the bed of the glacier. Mertz shot ahead on skis, and our column of dogs and sledges followed quickly in his trail.
From this day forward our "order of procession" was as follows:--Behind the forerunner came a team of dogs dragging two sledges joined together by a short length of alpine rope. Bringing up the rear were the rest of the dogs dragging the third sledge. Each team pulled approximately equal weights; the front load being divided between two sledges. Except when taking my turn ahead, I looked after the leading team, Ninnis or Mertz, as the case might be, driving the one behind.
We skirted Aurora Peak on its south-eastern side. The mountain rose to a height of about seventeen hundred feet on our left, its steep sides being almost completely snow-clad.
The wide depression of the Mertz Glacier lay ahead, and on its far side the dim outline of uprising icy slopes was visible, though at the time we could not be certain as to their precise nature.
As the sledges passed Aurora Peak, Blizzard and Ginger Bitch ran alongside. The former had hurt one of her forefeet on the previous day during the "rough-and-tumble" descending into the valley. Ginger Bitch was allowed to go free because she was daily expected to give birth to pups. As she was such a good sledge-dog we could not have afforded to leave her behind at the Hut, and later events proved that the work seemed actually to benefit her, for she was at all times the best puller and the strongest of the pack. However, in permitting both dogs to run loose that afternoon, there was an element of danger which we had not sufficiently appreciated.
Suddenly, without any warning, half of my dogs dropped out of sight, swinging on their harness ropes in a crevasse. Next moment I realized that the sledges were in the centre of a bridge covering a crevasse, twenty-five feet wide, along the edge of which part of the team had broken through.
We spent many anxious moments before they were all hauled to the daylight and the sledge rested on solid ground. There were other crevasses about and almost immediately afterwards Ginger Bitch and Blizzard had broken through into a fissure and were frantically struggling to maintain their hold on the edge. They were speedily rescued; following which Ginger Bitch gave birth to the first of a large litter of pups. After this second accident we decided to camp.
During the morning of November 21 there was a good deal of wind and drift which made travelling rather miserable. Occasionally open crevasses would break the surface of the snow.
When the light at last improved, a nunatak was observed some fifteen miles or more to the south rising out of the glacier--Correll Nunatak. Ahead of us was a glittering line of broken ice, stretching at right angles to our path. Studded about on the icy plain were immense cauldrons, like small craters in appearance. Then an area dotted over with ice mounds approached and crevasses became correspondingly more numerous. The dogs frequently broke through them but were easily extricated in every instance.
Camp was pitched for lunch in the vicinity of many gaping holes leading down into darkness, places where the bridges over large crevasses had fallen in. Mertz prepared the lunch and Ninnis and I went to photograph an open crevasse near by. Returning, we diverged on reaching the back of the tent, he passing round on one side and I on the other. The next instant I heard a bang on the ice and, swinging round, could see nothing of my companion but his head and arms. He had broken through the lid of a crevasse fifteen feet wide and was hanging on to its edge close to where the camera lay damaged on the ice. He was soon dragged into safety. Looking down into the black depths we realized how narrowly he had escaped. As the tent was found to encroach partly on the same crevasse, it may be imagined that we did not dally long over the meal.
In the afternoon the weather became clear and fine, but, as if to offset this, the broken surface became impassable. The region was one of serac where the glacier was puckered up, folded and crushed. After several repulses in what seemed to be promising directions, we were finally forced to camp, having ten miles to our credit.
Whilst Mertz fed the dogs and prepared hoosh, Ninnis and I roped up and went off to search for a passage.
All around, the glacier was pressed up into great folds, two hundred feet in height and between one quarter and a third of a mile from crest to crest. The ridges of the folds were either domes or open rifts partly choked with snow. Precipitous ice-falls and deep cauldrons were encountered everywhere. To the north the glacier flattened out; to the south it was more rugged.
In this chaos we wandered for some miles until a favourable line of advance had been discovered for the march on the following day.
The first three miles, on the 22nd, were over a piece of very dangerous country, after which our prospects improved and we came to the border of a level plain.
There Mertz slipped on his skis, went ahead and set a good pace. Although the sky had become overcast and snow fell fitfully, our progress was rapid towards the rising slopes of the land on the eastern side of the glacier. Over the last three miles of the day's journey the surface was raised in large, pimply masses surrounded by wide fissures. Into one of the fissures, bridged by snow, Ninnis's sledge fell, but fortunately jammed itself just below the surface. As it was, we had a long job getting it up again, having to unpack the sledge in the crevasse until it was light enough to be easily manipulated. Despite the delay, our day's run was sixteen and a half miles.
At 8 A.M. on the 23rd everything was in readiness for a fresh start. Moderate drift and wind descended from the hills and there were yet three miles of hidden perils to be passed. With the object of making our advance less dangerous, various devices were employed.
First of all the towing rope of the rear sledge was secured to the back of the preceding sledge. This arrangement had to be abandoned because the dogs of Ninnis's team persisted in entangling themselves and working independently of the dogs in front. Next, all the sledges were joined together with all the dogs pulling in front. The procession was then so long that it was quite unmanageable on account of the tortuous nature of our track through the labyrinth. In the long run, it was decided that our original method was the best, provided that special precautions were taken over the more hazardous crossings.
The usual procedure was, that the forerunner selected the best crossing of a crevasse, testing it with a ski-stick. The dog teams were then brought up to the spot and the forerunner went over the snow-bridge and stood on the other side, sufficiently far away to allow the first team to cross to him and to clear the crevasse. Then the second team was piloted to safety before the forerunner had resumed his position in front. This precaution was very necessary, for otherwise the dogs in the rear would make a course direct for wherever the front dogs happened to be, cutting across corners and most probably dragging their sledge sideways into a crevasse; the likeliest way to lose it altogether.
Often enough the dogs broke through the snow-bridges on the morning of the 23rd, but only once were matters serious, when Ninnis's sledge, doubtless on account of its extra weight, again broke through a lid of snow and was securely jammed in a crevasse just below the surface.
On this occasion we were in a serious predicament, for the sledge was in such a position that an unskilful movement would have sent it hurling into the chasm below. So the unpacking of the load was a tedious and delicate operation. The freight consisted chiefly of large, soldered tins, packed tightly with dried seal meat. Each of these weighed about ninety pounds and all were most securely roped to the sledge. The sledge was got up and reloaded without the loss of a single tin, and once more we breathed freely.
A valley almost free of crevasses was chosen as the upward track to the plateau. We threw in our weight hauling with the dogs, and had a long, steep drag over furrowed neve, pitching the tent after a day's journey of twelve miles.
On waking up on November 24 I found that my watch had stopped. I had been so tired on the previous evening that I had fallen asleep without remembering to wind it. The penalty of this accident was paid in my being forced to take an extra set of observations in order to start the watch again at correct time relative to the Hut.
Besides the observations for position, necessary for navigation, sets of angles were taken from time to time to fix the positions of objects of interest appearing within the field of view, while the magnetic variation was obtained at intervals. In this work Ninnis always assisted me. Mertz boiled the hypsometer when necessary to ascertain our elevation above sea-level. The meteorological conditions were carefully noted several times each day for future comparison with those of other parties and of Winter Quarters.
The day's work on November 24 brought us high up on the slopes. Away to the north-west Aurora Peak was still visible, standing up like a mighty beacon pointing the way back to the Hut. Below lay the Mertz Glacier extending out to sea as a floating tongue beyond the horizon. Inland, some twenty miles to the south, it mounted up in seamed and riven "cataracts" to a smooth, broad and shallow groove which wound into the ice-cap. Ahead, on our south-east course, the ground still rose, but to the north-east the ice-sheet fell away in long wide valleys, at the extremity of some of which icebergs were visible frozen into distant sea-ice.
The tent was raised at 10 P.M. in a forty-mile wind with light drift; temperature 10 degrees F. The altitude of this camp was two thousand three hundred and fifty feet.
One of the worst features of drift overnight is that sledges and dogs become buried in snow and have to be dug out in the morning. Thus on the 25th it was 10 A.M. before we got away in a strong wind, with flying snow, across fields of sastrugi.
The dogs detested the wind and, as their heads were so near the ground, they must have found the incessant stream of thick drift very tantalizing. The snow became caked over their eyes so that every few minutes they had to scrape it away with their paws or rub their faces on the ground.
We stopped at 6 P.M. after a miserable day, covering sixteen miles in all.
November 26 broke overcast, the light being bad for travelling and the wind still strong. Nevertheless we set out at 10 A.M. through falling snow.
As the day progressed the wind subsided and Mertz was able to put on his skis over a surface which sloped gradually away to the east. The light was diffused uniformly over the irregularities of snow and ice so that depressions only a few feet away were invisible. Black objects, on the other hand, stood out with startling distinctness, and our attention was soon arrested by a hazy, dark patch which appeared in front and to the left. At first there was much doubt as to its nature, but it was soon clear that it must be a group of rocks, apparently situated at a considerable distance. They were subsequently found to be sixty miles away (Organ Pipe Cliffs, near Cape Blake).
Presently our course ended abruptly at the edge of a precipitous fall. We skirted round this for a while, but were ultimately forced to camp owing to the uncertainty of the light and the proximity of several large crevasses.
At 11 P.M. the sky cleared and a better idea could be gained of what lay ahead. In a line between our elevated position and the distant rocky outcrops the ice fell in a steep descent to a broad, glacial valley, undulating and in places traversed by torn masses of serac-ice. We examined the country to the east very carefully with a view to selecting a track for the journey next day and finally resolved to pass to the south of a large ice-capped island--Dixson Island, which was only about ten miles to the north-east, set within Ninnis Glacier near its western border
On the 27th Mertz and I roped up, reconnoitred for a while and returned to the sledges. We then spent several hours in advancing a mile over badly broken ground, arriving at a slope covered with sastrugi and descending steeply for one thousand feet into the bed of the glacier.
In order the more safely to negotiate this, the dogs were all let loose excepting two in each sledge. Even then the sledges were often uncontrollable, rolling over and over many times before the bottom was reached.
When the dogs were re-harnessed it was found that Betli was missing and was not to be seen when we scanned the slopes in our rear with binoculars. It was expected that unless she had fallen into a crevasse she would turn up at the camp that night. However, she did not reappear, and we saw no more of her. Two other dogs, Jappy and Fusilier, had been previously killed, as neither was of any use as a puller. Blizzard, who had been always a great favourite with us, had to be shot next day.
When it had reached the edge of the glacier, our path led over a solid ocean rising and faring in billows, two hundred and fifty feet in height; no doubt caused by the glacier in its northward movement being compressed against the southern side of Dixson Island. Still, the "caravan" made considerable progress, ending with a day's journey of sixteen miles.
During the small hours of November 28 the wind rose to a velocity of sixty miles per hour, but gradually diminished to a twenty-knot breeze as the day advanced. Light snow fell from a sky which was densely clouded.
We still pursued a devious track amid rolling waves of ice, encountering beds of soft snow through which the sledges moved slowly. By 6 P.M. pinnacles and hummocks stood around on every side, and the light was such that one could not distinguish crevasses until he was on top of them. We had to camp and be satisfied with seven miles "to the good." By this time the dogs were in good training and grew noticeably ravenous. In the evening, before they were properly tethered, Shackleton seized a one-week provision bag, ripped it open and ate a block of butter weighing more than two and a half pounds. This was a loss to us, as butter was regarded as a particular delicacy.
The sun was shining brightly next day and it was at once evident that we were in a zone of tumbled and disrupted ice.
For many hours a way was won through a mighty turmoil of serac and over innumerable crevasses with varied fortune. Just before lunch my two sledges were nearly lost through the dogs swinging sharply to one side before the second sledge had cleared a rather rotten snow-bridge. I was up with the dogs at the time, and the first intimation I received of an accident was on seeing the dogs and front sledge being dragged backwards; the rear sledge was hanging vertically in a crevasse. Exerting all my strength I held back the front sledge, and in a few moments was joined by Ninnis and Mertz, who soon drove a pick and ice-axe down between the runners and ran out an anchoring rope.
It was a ticklish business recovering the sledge which hung suspended in the crevasse. It could not be lifted vertically as its bow was caught in a V-shaped cornice formed by an overhanging mass of snow. To add to our troubles the ground all about the place was precarious and unsafe.
Mertz and Ninnis therefore lowered me down and I attached a rope to the tail-end of the sledge. The bow-rope and tail-rope were then manipulated alternately until the bow of the sledge was manoeuvred slowly through the gaping hole in the snow-lid and was finally hauled up on to level ground. No more remarkable test of the efficiency of the sledge straps and the compactness of the load could have been made.
After lunch Mertz ascended a high point and was able to trace out a route which conducted us in a few hours to a better surface.
We were now at an elevation of from four hundred to five hundred feet above sea-level, running across a beam-wind on our right which increased during the afternoon. A rising blizzard made it necessary to camp after a day's run of ten and one-third miles.
The wind blew up to seventy miles an hour during the night, but eased in strength early on November 30. At 10 A.M. we tried to make a start, but the dogs refused to face the drift. On the wind becoming gusty in the afternoon, it was once more possible to travel, and we set out.
Dense drift was still to be seen pouring over the highlands to the south-east. Above the glacier ahead whirlies, out-lined in high revolving columns of snow, "stalked about" in their wayward courses.
The sledges ran through a sea of crevassed, blue ice, over ridges and past open chasms. Seven miles brought us to the "foot-hills" on the eastern border of the Ninnis Glacier, where we pitched camp.
The first day of December was still and hot, with brilliant sunshine. The shade temperature reached 34 degrees F. and the snow became so sticky that it was as much as we and the dogs could do to move the sledges up the slopes. As the evening lengthened and the sun sank lower the surface froze hard and our toil was lightened. At midnight we reached an altitude of nine hundred feet.
December 2 was another warm, bright day. The surface was atrociously bad; hard, sharp sastrugi, never less than two feet high and in many instances three feet six inches from crest to trough. The dogs were not able to exert a united pull for there were never more than half of them in action at a time.
Once more we were at a comparatively high altitude and a fine view presented itself to the north. One could look back to the mainland slopes descending on the western side of the Ninnis Glacier. Then the glacier, tumultuous and broken, was seen to extend far out into the frozen sea and, sweeping round to the north-east, the eye ranged over a great expanse of floe-ice dotted with bergs. To the east there was a precipitous coastline of dark rock which for a while we thought of visiting. But then it seemed likely that Madigan's party would reach as far east, so we set our faces once more to the rising plateau in the south-east.
At midnight the sun was peering over the southern sky-line, and we halted at an elevation of one thousand five hundred and fifty feet, having covered eight and a half miles in the day. The temperature was 5 degrees F.
"December 3.--We were not long on the way before the sky became overcast and light snow fell. The surface was becoming flatter. Camp was pitched at 11 P.M. after eleven and two-thirds miles.
"December 4.--Another day of bad light but the surface improved and good headway was made on an easterly course at an elevation of between two thousand and two thousand eight hundred feet. The crevasses were practically past. The day's march was fifteen miles.
"December 5.--A bad day; overcast, snowing and a gale of wind from the east-south-east. However, we plugged on blindly into it until 7.30 P.M. and then camped, having done eleven and a half miles.
"December 6, 7 and 8.--During these days a dense blizzard raged, the wind reaching seventy miles per hour. There was nothing to do but lie in our bags and think out plans for the future. Each morning Ninnis and Mertz took it in turns to go out and feed their charges, who were snugly buried in the deep snow.
"One day in the sleeping-bag does not come amiss after long marches, but three days on end is enough to bore any one thoroughly.
"Ninnis was not so badly off with a volume of Thackeray, but Mertz had come to the end of a small edition of 'Sherlock Holmes' when blizzard-bound near Aladdin's Cave, and his only diversion on these days was to recite passages from memory for our mutual benefit."
I was troubled with an inflammation in the face just at this time, while Ninnis suffered pain owing to a "whitlow" on one of his fingers.
As usual the food ration was reduced. This caused us to have more than ordinarily vivid dreams. I happened to be awake one night when Ninnis was sledging in imagination, vociferously shouting, "Hike, hike," to the dogs; our equivalent of the usual "Mush, mush."
Despite considerable wind and drift we got away at 8 A.M. on December 9. The sky was overcast and there was nothing to be seen except a soft carpet of newly fallen snow into which we sank half-way to the knees. The sledges ran deeply and heavily so that the dogs had to be assisted. Ahead Mertz glided along triumphant, for it was on such occasions that skis were of the greatest assistance to him.
During the day a snow petrel circled above us for a while and then returned to the north.
The course was due east at an elevation of two thousand three hundred feet and the total distance we threw behind during the day was sixteen and a half miles.
On the 10th light wind and low drift were the order of things. Our spirits rose when the sky cleared and a slight down grade commenced.
During the morning Ninnis drew our attention to what appeared to be small ice-capped islets fringing the coast, but the distance was too great for us to be sure of their exact nature. Out near the verge of the horizon a tract of frozen sea with scattered bergs could be seen.
Next day more features were distinguishable. The coast was seen to run in a north-easterly direction as a long peninsula ending in a sharp cape--Cape Freshfield. The north appeared to be filled with frozen sea though we could not be certain that it was not dense pack-ice. Little did we know that Madigan's party, about a week later, would be marching over the frozen sea towards Cape Freshfield in the north-east.
At 10 P.M. on the 11th, at an altitude of one thousand eight hundred feet, the highland we were traversing fell away rapidly and sea-ice opened up directly in front of us. The coastal downfalls to the south-east fell in rugged masses to a vertical barrier, off the seaward face of which large, tabular bergs were grouped within environing floe.
Throughout December 12 a somewhat irregular course was made to the south-east and south to avoid the broken area ahead. We had had enough of crevasses and wished to be clear of serac-ice in the future.
For some days Ninnis had been enduring the throbbing pain of a whitlow and had not been having sufficient sleep. He always did his share of the work and had undoubtedly borne a great deal of pain without showing it. On several nights I noticed that he sat up in his sleeping-bag for hours puffing away at a pipe or reading. At last the pain became so acute that he asked me to lance his finger. This was successfully accomplished after breakfast on the 13th and during the day he had much relief.
While Ninnis rested before we made a start, Mertz and I re-arranged the sledges and their loads. A third sledge was no longer necessary, so the one usually driven by Ninnis, which had been damaged, was discarded and all the gear was divided between the other two sledges in nearly equal amounts. When the work was completed, the rear sledge carried an extra weight of fifty pounds. As, however, both food for men and dogs were to come from it, we reckoned that this superadded load would soon diminish.
On we went, during the afternoon, up a steep ascent. Crevasses were so numerous that we took measures to vent them. Some were as much as a hundred feet in width, filled with snow; others were great open holes or like huge cauldrons. Close to the windward edge of some of the latter high ramps of neve with bluff faces on the windward side stood up like monoliths reaching twenty-five feet in maximum height.
In the evening a field of neve was reached and we felt more placid after the anxiety of the preceding hours.
During the passage of a snow-filled valley a dull, booming sound like the noise of far-distant cannon was heard. It was evidently connected with the subsidence of large areas of the surface crust. Apparently large cavities had formed beneath the snow and the weight of ourselves and the sledges caused the crust to sink and the air to be expelled.
The sun appeared late in the day and, as it was almost calm, the last few hours of marching were very pleasant. At midnight we camped at an altitude of one thousand nine hundred feet.
A light east-south-east wind was blowing as the sledges started away eastward on the morning of December 14. The weather was sunny and the temperature registered 21 degrees F.
Mertz and I were happy to know that Ninnis had slept well and was feeling much better.
Our march was interrupted at noon by a latitude observation, after which Mertz went ahead on skis singing his student songs. The dogs rose to the occasion and pulled eagerly and well. Everything was for once in harmony and the time was at hand when we should turn our faces homewards.
Mertz was well in advance of us when I noticed him hold up his ski-stick and then go on. This was a signal for something unusual so, as I approached the vicinity, I looked out for crevasses or some other explanation of his action. As a matter of fact crevasses were not expected, since we were on a smooth surface of neve well to the southward of the broken coastal slopes. On reaching the spot where Mertz had signalled and seeing no sign of any irregularity, I jumped on to the sledge, got out the book of tables and commenced to figure out the latitude observation taken on that day. Glancing at the ground a moment after, I noticed the faint indication of a crevasse. It was but one of many hundred similar ones we had crossed and had no specially dangerous appearance, but still I turned quickly round, called out a warning word to Ninnis and then dismissed it from my thoughts.
Ninnis, who was walking along by the side of his sledge, close behind my own, heard the warning, for in my backward glance I noticed that he immediately swung the leading dogs so as to cross the crevasse squarely instead of diagonally as I had done. I then went on with my work.
There was no sound from behind except a faint, plaintive whine from one of the dogs which I imagined was in reply to a touch from Ninnis's whip. I remember addressing myself to George, the laziest dog in my own team, saying, "You will be getting a little of that, too, George, if you are not careful."
When I next looked back, it was in response to the anxious gaze of Mertz who had turned round and halted in his tracks. Behind me, nothing met the eye but my own sledge tracks running back in the distance. Where were Ninnis and his sledge?
I hastened back along the trail thinking that a rise in the ground obscured the view. There was no such good fortune, however, for I came to a gaping hole in the surface about eleven feet wide. The lid of a crevasse had broken in; two sledge tracks led up to it on the far side but only one continued on the other side.
Frantically waving to Mertz to bring up my sledge, upon which there was some alpine rope, I leaned over and shouted into the dark depths below. No sound came back but the moaning of a dog, caught on a shelf just visible one hundred and fifty feet below. The poor creature appeared to have broken its back, for it was attempting to sit up with the front part of its body while the hinder portion lay limp. Another dog lay motionless by its side. Close by was what appeared in the gloom to be the remains of the tent and a canvas tank containing food for three men for a fortnight.
We broke back the edge of the neve lid and took turns leaning over secured by a rope, calling into the darkness in the hope that our companion might be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly but no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to moan and lay without a movement. A chill draught was blowing out of the abyss. We felt that there was little hope.
Why had the first sledge escaped the crevasse? It seemed that I had been fortunate, because my sledge had crossed diagonally, with a greater chance of breaking the snow-lid. The sledges were within thirty pounds of the same weight. The explanation appeared to be that Ninnis had walked by the side of his sledge, whereas I had crossed it sitting on the sledge. The whole weight of a man's body bearing on his foot is a formidable load and no doubt was sufficient to smash the arch of the roof.
By means of a fishing line we ascertained that it was one hundred and fifty feet sheer to the ledge on which the remains were seen; on either side the crevasse descended into blackness. It seemed so very far down there and the dogs looked so small that we got out the field glasses, but could make out nothing more by their aid.
All our available rope was tied together but the total length was insufficient to reach the ledge and any idea of going below to investigate and to secure some of the food had to be abandoned.
Stunned by the unexpectedness of it all and having exhausted the few appliances we carried for such a contingency, we felt helpless. In such moments action is the only tolerable thing, and if there had been any expedient however hazardous which might have been tried, we should have taken all and more than the risk. Stricken dumb with the pity of it and heavy at heart, we turned our minds mechanically to what lay nearest at hand.
There were rations on the other sledge, and we found that there was a bare one and a half weeks' food for ourselves and nothing at all for the dogs. Part of the provisions consisted of raisins and almonds which had been taken as extras or "perks," as they were usually called.
Among other losses there were both spade and ice-axe, but fortunately a spare tent-cover was saved. Mertz's burberry trousers had gone down with the sledge and the best substitute he could get was a pair of thick Jaeger woollen under-trousers from the spare clothing we possessed.
Later in the afternoon Mertz and I went ahead to a higher point in order to obtain a better view of our surroundings. At a point two thousand four hundred feet above sea-level and three hundred and fifteen and three-quarter miles eastward from the Hut, a complete observation for position and magnetic azimuth was taken.
The coastal slopes were fearfully broken and scaured in their descent to the sea, which was frozen out to the horizon. No islands were observed or anything which could correspond with the land marked by Wilkes as existing so much farther to the north. Patches of "water sky" were visible in two places in the far distance. As we stood looking north a Wilson petrel suddenly appeared and after flitting about for a short time departed.
We returned to the crevasse and packed the remaining sledge, discarding everything unnecessary so as to reduce the weight of the load. A thin soup was made by boiling up all the old food-bags which could be found. The dogs were given some worn-out fur mitts, finnesko and several spare raw hide straps, all of which they devoured.
We still continued to call down into the crevasse at regular intervals in case our companion might not have been killed outright and, in the meantime, have become conscious. There was no reply.
A weight was lowered on the fishing line as far as the dog which had earlier shown some signs of life, but there was no response. All were dead, swallowed up in an instant.
When comrades tramp the road to anywhere through a lonely blizzard-ridden land in hunger, want and weariness the interests, ties and fates of each are interwoven in a wondrous fabric of friendship and affection. The shock of Ninnis's death struck home and deeply stirred us.
He was a fine fellow and a born soldier--and the end:--
Life--give me life until the end, That at the very top of being, The battle spirit shouting in my blood, Out of very reddest hell of the fight I may be snatched and flung Into the everlasting lull, The Immortal, Incommunicable Dream.
At 9 P.M. we stood by the side of the crevasse and I read the burial service. Then Mertz shook me by the hand with a short "Thank you!" and we turned away to harness up the dogs.
XIII. TOIL AND TRIBULATION
The homeward track! A few days ago--only few hours ago-our hearts had beat hopefully at the prospect and there was no hint of this, the overwhelming tragedy. Our fellow, comrade, chum, in a woeful instant, buried in the bowels of the awful glacier. We could not think of it; we strove to forget it in the necessity of work, but we knew that the truth would assuredly enter our souls in the lonely days to come. It was to be a fight with Death and the great Providence would decide the issue.
On the outward journey we had left no depots of provisions en route, for it was our bad fortune to meet such impossible country that we had decided to make a circuit on our return to Winter Quarters sufficiently far inland to avoid the coastal irregularities. As a matter of fact, on the very day of the calamity, preparations had been made to cache most of the food within twenty-four hours, as during the last few days of the journey we were to make a dash to our "farthest east" point. Such were the plans, and now we were ranged against unexpected odds.
With regard to the dogs, there were six very miserable animals left. The best of them had been drafted into the rear team, as it was expected that if an accident happened through the collapse of a snow-bridge the first sledge would most probably suffer. For the same reason most of the food and other indispensable articles had been carried on the rear sledge.
All the dogs which had perished were big and powerful; Basilisk, Ginger Bitch, Shackleton, Castor, Franklin and John Bull. We had fully anticipated that those at least would come back alive, at the expense of the six dogs in my sledge.
A silent farewell!--and we started back, aiming to reach our camping-ground on December 12 before a snowstorm intervened, as several things had been left there which would be of use to us in our straitened stances. The weather still held good and there were no signs of approaching snow or wind. So Mertz went ahead on skis, while we plodded slowly up the hills and dashed recklessly down them. During the descents I sat on the sledge and we slid over long crevassed slopes in a wild fashion, almost with a languid feeling that the next one would probably swallow us up. But we did not much care then, as it was too soon after losing our friend.
At 2.30 A.M. on December 15 the discarded sledge and broken spade came into sight. On reaching them, Mertz cut a runner of the broken sledge into two pieces which were used in conjunction with his skis as a framework on which to pitch the spare tent-cover; our only tent and poles having been lost. Each time the makeshift shelter was erected, these props had to be carefully lashed together at the apex, which stood four feet from the ground. Inside, there was just room for two one-man sleeping-bags on the floor. However, only one man at a time could move about and neither of us could ever rise above a sitting posture. Still, it was a shelter which protected us from the bad weather, and, with plenty of snow blocks piled around it, was wonderfully resistant to the wind.
When we retired to rest, it was not to sleep but to think out the best plan for the return journey.
It was obvious that a descent to the frozen sea would be dangerous on account of the heavily crevassed nature of the falling glacier, delay would undoubtedly be caused and our distance from the Hut would be increased. To decide definitely for the sea-ice would be to take other risks as well, since, from the altitude at which we were placed, we could not be sure that the floe-ice which covered the sea would provide a good travelling surface. In any case it was likely to be on the point of breaking up, for the season was nearing midsummer. On the other hand, there was on the sea-ice a chance of obtaining seals for food.
After due consideration we resolved to follow the shorter route, returning inland over the plateau, for it was reckoned that if the weather were reasonable we might win through to Winter Quarters with one and a half weeks' rations and the six dogs which still remained, provided we ate the dogs to eke out our provisions. Fortunately neither the cooker nor the kerosene had been lost.
George, the poorest of the dogs, was killed and partly fed to the others, partly kept for ourselves. The meat was roughly fried on the lid of the aluminium cooker, an operation which resulted in little more than scorching the surface. On the whole it was voted good though it had a strong, musty taste and was so stringy that it could not be properly chewed.
As both mugs and spoons had been lost, I made two pannikins out of tins in which cartridges and matches had been packed, and Mertz carved wooden spoons out of a portion of the broken sledge. At this camp he also spliced the handle of the broken shovel which had been picked up, so as to make it temporarily serviceable.
It was midsummer, and therefore we found it easier to drag the sledge over the snow at night when the surface was frozen hard. Camp was not finally broken until 6 P.M., when the long and painful return journey commenced.
For fourteen miles the way led up rising snow slopes to the north-west until an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet had been reached. After that, variable grades and flat country were met. Though the sledge was light, the dogs required helping and progress was slow. The midnight sun shone low in the south, and we tramped on through the morning hours, anxious to reduce the miles which lay ahead.
Early on December 16 the sky became rapidly overcast. The snowy land and the snowy sky merged to form an enclosed trap, as it seemed to us, while showers of snow fell. There were no shadows to create contrast; it was impossible to distinguish even the detail of the ground underfoot. We stumbled over unseen ridges of the hard neve, our gaze straining forward. The air was so still that advantage was taken of the calm to light the primus and melt some snow in the lee of the sledge. The water, to which were added a few drops of primus alcohol, helped to assuage our thirst.
The erection of the makeshift tent was a long and tedious operation, and so, on our return marches, we never again took any refreshment during the day's work excepting on this occasion.
At 6 A.M., having done twenty miles and ascended to an elevation of about two thousand five hundred feet, we pitched camp.
There was very little sleep for me that day for I had an unusually bad attack of snow-blindness. During the time that we rested in the bags Mertz treated one of my eyes three times, the other twice with zinc sulphate and cocaine.
On account of the smallness of the tent a great deal of time was absorbed in preparations for "turning in" and for getting away from each camp. Thus, although we rose before 6 P.M. on December 16, the start was not made until 8.30 P.M., notwithstanding the fact that the meal was of the "sketchiest" character.
On that night ours was a mournful procession; the sky thickly clouded, snow falling, I with one eye bandaged and the dog Johnson broken down and strapped on top of the load on the sledge. There was scarcely a sound; only the rustle of the thick, soft snow as we pushed on, weary but full of hope. The dogs dumbly pressed forward in their harness, forlorn but eager to follow. Their weight now told little upon the sledge, the work mainly falling upon ourselves. Mertz was tempted to try hauling on skis, but came to the conclusion that it did not pay and thenceforth never again used them.
Close to the Magnetic Pole as we were, the compass was of little use, and to steer a straight course to the west without ever seeing anything of the surroundings was a difficult task. The only check upon the correctness of the bearing was the direction in which trended the old hard winter sastrugi, channelled out along a line running almost north and south. The newly fallen snow obliterated these, and frequent halts had to be called in order to investigate the buried surface.
At 2 A.M. on the 17th we had only covered eleven miles when we stopped to camp. Then Mertz shot and cut up Johnson while I prepared the supper.
Johnson had always been a very faithful, hard-working and willing beast, with rather droll ways of his own, and we were sorry that his end should come so soon. He could never be accused of being a handsome dog, in fact he was generally disreputable and dirty.
All the dogs were miserable and thin when they reached the stage of extreme exhaustion. Their meat was tough, stringy and without a vestige of fat. For a change we sometimes chopped it up finely, mixed it with a little pemmican, and brought all to the boil in a large pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to satisfy our appetites. Only a few ounces were used of the stock of ordinary food, to which was added a portion of dog's meat, never large, for each animal yielded so very little, and the major part was fed to the surviving dogs. They crunched the bones and ate the skin, until nothing remained.
A fresh start was made at 7.30 P.M. and a wretched, trying night was spent, when we marched without a break for twelve and a half hours. Overhead there was a dense pall of nimbus from which snow fell at intervals. None of the dogs except Ginger gave any help with the load, and Mary was so worn out that she had to be carried on the sledge. Poor Mary had been a splendid dog, but we had to kill her at the camp in the morning.
After a run of eighteen and a half miles we halted at 8 A.M. on December 18.
At 5.30 P.M. a light south-easter blew and snow fell from an overcast sky. Soon after a start was made, it became apparent that a descent was commencing. In this locality the country had been swept by wind, for none of the recent snow settled on the surface. The sastrugi were high and hard, and over them we bumped, slipping and falling in the uncertain light. We could not endure this kind of travelling for long and resolved to camp shortly after midnight, intending to go on when the day had advanced further and the light was stronger.
"December 19.--Up at noon and tried a few more miles in the snow-glare. Later in the afternoon the sky began to break and we picked our way with less difficulty. Camped at 5 P.M., having done only twelve miles one thousand and fifty yards since the morning of December 18.
"Up at 8 P.M. again, almost calm and sun shining. Still continuing a westerly course we dropped several hundred feet, marching over rough, slippery fields of sastrugi."
In the early morning hours of the 20th the surface changed to ice and occasional crevasses appeared. It was clear that we had arrived at the head of the Ninnis Glacier above the zone of serac we had traversed on the outward journey. It was very satisfactory to know this; to be certain that some landmark had been seen and recognized.
Soon after this discovery we came near losing Haldane, the big grey wolf, in a crevasse. Miserably thin from starvation the wretched dogs no longer filled their harness. As we pulled up Haldane, after he had broken into a deep, sheer-walled crevasse, his harness slipped off just as he reached the top. It was just possible to seize hold of his hair at that moment and to land him safely, otherwise we should have lost many days' rations.
He took to the harness once more but soon became uncertain in his footsteps, staggered along and then tottered and fell. Poor brutes! that was the way they all gave in--pulling till they dropped.
We camped at 4 A.M., thinking that a rest would revive Haldane. Inside the tent some snow was thawed, and we drank the water with an addition of a little primus spirit. A temperature reading showed-1 degree F.
Outside, the hungry huskies moaned unceasingly until we could bear to hear them no longer. The tent was struck and we set off once more.
Haldane was strapped on the sledge as he could not walk. He had not eaten the food we had given him, because his jaws seemed too weak to bite. He had just nursed it between his paws and licked it.
Before the dogs became as weak as this, great care had to be taken in tethering them at each camp so as to prevent them from gnawing the wood of the sledge, the straps or, in fact, anything at all. Every time we were ready for a fresh start they seemed to regain their old strength, for they struggled and fought to seize any scraps, however useless, left on the ground.
The day's march was completed at 10.30 A.M. and fourteen and a half miles lay behind.
"We were up again at 11.20 P.M. Sky clear; fifteen-mile breeze from the south-south-east and the temperature 3 degrees F. By midnight there was a thirty-mile wind and low, flying drift.
"December 21.--The night-march was a miserable one. The only thing which helped to relieve it was that for a moment Dixson Island was miraged up in the north, and we felt that we had met an old friend, which means a lot in this icy desolation. The surface was furrowed by hard, sharp sastrugi.
"We camped at 9 A.M. after only eleven miles. Haldane was finished off before we retired.
"We were up again at 9 P.M., and when a start was made at 11 P.M. there was a strong south-south-east wind blowing, with low drift; temperature, zero Fahr.
"December 22.--The surface of hard, polished sastrugi caused many falls. The track was undulating, rising in one case several hundred feet and finally falling in a long slope.
"Pavlova gave in late in the march and was taken on the sledge.
"Camped at 6.40 A.M. in a forty-mile wind with low drift. Distance marched was twelve miles one thousand four hundred yards.
"Before turning in, we effected sundry repairs. Mertz re-spliced the handle of the shovel which had broken apart and I riveted the broken spindle of the sledge-meter. The mechanism of the latter had frozen during the previous day's halt, and, on being started, its spindle had broken off short. It was a long and tedious job tapping at the steed with a toy hammer, but the rivet held miraculously for the rest of the journey.
"Up at 11.30 P.M., a moderate breeze blowing, overcast sky, light snow falling."
On December 28 an uphill march commenced which was rendered very heavy by the depth of the soft snow. Pavlova had to be carried on the sledge.
Suddenly, gaping crevasses appeared dimly through the falling snow which surrounded us like a blanket. There was nothing to do but camp, though it was only 4.30 A.M., and we had covered but five miles one thousand two hundred and thirty yards.
Pavlova was killed and we made a very acceptable soup from her bones. In view of the dark outlook, our ration of food had to be still further cut down. We had no proper sleep, hunger gnawing at us all the time, and the question of food was for ever in our thoughts. Dozing in the fur bags, we dreamed of gorgeous "spreads" and dinner-parties at home. Tramping along through the snow, we racked our brains thinking of how to make the most of the meagre quantity of dogs' meat at hand.
The supply of kerosene for the primus stove promised to be ample, for none of it had been lost in the accident. We found that it was worth while spending some time in boiling the dogs' meat thoroughly. Thus a tasty soup was prepared as well as a supply of edible meat in which the muscular tissue and the gristle were reduced to the consistency of a jelly. The paws took longest of all to cook, but, treated to lengthy stewing, they became quite digestible.
On December 24 we were up at 8 A.M. just as the sun commenced to gleam through clouds. The light was rather bad, and snow fell as the track zigzagged about among many crevasses; but suddenly the sun broke forth. The sledge was crossing a surface of deep snow which soon became so sticky that the load would scarcely move. At last a halt was made after four miles, and we waited for the evening, when the surface was expected to harden.
A small prion visited us but went off in a moment. It is very remarkable how far some Antarctic sea-birds may wander inland, apparently at such a great distance from anything which should interest them. We were then more than one hundred miles south of the open sea. As the bird flew away, we watched it until it disappeared in the north, wishing that we too had wings to cross the interminable plateau ahead.
Lying in the sleeping-bag that day I dreamt that I visited a confectioner's shop. All the wares that were displayed measured feet in diameter. I purchased an enormous delicacy just as one would buy a bun under ordinary stances. I remember paying the money over the counter, but something happened before I received what I had chosen. When I realized the omission I was out in the street, and, being greatly disappointed, went back to the shop, but found the door shut and "early closing" written on it.
Though a good daily average had been maintained on the march whenever conditions were at all favourable, the continuance of bad weather and the undoubtedly weaker state in which we found ourselves made it imperative to dispense with all but the barest necessities. Thus the theodolite was the only instrument retained, and the camera, photographic films (exposed and unexposed), hypsometer, thermometers, rifle, ammunition and other sundries were all thrown away. The frame of the tent was made lighter by constructing two poles, each four feet high, from the telescopic theodolite legs, the heavier pieces of sledge-runner being discarded.
We were up at 11 P.M. on December 24, but so much time was absorbed in making a dog-stew for Christmas that it was not till 2.80 A.M. that we got under way. We wished each other happier Christmases in the future, and divided two scraps of biscuit which I found in my spare kit-bag; relics of better days.
The surface was a moderately good one of undulating, hard sastrugi, and, as the course had been altered to north-west, the southerly wind helped us along. The sun shone brightly, and only for the wind and the low drift we might have felt tolerably comfortable. On our right, down within the shallow depression of the Ninnis Glacier, the low outline of Dixson Island, forty miles to the north, could be seen miraged up on the horizon.
The tent was raised at 9.30 A.M. after a run of eleven miles one hundred and seventy-six yards. An ounce each of butter was served out from our small stock to give a festive touch to the dog-stew.
At noon I took an observation for latitude, and, after taking a bearing on to Dixson Island, computed that the distance in an air-line to Winter Quarters was one hundred and sixty miles.
"December 26.--Got away at 2 A.M.; the surface undulating and hummocky with occasional beds of soft snow. Sun shining, wind ranged between thirty and forty miles per hour with much low drift; cold; camped about noon having done ten miles five hundred and twenty-eight yards.
"We have reached the western side of the Ninnis Glacier. Ahead are rising slopes, but we look forward to assistance from the wind in the ascent.
"I was again troubled with a touch of snow-blindness, but it responded to the usual treatment.
"At 11 P.M. we were at it again,but what with preparing dog-stew, packing up within the limited area of the tent and experimenting with a sail, it was five hours before the march commenced.
"The sail was the tent-cover, attached to the top of one ski lashed vertically as a mast and secured below to the other ski, lashed across the sledge as a boom."
A start was made at 4 A.M. on the 27th in a thirty-mile wind accompanied by low drift. The surface was smooth but grew unexpectedly soft at intervals, while the ascent soon began to tell on us. Though the work was laborious, notwithstanding some aid from the sail, the bright sunlight kept up our spirits, and, whenever a halt was called for a few minutes' spell, the conversation invariably turned upon the subject of food and what we should do on arrival on board the 'Aurora'.
At noon the sledge-meter showed nine miles one thousand four hundred yards, and we agreed to halt and pitch camp.
The wind had fallen off considerably, and in the brilliant sunshine it was comparatively warm in the tent. The addition of the heat from the primus stove, kept burning for an unusually long time during the preparation of the meat, caused a thaw of drift-snow which became lodged on the lee side of the tent. Thus we had frequently to put up with an unwelcome drip. Moisture came from the floor also, as there was no floor-cloth, and the sleeping-bags were soon very wet and soggy. As soon as the cooking was finished, the tent cooled off and the wet walls froze and became stiff with icy cakes.
At this time we were eating largely of the dogs' meat, to which was added one or two ounces of chocolate or raisins, three or four ounces of pemmican and biscuit mixed together, and, as a beverage, very dilute cocoa. The total weight of solid food consumed by each man per day was approximately fourteen ounces. Our small supply of butter and glaxo was saved for emergency, while a few tea-bags which remained were boiled over and over again.
The march commenced on December 28 at 3 A.M. in a thirty-mile wind accompanied by light drift. Overhead there was a wild sky which augured badly for the next few days. It was cold work raising the sail, and we were glad to be marching.
Our faithful retainer Ginger could walk no longer and was strapped on the sledge. She was the last of the dogs and had been some sort of a help until a few days before. We were sad when it came to finishing her off.
On account of the steep up grade and the weight of Ginger on the sledge, we camped at 7.15 A.M. after only four miles one thousand two hundred and thirty yards.
We had breakfast off Ginger's skull and brain. I can never forget the occasion. As there was nothing available to divide it, the skull was boiled whole. Then the right and left halves were drawn for by the old and well-established sledging practice of "shut-eye," after which we took it in turns eating to the middle line, passing the skull from one to the other. The brain was afterwards scooped out with a wooden spoon.
On sledging journeys it is usual to apportion all food-stuffs in as nearly even halves as possible. Then one man turns away and another, pointing to a heap, asks "Whose?" The reply from the one not looking is "Yours" or "Mine" as the case may be. Thus an impartial and satisfactory division of the rations is made.
After the meal I went on cooking more meat so as to have a supply in readiness for eating. It was not till 2 P.M. that the second lot was finished. The task was very trying, for I had to sit up on the floor of the tent for hours in a cramped position, continually attending to the cooker, while Mertz in his Sleeping-bag was just accommodated within the limited space which remained. The tent was too small either to lie down during the operation or to sit up comfortably on a sleeping-bag.
At 9.30 P.M. Mertz rose to take a turn at the cooking, and at 11 P.M. I joined him at "breakfast."
At this time a kind of daily cycle was noted in the weather. It was always calmest between 4 P.M. and 6 P.M. During the evening hours the wind increased until it reached a maximum between four and six o'clock next morning, after which it fell off gradually.
We were away at 2.30 A.M. on the 29th in a thirty-mile wind which raised a light drift. The sail was found to be of great assistance over a surface which rose in terraces of fifty to one hundred feet in height, occurring every one to one and a half miles. This march lasted for six hours, during which we covered seven miles five hundred and twenty-eight yards.
On December 30 the ascent continued and the wind was still in the "thirties." After several hours we overtopped the last terrace and stood on flat ground--the crest of a ridge.
Tramping over the plateau, where reigns the desolation of the outer worlds, in solitude at once ominous and weird, one is free to roam in imagination through the wide realm of human experience to the bounds of the great Beyond. One is in the midst of infinities--the infinity of the dazzling white plateau, the infinity of the dome above, the infinity of the time past since these things had birth, and the infinity of the time to come before they shall have fulfilled the Purpose for which they were created. We, in the midst of the illimitable, could feel with Marcus Aurelius that "Of life, the time is a point."
By 9 A.M. we had accomplished a splendid march of fifteen miles three hundred and fifty yards, but the satisfaction we should have felt at making such an inroad on the huge task before us was damped by the fact that I suddenly became aware that Mertz was not as cheerful as usual. I was at a loss to know the reason, for he was always such a bright and companionable fellow.
At 10.15 P.M. the sky had become overcast, snow was falling and a strong wind was blowing. We decided to wait for better conditions.
On New Year's Eve at 5.30 A.M. the wind was not so strong, so we got up and prepared for the start.
Mertz said that he felt the dogs' meat was not doing him much good and suggested that we should give it up for a time and eat a small ration of the ordinary sledging food, of which we had still some days' supply carefully husbanded. I agreed to do this and we made our first experiment on that day. The ration tasted very sweet compared with dogs' meat and was so scanty in amount that it left one painfully empty.
The light was so atrocious for marching that, after stumbling along for two and a half miles, we were obliged to give up the attempt and camp, spending the day in sleeping-bags.
In the evening at 9.30 P.M. the sun appeared for a brief moment and the wind subsided. Another stage was therefore attempted but at considerable cost, for we staggered along in the bewildering light, continually falling over unseen sastrugi. The surface was undulating with a tendency to down grades. Two sets of sastrugi were found crossing one another, and, in the absence of the sun, we could not be sure of the course, so the camp was pitched niter five miles.
"January 1, 1913.--Outside, an overcast sky and falling snow. Mertz was not up to his usual form and we decided not to attempt blundering along in the bad light, believing that the rest would be advantageous to him.
"He did not complain at all except of the dampness of his sleeping-bag, though when I questioned him particularly he admitted that he had pains in the abdomen. As I had a continuous gnawing sensation in the stomach, I took it that he had the same, possibly more acute.
"After New Year's Day he expressed a dislike to biscuit, which seemed rather strange. Then he suddenly had a desire for glaxo and our small store was made over to him, I taking a considerable ration of the dogs' meat in exchange.
"It was no use, however, for when we tried to cover a few more miles the exertion told very heavily on him, and it was plain that he was in a more serious condition than myself.
"January 2.--The same abominable weather. We eat only a few ounces of chocolate each day.
"January 3.--In the evening the sky broke and the sun looked through the clouds. We were not long in packing up and getting on the way. The night was chilly and Mertz got frost-bitten fingers, so camp was pitched after four miles one thousand two hundred and thirty yards.
"January 4.--The sun was shining and we had intended rising at 10 A.M., but Mertz was not well and thought that the rest would be good for him. I spent the time improving some of the gear, mending Mertz's clothing and cooking a quantity of the meat.
"January 5.--The sky was overcast, snow was falling, and there was a strong wind. Mertz suggested that as the conditions were so bad we should delay another day.
"Lying in the damp bags was wretched and was not doing either of us any good, but what was to be done? Outside, the conditions were abominable. My companion was evidently weaker than I, and it was apparently quite true that he was not making much of the dogs' meat.
"January 6.--A better day but the sky remained overcast. Mertz agreed to try another stage."
The grade was slightly downhill and the wind well behind. Unfortunately the surface was slippery and irregular and falls were frequent. These told very much upon my companion until, after consistently demurring, he at last consented to ride on the sledge. With the wind blowing behind us, it required no great exertion to bring the load along, though it would often pull up suddenly against sastrugi. After we had covered two and a half miles, Mertz became so cold through inaction in the wind that there was nothing to do but pitch the tent.
Mertz appeared to be depressed and, after the short meal, sank back into his bag without saying much. Occasionally, during the day, I would ask him how he felt, or we would return to the old subject of food. It was agreed that on our arrival on board the 'Aurora' Mertz was to make penguin omelettes, for we had never forgotten the excellence of those we had eaten just before leaving the Hut.
Reviewing the situation, I found that we were one hundred miles south-east of Winter Quarters where food and plenty awaited us. At the time we had still ordinary rations for several days. How short a distance it would seem to the vigorous, but what a lengthy journey for the weak and famished!
The skin was peeling off our bodies and a very poor substitute remained which burst readily and rubbed raw in many places. One day, I remember, Mertz ejaculated, "Just a moment," and, reaching over, lifted from my ear a perfect skin-cast. I was able to do the same for him. As we never took off our clothes, the peelings of hair and skin from our bodies worked down into our under-trousers and socks, and regular clearances were made.
During the evening of the 6th I made the following note in my diary:
"A long and wearisome night. If only I could get on; but I must stop with Xavier. He does not appear to be improving and both our chances are going now."
"January 7.--Up at 8 A.M., it having been arranged last night that we would go on to-day at all costs, sledge-sailing, with Xavier in his bag on the sledge." It was a sad blow to me to find that Mertz was in a weak state and required helping in and out of his bag. He needed rest for a few hours at least before he could think of travelling. "I have to turn in again to kill time and also to keep warm, for I feel the cold very much now."
"At 10 A.M. I get up to dress Xavier and prepare food, but find him in a kind of fit." Coming round a few minutes later, he exchanged a few words and did not seem to realize that anything had happened. "... Obviously we can't go on to-day. It is a good day though the light is bad, the sun just gleaming through the clouds. This is terrible; I don't mind for myself but for others. I pray to God to help us."
"I cook some thick cocoa for Xavier and give him beef-tea; he is better after noon, but very low--I have to lift him up to drink."
During the afternoon he had several more fits, then became delirious and talked incoherently until midnight, when he appeared to fall off into a peaceful slumber. So I toggled up the sleeping-bag and retired worn out into my own. After a couple of hours, having felt no movement from my companion, I stretched out an arm and found that he was stiff.
My comrade had been accepted into "the peace that passeth all understanding." It was my fervent hope that he had been received where sterling qualities and a high mind reap their due reward. In his life we loved him; he was a man of character, generous and of noble parts.
For hours I lay in the bag, rolling over in my mind all that lay behind and the chance of the future. I seemed to stand alone on the wide shores of the world--and what a short step to enter the unknown future!
My physical condition was such that I felt I might collapse in a moment. The gnawing in the stomach had developed there a permanent weakness, so that it was not possible to hold myself up in certain positions. Several of my toes commenced to blacken and fester near the tips and the nails worked loose.
Outside, the bowl of chaos was brimming with drift-snow and I wondered how I would manage to break and pitch camp single-handed. There appeared to be little hope of reaching the Hut. It was easy to sleep on in the bag, and the weather was cruel outside. But inaction is hard to brook, and I thought of Service's lines:
Buck up, do your damndest and fight, It's the plugging away that will win you the day.
If I failed to reach the Hut it would be something done to reach some prominent point likely to catch the eye of a search party, where a cairn might be erected and our diaries cached. And so I commenced to modify the sledge and camping gear to meet fresh requirements.
The sky remained clouded, but the wind fell off to a calm which lasted for several hours. I took the opportunity to set to work on the sledge, sawing it in halves with a pocket tool. A mast was made out of one of the rails of the discarded half of the sledge and a spar was cut from the other rail. The sledge-meter, very much battered, was still serviceable. Lastly, the load was cut down to a minimum by the elimination of all but the barest necessities.
Late on the evening of the 8th I took the body of Mertz, wrapped up in his sleeping-bag, outside the tent, piled snow blocks around it and raised a rough cross made of the two half-runners of the sledge.
On January 9 the weather was overcast and fairly thick drift was flying in a wind reaching about fifty miles an hour. As certain matters still required attention and my chances of re-erecting the tent were rather doubtful, if I had decided to move on, the start was delayed.
"I read the Burial Service over Xavier this afternoon. As there is little chance of my reaching human aid alive. I greatly regret inability at the moment to set out the detail of coastline met with for three hundred miles travelled and observations of glacier and ice-formations, etc.; the most of which latter are, of course, committed to my head.
"The approximate location of the camp is latitude 68 degrees 2' S., longitude 145 degrees 9' E. This is dead reckoning, as the theodolite legs have been out of action for some time, splinted together to form tent-props. I believe the truth lies nearer latitude 67 degrees 57' S., longitude 145 degrees 20' E., as the wind must have drifted us to the north."
During the afternoon I cut up Mertz's burberry jacket and roughly sewed it to a large canvas clothes-bag, making a sail which could be readily set or furled, so as to save delay in starting out or in camping.
January 10 was an impossible day for travelling on account of thick drift and high wind. I spent part of the time in reckoning up the amount of food remaining and in cooking the rest of the dogs' meat; the last device enabling me to leave behind some of the kerosene, of which there was still a good supply. Late in the afternoon the wind fell and the sun peered amongst the clouds just as I was in the middle of a long job riveting and lashing the broken shovel.
It was on January 11--a beautiful, calm day of sunshine--that I set out over a good surface with a slight down grade. From the start my feet felt lumpy and sore. They had become so painful after a mile of walking that I decided to make an examination of them on the spot, sitting in the sun on the sledge. The sight of my feet gave me quite a shock, for the thickened skin of the soles had separated in each case as a complete layer, and abundant watery fluid had escaped into the socks. The new skin underneath was very much abraded and raw.
I did what appeared to be the best thing under the stances: smeared the new skin with lanoline, of which there was a good store, and with bandages bound the skin soles back in place, as they were comfortable and soft in contact with the raw surfaces. Outside the bandages I wore six pairs of thick woollen socks, fur boots and a crampon over-shoe of soft leather. Then I removed most of my clothing and bathed in the glorious heat of the sun. A tingling sensation seemed to spread throughout my whole body, and I felt stronger and better.
When the day commenced with ideal weather I thought I would cover a long distance, but at 5.30 P.M., after six and a quarter miles, I felt nerve-worn and had to camp, "so worn that had it not been a delightful evening, I should not have found strength to erect the tent."
Though the medical outfit was limited, there were a fair number of bandages and on camping I devoted much time to tending raw patches all over the body, festering fingers and inflamed nostrils.
High wind and much drift put travelling out of the question on January 12, and in any case my feet needed a rest.
"January 13.--The wind subsided and the snow cleared off at noon. The afternoon was beautifully fine. Descended hard ice-slopes over many crevasses--almost all descent--but surface cut my feet up; at 8 P.M. camped, having done five and three-quarter miles--painful feet--on camping find feet worse than ever; things look bad but shall persevere. It is now 11 P.M. and the glacier is firing off like artillery--appears to send up great jets of imprisoned air."
During the march Aurora Peak showed up to the west, about twenty miles away, across the Mertz Glacier. I felt happy at thus fixing my position, and at the sight of the far plateau which led onwards to Winter Quarters.
The glacier was the next obstacle to advance. To the south-west it descended from the plateau in immense broken folds. Pressing northward it was torn into the jumbled crush of serac-ice, sparkling beneath an unclouded sun. The idea of diverging to the west and rounding the ice-falls occurred to me, but the detours involved other difficulties, so I strove to pick out the best track across the valley.
A high wind which blew on the morning of the 14th diminished in strength by noon and allowed me to get away. The sun was so warm that the puckered ice underfoot was covered with a film of water and in some places small trickles ran away to disappear into crevasses.
Though the course was downhill to the Mertz Glacier, the sledge required a good deal of pulling owing to the wet runners. At 9 P.M., after travelling five miles, I pitched camp in the bed of the glacier.
Between 9.30 P.M. and 11 P.M. the "cannonading" heard on the previous night recommenced. The sounds, resembling the explosions of heavy guns, usually started higher up the glacier and ended down towards the sea. When I first heard them, I put my head outside the tent to see what was going on. The reports came at random from every direction, but there was no visible evidence as to how they were produced. Without a doubt they had something to do with the re-freezing and splitting of the ice owing to the evening chill; but the sounds seemed far too loud to be explained by this cause alone.
January 15--the date on which all the summer sledging parties were due at the Hut! It was overcast and snowing early in the day, and in a few hours the sun broke out and shone warmly. The travelling was so heavy over a soft snowy surface, partly melting, that I gave up, after one mile, and camped.
At 7 P.M. the surface had not improved, the sky was thickly obscured and snow fell. At 10 P.M. the snow was coming down heavily, and, since there were many crevasses in the vicinity, I resolved to wait.
On the 16th at 2 A.M. the snow was as thick as ever, but at 5 A.M. the atmosphere lightened and the sun appeared.
Without delay I broke camp. A favourable breeze sprang up, and with sail set I managed to proceed through the snowy "deluge" in short stages. The snow clung in lumps to the runners, which had to be scraped frequently. I passed some broken ridges and sank into several holes leading down to crevasses out of which it was possible to scramble easily.
After laboriously toiling up one long slope, I was just catching my breath at the top and the sledge was running easily when I noticed that the surface beneath my feet fell away steeply in front. I suddenly realized that I was on the brink of a great blue hole like a quarry. The sledge was following of its own accord and was rapidly gaining speed, so I turned and, exerting every effort, was just able to hold it back by means of the hauling-line from the edge of the abyss. I should think that there must have been an interval of quite a minute during which I held my ground without being able to make it budge. Then it slowly came my way, and the imminent danger was past.
The day's march was an extremely hard five miles. Before turning in I had an extra supper of jelly soup, made by boiling down some of the dogs' sinews, strengthened with a little pemmican. The acute enjoyment of eating under these circumstances compensates in a slight measure for the suffering of starvation.
January 17 was another day of overcast weather and falling snow. Delay meant a reduction in the ration which was low enough already, so there was nothing to do but go on.
When I got away at 8 A.M. I found that the pulling was easier than it had been on the previous day. Nevertheless I covered only two miles and had to consider myself fortunate in not winding up the whole story then and there. This is what happened, following the account in my diary.
"Going up a long, fairly steep slope, deeply covered with soft snow, broke through lid of crevasse but caught myself at thighs, got out, turned fifty yards to the north, then attempted to cross trend of crevasse, there being no indication of it; a few moments later found myself dangling fourteen feet below on end of rope in crevasse--sledge creeping to mouth--had time to say to myself, 'so this is the end,' expecting the sledge every moment to crash on my head and all to go to the unseen bottom--then thought of the food uneaten on the sledge; but as the sledge pulled up without letting me down, thought of Providence giving me another chance." The chance was very small considering my weak condition. The width of the crevasse was about six feet, so I hung freely in space, turning slowly round.
A great effort brought a knot in the rope within my grasp, and, after a moment's rest, I was able to draw myself up and reach another, and, at length, hauled myself on to the overhanging snow-lid into which the rope had cut. Then, when I was carefully climbing out on to the surface, a further section of the lid gave way, precipitating me once more to the full length of the rope.
Exhausted, weak and chilled (for my hands were bare and pounds of snow had got inside my clothing) I hung with the firm conviction that all was over except the passing. Below was a black chasm; it would be but the work of a moment to slip from the harness, then all the pain and toil would be over. It was a rare situation, a rare temptation--a chance to quit small things for great--to pass from the petty exploration of a planet to the contemplation of vaster worlds beyond. But there was all eternity for the last and, at its longest, the present would be but short. I felt better for the thought.
My strength was fast ebbing; in a few minutes it would be too late. It was the occasion for a supreme attempt. New power seemed to come as I addressed myself to one last tremendous effort. The struggle occupied some time, but by a miracle I rose slowly to the surface. This time I emerged feet first, still holding on to the rope, and pushed myself out, extended at full length, on the snow--on solid ground. Then came the reaction, and I could do nothing for quite an hour.
The tent was erected in slow stages and I then had a little food. Later on I lay in the sleeping-bag, thinking things over. It was a time when the mood of the Persian philosopher appealed to me:
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?
I was confronted with this problem: whether it was better to enjoy life for a few days, sleeping and eating my fill until the provisions gave out, or to "plug on" again in hunger with the prospect of plunging at any moment into eternity without the great luxury and pleasure of food. And then an idea presented itself which greatly improved my prospects. It was to construct a ladder from alpine rope; one end of which was to be secured to the bow of the sledge and the other to be carried over my left shoulder and loosely attached to the sledge harness. Thus, if I fell into a crevasse again, it would be easy for me, even though weakened by starvation, to scramble out again by the ladder, provided the sledge was not also engulphed.
Notwithstanding the possibilities of the rope ladder, I could not sleep properly at all; my nerves had been so overtaxed. All night considerable wind and drift continued.
On the 19th it was overcast and light snow was falling. I resolved "to go ahead and leave the rest to Providence."
As they wallowed through the deep snow my feet and legs kept breaking through into space. Then I went right under, but the sledge was held back and the ladder "proved trumps." A few minutes later I was down again, but I emerged again without much exertion, half-smothered with snow. Faintness overcame me and I stopped to camp, though only a short distance had been covered.
All around me was a leaden glare, the snow clouds "corralling" me in. The sun had not shown up for some days and I was eager to see it once more, not only that it might show up the landscape, but for its cheerful influence and life-giving energy. A few days previously my condition had been improving, but now it was going back.
During the night of the 18th loud booming noises, sharp cracks and muffled growls issued form the neighbouring crevasses and kept waking me up. At times one could feel a vibration accompanying the growling sounds, and I concluded that the ice was in rapid motion.
The sun at last appeared on the 19th, and I was off by 8.30 A.M. The whole surface was a network of crevasses, some very wide. Along one after another of these I dragged the sledge until a spot was reached where the snow-bridge looked to be firm. Here I plunged across, risking the consequences.
After three hours' marching nothing serious had happened and I found myself on safer ground with a "pimply" surface visible ahead, close under the slopes of the highlands. Once on this I became over-reliant, and in consequence sank several times into narrow fissures.
At 1 P.M. the Mertz Glacier was at last crossed and I had reached the rising hills on its western side. Overlooking the camp, five hundred feet above the glacier, were beetling, crevassed crags, but I could trace out a good road, free from pitfalls, leading to the plateau, at an elevation of three thousand feet.
To lighten my load for the climb I threw away alpine rope, finnesko crampons, sundry pairs of worn crampons and socks, while I rubbed a composition on the sledge-runners which prevented them from sticking to wet snow.
January 20 was a wretched day; overcast, with wind and light drift. In desperation I got away at 2 P.M. in a wind which proved to be of considerable assistance. I could see nothing of my surroundings; one thing was certain, and that was that the ascent had commenced and every foot took me upward. The day's work amounted to about two and a half miles.
On the 21st the sun shone brightly and there was a good following wind. Through deep snow I zigzagged up for three miles before deciding to camp.
Wind and drift prevailed early on the 22nd but fell away towards noon, and I was then favoured with a glorious sunny day. Away to the north was a splendid view of the open sea; it looked so beautiful and friendly that I longed to be down near it. Six miles had been covered during the day, but I felt very weak towards the end on account of the heavy pulling.
During the early hours of the 23rd the sun was visible, but about 8 A.M. the clouds sagged low, the wind rose and everything became blotted out in a swirl of driving snow.
I wandered on through it for several hours, the sledge capsizing at times owing to the strength of the wind. It was not possible to keep an accurate course, for even the wind changed direction as the day wore on. Underfoot there was soft snow which I found comfortable for my sore feet, but which made the sledge drag heavily at times.
When camp was pitched at 4 P.M. I reckoned that the distance covered in a straight line had been three and a half miles.
Erecting the tent single-handed in the high wind was a task which required much patience and some skill. The poles were erected first and then the tent was gathered up in the proper form and taken to the windward side of the legs where it was weighted down. The flounce on the windward side was got into position and piled up with snow blocks. Other blocks of snow had previously been placed in a ring round the legs in readiness to be tumbled on to the rest of the flounce when the tent was quickly slipped over the apex of the poles. In very windy weather it was often as much as two hours after halting before I would be cosy within the shelter of the tent.
High wind and dense driving snow persisted throughout the 24th and I made five and a half miles, sitting on the sledge most of the time with the sail up.
The blizzard continued on the 25th, but after the trying experience of the previous two days, I did not feel well enough to go on. Outside, the snow fell in "torrents," piled up round the tent and pressed in until it was no bigger than a coffin, of which it reminded me.
I passed most of the day doctoring myself, attending to raw and inflamed places. Tufts of my beard and hair came out, and the snowy floor of the tent was strewn with it at every camp.
"January 26.--I went on again in dense, driving snow. There was no need of the sail. The wind, which was behind, caught the sledge and bundled it along so that, though over a soft surface of snow, the travelling was rapid. The snow was in large, rounded grains, and beat on the tent like hail. Altogether nine miles were covered.
"January 27.--Blizzard-bound again. The previous day's exertions were too much for me to undertake the same again without a long rest.
"January 28,--In the morning the wind had moderated very much but the sky remained overcast and snow continued to fall. It was a long job digging the tent out. Soon after the start the sun gleamed and the weather improved. The three-thousand-foot crest of the plateau had been crossed and I was bearing down rapidly on Commonwealth Bay, the vicinity of which showed up as a darker patch on the clouds of the north-west horizon.
"The evening was fine and I really began to feel that Winter Quarters were approaching. To increase my excitement Madigan Nunatak came into view for a time in the clear, evening light. Distance covered, over eight miles."
The calm of the previous evening was broken again, and I started on the morning of January 29 in considerable drift and a fairly strong wind. After going five miles I had miraculous good fortune.
I was travelling along on an even down grade and was wondering how long the two pounds of food which remained would last, when something dark loomed through the drift a short distance away to the right. All sorts of possibilities fled through my mind as I headed the sledge for it. The unexpected happened--it was a cairn of snow erected by McLean, Hodgeman and Hurley, who had been out searching for us. On the top of the mound was a bag of food, left on the chance that it might be picked up, while in a tin was a note stating the bearing and distance of the mound from Aladdin's Cave (E. 30 degrees S., distance twenty-three miles), that the Ship had arrived at the Hut and was waiting, that Amundsen had reached the Pole, and that Scott was remaining another year in Antarctica.
It was rather a singular fact that the search party only left this mound at eight o'clock on the morning of that very day (January 29). It was about 2 P.M. when I found it. Thus, during the night of the 28th, our camps had been only about five miles apart.
With plenty of food, I speedily felt stimulated and revived, and anticipated reaching the Hut in a day or two, for there was then not more than twenty-three miles to cover. Alas, however, there was to be another delay. I was without crampons--they had been thrown away on the western side of Mertz Glacier--and in the strong wind was not able to stand up on the slippery ice of the coastal slopes. The result was that I sat on the sledge and ran along with the wind, nibbling at the food as I went. The sledge made so much leeway that near the end of the day, after fourteen miles, I reckoned that I had been carried to the east of Aladdin's Cave. The course was therefore changed to the west, but the wind came down almost broadside-on to the sledge, and it was swept away. The only thing to do was to camp.
On the 30th I cut up the box of the theodolite and into two pieces of wood stuck as many screws and tacks as I could procure from the sledge-meter. In the repair-bag there were still a few ice-nails which at this time were of great use. Late in the day the wind fell off, and I started westward over the ice-slopes with the pieces of nail-studded wood lashed to my feet.
After six miles these improvised crampons broke up, and the increasing wind got me into difficulties. Finally, the sledge slipped sideways into a narrow crevasse and was caught by the boom (which crossed from side to side at the lower part of the mast). I was not strong enough for the job of extricating it straight away, and by the time I had got it safely on the ice, the wind had increased still more. So I pitched camp.
The blizzard was in full career on January 31 and I spent all day and until late at night trying to make the crampons serviceable, but without success.
On February 1 the wind and drift subsided late in the afternoon, and I clearly saw to the west the beacon which marked Aladdin's Cave.
At 7 P.M. I reached this haven within the ice, and never again was I to have the ordeal of pitching the tent. Inside the cave were three oranges and a pineapple which had been brought from the Ship. It was wonderful once more to be in the land of such things!
I waited to mend one of the crampons and then started off for the Hut; but a blizzard had commenced. To descend the five miles of steep icy slopes with my miserable crampons, in the weak state in which I found myself, would only have been as a last resort. So I camped in the comfortable cave and hoped for better weather next day.
The high wind, rising to a hurricane at times, continued for a whole week with dense drift until the 8th. I spent the long hours making crampons of a new pattern, eating and sleeping. Eventually I became so anxious that I used to sit outside the cave for long spells, watching for a lull in the wind.
At length I resolved to go down in the blizzard, sitting on the sledge as long as possible, blown along by the wind. I was making preparations for a start when the wind suddenly decreased and my opportunity had come.
In a couple of hours I was within one mile and a half of the Hut. There was no sign of the Ship lying in the offing, but I comforted myself with the thought that she might be still at the anchorage and have swung inshore so as to be hidden by the ice-cliffs, or on the other hand that Captain Davis might have been along the coast to the east searching there.
But even as I gazed about seeking for a clue, a speck on the north-west horizon caught my eye and my hopes went down. It looked like a distant ship; it might well have been the 'Aurora'. Well, what matter! the long journey was at an end-a terrible chapter of my life was finished!
Then the rocks around Winter Quarters began to come into view, part of the basin of the boat harbour appeared, and lo! there were human figures! They almost seemed unreal--I was in a dream--but after a brief moment one of them saw me and waved an arm, I replied, there was a commotion and they all ran towards the Hut. Then they were lost, for the crest of the first steep slope hid them. It almost seemed to me that they had run away to hide.
Minutes passed, and I slowly went along with the sledge. Then a head rose over the brow of the hill and there was Bickerton, breathless after a long run. I expect he considered for a while which one of us it was. Soon we had shaken hands and he knew all in a few brief words, and I learned that the Ship had left earlier in the day. Madigan, McLean, Bage and Hodgeman arrived, and then a new-comer--Jeffryes. Five men had remained behind to make a search for our party, and Jeffryes was a new wireless operator brought down by Captain Davis.
We were soon at the Hut where I found that full preparations had been made for wintering a second year. The weather was calm and the Ship was no distance away so I decided to recall her by wireless. The masts at the Hut had been re-erected during the summer, and on board the 'Aurora' Hannam was provided with a wireless receiving set. Jeffryes had arranged with Hannam to call up at 8, 9 and 10 P.M. for several evenings while the 'Aurora' was "within range" in case there were any news of my party. A message recalling the Ship was therefore sent off and repeated at frequent intervals till past midnight.
Next morning there was a forty-mile wind when we went outside, but away across Commonwealth Bay to the west the 'Aurora' could be seen close to the face of the ice-cliffs. She had returned in response to the call and was steaming up and down, waiting for the wind to moderate.
We immediately set to work getting all the records, instruments and personal gear ready to be taken down to the boat harbour in anticipation of calm weather during the day.
The wind chose to continue and towards evening was in the sixties, while the barometer fell. During the afternoon Hodgeman went across to the western ridge and saw that the Ship was still in the Bay. The sea was so heavy that the motor-boat could never have lived through it.
That night Jeffryes sent another message, which we learned afterwards was not received, in which Captain Davis was given the option of remaining until calm weather supervened or of leaving at once for the Western Base. I felt that the decision should be left to him, as he could appreciate exactly the situation of the Western Base and what the Ship could be expected to do amid the ice at that season of the year. The time was already past when, according to my written instructions left for him on arrival at Commonwealth Bay, the 'Aurora' should sail west to relieve Wild and his party.
On the morning of the 10th there was no sign of the Ship and evidently Captain Davis had decided to wait no longer, knowing that further delay would endanger the chances of picking up the eight men who had elected to winter on the shelf-ice one thousand five hundred miles to the west. At such a critical moment determination, fearless and swift, was necessary, and, in coming to his momentous decision, Captain Davis acted well and for the best interests of the Expedition.
A long voyage lay before the 'Aurora' through many miles of ice-strewn sea, swept by intermittent blizzards and shrouded now in midnight darkness. We still fostered the hope that the vessel's coal-supply would be sufficient for her to return to Adelie Land and make an attempt to pick us up. But it was not to be.
The long Antarctic winter was fast approaching and we turned to meet it with resolution, knowing that if the 'Aurora' failed us in early March, that the early summer of the same year would bring relief.
XIV. THE QUEST OF THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE
Dr. R. BAGE
Send me your strongest, those who never fail. I'm the Blizzard, King of the Southern Trail! Sledging song.
On the afternoon of November 10, at Aladdin's Cave, after a convivial hoosh, Webb, Hurley and I said good-bye to Dr. Mawson's party and made off south for the eleven and three-quarter mile cave where our Supporting Party, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron, were waiting for us. At 7 P.M. we started almost at a run over the smooth ice, to the accompaniment of hearty cheers from Dr. Mawson, Ninnis, and Mertz; two of whom we were never to see again.
Half a mile of this easy going, and we were on snow for the first time with a loaded sledge. Uphill snow, too, and the wind rising, so it was no small relief when we finally made the Cathedral Grotto at 11.30 P.M., and found Murphy's tent pitched alongside it. The wind by this time was about forty-five miles per hour and, it being nearly dusk, the crevasses--a five-mile belt--had been fairly difficult to negotiate.
We soon had the cave clear of snow, had a good meal and then slept the sleep of the just, feeling well content with the first day's work--eleven and a half miles from home at an altitude of one thousand nine hundred feet. We were off at last on a search for the Magnetic Pole.
On the morrow some time was spent in rearranging the loads. Finally, both parties moved off south into heavy wind and fairly thick drift. What with the ground rising steadily, the pressure of the wind and our lack of condition, two and a quarter hours of solid work realized only two and a quarter miles; so we decided to camp.
All the night it blew hard, between seventy and eighty miles per hour, and next day it was still blowing and drifting heavily. Our tent was a good deal smaller than Murphy's, and, as Webb and Hurley are both six-footers, we always had to put all gear outside when the sleeping-bags were down. This is really a good thing when the weather is bad, as one is not tempted to stay in the bag all the time.
Early in the afternoon as we were all feeling hungry and had been in bags long enough to feel cold, although the weather was quite warm (10 degrees F.), we rolled bags, and, when our frozen burberrys were once fairly on, quite enjoyed ourselves. After a boil-up and a few minutes' "run" round in the drift and wind, we did some stitching on our light drill tent, which was making very heavy weather of it, although pitched close under the lee of Murphy's strong japara tent. A little reading, some shouted unintelligible conversation with the other tent, another boil-up, and, last but not least, a smoke, found us quite ready for another sleep.
Next day (November 13), the wind having dropped to thirty-five miles per hour, we set out about 11 A.M. in light drift. The sky was still overcast, so the light was very trying. In the worst fogs at home one can at any rate see something of the ground on which one is treading; in Adelie Land, even when the air was clear of snow, it was easy to bump against a four-foot sastruga without seeing it. It always reminded me most of a fog at sea: a ship creeping "o'er the hueless, viewless deep."
When 6 P.M. arrived we had only covered five and a half miles, but were all thoroughly exhausted and glad to camp. Lunch had been rather barbarously served in the lee of the sledge. First came plasmon biscuit, broken with the ice-axe into pieces small enough to go into the mouth through the funnel of a burberry helmet; then followed two ounces of chocolate, frozen rather too hard to have a definite taste; and finally a luscious morsel--two ounces of butter, lovingly thawed-out in the mouth to get the full flavour. Lunches like these in wind and drift are uncomfortable enough for every one to be eager to start again as soon as possible.
By nine o'clock that night the wind had increased to a full gale. We were in camp all the 14th and the 15th, the wind rising to eighty-five miles per hour with very heavy drift during the small hours of the 15th. This was its maximum, and by the afternoon it was down to about seventy miles per hour with a clear sky and light drift. We donned our burberrys (I should like to give Hurley's "Ode to a Frozen Burberry") and dug out our sledges, both of which were completely buried in a ramp forty yards long; the shovel projecting nine inches above the surface.
While we were engaged on this work, I overheard the following conversation being shouted in the Supporting Party's tent:
FIRST VOICE. I'm hungry. Who will go out and get the food-bag?
SLEEPY VOICE. The food-weights ** are in the cooker.
FIRST VOICE. No they're not.
SLEEPY VOICE. Saw them there yesterday, must be somewhere in the tent.
FIRST VOICE. No they're not... I ate them last night.
** Until amounts were known by experience, rations were weighed by a small balance whose various weights were small calico bags filled with chocolate.
The exercise, a good hoosh and above all the clear sky made us take a less morbid view of the fact that we were six days out from the Hut and only nineteen and a half miles away.
Early on the 16th we could hear above the roar of the wind the drift still hissing against the tent, but it had diminished by nine o'clock breakfast.
By common consent it was agreed that our loads were too heavy for the conditions under which we were working. I accordingly decided to drop one hundred-pound bag. We had already saved nearly one week's food for three men and had not yet worked up our full sledging appetites. The bag was raised to the top of a six-foot snow mound, a thermograph being placed alongside. As we now seemed to be on plateau snow, I thought it wise to leave behind my heavy boots and Swiss crampons.
By 4 P.M. the wind had decreased to a light breeze. Work was very slow on a steeper up grade, and at six o'clock clouds came up quickly from the south-east and snow began to fall, so we camped at 7.30 P.M. thoroughly tired out. At twenty-four and a half miles the altitude was three thousand two hundred feet.
The snow was a false alarm. It ceased at 9 P.M. and the wind subsided to a dead calm!!
Good headway was being made against a strong breeze next day, when it was noticed that two gallons of kerosene were missing off the supporters' sledge. While Murphy and Laseron went back two miles to recover them, Webb secured a magnetic declination and I took sun observations for time and azimuth.
We were off early on the 18th and for the first time were able to appreciate the "scenery." Glorious sunshine overhead and all around brilliant snow, dappled by livid shadows; very different from the smooth, soft, white mantle usually attributed to the surface of Antarctica by those in the homeland. Here and there, indeed, were smooth patches which we called bowling-greens, but hard and slippery as polished marble, with much the same translucent appearance. Practically all the country, however, was a jumbled mass of small, hard sastrugi, averaging perhaps a foot in height, with an occasional gnarled old veteran twice as high. To either side the snow rolled away for miles. In front, we made our first acquaintance with the accursed next ridge, which is always ahead of you on the plateau. Generally we passed from one ridge to another so gradually that we could never say for certain just when we had topped one; still the next ridge was always there.
The weather had lately been colder with the increased altitude. The temperature in daily range varied from -10 degrees F. to 9 degrees F. It was so hot in the sun, on the 18th, that lunching inside the tent was unbearable. We preferred its shadow outside in the breeze.
Wearing a minimum of clothes, we marched along gaily during the afternoon. The country changed in a wonderful manner, the sastrugi gradually becoming smaller and finally disappearing. The surface was so soft that a bamboo would easily penetrate it for a foot. Evidently it was fairly old and laid down in calm weather, for excavations showed that it became more compact without any hard wind-swept layers marking successive snowfalls.
It was proved that we were commencing a descent of one thousand five hundred feet down the north side of a valley feeding the Mertz Glacier. In order to explain the surface, smooth and unruffled by any wind, the question arose as to whether it is possible that there is a cushion of dead air more or less permanently over the north side of this depression.
On the soft surface we were able to dispense with crampons. Hitherto, it had been impossible to haul over a slippery surface in finnesko. Now we felt as light as air and were vastly cheered when some one calculated that the six of us were saving I don't know how many thousand foot-pounds of work every mile. With a run of twelve miles we were forty-two miles from Winter Quarters.
Another splendid day on the 19th. We had lunch in a curious cup-shaped hollow, estimated to be two miles wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep. Webb obtained here an approximate dip of 88 degrees 44',** a very promising increase from the Hut (87 degrees 27').
** At the South Magnetic Pole the dip is 90 degrees.
[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]
Map showing track of the southern sledging party from the Main Base
Snow-blindness had now begun to make itself felt for the first time. I for one had my first experience of it that afternoon. During the halt at lunch I put on yellow goggles in place of the smoked ones I had been wearing, and in a quarter of an hour the change of colour had 'settled' my eyes for the time being.
The afternoon was very hot. The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F. at 4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the time the load was hauled up out of the basin, we were streaming with perspiration.
Before halting, we sighted a dark, distant ridge, thirty miles away, and the course was corrected by its bearing. Our extravagant hopes of finding a permanently calm region had been dwindling for the last few miles, as a hard bottom, a few inches under the surface, had become evident. They were finally dispelled by a south-west wind springing up during the night.
As every one was beginning to feel the hard work after another oppressive afternoon on the 20th, we decided to have an easy march next day and to build our first depot. Of course we had hoped to have been farther out before sending back the supporting party, but the weather had settled the question.
On the 21st, taking things as easily as a thirty-five mile wind would permit, we pulled on, up and down small undulations till 4 P.M. when we encountered a small rise, with the next ridge a considerable distance ahead. The depot was to be built here.
Webb at once proceeded to take full magnetic declination, time and azimuth observations, Laseron recording for him. Murphy put in a miserable hour over the primus melting snow. He was rather snow-blind and his eyes must have contributed a good deal of water to the pot. The water was poured into food-bags filled with snow, which were buried, encircled by wire slings, in holes. Here they froze, making excellent holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been exercising our ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms being destroyed by the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built the perfect flag of the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened Venesta board with light struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane tubing at the apex which slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of two bamboos, stood sixteen feet from the ground and was provided with two sets of flexible steel stays. Close by, Hurley and Hunter had built a snow mound ten feet in diameter and ten feet in height, finished off with a capping of snow blocks wrapped in black bunting.
Next day it was blowing a little harder and the sky was overcast, snow falling all day. What bad light means can be gathered from the fact that Laseron on crawling out of the tent in the morning raised an alarm that our tent had been blown away in the night. It turned out that our tent was hidden by a mound which he could not see, though only about ten yards from it.
I had been given the option of relieving the supporting party of any of their gear I coveted and I used it freely. The sledgemeter was the first thing commandeered, ours, made by Correll, having developed some slight complaint in its interior. Their cooker, being in good condition, was also taken. We all cast longing eyes at the roomy wind-proof tent but finally decided that it was too heavy--forty pounds as against our own of twenty-six pounds, including tent and poles.
At 7 P.M. we said good-bye to our supporters, Hurley exposed the last plate of his big reflex camera, which they carried back to the Hut, and a few minutes later Webb, Hurley, and I were standing alone watching three black specks disappearing in the drift; a stiff wind helping them along in great style. We were left to our own resources now, for better or for worse. "Weird" is how I described my feelings in the diary.
The same night it blew a hurricane and only dropped to sixty miles per hour during the 23rd, compelling us to remain in camp. Not an ideal birthday for Webb, but we made the most of it. I quote from my diary: "Turned out and rolled bags at 3 P.M. for lunch, for which we opened a wee tin of bacon ration brought for the occasion. Had some extra lumps of sugar (collared from the eleven-mile cave) in our tea. After the wine had been round (i.e. after a special second cup of tea), I gave Eric a pair of stockings from Murphy, and then 'Hoyle' and I smoked a cigar each which Webb produced. Dinner at 7 was also a special affair as we had the remains of the bacon ration in the hoosh, with great effect. Also an extra strong brew of cocoa boiled quite smooth. Burberrys on and a stroll outside in the wind for a yard or two to get up a circulation; then into bag where I am smoking a plebeian pipe which is very tame after the glories of the day, especially as I suspect my tobacco of being a bit damp."
Such was the first of the two "auspicious occasions" we had on the journey.
After going carefully through the gear, we discarded a pickaxe, one pair of big spiked boots and some odd clothing. We also decided, as the probability of leisure was not great, to leave our reading matter behind. It was with regret that I added my little 'Virginibus Puerisque' to the small pile of "rejects." The load now amounted to seven hundred and forty-eight pounds in all. Not many days after, the floor-cloth (eight pounds) was left behind, as the japara sail afforded ample protection from damp in the low temperatures of the plateau.
The dip-circle, which was to yield the most important result of our journey, was housed after much thought on a conveniently shaped kerosene tray between the tins of oil. Four light leather straps, buckled tightly, made a solid mass of tray, oil tins, and dip-circle; very safe, and easy to undo.
My orders were to proceed inland, due south, taking magnetic, geographical, meteorological, and such other observations as were possible, returning to the Hut not later than January 15. Dr. Mawson had left it to my discretion, in the event of any great change occurring in the declination, to go either true or magnetic south.
At the Hut and up to about sixty miles south of it, the declination had proved fairly constant, but now at the Southern Cross Depot, as we had christened the sixty-seven-mile camp, the compass, from pointing a little to the east of south, had travelled to 40 degrees east of south, so that it became obvious that there was considerable magnetic disturbance in the country over which we were travelling. Whether we went south or south-east seemed unlikely to affect the value of geographical and other information we might gather, while Webb was of the opinion that the best magnetic results would be obtained by marching directly towards the Magnetic Pole, particularly if there were disturbances over the intervening area. For these reasons the course was maintained magnetic south.
At 11 A.M. on Sunday, November 24, we moved off to the south-east in a wind of fifty miles an hour. The light was bad, and steering had to be done by sastrugi and wind. However, momentary glimpses of the sun served to check the course. The lunch camp was five miles from the depot, and a good mound with a top of black bunting was left there. At almost every halt, thus far on our journey, the snow cut for pitching the tent had been gathered up into a mound which, in addition to forming a landmark, could often be used as a back-mark for checking the course. Our depot thus had a mound four miles on the southern and five miles on the northern side of it. It was not marked as well as I had hoped, but under the circumstances we could not do better. Moreover, at intervals during the day, some very distinctive snow ramps had appeared in the valley, some five miles to the north-east, and their position was fixed relative to the course.
Our hopes for a good afternoon were disappointed, as the wind and drift came up again as strong as ever. The surface, too, grew worse; nothing but sastrugi eighteen inches to thirty inches high and very close together. We were marching a little to the east of the wind, and the sledge was continually blown sideways, making considerable leeway. By 8.30 P.M. it was blowing sixty miles per hour, so we halted, thoroughly tired out, having hauled our one-third of a ton eight and three-quarter miles.
When it is blowing hard, the end of the day's march is not the end of the day's work. As soon as a camping spot has been chosen, the sledge is pulled round head to wind. The straps round the load are loosened carefully, the shovel and tent removed and the straps retightened. One man starts breaking out chunks of snow, experimenting until he finds a place where large pieces come away readily. Lumps of forty pounds are the handiest and quickest, but often only smaller ones can be obtained. These are arranged in a circle round the tent-site, while the man with the tent places it on the ground pointing upwind, the bottom of the poles being just where the middle windward leg will be, and makes a hole for that leg.
When everything is ready, all three catch hold of the tent, one man crawling half into it, gripping hard the leather loop on the windward leg. The others sort out and grip their two side legs. "All ready? Up!" It almost takes one's breath away, the roar and the flap! The side legs are quickly separated as the tent rises, and before it can blow over, the leeward legs are more or less in position, taking the strain. The centre man is throwing all his weight on to the leather loop, while the other two outside each holds down his windward pole with one hand and with the other pulls blocks of snow on to the skirt to windward. Once this is done, the rest is simple: cutting holes in just the right positions for the other legs, pulling out the skirt and making it snug all round. Then in goes the floor-cloth, and, by the time that is spread out properly, the primus and cooker are passed in. The cooker is dissected and the two water vessels passed out to be filled with snow. The cook will have hard work to get the primus started if he does not shield the spirit flame from the wind, which blows through the tent, by putting the whole lamp inside the big cooker lid.
In come the pots filled with lumps of snow. The food tank is placed just outside the entrance, and the proper food-bags for the meal are passed in to the cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift. The cooker will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready to receive the gear. Sleeping-bags, "computation bag," hypsometer, "meat block" (a three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological notes were taken); clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and bag retied; a final temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge anchored securely by tow-rope to the ice-axe, and a final look round to see all gear is safely strapped down and snow-tight.
In calm weather, camping is a very different thing. On a fine day, half an hour after the halt would usually find us carefully scraping the last of the hoosh out of our pannikins, ready for the cocoa.
At the seventy-six-mile camp we tried the experiment of a break-wind. The tent was so small and light that it was necessary to protect it in the heavy winds. Hurley and I took about three-quarters of an hour to build the first one, but later we improved, getting into the knack of hewing snow with a sharp-pointed shovel.
That night in bag I wrote: "The result of the breakwind is that for once we have the wind bluffed. It is blowing seventy-five miles per hour--a full hurricane--but all the viciousness is taken out of the flapping and there will be no damage done to the tent by morning."
The wind was too strong for travelling early in the day (November 25). While outside we suddenly observed two snow petrels. It was hard to realize that they had actually flown seventy-six miles inland to a height of two thousand four hundred and fifty feet. I dashed inside for the fishingline; Hurley got out the camera. They were a beautiful sight, hovering with outspread wings just above the snow, tipping it with their feet now and then, to poise without a flutter in a sixty-five-mile gale. Hurley secured a couple of "snaps" at the expense of badly frost-bitten hands. Just as I arrived with the line hooked and baited, the birds flew away to the north-east; our visions of fresh meat went with them. The line was always ready after this.
Towards evening the wind dropped suddenly to twenty miles per hour. Our camp was stationed on the southern side of the large valley we had entered on the 18th, and we could identify the ridge crossed on that date, blue and dim, forty miles away to the north. To the north-east could be seen a distinct dip in the skyline, indicating the bed of the valley, on whose northern side the dip met the higher skyline in a steep bluff, twenty-five miles off. This bluff under the glasses was of heavily crevassed, blue ice.
The wind did not rise again much until 10 P.M., when we had moved on seven and a half miles, rising about three hundred feet over several ridges and practically losing our view to the north.
A steady breeze on the 26th, and, on the whole, good light, allowed us to make twelve miles.
Each day, now, Webb took an approximate magnetic dip and declination in the lee of the break-wind. This was necessary in order to get some idea of local disturbances. Also, it gave us some vague idea as to the direction in which lay the South Magnetic Pole. For instance, at the eighty-three-and-three-quarter-mile camp, the needle showed the Pole to be 18 degrees east of true south, while at our lunch camp that day, six miles farther on, it was given as 50 degrees east of south. The dip was so great that our prismatic compass would not set closer than about 15 degrees, but the long compass needle of the dip-circle, though of course sluggish, continued to give excellent results.
Under these conditions it is obvious that the magnetic needle is quite useless for steering purposes. The sun compass proved itself a more than efficient substitute. On a snowfield there is usually a total absence of landmarks of any kind, so the direction of wind, sastrugi, or perhaps a low cloud is found with the sun-compass, frequently checked, and the course kept accordingly. On camping we would generally carefully note the direction in which the sledge was left, in case the next day proved overcast. Thus we would march in the morning by the wind's direction till the sun, gleaming through the clouds for a few moments, enabled us to use the compass again.
Sastrugi, only six inches high, seen on the 26th, showed the effects of wind-erosion exquisitely. In an individual case the windward end of a sastruga might be completely undercut for six or nine inches, leaving a hard crust, sometimes only one-eighth of an inch in thickness and a couple of inches wide. This would sag downwards under its own weight in a fine curve till the tip rested on the snow beneath. It is marvellous how such a delicate structure can withstand the heavy wind.
November 27 proved a very hard day. The wind kept up sixty miles per hour all the time, so that, after taking four hours to do four and three-quarter miles, we were all thoroughly exhausted. It was not a great run, but the century was hoisted--one hundred and three-quarter miles by sledge-meter; altitude two thousand nine hundred feet. There was a mild celebration that night over a square of butter-scotch and half an ounce of chocolate, besides the regular hoosh and cocoa.
Next day the light was very bad and the wind fifty miles per hour. Observations were therefore made inside the tent. Webb, Hurley and the instrument occupied all available space, while I spent three hours digging a shaft eight feet deep in the snow, taking temperatures every foot. It appeared that the mean annual temperature of the snow was approximately -16 degrees F.
The dip was 88 degrees 54'; certainly rather too large a rise from 88 degrees 20' of twenty miles back. The declination had actually changed about 80 degrees in the last ten miles. This one-hundred-mile station was badly disturbed. From the evidence, it is possible that a subsidiary "pole" or area of almost vertical dip may exist close by this spot to the west or south-west.
Going straight up wind into a "blow" which varied from forty to fifty miles per hour, we were able to make eight miles after the previous day's rest. At lunch a hole was dug five feet square and two feet deep. It served three purposes. First, it gave a good shelter for a longitude observation; secondly, with the mast, yard and floor-cloth we converted it into a shelter snug enough to house the primus and to lunch comfortably; and thirdly, a mound was left as a back-mark which was picked up on the return journey.
By experience we found that a warm lunch and a rest enabled one to "peg" along a good deal farther than would otherwise be possible.
The "scenery" in the afternoon became if possible more desolate--very few new sastrugi, the surface appearing generally old and pitted. In some places it was rotten and blown away, disclosing coarse granulated substrata. At the top of one ridge the snow merged into neve split into small crevasses, nine inches wide and four or five yards apart. The camp was pitched, here, at 11 P.M. The latitude was 68 degrees 32' S., and we saw the midnight sun for the first time that summer, about one-quarter of its rim remaining above the horizon.
A full hurricane came up and kept between fifty and sixty miles per hour all day on the 30th. Before moving off, Webb found that the magnetic needle had "waltzed" back 60 degrees since the one-hundred-mile camp, now pointing 80 degrees east of south. Still, to allow the needle to makeup its mind, we steered into the wind at 2 P.M., losing the neve and meeting very rough country. By 6 P.M., with four miles to our credit, we were nearly played out. It was being discussed whether we should go on when the discovery was made that the theodolite legs were missing; probably having slipped out in one of the numerous capsizes of the sledge.
The solemn rites of "shut-eye" determined that Webb was to stay and make camp while Hurley and I retraced our steps. It was no easy matter to follow the trail, for on hard snow the sledge runners leave no mark, and we had to watch for the holes of the crampon-spikes. About two and a half miles back, the legs were found, and there only remained a hard "plug" against the wind to camp and hoosh.
While we were lying half-toggled into the sleeping-bags, writing our diaries, Hurley spent some time alternately imprecating the wind and invoking it for a calm next day. As he said, once behind a break-wind one could safely defy it, but on the march one is much more humble.
Whether it was in honour of Queen Alexandra's birthday, or whether Hurley's pious efforts of the evening before had taken effect, December 1 turned out a good day. By noon, the wind had dropped sufficiently for us to hoist the Jack and Commonwealth Ensign for the occasion.
After four miles of battling, there came into sight a distinct ridge, ten miles to the west and south--quite the most definitely rising ground observed since leaving the coast. In one place was a patch of immense crevasses, easily visible to the naked eye; in another, due south, were black shadows, and towards these the course was pointed.
At a point more than one hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea, a skua gull paid an afternoon call, alighting a few yards from the track. I immediately commenced to stalk it with a fishing-line, this time all ready and baited with pemmican. However, it was quite contemptuous, flying off to the south-south-east as far as we could follow it. Was it taking a short cut to the Ross Sea?
December 2 saw us through "Dead-Beat Gully" to a rise, in sight of the shadows towards which we had been steering. Two miles away they appeared like the edge of the moon seen through a large telescope. The shadows were due to large mounds of snow on the south side of a steep escarpment. Three main prominences were cross-connected with regular lines of hillocks, giving the impression of a subdivided town-site. The low evening sun threw everything up in the most wonderful relief.
On the morning of the 3rd we were in a valley running west-north-west and east-south-east. The southern side rose steeply and from it projected three large mounds, about two hundred feet from the bottom of the valley, into which they fell just like tailings-heaps from a mine. They were christened "The Nodules."
Going due south uphill over neve we found ourselves in a regular network of crevasses. They were about ten feet wide and well bridged. Most noticeable were "hedges" of ice up to six feet in height on either side of the crevasses which ran southward. It was now nearly calm and in every crack and chink in the snow-bridges beautiful fern-like ice-crystals were seen. These must have been just forming, as a very light puff of wind was seen to destroy many of them.
We spent three hours exploring the locality. On nearing the top of the ridge, roped together, we found that the crevasses were becoming much wider, while the "hedges" were disappearing. The centre "nodule" was found to be immediately north or to the leeward of the intersection of two crevasses, each about forty feet wide. The bridge of one crevasse had dropped some thirty feet for a length of eighty yards. Doubtless, an eddy from this hole accounts for the deposit of snow and, by accretions, for the erection of the nodule. Webb went down at the end of the alpine rope and found the bridge below quite solid.
For about half a mile the summit of the slope was practically level, three hundred feet above the bed of the valley. The surface was still of neve, intersected by canals forty, sixty and eighty feet wide, in which the snow-bridge was generally four or five feet from the brink.
On the south-west horizon, perhaps twenty miles away, was a salient crest streaked by three dark vertical bars; evidently another crevassed area.
Returning to the sledge, we toggled-on and worked it up over the top of the ridge, much regretting that time would not allow us to examine the other two large "nodules." Hurley was in the lead, lengthening his line by thirty feet of alpine rope, but even then all three of us and the sledge were often on the lid of a crevasse. Luckily, the lids were fairly sound, and none of us went in beyond the waist. Finally, the trail emerged on to ordinary sastrugi once more, where a halt was made for lunch. We were all glad to have seen the place, but I think none of us has any wish to see another like it.
That night, after following the magnetic needle towards the south-east, we were fairly on the plateau at one hundred and forty miles, with an altitude of four thousand four hundred feet. The dip, however, had steadily decreased, standing now at 88 degrees 30'. There was some consolation in the hope that a big, sudden rise was stored up for us somewhere along the way ahead.
December 4 and 5 were fine days, giving only twenty-two miles, as we met with a rough surface; a large quantity of very hard, razor-backed sastrugi, generally about two feet high, like groined vaulting inverted, on a small scale. Sledge and sledge-meter both had a very rough passage. The sledge, for instance, balances itself on the top of a sastruga for a moment, with an ominous bend in the runners, crashes down the slope and jams its bow into the next one, from which it has to be lifted clear.
During this run the needle again misbehaved itself, changing its direction some 85 degrees in ten miles, but by the night of the 5th we were getting past the disturbed locality and the dip had increased considerably.
For the first time on the trip the wind veered round to the south-east. Snow had fallen overnight (December 5) and had drifted in long ramps diagonally across the sastrugi. In two and a half hours we covered two and a quarter miles, blindly blundering in an uncertain light among crests and troughs and through piles of soft, new snow. Then we stopped; Webb filling in the afternoon with a full set of dip observations.
That night the break-wind played its one possible trick. Waking on the 8th, we found that the heavy snowfall, with only a moderate wind, had drifted us up. Of course Hurley and I, who slept on the 'outsides,' had known it most of the night. Before we could extricate ourselves from the bags Webb had to turn out from the middle to dig away the drift which was weighing down the walls of the tent on top of us.
It was hopeless weather for travelling. In the afternoon a snow cave was dug, seven feet deep and enlarged to seven feet square at the bottom. The whole was covered with mast, yard and sail. It was very snug from the outward aspect, but we soon found that there were two objections to the "Sarcophagus," as it was named. There was very little light except a ghastly blue half-tone filtering through the snow, and the place was not over warm, surrounded by walls at a much lower temperature than that of the surface.
Webb commenced a declination "quick-run," consisting of half-hourly observations of the direction in which the compass was pointing. In ordinary latitudes, during the day, the compass needle moves over a few minutes of arc, but here, being so close to the Magnetic Pole, its movement is greatly magnified, the range being about 5 degrees on this occasion. Webb carried on readings till midnight, and at 4 A.M., December 9, I turned out, being relieved at 8 A.M. by Hurley, who carried on until the twenty-four hours were completed. This observation should be especially valuable when it is compared with continuous magnetic records obtained at the same time at Winter Quarters and by the Scott expedition at McMurdo Sound.
It was not till 1.30 P.M. on December 10 that the sixty-mile wind had subsided sufficiently for us to get away. Every yard of our quota of seven miles was hard going. A fine example of a typical old sastruga was passed on the way. In order to secure a photograph of it, Hurley had to waste eighteen films before he could persuade one to pull into place correctly. The film-packs had been carefully kept in an airtight tin, but the cold was too much for them. The tags which should pull each film round from the back to the front of the pack usually tore away with a small piece of film. In fact, out of one hundred and twenty films only forty-five exposures were made.
On the 11th a good deal of "piecrust" cut down the day's march to eight and a half miles. Sledge runners are usually supported by this surface, but one's feet break through in a most annoying and tiring manner. The drift eased off for a few hours and we managed to dry some of our gear. At the Sarcophagus, things which had all been wet enough before became saturated with drift which turned to ice. Felt mitts are perhaps the worst in this respect, and it is no exaggeration to say that you could easily brain a man with one after it had been worn in drift for a couple of days.
That night I decided that one more day must see us at our depot. Allowing three days' grace for contingencies, there were thirty-one days for us to attain our farthest southerly point and back to the Hut.
On the 12th we planned to reach a spot for the depot, two hundred miles out, and by 11.30 P.M. came on a fine site at one hundred and ninety-nine and three-quarter miles; altitude four thousand eight hundred and fifty feet, latitude 69 degrees 83.1' south; longitude 140 degrees 20' east. Everything possible was left behind, the sledge-decking being even cut away, until only three light bamboo slats remained. A pile, including ten days' food and one gallon of kerosene, was placed on a small mound to prevent it being drifted over. A few yards distant rose a solid nine-foot cairn surmounted by a black canvas-and-wire flag, six feet higher, well stayed with steel wire.
I took on food for seventeen days, three days more than I intended to be out, partly so that we could keep on longer if we found we could make very fast time, and also as a safeguard against thick weather when returning to the depot.
Late in the evening we set off against a stiff breeze. The sledge ran lightly for three and a half miles, and we camped. The depot showed up well in the north-west as a bright golden spot in the low midnight sun.
Next day the piecrust was so bad that, despite the lessened load, we only covered twelve miles. The surface was smoothly polished, and we either crashed through it from four inches to a foot or else slipped and came down heavily on knees, elbow, or head. New finnesko were largely responsible for such an accident.
At 11 P.M. a remarkable ramp, five chains long, was passed. On its windward side was a tangled cluster of large sastrugi. They made one imagine that the wind, infuriated at finding a block of snow impeding its progress, had run amok with a giant gouge, endeavouring to pare it down. Every now and then, the gouge, missing its aim, had taken great lateral scoops from the surface, leaving trenches two and three feet deep.
In bags that night we had a talk (not the first by any means) over our prospects. Up to the one hundred-and-seventy-four-mile camp, four hundred miles seemed dimly possible, but now we saw we would be lucky to reach three hundred miles. Moreover, the dip at this spot was 89 degrees 11', practically what it had been ever since one hundred and fifty miles. Sixty-five miles for nothing! How far for the other forty-nine minutes which were needed for a vertical dip and the South Magnetic Pole? This problem was insoluble, so each toggled himself into his bag in a rather depressed state of mind.
December 16 was a glorious day; only a fifteen-mile wind, and for ten miles an improved surface. There was no drift, consequently opportunity was taken to turn the sleeping bags inside out. They needed it, too. The upper parts were not so bad as they had been propped open occasionally, but the lower halves were coated with solid ice. For the first time for weeks we did not wear burberrys, as the weather was so warm. Fourteen miles was the total work, the previous day's being twelve.
All three of us were having trouble with snow-blindness; the "zinc and cocaine" tabloids being in great demand.
Latitude 70 degrees south was passed on the 17th and we were another fourteen miles to the good. The dip was on the increase 89 degrees 25' and the declination swung to 40 degrees east of the magnetic meridian. At two hundred and fifty-six miles the altitude was five thousand five hundred feet.
The temperature was getting lower; the minimum being -21 degrees F. on the night of the 17th, rising to a maximum of 3 degrees F. on the following day.
There was dead calm and a regular heat wave on December 19. As the sun rose higher and higher, the tent became absolutely oppressive. The rime coating the walls inside thawed and water actually trickled into our finnesko. Usually we awoke to find them frozen hard, just as we had shaped them on the previous night, but on this particular morning they were pathetically limp and wet. The temperature inside the tent was 66 degrees F., heated, of course, by the sun's rays which raised our black bulb thermometer to 105 degrees F. We were not used to this sort of thing and struggled out hurriedly for a breath of fresh air.
Once into harness, we began to feel the effects of exertion. By degrees we got rid of our clothing, but unfortunately soon came to bedrock in that respect, as the underclothing was sewn on and immovable. At lunch time, with the thermometer at -2 degrees F. in the shade, we reluctantly dressed knowing how soon we would cool off. About 9 P.M. clouds moved over rapidly from the south-east and the landscape faded into the blank, shadowless nothing of an overcast day. The camp was pitched at two hundred and eighty-three miles amidst a jumble of ramps and sastrugi. The dip had seen fit to rise to 89 degrees 35'.
In the morning the wind was doing thirty miles per hour, which certainly seemed to be the normal thing. It fell to a nice sailing breeze, but, at the time, we were not very appreciative of anything as the course was uphill. Again, it was to be the last day's run, so we were "all out" when the halt came after a good fifteen miles--the longest day's march on the outward journey. Nevertheless, Webb unpacked the theodolite after hoosh and took an altitude of the sun at midnight.
On December 21 the load on the sledge was stripped down to tent, dip-circle, theodolite, cooker and a little food. For two and a half miles we went south-east over rising ground until the sledge-meter showed three hundred and one miles.
While Hurley and I pitched the tent, Webb built a breakwind for his instrument fifty yards away. Then followed a long set of magnetic observations. About 5 P.M. the magnetic work was interrupted; the theodolite replacing the dip-circle on the legs, while I took a longitude shot. I was seeing double, being slightly snow-blind, and had some difficulty in choosing the correct combination from the assortment of suns and cross-wires visible in the telescope. Setting the vertical and horizontal wires simultaneously on the sun was beyond me; Webb taking the observations for the true meridian, which also checked my longitude shot.
Magnetic work under these conditions is an extremely uncomfortable operation. Even a light wind will eddy round the break-wind, and it is wind which makes low temperatures formidable. Nearly all the work has to be done with bare fingers or thin instrument-gloves, and the time taken is far greater than in temperate climates, owing to the fingers constantly "going" and because of the necessity of continually freeing the instrument from the condensed moisture of the breath. Considering that the temperature was -12 degrees F. when he had finished his four hours' work, it may be imagined that Webb was ready for his hot tea. The dip proved to be 89 degrees 43.5', that is, sixteen and a half minutes from the vertical. The altitude was just over five thousand nine hundred feet, in latitude 70 degrees 36.5' south and longitude 148 degrees 10' east.
After lunch the Union Jack and the Commonwealth Ensign were hoisted and three cheers given for the King--willing but rather lonesome away out there! We searched the horizon with glasses but could see nothing save snow, undulating in endless sastrugi. To the south-east the horizon was limited by our old enemy, "the next ridge," some two miles away. We wondered what could be beyond, although we knew it was only the same featureless repetition, since one hundred and seventy-five miles on the same course would bring us to the spot where David, Mawson and Mackay had stood in 1909.
After Hurley had taken a photograph of the camp, the tent was struck and the sledge repacked. At last the sail was rigged, we gave a final glance back and turned on the homeward trail.
My diary of that night sums up: "We have now been exactly six weeks on the tramp and somehow feel rather sad at turning back, even though it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is a great disappointment not to see a dip of 90 deg., but the time is too short with this 'climate.' It was higher than we expected to get, after the unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile depot. The rate of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform and indicates that 90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty miles, if the same rate held, and that means at least another week. It's no good thinking about it for 'orders are orders.' We'll have our work cut out to get back as it is. Twenty-five days till we are overdue. Certainly we have twenty-three days' food, eight days' with us, ten days' at two hundred miles, and five days' at sixty-seven miles, so with luck we should not go hungry, but Webb wants to get five more full sets of dips if possible on the way back, and this means two and a half days."
That night the minimum thermometer registered its lowest at -25 degrees F. It was December 21 and Midsummer Day, so we concluded that the spot would be a very chilly one in the winter.
At this juncture we were very short of finnesko. The new ones we had worn since the two-hundred-mile camp had moulted badly and were now almost "bald." The stitching wears through as soon as the hair comes off and frequent mending is necessary.
We rose earlier than usual on the 22nd, so as to get more advantage from the wind, which each evening had always tended to die down somewhat. With forty-two square feet of sail, the twenty-mile wind was too much for us, the sledge capsizing on the smallest pretext. Instead of hanging the yard from the top of the mast, we placed it across the load, reversing the sail and hooking the clews over the top of the mast. Three or four pieces of lampwick at intervals served as reefing-points by which the area of the sail could be quickly cut down by bunching the upper part as much as was necessary.
During the day we frequently saw our tracks in patches of snow left during a previous snowfall, but they were much eroded, although only three days old. After sledging in Adelie Land it is hard to realize that on certain parts of the Ross Barrier tracks a year old may remain visible.
After passing the two-hundred-and-eighty-three-mile mound, the sledge-meter became very sickly. Spoke after spoke had parted and we saw that nothing we could do would make it last very much longer. As we intended in one place to make a cross-country run of seventy miles, so as to cut off the detour to the "Nodules," the meter was carried on the sledge. We had now the mounds to check distances.
On December 23 we were lucky enough to catch sight of the two-hundred-and-sixty-nine-mile mound and later the one at two hundred and sixty-one miles, though there was a good deal of drift. The day's run was twenty and a half miles.
A thing which helped us unexpectedly was that, now with the wind behind, we found it unnecessary to wear the stiff, heavy, frozen, burberry trousers. Thick pyjama trousers took their place in all except the worst weather.
At our old two-hundred-and-forty-nine-mile camp, Webb took a complete set of magnetic observations and another time-shot for watch-rate. It was late when these were over, so we did only two and a half miles more, halting for Christmas Eve, well content with a run of fourteen miles in addition to a set of observations.
On Christmas Day the country was very rough, making sailing difficult. Still, eighteen and a half miles were left behind. The wind was practically along the sastrugi and the course was diagonal to both. As the sledge strikes each sastruga, it skids northwards along it to the discomfort of the wheelers and the disgust of the leader.
For Christmas dinner that night we had to content ourselves with revising the menu for the meal which was to celebrate the two-hundred-mile depot. But now it was all pretty well mapped out, having been matured in its finer details for several days on the march. Hors d'oeuvre, soup, meat, pudding, sweets and wine were all designed, and estimates were out. Would we pick up the depot soon enough to justify an "auspicious occasion"?
Next day the wind was due south at thirty miles per hour. Dodging big ramps and overturning on sastrugi, at the same time dragging well upwind of the course to save leeway, twelve miles went by without the two-hundred-and-fifteen-mile mound coming into sight. Finally, a search with the glasses through falling snow revealed it a good two miles back. As we particularly wanted some photos of the ramps at this camp, we made across to it and had lunch there, Hurley exposing the last of the films.
At two hundred and nine miles "Lot's Wife" appeared--a tall, thin mound which Hurley had erected during a lunch-camp on the way out.
On the 27th, with a thirty-five-mile wind and a good deal of drift, we did not see the two-hundred-and-three-mile mound until we almost ran into it. By three o'clock the great event occurred--the depot was found! We determined to hold the Christmas feast. After a cup of tea and a bit of biscuit, the rest of the lunch ration was put aside.
Webb set up his instrument in the lee of the big mound and commenced a set of observations; I sorted out gear from the depot and rearranged the sledge load; Hurley was busy in the tent concocting all kinds of dishes. As the tableware was limited to three mugs and the Nansen cooker, we had to come in to deal with each course the moment it was ready. Aiming at a really high-class meal, Hurley had started by actually cleaning out the cooker.
The absence of reindeer-hair and other oddments made everything taste quite strange, though the basis was still the same old ration with a few remaining "perks." After the "raisin gliders," soup and a good stiff hoosh, Webb finished his observations while I recorded for him. It is wonderful what sledging does for the appetite. For the first week of the journey, the unaccustomed ration was too much for us; but now when Hurley announced "Pudding!" we were all still ravenous. It was a fine example of ye goode olde English plum-pudding, made from biscuit grated with the Bonsa-saw, fat picked out of the pemmican, raisins and glaxo-and-sugar, all boiled in an old food-bag.
This pudding was so filling that we could hardly struggle through a savoury, "Angels on runners," and cocoa. There was a general recovery when the "wine" was produced, made from stewed raisins and primus alcohol; and "The King" was toasted with much gusto. At the first sip, to say the least, we were disappointed. The rule of "no heel taps" nearly settled us, and quite a long interval and cigars, saved up for the occasion by Webb, were necessary before we could get courage enough to drink to the Other Sledging Parties and Our Supporting Party.
The sun was low in the south when, cigars out and conversation lagging, we finally toggled in for the finest sleep of the whole journey.
The cook, under a doubtful inspiration, broke forth, later on, into a Christmas Carol:
I've dined in many places but never such as these- It's like the Gates of Heaven when you find you've lost the keys. I've dined with kings and emperors, perhaps you scarce believe; And even they do funny things when round comes Christmas Eve. I've feasted with iguanas on a lonely desert isle; Once in the shade of a wattle by a maiden's winsome smile. I've "grubbed" at a threepenny hash-house, I've been at a counter-lunch, Reclined at a clap-up cafe where only the "swankers" munch. In short, I've dined from Horn to Cape and up Alaska-way But the finest, funniest dinner of all was on that Xmas Day.
For the first ten miles on the afternoon of the 28th, the sail was reefed down to prevent the sledge overrunning us on smooth patches. Not far past the one-hundred-and-ninety-mile mound, which was missed in the drift, we picked up some of the outward tracks--a bas-relief of three footsteps and a yard of sledge-meter track, raised half an inch and undercut by the wind. It was not very much, but quite a comfort when one is navigating in blinding weather.
At 11.30 P.M. we had marched twenty-one miles, and both light and surface were improving, so I proposed making a long run of it. Hurley and Webb eagerly agreed, and we had a preparatory hoosh. Ten miles scudded by monotonously without a sign of the mounds around the one-hundred-and-seventy-mile camp. As we were in the vicinity of a point where we had determined to diverge from our outward track, a course was laid direct for the one-hundred-and-thirteen-mile mark. The sledge-meter, which had been affixed, made its presence evident from time to time by ringing like a cash register, as still another broken spoke struck the forks. We would halt for a moment and extract the remains. Out of the original thirty-six wire spokes, only twelve wire and one wooden one remained. At 11.30 A.M. on December 29, a halt was called and the sledge-meter was then lying over on its side with a helpless expression. It indicated twenty-two miles, making, so we thought, a total of forty-three miles in the twenty-two and a quarter hours since leaving the depot. Observations for position next day proved that in its dying effort it exaggerated the truth; the total run being 41.6 miles.
We were now well ahead of schedule time, there being four and a half days' surplus food; above what was probably required to reach the sixty-seven-and-a-half-mile depot. It was decided to hold three days of this and to use one and a half days food as a bonus during the coming week, as long as we were ahead of our necessary distance. The sledging ration is quite enough to live on, but for the whole of the journey we had felt that we could have done more distance on a slightly larger ration. This may be partly explained by our comparatively high altitude.
Next morning the sledge-meter was cut away and stuck in the snow. It looked very forlorn sitting askew in its forks, with a pair of worn-out finnesko hanging over it.
After twelve miles with a favourable wind, Webb took more observations; Hurley and I recording by turns. There were several small holes in the tent which needed mending, and I experimented with adhesive plaster from the medical kit with great success. Heated over a fusee and pressed hard down between the bottoms of mugs, held outside and inside, the patches adhered well and made a permanent job.
Early on December 31, 1912, snow was falling. The light gave Hurley an attack of snow-blindness and a miserable day. Crampons were worn to give some security to the foothold on the uneven track. The position, after a trudge of fifteen miles, was estimated at five miles east of the one-hundred-and-twenty-three-mile mound.
On New Year's Day, 1913, the wind was fresher and the surface improved. Estimation placed us to the north of one hundred and thirteen miles, but we were not hopeful in the light falling snow of seeing a mound. Soon, however, the snow ceased, and Webb made out a hillock two miles ahead. It was identified as the one at one hundred and nine miles.
It had been my turn to be snowblind. I was so bad that the only thing to do was to camp or ride on the sledge. The trail changed here to straight downwind, so Webb and Hurley undertook the job, hauling the sledge with me as a passenger for three and a half miles to the one-hundred-and-five-mile mound. It must have been a trying finish to a run of twenty miles.
In spite of the spell, which was a sleepless one, I was no better in the morning and again had to ride. The others pulled away for five miles with a good helping wind, but in a provoking light. The camp was made where the one-hundred-mile mound was judged to be. We spent longer over lunch, hoping that the clouds would clear. At last we moved on, or rather I was moved on. After two miles the surface became heavier. My eyes were better now on account of the rest and a snow "poultice" Webb had invented. I harnessed-in for five miles over light, unpacked snow, with piecrust underneath. The day's work was twelve miles.
The snow-clouds broke at noon on January 3, and a reliable latitude was obtained. It agreed with our reckoning. Persevering over the same trying surface as on the previous day, we sighted the ninety-mile-mound in the rear as a rift broke in the sky. We must have passed a few hundred yards from it.
We were still eleven miles from the depot, so at breakfast on the 4th the rations were reduced by one-half to give plenty of time to locate our goal. On the 4th the sky was clear, but surface drift prevented us from seeing any mounds till, in the afternoon, the ramps near the sixty-seven-mile depot were discovered in fitful glimpses. They bore too much to the north, so we altered course correspondingly to the west, camping in rising wind and drift, with great hopes for the morrow.
A densely overcast sky on the 5th; light snow falling! We moved on two miles, but not being able to see one hundred yards, camped again; then walking as far as seemed safe in various directions. One could do nothing but wait for clear weather. The clouds lightened at 6 P.M. and again at 9 P.M., when altitudes of the sun were secured, putting us four miles south of the depot.
With only one chronometer watch, one has to rely entirely on dead reckoning for longitude, the rate of a single watch being very variable. The longitude obtained on this occasion from our latest known rate moved us several miles to the east of the depot, so I concluded that our distances since the camp at ninety miles had been overestimated, and that we were probably to the south-east of it. Accordingly, we shifted four miles to the north-west, but by this time it had again clouded over and nothing could be seen.
On the 6th the sky was still overcast, but a lucky peep at noon aligned us on the exact latitude of the depot. We walked east and west, but it snowed persistently and everything was invisible.
It is weary work waiting in the tent for weather to improve. During this time Hurley amused himself and us by composing a Christmas carol on the Christmas dinner; a fragment from which has already appeared. I whiled away a whole afternoon, cutting up the remains of two cigars which had refused to draw. Sliced up with a pair of scissors and mixed with a few of Hurley's cigarettes, they made very good smoking tobacco.
On the 7th the sky was immovable, and we trekked four miles due east, camped once more and walked about without finding our goal.
I now decided that if the weather did not improve by the morning, we should have to dash for the north. It was a risk, but matters were coming to a serious pass. On broaching the subject to Webb and Hurley, they unconditionally agreed with me.
At 3 A.M. the sky cleared rapidly and we turned out and saw the ramps plainly to the east. Webb set up the theodolite while Hurley and I paced out a half-mile base-line to find out the intervening distance. Just as we got to the end of it, however, the clouds came over again and the ramps faded.
There was only one thing for it now, and that was to make a break for the coast. Of food, there was one full day's ration with enough pemmican for half a hoosh, six lumps of sugar and nine raisins, rather the worse for wear, oil for two days, and, last but not least, a pint of alcohol. After four days on half-rations we felt fairly fit, thanks no doubt to the good meals of the previous week.
There were sixty-seven miles to go, and in case we did not happen on the narrow descent to the Hut, the food was apportioned to last for five days. Everything unessential was stripped off the sledge, including dip-circle, thermometers, hypsometer, camera, spare clothing and most of the medical and repair kits.
At 7 A.M. we set off on the final stage of the journey. The sky was densely overcast and snow was falling, but there was a strong wind almost behind. We would march for an hour by my wrist-watch, halt for five minutes and on again till all agreed that we had covered ten miles; when it was lunch time. Each man's share of this consisted of one-third of a biscuit, one-third of an ounce of butter and a drink made of a spoonful of glaxo-and-sugar and one of absolute alcohol, mixed in a mug of lukewarm water. We could not afford oil enough to do much more than thaw the water, but the alcohol warmed us splendidly, enabling us to get a good rest.
After an hour's spell we started again, luckily seeing just enough of the sun to check the course. The wind grew stronger in the afternoon and several times dense fog-banks drove down on us. Meeting one steep rise, we sidled round it for what seemed hours, but my chief memory of that afternoon was of the clouds of the northern horizon. They were a deep bluish-grey colour--a typical "water-sky"--but I have never seen clouds moving so fast. It was like trying to steer by one particular phase in a kaleidoscope. When all were satisfied that twenty miles had been covered we camped.
Dinner consisted of a very watery hoosh, followed up by a mug of alcohol and water. We were all very thankful for the forethought of Dr. Mawson in providing absolute alcohol for lighting the primus, instead of methylated spirit.
Breakfast on the 9th was of about the same consistency as dinner on the night before, except that cocoa replaced the alcohol. In fact, breakfast was possibly even more watery, as I was in charge of the food-bag and surreptitiously decided to make the rations last six days instead of five.
This was the worst day's march of the journey. The wind was booming along at sixty miles per hour with dense drift and falling snow. What made it worse was that it came from the south-east, forcing us to pull partly across it. I was the upwind wheeler and had to hitch on to the side of the sledge to reduce the leeway as much as possible. The sledge was being continually jammed into big, old, invisible sastrugi and we fell about in the wind until crampons became absolutely necessary.
At 4 P.M. we were disgusted to find that the wind had veered to south-by-east. So for possibly several hours we had been doing Heaven only knows how many times the amount of work necessary, and for any time up to four hours might have been marching three points off our course. Being blown straight downwind, the sledge made rapid progress, and about 6 P.M. a halt was called for lunch. This was over almost as soon as it was begun, but we had a good rest, sheltering ourselves with the floor-cloth from the wind which blew through the tent.
Off again, we "plugged" away until midnight when we were much surprised to find the usual snow surface merging into blue ice. The tent was pitched on the latter, snow being procured from the bridge of a crevasse as we had no pick: even the ice-axe having been left behind.
Turning out on the morning of the 10th, we were delighted to find the sky clearing and the wind moderating. And then, far away on the northern horizon a beautiful line of blue sea dotted with bergs!
We now officially considered ourselves to be twenty-seven miles from the Hut. As we should not have met blue ice on the proper course till we were only thirteen miles out, it was thought that we had edged a long way to the east the day before. When a start was made, we manoeuvred to the west in looking for a crossing-place at each crevasse.
It was not long before the bergs on the horizon were noticeably enlarging, and at last we realized that in reality it was only a few miles to them. Suddenly the grade increased, the ice becoming much lacerated; and we had some trouble getting the sledge along. Hurley was snow-blind and had one eye covered. He looked very comical feeling his way over the crevasses, but he probably did not feel over-humorous.
I was in the lead, and suddenly coming over a ridge above a steep ice-fall, I caught sight of the Mackellar Islets and the old "Piano" berg. Just at the same instant the spur of ice on which I was standing collapsed, and down I went into a crevasse. The others quickly had me out, and, as soon as I was in the upper air, I gave them the news: "There are the Islands!" Being twenty feet farther back on the rope they had not yet seen them.
We were now able to place ourselves about three miles west of Aladdin's Cave. The last camp must have been thirteen miles from the Hut, and we had really done twenty-seven miles each day instead of our conservative twenty.
We tried to work along to the east, but the ice was too much broken, so the camp was made on a patch of snow. In view of our good fortune, I produced that evening's ration of hoosh in addition to our usual lunch. Even this meagre spree went against Hurley's feelings, for, being snow-blind, he had not been able to see the islands and positively would not believe that we were nearly home.
After lunch it was necessary to retrace our way upwind to get out of the rough country. About midnight, Webb recognized Aladdin's Cave. Hurley and I had a competition as to who should see it first, for I was also getting a little blind again. We had a dead-heat at one hundred and fifty yards.
The first thing to arrest our attention was a tin of dog biscuits. These kept things going till we dug out a food tank from which was rapidly extracted a week's supply of chocolate. After that we proceeded in a happier frame of mind to open up the cave and have a meal.
The journey of more than six hundred miles was now practically over. After a carousal lasting till 5 P.M. on the 11th, we went down hill, arriving just after dinner and finding all well.
We three had never thought the Hut quite such a fine place, nor have we ever since.