XIII. SUSPENSE…

XIII. SUSPENSE

All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

WALT WHITMAN.

Let us come back to Cape Evans after the return of the First Supporting Party.

Hitherto our ways had always been happy: for the most part they had been pleasant. Scott was going to reach the Pole, probably without great difficulty, for when we left him on the edge of the plateau he had only to average seven miles a day to go there on full rations. We ourselves had averaged 14.2 geographical miles a day on our way home to One Ton Depôt, and there seemed no reason to suppose that the other two parties would not do likewise, and the food was not only sufficient but abundant if such marches were made. Thus we were content as we wandered over the cape, or sat upon some rock warmed by the sun and watched the penguins bathing in the lake which had formed in the sea-ice between us and Inaccessible Island. All round us were the cries of the skua gulls as they squabbled among themselves, and we heard the swish of their wings as they swooped down upon a man who wandered too near their nests. Out upon the sea-ice, which was soggy and dangerous, lay several seal, and the bubblings and whistlings and gurglings which came from their throats chimed musically in contrast to the hoarse aak, aak, of the Adélie penguins: the tide crack was sighing and groaning all the time: it was very restful after the Barrier silence.

Meanwhile the Terra Nova had been seen in the distance, but the state of the sea-ice prevented her approach. It was not until February 4 that communication was opened with her and we got our welcome mails and news of the world during the last year. We heard that Campbell's party had been picked up at Cape Adare and landed at Evans Coves. We started unloading on February 9, and this work was continued until February 14: there was about three miles of ice between the ship and the shore and we were doing more than twenty miles a day. In the case of men who had been sledging much, and who might be wanted to sledge again, this was a mistake. Latterly the ice began to break up, and the ship left on the 15th, to pick up the Geological Party on the western side of McMurdo Sound. But she met great obstacles, and her record near the coasts this year is one of continual fights against pack-ice, while the winds experienced as the season advanced were very strong. On January 13 the fast ice at the mouth of McMurdo Sound extended as far as the southern end of the Bird Peninsula: ten days later they found fast ice extending for thirty miles from the head of Granite Harbour. Later in the season the most determined efforts were made again and again to penetrate into Evans Coves in order to pick up Campbell and his men, until the ice was freezing all round them, and many times the propeller was brought up dead against blocks of ice.[259]

The expedition was originally formed for two years from the date of leaving England. But before the ship left after landing us at Cape Evans in January 1911 the possibility of a third year was considered, and certain requests for additional transport and orders for stores were sent home. Thus it came about that the ship now landed not only new sledges and sledging stores but also fourteen dogs from Kamchatka and seven mules, with their food and equipment. The dogs were big and fat, but the only ones which proved of much service for sledging were Snowy, a nice white dog, and Bullett. It was Oates' idea that mules might prove a better form of transport on the Barrier than ponies. Scott therefore wrote to Sir Douglas Haig, then C.-in-C. in India, that if he failed to reach the Pole in the summer of 1911-12, "it is my intention to make a second attempt in the following season provided fresh transport can be brought down: the circumstances making it necessary to plan to sacrifice the transport animals used in any attempt.

"Before directing more ponies to be sent down I have thoroughly discussed the situation with Captain Oates, and he has suggested that mules would be better than ponies for our work and that trained Indian Transport Mules would be ideal. It is evident already that our ponies have not a uniform walking pace and that in other small ways they will be troublesome to us although they are handy little beasts."

The Indian Government not only sent seven mules but when they arrived we found that they had been most carefully trained and equipped. In India they were in the charge of Lieutenant George Pulleyn, and the care and thought which had been spent upon them could not have been exceeded: the equipment was also extremely good and well adapted to the conditions, while most of the improvements made by us as the result of a year's experience were already foreseen and provided. The mules themselves, by name Lal Khan, Gulab, Begum, Ranee, Abdullah, Pyaree and Khan Sahib, were beautiful animals.

Atkinson would soon have to start on his travels again. Before we left Scott at the top of the Beardmore he gave him orders to take the two dog-teams South in the event of Meares having to return home, as seemed likely. This was not meant in any way to be a relief journey. Scott said that he was not relying upon the dogs; and that in view of the sledging in the following year, the dogs were not to be risked. Although it was settled that some members of the expedition would stay, while others returned to New Zealand, Scott and several of his companions had left undecided until the last moment the question of whether they would themselves remain in the South for another year. In the event of Scott deciding to return home the dog-teams might make the difference between catching or missing the ship. I had discussed this question with Wilson more than once, and he was of opinion that the business affairs of the expedition demanded Scott's return if possible: Wilson himself inclined to the view that he himself would stay if Scott stayed, and return if Scott returned. I think that Oates meant to return, and am sure that Bowers meant to stay: indeed he welcomed the idea of one more year in a way which I do not think was equalled by any other member of the expedition. For the most part we felt that we had joined up for two years, but that if there was to be a third year we would rather see the thing through than return home.

I hope I have made clear that the primary object of this journey with the dog-teams was to hurry Scott and his companions home so that they might be in time to catch the ship if possible, before she was compelled by the close of the season to leave McMurdo Sound. Another thing which made Scott anxious to communicate with the ship if possible before the season forced her to leave the Sound was his desire to send back news. From many remarks which he made, and also from the discussions in the hut during the winter, it was obvious that he considered it was of the first importance that the news of reaching the Pole, if it should be reached, be communicated to the world without the delay of another year. Of course he would also wish to send news of the safe return of his party to wives and relations as soon as possible. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the dog-teams were intended to hasten the return of the Polar Party, but that they were never meant to form a relief journey.

But now Atkinson was left in a rather difficult position. I note in my diary, after we had reached the hut, that "Scott was to have sent back instructions for the dog party with us, but these have, it would seem, been forgotten"; but it may be that Scott considered that he had given these instructions in a conversation he had with Atkinson at the top of the Beardmore Glacier, when Scott said, "with the depôt [of dog-food] which has been laid come as far as you can."

According to the plans for the Polar Journey the food necessary to bring the three advance parties of man-haulers back from One Ton Depôt to Hut Point was to be taken out to One Ton during the absence of these parties. This food consisted of five weekly units of what were known as XS rations. It was also arranged that if possible a depôt of dog-biscuit should be taken out at the same time: this was the depôt referred to above by Scott. In the event of the return of the dog-teams in the first half of December, which was the original plan, the five units of food and the dog-biscuit would have been run out by them to One Ton. If the dog-teams did not return in time to do this a man-hauling party from Cape Evans was to take out three of the five units of food.

It has been shown that the dog-teams were taken farther on the Polar Journey than was originally intended,[260] indeed they were taken from 81° 15´, where they were to have turned back, as far as 83° 35´. Nor were they able to make the return journey in the fast time which had been expected of them, and the dog-drivers were running very short of food and were compelled to encroach to some extent upon the supplies left to provide for the wants of those who were following in their tracks.[261] The dog-teams did not arrive back at Cape Evans until January 4.

Meanwhile a man-hauling party from Cape Evans, consisting of Day, Nelson, Clissold and Hooper, had already, according to plan, taken out three of the five XS rations for the returning parties. The weights of the man-hauling party did not allow for the transport of the remaining two XS rations, nor for any of the dog-food. Thus it was that when Atkinson came to make his plans to go South with the dogs he found that there was no dog-food south of Corner Camp, and that the rations for the return of the Polar Party from One Ton Depôt had still to be taken out. That is to say, the depôt of dog-food spoken of by Scott did not exist. There was, however, enough food already at One Ton to allow the Polar Party to come in on reduced rations. This meant that what the dog-teams could do was limited, and was much less than it might have been had it been possible to take out the depôt of dog-food to One Ton. Also the man-food for the Polar Party had to be added to the weights taken by the dogs.

To estimate even approximately at what date a party will reach a given point after a journey of this length when the weather conditions are always uncertain and the number of travelling days unknown, was a most difficult task. The only guide was the average marches per diem made by our own return party, and the average of the second return party if it should return before the dog party set out. A week one way or the other was certainly not a large margin. A couple of blizzards might make this much difference.

In the plan of the Southern Journey Scott, working on Shackleton's averages, mentions March 27 as a possible date of return to Hut Point, allowing seven days in from One Ton. Whilst on the outward journey I heard Scott discuss the possibility of returning in April; and the Polar Party had enough food to allow them to do this on full rations.

Atkinson and Dimitri with the two dog-teams left Cape Evans for Hut Point on February 13 because the sea-ice, which was our only means of communication between these places, and so to the Barrier, was beginning to break up. Atkinson intended to leave Hut Point for the Barrier in about a week's time. At 3.30 A.M. on February 19 Crean arrived with the astounding news that Lieutenant Evans, still alive but at his last gasp, was lying out near Corner Camp, and that Lashly was nursing him; that the Last Supporting Party had consisted of three men only, a possibility which had never been considered; and that they had left Scott, travelling rapidly and making good averages, only 148 geographical miles from the Pole. Scott was so well advanced that it seemed that he would be home much earlier than had been anticipated.

A blizzard which had been threatening on the Barrier, and actually blowing at Hut Point, during Crean's solitary journey, but which had lulled as he arrived, now broke with full force, and nothing could be done for Evans until it took off sufficiently for the dog-teams to travel. But in the meantime Crean urgently wanted food and rest and warmth. As these were supplied to him Atkinson learned bit by bit the story of the saving of Evans' life, told so graphically in Lashly's diary which is given in the preceding chapter, and pieced together the details of Crean's solitary walk of thirty-five statute miles. This effort was made, it should be remembered, at the end of a journey of three and a half months, and over ground rendered especially perilous by crevasses, from which a man travelling alone had no chance of rescue in case of accident. Crean was walking for eighteen hours, and it was lucky for him, as also for his companions, that the blizzard which broke half an hour after his arrival did not come a little sooner, for no power on earth could have saved him then, and the news of Evans' plight would not have been brought.

The blizzard raged all that day, and the next night and morning, and nothing could be done. But during the afternoon of the 20th the conditions improved, and at 4.30 P.M. Atkinson and Dimitri started with the two dog-teams, though it was still blowing hard and very thick. They travelled, with one rest for the dogs, until 4.30 P.M. the next day, but had a very hazy idea where they were most of the time, owing to the vile weather: once at any rate they seem to have got right in under White Island. When they camped the second time they thought they were in the neighbourhood of Lashly's tent, and in a temporary clearance they saw the flag which Lashly had put up on the sledge. Evans was still alive, and Atkinson was able to give him immediately the fresh vegetables, fruit, and seal meat which his body wanted. Atkinson has never been able to express adequately the admiration he feels for Lashly's care and nursing.

All that night and the next day the blizzard continued and made a start impossible, and it was not until 3 A.M. on the morning of the 22nd that they could start for Hut Point, Evans being carried in his sleeping-bag on the sledge. Lashly has told how they got home.

At Cape Evans we knew nothing of these events, which had made reorganization inevitable. It was clear that Atkinson, being the only doctor available, would have to stay with Evans, who was very seriously ill: indeed Atkinson told me that another day, or at the most two, would have finished him. In fact he says that when he first saw him he thought he must die. It was a considerable surprise then when Dimitri with Crean and one dog-team reached Cape Evans about mid-day on February 23 with a note from Atkinson, who said that he thought he had better stay with Lieutenant Evans and that some one else should take out the dogs. He suggested that Wright or myself should take them. This was our first intimation that the dogs had not already gone South.

Wright and I started for Hut Point by 2 P.M. the same day and on our arrival it was decided by Atkinson that I was to take out the dogs. Owing to the early departure of our meteorologist, Simpson, Wright, who had special qualifications for this important work, was to remain at Cape Evans. Dimitri having rested his dog-team overnight at Cape Evans arrived at Hut Point on the morning of the 24th.

Now the daily distance which every 4-man party had to average from Hut Point to its turning-point and back to Hut Point, so as to be on full rations all the way, was only 8.4 geographical miles. From Hut Point to the latitude in which he was last seen, 87° 32´ S., Scott had averaged more than ten geographical miles a day.

Taking into consideration the advanced latitude, 87° 32´ S., at which the Second Return Party had left Scott, and the extremely good daily averages these two parties had marched on the plateau up to this point, namely 12.3 geographical miles a day; seeing also that the First Return Party had averaged 14.2 geographical miles on their return from 85° 3´ S. to One Ton Depôt; and the Second Return Party had averaged 11.2 geographical miles on their return from 87° 32´ S. to the same place, although one of the three men was seriously ill; it was supposed that all the previous estimates made for the return of the Polar Party were too late, and that the opportunity to reach One Ton Camp before them had been lost. Meanwhile the full rations for their return over the 140 miles (statute) from One Ton to Hut Point were still at Hut Point.

My orders were given me by Atkinson, and were verbal, as follows:

1. To take 24 days' food for the two men, and 21 days' food for the two dog-teams, together with the food for the Polar Party.

2. To travel to One Ton Depôt as fast as possible and leave the food there.

3. If Scott had not arrived at One Ton Depôt before me I was to judge what to do.

4. That Scott was not in any way dependent on the dogs for his return.

5. That Scott had given particular instructions that the dogs were not to be risked in view of the sledging plans for next season.

Since it had proved impossible to take the depôt of dog-food, together with the full Polar Party rations, to One Ton before this; considering the unforeseen circumstances which had arisen; and seeing that this journey of the dog-teams was not indispensable, being simply meant to bring the last party home more speedily, I do not believe that better instructions could have been given than these of Atkinson.

I was eager to start as soon as the team which had come back from Cape Evans was rested, but a blizzard prevented this. On the morning of the 25th it was thick as a hedge, but it cleared enough to pack sledges in the afternoon, and when we turned into our bags we could see Observation Hill. We started at 2 A.M. that night.

I confess I had my misgivings. I had never driven one dog, let alone a team of them; I knew nothing of navigation; and One Ton was a hundred and thirty miles away, out in the middle of the Barrier and away from landmarks. And so as we pushed our way out through the wind and drift that night I felt there was a good deal to be hoped for, rather than to be expected. But we got along very well, Dimitri driving his team in front, as he did most of this journey, and picking up marks very helpfully with his sharp eyes. In the low temperatures we met, the glasses which I must wear are almost impossible, because of fogging. We took three boxes of dog-biscuit from Safety Camp and another three boxes from a point sixteen miles from Hut Point. Here we rested the dogs for a few hours, and started again at 6 P.M. All day the light was appalling, and the wind strong, but to my great relief we found Corner Camp after four hours' more travelling, the flag showing plainly, though the cairn itself was invisible when a hundred yards away. This was the last place where there was any dog-food on the route, and the dogs got a good feed after doing thirty-four miles (statute) for the day's run. This was more than we had hoped: the only disquieting fact was that both the sledge-meters which we had were working wrong: the better of the two seemed however to be marking the total mileage fairly correctly at present, though the hands which indicated more detailed information were quite at sea. We had no minimum thermometer, but the present temperature was -4°.

"February 27. Mount Terror has proved our friend to-day, for the slope just above the Knoll has remained clear when everything else was covered, and we have steered by that--behind us. It seemed, when we started in low drift, that we should pick up nothing, but by good luck, or good I don't know what, we have got everything: first the motor, then pony walls at 10 miles, where we stopped and had a cup of tea. I wanted to do 15 miles, but we have done 18½ miles on the best running surface I have ever seen. After lunch we got a cairn which we could not see twenty yards away after we had reached it, but which we could see for a long way on the southern horizon, against a thin strip of blue sky. We camped just in time to get the tent pitched before a line of drift we saw coming out of the sky hit us. It is now blowing a mild blizzard and drifting. Forty-eight miles in two days is more than I expected: may our luck continue. Dogs pulling very fit and not done up.

"February 28. I had my first upset just after starting, the sledge capsizing on a great sastrugus like the Ramp. Dimitri was a long way ahead and all behind was very thick. I had to unload the sledge for I could not right it alone. Just as I righted it the team took charge. I missed the driving-stick but got on to the sledge with no hope of stopping them, and I was carried a mile to the south, leaving four boxes of dog-food, the weekly bag, cooker, and tent poles on the ground. The team stopped when they reached Dimitri's team, and by then the gear was out of sight. We went back for it, and made good 16¾ miles for the day on a splendid surface. The sun went down at 11.15 (10.15 A.T.), miraged quite flat on top. After he had gone down a great bonfire seemed to blaze out from the horizon. Now -22° and we use a candle for the first time.

"February 29. Bluff Depôt. If anybody had told me we could reach Bluff Depôt, nearly ninety miles, in four days, I would not have believed it. We have had a good clear day with much mirage. Dogs a bit tired."[262]

The next three days' run took us to One Ton. On the day we left Bluff Depôt, which had been made a little more than a year ago, when certain of the ponies were sent home on the Depôt Journey,[263] but which no longer contained any provisions, we travelled 12 miles; there was a good light and it was as warm as could be expected in March. The next day (March 2) we did 9 miles after a cold and sleepless night, -24° and a mild blizzard from N.W. and quite thick. On the night of March 3 we reached One Ton, heading into a strongish wind with a temperature of -24°. These were the first two days on which we had cold weather, but it was nothing to worry about for us, and was certainly not colder than one could ordinarily have expected at this time of year.

Arrived at One Ton my first feeling was one of relief that the Polar Party had not been to the Depôt and that therefore we had got their provisions out in time. The question of what we were to do in the immediate future was settled for us; for four days out of the six during which we were at One Ton the weather made travelling southwards, that is against the wind, either entirely impossible or such that the chance of seeing another party at any distance was nil. On the two remaining days I could have run a day farther South and back again, with the possibility of missing the party on the way. I decided to remain at the Depôt where we were certain to meet.

On the day after we arrived at One Ton (March 4) Dimitri came to me and said that the dogs ought to be given more food, since they were getting done and were losing their coats: they had, of course, done a great deal of sledging already this year. Dimitri had long experience of dog-driving and I had none. I thought and I still think he was right. I increased the dog ration therefore, and this left us with thirteen more days' dog-food, including that for March 4.

The weather was bad when we were at One Ton, for when it was blowing the temperature often remained comparatively low, and when it was not blowing it dropped considerably, and I find readings in my diary of -34° and -37° at 8 P.M. Having no minimum thermometer we did not know the night temperatures. On the other hand I find an entry: "To-day is the first real good one we have had, only about -10° and the sun shining,--and we have shifted the tent, dried our bags and gear a lot, and been pottering about all day." At this time, however, when we were at One Ton I looked upon these conditions as being a temporary cold snap: there was no reason then to suppose these were normal March conditions in the middle of the Barrier, where no one had ever been at this time of year. I believe now they are normal: on the other hand, in our meteorological report Simpson argues that they were abnormal for the Barrier at this time of year.[264]

Since there was no depôt of dog-food at One Ton it was not possible to go farther South (except for the one day mentioned above) without killing dogs. My orders on this point were perfectly explicit; I saw no reason for disobeying them, and indeed it appeared that we had been wrong to hurry out so soon, before the time that Scott had reckoned that he would return, and that the Polar Party would really come in at the time Scott had calculated before starting rather than at the time we had reckoned from the data brought back by the Last Return Party.

From the particulars already given it will be seen that I had no reason to suspect that the Polar Party could be in want of food. The Polar Party of five men had according to our rations plenty of food either on their sledge or in the depôts. In addition they had a lot of pony meat depôted at Middle Glacier Depôt and onwards from there. Though we did not know it, the death of Evans at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier provided an additional amount of food for the four men who were then left. The full amount of oil for this food had been left in the depôts; but we know now what we did not know then, that some of it had evaporated. These matters are discussed in greater detail in the account of the return of the Polar Party and after.[265]

Thus I felt little anxiety for the Polar Party. But I was getting anxious about my companion. Soon after arrival at One Ton it was clear that Dimitri was feeling the cold. He complained of his head; then his right arm and side were affected; and from this time onwards he found that he could do less and less with his right side. Still I did not worry much about it, and my decision as to our movements was not affected by this complication. I decided to allow eight days' food for our return, which meant that we must start on March 10.

"March 10. Pretty cold night: -33° when we turned out at 8 A.M. Getting our gear together, and the dogs more or less into order after their six days was cold work, and we started in minus thirties and a head wind. The dogs were mad,--stark, staring lunatics. Dimitri's team wrecked my sledge-meter, and I left it lying on the ground a mile from One Ton. All we could do was to hang on to the sledge and let them go: there wasn't a chance to go back, turn them or steer them. Dimitri broke his driving-stick: my team fought as they went: once I was dragged with my foot pinned under my driving-stick, which was itself jammed in the grummet: several times I only managed to catch on anywhere: this went on for six or seven miles, and then they got better."[266]

Our remaining sledge-meter was quite unreliable, but following our outward tracks (for it became thick and overcast), and judging by our old camping sites, we reckoned that we had done an excellent run of 23 to 24 miles (statute) for the day. The temperature when we camped was only -14°. However it became much colder in the night, and when we turned out it was so thick that I decided we must wait. At 2 P.M. on March 11 there was one small patch of blue sky showing, and we started to steer by this: soon it was blowing a mild blizzard, and we stopped after doing what I reckoned was eight miles, steering by trying to keep the wind on my ear: but I think we were turning circles much of the time. It blew hard and was very cold during the night, and we turned out on the morning of March 12 to a blizzard with a temperature of -33°: this gradually took off, and at 10 A.M. Dimitri said he could see the Bluff, and we were right into the land, and therefore the pressure. This was startling, but later it cleared enough to reassure me, though Dimitri was so certain that during the first part of our run that day I steered east a lot. We did 25 to 30 miles this day in drift and a temperature of -28°.

By now I was becoming really alarmed and anxious about Dimitri, who seemed to be getting much worse, and to be able to do less and less. Sitting on a sledge the next day with a head wind and the temperature -30° was cold. The land was clear when we turned out and I could see that we must be far outside our course, but almost immediately it became foggy. We made in towards the land a good deal, and made a good run, but owing to the sledge-meter being useless and the bad weather generally during the last few days, I had a very hazy idea indeed where we were when we camped, having been steering for some time by the faint gleam of the sun through the mist. Just after camping Dimitri suddenly pointed to a black spot which seemed to wave to and fro: we decided that it was the flag of the derelict motor near Corner Camp which up to that time I thought was ten to fifteen miles away: this was a great relief, and we debated packing up again and going to it, but decided to stay where we were.

It was fairly clear on the morning of March 14, which was lucky, for it was now obvious that we were miles from Corner Camp and much too near the land. The flag we had seen must have been a miraged piece of pressure, and it was providential that we had not made for it, and found worse trouble than we actually experienced. Try all I could that morning, my team, which was leading, insisted on edging westwards. At last I saw what I thought was a cairn, but found out just in time that it was a haycock or mound of ice formed by pressure: by its side was a large open crevasse, of which about fifty yards of snow-bridge had fallen in. For several miles we knew that we were crossing big crevasses by the hollow sound, and it was with considerable relief that I sighted the motor and then Corner Camp some two or three miles to the east of us. "Dimitri had left his Alpine rope there, and also I should have liked to have brought in Evans' sledge, but it would have meant about five miles extra, and I left it. I hope Scott, finding no note, will not think we are lost."[267]

Dimitri seemed to be getting worse, and we pushed on until we camped that night only fifteen miles from Hut Point. My main anxiety was whether the sea-ice between us and Hut Point was in, because I felt that the job of getting the teams up on to the Peninsula and along it and down the other side would be almost more than we could do: there was an ominous open-water sky ahead.

On March 15 we were held up all day by a strong blizzard. But by 8 A.M. the next morning we could see just the outline of White Island. I was very anxious, for Dimitri said that he had nearly fainted, and I felt that we must get on somehow, and chance the sea-ice being in. He stayed inside the tent as long as possible, and my spirits rose as the land began to clear all round while I was packing up both sledges. From Safety Camp the mirage at the edge of the Barrier was alarming, but as we approached the edge to my very great relief I found that the sea-ice was still in, and that what we had taken for frost smoke was only drift over Cape Armitage.

Pushing into the drift round the corner I found Atkinson on the sea-ice, and Keohane in the hut behind. In a few minutes we had the gist of one another's news. The ship had made attempt after attempt to reach Campbell and his five men, but they had not been taken off from Evans Coves when she finally left McMurdo Sound on March 4: she would make another effort on her way to New Zealand. Evans was better and was being taken home. Meanwhile there were four of us at Hut Point and we could not communicate with our companions at Cape Evans until the Sound froze over, for the open sea was washing the feet of Vince's Cross.

* * * * *

We were not unduly alarmed about the Polar Party at present, but began to make arrangements for further sledging if necessary. It was useless to think of taking the dogs again for they were thoroughly done. The mules and the new dogs were at Cape Evans. "In four or five days Atkinson wishes to start South again to see what we can do man-hauling, if the Polar Party is not in. I agree with him that to try and go west to meet Campbell is useless just now. If we can go north, they can come south, and to put two parties there on the new sea-ice is to double the risk."

"March 17. A blizzard day but only about force 5-6. I think they will have been able to travel all right on the Barrier. Atkinson thinks of starting on the 22nd: my view is that allowing three weeks and four days for the Summit, and ten days for being hung up by weather, we can give them five weeks after the Last Return Party (i.e. to March 26) to get in, having been quite safe and sound all the way. We feel anxious now, but I do not think there is need for alarm till then, and they might get in well after that, and be all right.

"Now our only real chance of finding them, if we go out, is from here to ten miles south of Corner Camp. After that we shall do all we can, but it would be no good, because there is no very definite route. Therefore I would start out on March 27, when we would travel that part with most chance of meeting them there if they have any trouble. I have put this to Atkinson and will willingly do what he decides. I am feeling pretty done up, and have rested. The prospect of what will be a hard journey, feeling as I do, is rather bad. I don't think there is really cause for alarm."

"March 18 and 19. We are very anxious, though the Pole Party could not be in yet. Also I am very done, and more so than I at first thought: I am afraid it is a bit doubtful whether I can get out again yet, but to-day I feel better and have been for a short walk. I am taking all the rest I can."

"March 20. Last night a very strong blizzard blew, wind force 9 and big snowfall and drift. This morning the doors and windows are all drifted up, and we could hardly get out: a lot of snow had got inside the hut also: I was feeling rotten, and thought that to go out and clear the window and door would do me good. This I did, but came back in a big squall, passing Atkinson as I came in. Then I felt myself going faint, and remember pushing the door to get in if possible. I knew no more until I came to on the floor just inside the door, having broken some tendons in my right hand in falling."[268]

Two days afterwards the dogs sang at breakfast-time: they often did this when a party was approaching, even when it was still far away, and they had done so when Crean came in on his walk from Corner Camp. We were cheered by the noise. But no party arrived, and the singing of the dogs was explained later by some seal appearing on the new ice in Arrival Bay. Atkinson decided to go out on to the Barrier man-hauling with Keohane on the 26th. It was obvious that I could not go with them: he told me afterwards that when I came in with the dog-teams he was sure I could not go out again.

"March 25. The wind came away yesterday evening, first S.W. and then S.E. but not bad, though very thick. It was a surprise to find we could see the Western Mountains this morning, and I believe it has been a good day on the Barrier, though it is still blowing with low drift this evening. We are now on the days when I expect the Polar Party in: pray God I may be right. Atkinson and I look at one another, and he looks, and I feel, quite haggard with anxiety. He says he does not think they have scurvy. We both, I think, feel quite comfortable, in comparison, about Campbell: he only wants to exercise care, and his great care was almost a byword on the ship. They are fresh and they have plenty of seal.[269] He discussed with Pennell both the possibility of shipwreck and that of the ship being unable to get to him, and for this reason landed an extra month's rations as a depôt; also he contemplated the idea of living on seal. He knows of the Butter Point Depôt, and knows that a party has been sledging in that neighbourhood: though he does not know of the depôts they left at Cape Roberts and Cape Bernacchi, they are right out on the Points and Taylor says he could not miss them on his way down the coast."[270]

This day Atkinson thought he saw Campbell's party coming in, and the next day Keohane and Dimitri came in great excitement and said they could see them, and we were out on the Point and on the sea-ice in the drift for quite a long time. "Last night we had turned in about two hours when five or six knocks were hit on the little window over our heads. Atkinson shouted 'Hullo!' and cried, 'Cherry, they're in.' Keohane said, 'Who's cook?' Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was no one there. It was the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard, and it must have been a dog which sleeps in that window. He must have shaken himself, hitting the window with his tail. Atkinson thought he heard footsteps!"[271]

On Wednesday, March 27, Atkinson started out on to the Barrier with one companion, Keohane. During the whole of this trip the temperatures were low, and both men obtained but little sleep, finding of course that a tent occupied by two men only is a very cold place. The first two days they made nine miles each day, on March 29 they pushed on in thick weather for eleven miles, when the weather cleared enough to show them that they had got into the White Island pressure. On March 30 they reached a point south of Corner Camp, when "taking into consideration the weather, and temperatures, and the time of the year, and the hopelessness of finding the party except at any definite point like a depôt, I decided to return from here. We depôted the major portion of a week's provisions to enable them to communicate with Hut Point in case they should reach this point. At this date in my own mind I was morally certain that the party had perished, and in fact on March 29 Captain Scott, 11 miles south of One Ton Depôt, made the last entry in his diary."[272]

"They arrived back on April 1. Yesterday evening at 6.30 P.M. Atkinson and Keohane arrived. It was pretty thick here and blowing too, but they had had a fair day on the Barrier. They had been out to Corner Camp and eight miles farther. Their bags were bad, their clothes very bad after six days: they must have had minus forties constantly. It is a moral certainty that to go farther south would serve no purpose, and for two men would be a useless risk. They did quite right to come back. They are much in want of sleep, poor devils, and I do hope Atkinson will allow himself to rest: he looks as though he might knock up. Keohane did well, and is very fit. They came in over fifteen miles yesterday, and have brought in the sledge of the Second Return Party, the one they took out being very heavy pulling. They had no day on which they could not travel. Here it has been blowing and drifting half the time he has been absent," and a few days later, "We have got to face it now. The Pole Party will not in all probability ever get back. And there is no more that we can do. The next step must be to get to Cape Evans as soon as it is possible. There are fresh men there: at any rate fresh compared to us."[273]

* * * * *

Atkinson was the senior officer left, and unless Campbell and his party came in, the command of the Main Party devolved upon him. It was not a position which any one could envy even if he had been fresh and fit. Amidst all his anxieties and responsibilities he looked after me with the greatest patience and care. I was so weak that sometimes I could only keep on my legs with difficulty: the glands of my throat were swollen so that I could hardly speak or swallow: my heart was strained and I had considerable pain. At such a time I was only a nuisance, but nothing could have exceeded his kindness and his skill with the few drugs which we possessed.

Again and again in these days some one would see one or other of the missing parties coming in. It always proved to be mirage, a seal or pressure or I do not know what, but never could we quite persuade ourselves that these excitements might not have something in them, and every time hope sprang up anew. Meanwhile the matter of serious importance was the state of the ice in the bays between us and Cape Evans: we must get help. All the ice in the middle of the Sound was swept out by the winds of March 30 to April 2, and on the following day Atkinson climbed Arrival Heights to see how the remaining ice looked. The view over the Sound from here is shown in the frontispiece to this book. "The ice in the two bays to Cape Evans is quite new--formed this morning, I suppose, with the rest that is in the Sound. There are open leads between Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans, inside the line joining the ends of the two. There is a big berg in between Glacier Tongue and the Islands, and also a flat one off Cape Evans."[274]

We had some good freezing days after this, and on April 5 "we tried the ice this afternoon. It is naturally slushy and salt, but some hundred yards from the old ice it is six inches thick: probably it averages about this thickness all over the Sound."[275] Then we had a hard blizzard, on the fourth day of which it was possible to get up the Heights again and see for some distance. As far as could be judged the ice in the two bays had remained firm: these bays are those formed on either side of Glacier Tongue, by the Hut Point Peninsula on the south, and by Cape Evans and the islands on the north.

On April 10 Atkinson, Keohane and Dimitri started for Cape Evans, meaning to travel along the Peninsula to the Hutton Cliffs, and thence to cross the sea-ice in these bays, if it proved to be practicable. The amount of daylight was now very restricted, and the sun would disappear for the winter a week hence. Arrived at the Hutton Cliffs, where it was blowing as usual, they lost no time in lowering themselves and their sledge on to the sea-ice, and were then pleasantly surprised to find how slippery it was. "We set sail before a strong following breeze and, all sitting on the sledge, had reached the Glacier Tongue in twenty minutes. We clambered over the Tongue, and, our luck and the breeze still holding, we reached Cape Evans, completing the last seven miles, all sitting on the sledge, in an hour."

"There I called together all the members and explained the situation, telling them what had been done, and what I then proposed to do; also asking them for their advice in this trying time. The opinion was almost unanimous that all that was possible had been already done. Owing to the lateness of the year, and the likelihood of our being unable to make our way up the coast to Campbell, one or two members suggested that another journey might be made to Corner Camp. Knowing the conditions which had lately prevailed on the Barrier, I took it upon myself to decide the uselessness of this."[276]

All was well at Cape Evans. Winds and temperatures had both been high, the latter being in marked contrast to the low temperatures we had experienced at Hut Point, which averaged as much as 15° lower than those that were recorded in the previous year. The seven mules were well, but three of the new dogs had died: we were always being troubled by that mysterious disease.

Before she left for New Zealand the following members of our company joined the ship: Simpson, who had to return to his work in India; Griffith Taylor, who had been lent to us by the Australian Government for only one year; Ponting, whose photographic work was done; Day, whose work with the motors was done; Meares, who was recalled by family affairs; Forde, whose hand had never recovered the effects of frost-bite during the spring; Clissold, who fell off a berg and concussed himself; and Anton, whose work with the ponies was done. Lieutenant Evans was invalided home.

Archer had been landed to take Clissold's place as cook; another seaman, Williamson, was landed to take Forde's place, and of our sledging companions he was the only fresh man. Wright was probably the most fit after him, and otherwise we had no one who, under ordinary circumstances, would have been considered fit to go out sledging again this season, especially at a time when the sun was just leaving us for the winter. We were sledged out.

The next few days were occupied in making preparations for a further sledge journey, and on April 13 a party started to return to Hut Point by the Hutton Cliffs. Atkinson, Wright, Keohane and Williamson were to try and sledge up the western coast to help Campbell: Gran and Dimitri were to stay with me at Hut Point. The surface of the sea-ice was now extremely slushy and bad for pulling; the ice had begun to extrude its salt. A blizzard started in their faces, and they ran for shelter to the lee of Little Razorback Island. The weather clearing they pushed on to the Glacier Tongue, and camped there for the night somewhat frost-bitten. Some difficulty was experienced the next morning in climbing the ice-cliff on to the Peninsula, but Atkinson, using his knife as a purchase, and the sledge held at arm's-length by four men as a ladder, succeeded eventually in getting a foothold.

Meanwhile I was left alone at Hut Point, where blizzards raged periodically with the usual creakings and groanings of the old hut. Foolishly I accompanied my companions, when they started for Cape Evans, as far as the bottom of Ski Slope. When I left them I found I could not keep my feet on the slippery snow and ice patches, and I had several nasty falls, in one of which I gave my shoulder a twist. It was this shaking combined with the rather desperate conditions which caused a more acute state of illness and sickness than I had experienced for some time. Some of those days I remained alone at Hut Point I was too weak to do more than crawl on my hands and knees about the hut. I had to get blubber from the door to feed the fire, and chop up seal-meat to eat, to cook, and to tend the dogs, some of whom were loose, while most of them were tied in the verandah, or between the hut door and Vince's Cross. The hut was bitterly cold with only one man in it: had there not been some morphia among the stores brought down from Cape Evans I do not know what I should have done.

The dogs realized that they could take liberties which they would not have dared to do in different circumstances. They whined and growled, and squabbled amongst themselves all the time, day and night. Seven or eight times one day I crawled across the floor to try and lay my hands upon one dog who was the ringleader. I was sure it was Dyk, but never detected him in the act, and though I thrashed him with difficulty as a speculation, the result was not encouraging. I would willingly have killed the lot of them just then, I am ashamed to say. I lay in my sleeping-bag with the floor of the hut falling from me, or its walls disappearing in the distance and coming back: and roused myself at intervals to feed blubber to the stove. I felt as though I had been delivered out of hell when the relief party arrived on the night of April 14. I had been alone four days, and I think a few more days would have sent me off my head. Not the least welcome of the things they had brought me were my letters, copies of the Weekly Times, a pair of felt shoes and a comb!

Atkinson's plan was to start on April 7 over the old sea-ice which lay to the south and south-west of us: he was to take with him Wright, Keohane and Williamson, and they wanted to reach Butter Point, and thence to sledge up the western coast. If the sea-ice was in, and Campbell was sledging down upon it, they hoped to meet him and might be of the greatest assistance to him. Even if they did not meet him they could mark more obviously certain depôts, of which he had no knowledge, left by our own geological parties on the route he must follow. As I have already mentioned, these were on Cape Roberts, off Granite Harbour, and on Cape Bernacchi, north of New Harbour: there was also a depôt at Butter Point, but Campbell already knew of this. They could also leave instructions to this effect at points where he would be likely to see them. There was no question that there was grave risk in this journey. Not only was the winter approaching, and the daylight limited, but the sea-ice over which they must march was most dangerous. Sea-ice is always forming and being blown out to sea, or just floating away on the tide at this time of year. The amount of old ice which had remained during the summer was certain to be limited: the new ice was thin and might take them out with it at any time. However, what could be done had to be done.

Before they left certain signals by means of rockets and Véry lights were arranged, to be sent up by us at Hut Point if Campbell arrived: signals had also been arranged between Hut Point and Cape Evans in view of certain events. We did not have, but I think we ought to have had some form of portable heliograph for communications between Hut Point and Cape Evans when the sun was up and some kind of lamp signal apparatus to use during the winter.

They started at 10.30 A.M. on Wednesday, April 17. The sun was now only just peeping over the northern horizon at mid-day, and would disappear entirely in six more days, though of course there was a long twilight as yet. For fresh men on old sea-ice it would not have been an easy venture: for worn-out men on a coast where the ice was probably freezing and blowing out at odd times it was very brave.

They had hard pulling their first two days, and the minimum temperature for the corresponding nights was -43° and -45°. Consequently they soon began to be iced up. On the other hand they found old sea-ice and made good some 25 miles, camping on the evening of the 18th about four miles from the Eskers. Next morning they had to venture upon newly frozen ice, and a blizzard wind was blowing. They crossed the four miles from their night camp to the Eskers, glad enough to reach land the other side without the ice going to sea with them. They then turned towards the Butter Point Depôt, but were compelled to camp owing to the blizzard which came on with full force. The rise in temperature to zero caused a general thaw of sleeping-bags and clothing which dried but little when the sun had no power. On the following morning they reached the Butter Point Depôt, which they found with difficulty, for there was no flag standing. Even as they struck their camp they saw the ice to the north of them breaking up and going out to sea. There was nothing to do but to turn back, for neither could they go north to Campbell nor could Campbell come south to them. Wright now told Atkinson how much he had been opposed to this journey all along: "he had come on this trip fully believing that there was every possibility of the party being lost, but had never demurred and never offered a contrary opinion, and one cannot be thankful enough to such men."[277] They made up the Butter Point Depôt, marked it as well as they could in case Campbell should arrive there, and left two weeks' provisions for him. They could do no more.

They got back to the Eskers that same day and anxiously awaited the twilight of the morning to reveal the state of the new sea-ice which they had crossed on their outward journey. To their joy some of it remained and they started to do the four miles between them and the old sea-ice. For two miles they ran with the sail set: then they had a hard pull, and some Emperor penguins whom they could see led them to suppose that there was open water ahead. But they got through all right, and did ten miles for the day. On Monday 22, "blizzard in morning, so started late, and made for end of Pinnacled Ice. We found our little bay of sea-ice all gone out. Luckily there was a sort of ice-foot around the Pinnacled Ice and we completed seven miles and got through."[278]

Tuesday, April 23. "Atkinson and his party got in about 7 P.M. after a long pull all day in very bad weather. They are just in the state of a party which has been out on a very cold spring journey: clothes and sleeping-bags very wet, sweaters, pyjama coats and so forth full of snow. Atkinson looks quite done up, his cheeks are fallen in and his throat shows thin. Wright is also a good deal done up, and the whole party has evidently had little sleep. They have had a difficult and dangerous trip, and it is a good thing they are in, and they are fortunate to have had no mishaps, for the sea-ice is constantly going out over there, and when they were on it they never knew that they might not find themselves cut off from the shore. Big leads were constantly opening, even in ice over a foot thick and with little wind. But even if the ice had been in I do not believe that they could have gone many days."[279]

That same day the sun appeared for the last time for four months.

April 28 seemed to be a quite good day when we woke, and Wright, Keohane and Gran started back for Cape Evans before 10 A.M. We could then see the outline of Inaccessible Island, and the ice in the Sound looked fairly firm. So they determined to go by the way of the sea-ice under Castle Rock instead of going along the Peninsula to the Hutton Cliffs. Soon after they started it came up thick, and by 11.30 it was blowing a mild blizzard with a low temperature. We felt considerable anxiety, especially when a full blizzard set in with a temperature down to -31°, and we could not see how the ice was standing it. Two days later it cleared, and that night a flare was lit at Cape Evans at a pre-arranged time, by which signal we knew that they had arrived safely. We heard afterwards that when it came up thick they decided to follow the land which was the only thing that they could see. They soon found that the ice was not nearly so good as was supposed: there were open pools of water, and some of the ice was moving up and down with their weight as they crossed it: Gran put his foot in. Then Wright went ahead with the Alpine rope, the ice being blue, the pulling easy, and the wind force 4-5. As far as Turtleback Island the ice was newly frozen, but after that they knew they were on oldish ice. They were lost on Cape Evans in the blizzard for some time, but eventually found the hut safely. One of the lessons of this expedition is that too little care was taken in travelling on sea-ice.

Atkinson, Dimitri and I left for Cape Evans with the two dog-teams on May 1. Directly we started it was evident that the surface was very bad: even the ice near Hut Point, which had been frozen for a long time, was hard pulling for the dogs, and when after less than a mile we got on to ice which had frozen quite lately the sledges were running on snow which in turn lay on salt sleet. It seemed a long time before we got abreast of Castle Rock, following close along the land for the weather was very thick: when we started we could just see the outline of Inaccessible Island, but by now the horizon was lost in the dusk and haze. We decided to push on to Turtleback Island and go over Glacier Tongue in order to get on to the older ice as soon as possible. The dogs began to get very done: Manuki Noogis, who had been harnessed in as leader (for Rabchick had deserted in the night), gave in completely, lay down and refused to be persuaded to go on: we had to cast him off and hope that he would follow. After a time Turtleback Island was visible in the gloom, but it was all we could do, pushing and pulling the sledges to help the dogs, to get them so far. We were now on the older ice: our way was easier and we reached Cape Evans without further incident. We found Rabchick on arrival, but no Manuki Noogis, who never reappeared.

As we neared the Cape Atkinson turned to me: "Would you go for Campbell or the Polar Party next year?" he said. "Campbell," I answered: just then it seemed to me unthinkable that we should leave live men to search for those who were dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[259] See Introduction, pp. l, lii-lix.Return to passage

[260] See pp. 353, 383.Return to passage

[261] See pp. 382, 383.Return to passage

[262] My own diary.Return to passage

[263] See p. 115.Return to passage

[264] British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1913, "Meteorology," by G. C. Simpson, vol. i. pp. 28-30.Return to passage

[265] See pp. 550-556.Return to passage

[266] My own diary.Return to passage

[267] My own diary.Return to passage

[268] My own diary.Return to passage

[269] As a matter of fact this was not the case.Return to passage

[270] My own diary.Return to passage

[271] My own diary.Return to passage

[272] Atkinson in Scott's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 309.Return to passage

[273] My own diary.Return to passage

[274] My own diary.Return to passage

[275] Ibid.Return to passage

[276] Atkinson in Scott's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 31.Return to passage

[277] Atkinson in Scott's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 314.Return to passage

[278] Atkinson's diary.Return to passage

[279] My own diary.Return to passage

XIV. THE LAST WINTER

Ordinary people snuggle up to God as a lost leveret in a freezing wilderness might snuggle up to a Siberian tiger....--H. G. WELLS.

(I) 5 men dead. (III) 2 men landed.

SCOTT OATES ARCHER WILLIAMSON WILSON SEAMAN EVANS BOWERS (IV) 13 men at Cape Evans for third year.

(II) 9 men gone home. ATKINSON CREAN CHERRY-GARRARD KEOHANE LIEUT. EVANS DAY WRIGHT DIMITRI SIMPSON FORDE DEBENHAM HOOPER MEARES CLISSOLD GRAN WILLIAMSON TAYLOR ANTON NELSON ARCHER PONTING LASHLY

A quite disproportionately small part of Scott's Last Expedition was given to Atkinson's account of the last and worst year any of us survivors spent: some one should have compelled him to write, for he will not do so if he can help it. The problems which presented themselves were unique in the history of Arctic travel, the weather conditions which had to be faced during this last winter were such as had never been met in McMurdo Sound! The sledging personnel had lately undergone journeys, in one case no less than four journeys, of major importance, until they were absolutely worn out. The successful issue of the party was a triumph of good management and good fellowship. The saving clause was that as regards hut, food, heat, clothing and the domestic life generally we were splendidly found. To the north of us, some hundreds of miles away, Campbell's party of six men must be fighting for their lives against these same conditions, or worse--unless indeed they had already perished on their way south. We knew they must be in desperate plight, but probably they were alive: the point in their favour was that they were fresh men. To the south of us, anywhere between us and the Pole, were five men. We knew they must be dead.

The immediate problem which presented itself was how best to use the resources which were left to us. Our numbers were much reduced. Nine men had gone home before any hint of tragedy reached them. Two men had been landed from the ship. We were thirteen men for this last year. Of these thirteen it was almost certain that Debenham would be unable to go out sledging again owing to an injury to his knee: Archer had come to cook and not to sledge: and it was also doubtful about myself. As a matter of fact our sledging numbers for the last summer totalled eleven, five officers and six men.

We were well provided with transport, having the seven mules sent down by the Indian Government, which were excellent animals, as well as our original two dog-teams: the additional dogs brought down by the ship were with two exceptions of no real sledging value. Our dog-teams had, however, already travelled some 1500 miles on the Barrier alone, not counting the work they had done between Hut Point and Cape Evans; and, though we did not realize it at this time, they were sick of it and never worked again with that dash which we had come to expect of them.

The first thing which we settled about the winter which lay ahead of us was that, so far as possible, everything should go on as usual. The scientific work must of course be continued, and there were the dogs and mules to be looked after: a night-watch to be kept and the meteorological observations and auroral notes to be taken. Owing to our reduced numbers we should need the help of the seamen for this purpose. We were also to bring out another volume of the South Polar Times on Mid-winter Day. The importance of not allowing any sense of depression to become a part of the atmosphere of our life was clear to all. This was all the more necessary when, as we shall see, the constant blizzards confined us week after week to our hut. Even when we did get a fine day we were almost entirely confined to the rocky cape for our exercise and walks. When there was sea-ice it was most unsafe.

Atkinson was in command: in addition, he and Dimitri took over the care of the dogs. Many of these, both those which had been out sledging and those just arrived, were in a very poor state, and a dog hospital was soon built. At this date we had 24 dogs left from the last year, and 11 dogs brought down recently by the ship: three of the new dogs had already died. Lashly was in charge of the seven mules, which were allotted to seven men for exercise: Nelson was to continue his marine biological work: Wright was to be meteorologist as well as chemist and physicist: Gran was in charge of stores, and would help Wright in the meteorological observations: Debenham was geologist and photographer. I was ordered to take a long rest, but could do the zoological work, the South Polar Times, and keep the Official Account of the Expedition from day to day. Crean was in charge of sledging stores and equipment. Archer was cook. Hooper, our domestic, took over in addition the working of the acetylene plant. There was plenty of work for our other two seamen, Keohane and Williamson, in the daily life of the camp and in preparations for the sledging season to come.

The blizzard which threatened us all the way from Hut Point on May 1 broke soon after we got in. The ice in North Bay, which had been frozen for some time, was taken out on the first day of this blizzard, with the exception of a small strip running close along the shore. The rest followed the next afternoon, when the wind was still rising, and blew in the gusts up to 89 miles an hour. The curious thing was that all this time the air had been quite clear.

This was the second day of the blizzard. The wind continued in violence as the night wore on, and it began to snow, becoming very thick. From 3 A.M. to 4 A.M. the wind was so strong that there was a continuous rattle of sand and stones up against the wall of the hut. The greater part of the time the anemometer head was choked by the drifting snow, and Debenham, whose night-watch it was, had a bad time in clearing it at 4 A.M. During the period when it was working it registered a gust of over 91 miles an hour. While it was not working there came a gust which woke most people up, and which was a far more powerful one, making a regular hail of stones against the wall. The next morning the wind was found to be averaging 104 miles an hour when the anemometer on the hill was checked for three minutes. Later it was averaging 78 miles an hour. This blizzard continued to rage all this day and the next, but on May 6, which was one of those clear beautiful days when it is hard to believe that it can ever blow again, we could see something of the damage to the sea-ice. The centre of the Sound was clear of ice, and the open water stretched to the S. W. of us as far back as Tent Island. We were to have many worse blizzards during this winter, but this particular blow was important because it came at a critical time in the freezing over of the sea, and, once it had been dispersed, the winds of the future never allowed the ice to form again sufficiently thick to withstand the wind forces which obtained.

Thus I find in my diary of May 8: "Up to the present we have never considered the possibility of the sea in this neighbourhood, and the Sound out to the west of us, not freezing over permanently in the winter. But here there is still open water, and it seems quite possible that there may not be any permanent freezing this year, at any rate to the north of Inaccessible Island and this cape. Though North Bay is now frozen over, the ice in it was blown away during the night, and, having been blown back again, is now only joined to the ice-foot by newly frozen ice."

During this winter the ice formed in North Bay was constantly moving away from the ice-foot, quite independently of wind. I watched it carefully as far as it was possible to do so in the dark. Sometimes at any rate the southern side of the sea-ice moved out not only northwards from the land, but also slightly westwards from the glacier face. To the north-east the ice was sometimes pressed closely up against the glacier. It seemed that the whole sheet was subject to a screw movement, the origin of which was somewhere out by Inaccessible Island. The result was that we often had a series of leads of newly frozen ice stretching out for some forty yards to an older piece of ice, each lead being of a different age. It was an interesting study in the formation of sea-ice, covered at times by very beautiful ice-flowers. But it was dangerous for the dogs, who sometimes did not realize that these leads were not strong enough to bear them. Vaida went in one day, but managed to scramble out on the far side. He was induced to return to the land with difficulty, just before the whole sheet of ice upon which he stood floated out to sea. Noogis, Dimitri's good leader, wandered away several times during the winter: once at any rate he seems to have been carried off on a piece of ice, and to have managed to swim to land, for when he arrived in camp his coat was full of icy slush: finally he disappeared altogether, all search for him was in vain, and we never found out what had happened.

Vaida was a short-tempered strong animal, who must have about doubled his weight since we came in from One Ton, and he became quite a house-dog this winter, waiting at the door to be patted by men as they went out, and coming in sometimes during the night-watch. But he did not like to be turned out in the morning, and for my part I did not like the job, for he could prove very nasty. We allowed a good many of the dogs to be loose this year, and sometimes, when standing quietly upon a rock on the cape, three or four of the dogs passed like shadows in the darkness, busily hunting the ice-foot for seals: this was the trouble of giving them their freedom, and I regret to say we found many carcasses of seal and Emperor penguins. There was one new dog, Lion, who accompanied me sometimes to the top of the Ramp to see how the ice lay out in the Sound. He seemed as interested in it as I was, and while I was using night-glasses would sit and gaze out over the sea which according to its age lay white or black at our feet. Of course we had a dog called Peary, and another one called Cooke. Peary was killed on the Barrier because he would not pull. Cooke, however, was still with us, and seemed to have been ostracized by his fellows, a position which in some lop-sided way he enjoyed. Loose dogs chased him at sight, and when Cooke appeared, and others were about, a regular steeplechase started. He also came up the Ramp with me one day: half-way up he suddenly turned and fled for the hut as hard as he could go: three other dogs came round the rocks in full chase, and they all gave the impression of thoroughly enjoying themselves.

The question of what ought to be done for the best during the coming sledging season must have been in the minds of all of us. Which of the two missing parties were we to try and find? A winter journey to relieve Campbell and his five men was out of the question. I doubt the possibility of such a journey to Evans Coves with fit men: to us at any rate it was unthinkable. Also if we could do the double journey up and down, Campbell could certainly do the single journey down. Add to this that there was every sign of open water under the Western Mountains, though this did not influence us much when the decision was made. The problem as it presented itself to us was much as follows:

Campbell's Party might have been picked up by the Terra Nova. Pennell meant to have another try to reach him on his way north, and it was probable that the ship would not be able to communicate again with Cape Evans owing to ice: on the other hand it was likely that the ship had not been able to relieve him. It also seemed that he could not have travelled down the coast at this time, owing to the state of the sea-ice. The danger to him and his men was primarily during the winter: every day after the winter his danger was lessened. If we started in the end of October to relieve Campbell, estimating the probable date of arrival of the ship, we judged that we could reach him only five or six weeks before the ship relieved him. All the same Campbell and his men might be alive, and, having lived through the winter, the arrival of help might make the difference between life and death.

On the other hand we knew that the Polar Party must be dead. They might be anywhere between Hut Point and the Pole, drifted over by snow, or lying at the bottom of a crevasse, which seemed the most likely thing to have happened. From the Upper Glacier Depôt in 85° 5´ S. to the Pole, that is the whole distance of the Plateau Journey, we did not know the courses they had steered nor the position of their depôts, for Lieutenant Evans, who brought back the Last Return Party, was invalided home and neither of the seamen who remained of this party knew the courses.

After the experience of both the supporting parties on their way down the Beardmore Glacier, when we all got into frightfully crevassed areas, it was the general opinion that the Polar Party must have fallen down a crevasse; the weight of five men, as compared with the four men and three men of the other return parties, supported this theory. Lashly was inclined to think they had had scurvy. The true solution never once occurred to us, for they had full rations for a very much longer period of time than, according to their averages to 87° 32´, they were likely to be out.

The first object of the expedition had been the Pole. If some record was not found, their success or failure would for ever remain uncertain. Was it due not only to the men and their relatives, but also to the expedition, to ascertain their fate if possible?

The chance of finding the remains of the Southern Party did not seem very great. At the same time Scott was strict about leaving notes at depôts, and it seemed likely that he would have left some record at the Upper Glacier Depôt before starting to descend the Beardmore Glacier: it would be interesting to know whether he did so. If we went south we must be prepared to reach this depôt: farther than that, I have explained, we could not track him. On the other hand, if we went south prepared to go to the Upper Glacier Depôt, the number of sledging men necessary, in view of the fact that we had no depôts, would not allow of our sending a second party to relieve Campbell.

It was with all this in our minds that we sat down one evening in the hut to decide what was to be done. The problem was a hard one. On the one hand we might go south, fail entirely to find any trace of the Polar Party, and while we were fruitlessly travelling all the summer Campbell's men might die for want of help. On the other hand we might go north, to find that Campbell's men were safe, and as a consequence the fate of the Polar Party and the result of their efforts might remain for ever unknown. Were we to forsake men who might be alive to look for those whom we knew were dead?

These were the points put by Atkinson to the meeting of the whole party. He expressed his own conviction that we should go south, and then each member was asked what he thought. No one was for going north: one member only did not vote for going south, and he preferred not to give an opinion. Considering the complexity of the question, I was surprised by this unanimity. We prepared for another Southern Journey.

It is impossible to express and almost impossible to imagine how difficult it was to make this decision. Then we knew nothing: now we know all. And nothing is harder than to realize in the light of facts the doubts which others have experienced in the fog of uncertainty.

Our winter routine worked very smoothly. Inside the hut we had a good deal more room than we needed, but this allowed of certain work being done in its shelter which would otherwise have had to be done outside. For instance we cut a hole through the floor of the dark-room, and sledged in some heavy boulders of kenyte lava: these were frozen solidly into the rock upon which the hut was built by the simple method of pouring hot water over them, and the pedestal so formed was used by Wright for his pendulum observations. I was able to skin a number of birds in the hut; which, incidentally, was a very much colder place in consequence of the reduction in our numbers.

The wind was most turbulent during this winter. The mean velocity of the wind, in miles per hour, for the month of May was 24.6 m.p.h.; for June 30.9 m.p.h.; and for July 29.5 m.p.h. The percentage of hours when the wind was blowing over fresh gale strength (42 m.p.h. on the Beaufort scale) for the month of May was 24.5, for June 35, and for July 33 per cent of the whole.

These figures speak for themselves: after May we lived surrounded by an atmosphere of raging winds and blinding drift, and the sea at our door was never allowed to freeze permanently.

After the blizzard in the beginning of May which I have already described, the ice round the point of Cape Evans and that in North Bay formed to a considerable thickness. We put a thermometer screen out upon it, and Atkinson started a fish-trap through a hole in it. There was a good deal of competition over this trap: the seamen started a rival one, which was to have been a very large affair, though it narrowed down to a less ambitious business before it was finished. There was a sound of cheering one morning, and Crean came in triumph from his fish-trap with a catch of 25. Atkinson's last catch had numbered one, but the seals had found his fishing-holes: a new hole caught fish until a seal found it. One of these fish, a Tremasome, had a parasitic growth over the dorsal sheath. External parasites are not common in the Antarctic, and this was an interesting find.

On June 1 Dimitri and Hooper went with a team of nine dogs to and from Hut Point, to see if they could find Noogis, the dog which had left us on our return on May 1. There was plenty of food for him to pick up there. No trace of him could be found. The party reported a bad running surface, no pressure in the ice, as was the case the former year, but a large open working crack running from Great Razorback to Tent Island. There were big snowdrifts at Hut Point, as indeed was already the case at Cape Evans. During the first days of June we got down into the minus thirties, and our spirits rose as the thermometer dropped: we wanted permanent sea-ice.

"Saturday, June 8. The weather changes since the night before last have been, luckily for us, uncommon. Thursday evening a strong northerly wind started with some drift, and this increased during the night until it blew over forty miles an hour, the temperature being -22°. A strong wind from the north is rare, and generally is the prelude of a blizzard. This northerly wind fell towards morning, and the day was calm and clear, the temperature falling until it was -33° at 4 P.M. The barometer had been abnormally low during the day, being only 28.24 at noon. Then at 8 P.M. with the temperature at -36°, this blizzard broke, and at the same time there was a big upward jump of the barometer, which seemed to mark the beginning of the blizzard much more than the thermometer, which did not rise much. The wind during the night was very high, blowing 72 and 66 miles an hour, for hours at a time, and has not yet shown any sign of diminishing. Now, after lunch, the hut is straining and creaking, while a shower of stones rattles at intervals against it: the drift is generally very heavy."

"Sunday, June 9. The temperature has been higher, about zero, during the day, and the blizzard shows no signs of falling yet. The gusts are still of a very high velocity. A large quantity of ice to the north seems to have gone out: at any rate our narrow strip along the front, which is so valuable to us, will probably be permanent now."

"Monday, June 10. A most turbulent day. It is very hard to settle down to do anything, read or write, with such a turmoil outside, the hut shaking until we begin to wonder how long it will stand such winds. Most of the time the wind is averaging about sixty miles an hour, but the gusts are far greater, and at times it seems that something must go. Just before lunch I was racking my brains to write an Editorial for the South Polar Times, and had congratulated ourselves on having the sea-ice which is still in North Bay. As we were having lunch Nelson came in and said, 'The thermometers have gone!' All the ice in North Bay has gone. The part immediately next to the shore, which has now been in so long, and which was over two feet thick, we had considered sure to stay. On it has gone out the North Bay thermometer screen with its instruments, which was placed 400 yards out, the fish-trap, some shovels and a sledge with a crowbar. The gusts were exceptionally strong at lunch, and the ice must have gone out very quickly. There was no sign of it afterwards, though it was not drifting much and we could see some distance. To lose this ice in North Bay is a great disappointment, for it means so much to us here whether we have ice or water at our doors. We are now pretty well confined to the cape both for our own exercise and that of the mules, and in the dark it is very rough walking. But if the ice in South Bay were to follow, it would be a calamity, cutting us off entirely from the south and all sledging next year. Let us hope we shall be spared this."

This blizzard lasted for eight days, up till then the longest blizzard we had experienced: "It died as it had lived, blowing hard to the last, averaging 68 miles an hour from the south, and then 56 miles an hour from the north, finally back to the south, and so to calm. To sit here with no noise of wind whistling in the ventilator, calm and starlight outside, and North Bay freezing over once more, is a very great relief."[280]

It is noteworthy that this clearance of the ice, as also that in the beginning of May, coincided roughly with the maximum declination of the moon, and therefore with a run of spring tides.

It would be tedious to give any detailed account of the winds and drift which followed, night and day. There were few days which did not produce their blizzard, but in contrast the hours of bright starlight were very beautiful. "Walking home over the cape in the darkness this afternoon I saw an eruption of Erebus which, compared with anything we have seen here before, was very big. It looked as though a great mass of flame shot up some thousands of feet into the air, and, as suddenly as it rose, fell again, rising again to about half the height, and then disappearing. There was then a great column of steam rising from the crater, and probably, so Debenham asserts, it was not a flame which appeared, but the reflection from a big bubble breaking in the crater. Afterwards the smoke cloud stretched away southwards, and we could not see the end of it."[281]

Blizzard followed blizzard, and at the beginning of July we had four days which were the thickest I have ever seen. Generally when you go out into a blizzard the drift is blown from your face and clothes, and though you cannot see your stretched-out hand, especially on a dark winter day, the wind prevents you being smothered. The wind also prevents the land, tents, hut and cases from being covered. But during this blizzard the drift drove at you in such blankets of snow, that your person was immediately blotted out, your face covered and your eyes plugged up. Gran lost himself for some time on the hill when taking the 8 A.M. observations, and Wright had difficulty in getting back from the magnetic cave. Men had narrow escapes of losing themselves, though they were but a few feet from the hut.

When this blizzard cleared the camp was buried, and even on unobstructed surfaces the snowdrifts averaged four feet of additional depth. Two enormous drifts ran down to the sea from either end of the hut. I do not think we ever found some of our stores again, but the larger part we carried up to the higher ground behind us where they remained fairly clear. About this time I began to notice large sheets of anchor ice off the end of Cape Evans, that is to say, ice forming and remaining on the bottom of the open sea. Now also the open water was extending round the cape into the South Bay behind us: but it was too dark to get any reliable idea of the distribution of ice in the Sound. We were afraid that we were cut off from Hut Point, but I do not believe that this was the case; though the open water must have stretched many miles to the south in the middle of the Sound. The days when it was clear enough even to potter about outside the hut were exceptional. God was very angry.

"Sunday, July 14. A blizzard during the night, and after breakfast it was drifting a lot. While we were having service some of the men went over the camp to get ice for water. The sea-ice had been blown out of North Bay, and the men supposed that the sea was open, and would look black, but Crean tells me that they nearly walked over the ice-foot, and, when it cleared later, we saw the sea as white as the ice-foot itself. A strip of ice which was lying out in the Bay last night must have been brought in by the tide, even against a wind of some forty miles an hour. This shows what an influence the tides and currents have in comparison with the winds, for just at this time we are having very big tides. It was blowing and drifting all the morning, and the tide was flowing in, pressing the ice in under the ice-foot to such an extent that later it remained there, though the tide was ebbing and a strong southerly was blowing."[282] Incidentally the bergs which were grounded in our neighbourhood were shifted and broken about considerably by these high winds: also the meteorological screen placed on the Ramp the year before was broken from its upright, which had snapped in the middle, and must have been taken up into the air and so out to sea, for there was no trace of it to be found: Wright lost two doors placed over the entrance to the magnetic cave: when he lifted them they were taken out of his hands by the wind, and disappeared into the air and were never seen again.

So ready was the sea to freeze that there can be little doubt that it already contained large numbers of ice crystals, and time and again I have stood upon the ice-foot watching the tongues of the winds licking up the waters as they roared their way out to sea. Then, with no warning, there would come, suddenly and completely, a lull. And there would be a film of ice, covering the surface of the sea, come so quickly that all you could say was that it was not there before and it was there now. And then down would come the wind again and it was gone. Once when the winter had gone and daylight had returned I stood upon the end of the cape, the air all calm around me, and there, half-a-mile away, a full blizzard was blowing: the islands, and even the berg between Inaccessible Island and the cape, were totally obscured in the thickest drift: the top of the drift, which was very distinct, thinned to show dimly the crest of Inaccessible Island: Turk's Head was visible and Erebus quite clear. In fact I was just on the edge of a thick blizzard, blowing down the Strait, the side showing as a perpendicular wall about 500 feet high and travelling, I should say, about 40 miles an hour. A roar came out from it of the wind and waves.

The weather conditions were extraordinarily local, as another experience will show. Atkinson and Dimitri were off to Hut Point with the dogs, carrying biscuit and pemmican for the coming Search Journey: I went with them some way, and then left them to place a flag upon the end of Glacier Tongue for surveying purposes. It was clear and bright, and it was easy to get a sketch of the bearings of the islands from this position, which showed how great a portion of the Tongue must have broken off in the autumn of 1911. I anticipated a pleasant walk home, but was somewhat alarmed when heavy wind and drift came down from the direction of the Hutton Cliffs. Wearing spectacles, and being unable to see without them, I managed to steer with difficulty by the sun which still showed dimly through the drift. It was amazing suddenly to walk out of the wall of drift into light airs at Little Razorback Island. One minute it was blowing and drifting hard and I could see almost nothing, the next it was calm, save for little whirlwinds of snow formed by eddies of air drawn in from the north. In another three hundred yards the wind was blowing from the north. On this day Atkinson found wind force 8 and temperature -17° at Hut Point: at Cape Evans the temperature was zero and men were sitting on the rocks and smoking in the sun. Many instances might be given to show how local our weather conditions often were.

There was a morning some time in the middle of the winter when we awoke to one of our usual tearing blizzards. We had had some days of calm, and the ice had frozen sufficiently for the fish-trap to be lowered again. But that it would not stand much of this wind was obvious, and after breakfast Atkinson stuck out his jaw and said he wasn't going to lose another trap for any dash blizzard. He and Keohane sallied forth on to the ice, lost to our sight immediately in the darkness and drift. They got it, but arrived on the cape in quite a different place, and we were glad to see them back. Soon afterwards the ice blew out.

Much credit is due to the mule leaders that they were able to exercise their animals without hurt. Cape Evans in the dark, strewn with great boulders, with the open sea at your feet, is no easy place to manage a very high-spirited and excitable mule, just out of a warm stable, especially if this is his first outing for several days and the wind is blowing fresh, and you are not sure if your face is frost-bitten, and you are quite sure that your hands are. But the exercise was carried out without mishap. The mules themselves were most anxious to go out, and when Pyaree developed a housemaid's knee and was kept in, she revenged herself upon her more fortunate companions by biting each one hard as it passed her head on its way to and from the door. Gulab was the biggest handful, and Williamson managed him with skill: some of them, especially Lal Khan, were very playful, running round and round their leaders and stopping to paw the ground: Khan Sahib, on the other hand, was bored, yawning continually: it was suggested that he was suffering from polar ennui! Altogether they reflected the greatest credit upon Lashly, who groomed them every day and took the greatest care of them. They were subject to the most violent fits of jealousy, being much disturbed if a rival got undue attention. The dog Vaida, however, was good friends with them all, going down the line and rubbing noses with them in their stalls.

The food of the mules was based upon that given by Oates to the ponies the year before, and the results were successful.

The accommodation given to the dogs in the Terra Nova on the way south is open to criticism. As the reader may remember, they were chained on the top of the deck cargo on the main deck, and of course had a horrible time during the gale, and any subsequent bad weather, which did not however last very long. But it was quite impossible to put them anywhere else, for every square inch between decks was so packed that even our personal belongings for more than two years were reduced to one small uniform case. Any seaman will easily understand that to build houses or shelters on deck over and above what we had already was out of the question. As a matter of fact I doubt whether the dogs had a worse time than we during that gale. In good weather at sea, and at all times in the pack, they were comfortable enough. But future explorers might consider whether they can give their dogs more shelter during the winter than we were able to do. Amundsen, whose Winter Quarters were on the Barrier itself, and who experienced lower temperatures and very much less wind than was our lot at Cape Evans, had his dogs in tents, and let them run loose in the camp during the day. Tents would have gone in the winds we experienced, and I have explained that we had no snow in which we could make houses, as was done by Amundsen in the Barrier.

Our more peaceable dogs were allowed to run loose, especially during this last winter, at the beginning of which we also built a dog hospital. We should have liked to loose them all, but if we did so they immediately flew at one another's throats. We might perhaps have let them loose if we had first taken the precaution Amundsen took, and muzzled all of them before doing so. The sport of fighting, so his dogs discovered, lost all its charm when they found they could not taste blood, and they gave it up, and ran about unmuzzled and happy. But the slaughter among the seals and penguins would have been horrible with us, and many dogs might have been carried away on the breaking sea-ice. The tied-up ones lay under the lee of a line of cases, each in his own hole. They curled up quite snugly buried in the snowdrift when blizzards were blowing, and lay exactly in the same way when sledging on the Barrier, the first duty of the dog-driver after pitching his own tent being to dig holes for each of his dogs. It may be that these conditions are more natural to them than any other, and that they are warmer when covered by the drifted snow than they would be in any unwarmed shelter: but this I doubt. At any rate they throve exceedingly under these rigorous conditions, soon becoming fat and healthy after the hardest sledge journeys, and their sledging record is a very fine one. We could not have built them a hut; as it was, we left our magnetic hut, a far smaller affair, in New Zealand, for there was no room to stow it on the ship. I would not advise housing dogs in a hut built with a lean-to roof as an annexe to the main living-hut, but this would be one way of doing it if you are prepared to stand the noise and smell.

The dog-biscuits, provided by Spratt, weighed 8 oz. each, and their sledging ration was 1½ lbs. a day, given to them after they reached the night camp. We made seal pemmican for them and tried this when sledging, as an occasional variation on biscuit, but they did not thrive on this diet. The oil in the biscuits caused purgation, as also did the pemmican: the fat was partly undigested and the excreta were eaten. The ponies also ate their excreta at times. Certain dogs were confirmed leather eaters, and we carried chains for them: on camping, these dogs were taken out of their canvas and raw-hide harnesses, and attached to the sledge by the chains, care being taken that they could not get at the food on the sledge. When sledging, Amundsen gave his dogs pemmican but I do not know what else: he also fed dog to dog: I do not know whether we could have fed dog to dog, for ours were Siberian dogs which, I am told, will not eat one another. At Amundsen's winter quarters he gave them seal's flesh and blubber one day, and dried fish the next.[283] On the long voyage south in the Fram, he fed his dogs on dried fish, and three times a week gave them a porridge of dried fish, tallow, and maize meal boiled together.[284] At Cape Evans or at Hut Point our dogs were given plenty of biscuit some evenings, and plenty of fresh frozen seal at other times.

Our worst trouble with the dogs came from far away--probably from Asia. There are references in Scott's diary to four dogs as attacked by a mysterious disease during our first year in the South: one of these dogs died within two minutes. We lost many more dogs the last year, and Atkinson has given me the following memorandum upon the parasite, a nematode worm, which was discovered later to be the cause of the trouble:

"Filaria immitis.--A certain proportion of the dogs became infected with this nematode, and it was the cause of their death, mainly in the second year. It was present at the time the expedition started (1910) all down the Pacific side of Asia and Papua, and there was an examination microscopically of all dogs imported at this time into New Zealand. The secondary host is the mosquito Culex.

"The symptoms varied. The onset was usually with intense pain, during which the animal yelled and groaned: this was cardiac in origin and referable to the presence of the mature form in the beast. There was marked haematuria, and the animals were anaemic from actual loss of haemoglobins. In nearly all cases there was paralysis affecting the hindquarters during the later stages, which tended to spread upwards and finally ended in death.

"The probable place of infection was Vladivostok before the dogs were put on board ship and deported to New Zealand. The only method of coping with the disease is prevention of infection in infected areas. It is probable that the mosquitoes would not bite after the dog's coat had been rubbed with paraffin: or mosquito netting might be placed over the kennels, especially at night time. The larval forms were found microscopically in the blood, and one mature form in the heart."

We were too careful about killing animals. I have explained how Campbell's party was landed at Evans Coves. Some of the party wanted to kill some seals on the off chance of the ship not turning up to relieve them. This was before they were in any way alarmed. But it was decided that life might be taken unnecessarily if they did this--and that winter this party nearly died of starvation. And yet this country has allowed penguins to be killed by the million every year for Commerce and a farthing's worth of blubber.

We never killed unless it was necessary, and what we had to kill was used to the utmost both for food and for the scientific work in hand. The first Emperor penguin we ever saw at Cape Evans was captured after an exciting chase outside the hut in the middle of a blizzard. He kept us busy for days: the zoologist got a museum skin, showing some variation from the usual coloration, a skeleton, and some useful observation on the digestive glands: the parasitologist got a new tape-worm: we all had a change of diet. Many a pheasant has died for less.

There were plenty of Weddell seal round us this winter, but they kept out of the wind and in the water for the most part. The sea is the warm place of the Antarctic, for the temperature never falls below about 29° Fahr., and a seal which has been lying out on the ice in a minus thirty temperature, and perhaps some wind, must feel, as he slips into the sea, much the same sensations as occur to us when we walk out of a cold English winter day into a heated conservatory. On the other hand, a seaman went out into North Bay to bathe from a boat, in the full sun of a mid-summer day, and he was out almost as soon as he was in. One of the most beautiful sights of this winter was to see the seals, outlined in phosphorescent light, swimming and hunting in the dark water.

We had lectures, but not as many as during the previous winter when they became rather excessive: and we included outside subjects. We read in many a polar book of the depressions and trials of the long polar night; but thanks to gramophones, pianolas, variety of food, and some study of the needs both of mind and body, we suffered very little from the first year's months of darkness. There is quite a store of novelty in living in the dark: most of us I think thoroughly enjoyed it. But a second winter, with some of your best friends dead, and others in great difficulties, perhaps dying, when all is unknown and every one is sledged to a standstill, and blizzards blow all day and all night, is a ghastly experience. This year there was not one of our company who did not welcome the return of the sun with thankfulness: all the more so since he came back to a land of blizzards and made many of our difficulties more easy to tackle. Those who got little outside exercise were more affected by the darkness than others. This last year, of course, the difficulties of getting sufficient outdoor exercise were much increased. Variety is important to the man who travels in polar regions: at all events those who went away on sledging expeditions stood the life more successfully than those whose duties tied them to the neighbourhood of the hut.

Other things being equal, the men with the greatest store of nervous energy came best through this expedition. Having more imagination, they have a worse time than their more phlegmatic companions; but they get things done. And when the worst came to the worst, their strength of mind triumphed over their weakness of body. If you want a good polar traveller get a man without too much muscle, with good physical tone, and let his mind be on wires--of steel. And if you can't get both, sacrifice physique and bank on will.

* * * * *

NOTE

A lecture given at this time by Wright on Barrier Surfaces is especially interesting with relation to the Winter Journey and the tragedy of the Polar Party. The general tend of friction set up by a sledge-runner upon snow of ordinary temperature may be called true sliding friction: it is probable that the runners melt to an infinitesimal degree the millions of crystal points over which they glide: the sledge is running upon water. Crystals in such temperatures are larger and softer than those encountered in low temperatures. It is now that halos may be seen in the snow, almost reaching to your feet as you pull, and moving forward with you: we steered sometimes by keeping these halos at a certain angle to us. My experience is that the best pulling surface is at an air temperature of about +17° Fahr.: Wright's experience is that below +5° during summer temperatures on the Barrier the surface is fairly good, that between +5° and +15° less good, and between +15° and +25° best. The worst is from +25° upwards, the worst of all being round about freezing point.

As the temperature became high the amount of ice melted by this sliding friction was excessive. It was then that we found ice forming upon the runners, often in almost microscopic amounts, but nevertheless causing the sledges to drag seriously. Thus on the Beardmore we took enormous care to keep our runners free from ice, by scraping them at every halt with the back of our knives. This ice is perhaps formed when the runners sink into the snow to an unusual depth, at which the temperature of the snow is sufficiently low to freeze the water previously formed by friction or radiation from the sun on to a dark runner.

In very low temperatures the snow crystals become very small and very hard, so hard that they will scratch the runners. The friction set up by runners in such temperatures may be known as rolling friction, and the effect, as experienced by us during the Winter Journey and elsewhere, is much like pulling a sledge over sand. This rolling friction is that of snow crystal against snow crystal.

If the barometer is rising you get flat crystals on the ice, if it is falling you get mirage and a blizzard. When you get mirage the air is actually coming out of the Barrier. Thus far Wright's lecture.

Since we returned I have had a talk with Nansen about the sledge-runners which he recommends to the future explorer. The ideal sledge-runner combines lightness and strength. He tells me that he would always have metal runners in high temperatures in which they will run better than wood. In cold temperatures wood is necessary. Metal is stronger than wood with same weight. He has never used, but he suggests the possible use of, aluminium or magnesium for the metal. And he would also have wooden runners with metal runners attached, to be used alternately, if needed.

The Discovery Expedition used German silver, and it failed: Nansen suggests that the failure was due to the fact that these runners were fitted at home. The effect of this is that the wood shrinks and the German silver is not quite flat: the fitting should be done on the spot. Nansen did this himself on the Fram, and the result was excellent. [I believe that these Discovery runners were not a continuous strip of metal but were built up in strips, which tore at the points of junction.] Before it is fitted, German silver should be heated red hot and allowed to cool. This makes it more ductile, like lead, and therefore less springy: the metal should be as thin as possible.

As runners melt the crystals and so run on water, metal is unsuitable for cold snow. For low temperatures, therefore, Nansen would have wooden runners under the metal, the metal being taken off when cold conditions obtained. He would choose such wood as is the best conductor of heat. He tried birch wood in the first crossing of Greenland, but would not recommend it as being too easily broken. In the use of oak, ash, maple, and doubtless also hickory, for runners, the rings of growth of the tree should be as far apart as possible: that is to say, they should be fast growing. Ash with narrow rings breaks. There is ash and ash: American ash is no good for this purpose; some Norwegian ash is useful, and some not. Our own sledges with ash runners varied enormously. The runners of a sledge should curve slightly, the centre being nearest to the snow. The runners of ski should curve also slightly, in this case upwards in the centre, i.e. from the snow. This is done by the way the wood is cut. Wood always dries with the curve from the heart towards the outside of the tree.

During our last year we had six new Norwegian sledges twelve feet long, brought down by the ship, with tapered runners of hickory which were 3¾ inches broad in the fore part and 2¼ inches only at the stern. I believe that this was an idea of Scott, who considered that the broad runner in front would press down a path for the tapered part which followed, the total area of friction being much less. We took one of them into South Bay one morning and tried it against an ordinary sledge, putting 490 lbs. on each of them. The surface included fairly soft as well as harder and more rubbly going. There was no difference of opinion that the sledge with the tapered runners pulled easier, and later we used these sledges on the Barrier with great success.

If some instrument could be devised to test sledges in this way it would be of very great service. No team of men can make an exact estimate of the run of their own sledge, let alone the sledge which your pony or your dogs are pulling. Yet sledges vary enormously, and it would be an excellent thing for a leader to be able to test his sledges before buying them, and also to be able to pick out the best for his more important sledge journeys. I believe it can be done by attaching some kind of balance between the sledge and the men pulling it.

Other points mentioned by Nansen are as follows:

Tarred ski are good: the snow does not stick so much. [This probably refers to the Norwegian compound known as Fahrt.] But he does not recommend tarred runners for sledges. Having had experience of a tent of Chinese silk which would go into his pocket but was very cold, he recommends a double tent, the inner lining being detached so that ice could be shaken from both coverings. He suggests the possibility of a woollen lining being warmer than cotton or silk or linen. I am, however, of opinion that wool would collect more moisture from the cooker, and it certainly would be far more difficult to shake off the ice. For four men he would have two two-men sleeping-bags and a central pole coming down between them, and the floor-cloth made in one piece with the tent. For three men a three-man sleeping-bag: e.g. for such a journey as our Winter Journey. He would not brush rime, formed upon the tent by the steam from the cooker and breath, from the inside of tent before striking camp. The more of it the warmer. He considers that two- or three-men sleeping-bags are infinitely warmer than single bags: objections of discomfort are overcome, for you are so tired you go to sleep anyway. I would, however, recommend the explorer to read Scott's remarks upon the same subject before making up his mind.[285]

FOOTNOTES:

[280] My own diary.Return to passage

[281] My own diary.Return to passage

[282] My own diary.Return to passage

[283] See Amundsen, The South Pole, vol. i. p. 264.Return to passage

[284] Ibid. vol. i. p. 119.Return to passage

[285] Scott, Voyage of the Discovery, vol. i. pp. 480-487.Return to passage

XV. ANOTHER SPRING

O to dream, O to awake and wander There, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence, Quiet breath; Lo! for there among the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers, Life and death.

The flowers were of snow, the rivers of ice, and if Stevenson had been to the Antarctic he would have made them so.

God sent His daylight to scatter the nightmares of the darkness. I can remember now the joy of an August day when the sun looked over the rim of the Barne Glacier, and my shadow lay clear-cut upon the snow. It was wonderful what a friendly thing that ice-slope became. We put the first trace upon the sunshine recorder; there was talk of expeditions to Cape Royds and Hut Point, and survey parties; and we ate our luncheon by the daylight which shone through the newly cleared window.

The coming Search Journey was organized to reach the Upper Glacier Depôt, and the plans were modelled upon the Polar Journey of the year before. But now we had no extensive depôts on the Barrier. It was intended that the dogs should run two trips out to Corner Camp during this spring. It was hoped that two parties of four men each might be able to ascend the Beardmore, one of them remaining about half-way up and doing geological and other scientific work while the other went up to the top.

In our inmost thoughts we were full of doubts and fears. "I had a long talk with Lashly, who asked me what I candidly thought had happened to the Southern Party. I told him a crevasse. He says he does not think so: he thinks it is scurvy. Talking about crevasses he says that, on the return of the Second Return Party, they came right over the ice-falls south of Mount Darwin,--descending about 2000 feet into a great valley, down which they travelled towards the west, and so to the Upper Glacier Depôt. I believe Scott told Evans (Lieut.) that he meant to come back this same way."

"Then the stuff they got into above the Cloudmaker must have been horrible. 'Why, there are places there you could put St. Paul's into, and that's no exaggeration, neither,' and they spent two nights in it. All the way down to the Gateway he says there were crevasses, great big fellows thirty feet across, which we of the First Return Party had crossed both going and coming back and which we never saw. But then much of the snow had gone and they were visible. Lieut. Evans was very badly snowblind most of this time. Then outside the Gateway, on the Barrier, they crossed many crevasses, and some had fallen in where we had passed over them."

"This makes one think. Is the state of affairs in which we found the glacier an extraordinary one, the snow being a special phenomenon due to that great blizzard and snowfall? Are we going to find blue ice this year where we found thick soft snow last? Well! I have got a regular bad needle again, just as I have had before. But somehow the needle has always worked off when we get right into it. What a blessing it is that things are seldom as bad in the reality as you expect they are going to be in your imagination: though I must say the Winter Journey was worse even than I had imagined. I remember that this time last year the thought of the Beardmore was very terrible: but the reality was never very bad."

"Lashly thinks it would be practically impossible for five men to disappear down a crevasse. Where three men got through (and he said it would be impossible to get worse stuff than they came through), five men would be still better off. This is not my view, however. I think that the extra weight of one man might make all the difference in crossing a big crevasse: and if several men fell through one of those great bridges when sledge and men were all on it, I do not think the bridge would hold the sledge."[286]

Several trips were made to Cape Royds over the Barne Glacier, and then by portaging over the rocks to Shackleton's old hut. The sea was open here, except for small niches of ice, and the hut and the cape were comparatively free from drifts; probably the open water had swallowed the drifting snow. Not so Hut Point, which was surrounded by huge drifts: the verandah which we had built up as a stable was filled from floor to roof: there was no ice-foot to be seen, only a long snow-slope from the door to the sea-level. The hut itself, when we had dug our way into it, was clear. We took down stores for the Search Journey, and brought back with us the only surviving sledge-meter.

These instruments, which indicate by a clockwork arrangement the distance travelled in miles and yards, are actuated by a wheel which runs behind the sledge. They are of the greatest possible use, especially when sledging out of sight of land on the Barrier or Plateau, and we bitterly regretted that we had no more. They do not have an easy time on a glacier, and we lost the mechanism of one of our three Polar Journey meters when on the Beardmore. Dog-driving is hard on them; and pony-driving when the ponies are like Christopher plays the very deuce. Anyway we found we had only one left for this year, and this was more or less a dud. It was mended so far as possible but was never really reliable, and latterly was useless. A lot of trouble was taken by Lashly to make another with a bicycle wheel from one of our experimental trucks, the revolutions of which were marked on a counter which was almost exactly similar to one of our anemometer registers. A bicycle wheel of course stood much higher than our proper sledge-meters, and a difficulty rose in fixing it to the sledge so as to prevent its wobbling and at the same time allow it the necessary amount of play.

Meanwhile the mules were being brought on in condition. With daylight and improved weather they were exercised with loaded sledges on the sea-ice which still remained in South Bay. They went like lambs, and were evidently used to the work. Gulab was a troublesome little animal: he had no objection to pulling a sledge, but was just ultra-timid. Again and again he was got into position for having his traces hitched on, and each time some little thing, the flapping of a mitt, the touch of the trace, or the feel of the bow of the sledge, frightened him and he was off, and the same performance had to be repeated. Once harnessed he was very good. The breast harness sent down for them by the Indian Government was used: it was excellent; though Oates, I believe, had an idea that collars were better. However, we had not got the collars. The mules themselves looked very fit and strong: our only doubt was whether their small hoofs would sink into soft snow even farther than the ponies had done.

No record of this expedition would be complete without some mention of the cases of fire which occurred. The first was in the lazarette of the ship on the voyage to Cape Town: it was caused by an overturned lamp and easily extinguished. The second was during our first winter in the Antarctic, when there was a fire in the motor shed, which was formed by full petrol cases built up round the motors, and roofed with a tarpaulin. This threatened to be more serious, but was also put out without much difficulty. The third and fourth cases were during the winter which had just passed, and were both inside Winter Quarters.

Wright wanted a lamp to heat a shed which he was building out of cases and tarpaulins for certain of his work. He brought a lamp (not a primus) into the hut, and tried to make it work. He spent some time in the morning on this, and after lunch Nelson joined him. The lamp was fitted with an indicator to show the pressure obtained by pumping. Nelson was pumping, kneeling at the end of the table next the bulkhead which divided the officers' and men's quarters: his head was level with the lamp, and the indicator was not showing a high pressure. Wright was standing close by. Suddenly the lamp burst, a rent three inches long appearing in the join where the bottom of the oil reservoir is fitted to the rest of the bowl. Twenty places were alight immediately, clothing, bedding, papers and patches of burning oil were all over the table and floor. Luckily everybody was in the hut, for it was blowing a blizzard and minus twenty outside. They were very quick, and every outbreak was stopped.

On September 5 it was blowing as if it would rip your wind-clothes off you. We were bagging pemmican in the hut when some one said, "Can you smell burning?" At first we could not see anything wrong, and Gran said it must be some brown paper he had burnt; but after three or four minutes, looking upwards, we saw that the top of the chimney piping was red hot where it went out through the roof, as was also a large ventilator trap which entered the flue at this point. We put salt down from outside, and the fire seemed to die down, but shortly afterwards the ventilator trap fell on to the table, leaving a cake of burning soot exposed. This luckily did not fall, and we raked it down into buckets. About a quarter of an hour afterwards all the chimney started blazing again, the flames shooting up into the blizzard outside. We got this out by pushing snow in at the top, and holding baths and buckets below to catch the débris. We then did what we ought to have done at the beginning of the winter--took the piping down and cleaned it all out.

Our last fire was a little business. Debenham and I were at Hut Point. I noticed that the place was full of smoke, which was quite usual with a blubber fire, but afterwards we found that the old hut was alight between the two roofs. The inner roof was too shaky to allow one to walk on it, and so, at Debenham's suggestion, we bent a tube which was lying about and syphoned some water up with complete success. Our more usual fire extinguishers were Minimax, and they left nothing to be desired: indeed, all they left were the acid stains on the material touched.

From such grim considerations it is a pleasure to turn to the out-of-door life we now led. Emperor penguins began to visit us in companies up to forty in number: probably they were birds whose maternal or paternal instincts had been thwarted at Cape Crozier and had now taken to a vagrant life. They suffered, I am afraid, from the loose dogs, and on one occasion Debenham was out on the sea-ice with a team of those dogs of ours which were useless for serious sledging. He had taken them in hand and formed a team which was very creditable to him, if not to themselves. On this occasion he had managed with great difficulty to restrain them from joining a company of Emperors. The dogs were frantic, the Emperors undisturbed. Unable to go himself, one dog called Little Ginger unselfishly bit through the harness which restrained two of his companions, and Debenham, helplessly holding the straining sledge, could only witness the slaughter, which followed.

The first skua gull arrived on October 24, and we knew they would soon breed on any level gravel or rock free from snow; and we should see the Antarctic petrels again, and perhaps a rare snowy petrel; and the first whales would be finding their way into McMurdo Sound. Also the Weddells, the common coastal seals of the Antarctic, were now, in the beginning of October, leaving the open water and lying out on the ice. They were nearly all females, and getting ready to give birth to their young.

The Weddell seal is black on top, and splashed with silver in other places. He measures up to 10 feet from nose to tail, eats fish, is corpulent and hulking. He sometimes carries four inches of blubber. On the ice he is one of the most sluggish of God's creatures, he sleeps continually, digests huge meals, and grunts, gurgles, pipes, trills and whistles in the most engaging way. In the sea he is transformed into one of the most elastic and lithe of beasts, catching his fish and swallowing them whole. As you stand over his blow-hole his head appears, and he snorts at you with surprise but no fear, opening and shutting his nostrils the while as he takes in a supply of fresh air. It is clear that they travel for many miles beneath the ice, and I expect they find their way from air-hole to air-hole by listening to the noise made by other seals. Some of the air-holes are exit and entrance holes as well, and I found at least one seal which appeared to have died owing to its opening freezing up. They may be heard at times grinding these holes open with their teeth (Ponting took some patient cinematographs showing the process of sawing the openings to these wells) and their teeth are naturally much worn by the time they become old. Wilson states that they are liable to kidney trouble: their skin is often irritable, which may be due to the drying salt from the sea; and I have seen one seal which was covered with a suppurating rash. Their spleens are sometimes enormously enlarged when they first come out of the sea on to the ice, which is interesting because no one seems to know much about spleens. Speculation was caused amongst us by the fact that some of these air-holes had as it were a trap-door above them. One day I was on the ice-foot at Cape Evans at a time when North Bay was frozen over with about an inch or more of ice. A seal suddenly poked his nose up through this ice to get air, and when he disappeared a slab which had been raised by his head fell back into this trap position. Clearly this was the origin of the door.

Weddell seals and the Hut Point life are inextricably mixed up in my recollections of October. Atkinson, Debenham, Dimitri and I went down to Hut Point on the 12th, with the two dog-teams. We were to run two depôts out on to the Barrier, and Debenham, whose leg prevented his further sledging, was to do geological work and a plane table survey. Those of us who had borne the brunt of the travelling of the two previous sledge seasons were sick of sledging. For my own part I confess I viewed the whole proceedings with distaste, and I have no doubt the others did too; but the job had to be done if possible, and there was no good in saying we were sick of it. From beginning to end of this year men not only laboured willingly, but put their hearts and souls into the work. To have to do another three months' journey seemed bad enough, and to leave our comfortable Winter Quarters three weeks before we started on that journey was an additional irritation. We ran down in surface drift: it was thick to the south, the wind bit our faces and hands; we could see nothing by the time we got in, and the snow was falling heavily. The stable was full of beastly snow, the hut was cold and cheerless, and there was no blubber for the stove. And if we had only taken the ship and gone home when the period for which we had joined was passed, we might have been in London for the last six months!

But then the snow stopped, the wind went down, and the mountain tops appeared in all their glorious beauty. We were in the middle of a perfect summer afternoon, with a warm sun beating on the rocks as we walked round to Pram Point. There were many seals here already, and it was clear that the place would form a jolly nursery this year, for there must have been a lot of movement on the Barrier and the sea-ice was seamed with pressure ridges up to twenty feet in height. The hollows were buckled until the sea water came up and formed frozen ponds which would thaw later into lovely baths. Sheltered from the wind the children could chase their ridiculous tails to their hearts' content: their mothers would lie and sleep, awakening every now and then to scratch themselves with their long finger-nails. Not quite yet, but they were not far away: Lappy, one of our dogs who always looked more like a spaniel than anything else, heard one under the ice and started to burrow down to him!

Nearly three weeks later I paid several more visits to this delightful place. It was thick with seals, big seals and little seals, hairy seals and woolly seals: every day added appreciably to the number of babies, and to the baaings and bleatings which made the place sound like a great sheepfold. In every case where I approached, the mothers opened their mouths and bellowed at me to keep away, but they did not come for me though I actually stroked one baby. Often when the mother bellowed the little one would also open his mouth, producing just the ghost of a bellow: not because he seemed afraid of us, but rather because he thought it was the right thing to do: as indeed it probably was. One old cow was marked with hoops all round her body, like an advertisement of Michelin tyres: only the hoops were but an inch apart from one another, and seemed to be formed by darker and longer bands of hair: probably something to do with the summer moult. Two cows, which scrambled out of the same hole one after the other, were fighting, the hinder one biting the other savagely as she made an ungainly entrance. The first was not in calf, the aggressor, however, was: this may have had something to do with it. They were both much cut about and bleeding.

A seal is never so pretty as when he is a baby. With his grey woolly coat, which he keeps for a fortnight, his comparatively long flippers and tail, and his big dark eyes, he looks very clean and pussy-like. I watched one running round and round after his tail, putting his flipper under his head as a pillow, and scratching himself, seemingly as happy as possible: yet it was pretty cold with some wind.

Little is known of the lighter side of a Weddell's life. It seems probable that their courtship is a ponderous affair. About October 26 Atkinson found an embryo of about a fortnight old, which is an interesting stage, and this was preserved with many others we found, but all of them were too old to be of any real value. I think there is a good deal of variation in the size of the calves at birth. There is certainly much difference between the care of individual mothers, some of which are most concerned when you approach, while others take little notice or lop away from you, leaving their calf to look after itself, or to find another mother. Sometimes they are none too careful not to roll or lie on their calves.

One afternoon I drove a bull seal towards a cow with a calf. The cow went for him bald-headed, with open mouth, bellowing and most disturbed. The bull defended himself as best he might but absolutely refused to take the offensive. The calf imitated his mother as best he could.

Meanwhile Atkinson and Dimitri took some mule-fodder and dog-biscuit to a point twelve miles south of Corner Camp. They started on October 14 with the two dog-teams and found a most terrible surface on the Barrier, the sledges sometimes sinking as far as the 'fore-and-afters'; the minimum temperatures the first two nights were -39° and -25°; strong blizzard at Corner Camp; a lie-up for a day and a half, before they could push on in wind and drift and lay the depôt. The dogs ran back from Corner Camp to Hut Point on October 19, a distance of thirty miles. Three miles from Corner Camp three dogs of Atkinson's team fell into a crevasse, one of them falling right down to the length of his harness. The rest of the team, however, pulled on, and dragged the three dogs out as they went. Atkinson lost his driving-stick, which was left standing in the snow and served to mark a place to be avoided. Altogether a rather lucky escape: two men out alone with two dog-teams are somewhat helpless in case of emergency.

On October 25 Dimitri and I started to take a further depôt out to Corner Camp with the two dog-teams, pulling about 600 lbs. each. We found a much better surface than that experienced by Atkinson; in places really smooth and hard. "It is good to be out again in such weather, and it has been a very pleasant day." The minimum was only -24° that night, and we reached Corner Camp on the afternoon of the next day, following the old tracks where possible, and halting occasionally to hunt when we lost them. "Here we made the depôt and the dogs had a rest of 3½ hours, and two biscuits. It was quaint to see them waiting for more food, for they knew they had not had their full whack."[287]

There was plenty of evidence that the Barrier had moved a long way during the last year. It had buckled up the sea-ice at Pram Point; there were at least three new and well-marked undulations before reaching Corner Camp; and the camp itself had moved visibly, judged by the bearings and sketches we possessed. I believe the annual movement had not been less than half a mile.

Corner Camp is a well-known trap for blizzards on the line of their exit at Cape Crozier, and it was clouding up, the barometer falling, and the temperature rising rapidly. "So we decided to come back some way, and have in the end come right back to the Biscuit Depôt, since it looked very threatening to the east. Here the temperature is lower (-15°) and it is clearing. Ross Island has been largely obscured, but the clouds are opening on Terror. We had a very good run and the dogs pulled splendidly, making light work of it: 29 miles for the day, half of it with loaded sledges! Lappy's feet are bleeding a good bit, owing to the snow balling in between his toes where the hair is unusually long. Bullet, who is fat and did not pull, celebrated his arrival in camp by going for Bielchik who had pulled splendidly all day! There is much mirage, and Observation Hill and Castle Rock are reversed."[288] We reached Hut Point the next day. Lappy's feet were still bad, and Dimitri wrapped him in his windproof blouse and strapped him on to the sledge. All went well until we got on to the sea-ice, when Lappy escaped and arrived an easy first.

Dog-driving is the devil! Before I started, my language would not have shamed a Sunday School, and now--if it were not Sunday I would tell you more about it. It takes all kinds to make a world and a dog-team. We had aristocrats like Osman, and Bolsheviks like Krisravitza, and lunatics like Hol-hol. The present-day employer of labour might stand amazed when he saw a crowd of prospective workmen go mad with joy at the sight of their driver approaching them with a harness in his hands. The most ardent trade unionist might boil with rage at the sight of eleven or thirteen huskies dragging a heavy load, including their idle master, over the floe with every appearance of intense joy. But truth to tell there were signs that they were getting rather sick of it, and within a few days we were to learn that dogs can chuck their paws in as well as many another. They had their king, of course: Osman was that. They combined readily and with immense effect against any companion who did not pull his weight, or against one who pulled too much. Dyk was unpopular among them, for when the team of which he was a member was halted he constantly whined and tugged at his harness in his eagerness to go on: this did not allow the rest of the team to rest, and they were justifiably resentful. Sometimes a team got a down upon a dog without our being able to discover their doggy reason. In any case we had to watch carefully to prevent them carrying out their intentions, their method of punishment always being the same and ending, if unchecked, in what they probably called justice, and we called murder.

I have referred to the crusts on the Barrier, where the snow lies in layers with an air-space, perhaps a quarter of an inch, or more, between them. These will subside as you pass over them, giving the inexperienced polar traveller some nasty moments until he learns that they are not crevasses. But the dogs thought they were rabbits, and pounced, time after time. There was a little dog called Mukaka, who got dragged under the sledge in one of the mad penguin rushes the dog-teams made when we were landing stores from the Terra Nova: his back was hurt and afterwards he died. "He is paired with a fat, lazy and very greedy black dog, Noogis by name, and in every march this sprightly little Mukaka will once or twice notice that Noogis is not pulling and will jump over the trace, bite Noogis like a snap, and be back again in his own place before the fat dog knows what has happened."[289]

Then there was Stareek (which is the Russian for old man, starouka being old woman). "He is quite a ridiculous 'old man,' and quite the nicest, quietest, cleverest old dog I have ever come across. He looks in face as though he knew all the wickedness of all the world and all its cares, and as if he were bored to death by them."[290] He was the leader of Wilson's team on the Depôt Journey, but decided that he was not going out again. Thereafter when he thought there was no one looking he walked naturally; but if he saw you looking at him he immediately had a frost-bitten paw, limped painfully over the snow, and looked so pitiful that only brutes like us could think of putting him to pull a sledge. We tried but he refused to work, and his final victory was complete.

One more story: Dimitri is telling us how a "funny old Stareek" at Sydney came and objected to his treatment of the dogs (which were more than half wolves and would eat you without provocation). "He says to me, 'You not whip'--I say, 'What ho!' He go and fetch Mr. Meares--he try put me in choky. Then he go to Anton--give Anton cigarette and match--he say--'How old that horse?' pointing to Hackenschmidt--Anton say, very young--he not believe--he go try see Hackenschmidt's teeth--and old Starouka too--and Hackenschmidt he draw back and he rush forward and bite old Stareek twice, and he fall backwards over case--and ole woman pick him up. He very white beard which went so--I not see him again."

FOOTNOTES:

[286] My own diary.Return to passage

[287] My own diary.Return to passage

[288] My own diary.Return to passage

[289] Wilson's Journal, Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 616.Return to passage

[290] Ibid.Return to passage

XVI. THE SEARCH JOURNEY

From my own diary

Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please. SPENSER, The Faerie Queen.

October 28. Hut Point. A beautiful day. We finished digging out the stable for the mules this morning and brought in some blubber this afternoon. The Bluff has its cap on, but otherwise the sky is nearly clear: there is a little cumulus between White Island and the Bluff, the first I have seen this year on the Barrier. It is most noticeable how much snow has disappeared off the rocks and shingle here.

October 29. Hut Point. The mule party, under Wright, consisting of Gran, Nelson, Crean, Hooper, Williamson, Keohane and Lashly, left Cape Evans at 10.30 and arrived here at 5 P.M. after a good march in perfect weather. They leave Debenham and Archer at the hut, and I am afraid it will be dull work for them the next three months. Archer turned out early and made some cakes which they have brought with them. They camped for lunch seven miles from Cape Evans.

This is the start of the Search Journey. Everything which forethought can do has been done, and to a point twelve miles south of Corner Camp the mules will be travelling light owing to the depôts which have been laid. The barometer has been falling the last few days and is now low, while the Bluff is overcast. Yet it does not look like blizzard to come. Two Adélie penguins, the first, came to Cape Evans yesterday, and a skua was seen there on the 24th: so summer is really here.

October 30. Hut Point. It is now 8 P.M., and the mules are just off, looking very fit, keeping well together, and giving no trouble at the start. Their leaders turned in this afternoon, and to-night begins the new routine of night marching, just the same as last year. It did look thick on the Barrier this afternoon, and it was quite a question whether it was advisable for them to start. But it is rolling away now, being apparently only fog, which is now disappearing before some wind, or perhaps because the sun is losing its power. I think they will have a good march.

November 2, 5 A.M. Biscuit Depôt. Atkinson, Dimitri and I, with two dog-teams, left Hut Point last night at 8.30. We have had a coldish night's run, -21° when we left after lunch, -17° now. The surface was very heavy for the dogs, there being a soft coating of snow over everything since we last came this way, due no doubt to the foggy days we have been having lately. The sledge-meter makes it nearly 16 miles.

The mule party has two days' start on us, and their programme is to do twelve miles a day to One Ton Depôt. Their tracks are fairly clear, but there has been some drift from the east since they passed. We picked up our cairns well. We are pretty wet, having been running nearly all the way.

November 3. Early morning. 14½ miles. We are here at Corner Camp, but not without a struggle. We left the Biscuit Depôt at 6.30 P.M. yesterday, and it is now 4 A.M. The last six miles took us four hours, which is very bad going for dogs, and we have all been running most of the way. The surface was very bad, crusty and also soft: it was blowing with some low drift, and overcast and snowing. We followed the drifted-up mule tracks with difficulty and are lucky to have got so far. The temperature has been a constant zero.

There is a note here from Wright about the mules, which left here last night. They only saw two small crevasses on the way, but Khan Sahib got into the tide-crack at the edge of the Barrier, and had to be hauled out with a rope. The mules are going fast over the first part of the day, but show a tendency to stop towards the end: they keep well together except Khan Sahib, who is a slower mule than the others. It is now blowing with some drift, but nothing bad, and beyond the Bluff it seems to be clear. We are all pretty tired.

November 4. Early morning. Well! this has been a disappointing day, but we must hope that all will turn out well. We turned out at 2 A.M. yesterday and then it was clearing all round, a mild blizzard having been blowing since we camped. We started at five in some wind and low drift. It was good travelling weather, and except for the first three miles the surface has been fair to good, and the last part very good. Yet the dogs could not manage their load, which according to programme should go up a further 150 lbs. each team here at Dimitri Depôt. One of our dogs, Kusoi, gave out, but we managed to get him along tied to the stern of the sledge, because the team behind tried to get at him and he realized he had better mend his ways. We camped for lunch when Tresor also was pretty well done. We were then on a very good surface, but were often pushing the sledge to get it along. The mule party were gone when we started again, and probably did not see us. We came on to the depôt, but we cannot hope to get along far on bad surfaces if we cannot get along on good ones. The note left by Wright states that their sledge-meter has proved useless, and this leaves all three parties of us with only one, which is not very reliable now.

So it has been decided that the dogs must return from 80° 30´, or 81° at the farthest, and instead of four mules, as was intended, going on from there, five must go on instead. The dogs can therefore now leave behind much of their own weights and take on the mules' weights instead. And this is the part where the mules' weights are so heavy. Perhaps the new scheme is the best, but it puts everything on the mules from 80° 30´: if they will do it all is well: if they won't we have nothing to fall back on.

Midnight, November 4-5. It has been blowing and drifting all day. We turned out again at mid-day on the 4th, and re-made the depôt with what we were to leave owing to the new programme. This is all rather sad, but it can't be helped. It was then blowing a summer blizzard, and we were getting frost-bitten when we started, following the mule tracks. There were plenty of cairns for us to pick up, and with the lighter loads and a very good surface we came along much better. Lunching at eight miles we arrived just as the mule party had finished their hoosh preparatory to starting, and it has been decided that the mules are not to go on to-night, but we will all start marching together to-morrow.

The news from this party is on the whole good, not the least good being that the sledge-meter is working again, though not very reliably. They are marching well, and at a great pace, except for Khan Sahib. Gulab, however, is terribly chafed both by his collar and by his breast harness, both of which have been tried. He has a great raw place where this fits on one side, and is chafed, but not so badly, on the other side. Lal Khan is pulling well, but is eating very little. Pyaree is doing very well, but has some difficulty in lifting her leg when in soft snow. Abdullah seems to be considered the best mule at present. On the whole good hearing.

Wright's sleeping-bag is bad, letting in light through cracks in a good many places. But he makes very little of it and does not seem to be cold--saying it is good ventilation. The mule cloths, which have a rough lining to their outside canvas, are collecting a lot of snow, and all the mules are matted with cakes of snow. They are terrible rope-eaters, cloth-eaters, anything to eat, though they are not hungry. And they have even learnt to pull their picketing buckles undone, and go walking about the camp. Indeed Nelson says that the only time when Khan Sahib does not cast himself adrift is when he is ready to start on the march.

November 6. Early morning. We had a really good lie-in yesterday, and after the hard slogging with the dogs during the last few days I for one was very glad of it. We came on behind, and in sight of the mules this last march, and the change in the dogs was wonderful. Where it had been a job to urge them on over quite as good a surface yesterday, to-day for some time we could not get off the sledge except for short runs: although we had taken 312 lbs. weight off the mules and loaded it on to the dogs.

We had a most glorious night for marching, and it is now bright sunlight, and the animals' fur is quite warm where the sun strikes it. We have just had a bit of a fight over the dog-food, Vaida going for Dyk, and now the others are somewhat excited, and there are constant growlings and murmurings.

The camp makes more of a mark than last year, for the mules are dark while the ponies were white or grey, and the cloths are brown instead of light green. The consequence is that the camp shows up from a long distance off. We are building cairns at regular distances, and there should be no difficulty in keeping on the course in fair weather at any rate. Now in the land of big sastrugi: Erebus is beginning to look small, but we could see an unusually big smoke from the crater all day.

November 7. Early morning. Not an easy day. It was -9° and overcast when we turned out, and the wind was then dying down, but it had been blowing up to force 5, with surface drift during the day. We started in a bad light and the surface, which was the usual hard surface common here, with big sastrugi, was covered by a thin layer of crystals which were then falling. This naturally made it very much harder pulling: we with the dogs have been running nearly all the twelve miles, and I for one am tired. At lunch Atkinson thought he saw a tent away to our right,--the very thought of it came as a shock,--but it proved to be a false alarm. We have been keeping a sharp look-out for the gear which was left about this part by the Last Return Party, but have seen no sign of it.

It is now -14°, but the sun is shining brightly in a clear sky, and it feels beautifully warm. It seems a very regular thing for the sky to cloud over as the sun gets low towards nightfall--and directly the sun begins to rise again the clouds disappear in a most wonderful way.

November 8. Early morning. Last night's twelve miles was quite cold for the time of year, being -23° at lunch and now -18°. But it is calm, with bright sun, and this temperature feels warm. However, there are some frost-bites as a result, both Nelson and Hooper having swollen faces. The same powder and crystals have been on the surface, but we have carried the good Bluff surface so far, being now four miles beyond Bluff Depôt. This is fortunate, and to the best of my recollection we were already getting on to a soft surface at this point last summer. If so there must have been more wind here this year than last, which, according to the winter we have had, seems probable.

We made up the Bluff Depôt after lunch, putting up a new flag and building up the cairn, leaving two cases of dog-biscuit for the returning dog-teams. It is curious that the drift to leeward of the cairn, that is N.N.E., was quite soft, the snow all round and the drifts on either side being hard--exceptionally hard in fact. Why this drift should remain soft when a drift in the same place is usually hard is difficult to explain. All is happy in the mule camp. They have given Lal a drink of water and he has started to eat, which is good news. Some of the mules seem snow-blind, and they are now all wearing their blinkers. I have just heard that Gran swung the thermometer at four this morning and found it -29°. Nelson's face is a sight--his nose a mere swollen lump, frost-bitten cheeks, and his goggles have frosted him where the rims touched his face. Poor Marie!

November 9. Early morning. Twelve more miles to the good, and we must consider ourselves fortunate in still carrying on the same good surface, which is almost if not quite as good as that of yesterday. This is the only time I have ever seen a hard surface here, not more than fifteen miles from One Ton, and it looks as if there had been much higher winds. The sastrugi, which have been facing S.W., are now beginning to run a little more westerly. I believe this to be quite a different wind circulation from Ross Island, which as a whole gets its wind from the Bluff. The Bluff is, I believe, the dividing line, though big general blizzards sweep over the whole, irrespective of local areas of circulation. This was amply corroborated by our journey out here last autumn. Well, this is better than then--just round here we had a full blizzard and -33°.

November 10. Early morning. A perfect night for marching, but about -20° and chilly for waiting about. The mules are going well, but Lal Khan is thinning down a lot: Abdullah and Khan Sahib are also off their feed. Their original allowance of 11 lbs. oats and oilcake has been reduced to 9 lbs., and they are not eating this. The dogs took another 300 lbs. off them to-day, and pulled it very well. The surface has been splendidly hard, which is most surprising. Wright does not think that there has been an abnormal deposition of snow the last winter; he says it is about 1½ feet, which is much the same as last year. The mules are generally not sinking in more than two inches, but in places, especially latterly, they have been in five, or six. This is the first we have had this year of crusts, and some of them to-day have been exceptionally big: two at lunch must have lasted several seconds. The dogs seem to think the devil is after them when one of these goes off, and put on a terrific spurt. It is interesting to watch them snuffing in the hoof-marks of the mules, where there is evidently some scent left. In these temperatures they are always kicking their legs about at the halts. As the sun gained power this morning a thick fog came up very suddenly. I believe this is a sign of good weather.

November 11. Early morning. One Ton Depôt. Wright got a latitude sight yesterday putting us six miles from One Ton, and our sledge-meter shows 5¾, and here we are. More frost-bite this morning, and it was pretty cold starting in a fair wind and -7° temperature. We have continued this really splendid surface, and now the sastrugi are pointing a little more to the south of S.W. While there are not such big mounds, the surface does not yet show any signs of getting bad. There were the most beautiful cloud-effects as we came along--a deep black to the west, shading into long lines of grey and lemon yellow round the sun, with a vertical shaft through them, and a bright orange horizon. Now there is a brilliant parhelion. Given sun, two days here are never alike. Whatever the monotony of the Barrier may be, there is endless variety in the sky, and I do not believe that anywhere in the world such beautiful colours are to be seen.

I had a fair panic as we came up to the depôt. I did not see that one body of the ponies had gone ahead of the others and camped, but ahead of the travelling ponies was the depôt, looking very black, and I thought that there was a tent. It would be too terrible to find that, though one knew that we had done all that we could, if we had done something different we could have saved them.

And then we find that the provisions we left here for them in the tank are soaked with paraffin. How this has happened is a mystery, but I think that the oil in the XS tin, which was very full, must have forced its way out in a sudden rise of temperature in a winter blizzard, and though the tin was not touching the tank, it has found its way in.

Altogether things seemed rather dismal, but a visit to the mules is cheering, for they seem very fit as a whole and their leaders are cheerful. There are three sacks of oats here--had we known it would have saved a lot of weight--but we didn't, and we have plenty with what we have brought, so they will be of little use to us. There is no compressed fodder, which would have been very useful, for the animals which are refusing the oats would probably eat it.

Gulab has a very bad chafe, but he is otherwise fit--and it does not seem possible in this life to kill a mule because of chafing. It is a great deal to know that he does not seem to be hurt by it, and pulls away gallantly. Crean says he had to run a mile this morning with Rani. Marie says he is inventing some new ways of walking, one step forward and one hop back, in order to keep warm when leading Khan Sahib. Up to date we cannot say that the Fates have been unkind to us.

November 12. Early morning. Lunch 2.30 A.M. I am afraid our sledge-meters do not agree over this morning's march. The programme is to do thirteen miles a day if possible from here: that is 7½ before lunch and 5½ afterwards. We could see two cairns of last year on our right as we came along. We have got on to a softer surface now and there is bad news of Lal Khan, and it will depend on this after-lunch march whether he must be shot this evening or not. It was intended to shoot a mule two marches from One Ton, but till just lately it had not been thought that it must be Lal Khan. He is getting very slow, and came into camp with Khan Sahib: the trouble of course is that he will not eat: he has hardly eaten, they say, a day's ration since he left Hut Point, and he can't work on nothing. It is now -16°, with a slight southerly wind.

Nearly mid-day. 11-12 miles south of One Ton. We have found them--to say it has been a ghastly day cannot express it--it is too bad for words. The tent was there, about half-a-mile to the west of our course, and close to a drifted-up cairn of last year. It was covered with snow and looked just like a cairn, only an extra gathering of snow showing where the ventilator was, and so we found the door.

It was drifted up some 2-3 feet to windward. Just by the side two pairs of ski sticks, or the topmost half of them, appeared over the snow, and a bamboo which proved to be the mast of the sledge.

Their story I am not going to try and put down. They got to this point on March 21, and on the 29th all was over.

Nor will I try and put down what there was in that tent. Scott lay in the centre, Bill on his left, with his head towards the door, and Birdie on his right, lying with his feet towards the door.

Bill especially had died very quietly with his hands folded over his chest. Birdie also quietly.

Oates' death was a very fine one. We go on to-morrow to try and find his body. He was glad that his regiment would be proud of him.

They reached the Pole a month after Amundsen.

We have everything--records, diaries, etc. They have among other things several rolls of photographs, a meteorological log kept up to March 13, and, considering all things, a great many geological specimens. And they have stuck to everything. It is magnificent that men in such case should go on pulling everything that they have died to gain. I think they realized their coming end a long time before. By Scott's head was tobacco: there is also a bag of tea.

Atkinson gathered every one together and read to them the account of Oates' death given in Scott's Diary: Scott expressly states that he wished it known. His (Scott's) last words are:

"For God's sake take care of our people."

Then Atkinson read the lesson from the Burial Service from Corinthians. Perhaps it has never been read in a more magnificent cathedral and under more impressive circumstances--for it is a grave which kings must envy. Then some prayers from the Burial Service: and there with the floor-cloth under them and the tent above we buried them in their sleeping-bags--and surely their work has not been in vain.[291]

That scene can never leave my memory. We with the dogs had seen Wright turn away from the course by himself and the mule party swerve right-handed ahead of us. He had seen what he thought was a cairn, and then something looking black by its side. A vague kind of wonder gradually gave way to a real alarm. We came up to them all halted. Wright came across to us. 'It is the tent.' I do not know how he knew. Just a waste of snow: to our right the remains of one of last year's cairns, a mere mound: and then three feet of bamboo sticking quite alone out of the snow: and then another mound, of snow, perhaps a trifle more pointed. We walked up to it. I do not think we quite realized--not for very long--but some one reached up to a projection of snow, and brushed it away. The green flap of the ventilator of the tent appeared, and we knew that the door was below.

Two of us entered, through the funnel of the outer tent, and through the bamboos on which was stretched the lining of the inner tent. There was some snow--not much--between the two linings. But inside we could see nothing--the snow had drifted out the light. There was nothing to do but to dig the tent out. Soon we could see the outlines. There were three men here.

Bowers and Wilson were sleeping in their bags. Scott had thrown back the flaps of his bag at the end. His left hand was stretched over Wilson, his lifelong friend. Beneath the head of his bag, between the bag and the floor-cloth, was the green wallet in which he carried his diary. The brown books of diary were inside: and on the floor-cloth were some letters.

Everything was tidy. The tent had been pitched as well as ever, with the door facing down the sastrugi, the bamboos with a good spread, the tent itself taut and shipshape. There was no snow inside the inner lining. There were some loose pannikins from the cooker, the ordinary tent gear, the personal belongings and a few more letters and records--personal and scientific. Near Scott was a lamp formed from a tin and some lamp wick off a finnesko. It had been used to burn the little methylated spirit which remained. I think that Scott had used it to help him to write up to the end. I feel sure that he had died last--and once I had thought that he would not go so far as some of the others. We never realized how strong that man was, mentally and physically, until now.

We sorted out the gear, records, papers, diaries, spare clothing, letters, chronometers, finnesko, socks, a flag. There was even a book which I had lent Bill for the journey--and he had brought it back. Somehow we learnt that Amundsen had been to the Pole, and that they too had been to the Pole, and both items of news seemed to be of no importance whatever. There was a letter there from Amundsen to King Haakon. There were the personal chatty little notes we had left for them on the Beardmore--how much more important to us than all the royal letters in the world.

We dug down the bamboo which had brought us to this place. It led to the sledge, many feet down, and had been rigged there as a mast. And on the sledge were some more odds and ends--a piece of paper from the biscuit box: Bowers' meteorological log: and the geological specimens, thirty pounds of them, all of the first importance. Drifted over also were the harnesses, ski and ski-sticks.

Hour after hour, so it seemed to me, Atkinson sat in our tent and read. The finder was to read the diary and then it was to be brought home--these were Scott's instructions written on the cover. But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened--and after that they were brought home unopened and unread. When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates' death, which Scott had expressly wished to be known.

We never moved them. We took the bamboos of the tent away, and the tent itself covered them. And over them we built the cairn.

I do not know how long we were there, but when all was finished, and the chapter of Corinthians had been read, it was midnight of some day. The sun was dipping low above the Pole, the Barrier was almost in shadow. And the sky was blazing--sheets and sheets of iridescent clouds. The cairn and Cross stood dark against a glory of burnished gold.

* * * * *

Copy of Note left at the Cairn, over the Bodies

November 12th, 1912. Lat. 79° 50´ S.

This Cross and Cairn are erected over the bodies of Capt. Scott, C.V.O., R.N.; Dr. E. A. Wilson, M.B., B.A. Cantab.; Lt. H. R. Bowers, Royal Indian Marines. A slight token to perpetuate their gallant and successful attempt to reach the Pole. This they did on the 17th January 1912 after the Norwegian expedition had already done so. Inclement weather and lack of fuel was the cause of their death.

Also to commemorate their two gallant comrades, Capt. L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons, who walked to his death in a blizzard to save his comrades, about 18 miles south of this position; also of Seaman Edgar Evans, who died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier.

The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Relief Expedition. (Signed by all members of the party.)

My diary goes on:

Midnight, November 12-13. I cannot think that anything which could be done to give these three great men--for great they were--a fitting grave has been left undone.

A great cairn has been built over them, a mark which must last for many years. That we can make anything that will be permanent on this Barrier is impossible, but as far as a lasting mark can be made it has been done. On this a cross has been fixed, made out of ski. On either side are the two sledges, fixed upright and dug in.

The whole is very simple and most impressive.

On a bamboo standing by itself is left the record which I have copied into this book, and which has been signed by us all.

We shall leave some provisions here, and go on lightly laden to see if we can find Titus Oates' body: and so give it what burial we can.

We start in about an hour, and I for one shall be glad to leave this place.

I am very very sorry that this question of the shortage of oil has arisen. We in the First Return Party were most careful with our measurement--having a ruler of Wright's and a piece of bamboo with which we did it: measuring the total height of oil in each case, and then dividing up the stick accordingly with the ruler: and we were always careful to take a little less than we were entitled to, which was stated to me, and stated by Birdie in his depôt notes, to be one-third of everything in the depôt.

How the shortage arose is a mystery. And they eleven miles from One Ton and plenty!

Titus did not show his foot till about three days before he died. The foot was then a great size, and almost every night it would be frost-bitten again. Then the last day at lunch he said he could go on no more--but they said he must: he wanted them to leave him behind in his bag. That night he turned in, hoping never to wake: but he woke, and then he asked their advice: they said they must all go on together. A thick blizzard was blowing, and he said, after a bit, "Well, I am just going outside, and I may be some time." They searched for him but could not find him.

They had a terrible time from 80° 30´ on to their last camp. There Bill was very bad, and Birdie and the Owner had to do the camping.

And then, eleven miles from plenty, they had nine days of blizzard, and that was the end.

They had a good spread on their tent, and their ski-sticks were standing, but their ski were drifted up on the ground.

The tent was in excellent condition--only down some of the poles there were some chafes.

They had been trying a spirit lamp when all the oil was gone.

At 88° or so they were getting temperatures from -20° to -30°. At 82°, 10,000 feet lower, it was regularly down to -47° in the night-time, and -30° during the day: for no explainable reason.

Bill's and Birdie's feet got bad--the Owner's feet got bad last.

It is all too horrible--I am almost afraid to go to sleep now.

November 13. Early morning. We came on just under seven miles with a very cold moist wind hurting our faces all the way. We have left most of the provisions to pick up again. We purpose going on thirteen miles to-morrow and search for Oates' body, and then turn back and get the provisions back to Hut Point and see what can be done over in the west to get up that coast.

We hope to get two mules back to Hut Point. If possible, we want to communicate with Cape Evans.

Atkinson has been quite splendid in this very trying time.

November 14. Early morning. It has been a miserable march. We had to wait some time after hoosh to let the mules get ahead. Then we went on in a cold raw fog and some head wind, with constant frost-bites. The surface has been very bad all day for the thirteen miles: if we had been walking in arrowroot it would have been much like this was. At lunch the temperature was -14.7°.

Then on when it was drifting with the wind in our faces and in a bad light. What we took to be the mule party ahead proved to be the old pony walls 26 miles from One Ton. There was here a bit of sacking on the cairn, and Oates' bag. Inside the bag was the theodolite, and his finnesko and socks. One of the finnesko was slit down the front as far as the leather beckets, evidently to get his bad foot into it. This was fifteen miles from the last camp, and I suppose they had brought on his bag for three or four miles in case they might find him still alive. Half-a-mile from our last camp there was a very large and quite unmistakable undulation, one-quarter to one-third of a mile from crest to crest: the pony walls behind us disappeared almost as soon as we started to go down, and reappeared again on the other side. There were, I feel sure, other rolls, but this was the largest. We have seen no sign of Oates' body.

About half an hour ago it started to blow a blizzard, and it is now thick, but the wind is not strong. The mules, which came along well considering the surface, are off their feed, and this may be the reason.

Dimitri saw the Cairn with the Cross more than eight miles away this morning, and in a good light it would be seen from much farther off.

November 15. Early morning. We built a cairn to mark the spot near which Oates walked out to his death, and we placed a cross on it. Lashed to the cross is a record, as follows:

Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard to try and save his comrades, beset by hardship. This note is left by the Relief Expedition. 1912.

This was signed by Atkinson and myself.

We saw the cairn for a long way in a bad light as we came back to-day.

The original plan with which we started from Cape Evans was, if the Party was found where we could still bear out sufficiently to the eastward to have a good chance of missing the pressure caused by the Beardmore, to go on and do what we could to survey the land south of the Beardmore: for this was the original plan of Captain Scott for this year's sledging. But as things are I do not think there can be much doubt that we are doing right in losing no time in going over to the west of McMurdo Sound to see whether we can go up to Evans Coves, and help Campbell and his party.

We brought on Oates' bag. The theodolite was inside.

A thickish blizzard blew all day yesterday, but it was clear and there was only surface drift when we turned out for the night march. Then again as we came along, the sky became overcast--all except over the land, which remains clear these nights when everything else is obscured. We noticed the same thing last year. Now the wind, which had largely dropped, has started again and it is drifting. We have had wind and drift on four out of the last five days.

November 16. Early morning. When we were ready to start with the dogs it was blowing a thick blizzard, but the mules had already started some time, when it was not thick. We had to wait until nearly 4 A.M. before we could start, and came along following tracks. It is very warm and the surface is covered with loose snow, but the slide in it seems good. We found the mules here at the Cairn and Cross, having been able to find their way partly by the old tracks.

I have been trying to draw the grave. Of all the fine monuments in the world none seems to me more fitting; and it is also most impressive.

November 17. Early morning. I think we are all going crazy together--at any rate things are pretty difficult. The latest scheme is to try and find a way over the plateau to Evans Coves, trying to strike the top of a glacier and go down it. There can be no good in it: if ever men did it, they would arrive about the time the ship arrived there too, and their labour would be in vain. If they got there and the ship did not arrive, there is another party stranded. They would have to wait till February 15 or 20 to see if the ship was coming, and then there would be no travelling back over the plateau: even if we could do it those men there could not.

It was almost oppressively hot yesterday--but I'll never grumble about heat again. It has now cleared a lot and we came along on the cairns easily--but on a very soft downy surface, and the travelling has not been fast. We bring with us the Southern Party's gear. The sledge, which was the 10-foot which they brought on from the bottom of the glacier, has been left.

November 18. Early morning. I am thankful to say that the plateau journey idea has been given up.

Once more we have come along in thick, snowy weather. If we had not men on ski to steer we could never keep much of a course, but Wright is steering us very straight, keeping a check on the course by watching the man behind, and so far we have been picking up all the cairns. This morning we passed the pony walls made on November 10. And yet they were nearly level with the ground; so they are not much of a mark. Yank has just had a disagreement with Kusoi--for Kusoi objected to his trying to get at the meat on the sledge. The mules have been sinking in a long way, and are marching very slowly. Pyaree eats the tea-leaves after meals: Rani and Abdullah divide a rope between them at the halts; and they have eaten the best part of a trace since our last camp. These animals eat anything but their proper food, and this some of them will hardly touch.

It cleared a bit for our second march, and we have done our 13 miles, but it was very slow travelling. Now it is drifting as much as ever. Yank, that redoubtable puller, has just eaten himself loose for the third time since hoosh. This time I had to go down to the pony walls to get him.

We have had onions for the first time to-night in our hoosh--they are most excellent. Also we have been having some Nestlé's condensed milk from One Ton Depôt--which I do not want to see again, the depôt I mean. Peary must know what he is about, taking milk as a ration: the sweetness is a great thing, but it would be heavy: we have been having it with temperature down to -14°, when it was quite manageable, but I don't know what it would be like in colder temperatures.

November 19. Early morning. We have done our 13 miles to-day and have got on to a much better surface. By what we and others have seen before, it seems that last winter must have generally been an exceptional one. There have been many parties out here: we have never before seen this wind-swept surface, on which it is often too slippery to walk comfortably. I do not know what temperatures the Discovery had in April, but it was much colder last April than it was the year before. And then nothing had been experienced down here to compare with the winds last winter.

There was a high wind and a lot of drift yesterday during the day, and now it is blowing and drifting as usual. During the last nine days there has only been one, the day we found the tent, when it has not been drifting during all or part of the day. It is all right for travelling north, but we should be having very uncomfortable marches if we were marching the other way.

November 20. Early morning. To-day we have seemed to be walking in circles through space. Wright, by dint of having a man behind to give him a fixed point to steer upon, has steered us quite straight, and we have picked up every cairn. The pony party camped for lunch by two cairns, but they never knew the two cairns were there until a piece of paper blew away and had to be fetched: and it was caught against one of the cairns. They left a flag there to guide us, and though we saw and brought along the flag, we never saw the cairns. The temperature is -22.5°, and it is now blowing a full blizzard. All this snow has hitherto been lying on the ground and making a very soft surface, for though the wind has always been blowing it has never been very strong. This snow and wind, which have now persisted for nine out of the last ten days, make most dispiriting marches; for there is nothing to see, and finding tracks or steering is a constant strain. We are certainly lucky to have been able to march as we have.

Note on Mules.--The most ardent admirer of mules could not say that they were a success. The question is whether they might be made so. There was really only one thing against them but that is a very important one--they would not eat on the Barrier. From the time they went away to the day they returned (those that did return, poor things) they starved themselves, and yet they pulled biggish loads for 30 days.

If they would have eaten they would have been a huge success. They travelled faster than the ponies and, with one exception, kept together better than the ponies. If both were eating their ration it is questionable whether a good mule or a good pony is to be preferred. Our mules were of the best, and they were beautifully trained and equipped by the Indian Government: yet on November 13, a fortnight from the start, Wright records, "mules are a poor substitute for ponies. Not many will see Hut Point again, I think. Doubt if any would have got much farther than this if surfaces had been as bad this year as last."[292]

Though they would not eat oats, compressed fodder and oil-cake, they were quite willing to eat all kinds of other things. If we could have arrived at the mule equivalent to a vegetarian diet they might have pulled to the Beardmore without stopping. The nearest to this diet at which we could arrive was saennegrass, tea-leaves, tobacco ash and rope--all of which were eaten with gusto. But supplies were very limited. They ate dog-biscuit as long as they thought we were not looking--but as soon as they realized they were meant to eat it they went on hunger-strike again. But during halts at cairns Rani and Pyaree would stand solemnly chewing the same piece of rope from different ends. Abdullah always led the line, and followed Wright's ski tracks faithfully, so that if another man was ahead and Wright turned aside Abdullah always turned too. It was quite a manoeuvre for Wright to read the sledge-meter at the back of the sledge. As for Begum: "Got Begum out of a soft patch by rolling her over."[293]

On the whole the mules failed to adapt themselves to this life, and as such must at present be considered to be a failure for Antarctic work. Certainly those of our ponies which had the best chance to adapt themselves went farthest, such as Nobby and Jimmy Pigg, both of whom had experience of Barrier sledging before they started on the Polar Journey.

November 21. Early morning. It has cleared at last, the disturbance rolling away to the east during our first march. The surface was very bad and the mules were not going well. At this time last year many of the ponies were still quite difficult to make stand just before starting. But these mules start off now most dolefully. I am afraid they will not all get back to Hut Point.

Two and a half miles after lunch, i.e. just over forty miles from the depôt, we turned out to the eastward and found the gear left by the Second Return Party, when Evans was so ill. The theodolite, which belonged to Evans, is I believe there, but though we dug all round we were unable to find it. The ski were all upright, drifted to within six inches of the shoes. Most of the gear was clothing, which we have left, with the skis, in the tank. We brought on a roll of Birdie's photographs, taken on the plateau, and three geological specimens: deep-seated rocks I think. This was all of importance that there was there.

The N Ration, which we have now come to, consists of about 40 oz. of food. At present, doing the work we are doing, and with these high temperatures, -23° when we started, for instance, and -17° now, the men do not want it. For what it was intended for, hard man-hauling, it would probably be an excellent ration, and very satisfying.

November 22. Early morning. We could not have had a more perfect night to march. Yesterday at 4 P.M., holding the thermometer in the sun, the spirit rose to 30°: it was almost too warm in the tent. The cairns show very plainly--in such weather navigation of this kind would be dead easy. But they are already being eaten away and toppling. The pony walls are drifted level--huge drifts, quite hard, running up to windward and down to lee.

The dogs are getting more hungry, and want to get at the mules, which makes them go better. They went very well to-day, but too fast once, for we had a general mix-up: Bieliglass under the sledge and the rest all tangled up and ready for a fight at the first chance. How one of the front pair of dogs got under the sledge is a mystery.

Among the Polar Party's gear is a letter to the King of Norway. It was left by the Norwegians for Scott to take back. It is wrapped in a piece of thin windcloth with one dark check line in it. Coarser and rougher and, I should say, heavier than our Mandelbergs.

November 23. Early morning. We were to make Dimitri Depôt this morning, but we came on in a fog, and the mule party camped after running down the distance. Wright came back and said, "If we have passed it, it's over there"--and as he pointed the depôt showed--not more than 200 yards away. So that is all right. We, the dog party, go on in advance to-morrow, so that no time may be lost, and if the ice is still good, Atkinson will get over to Cape Evans.

November 24. Early morning. A glut of foot-walloping in soft snow and breaking crusts. We have done between 17 and 18 miles to-day. We saw no crevasses, and have marked the course well, building up the cairns and leaving two flags--so the mule party should be all right. The dogs were going well behind the ponies, but directly we went ahead they seemed to lose heart. I think they are tired of the Barrier: a cairn now awakens little interest: they know it is only a mark and it does not mean a camp: they are all well fed, and fairly fat and in good condition. With a large number of dogs I suppose one team can go ahead when it is going well--changing places with another--each keeping the others going. But I do not think that these dogs now will do much more; but they have already done as much as any dogs of which we have any record.

The land is clearing gradually. I have never seen such contrasts of black rock and white snow, and White Island was capped with great ranges of black cumulus, over which rose the pure white peaks of the Royal Society Range in a blue sky. The Barrier itself was quite a deep grey, making a beautiful picture. And now Observation Hill and Castle Rock are in front. I don't suppose I shall ever see this view again: but it is associated with many memories of returning to home and plenty after some long and hard journeys: in some ways I feel sorry--but I have seen it often enough.

November 25. Early morning. We came in 24 miles with our loads, to find the best possible news--Campbell's Party, all well, are at Cape Evans. They arrived here on November 6, starting from Evans Coves on September 30. What a relief it is, and how different things seem now! It is the first real bit of good news since February last--it seems an age. We mean to get over the sea-ice, if possible, as soon as we can, and then we shall hear their story.

November 26. Early morning. Starting from Hut Point about 6.45 P.M. last evening, we came through by about 9 P.M., and sat up talking and hearing all the splendid news till past 2 A.M. this morning.

All the Northern Party look very fat and fit, and they are most cheerful about the time they have had, and make light of all the anxious days they must have spent and their hard times.

I cannot write all their story. When the ship was battling with the pack to try and get in to them they had open water in Terra Nova Bay to the horizon, as seen from 200 feet high. They prepared for the winter, digging their hut into a big snowdrift a mile from where they were landed. They thought that the ship had been wrecked--or that every one had been taken off from here, and that then the ship had been blown north by a succession of furious gales which they had and could not get back. They never considered seriously the possibility of sledging down the coast before the winter. They got settled in and were very warm--so warm that in August they did away with one door, of which they had three, of biscuit boxes and sacking.

Their stove was the bottom of an oil tin, and they cooked by dripping blubber on to seal bones, which became soaked with the blubber, and Campbell tells me they cooked almost as quickly as a primus. Of course they were filthy. Their main difficulty was dysentery and ptomaine poisoning.

Their stories of the winter are most amusing--of "Placing the Plug, or Sports in the Antarctic"; of lectures; of how dirty they were; of their books, of which they had four, including David Copperfield. They had a spare tent, which was lucky, for the bamboos of one of theirs were blown in during a big wind, and the men inside it crept along the piedmont on hands and knees to the igloo and slept two in a bag. How the seal seemed as if they would give out, and they were on half rations and very hungry: and they were thinking they would have to come down in the winter, when they got two seals: of the fish they got from the stomach of a seal--"the best feed they had"--the blubber they have eaten.

But they were buried deep in the snow and quite warm. Big winds all the time from the W.S.W., cold winds off the plateau--in the igloo they could hear almost nothing outside--how they just had a biscuit a day at times, sugar on Sundays, etc.

And so all is well in this direction, and we have done right in going south, and we have at least succeeded in getting all records. I suppose any news is better than no news.

Evening. The Pole Party photos of themselves at the Pole and at the Norwegian cairn (a Norwegian tent, post and two flags) are very good indeed--one film is unused, one used on these two subjects: taken with Birdie's camera. All the party look fit and well, and their clothes are not iced up. It was calm at the time: the surface looks rather soft.

Atkinson and Campbell have gone to Hut Point with one dog-team, and we are all to forgather here. The ice still seems good from here to Hut Point: all else open water as far as can be seen.

A steady southerly wind has been blowing here for three days now. The mules should get into Hut Point to-day.

It is the happiest day for nearly a year--almost the only happy one.

FOOTNOTES:

[291] My own diary.Return to passage

[292] Wright's diary.Return to passage

[293] Wright's diary.Return to passage