CHAPTER XXIIONWARD
Themorning of the 9th was fine, calm and clear, and, as soon as we had dug the sledges out of the drift and breakfasted, we set out to find a track among the crevasses. Our hunt for crevasses was successful enough, for we discovered all sorts from narrow cracks to ugly chasms with no bottom visible, but to find a track through them was beyond our powers.
There was indeed nothing for it but to trust to Providence, and having got under way we got over the first few crevasses without difficulty. And then all of a sudden Chinaman went down a crack which ran parallel to our course.
Adams tried to pull him out and he struggled gamely, but it was not until Wild and I left our sledges and hauled along Chinaman's sledge that, just in time, he managed to get on to firm ice, for three feet more and it would have been all up with the Southern Journey. The three-foot crack opened out into a great fathomless chasm, and down that would have gone the pony, all our cookinggear and biscuits and half the oil, and probably Adams as well.
But when things seem to be as hopeless as possible they often take a sudden change for the better, and in our case this was the last crevasse we encountered for some time, and at length, with a gradually improving surface, we were really able to push along.
During the day we knocked off over 14 miles of those intervening between us and our goal, and we turned in for the night in a more cheerful frame of mind. Our rest, however, was disturbed by the mischievous Quan eating away the straps on his rug, and Grisi and Socks fighting over it. The propensities of Manchurian ponies for eating peculiar things must certainly be allowed to have their drawbacks.
Such accidents may seem very trivial, but they meant work for us in repairing the damage, and when one is thoroughly tired after a day's march one does not welcome any unlooked for labour.
To our astonishment during our march in the afternoon we came across the track of an Adelie penguin, and where on earth the bird had come from was a mystery. It had been travelling on its stomach for a long way, and it had at least fifty miles to travel before it could reach food and water, and the nearest water in the direction from which it had come was over fifty miles away. Among penguins this bird ought, I think, to have been credited with an adventurous disposition.
With better weather for the next few days we made good progress towards the depot where 167 lb. of pony food was lying, and our appetites were already too good for the amount of food we were allowing ourselves. Perhaps those who have never known what it is to be desperately hungry will be disgusted at us for remembering that when the ponies had done their work we should be able to add horse-meat to our rations. But I can say with truth that until the ponies had to be killed they were treated with a liberality that we denied sternly to ourselves.
Cape Barne and Inaccessible Island by Moonlight
Cape Barne and Inaccessible Island by Moonlight
To pick up a depot which is only a tiny speck in a vast snowy plain and is nearly sixty miles from the nearest land, is like picking up a buoy in the North Sea with only distant mountains for bearings, and I was most anxious that we should reach it before the glorious weather broke up, for there was stored not only the pony feed but also a most valuable gallon of oil.
Imagine then my delight when, on the evening of the 14th, Wild, who was outside the camp looking through the Goertz glasses, shouted that he could see the depot. We rushed out at once, and there were the flag and sledge to be seen plainly through the glasses. On the next morning we found everything intact and the flag waving merrily in the breeze, and we camped there for a few hours so that we could distribute weights and parcel our provision to be left there for our return journey.
It went to our hearts to leave a tin of sardines and a pot of black currant jam which we had intended for our feast on Christmas Day, but every ounce of additional weight was so important, that although we felt that we ought to take as much food as we possibly could these luxuries had to be left behind.
We were on again soon after one o'clock and when we camped that night we built a snow mound as a guide to our homeward track, and decided to build one at each camp we made. Having two shovels with us, in ten minutes a mound 6 or 7 ft. high could be built, and although we wondered whether our tracks would remain longer than our mounds, or our mounds longer than thetracks, we thought it most advisable to neglect no precautions. And as a matter of fact these mounds remained after the sledge tracks had vanished, and were a great comfort to us on our journey back.
Everything continued to go splendidly for us, and I could not help contrasting the progress of our last few days with the time six years before, when I was toiling along five miles a day over the same ground.
On November 16, for instance, we covered over 17 miles, a record day for us; and also every one was in splendid health, my eyes (which had been attacked by snow blindness) were better, and although split lips prevented us laughing we were going straight as a die to the south—a reason sufficient in itself for our cheerfulness.
Another opportunity for contrast was that between our parsimony in the way of food and Quan's wastefulness. To economise we saved three lumps of sugar each day so that in time we might build up a reserve stock, while Quan with his marvellous digestion preferred to eat a yard of creosoted rope than his proper bait, and often in sheer wantonness threw the food given to him all over the snow.
By this time the work was beginning to tell upon the ponies, especially upon Chinaman, but all of them continued to work splendidly in their own particular way, and naturally we were anxious to advance our food-supply as far as possible south before the ponies gave out.
Quan plodded stolidly through everything, possibly thinking of what tricks he would play at night but at the same time working magnificently; Chinaman was the first to show signs of collapse, but his spirit was willing though his strength was weakening; Grisi and Socks took all soft places with a rush.
But in spite of the hard labours of the day we always felt confident that the ponies would enjoy themselves in their peculiar way at night, and on one occasion I had to go out to prevent Socks from biting and swallowing lumps out of Quan's tail. If we had ever anticipated that they would have played such games, we should have taken a longer wire to tether them and keep them apart.