CHAPTER XXXIIITHE WESTERN PARTY
Howwell Joyce and his party, consisting of Mackintosh, Day and Martin, placed a depot of stores about fourteen miles off Minna Bluff, and how glad the Southern Party were to find them there has already been told.
In the depoting of these stores Joyce made two journeys, starting for the first from winter quarters on January 15 and returning to Hut Point on January 31, and leaving there again with a second load of stores (which had been brought by a party from theNimrod) and reaching the Bluff Depot for the second time on February 8.
On their re-arrival at this depot they found, to their surprise, that the Southern Party had not appeared, and for some days Joyce and his companions searched the horizon with glasses, in the hope of sighting the overdue travellers.
They waited until the Southern Party was eleven days after the time fixed for their return, and then decided to lay a depot flag in towards the Bluff so that by no chance could the food be missed, and, secondly, to march due south to look for the Southern Party. In this march they were, as is known, unsuccessful in finding the weary travellers, and eventually they returned to the Bluff Depot and found everything as they had left it.
Filled with gloomy thoughts as to the fate of Adams, Marshall, Wild and myself—for we were then eighteen days overdue—they started on the 16th to march back to the coast. But although they did not find us, they had nevertheless saved our lives by the provisions they had so laboriously brought to the depot.
At the same time that we of the Southern Party were fighting our way towards the Pole, the Western Party, consisting of Armytage, Priestley and Brocklehurst, were working in the western mountains.
On December 9 they left winter quarters and reached the "stranded moraines" four days later. These moraines, which were found by theDiscoveryexpedition, are relics of the days of more extensive glaciation, and as they present a most varied collection of rocks they are of very great interest.
There the party succeeded in securing a large number of skuas' eggs, but the anticipated feast was not enjoyed, for, to quote the words of one of the expedition, only about a dozen of the eggs were "good enough for eating." The other eggs were thrown on the snow near the tent, with the result that there was an invasion of skuas, the birds not only eating the eggs but also making themselves a nuisance by pulling about the sledge-harness and the stores. Geological specimens this party secured in valuable abundance, and, as was the case with the other sledging expeditions that were out at the time, a special feast was provided for Christmas Day.
That Priestley enjoyed this feast is shown by his diary, in which he wrote, "The plum pudding was 'top-hole.' Must remember to give one of the pot-holed sandstones to Wild for the New Zealand girl who gave him the plum pudding."
This party were on the look-out for the men who had gone north in search of the Magnetic Pole, but failing to find any sign of them, they went back to their depot on January 14 and pitched camp to wait for the Northern Party until the 25th, when they were either to make their way back to winter quarters or to signal for the ship by means of the heliograph.
On the 24th, however, this party had the narrowest escape from never seeing either winter quarters or theNimrodagain. They were camped on the sea-ice at the foot of Butter Point, in a position which to all appearances was one of safety. Armytage indeed had examined the tide-crack along the shore and had found no signs of more than ordinary movement, and the ice all round seemed to be quite fast.
The Bluff Depot.(See page 179)
The Bluff Depot.(See page 179)
But early in the morning of the 24th, Priestley, who was first out of the tent, abruptly dispelled any feelings of security that his companions possessed. At once he discovered that the ice they were on had broken away and was drifting north to the open sea, and, returning to tell the others, they immediately turned out, to find that this statement was only too true. Two miles of open water already intervened between the floe and the shore, and they were to all appearances moving steadily out.
"When," Armytage wrote in his report, "we found that the ice had gone out, we loaded up the sledge and started to see whether we could get off the floe to the north. The position seemed to be rather serious, for we could not hope to cross any stretch of open water, there was no reasonable chance of assistance from the ship, and most of our food was at Butter Point. We had not gone very far to the north when we came to an impassable lane of open water, and we decided to return to our original position. We went into camp and had breakfast at 11A.M."
After that the three men waited for some time on the off-chance of the ship coming along one of the lanes and picking them up, or of the current changing and the ice once more touching the shore, but at the end of four anxious hours there was no improvement in their position. Killer-whales were spouting in the channels, and occasionally bumping the ice under the floe.
Unable to wait any longer, the party marched right round the floe but met with open water in every direction, and at 10P.M.they were back in their old position, only encouraged by the fact that they had apparently stopped moving north, and were possibly getting a little nearer to fast ice again.
Soon afterwards Brocklehurst turned out to see if the position had changed, and reported that the floe seemedto be within a few hundred yards of the fast ice, and was still moving in that direction. Then Armytage got up, and half an hour later saw that the floe was only about two hundred yards off fast ice.
"I ran back," he reported, "as fast as I could, deciding that there was a prospect of an attempt to get ashore proving successful, and gave the other two men a shout.
They struck camp and loaded up within a few minutes, while I went back to the edge of the floe at the spot towards which chance had first directed my steps. Just as the sledge got up to me I felt the floe bump the fast ice. Not more than six feet of the edge touched, but we were just at that spot, and we rushed over the bridge thus formed. We had only just got over when the floe moved away again, and this time it went north to the open sea. The only place at which it touched the fast ice was that to which I had gone when I left the tent, and had I happened to go to any other spot we would not have escaped."
After this Providential deliverance from a perilous situation, the party made their way back to Butter Point and camped about 3A.M.; and when they got up some hours later open water was to be seen where they had been drifting on the floe, and also theNimrodwas sighted some miles out.
The heliograph was flashed to the vessel, and in the afternoon the party—having left a depot of provisions and oil at Butter Point in case the northern travellers should arrive there—were safe on board again.
Towards' the end of January fine weather was very rare, for the season was advanced, and consequently the fast ice remaining in the Sound began to break up quickly and took the form of pack trending northwards.
The waiting for the other parties to come in was unpleasant for the remaining members of the shore-party and for those on board the ship, because the time was approaching when theNimrodmust either leave for the north or be frozen in for the winter. And still both the Southern and the Northern Parties tarried.
Instructions had been left that if the Northern Party had not returned by February 1, a search was to be made along the western coast in a northerly direction. This party by that time was three weeks overdue, and so Captain Evans proceeded north with theNimrodon the 1st, and began closely to examine the coast. This search was both dangerous and difficult, for Captain Evans had to keep near to the coast, in order to guard against the chance of missing any signal, and the sea was obstructed by pack-ice. The work, however, was done most thoroughly in the face of what Captain Evans afterwards described as "small navigational difficulties."