For a whole day these two were afloat on a floe about 150 ft. square, all the ice around was broken up into similar floes, which were rising and falling at least a foot to the heavy swell. A moderate breeze was blowing from the eastward, and nothing was visible above the haze and frost smoke except the tops of two islands named White and Black Islands, and the hills around Hut Point. Whilst Crean was clambering over bits of ice and jumping by means of connecting pieces from one big floe to another, his progress was watched by Bowers through the telescope of a theodolite. One can gather how delighted Bowers must have been to see Crean eventually high up on the Barrier in the distance, for it meant that he would communicate with Captain Scott, whose intelligent, quick grasp, in emergency would surely result in Gran being despatched on ski over to Cape Evans, for he alone could do this. Once there, a boat could have been launched and the floe party rescued. Bowers's satisfaction was short-lived, however, since Killer whales were noticed cruising amongst the loose ice, and these soon became numerous, some of them actually inspecting the floe by poking their noses up and taking an almost perpendicular position in the water, when their heads would be raised right above the floe edge. The situation looked dangerous, for the whales were evidently after the ponies. The wind fell light as the day progressed and the swell decreased and vanished altogether. This fortunately resulted in the floes closing near to the Barrier, and the open water spaces decreased then to such a degree that the party were able to bridge the cracks by using their sledges until they worked the whole of their equipment up to the Barrier face, where Bowers and Cherry-Garrard were rescued by Scott, Oates, Gran, and Crean. After a further piece of manoeuvring a pony and all the sledges were recovered, the three other ponies were drowned. Only those who have served in the Antarctic can realise fully what Bowers's party and also Scott's own rescue party went through.
The incident which terminated in the loss of three more of our ponies cast a temporary gloom over the depot party when we reassembled in the safety of the old ramshackle magnetic lean-to at Hut Point. I use the word lean-to because one could hardly describe it as a hut, for the building was with out insulation, snow filled the space between ceiling and roof, and whenever a fire was kindled or heat generated, water dripped down in steady pit-a-pat until there was no dry floor space worth the name.
It might be interesting to touch on the experiences of our friend James Pigg, for this pony can only be described as a quaint but friendly little rogue. He and Keohane seemed to have their own jokes apart from us. We were left to ourselves on the 27th February, while Scott, as stated, pushed forward to Safety Camp, "we," meaning Atkinson, Forde, Keohane, and myself. We were kept in camp on the 27th by a strong blizzard, and the next day when the weather abated, during our forenoon march James Pigg fell into a crevasse, quite a small one, and his girth, through so much high feeding, jammed him by his stomach and prevented him falling far down. The whole situation was ridiculous. We parbuckled him out by means of the Alpine rope, which was quickly detached from the sledge, James Pigg taking a lively interest in the proceedings, and finally rolling over on his back and kicking himself to his feet as we four dragged him up to the surface. This done, Keohane looking very Irish and smiling, bent over and peered down into the bluey depths of the crevasse and, to our intense amusement, James Pigg strolled over alongside of him and hung his head down too. He then turned to Keohane, who patted his nose and said, "That was a near shave for you, James Pigg!"
We got to Safety Camp on the evening of March 1 and found two notes from Captain Scott directing us to make for Hut Point via Castle Rock, and notifying us that the sea ice was all on the move. We had an interesting climb next day, but a very difficult one, for we were on the go from 9 a.m. until after 11 that night. First we found our way over the Barrier Ice to the foot of the slope leading up to the ice ridge northward of Castle Rock. Here we tethered James Pigg and spent some hours getting our gear and sledges up the slope. We had no crampons for this work as they were all on Scott's own sledge, so that it was necessary at times to pull up the slopes on hands and knees, assisted by our ski sticks, an unusual procedure but the only one possible to employ on the steeper blue ice. We took the sledges up one by one and then went down with an Alpine rope to help James Pigg. We found the pony very bored at our long absence; he neighed and whinnied when we came down to him, and, to our great surprise, went up the long, steep slope with far greater ease than we did ourselves.
It was out of the question for us to proceed the four and a half miles along the ridges which led down to Hut Point, for darkness had set in and we had no wish to repeat the performance of an earlier expedition when a man lost his life hereabouts through slipping right over one of these steep slopes into the sea on the western side of the promontory ridge which terminates at Hut Point.
It was snowing when we turned in and still snowing on March 3 when we turned out of our sleeping-bags. James Pigg, quite snug, clothed in his own, Blossom's, and Blücher's rugs, had a little horseshoe shelter built up round him. We did not know at this time of the pony disaster, but, thinking Captain Scott might be anxious if he got no word as to our whereabouts or movements, Atkinson and I started to march along the ice ridges of Castle Rock and make our way to Hut Point. It was blowing hard and very cold, but the joy of walking on firm ice without a sledge to drag was great. When finally we came to the old "Discovery" hut at lunch time, we found Wilson, Meares, and Gran in very low spirits. They told us that Bowers and Cherry-Garrard were adrift on an ice floe and the remainder of the party had gone to the rescue along the Barrier edge. We were much downcast by this news, and after a meal of biscuit and tea, started back for our camp. The weather was now clearer, and we could see some way out over the Barrier; we could also see the sea looking very blue against the white expanse of ice.
On the way back we discussed a plan and arranged that we should leave Keohane with the pony, take a sledge, and make our way along the ice edge of the Barrier searching for Scott and joining up with him, but just before descending to the hollow where our tent was we spied a sledge party on the Barrier and, on reaching our camp, were delighted to see through my telescope six men. Thank God! This meant that all were safe. We went out to meet the party, reaching them about 8 p.m. where they had camped, a couple of miles from Cape Armitage, between two pressure ridges that formed great frozen waves. Bowers told me that when Scott's party attempted to save the horses at the Barrier edge, rotten ice and open water leads were the cause of their downfall, and when the horses slipped into the sea, that he had been compelled to kill his own pony with a pickaxe to save him being taken alive by one of the Orcas or Killer whales. The only horse saved was Captain Scott's, one of the best we had in that Expedition.
I think the Irish sailors must have spoilt James Pigg, for, when eventually we got Scott's sledge loads up to the hill-crest where our camp was, James Pigg, instead of welcoming the other pony, broke adrift, and jumping into the new-comer's shelter, leapt on him, kicked him and bit him in the back. On March 5 we all started for Hut Point, having previously sent in Atkinson with the good news that no men's lives were lost. Wilson and party met us near Castle Rock and led the ponies in while we dropped the laden sledges, full of pony harness, tents, and sledging gear, with a sufficiency of pony fodder for a fortnight, down the ski-slope to Hut Point. It was a fine bit of toboganning and Captain Scott showed himself to be far more expert than any of us in controlling a sledge on a slippery slope.
We soon got into the way of climbing around on seemingly impossible slopes and could negotiate the steepest of hills and the slipperiest of steep inclines. It was largely a question of good crampons, which we fortunately possessed.
The month of March and the first half of April, 1911, proved to be the most profitless and unsatisfactory part of the Expedition. This was due to a long compulsory wait at Hut Point, for we could not cross the fifteen miles that lay between our position there and the Cape Evans Station until sea ice had formed, which could be counted on not to break away and take us into the Ross Sea in its northward drift. Time after time the sea froze over to a depth of a foot or even more and time and again we made ready to start for Cape Evans to find that on the day of departure the ice had all broken and drifted out of sight. As it was, we were safely, if not comfortably, housed at Hut Point, with the two dog teams and the two remaining ponies, existing in rather primitive fashion with seal meat for our principal diet. By the end of the first week in March we had converted the veranda, which ran round three sides of the old magnetic hut, into dog and pony shelters, two inner compartments were screened off by bulkheads made of biscuit cases, a cook's table was somehow fashioned and a reliable stove erected out of petrol tins and scrap-iron. Our engineers in this work of art were Oates and Meares. For a short while we burnt wood in the stove, but the day soon came when seal blubber was substituted, and the heat from the burning grease was sufficient to cook any kind of dish likely to be available, and also to heat the hut after a fashion.
Round the stove we built up benches to sit on for meals, and two sleeping spaces were chosen and made snug by using felt, of which a quantity had been left by Scott's or Shackleton's people. The "Soldier" and Meares unearthed same fire bricks and a stove pipe from the debris heap outside the hut and then we were spared the great discomfort of being smoked out whenever a fire was lit. An awning left by the "Discovery" was fixed up by several of us around the sleeping and cooking space, and although rather short of luxuries such as sugar and flour, we were never in any great want of good plain food.
On March 14 the depot party was joined by Griffith Taylor, Debenham,Wright, and Petty Officer Evans.
Taylor's team had been landed by the "Terra Nova" on January 27, after the start of the depot party, to make a geological reconnaissance. In the course of their journeying they had traversed the Ferrar Glacier and then come down a new glacier, which Scott named after Taylor, and descended into Dry Valley, so called because it was entirely free from snow. Taylor's way had led him and his party over a deep fresh-water lake, four miles long, which was only surface frozen—this lake was full of algae. The gravels below a promising region of limestones rich in garnets were washed for gold, but only magnetite was found. When Taylor had thoroughly explored and examined the region of the glaciers to the westward of Cape Evans, his party retraced their footsteps and proceeded southward to examine the Koettlitz Glacier. Scott had purposely sent Seaman Evans with this party of geologists, reasoning with his usual thoughtfulness that Evans's sledging experience would be invaluable to Taylor and his companions.
Taylor and his party made wonderful maps and had a wonderful store of names, which they bestowed upon peak, pinnacle, and pool to fix in their memories the relative positions of the things they saw. Griffith Taylor had a remarkable gift of description, and his Antarctic book, "The Silver Lining," contains some fine anecdotes and narrative.
According to Taylor's chart the Koettlitz Glacier at its outflow on to the Great Ice Barrier is at least ten miles wide. The party proceeded along the north of the glacier for a considerable distance, sketching, surveying, photographing, and making copious notes of the geological and physiographical conditions in the neighbourhood, and one may say fearlessly that no Antarctic expedition ever sailed yet with geologists and physicists who made better use of the time at their disposal, especially whilst doing field work.
This party hung on with their exploration work until prudence told them that they must return from the Koettlitz Glacier before the season closed in. Their return trip led them along the edge of the almost impenetrable pinnacle of ice which is one of the wonders of the Antarctic. Their journey led them also through extraordinary and difficult ice-fields that even surprised the veteran sledger Evans. Their final march took them along the edge of the Great Ice Barrier and brought them to Hut Point on March 14.
We now numbered sixteen at this congested station; the sun was very little above the horizon and gales were so bad that spray dashed over the small hut occasionally, whilst all round the low-lying parts of the coast wonderful spray ridges of ice were formed. We had our proportion of blizzard days and suffered somewhat from the cold, for it was rarely calm. Some of us began to long for the greater comforts of the Cape Evans Hut; there was no day, no hour in fact, when some one did not climb up the hillock which was surmounted by the little wooden cross put up in memory of Seaman Vince of the "Discovery" expedition, to see and note the ice conditions.
Winter was coming fast and night shadows of cruel dark purple added to the natural gloom of Hut Point and its environments. Wilson was the one man amongst us who profited most from our sojourn here. In spite of bad light and almost frozen fingers he managed to make an astonishing collection of sketches, portraying the autumn scenes near this corner of Ross Isle. How sinister and relentless the western mountains looked, how cold and unforgiving the foothills, and how ashy gray the sullen icefoots that girt this sad, frozen land.
There was, of course, no privacy in the crowded hut-space, and when evening came it was sometimes rather a relief to get away to some sheltered corner and look out over the Sound. The twilight shades and colours were beautiful in a sad sort of way, but the stillness was awful. Whenever the wind fell light new ice would form which seemed to crack and be churned up with every cat's-paw of wind. The currents and tidal streams would slowly carry these pancakes of ice up and down the Strait until the weather was calm enough and cold enough to cement them together till they formed floes, which in their turn froze fast into great white icefields strong enough to bear us and any weights we liked to take along. One often turned in, confident that a passage could be made over the frozen sea to Glacier Tongue at least, but in the morning everything would be changed and absolutely no ice would be visible floating in the sea. When Taylor's party had rested a little at Hut Point they threw in their lot with the rest of us and made occasional trips out on the silent Barrier as far as Corner Camp, to add sledge loads of provisions now and again to the stores already depoted there in readiness for the southern sledge journey, on which we built our hopes for ultimate triumph.
Eight of us went out for a week's sledging on March 16, but the temperatures were now becoming too low to be pleasant and touching 40 degrees or so below zero. What tried us more than anything else was thick weather and the fearfully bad light on days when no landmarks were visible to guide us to the depot. Our sleeping-bags also were frozen and uncomfortable, thick rime collecting on the insides of our tents which every puff of wind would shake down in a shower of ice. When sitting round on our rolled-up sleeping-bags at meal times we could not help our heads and shoulders brushing off patches of this frost rime, which soon accumulated in the fur of the sleeping-bags and made life at night a clammy misery. The surfaces were very heavy, and dragging even light sledges when returning from the depot proved a laborious business.
This autumn time gave a series of gales and strong winds with scarcely ever more than a few hours of calm or gentle breeze, sandwiched in between. Sometimes we used ski, but there are occasions when ski are quite useless, owing to snow binding in great clogs underneath them. The Norwegians use different kinds of paraffin wax and compositions of tar and other ingredients for overcoming this difficulty. Gran had brought from Christiania the best of these compositions, nevertheless there were days when whatever we put on we had difficulty with ski and had to cast them aside. There were people who preferred foot-slogging to ski at any time, and there were certainly days when teams on foot would literally dance round men pulling on ski. In the light of experience, however, the expert ski-runner has enormous advantage over the "foot-slogger," however good an athlete.
What strikes me here is the dreadful similarity in weather condition, wind, temperature, etc., surface and visibility to that which culminated in the great disaster of our expedition and resulted in poor Scott's death exactly a year later. Here is a day taken haphazard from my diary:
"From Corner Camp to Hut Point:
"March 18, 1911.—Called the hands at 6.15 and after a fine warming breakfast started off on ski. The light was simply awful and the surface very bad, but we did six miles, then lunched. After lunch carried on with a strong wind blowing, but after very heavy dragging we were forced to camp when only nine and a half miles had been laid between us—we really couldn't see ten yards. Just after we camped the wind increased to about force 6, alternately freshening up and dying away, and a good deal of snow fell. Temperature 32.5 below zero."
One year later Scott was facing weather conditions and surfaces almost identical, but the difference lay in that he had marched more than sixteen hundred miles, was short of food, and his party were suffering from the tragic loss of two of their companions and the intense disappointment of having made this great sledge journey for their country's honour to find that all their efforts had been in vain, and that they had been anticipated by men who had borne thither the flag of another nation.
When Scott found that we sledgers were getting temperatures as low as minus forty he decided to discontinue sledging rather than risk anything in the nature of severe frostbite assailing the party and rendering them unfit for further work, for it must be remembered that we had already been away from our base ten weeks, that many of us had never sledged before, and that the depot journey was partly undertaken to give us sledging experience and to point out what improvements could be made in our clothing and equipment.
The first and second weeks in April brought the ice changes that we had so long awaited, and after one or two false starts two teams set out from Hut Point on April 11 to make their way across the fifteen miles of sea ice to Cape Evans.
This turned out to be a somewhat hazardous journey, since it had to be made in the half light with overcast weather and hard wind. Scott took charge of one tent and had with him Bowers, Griffith Taylor, and Petty Officer Evans, while I had in my party Wright, Debenham, Gran, and Crean. The seven who remained at Hut Point in charge of dogs and ponies helped us out a league or so for the first part of our journey.
The route led first up the steep ice slope over-hanging Hut Point, and then to the summit of the ridge, which is best described as the Castle Rock promontory. Our sojourn at Hut Point had given us plenty of chance to learn the easier snow roads and the least dangerous, and Scott chose the way close eastward of Castle Rock to a position four miles beyond it, which his first expedition had named Hutton Cliffs. From Castle Rock onward the way took us to the westward of two conical hills which were well-known landmarks—a hitherto untrodden route—but the going was by no means bad. Bitingly cold for faces and finger-tips, still, no weights to impede us. We camped for lunch after covering seven miles, for the light was bad, but it improved surprisingly whilst we were eating our meal. Accordingly, we put on our crampons about 3 p.m. and struck camp, securely packing the two green tents on the sledges, and casting a careful eye round the loads, tightened a strap here, hitched there, and then led by Scott we made a careful descent to the precipitous edge of the ice cap which overlays the promontory. We got well down to a part that seemed to overhang the sea and, to our delight, found a good solid-looking ice-sheet below us which certainly extended as far as Glacier Tongue. The drop here was twenty-five feet or so and Taylor and I were lowered over the cornice in an Alpine rope, then Wright and then the sledges, after that the remainder of the party. An ash-pole was driven into the snow and the last few members sent down in a bowline at one end of the rope whilst we below eased them down with the other part. The two parts of the Alpine rope working round the pole cut deeply into the over-hanging snow and brought a shower of ice crystals pouring over the heads and shoulders of whoever was sitting in the bowline. It was a good piece of work getting everything down safely, and I admired Scott's decision to go over; a more nervous man would have fought shy because, once down on the sea ice there was little chance of our getting back and we had got to fight our way forward to Cape Evans somehow.
When Taylor and I got first down we were greeted with a weird and wonderful sight: constant drifts of snow had formed a great overhang and the ice cliff was wreathed in a mass of snowy curtains and folds which took all manner of fantastic turns and shapes. A fresh wind was blowing continuously that made it most unpleasant for those above, and it was a relief to us all when the last man was passed down in safety, it was Scott himself.
We quickly harnessed up again and swung out over the sea ice towards Glacier Tongue, the cliffs of which stood out in a hard, white line to the northward, a couple of miles away. Arrived at the Tongue, Bowers and I clambered up a ten-foot cliff face by standing on Wright's and Crean's shoulders. We then reached down and hauled up the sledges and the others, harnessed up again, and proceeded to cross the Glacier, which was full of small crevasses. We reached the northern side of it and went down an easy snow slope to the sea ice beyond. As far as one could see this ice continued right up to and around Cape Evans, seven miles away to the N.W. It was now 6.30 p.m.; Scott halted us and discussed our readiness to make a night march into the winter quarters. There was not one dissentient voice, and we gladly started off at 8 o'clock for a night march to our snug and comfortable hut, picturing to ourselves a supper of all things luxurious. Our feet seemed suddenly to have taken wings, but, alas, the supper was not to be, for thick weather set in, and when, by 10 o'clock the wind was blowing hard and it was pitch dark, Scott suddenly decided to camp under the shelter of Little Razorback Island, where by that time we had arrived. We passed a filthy night here, for the snow on the sea ice was saturated with brine and, in no time, our sleeping-bags became wet and sticky.
Next day we were called at six to find a blizzard with a high drift making it impossible to move, so we remained in our bags until 4 p.m., when we shifted on to the narrow platform of rock situated on the south side of Little Razorback. We had one small meal here, but our condition was not a pleasant one, since little food remained and fuel was short. There was undoubtedly a chance that the sea ice would break up and drift away in this high wind. Had that happened we should have been left to starve on the tiny island. The position was not an enviable one. We got back into our bags, which were, as stated, wet and beastly, after a scanty supper and tried to sleep, but our feet were wet too, and cold, so that few of us could do more than close our eyes. The night passed slowly enough, and we turned out at 7 a.m. to cook what remained of our food before attempting to make Cape Evans. We were glad that it had stopped snowing and, although the light was bad enough, we could just make out the ice foot showing up bold and white on the south side of the Cape. After the meal we struck camp, formed marching order, and started half running for winter quarters. Covering a couple of miles we found, to our great relief, that the fast ice not only extended up to the Cape but right round into North Bay. We soon sighted the hut, and shortly after saw some people working outside. Directly they saw us in they ran to bring the others out at full speed, and coming to meet us they cheered and greeted us, then hauled our sledges in. It appeared they were unable to recognise any of us owing to our dirty and dishevelled state. This was not to be wondered at, for we had not washed nor had we shaved for eighty days: We all talked hard and exchanged news. Ponting lined us up to be photographed—the first nine Bolshevists—we looked such awful blackguards.
Now, April 13, 1911, as communication had been established between Hut Point and Cape Evans, we settled down for the winter. I shall never forget the breakfast that Clissold prepared for us at 10.30 that morning. It was delicious—hot rolls, heaps of butter, milk, sugar, jam, a fine plate of tomato soup, and fried seal cooked superbly. The meal over, we shaved, bathed, and put on clean clothes, smoked cigarettes, and took a day's holiday. At 10 o'clock that evening, by prearrangement, Very's lights were fired to let them know at Hut Point of our safe arrival. Our own signal was answered by a flare. Gramophone records were dug out and we lazily listened to Melba singing and to musical comedy tunes, those who had energy and sufficient inclination got the pianola going, and finally each man unfolded his little story to another member of the Expedition who had taken no part in the sledging.
Captain Scott was delighted at the progress made by those left in our hut under Dr. Simpson, everything was in order, the scientific programme in full swing, and nothing in the shape of bad news beyond the loss of an ill-tempered pony called Hackenschmidt, and one more dog that appeared to have died from a peculiar disease—a minute thread-worm getting to his brain, this according to Nelson who had conducted the post-mortem.
Less than a fortnight from the day of our return to Cape Evans, on April 23 to be exact, the sun left us to remain below the horizon for four long weary months. Of course, there was a considerable amount of twilight, and even on midwinter's day at noon there was some gray light in the north. Different people took the winter in different fashion, according to their temperaments. There were some who never could have faced a second winter with any degree of cheerfulness, but taking it all round, we did well enough, and when summer came again our concrete keenness and zeal had not one whit abated. That is especially true in the case of those who were chosen to make the great journey southward, even though it was obvious that certain members could only accompany their leader for a mere fraction of the great white way.
During the four months' winter darkness each one occupied himself with his special subject, and Dr. Wilson not only proved himself to be an efficient chief of our scientific staff, but a sound friend and companion to the executive members, Bowers, Oates, Meares, and myself. Uncle Bill was our Solomon and it was to him that we all went for sympathy and practical advice. It was to him the staff went, that is to say, the officers and scientists, for the smoothing over of those little difficulties, roughnesses, and unevennesses that were bound to arrive from time to time during the course of winter. The sailors came more to Bowers, Oates, and myself, for, in their conservative naval way, they could never quite get over the fact that the hut was not a ship and that there were other members who, although they had never come under any sort of naval or military discipline, were men of greater age and experience in fending for themselves than youngsters like Bowers and myself. Still, things went beautifully, and so they should have, when one considers the great care our leader had exercised in the selection of his personnel.
If Scott had had his choice again and if he had been allowed to select from the whole world, one can say without hesitation he would have chosen Wilson to captain our splendid scientific team and to be his human book of reference. Wilson was more nearly Scott's own age than the other important members of this enterprise, and Wilson, it must be remembered, had pulled shoulder to shoulder with Scott on his southern sledge journey in 1902-3.
Before taking a peep at the individuals forming the rest of our party and at their delicate scientific work at the base station, I must not forget to mention that Scott, with his indomitable energy, was away again four days after his return to Cape Evans with Bowers, Crean, and five fresh men to Hut Point for the dual purpose of replenishing that station with fuel, lighting material, etc., and getting those who should be at Cape Evans for certain work and duty back there. Scott returned by the way we had come, i.e. the Glacier Tongue-Castle Rock route, and then left the dog-boy with Meares to take charge of these animals, Lashly and Keohane to nurse and exercise the two ponies, and Nelson and Forde to get into the way of winter roughing it, besides which he left Day over at Hut Point, where his clever fingers found plenty to do to ameliorate the condition of those living there. Day had learnt much under Shackleton in these parts, and by some of us he was nicknamed "Handy Andy." Meares was now appointed "Governor of Hut Point." As a matter of fact he and his dogs were better off here than at Cape Evans, because the dogs could use the big sheltered verandas already mentioned, whereas they had no such shelter at Cape Evans.
Scott was back in the hut by April 21, having left Meares definite orders that James Pigg and Punch the ponies were not to leave Hut Point for Cape Evans until the entire journey could be made over the sea ice under conditions of absolute safety. This meant a wait of three weeks to a month before everything suited, and the "Governor of Hut Point" did not come in until the 13th May, when he arrived in pomp and splendour with all the dogs and the two ponies fit and well—his party, black with soot and blubber, their wind-proof clothing smelly and greasy, a dirty but robust and cheerful gang.
A glance at the accompanying plan shows whereabout we worked. Starting at the left hand top corner we find Simpson's laboratory, and we usually found Simpson in it at work, always at work, except when he was engaged in scientific argument or when, just after lunch, he stretched himself out on his bunk at the end of a large cigar! Simpson was no novice to work in the frigid zones, for he had already wintered within the Arctic circle in northern Norway. Weather did not worry him much nor apparently did temperatures, for since his investigations midst the snows of the Vikings' land, Simpson had worked extensively in India. His enduring good humour and his smiling manner earned for him the sobriquet of Sunny Jim.
In the first year the self-registering instruments that found themselves in Simpson's corner, or in the small hut which contained his magnetic observatory, gave us an admirable record of temperatures, barometric pressures, wind force and direction, atmospheric electricity, sunshine when the sun did shine, and the elements of terrestrial magnetism. Thanks to Simpson, we also had investigations of the upper air currents, aurora observations, atmospheric optics, gravity determination and what is more, some fine practical teaching that enabled the various sledging units properly to observe and collect data of meteorological importance. Simpson's place was essentially at the base station; and his consequent work as physicist and meteorologist prevented him from taking an active part in our sledge journeys. When he was recalled to Simla in 1912 his work was ably continued by Wright, our Canadian chemist, who, as I have said elsewhere, accompanied us south to make a special study of ice structure and glaciation.
Wright lived in the bunk above Simpson's, and when not devoting his energy and magnificent physique to sledging and field work, he gave himself up to the study of ice physics, a somewhat new scientific line of research. Wright was originally introduced to the Expedition by Griffith Taylor, and Scott, advised by Wilson, was so keen on the inclusion of this young Canadian chemist in our scientific staff that really the study of ice structure and glaciation was made for Wright and his science coined for him. He photographed ice flowers formed in the sea, he found out how long ice took to freeze down our way, cast aspersions on the bearing capabilities of our beloved sea ice and, generally, brought his intelligence to bear in a way that commanded the approbation of Wilson and our chief. Wright was one of the strongest members of our Expedition, and he had the most powerful flow of language. He made some beautiful photographs of ice crystals and surprised the simple sailor like myself with his ability as a navigator and astronomer.
Moving along from Wright and Simpson we come to Nelson and Day. Teddy Nelson, our marine biologist, did both winters at Cape Evans, and he not only carried out biological work but studied the tides. His corner was pleasant to look upon, with its orderly row of enamelled and china trays and dishes. During the winter months holes were made in the sea ice through which were lowered tow-nets, for collecting drifting organisms and so on. Special thermometers of German make were lowered by Nelson through the ice holes to get sea temperatures, and likewise reversing water bottles were employed to obtain samples of sea-water daily.
Day, the motor engineer, was responsible for the lighting by acetylene. He was wonderfully clever as a mechanic and also a good carpenter. He took charge of our petrol, paraffin, and spirit store, and was never idle for a minute.
Moving along to the right we come to the last cubicle, where the "Rubbleyubdugs" lived. These were Tryggve Gran, Griffith Taylor, and Frank Debenham. (All libel actions in connection with the Ubdugs I am prepared to settle out of port in the long bar at Shanghai.) Quoting from the "South Polar Times": "'The Ubdug Burrow' is festooned with kodaks, candles and curtains; they (the Ubdugs) are united by an intense love of the science of autobiography, their somewhat ambiguous motto is 'the pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue licks them both!'" Griffith Taylor and Debenham were both Australians: the former was probably the wittiest man in the Expedition, and, in my opinion, the cleverest contributor to the "South Polar Times," excepting of course the artistic side. The "South Polar Times" was our winter magazine, beautifully illustrated by Wilson's water colours and Ponting's photographs. Taylor's motto was "Advance, Australia!"—most certainly he helped it to. People were always welcome in the Ubduggery, where they seemed to have an unlimited supply of cigarettes and good novels.
Debenham was certainly nurse to the Ubdugs, that is to say he was the least untidy, but then of course he was the smallest. In this cubicle the most voluminous of diaries were kept, and at least two books have been published therefrom. Gran kept his diary mostly in Norwegian, but there were many words coined in our Expedition which had no Scandinavian equivalent, and Gran failed to translate them, in spite of his having more imagination than any one amongst us.
Crossing over the hut to the cubicle opposite one arrives at the somewhat congested space in which Cherry-Garrard was housed, with Bowers above him. In their corner were store lists, books, and mystery bags which contained material for the "South Polar Times," toys and frivolous presents to liven us up at the midwinter and other festivities. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard were, in a way, worse off than the others, for they had the darkest part of the hut, yet in this gloomy tenement all kinds of calculations were made and much other good work done.
Oates came next, with his bunk more free of debris than anybody else's, for he was the horse man, pure and simple, and his duties freed him from that superabundance of books, instruments, stationery, specimens, charts, and what-not with which we others had surrounded ourselves. Any spare gear he kept in the saddle room, a specially cleared space in the stables, where he was assisted by the little Russian groom, Anton, who soon became devoted to his hard-working and capable master. The two men, so unlike in appearance and character, etc., and such miles apart in social standing and nationality, worked shoulder to shoulder in the stables throughout the long winter night. By the dim candle-light which illuminated our pony-shelter, one could see Oates grooming his charges, clearing up their stall, refitting their harness, and fixing up the little improvements that his quick, watchful eye continually suggested. At the far end of his stables he had a blubber stove, where he used to melt ice for the ponies' drinking water and cook bran mashes for his animals. Here he would often sit and help Meares make dog pemmican out of seal meat—they made about 8 cwt. of this sustaining preparation.
Moving along from the Château, Oates, Meares's and Atkinson's two bunks came next, Meares above and Atkinson below. These two sleeping berths likewise were not conspicuous by any superfluity of scientific oddments, for Meares's work took him outside of the hut as a rule, unless he was engaged in making dog harness. Meares and Oates were the greatest friends, and these two, Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard and Bowers, were, if I remember rightly, known collectively as the Bunderlohg. Although numerically superior to theirvis-à-vis, the Ubdugs, and always ready to revile them, the Ubdugs kept their end up and usually came out victorious in discussions or in badinage.
Finally, the Holy of Holies, where Captain Scott and the library occupied one end and Uncle Bill and myself the far corner, with the ceaselessly ticking chronometers and many sledging watches. There was an air of sanctity about this part: all the plotting was done here, charts made and astronomical observations worked out. Wilson worked up his sketches at the "plotting table," interviewed the staff here, and above his bunk kept a third of the shore party's library. We had two comfortable trestle beds up our end and our leader also had a bed in preference to the built-up bunk adopted by most of the afterguard. Ours was the Mayfair district: Wilson and I lived in Park Lane in those days, whilst Captain Scott occupied Grosvenor Street! He had his own little table covered with "toney" green linoleum, and also had a multiplicity of little shelves on which to keep his pipes, tobacco, cigars, and other household gods. It was well illuminated in this part, and, although, hung around with fur mitts, fur boots, socks, hats and woollen clothing, there was something very chaste about this very respectable corner. For the rest of it we had our Arctic library, and the spare spaces on the matchboard bulkhead, which fenced it on three sides, were decorated with photographs. In place of eiderdown Scott's old uniform overcoat usually covered his bed, while peeping out from under his sleeping place one could espy an emblem of civilisation and prosperity in the shape of a very good suit-case.
The foregoing pages illustrate sufficiently the grouping of the afterguard, and if one adds an anthracite stove, a 12 ft. by 4 ft. table, a pianola, gramophone, and a score of chairs, with a small shelf-like table squeezed in between the dark-room and Simpson's corner, one completes the picture of the officers' quarters in the Cape Evans Hut. A bulkhead of biscuit cases and so on divided us from the men's accommodation. They were very well off, each seaman having a trestle bed similar to Captain Scott's, unless he preferred to build a bunk for himself, as one or two did. They had a table 6 ft. by 4 ft., and the cook had a kitchen table 4 ft. square, and certainly no crew space was ever provided on a Polar Expedition that gave such comfortable and cosy housing room.
The closing down of the Polar night was very swift now and the few hours of gray daylight were employed collecting what data was required by certain members for working on during the forthcoming days of darkness. Young Gran was handed over to me to help with the survey work and astronomical observations which had to be taken from time to time. He was a most entertaining assistant. Without complaint, he stood patiently shivering in that cutting winter wind whilst I swung around the theodolite telescope and took angles for him to write down in my notebook. I don't think anybody has made a triangulated survey under conditions worse than we endured that epoch: the weather was beastly and we spent much time dancing when nearly sick with cold, our fingers tucked under our arms to recover their feelings. When one's extremities did get frost-bitten it was no joke—frost-bitten finger tips gave us little peace at night with their sharp burning pain.
The most interesting part of the survey work was what is known to the surveyor as coast-lining. This meant walking along the edge of the sea ice, fixing one's position by sextant angle every five hundred yards or so, and sketching in a notebook the character and features of the ever changing coast between the various "fixes." One could keep warm doing this and one saw more of the land and ice formation than the others, for it meant following carefully round-cape and glacier edge, penetrating inlets and delineating every islet, promontory, cliff, and talus.
In spite of the cold, the gloom, and the sad whistling wind that heralded the now fast approaching darkness, I felt glad to work with my sextant and sketch-book under the shadow of those fantastic ice-foots hung round with fringes of icicle. I loved to go with Gran into the deep bays and walk for miles under the overhanging of the vast ice cliffs all purple in the reflection of the early winter noon, and to come out sometimes as we did on to the sea ice clear of a jutting glacier, to face suddenly northward over the frozen sea where nothing but a great waste of ice stretched away to meet the horizon and the rosy, copper glow of the departed sun's rays. Some of the cloud effects at the end of April were too wonderful for mere pen or brush to describe. To appreciate them one must go there and see them, those wonderful half-light tints.
Then there were the ice caves and grottos which were formed in the grounded icebergs that had overturned before we came, and the still more wonderful caves in the ice-sheet where it over-rode Ross Island and formed a cliff-face between Cape Evans and Glacier Tongue, extraordinarily like the white chalk cliffs of Studland Bay I found them, with here and there outstanding pinnacles which a little imagination would liken to Old Harry Rocks when the gray light was on them.
At the most we could only take sextant and theodolite angles for two hours on either side of noon, so Gran and I went without our lunch, taking a few biscuits and some chocolate out with us on our survey days, and as we worked farther and farther from our base we found it necessary to start out in the darkness in order to take full advantage of what light was vouchsafed us. It was good healthy work and we developed glorious appetites, so that our mouths ran with water when perhaps we met a couple of fellows leading the little white ponies on the sea ice for exercise, and they told us what they had had for lunch and what was being kept for us. We found it all most interesting and, although I detested that sunless winter, I loved the changing scenery, which never seemed monotonous when there was any daylight or moonlight. To mark our "stations" we used red and black bunting flags, and they showed up very well. We gave them all sorts of weird names, such as Sardine, Shark, and so forth, and we knew almost to a yard their distances from one another, as also their bearings, which helped us when we were overtaken by bad weather. Eventually it became too dark for any survey work, but there was always plenty to do indoors for the majority of us. Apart from our specialist duties some one was always to be found who could give employment to the willing—there were no idlers or unwilling folk amongst us. Simpson, for example, would employ as many volunteers as he could get to follow the balloons which he frequently sent up to record temperature and pressure. To each of these balloons a fine silk thread was attached, or rather the thread was attached to the little instrument it carried. When any strain was put on the thread it broke the thread connecting the small temperature and pressure instrument to the balloon, the former dropped on to the ice and was recovered by one of the volunteers, who followed the silk thread up until he came to the instrument where it had fallen. One required good eyesight for this work as for everything else down here, and I have never ceased to marvel at the way Cherry-Garrard got about and worked so well when one considers that he was very short-sighted indeed.
Everybody exercised generously, whether by himself on ski, leading a pony, digging ice for the cook or ice to melt for the ponies' drinking water, or even with a whole crowd playing rather dangerous football on the sea ice north of Cape Evans.
When the real winter came I used to walk, after winding the chronometers, until breakfast time to begin with. This gave me half an hour, then again before lunch I would put on ski and go for a run with anybody who had not a pony to exercise. The visibility was frequently limited, particularly on overcast days; one would glide along over the sea ice, which was in places wind-swept and in others covered with snow. Nothing in sight but the gray-white shadow underfoot and the blue-black sky above, a streak or band just a mere smudge of daylight in the north, but this would be sufficient to give one direction to go out on. Then slowly, dim, spectre-like shapes would appear which would gradually sort themselves out into two lots, black and white—these were Titus's ponies—the white shapes, the black were the men leading them. On they came, seemingly at a great pace, and one heard a crunching noise as the hoofs of the ponies trod down the snow crust, but one could not hear the footfalls of the men. One exchanged a "Hallo" with the leading man and passed on until a much bigger white shape loomed up in the obscurity of the noon-twilight, the going underfoot changed and skis fetched up against a great lump of ice which was scarcely discernible in the confusing darkness, and one realised that what little light there was to the northward had been blotted out by one of the big grounded icebergs. Directly one realised which berg it was a new course would be shaped, say to the end of the Barne Glacier; the cliffs of this reached, one proceeded homeward a league to the hut. This could not be missed on the darkest day if the coast-line was followed, and, at last, when stomach cried out like a striking clock, one realised that it was 2 p.m. or so, and a little glow indicated the whereabouts of the hut. Approaching it, one saw the tall chimney silhouetted against the sky, then the black shapes which oddly proclaimed themselves to be motor-sledges, store heaps or fodder dumps, and finally the hut itself. One stumbled over the tide-crack and up on to the much trodden snow which covered the Cape Evans's beach. Six or seven pairs of skis stuck in the snow near the hut door indicated that most people had come in to lunch, so there was need to haste. Off came one's own skis, and with a lusty stab in they went heel downwards into the snow alongside the other ones, so that when a new fall came they would stand up vertically and be easily found again.
The sticks one took into the hut, because even in our well-appointed family there were pirates who borrowed them and forgot to replace them. Entering the hut after kicking much snow from boots one passed first through the acetylene smelling porch—Handy Andy's pride—as we called Day's gas plant, then in to the seamen's quarters, where the smell of cooking delighted and the sight of those great, hefty sailors scoffing the midday meal hustled one still more.
In the officers' half of the hut most people were already busy with their knives and forks, two or three perhaps just sitting down, the night watch-man probably sitting up on the edge of his bunk putting on his slippers, and cheerfully accepting the friendly insults from his pals at table who told him the date and year—down went ski-sticks on the bed, room would be made at the table, and half a dozen dishes pushed your way, and although the mess-traps were enamelled, the food you shuffled down from the tin plate and the cocoa you lapped from the blue and white mug had not its equal at the Carlton, the Ritz, or the Berkeley.
Concerning the night watchman and his duties, although we had so many self-recording instruments, there were certain things which called for attention during the silent hours. Aurora observations had to be made which no instrument would record, movement of clouds had to be noted in the meteorological log, the snow cleared from the anemometer and so forth, then of course rounds had to be made in case of fire, ponies and dogs visited, the galley fire lit or kept going according to requirements, and so on. Night watch-keeping duty was only undertaken by certain members chosen from the afterguard. Scott himself always took a share in this, as he did in everything else that mattered. One came to welcome the night on, for the attendant work was not very strenuous and the eight hours' quietude gave the watchman a chance to write up a neglected diary, to wash clothes, work out observations, and perhaps make contributions to the "South Polar Times" undisturbed by casual well-wishers who were not meant to see the article in question until the day of publication. We were allowed to choose from the stores more or less what we liked for consumption in the stillness of the night watch. I always contributed special China or Ceylon tea for the benefit of the lonely watchman—I had two big canisters of the beverage, a present from one of our New Zealand well-wishers, Mrs. Arthur Rhodes of Christchurch, and these lasted the afterguard watch-keepers through the Expedition. The auroras were a little disappointing this first winter as seen from Cape Evans, they were certainly better seen from the Barrier. We only got golden bands and curtains splaying in the heavens, except for one or two rare occasions when there were distinct green rays low down amongst the shafts of weird light farthest from the zenith.
In view of the possibility of a second winter one kept a few letters going which contained a little narrative of our work to date. We had most imposing note-paper which was used for these occasions: the crest consisted of a penguin standing on the South Pole with the southern hemisphere underfoot, a garter surrounding this little picture inscribed with "British Antarctic Expedition—'Terra Nova' R.Y.S." Alas, some of the letters were never delivered, for death not only laid his hand upon certain members of the Expedition, but also upon some of our older friends, supporters, and subscribers.
One passed out of the hut hourly at least and, on moonlight nights especially, one found something beautiful in the scenery about Cape Evans. At full moon time everything turned silver, from towering Erebus with gleaming sides to the smooth ice slopes of Ross Island in the north-east, while away to the southward the high black Dellbridge Islands thrust up from a sea of flat silver ice. Even the conical hills and the majestic Castle Rock, fifteen miles away, stood out quite clearly on occasions. The weirdest thing of all was to hear the dogs howling in the middle of the night, they made one think of wolves and of Siberia.
All things considered, the winter passed quickly enough: we had three lectures a week, and our professional occupations, our recreations and different interests soon sped away the four months' winter darkness. The lectures embraced the technical and the practical side of the Expedition; thus, besides each of the scientific staff lecturing on his individual subject, Oates gave us two lectures on the care and management of horses; Scott outlined his plans for the great southern journey, giving probable dates and explaining the system of supporting parties which he proposed to employ; Ponting told us about Japan, and illustrated his subject with beautiful slides made from photographs that he himself had taken; Bowers lectured on Burma, until we longed to be there; and Meares gave us a light but intensely interesting lecture on his adventures in the Lolo country, a practically unknown land in Central Asia.
In connection with the work of Simpson at the base station, I must not forget the telephones. Certain telephones and equipment sufficient for our needs were presented to us in 1910 by the staff of the National Telephone Co., and they were very largely used in scientific work at the base station as well as for connecting Cape Evans to Hut Point, fifteen miles away. Simpson made the Cape Evans-Hut Point connection in September, 1911, by laying the bare aluminium wire along the surface of the snow-covered sea ice, and for a long time there was no difficulty in ringing up by means of magnetos. However, when the sun came back and its rays became reasonably powerful, difficulty in ringing and speaking was experienced.
We used the telephones almost daily for taking time, and Simpson used to stand inside the hut at the sidereal clock whilst I took astronomical observations outside in the cold. We also telephoned time to the ice cave in which the pendulums were being swung when determining the force of gravity. Telephones were quite efficient in temperatures of 40 degrees and more below zero.
Midwinter Day arrived on June 22, and here one must pay an affectionate and grateful tribute to Bowers, Wilson, Cherry-Garrard, and Clissold the cook.
To start with, we had to discuss whether we would hold the midwinter festival on the 22nd or 23rd of June, because in reality the sun reached its farthest northern Declination at 2.30 a.m. on the 23rd by the standard time which we were keeping. We decided to hold it on the evening of the 22nd, this being the dinner time nearest the actual culmination. A Buszard's cake extravagantly iced was placed on the tea-table by Cherry-Garrard, his gift to us, and this was the first of the dainties with which we proceeded to stuff ourselves on this memorable day. Although in England it was mid-summer we could not help thinking of those at home in Christmas vein. The day here was to all intents and purposes Christmas Day; but it meant a great deal more than that, it meant that the sun was to come speeding back slowly to begin with, and then faster and faster until in another four months or so we should find ourselves setting out to achieve our various purposes. It meant that before another year had passed some of us, perhaps all of us, would be back in civilisation taking up again the reins of our ordinary careers which, of necessity, would lead us to different corners of the earth. The probability was that we should never all sit down together in a peopled land, for Simpson was bound to be racing back to India with Bowers and probably Oates, whose regiment was at Mhow; Gran would away to Norway, and the other Ubdugs to Australia. One or two of us had been tempted to settle in New Zealand, and the old Antarctics amongst us knew how useless it had been to arrange those Antarctic dinners which never came off as intended.
But to return to the menu for Midwinter Day. When we sat down in the evening we were confronted with a beautiful water-colour drawing of our winter quarters, with Erebus's gray shadow looming large in the background, from the summit of which a rose-tinted smoke-cloud delicately trended northward, and, standing out from the whole picture a neatly printed tablet which proclaimed the nature of this much-looked-forward-to meal:
Consomme Seal.Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding.Horseradish Sauce.Potatoes a la mode and Brussels Sprouts.Plum Pudding. Mince Pies.Caviare Antarctic.Crystallised fruits. Chocolate Bonbons.Butter Bonbons. Walnut Toffee.Almonds and Raisins.
Wines.
Sherry, Champagne, Brandy Punch, Liqueur.Cigars, Cigarettes, and Tobacco.Snapdragon.Pineapple Custard. Raspberry jellies.
and what was left of the Buszard's cake!
The menu was, needless to say, Wilson's work, the exquisite dishes Clissold produced, the maitre d'hotel was Birdie, and Cherry-Garrard the producer of surprises in the shape of toys which adorned the Christmas Tree that followed on the dinner. Everybody got something from the tree, which was in reality no tree at all, for it was a cleverly constructed dummy, with sticks for branches and coloured paper leaves. Still, it carried little fairy candles and served its purpose well.
Then I must not forget the greatest treat of all: an exhibition of slides showing the life about our winter quarters and the general work of the Expedition from the starting away in New Zealand to this actual day almost in the hut. The slides were wonderful and they showed every stage of the ice through which we had come and in which we lived. There were penguin pictures, whales and seals, bird life in the pack, flash light photographs of people and ponies, pictures of Erebus and other splendid and familiar landmarks, and, in short, a magnificent pictorial record of events, for Ponting had been everywhere with his camera, and it is only to be regretted that the Expedition did not take him to the Pole. This was, of course, impossible, when everything had to give way to food. Following the photographic display and the Christmas Tree came the only Antarctic dance we enjoyed. Few of us remember much about it for we were very merry, thanks to the wine, and there was considerable horseplay. I remember dancing with the cook whilst Oates danced with Anton. Everybody took a turn, and associated with this dance I might mention that Clissold so far forgot himself as to call Scott "Good old Truegg." Truegg was the composition used by us for cooking in various ways omelets, buttered eggs, puddings, and cakes of all kinds, and, although it was a great boon to the Expedition, we had by this time tired of it. Still, we used it as a term of endearment, but nobody in his sober senses would have dreamt of calling our much respected Commander "Good old Truegg"; the brandy punch must have been responsible for Clissold's mixing up of names! We had now arrived at the stage when it was time to shut up, the officers became interested in an aurora display and gradually rolled off to bed. It was left to me to see the seamen turned in; they were good-humoured but obstreperous, and not until 2 a.m. did silence and order once more reign in the hut.
Very wisely our leader decided on June 23 being kept as a day of rest; our digestions were upset and we took this time off to make and mend clothes, and returned to our winter routine, a little subdued perhaps, on June 24.
So much for the winter life up to date; no great excitements, nothing untoward, but a remarkable bonhomie obtaining in our little company despite the tedium of so many days of winter gloom. On June 27 Dr. Wilson with Bowers and Cherry-Garrard started on a remarkable journey to Cape Crozier, nearly seventy miles distant from Cape Evans, via Hut Point and the Barrier. The object of these intrepid souls was to observe the incubation of the Emperor Penguins at their rookery, which was known to exist near the junction point of the Barrier Edge with the rocky cliff south of Cape Crozier. It must be borne in mind that this was the first Antarctic midwinter journey, and that the three men must of necessity face abnormally low temperature's and unheard of hardships whilst making the sledge journey over the icy Barrier. We had gathered enough knowledge on the autumn sledge journeys and in the days of the Discovery expedition to tell us this, so that it was not without considerable misgivings that Captain Scott permitted Wilson to carry the winter expedition to Cape Crozier into being. The scope of my little volume only permits me to tell this story in brief. No very detailed account has yet been published, although Cherry-Garrard, the only survivor of the three, wrote the far too modest memoir of the journey which has been published in Volume II of "Scott's Last Expedition."
Apart from the zoological knowledge Wilson hoped to gain from the Cape Crozier visit in mid-winter, there was a wealth of other information to be collected concerning the Barrier conditions, particularly the meteorological conditions, but above all we knew that with such quick and reliable observers as Wilson and his companions we must derive additional experience in the matter of sledging rations, for the party had agreed to make experiments in order to arrive at the standard ration to be adopted for the colder weather we must face during the second half of the forthcoming Polar journey.
Wilson took two small 9 ft. sledges, and after being photographed was helped out to Glacier Tongue by a small hurrah party. In the bad light he was handicapped from the very first, and it took the party two days to get on to the Ice Barrier. Their progress was dreadfully slow, which was not to be wondered at, for they were pulling loads of 250 lb. per man, the surfaces were beyond anything they had faced hitherto, and the temperatures seldom above 60 degrees. Relay work had to be resorted to, and in consequence the party took eighteen days to reach Cape Crozier. They met with good weather, that is, calm weather, to begin with, but the bad surfaces handicapped them severely. After rounding Cape Mackay they reached a wind-swept area and met with a series of blizzards. Their best light was moonlight, and they were denied this practically by overcast skies. Picture their hardships: frozen bags to sleep in, frozen finnesko to put their feet in every time they struck camp, finger-tips always getting frost-bitten and sometimes toes and heels; no comfort was to be derived within camp, for, at the best, they could only sit and shiver when preparing the food, and once the bags were unrolled to sleep in more trouble came. It is on record that Cherry-Garrard took as long as three-quarters of an hour to break his way into his sleeping-bag, and once inside it he merely shook and froze. The party used a double tent for this journey, that is to say, a light lining was fitted on the inner side of the five bamboo tent poles, so that when the ordinary wind-proof tent cloth was spread over the poles an air space was provided. There was, I may say, a sharp difference of opinion as to the value of the tent; Wilson's party swore by it and Scott was always loud in its praise. The sailors hated it and despised it; they always argued, when consulted on the subject of the double tent, that it collected snow and rime and added much to the weights we had to drag along. Perhaps they were right, and I remember one occasion when two members of the Expedition dumped the inner lining after carrying it many hundred miles with the remark, "Good-bye, you blighter, you've had a damn good ride!"
The scene inside the little green tent baffles description: the three men's breath and the steam from the cooker settles in no time on the sides of the tent in a thick, white rime; the least movement shakes this down in a shower which brings clammy discomfort to all; the dimmest of light is given by the sledging lantern with its edible candle (for Messrs. Price and Co. had made our candles eatable and not poisonous), everything is frozen stiff, fur boots, bags and fur mitts break if roughly handled, for they are as hard as boards. The cold has carved deep ruts in the faces of the little company who, despite their sufferings and discomforts, smile and keep cheerful without apparent effort. This cheerfulness and the fragrant smell of the cooking pemmican are the two redeeming features of a dreadful existence, but the discomforts are only a foretaste of what is to come—one night the temperature fell to 77 degrees below zero, that is 109 degrees of frost. There is practically no record of such low temperature, although Captain Scott found that Roald Amundsen in one of his northern journeys encountered something nearly as bad. One cannot wonder that Wilson's party scarcely slept at all, but their outward experiences were nothing to what they put up with at Cape Crozier, which was reached on July 15. To get on to the slopes of Mount Terror near Crozier the party climbed over great pressure ridges and up a steep slope to a position between the end of a moraine terrace and the conspicuous hillock known as The Knoll. In the gap here the last camp was made in a windswept snow hollow, a stone hut was constructed behind a land ridge above this hollow, the party using a quantity of loose rocks and hard snow to build with. Cherry-Garrard did most of the building, while the others provided the material, for, in his methodical way, Cherry had built a model hut before leaving Cape Evans. The hut was 800 ft. above sea-level, roofed with canvas, with one of the sledges as a rafter to support the canvas roof.
On the 19th July the party descended by the snow slopes to the Emperor penguin rookery. They had great trouble in making this descent, on account of crevasses in the ice slopes which overhung the level way under the rock cliffs. As a matter of fact, the attempt on the 19th proved abortive, although the little band got close to the rookery. They reached it successfully on the 20th when the light was almost failing, and were mortified to find only about one hundred Emperor penguins in place of the two or three thousand birds which the rookery had been found to contain in the "Discovery" days. Possibly the early date accounted for the absence of Emperors; however, half a dozen eggs were collected, and three of these found their way home to England. Wilson picked up rounded pieces of ice at the rookery which the stupid Emperors had been cherishing, fondly imagining they were eggs; evidently the maternal instinct of the Emperor penguin is very strong.
The party killed and skinned three birds and then returned to the shelter of the stone hut, not without difficulty, it is true. It is worthy of note that the three birds killed by the party were very thickly blubbered, and the oil obtained from them burned well.
The Ross Sea was found to be frozen over as far as the horizon. When the party got back to their shelter two eggs had burst and saturated Cherry-Garrard's mitts. This optimistic young man found good even in this, for he said that on the way home to Cape Evans his mitts thawed out far more easily than Bowers's did, and attributed the little triumph to the grease in the broken egg! That night they slept for the first time in the stone hut; perhaps it was fortunate that they did so for it was blowing hard and the wind developed into a terrific storm.
One of the hurricane gusts of wind swept the roof of the hut away, and for two days the unfortunate party lay in their bags half smothered by fine drifting snow. The second day was Dr. Wilson's birthday; he told me afterwards that had the gale not abated when it did all three men must have perished. They had not dared to stir out of the meagre shelter afforded by their sleeping-bags. Wilson prayed hard that they might be spared. His prayer was answered, it is true, but before another year had passed two of this courageous little band lost their lives in their eager thirst for scientific knowledge.
When the three men crept out of their bags into the dull winter gloom they groped about and searched for their tent, which had blown away from its pitch near the stone hut. By an extraordinary piece of good fortune it was recovered, scarcely damaged, a quarter of a mile away. Cherry-Garrard describes the roar of the wind as it whistled in their shelter to have been just like the rush of an express train through a tunnel.
Wilson, Bowers, and Cherry-Garrard started home after this, but were caught by another blizzard, which imprisoned them in their tent for another forty-eight hours. They were now running short of oil for warming and cooking purposes, but the little party won through after a very rough march full of horrible hardships and discomforts, and reached Cape Evans on the 1st August, when they had faced the dreadful winter weather conditions on the cruel Ice Barrier for five weeks. What forlorn objects they did look: it was pathetic to see them as they staggered into the hut. Wilson, when he could give a collected account of what he and his party had faced, was loud in the praise of Birdy and Cherry.
The party were examined by Atkinson, who gave some direction and advice concerning their immediate diet—they seemed to want bread, butter, and jam most, and the little loaves provided by Clissold disappeared with extraordinary speed. They were suffering from want of sleep, but were all right in a few days. One of the remarkable features of this journey was the increase of weights due to ice collecting in their sleeping-bags, gear and equipment. Their three bags, which weighed forty-seven pounds on leaving Cape Evans, had increased their weight to one hundred and eighteen at the conclusion of the trip. Other weights increased in the same proportion, and the sledge had dragged very heavily in consequence.
The three men when they arrived were almost encased with ice, and I well remember undressing poor Wilson in the cubicle which he and I shared. His clothes had almost to be cut off him.
From this journey, as stated, we evolved the final sledging ration for the Summit, it was to consist of:
16 ozs. biscuit.12 " pemmican.3 " sugar.2 " butter.0.7 " tea.0.6 " cocoa.daily 34.3 ozs.
It may seem little enough for a hungry sledger, but, no one could possibly eat that amount in a temperate climate; it was a fine filling ration even for the Antarctic. The pemmican consisted of the finest beef extract, with 60 per cent. pure fat, and it cooked up into a thick tasty soup. It was specially made for us by Messrs. Beauvais of Copenhagen.
No casualties occurred during the winter, but Dr. Atkinson sustained a severely frost-bitten hand on July 4 when we had one of our winter blizzards. Certain thermometers had been placed in positions on the sea ice and up on the Ramp by Simpson, and these we were in the habit of visiting during the course of our exercise; the thermometer reading was done by volunteers who signified their intention to Simpson in order to avoid duplication of observation. On blizzard days we left them alone, but Atkinson, seeing that the wind had modified in the afternoon, zealously started out over the ice and was absent from dinner. Search parties were sent in various directions, each taking a sledge with sleeping-bags, brandy flask, thermos full of cocoa, and first-aid equipment. Flares were lit and kept going on Wind Vale Hill, Simpson's meteorological station overlooking the hut. Search was made in all directions by us, and difficulty was experienced due to light snowfall. Atkinson fetched up at Tent Island, apparently, which he walked round for hours, and, in trying to make the Cape again, became hopelessly lost, and, losing one of his mitts for a time, fell into a tide crack and did not get home till close upon midnight. Search parties came in one by one and were glad to hear the good news of Atkinson's return. My own party, working to the south of Cape Evans, did not notice how time was passing, and we—Nelson, Forde, Hooper, and myself—fetched up at 2 a.m. to be met by Captain Scott and comforted with cocoa.
Atkinson's hand was dreadful to behold; he had blisters like great puffed-out slugs on the last three fingers of his right hand, while on the forefinger were three more bulbous-looking blisters, one of them an inch in diameter. For days and days the hand had constantly to be bandaged, P. O. Evans doing nurse and doing it exceedingly well. Considering all things, we were fairly free of frostbite in the Scott expedition, and there is no doubt that Atkinson's accident served as an example to all of us to "ca' canny."
Although we had our proportion of blizzard days I do not think our meteorological record showed any undue frequency of high wind and blizzards; but, as Simpson in his meteorological discussion points out, we suffered far more in this respect than Amundsen, who camped on the Ice Barrier far from the land. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but in the light of after events one is compelled to state that had we stuck to our original plan and made our landing four hundred miles or so to the eastward of Ross Island, we should have escaped, in all probability, the greater part of the bad weather experienced by us. Comparison with Framheim, Amundsen's observation station, shows that we at Cape Evans had ten times as much high wind as the Norwegians experienced. Our wind velocities reached greater speeds than 60 miles an hour, whereas there does not appear to be any record of wind higher than 45 miles an hour at Amundsen's base at the Bay of Whales. Some of our anemometer records were very interesting. In the month of July, when Wilson's party was absent, we recorded 258 hours of blizzards, that is, of southerly winds of more than 25 miles an hour speed. This was the record for the winter months, but while we were depot-laying and waiting for the sea to freeze over at Hut Point, no less than 404 hours of blizzard were recorded in one month—March. Think of it, well over half the month was blizzard, with its consequent discomfort and danger. The blizzard which nearly caused the loss of the Cape Crozier party measured a wind force up to 84 miles an hour; no wonder the canvas roof of the stone hut there was swept away!