South with Scott Part 23

A short expedition was made by Campbell, Priestley, and Abbott on July 29, to determine the travelling condition and find out what sort of surface would be met with for coastwise sledging to come when the season opened. Speed worked out at little over seven miles a day on the outward trip to Duke of York Island. The salt-flecked, smooth ice was heavier going than much rougher stuff where pressure obtained.

On August 8 a small two-day geological expedition was undertaken, and prepared to start on a more extensive journey westward; the party were disappointed to find the ice had all blown out and left them water-girdled; a blizzard of unusual violence followed the exit of ice, and the storehouse roof was torn away.

It must have been a severe blow to the energetic Campbell that he was denied serious sledging while quartered at Cape Adare. Minor expeditions were undertaken and some useful information gleaned, but unsafe ice and unsatisfactory conditions all round prevented any of the really long journeys Campbell would otherwise have made.

The "Terra Nova" was sighted on January 4, and in two days Campbell, his party and belongings were safely on board and proceeding along the coast eager to try their fortunes farther South, Evans Coves in Lat.i.tude 75 degrees being the next objective. The s.h.i.+p was placed alongside the Piedmont here on January 8, near a big moraine close north of the Coves.

A depot of provisions was established, and an arrangement was come to between Pennell and Campbell that the latter should be picked up on February 18. Reference to the sketch charts will show the part of Victoria Land in which Campbell was now working.

It was proposed to sledge round Mount Melbourne to Wood Bay, and examine the neighbourhood geologically and geographically. The sledge team found some remarkable ice structures and new and interesting glaciers. They had, a crop of small adventures, and found sandstone rock containing fossil wood and many other excellent fossils, garnets, etc., besides which Campbell did good work surveying. A new glacier was named after Priestley and another after Campbell.

More fossils were discovered on February 1, and a quant.i.ty of lichens, sh.e.l.ls, worm casts, and sponge spicules were discovered in the locality of Evans Coves, to which the party returned. On February 17 they began to look for the "Terra Nova," but as time went on and she did not put in an appearance Campbell prepared to winter. Pennell as we know had met with ice conditions that were insuperable, and he never got the s.h.i.+p within 30 miles of the coast. Pennell, Rennick, and Bruce did all that men could do to work the "Terra Nova" through, but communication was impossible that season, and the Northern Party was left to face the rigours of a Polar winter with nothing more than four weeks' sledging ration and 270 lb. of biscuits extra. His companions could not have been better chosen to help Campbell through this ordeal. The leader knew his men absolutely, and they themselves were lucky in having such a resourceful and determined officer in charge.

On March 1 Victor Campbell selected a hard snow slope for the winter home, and into this he and his men cut and burrowed until they had constructed an igloo or snow house, 13 feet by 9: They insulated this with blocks of snow and seaweed. A trench roofed with sealskins and snow formed the entrance, and at the sides of this pa.s.sage they had their store rooms and larder.

All the time this house was under construction a party was employed killing penguins and seals, for which they kept a constant lookout. By March 15 their larder contained 120 penguins and 11 seals. After this date gale succeeded gale and the winter set in with a long run of bad weather. Campbell and his companions led a very primitive existence here for six and a half months.

They only had their light summer sledging clothes to wear, and these soon became saturated with blubber: their hair and beards grew, and they were soon recognisable only by their voices. Some idea of their discomforts will be gleaned by a description of their diet. Owing to their prospective journey to Cape Evans, Campbell had first to reduce the biscuit supply from eight to two biscuits a day, and then to one.

Generally their diet consisted of one mug of "pemmican and seal hoosh"

and a biscuit for breakfast, _nothing_ for lunch, a mug and a half of seal, one biscuit and three-quarters of a pint of thin cocoa for supper.

On Sundays weak tea was subst.i.tuted for cocoa, this they re-boiled for Mondays' supper, and the dried leaves were used for tobacco on Tuesdays.

Their only luxuries were a piece of chocolate and twelve lumps of sugar, weekly, and twenty-five raisins apiece were kept for birthdays. One lucky find was thirty-six fish in the stomach of a seal, which fried in blubber proved excellent. The biscuit ration had to be stopped entirely from July to September. The six men cooked their food in sea-water as they had no salt, and seaweed was used as a vegetable. Priestley is reported to have disliked it, and no wonder, for it has probably rotted in the sun for years, and the penguins have trampled it all down, apart from anything worse.

Campbell kept a wonderful discipline in his party, and as they were sometimes confined to the igloo for days, Swedish drill was introduced to keep them healthy. A glance at their weather record shows how necessary this was. We find one day snowing hard, next day blowing hard, and the third day blowing and snowing hard, nearly all through the winter. But there was never a complaint.

On Sunday divine service was performed, which consisted of Campbell reading a chapter of the Bible, followed by hymns. They had no hymn book, but Priestley remembered several, while Abbott, Browning and d.i.c.kason had all been at some time or other in a choir.

To add to their discomfort, owing to the state of their clothing and meagre food supply, they were very susceptible to frostbites, and Jack Frost made havoc with feet, fingers, and faces.

We should here give a little thought to the dark dreariness of their surroundings. This party was not so very far north of Cape Evans, and their winter was only about three weeks shorter if measured by the sun's absence below the horizon--the contrast between the "palace" at Cape Evans and the ice-cave at Campbell's position is ridiculous, and to think that the little crew remained cheerful and in harmony under such troglodyte conditions, it makes one wonder more and more at the manner of the men. They had none of the comfort, entertainment, and good feeling of their co-explorers at the base, the very dimensions of their habitation explains for itself the cramped nature of their existence, and yet no complaints, and nothing but unswerving loyalty to their boss. Weaker minded men would have broken down mentally under the strain of living through that winter.

The sunlight went at the beginning of May, gradually leaving them with those peculiar drawn-out half lights, which we all grew to know so well--the whimpering purple clouds, the sad-looking hills, and the desolate ice slopes and snow drifts--the six men were imprisoned with sullen hills and una.s.sailable mountains for jailers, until they had undergone their sentence--the sea their chief jailer, for the sea had set them there and it was for the sea to decide on the time of their release.

Boots had long since given out, and they had to guard against ruining their finneskoe or it would have been good-bye to any sledging round to Cape Evans when the sea did freeze. Seal blubber was utilised for cooking, and whenever seals were killed the chunks of this greasy stuff had to be carried to the igloo on the men's backs--this meant that their clothes soon smelt very badly, which circ.u.mstance added to the misery of their living conditions.

On May 6 Campbell's party sustained a severe disappointment, for they saw what appeared to be four men coming towards them. Immediately they jumped to the conclusion that the s.h.i.+p had been frozen in and that this was a search party. The four figures turned out to be Emperor penguins, and although disappointing in one way they served to replenish the larder, and so had their use.

Here are three specimen diary pages extracted from Campbell's journey:

April 9.--Warmer to-day. We saw a small seal on a floe but were unable to reach him. The bay remains open still. On the still days a thin film of ice forms, but blows out as soon as the wind comes up. In these early days, before we had perfected our cooking and messing arrangements, a great part of our day was taken up with cooking and preparing the food, but later on we got used to the ways of a blubber stove, and things went more smoothly. We had landed all our spare paraffin from the s.h.i.+p, and this gave us enough oil to use the primus for breakfast, provided we melted the ice over the blubber fire the day before. The blubber stove was made of an old oil tin cut down. In this we put some old seal bones taken from the carca.s.ses we found on the beach.

"A piece of blubber skewered on to a marline-spike and held over the flame dripped oil on the bones and fed the fire. In this way we could cook hoosh nearly as quickly as we could on the primus. Of course the stove took several weeks of experimenting before it reached this satisfactory state. With certain winds we were nearly choked with a black, oily smoke that hurt our eyes and brought on much the same symptoms as accompany snow-blindness.

"We take it in turns to be cook and messman, working in pairs: Abbott and I, Levick and Browning, Priestley and d.i.c.kason, and thus each has one day on in three. The duties of the cooks are to turn out at 7 and cook and serve out the breakfast, the others remaining in their bags for the meal.

Then we all have a siesta till 10.30, when we turn out for the day's work: The cook starts the blubber stove and melts blubber for the lamps.

The mess-man takes an ice-axe and chips frozen seal meat in the pa.s.sage by the light of a blubber lamp. A cold job this and trying to the temper, as sc.r.a.ps of meat fly in all directions and have to be care-fully collected afterwards. The remainder carry up the meat and blubber, or look for seals. By 5 p.m. all except the cooks are in their bags, and we have supper. After supper the cooks melt ice for the morning, prepare breakfast, and clear up."

"May 7.--A blizzard with heavy drift has been blowing all day, so it was a good job we got the penguins. We have got the roof on the shaft now, but in these blizzards the entrance is buried in snow, and we have a job to keep the shaft clear. Priestley has found his last year's journal, and reads some to us every evening.

"From now till the end of the month strong gales again reduced our outside work to a minimum, and most of our energies were directed to improving our domestic routine.

"We have now a much better method for cutting up the meat for the hoosh.

Until now we had to take the frozen joints and hack them in pieces with an ice-axe. We have now fixed up an empty biscuit tin on a bamboo tripod over the blubber fire. The small pieces of meat we put in this to thaw: the larger joints hang from the bamboo. In this way they thaw sufficiently in the twenty-four hours to cut up with a knife, and we find this cleaner and more economical.

"We celebrated two special occasions on this month, my wedding day on the 10th, and the anniversary, to use a paradox, of the commissioning of the hut on the 17th, and each time the commissariat officer relaxed his hold to the extent of ten raisons each.

"Levick is saving his biscuit to see how it feels to go without cereals for a week. He also wants to have one real good feed at the end of the week. His idea is that by eating more blubber he will not feel the want of the biscuit very much."

"July 4.--Southerly wind, with snow, noise of pressure at sea and the ice in the Bay breaking up. Evidently there is wind coming, and the sea ice which has recently formed will go out again like the rest. It is getting rather a serious question as to whether there will be any sea ice for us to get down the coast on. I only hope that to the South of the Drygalski ice tongue, where the south-easterlies are the prevailing winds, we shall find the ice has held. Otherwise it will mean that we shall have to go over the plateau, climbing up by Mount La.r.s.en, and coming down the Ferrar Glacier, and if so we cannot start until November, and the food will be a problem.

"We made a terrible discovery in a hoosh tonight: a penguin's flipper.

Abbott and I prepared the hoosh. I can remember using a flipper to clean the pot with, and in the dark Abbott cannot have seen it when he filled the pot. However, I a.s.sured every one it was a fairly clean flipper, and certainly the hoosh was a good one."

In this diary are some remarkable entries. Attempts were made to vary the flavour of the "Hooshes"--one entry is very queer reading: it related how after trying one or two other expedients Levick used a mustard plaster in the pemmican and seal stew. The unanimous decision was that it must have been a linseed poultice, for mustard could not be tasted at all, yet the flavour of linseed was most distinct.

Campbell says that Midwinter Day gave them seasonable weather, pitch dark, with wind and a smothering drift outside. The men awoke early and were so eager and impatient for their full ration on this special occasion that they could not remain in their sleeping-bags, but turned out to cook a "full hoosh breakfast" for the first time for many weeks--that evening they repeated the hoosh and augmented it by cocoa with sugar in it, then four citric acid and two ginger tabloids. The day concluded with a smoke and a sing-song, a little tobacco having been put by for the event.

Soon after Midwinter Day a heavy snowstorm blocked the igloo entrance completely; in consequence the air became so bad that the primus stove went out and the lights would not burn. The inmates had to dig their way out to avoid being suffocated. This impoverishment of air had already happened through the same cause on other occasions, so the flickering and going out of the lamps warned immediately of danger, and a watch was set.

Normally the chimney would have served, but this itself was buried under the snow until built up afresh.

The winter pa.s.sed in dismal hards.h.i.+p, and even when the rare spells of fine weather occurred the party dare not venture far afield in their meagre, oil-saturated clothing--severe frostbite would have spelt disaster.

What the place must have looked like by moonlight I hate to think; by daylight with suns.h.i.+ne it looked bad enough, but from Levick's description it looked, when the moon was s.h.i.+ning through storm cloud, like an inferno, with its lugubrious ridges, its inky shadows, and wicked ice-gleams. The odd figures of the blubber-smeared, grimy men added the Dante touch.

The sun came back at last, and with it the party's spirits rose considerably; they indulged in bets and jokes at one another's expense.

Browning and d.i.c.kason were undoubtedly the wittiest, and "the fish supper bet" is worth inclusion. Short said these two started an argument on the name of a certain public-house situate on Portsmouth Hard. One said one name, one argued another, until Dr. Levick was invited to settle the dispute by arbitration, the loser to stand the winner a fish supper.

Eventually Browning was adjudged to be correct, and d.i.c.kason in a fit of generosity shouted, "All right, old man, and for every fish you eat I'll stand you a quart of beer." "Right-o, the only fish I cares for is whitebait," replied Browning.

Towards the end of the winter, owing to the unusual diet, sickness set in in the shape of enteritis. Browning suffered dreadfully, but always remained cheerful. The ravages of the illness weakened the party sadly, and details are too horrible to write about--suffice it that the party lost control of their organs, a circ.u.mstance that rendered existence in their wintering place a nightmare of privations.

Preparations were made for the party's departure in the spring and the sledges overhauled. A depot of geological specimens was established and marked by a bamboo.

A curious ailment developed itself, which was named "Igloo Back," from constant bending in the low-roofed igloo. It was due to the stretching of the ligaments around the spine and was a painful thing for the "cave-dwellers."

Campbell and his companions started for Cape Evans on September 30.

Progress was slow and the party weak, but thanks to their grit and to Campbell's splendid leaders.h.i.+p, the Northern Party all got through to the winter quarters alive. Browning had to be carried on the sledge part of the way, but fortunately they picked up one of Griffith-Taylor's depots, and the biscuit found here quite altered Browning's condition.

Poor Campbell was glad to get his party out of the dirt and dark of the igloo, but they were so weak that they could only march a mile from the first day, however the sledging ration contained good foodstuff compared to what they had eaten for weeks previously; and, oh, wise precaution!

Campbell had deposited a small store of spare wind clothing and woollen underclothes against the journey over the sea to Cape Evans. This he issued on leaving that awful "igloo," and the luxury of getting into dry, clean clothing after the greasy rags they discarded was indescribable.

For nine months had they worn those dirty garments without change.

The second day homeward at most gave five miles, but although tired out the party were in good spirits "at leaving the dirt and squalor of the hut behind." They were making their way south along the coast, sledging over the "Piedmont." Shortly after starting, the company were faced with an enormous creva.s.se, but this was safely negotiated by means of a snow bridge "175 paces across." Pace gradually lengthened and strengthened, and on 12th October 11 miles was covered, and on camping Erebus and Mount Melbourne were both in sight.

I do not propose to write a description of this journey back, it was not so dangerous as others had been, because seals and Emperor penguins were met with along the route, and so they ran no risk of starving; but they ran a great risk of losing Browning, who caused the doctor the gravest concern. They laboured home, however, and the leader's diary for one Red Letter, and Two Black Letter days must be included here, for they explain themselves:

"October 29.--Turned out at 4.30 a.m. A fine day, but a bank of cloud to the south and a cold westerly wind. A two hours' march brought us to Cape Roberts, where I saw through my gla.s.ses a bamboo stuck on the top of the cape. Leaving the sledges, Priestley and I climbed the cape, when we found a record left by the Western Party last year before they were picked up, and giving their movements, while near by was a depot of provisions they had left behind. We gave such a yell the others ran up the slope at once. It seemed almost too good to be true.

"We found two tins of biscuits, one slightly broached, and a small bag each of raisins, tea, cocoa, b.u.t.ter, and lard.