The Worst Journey in the World Part 53

"The Pole. Yes, but under very different circ.u.mstances from those expected ... companions labouring on with cold feet and hands.... Evans had such cold hands we camped for lunch ... the wind is blowing hard, T.

-21, and there is that curious damp, cold feeling in the air which chills one to the bone in no time.... Great G.o.d! this is an awful place...."[309]

This is not a cry of despair. It is an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n provoked by the ghastly facts. Even now in January the temperature near the South Pole is about 24 lower than it is during the corresponding month of the year (July) near the North Pole,[310] and if it is like this in mid-summer, what is it like in mid-winter? At the same time it was, with the exception of the sandy surfaces, what they had looked for, and every detail of organization was working out as well as if not better than had been expected.

Bowers was so busy with the meteorological log and sights which were taken in terribly difficult circ.u.mstances that he kept no diary until they started back. Then he wrote on seven consecutive days, as follows:

"_January 19._ A splendid clear morning with a fine S.W. wind blowing.

During breakfast time I sewed a flap attachment on to the hood of my green hat so as to prevent the wind from blowing down my neck on the march. We got up the mast and sail on the sledge and headed north, picking up Amundsen's cairn and our outgoing tracks shortly afterwards.

Along these we travelled till we struck the other cairn and finally the black flag where we had made our 58th outward camp. We then with much relief left all traces of the Norwegians behind us, and headed on our own track till lunch camp, when we had covered eight miles.

"In the afternoon we pa.s.sed No. 2 cairn of the British route, and fairly slithered along before a fresh breeze. It was heavy travelling for me, not being on ski, but one does not mind being tired if a good march is made. We did sixteen [miles] altogether for the day, and so should pick up our Last Depot to-morrow afternoon. The weather became fairly thick soon after noon, and at the end of the afternoon there was considerable drift, with a mist caused by ice-crystals, and parhelion."

"_January 20._ Good sailing breeze again this morning. It is a great pleasure to have one's back to the wind instead of having to face it. It came on thicker later, but we sighted the Last Depot soon after 1 P.M.

and reached it at 1.45 P.M. The red flag on the bamboo pole was blowing out merrily to welcome us back from the Pole, with its supply of necessaries of life below. We are absolutely dependent upon our depots to get off the plateau alive, and so welcome the lonely little cairns gladly. At this one, called the Last Depot, we picked up four days' food, a can of oil, some methylated spirit (for lighting purposes) and some personal gear we had left there. The bamboo was bent on to the floor-cloth as a yard for our sail instead of a broken sledge-runner of Amundsen's which we had found at the Pole and made a temporary yard of.

"As we had marched extra long in the forenoon in order to reach the depot, our afternoon march was shorter than usual. The wind increased to a moderate gale with heavy gusts and considerable drift. We should have had a bad time had we been facing it. After an hour I had to s.h.i.+ft my harness aft so as to control the motions of the sledge. Unfortunately the surface got very sandy latterly, but we finished up with 16.1 miles to our credit and camped in a stiff breeze, which resolved itself into a blizzard a few hours later. I was glad we had our depot safe."

"_January 21._ Wind increased to force 8 during night with heavy drift.

In the morning it was blizzing like blazes and marching was out of the question. The wind would have been of great a.s.sistance to us, but the drift was so thick that steering a course would have been next to impossible. We decided to await developments and get under weigh as soon as it showed any signs of clearing. Fortunately it was shortlived, and instead of lasting the regulation two days it eased up in the afternoon, and 3.45 found us off with our sail full. It was good running on ski but soft plodding for me on foot. I shall be jolly glad to pick up my dear old ski. They are nearly 200 miles away yet, however. The breeze fell altogether latterly and I s.h.i.+fted up into my old place as middle number of the five. Our distance completed was 5.5 miles, when camp was made again. Our old cairns are of great a.s.sistance to us, also the tracks, which are obliterated in places by heavy drift and hard sastrugi, but can be followed easily."

"_January 22._ We came across Evans' sheepskin boots this morning. They were almost covered up after their long spell since they fell off the sledge [on January 11]. The breeze was fair from the S.S.W. but got lighter and lighter. At lunch camp we had completed 8.2 miles. In the afternoon the breeze fell altogether, and the surface, acted on by the sun, became perfect sawdust. The light sledge pulled by five men came along like a drag without a particle of slide or give. We were all glad to camp soon after 7 P.M. I think we were all pretty tired out. We did altogether 19.5 miles for the day. We are only thirty miles from the 1 Degree Depot, and should reach it in two marches with any luck." [The minimum temperature this night was -30 (uncorrected).]

"_January 23._ Started off with a bit of a breeze which helped us a little [temperature -28]. After the first two hours it increased to force 4, S.S.W., and filling the sail we sped along merrily, doing 8 miles before lunch. In the afternoon it was even stronger, and I had to go back on the sledge and act as guide and brakesman. We had to lower the sail a bit, but even then she ran like a bird.

"We are picking up our old cairns famously. Evans got his nose frost-bitten, not an unusual thing with him, but as we were all getting pretty cold latterly we stopped at a quarter to seven, having done 16 miles. We camped with considerable difficulty owing to the force of the wind."[311]

The same night Scott wrote: "We came along at a great pace, and should have got within an easy march of our [One and a Half Degree] Depot had not Wilson suddenly discovered that Evans' nose was frost-bitten--it was white and hard. We thought it best to camp at 6.45. Got the tent up with some difficulty, and now pretty cosy after good hoosh.

"There is no doubt Evans is a good deal run down--his fingers are badly blistered and his nose is rather seriously congested with frequent frost-bites. He is very much annoyed with himself, which is not a good sign. I think Wilson, Bowers and I are as fit as possible under the circ.u.mstances. Oates gets cold feet. One way and another I shall be glad to get off the summit!... The weather seems to be breaking up."[312]

Bowers resumes the tale:

"_January 24._ Evans has got his fingers all blistered with frost-bites, otherwise we are all well, but thinning, and in spite of our good rations get hungrier daily. I sometimes spend much thought on the march with plans for making a pig of myself on the first opportunity. As that will be after a further march of 700 miles they are a bit premature.

"It was blowing a gale when we started and it increased in force. Finally with the sail half down, one man detached tracking ahead and t.i.tus and I breaking back, we could not always keep the sledge from overrunning. The blizzard got worse and worse till, having done only seven miles, we had to camp soon after twelve o'clock. We had a most difficult job camping, and it has been blowing like blazes all the afternoon. I think it is moderating now, 9 P.M. We are only seven miles from our depot and this delay is exasperating."[313]

[Scott wrote: "This is the second full gale since we left the Pole. I don't like the look of it. Is the weather breaking up? If so, G.o.d help us, with the tremendous summit journey and scant food. Wilson and Bowers are my stand-by. I don't like the easy way in which Oates and Evans get frost-bitten."[314]]

"_January 25._ It was no use turning out at our usual time (5.45 A.M.), as the blizzard was as furious as ever; we therefore decided on a late breakfast and no lunch unless able to march. We have only three days'

food with us and shall be in Queer Street if we miss the depot. Our bags are getting steadily wetter, so are our clothes. It shows a tendency to clear off now (breakfast time) so, D.V., we may march after all. I am in tribulation as regards meals now as we have run out of salt, one of my favourite commodities. It is owing to Atkinson's party taking back an extra tin by mistake from the Upper Glacier Depot. Fortunately we have some depoted there, so I will only have to endure another two weeks without it.

"10 P.M.--We have got in a march after all, thank the Lord. a.s.sisted by the wind we made an excellent rundown to our One and a Half Degree Depot, where the big red flag was blowing out like fury with the breeze, in clouds of driving drift. Here we picked up 1 cans of oil and one week's food for five men, together with some personal gear depoted. We left the bamboo and flag on the cairn. I was much relieved to pick up the depot: now we only have one other source of anxiety on this endless snow summit, viz. the Three Degree Depot in lat.i.tude 86 56' S.

"In the afternoon we did 5.2 miles. It was a miserable march, blizzard all the time and our sledge either sticking in sastrugi or overrunning the traces. We had to lower the sail half down, and t.i.tus and I hung on to her. It was most strenuous work, as well as much colder than pulling ahead. Most of the time we had to brake back with all our strength to keep the sledge from overrunning. Bill got a bad go of snow glare from following the track without goggles on.

"This day last year we started the Depot Journey. I did not think so short a time would turn me into an old hand at polar travelling, neither did I imagine at the time that I would be returning from the Pole itself."[315]

Wilson was very subject to these attacks of snow blindness, and also to headaches before blizzards. I have an idea that his anxiety to sketch whenever opportunity offered, and his willingness to take off his goggles to search for tracks and cairns, had something to do with it. This attack was very typical. "I wrote this at lunch and in the evening had a bad attack of snow blindness." ... "Blizzard in afternoon. We only got in a forenoon march. Couldn't see enough of the tracks to follow at all. My eyes didn't begin to trouble me till to-morrow [yesterday], though it was the strain of tracking and the very cold drift which we had to-day that gave me this attack of snow glare." ... "Marched on foot in the afternoon as my eyes were too bad to go on ski. We had a lot of drift and wind and very cold. Had ZuSO_4 and cocaine in my eyes at night and didn't get to sleep at all for the pain--dozed about an hour in the morning only." ...

"Marched on foot again all day as I couldn't see my way on ski at all, Birdie used my ski. Eyes still very painful and watering. Tired out by the evening, had a splendid night's sleep, and though very painful across forehead to-night they are much better."[316]

The surface was awful: in his diary of the day after they left the Pole (January 19) Wilson wrote an account of it. "We had a splendid wind right behind us most of the afternoon and went well until about 6 P.M. when the sun came out and we had an awful grind until 7.30 when we camped. The sun comes out on sandy drifts, all on the move in the wind, and temp. -20, and gives us an absolutely awful surface with no glide at all for ski or sledge, and just like fine sand. The weather all day has been more or less overcast with white broken alto-stratus, and for 3 degrees above the horizon there is a grey belt looking like a blizzard of drift, but this in reality is caused by a constant fall of minute snow crystals, very minute. Sometimes instead of crystal plates the fall is of minute agglomerate spicules like tiny sea-urchins. The plates glitter in the sun as though of some size, but you can only just see them as pin-points on your burberry. So the spicule collections are only just visible. Our hands are never warm enough in camp to do any neat work now. The weather is always uncomfortably cold and windy, about -23, but after lunch to-day I got a bit of drawing done."[317]

All the joy had gone from their sledging. They were hungry, they were cold, the pulling was heavy, and two of them were not fit. As long ago as January 14 Scott wrote that Oates was feeling the cold and fatigue more than the others[318] and again he refers to the matter on January 20.[319] On January 19 Wilson wrote: "We get our hairy faces and mouths dreadfully iced up on the march, and often one's hands very cold indeed holding ski-sticks. Evans, who cut his knuckle some days ago at the last depot, has a lot of pus in it to-night." January 20: "Evans has got 4 or 5 of his finger-tips badly blistered by the cold. t.i.tus also his nose and cheeks--al[so] Evans and Bowers." January 28: "Evans has a number of badly blistered finger-ends which he got at the Pole. t.i.tus' big toe is turning blue-black." January 31: "Evans' finger-nails all coming off, very raw and sore." February 4: "Evans is feeling the cold a lot, always getting frost-bitten. t.i.tus' toes are blackening, and his nose and cheeks are dead yellow. Dressing Evans' fingers every other day with boric vaseline: they are quite sweet still." February 5: "Evans' fingers suppurating. Nose very bad [hard] and rotten-looking."[320]

Scott was getting alarmed about Evans, who "has dislodged two finger-nails to-night; his hands are really bad, and, to my surprise, he shows signs of losing heart over it. He hasn't been cheerful since the accident."[321] "The party is not improving in condition, especially Evans, who is becoming rather dull and incapable." "Evans' nose is almost as bad as his fingers. He is a good deal crocked up."[322]

Bowers' diary, quoted above, finished on January 25, on which day they picked up their One and a Half Degree Depot. "I shall sleep much better with our provision bag full again," wrote Scott that night. "Bowers got another rating sight to-night--it was wonderful how he managed to observe in such a horribly cold wind." They marched 16 miles the next day, but got off the outward track, which was crooked. On January 27 they did 14 miles on a "very bad surface of deep-cut sastrugi all day, until late in the afternoon when we began to get out of them."[323] "By Jove, this is tremendous labour," said Scott.

They were getting into the better surfaces again: 15.7 miles for January 28, "a fine day and a good march on very decent surface."[324] On January 29 Bowers wrote his last full day's diary: "Our record march to-day.

With a good breeze and improving surface we were soon in among the double tracks where the supporting party left us. Then we picked up the memorable camp where I transferred to the advance party. How glad I was to change over. The camp was much drifted up and immense sastrugi were everywhere, S.S.E. in direction and S.E. We did 10.4 miles before lunch.

I was breaking back on sledge and controlling; it was beastly cold and my hands were perished. In the afternoon I put on my dogskin mitts and was far more comfortable. A stiff breeze with drift continues: temperature -25. Thank G.o.d our days of having to face it are over. We completed 19.5 miles [22 statute] this evening, and so are only 29 miles from our precious [Three Degree] Depot. It will be bad luck indeed if we do not get there in a march and a half anyhow."[325]

Nineteen miles again on January 30, but during the previous day's march Wilson had strained a tendon in his leg. "I got a nasty bruise on the Tib[ialis] ant[icus] which gave me great pain all the afternoon." "My left leg exceedingly painful all day, so I gave Birdie my ski and hobbled alongside the sledge on foot. The whole of the Tibialis anticus is swollen and tight, and full of teno synovitis, and the skin red and oedematous over the s.h.i.+n. But we made a very fine march with the help of a brisk breeze." January 31: "Again walking by the sledge with swollen leg but not nearly so painful. We had 5.8 miles to go to reach our Three Degree Depot. Picked this up with a week's provision and a line from Evans, and then for lunch an extra biscuit each, making 4 for lunch and 1/10 whack of b.u.t.ter extra as well. Afternoon we pa.s.sed cairn where Birdie's ski had been left. These we picked up and came on till 7.30 P.M.

when the wind which had been very light all day dropped, and with temp.

-20 it felt delightfully warm and sunny and clear. We have 1/10 extra pemmican in the hoosh now also. My leg pretty swollen again to-night."[326] They travelled 13.5 miles that day, and 15.7 on the next.

"My leg much more comfortable, gave me no pain, and I was able to pull all day, holding on to the sledge. Still some oedema. We came down a hundred feet or so to-day on a fairly steep gradient."[327]

They were now approaching the creva.s.sed surfaces and the ice-falls which mark the entrance to the Beardmore Glacier, and February 2 was marked by another accident, this time to Scott. "On a very slippery surface I came an awful 'purler' on my shoulder. It is horribly sore to-night and another sick person added to our tent--three out of five injured, and the most troublesome surfaces to come. We shall be lucky if we get through without serious injury. Wilson's leg is better, but might easily get bad again, and Evans' fingers.... We have managed to get off 17 miles. The extra food is certainly helping us, but we are getting pretty hungry. The weather is already a trifle warmer, the alt.i.tude lower and only 80 miles or so to Mount Darwin. It is time we were off the summit.--Pray G.o.d another four days will see us pretty well clear of it. Our bags are getting very wet and we ought to have more sleep."[328]

They had been spending some time in finding the old tracks. But they had a good landfall for the depot at the top of the glacier and on February 3 they decided to push on due north, and to worry no more for the present about tracks and cairns. They did 16 miles that day. Wilson's diary runs: "Sunny and breezy again. Came down a series of slopes, and finished the day by going up one. Enormous deep-cut sastrugi and drifts and s.h.i.+ny egg-sh.e.l.l surface. Wind all S.S.E.ly. To-day at about 11 P.M. we got our first sight again of mountain peaks on our eastern horizon.... We crossed the outmost line of creva.s.sed ridge top to-day, the first on our return.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUCKLEY ISLAND--Where The Fossils Were Found.]

"_February 4._ 18 miles. Clear cloudless blue sky, surface drift. During forenoon we came down gradual descent including 2 or 3 irregular terrace slopes, on crest of one of which were a good many creva.s.ses. Southernmost were just big enough for Scott and Evans to fall in to their waists, and very deceptively covered up. They ran east and west. Those nearer the crest were the ordinary broad street-like creva.s.ses, well lidded. In the afternoon we again came to a crest, before descending, with street creva.s.ses, and one we crossed had a huge hole where the lid had fallen in, big enough for a horse and cart to go down. We have a great number of mountain tops on our right and south of our beam as we go due north now.

We are now camped just below a great creva.s.sed mound, on a mountain top evidently."

"_February 5._ 18.2 miles. We had a difficult day, getting in amongst a frightful chaos of broad chasm-like creva.s.ses. We kept too far east and had to wind in and out amongst them and cross mult.i.tudes of bridges.

We then bore west a bit and got on better all the afternoon and got round a good deal of the upper disturbances of the falls here."

[Scott wrote: "We are camped in a very disturbed region, but the wind has fallen very light here, and our camp is comfortable for the first time for many weeks."[329]]

"_February 6._ 15 miles. We again had a forenoon of trying to cut corners. Got in amongst great chasms running E. and W. and had to come out again. We then again kept west and downhill over tremendous sastrugi, with a slight breeze, very cold. In afternoon continued bearing more and more towards Mount Darwin: we got round one of the main lines of ice-fall and looked back up to it.... Very cold march: many creva.s.ses: I walking by the sledge on foot found a good many: the others all on ski."

"_February 7._ 15.5 miles. Clear day again and we made a tedious march in the forenoon along a flat or two, and down a long slope: and then in the afternoon we had a very fresh breeze, and very fast run down long slopes covered with big sastrugi. It was a strenuous job steering and checking behind by the sledge. We reached the Upper Glacier Depot by 7.30 P.M. and found everything right."[330]

This was the end of the plateau: the beginning of the glacier. Their hard time should be over so far as the weather was concerned. Wilson notes how fine the land looked as they approached it: "The colour of the Dominion Range rock is in the main all brown madder or dark reddish chocolate, but there are numerous bands of yellow rock scattered amongst it. I think it is composed of dolerite and sandstone as on the W. side."[331]

The condition of the party was of course giving anxiety: how much it is impossible to say. A good deal was to be hoped from the warm weather ahead. Scott and Bowers were probably the fittest men. Scott's shoulder soon mended and "Bowers is splendid, full of energy and bustle all the time."[332] Wilson was feeling the cold more than either of them now. His leg was not yet well enough to wear ski. Oates had suffered from a cold foot for some time. Evans, however, was the only man whom Scott seems to have been worried about. "His cuts and wounds suppurate, his nose looks very bad, and altogether he shows considerable signs of being played out." ... "Well, we have come through our seven weeks' ice-cap journey and most of us are fit, but I think another week might have had a very bad effect on P.O. Evans, who is going steadily downhill."[333] They had all been having extra food which had helped them much, though they complained of hunger and want of sleep. Directly they got into the warmer weather on the glacier their food satisfied them, "but we must march to keep on the full ration, and we want rest, yet we shall pull through all right, D.V. We are by no means worn out."[334]

There are no germs in the Antarctic, save for a few isolated specimens which almost certainly come down from civilization in the upper air currents. You can sleep all night in a wet bag and clothing, and sledge all day in a mail of ice, and you will not catch a cold nor get any aches. You can get deficiency diseases, like scurvy, for inland this is a deficiency country, without vitamines. You can also get poisoned if you allow your food to remain thawed out too long, and if you do not cover the provisions in a depot with enough snow the sun will get at them, even though the air temperature is far below freezing. But it is not easy to become diseased.

On the other hand, once something does go wrong it is the deuce and all to get it right: especially cuts. And the isolation of the polar traveller may place him in most difficult circ.u.mstances. There are no ambulances and hospitals, and a man on a sledge is a very serious weight.

Practically any man who undertakes big polar journeys must face the possibility of having to commit suicide to save his companions, and the difficulty of this must not be overrated, for it is in some ways more desirable to die than to live if things are bad enough: we got to that stage on the Winter Journey. I remember discussing this question with Bowers, who had a scheme of doing himself in with a pick-axe if necessity arose, though how he could have accomplished it I don't know: or, as he said, there might be a creva.s.se and at any rate there was the medical case. I was horrified at the time: I had never faced the thing out with myself like that.

They left the Upper Glacier Depot under Mount Darwin on February 8. This day they collected the most important of those geological specimens to which, at Wilson's special request, they clung to the end, and which were mostly collected by him. Mount Darwin and Buckley Island, which are really the tops of high mountains, stick out of the ice at the top of the glacier, and the course ran near to both of them, but not actually up against them. Shackleton found coal on Buckley Island, and it was clear that the place was of great geological importance, for it was one of the only places in the Antarctic where fossils could be found, so far as we knew. The ice-falls stretched away as far as you could see towards the mountains which bound the glacier on either side, and as you looked upwards towards Buckley Island they were like a long breaking wave. One of the great difficulties about the Beardmore was that you saw the ice-falls as you went up, and avoided them, but coming down you knew nothing of their whereabouts until you fell into the middle of pressure and creva.s.ses, and then it was almost impossible to say whether you should go right or left to get out.

Evans was unable to pull this day, and was detached from the sledge, but this was not necessarily a very serious sign: Shackleton on his return journey was not able to pull at this place. Wilson wrote as follows:

"_February 8, Mt. Buckley Cliffs._ A very busy day. We had a very cold forenoon march, blowing like blazes from the S. Birdie detached and went on ski to Mt. Darwin and collected some dolerite, the only rock he could see on the Nunatak, which was nearest. We got into a sort of crusted surface where the snow broke through nearly to our knees and the sledge-runner also. I thought at first we were all on a thinly bridged creva.s.se. We then came on east a bit, and gradually got worse and worse going over an ice-fall, having great trouble to prevent sledge taking charge, but eventually got down and then made N.W. or N. into the land, and camped right by the moraine under the great sandstone cliffs of Mt.