South with Scott Part 18

This day the excitement was intense, for it was obvious that with five fit men--the Pole being only 140 geographical miles away--the achievement was merely a matter of 10 or 11 days' good sledging.

Oates's last remark was cheerful: "I'm afraid, Teddy, you won't have much of a 'slope' going back, but old Christopher is waiting to be eaten on the Barrier when you get there."

CHAPTER XV

RETURN OF THE LAST SUPPORTING PARTY

Scott had already made a great geographical journey in spite of adverse weather conditions, which had severely handicapped him throughout, but he was nevertheless behindhand in his expectations, and although the attainment of the Pole was practically within his grasp, the long 900 mile march homeward from that spot had to be considered. It was princ.i.p.ally on this account that Captain Scott changed his marching organisation and took Bowers from the last supporting party. After the first day's homeward march I realised that the nine hours' marching day was insufficient. We had to make average daily marches of 17 miles in order to remain on full provisions whilst returning over that featureless snow-capped plateau.

Although the first day northward bound was radiantly fine and the travelling surface all that could be desired, we were compelled to push on until quite late to ensure covering the prescribed distance--for a short march on the first day would have augured a gloomy future for us.

Reluctant as I was to confess it to myself, I soon realised that the ceding of one man from my party had been too great a sacrifice, but there was no denying it, and I was eventually compelled to explain the situation to Lashly and Crean and lay bare the naked truth. No man was ever better served than I was by these two; they cheerfully accepted the inevitable, and throughout our home-ward march the three of us literally stole minutes and seconds from each day in order to add to our marches, but it was a fight for life: The rarified air made our breathing more difficult, and we suffered from shortness of breath whenever the inequalities of the surface became severe, and sudden jerks conveyed themselves to our tired bodies through the medium of the rope traces.

Day after day we fought our way northward over the high Polar tableland.

The silence now that we had no other party with us was ghastly, for beyond the sound of our own voices and the groaning of the sledge runners when the surface was bad there was no sound whatever to remind us of the outer world. As mile after mile was covered our thoughts wandered from the Expedition to those in our homeland, and thought succeeded thought while the march progressed until the satisfying effect of the last meal had vanished and life became one vast yearning for food.

Three days after leaving Captain Scott we encountered a blizzard and were forced to continue our marches although faced with navigational difficulties which made it impossible for us to maintain more than a very rough northward direction. m.u.f.fled up tightly in our wind-proof clothing, -we did all in our power to prevent the dust-fine snow-flakes which whirled around from penetrating into the tiniest opening in our clothes.

The blizzard blinded and baffled us, forcing us always to turn our faces from it. The stinging wind cut and slashed our cheeks like the constant jab of a thousand frozen needle points.

This first blizzard which fell upon us lasted for three whole days, and at the end of that time we found ourselves considerably wide of our course.

On the 7th January, in spite of a temperature of 22 degrees below zero, a fresh southerly wind and driving snow, Lashly, Crean, and myself laid 19 miles behind us.

On the 8th we again covered this distance, although the weather was so bad that we entirely lost the track, and on the following day, when the blizzard was at its worst, we fought our way forward for over 16 miles.

When the blizzard eventually abated we had hazy weather, but got an occasional glimpse of the sun, with which we corrected our course, and on the 13th January my party found itself right above the Shackleton Icefalls, and gazed down upon the more regular surface of the Beardmore Glacier hundreds of feet below us.

To reach the glacier we were faced with two alternatives: either to march right round the icefalls, as we had done coming south, and thus waste three whole days, or to take our lives in our hands and attempt to get the sledge slap over the falls. This would mean facing tremendous drops, which might end in a catastrophe. The discussion was very short-lived, and with rather a sinking feeling the descent of the great ice falls was commenced. We packed our ski on the sledge, attached spiked crampons to our finnesko, and guided the sledge through the maze of hummocks and creva.s.ses.

The travelling surface was wind-swept and consequently too easy, for the sledge would charge down a slippery slope of blue ice and capsize time after time. In places the way became so steep that our united efforts were needed to avoid the yawning chasms which beset our path. We were compelled to remain attached to the sledge by our harness, for otherwise there was always the danger of our slipping into one of the very creva.s.ses that we were keeping the sledge clear of, and in this manner, with the jumping and jolting of that awful descent, frequent cases of over-running occurred, the sledge fouling our traces and whisking us off our feet. We encountered fall after fall, bruises, cuts, and abrasions were sustained, but we vied with one another in bringing all our grit and patience to bear; scarcely a complaint was heard, although one or other of us would be driven almost sick with pain as the sledge cannoned into this or that man's heel with a thud that made the victim clench his teeth to avoid crying out.

The whole forenoon we worked down towards the more even surface of the great glacier itself, but the actual descent of the steep part of the Shackleton Icefalls was accomplished in half an hour. We came down many hundred feet in that time.

None of us can ever forget that exciting descent. The speed of the sledge at one point must have been 60 miles an hour. We glissaded down a steep blue ice slope; to brake was impossible, for the sledge had taken charge.

One or other of us may have attempted to check the sledge with his foot, but to stop it in any way would have meant a broken leg. We held on for our lives, lying face downwards on the sledge. Suddenly it seemed to spring into the air, we had left the ice and shot over one yawning creva.s.se before we had known of its existence almost--I do not imagine we were more than a second in the air, but in that brief s.p.a.ce of time I looked at Crean, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, "What next!" Then we crashed on to the ice ridge beyond this creva.s.se, the sledge capsized and rolled over and over, dragging us three with it until it came to a standstill.

How we ever escaped entirely uninjured is beyond me to explain. When we had recovered our breath we examined ourselves and our sledge. One of my ski-sticks had caught on a piece of ice during our headlong flight and torn itself from the sledge. It rolled into the great blue-black chasm over which we had come, and its fate made me feel quite cold when I thought of what might have happened to us. When my heart had stopped beating so rapidly from fright, and I had recovered enough to look round, I realised that we were practically back on the Beardmore again, and that our bold escapade had saved us three days' solid foot slogging and that amount of food. So we pitched our little tent, had a good filling meal, and then, delighted with our progress, we marched on until 8 p.m. That night in our sleeping-bags we felt like three bruised pears, but being in pretty hard condition in those days, our bruises and slight cuts in no way kept us from hours of perfect, contented slumber.

I see in my diary for January 13, 1912, I have noted that we came down 2000 feet, but I doubt if it really was as much--we then had no means of measuring.

January 14 found us up at 5.45 (really only 4.45, because in order not to make my seamen companions anxious I handicapped my watch after first day's homeward march, putting the hands on one hour each morning before rising, and back when I got the chance, so that we marched from 10 to 12 hours a day). We hauled our sledge for six hours until we reached the Upper Glacier Depot under Mount Darwin. Here we took 3 1/2 days' stores as arranged, and after sorting up and repacking the depot had lunch and away down the Glacier, camping at 7.30 p.m. off Buckley Island, fairly close to the land. Temperature rose above zero that night.

Next day we were away at 8 a.m. with our crampons on, we came down several steep ice slopes, blue ice like gla.s.s, Lashly hauling ahead and Crean and I holding on to the sledge. We b.u.mped a lot, and occasionally the sledge capsized. But we made good nearly 22 miles. We covered between 18 and 20 miles on January 16, and were in high glee at our progress. We camped, however, in amongst pressure ridges and huge creva.s.ses, 14 miles from the Cloudmaker or mid-glacier depot. We hoped next day to reach this depot. January 16 was a pleasant day, its ending peaceful, with a sufficiency of excellent sledging rations and the promise of a similar day to succeed it. On this day hopes had run high; our clothes were dry, the weather mild and promising, besides which, we were camped in the full satisfaction of having a good many miles in hand. We cheerfully discussed our arrival at the next depot, after which we knew that no anxieties need be felt, given even moderately good luck and weather, that did not include too great a proportion of blizzard days. The musical roar of the primus and the welcome smell of the cooking pemmican whetted our appet.i.tes deliciously, and as the three of us sat around the cooker on our rolled up fur bags, the contented expression on our dirty brown faces made our bearded ugliness almost handsome. We built wonderful castles in the air as to what luxuries Lashly, who was a famous cook, should prepare on our return to winter quarters. There we had still some of the New Zealand beef and mutton stored in my glacier cave, and one thing I had set my heart on was a steak and kidney pudding which my friend Lashly swore to make me.

After the meal we unrolled our sleeping-bags and luxuriantly got into them, for the recent fine weather had given us a chance to dry thoroughly the fur and get the bags clear of that uncomfortable clamminess due to the moisture from our bodies freezing until the sleeping-bags afforded but little comfort. The weather looked glorious, there was not a cloud in the sky, and towards 10 o'clock the sun was still visible to the S.S.W.

We could see it through the thin, green canvas tent wall as we turned in, still in broad daylight, and the warmth derived from it made sleep come to us quite easily.

I woke at five the next morning, and, rousing my companions, we were up and about in a minute. The primus stove and cooking apparatus were brought into the tent once more; our sleeping foot-gear was changed for our marching finneskoe and good steel-spiked crampons fixed to the soft fur boots to give us grip in places where the ice was blue and slippery.

By 6 a.m. the little green tent was struck, the sledge securely packed, and the three of us commenced a day's march, the details of which, although it occurred over nine years ago, are so fresh in my memory that I have not even to refer to my sledging diary.

We commenced the day unluckily, for a low Stratus cloud had spread like a tablecloth over the Beardmore and filled up the glacier with mist. This added tremendously to our difficulties in steering, for we had no landmarks by which to set our course, although I knew the approximate direction of descent and could make this by means of a somewhat inadequate compa.s.s. The refinements in steering were not sufficient to keep us on the good blue ice surface down which we could have threaded our way had we commanded a full view of the glacier. Our route led us over rougher ice than we should normally have chosen, and the outlook was distinctly displeasing. The air was thick with countless myriads of tiny floating ice crystals, and the great hummocks of ice stood weirdly shapen as they loomed through the frozen mist. I appreciated that we were getting into trouble, but hoped that the fog would disperse as the sun increased its alt.i.tude. We fell about a good deal, and to my consternation the surface became worse and worse. We were, however, covering distance in an approximately northward direction, and our team achieved with stubborn purpose what would have appeared impossible to us when we first visited this great, white, silent continent.

It was no good going back, and we could not tell whether the good track was to the right or the left of our line of advance. As new and more troublesome obstacles presented themselves, the more valiantly did my companions set themselves to win through. Crean and Lashly had the hearts of lions. The uncertain light of the mist worried us all three, and we were forced to take off our goggles to see to advance at all.

We continued until midday, when to my great relief the mist showed signs of dispersing, and the sun, a sickly yellow orb, eventually showed through. It was surrounded by a halo which was reflected in rainbow colouring in the minute floating ice crystals. I looked round for a spot suitable for camping, for we were pretty well exhausted, and it was worth while waiting for the mist to disperse. No time would be wasted since the halt would do for our lunch. With the greatest difficulty we found amongst the hummocky ice a place to set up our tent. A s.p.a.ce was found somehow, and rather gloomily the three of us made a cooker full of tea.

We munched our biscuit in silence, for we were too tired to talk. From time to time I went outside the tent, and certainly the atmosphere was clearer. Odd shapes to the east and west showed themselves to be the fringing mountains which so few eyes had ever rested on. Gradually they took form and I was able more or less to identify our whereabouts. We finished our lunch, Crean had a smoke, and then we got under way.

A little discussion, a lot of support, and a wealth of whole-hearted good-fellowship from my companions gave me the encouragement which made leading these two men so easy.

Warmed by the tea, cheered by the meal, and rested by the halt, we pushed on once more, although to go forward was uncertain and to work back impossible since we were too exhausted to do such pulling upward as would be necessary to reach a place from whence a new start could be made, even if we succeeded in re-discovering our night camp of yesterday.

For hours we fought on, sometimes overcoming creva.s.ses by bridging them with the sledge where its length enabled this to be done. The summer sun had cleared the snow from this part of the glacier, laying bare the great blue, black cracks, and they were horrible to behold. If the breadth of a creva.s.se was too large to be crossed we worked along the bank until an ice bridge presented itself along which we could go. As the sun's rays grew more powerful, the visibility became perfect, and I must confess we were disappointed to see before us the most disheartening wilderness of pressure ridges and disturbances. We were in the heart of the Great Ice Fall which is to be found half-way down the Beardmore Glacier. We struggled along, for there is no other expression which aptly describes our case. Had we not been in superb physical training and in really hard condition all three of us must have collapsed. We literally carried the sledge, which weighed nearly four hundred pounds.

When the afternoon march had already extended for hours we found ourselves travelling mile after mile across the line of our intended route to circ.u.mvent the creva.s.ses. They seemed to grow bigger and bigger.

At about 8 p.m. we were travelling on a ridge between two stupendous open gulfs, and we found a connecting bridge which stretched obliquely across.

I saw that it was necessary to move round or across a number of these wide open chasms to reach the undulations which we knew from our ice experience must terminate this broken up part of the glacier. In vain I told myself that these undulations could not be so far away.

To cross by the connecting bridge which I have just spoken about was, to say the least of it, a precarious proceeding. But it would save us a mile or two, and in our tired state this was worth considering. After a minutes rest we placed the sledge on this ice bridge, and, as Crean described it afterwards, "We went along the crossbar to the H of h.e.l.l."

It was not all misnamed either, for Lashly, who went ahead, dared not walk upright. He actually sat astride the bridge and was paid out at the end of our Alpine rope. He shuffled his way across, fearful to look down into the inky blue chasm below, but he fixed his eyes on the opposite wall of ice and hoped the rope would be long enough to allow him to reach it and climb up, for he never would have dared to come back. The cord _was_ sufficient in length, and he contrived finally to make his way on to the top of the ridge before him. He then turned round and looked scaredly at Crean and myself. I think all of us felt the tension of the moment, but we wasted no time in commencing the pa.s.sage. The method of procedure was this. The sledge rested on the narrow bridge which was indeed so shaped that the crest only admitted of the runners resting one on each side of it; the slope away was like an inverted "V" and while Lashly sat gingerly on the opposite ridge, hauling carefully but not too strongly on the rope, Crean and I, facing one another, held on to the sledge sides, balancing the whole concern. It was one of the most exciting moments of our lives. We launched the sled across foot by foot as I shouted "One, Two, Three--Heave." Each time the signal was obeyed we got nearer to the opposite ice slope. The balance was preserved, of course, by Crean and myself, and we had to exercise a most careful judgment. Neither of us spoke, except for the launching signal, but each looked steadfastly into the other's eyes--nor did we two look down. A false movement might have precipitated the whole gang and the sledge itself into the blue-black s.p.a.ce of awful depth beneath. The danger was very real, but this crossing was necessary to our final safety. As in other cases of peril, the tense quiet of the moment left its mark on the memories of our party for ever. Little absurd details attracted all our attention, for instance, I noticed the ruts in the cheeks of my grimy _vis-a-vis_, for Crean had recently clipped his beard and whiskers. My gaze was also riveted on a cut, or rather open crack caused in one of his lips by the combined sun and wind. Thousands of little fleeting thoughts chased one another through our brains, as we afterwards found by comparison, and finally we were so close to Lashly that he could touch the sledge. He reached down, for the bridge was depressed somewhat where it met the slope on which he sat.

He held on tight, and somehow Crean and I wriggled off the bridge, sticking our crampons firmly into the ice and crawling up to where Lashly was. We all three held on to the Alpine line, and in some extraordinary fashion got to the top of the ridge, where we anch.o.r.ed ourselves and prepared to haul up the sledge. As I said before, it weighed about 400 lb., and to three exhausted men the strain which came upon us when we hauled the sledge off the bridge tested us to the limit of our strength.

The wretched thing slipped sideways and capsized on the slope, nearly dragging us down into that icy chasm, but our combined efforts saved us, and once again the perils of the moment were forgotten as we got into our sledge harness and started to make the best of our way to the depot.

By now we were exhausted, rudely shaken, and our eyes were smarting with the glare and the glint of the sun's reflections from that awful maze of ice falls. I felt my heart would burst from the sustained effort of launching that sledge, which now seemed to weigh a ton. There seemed no way out of this confused ma.s.s of pressure ridges and, creva.s.ses. We were "all out," and come what may I had to change our tactics, accordingly I ordered a halt. No room could be found to pitch our tent and I could not see any possibility of saving my party. We could stagger on no farther with the dreadfully heavy sledge. The prospect was hopeless and our food was nearly gone. Some rest must be obtained to give us strength for this absolute battle for life. The great strain of the day's efforts had thoroughly exhausted us, and it took me back to the last day of the December blizzard which caused the eventual loss of the Polar Party and the ruin of Captain Scott's so excellently laid plans. I remembered the poor ponies after their fourteen hours' march, their flanks heaving, their black eyes dull, shrivelled and wasted. The poor beasts had stood, with their legs stuck out in strange att.i.tudes, mere wrecks of the beautiful little animals that we took away from New Zealand, and I could not help likening our condition to theirs on that painful day. The three of us sat on the sledge--hollow-eyed and gaunt looking. We were done, our throats were dry, and we could scarcely speak. There was no wind, the atmosphere was perfectly still, and the sun slowly crept towards the southern meridian, clear cut in the steel blue sky. It gave us all the sympathy it could, for it shed warm rays upon us as it silently moved on its way like a great eye from Heaven, looking but unable to help. We should have gone mad with another day like this, and there were times when we came perilously close to being insane. Something had to be done.

I got up from the sledge, cast my harness adrift, and said, "I am going to look for a way out; we can't go on." My companions at first persuaded me not to go, but I pointed out that we could not continue in our exhausted condition. If only we could find a camping place, and we could rest, perhaps we should be able to make a final effort to get clear.

I moved along a series of ice bridges, and the excitement gave me strength once more. I was surprised at myself for not being more giddy when I walked along the narrow ice spines, but the crampons attached to my finneskoe were like cat's claws, and without the weight of the sledge I seemed to develop a panther-like tenacity, for I negotiated the dangerous parts with the utmost ease. After some twenty minutes hunting round I came to a great ice hollow.

Down into it I went and up the other side. This hollow was free from creva.s.ses, and when I got to the top of the ice mound opposite I saw yet another hollow. Turning round I gazed back towards where I had left our sledge. Two tiny, disconsolate figures were silhouetted against the sunlight--my two companions on our great homeward march, one sitting and one standing, probably looking for my reappearance as I vanished and was sighted again from time to time. I felt a tremendous love for those two men that day. They had trusted me so implicitly and believed in my ability to win through. I turned northward again, stepped down into the next hollow and stopped. I was in an enormous depression but not a creva.s.se to be seen, for the sides of the depression met quite firmly at the bottom in smooth, blue, solid ice.

In a flash I called to mind the view of the Ice Fall from the glacier on our outward journey with Captain Scott, I remembered the huge frozen waves, and hoped with all my optimistic nature that this might be the end of the great disturbance. I stood still and surveyed the wonderful valley of ice, and then fell on my knees and prayed to G.o.d that a way out would be shown me.

Then I sprang to my feet, and hurried on boldly. Clambering up the opposite slope of ice, I found a smooth, round crest over which I ran into a similar valley beyond. Frozen waves here followed in succession, and hollow followed hollow, each less in magnitude than its forerunner.

Suddenly I saw before me the smooth, shining bed of the glacier itself, and away to the north-west was the curious reddish rock under which the Mid Glacier Depot had been placed. My feelings hardly bear setting down.

I was overcome with emotion, but my prayer was answered and we were saved.

I had considerable difficulty in working back to the party amongst the labyrinth of ice bridges, but I fortunately found a patch of hard snow whereon my crampons had made their mark. From here I easily traced my footmarks back, and was soon in company with my friends. They were truly relieved at my news. On consulting my watch I found that I had been away one hour. It took us actually three times as long to work our sledge out into the smooth ice of the glacier, but this reached, we camped and made some tea before marching on to the depot, which lay but a few miles from us.

We ate the last of our biscuits at this camp and finished everything but tea and sugar, then, new men, we struck our little camp, harnessed up and swept down over the smooth ice with scarcely an effort needed to move the sledge along. When we reached the depot we had another meal and slept through the night and well on into the next day.

Consulting my old Antarctic diary I see that the last sentence written on the 17th January says, "I had to keep my goggles off all day as it was a matter of life or death with us, and snow blindness must be risked after ..." (a gap follows here until 29th January). The next day I had an awful attack of snow blindness, but the way down the glacier was so easy that it did not matter. I forgot whether Lashly or Crean led then, but I marched alongside, keeping in touch with the trace by hitching the lanyard of my sundial on to it and holding this in my hand. I usually carried the sundial slung round my neck, so that it was easy to pick it up and consult it. That day I was in awful pain, and although we had some dope for putting on our eyes when so smitten, I found that the greatest relief of all was obtained by bandaging my eyes with a poultice made of tea leaves after use--quaint places, quaint practices but the tip is worth considering for future generations of explorers and alpine climbers.

Our homeward march continued for day after day with no very exciting incidents. We met no more creva.s.ses that were more than a foot or so wide, and we worked our way down on to the Great Ice Barrier with comparatively easy marches, although the distances we covered were surprising to us all--seventeen miles a day we averaged.