South with Scott Part 2

Some members went down by train to Dunedin and joined us at Port Chalmers. We filled up here with what coal we could squeeze into our already overloaded ship and left finally for the Great Unknown on November 29, 1910.

Lady Scott, Mrs. Wilson, and my own wife came out with us to the Heads and then went on board the "Plucky" tug after saying good-bye. We were given a rousing send-off by the small craft that accompanied us a few miles on our way, but they turned homeward at last and at 3.30 p.m. we were clear with all good-byes said--personally I had a heart like lead, but, with every one else on board, bent on doing my duty and following Captain Scott to the end. There was work to be done, however, and the crew were glad of the orders that sent them from one rope to another and gave them the chance to hide their feelings, for there is an awful feeling of loneliness at this point in the lives of those who sign on the ships of the "South Pole trade"--how glad we were to hide those feelings and make sail--there were some dreadfully flat jokes made with the best of good intentions when we watched dear New Zealand fading away as the spring night gently obscured her from our view.

CHAPTER IV

THROUGH STORMY SEAS

After all it was a relief to get going at last and to have the Expedition on board in its entirety, but what a funny little colony of souls. A floating farm-yard best describes the appearance of the upper deck, with the white pony heads peeping out of their stables, dogs chained to stanchions, rails, and ring-bolts, pet rabbits lolloping around the ready supply of compressed hay, and forage here, there, and everywhere. If the "Terra Nova" was deeply laden from Cardiff, imagine what she looked like leaving New Zealand. We had piled coal in sacks wherever it could be wedged in between the deck cargo of petrol. Paraffin and oil drums filled up most of the hatch s.p.a.ces, for the p.o.o.p had been rendered uninhabitable by the great wooden cases containing two of our motor sledges.

The seamen were excellent, and Captain Scott seemed delighted with the crowd. He and Wilson were very loyal to the old "Discovery" men we had with us and Scott was impressed with my man, Cheetham, the Merchant Service boatswain, and could not quite make out how "Alf," as the sailors called him, got so much out of the hands--this little squeaky-voiced man--I think we hit on Utopian conditions for working the ship. There were no wasters, and our seamen were the pick of the British Navy and Mercantile Marine. Most of the Naval men were intelligent petty officers and were as fully alive as the merchantmen to "Alf's" windjammer knowledge. Cheetham was quite a character, and besides being immensely popular and loyal he was a tough, humorous little soul who had made more Antarctic voyages than any man on board.

The seamen and stokers willingly gave up the best part of the crew s.p.a.ce in order to allow sheltered pony stables to be built in the forecastle; it would have fared badly with the poor creatures had we kept them out on deck on the southward voyage.

A visit to the Campbell Islands was projected, but abandoned on account of the ship being unable to lay her course due to strong head winds on December 1. We therefore shaped to cross the Antarctic Circle in 178 degrees W. and got a good run of nearly 200 miles in, but the wind rose that afternoon and a gale commenced at a time when we least could afford to face bad weather in our deeply-laden conditions. By 6 p.m. I had to heave the ship to under lower topsails and fore topmast staysail. Engines were kept going at slow speed to keep the ship under control, but when night fell the prospect was gloomy enough. Captain Scott had consented to my taking far more on board than the ship was ever meant to carry, and we could not expect to accomplish our end without running certain risks. To sacrifice coal meant curtailing the Antarctic cruising programme, but as the weather grew worse we had to consider throwing coal overboard to lighten the vessel. Quite apart from this, the huge waves which washed over the ship swamped everything and increased the deck weights considerably. Ten tons of coal were thrown over to prevent them from taking charge and breaking petrol cases adrift. In spite of a liberal use of oil to keep heavy water from breaking over, the decks were continually swept by the seas and the rolling was so terrific that the poor dogs were almost hanging by their chains. Meares and Dimitri, helped by the watch, tended them unceasingly, but in spite of their combined efforts one dog was washed overboard after being literally drowned on the upper deck. One pony died that night, Oates and Atkinson standing by it and trying their utmost to keep the wretched beast on its feet. A second animal succ.u.mbed later, and poor Oates had a most trying time in caring for his charges and rendering what help he could to ameliorate their condition. Those of his ship-mates who saw him in this gale will never forget his strong, brown face illuminated by a hanging lamp as he stood amongst those suffering little beasts. He was a fine, powerful man, and on occasions he seemed to be actually lifting the poor little ponies to their feet as the ship lurched heavily to leeward and a great sea would wash the legs of his charges from under them. One felt somehow, glancing into the ponies'

stalls, which Captain Scott and I frequently visited together, that Oates's very strength itself inspired his animals with confidence. He himself appeared quite unconscious of any personal suffering, although his hands and feet must have been absolutely numbed by the cold and wet.

In the middle watch Williams, the Chief Engineer, reported that his pumps were choked and that as fast as he cleared them they choked again, the water coming into the ship so fast that the stoke-hold plates were submerged and water gaining fast. I ordered the watch to man the hand-pump, but that was soon choked too. Things now looked really serious, since it was impossible to get to the pump-well while terrific seas were washing over the ship and the afterhatch could not be opened.

Consequently we started to bail the water out with buckets and also rigged the small fire-engine and pumped with this as well.

The water in the engine room gradually gained until it entered the ashpit of the centre furnace and commenced to put the fires out. Both Williams and Lashly were up to their necks in water, clearing and re-clearing the engine room pump suctions, but eventually the water beat them and I allowed Williams to let fires out in the boiler. It could not be otherwise. We stopped engines, and with our cases of petrol being lifted out of their lashings by the huge waves, with the ponies falling about and the dogs choking and wallowing in the water and mess, their chains entangling them and tripping up those who tried to clear them, the situation looked as black and disheartening as it well could be.

When dawn broke the greater part of the lee bulwarks had been torn away and our decks laid open to the sea, which washed in and out as it would have over a rock. The poor ship laboured dreadfully, and after consultation with Captain Scott we commenced to cut a hole in the engine room bulkhead to get at the hand pump-well.

Meanwhile I told the afterguard off into watches, and, relieving every two hours, they set to work, formed a chain at the engine room ladder way and bailed the ship out with buckets. In this way they must have discharged between 2000 and 3000 gallons of water. The watch manned the hand pump, which, although choked, discharged a small stream, and for twenty-four hours this game was kept up, Scott himself working with the best of them and staying with the toughest.

It was a sight that one could never forget: everybody saturated, some waist-deep on the floor of the engine room, oil and coal dust mixing with the water and making every one filthy, some men clinging to the iron ladder way and pa.s.sing full buckets up long after their muscles had ceased to work naturally, their grit and spirit keeping them going. I did admire the weaker people, especially those who were unhardened by the months of physical training of the voyage out from England.

When each two-hour shift was relieved, the party, coughing and spluttering, would make their way into the ward-room where Hooper and Neale, the stewards, mere boys, supplied them with steaming cocoa. How on earth the cooks kept the galley fires going I could never understand: they not only did this, but fed us all at frequent intervals.

By 10 p.m. on the 2nd December the hole in the engine room bulkhead was cut completely. I climbed through it, followed by Bowers, the carpenter, and Teddy Nelson, and when we got into the hold there was just enough room to wriggle along to the pump-well over the coal. We tore down a couple of planks to get access to the shaft and then I went down to the bottom to find out how matters stood. Bowers came next with an electric torch, which he shone downwards whilst I got into the water, hanging on to the bottom rungs of the ladder leading to the bilge. Sitting on the keel the water came up to my neck and, except for my head, I was under water till after midnight pa.s.sing up coal b.a.l.l.s, the cause of all the trouble. Though, of course, we had washed out the bilges in New Zealand, the constant stream of water which leaked in from the topsides had carried much coal-dust into them. This, mixed with the lubricating oil washed down from the engines, had cemented into buns and b.a.l.l.s which found their way down and choked both hand and engine pump suctions. I sent up twenty bucketfuls of this filthy stuff, which meant frequently going head under the unspeakably dirty water, but having cleared the lower ends of the suction pipe the watch manning the hand pump got the water down six inches, and it was obvious by 4 o'clock in the morning that the pump was gaining. We therefore knocked the afterguard off bailing, and the seamen worked steadily at the pump until 9 a.m. and got the water right down to nine inches, so we were able to light fires again and once more raise steam. We made a serviceable wire grating to put round the hand pump suction to keep the bigger stuff from choking the pipes in future. It was days before some of us could get our hair clean from that filthy coal-oil mixture.

One more pony died during the gale, but when the weather moderated early on the 3rd, the remaining seventeen animals bucked up and, when not eating their food, nonchalantly gnawed great gaps in the stout planks forming the head parts of their stalls. At last the sun came out and helped to dry the dogs. Campbell and his seamen cleared up the decks and re-secured the top hamper in the forenoon, we reset sail, and after tea Scott, Oates, Atkinson, and a few more of us hoisted the two dead ponies out of the forecastle, through the skylight, and over the side. It was a dirty job, because the square of the hatch was so small that a powerful purchase had to be used which stretched out the ponies like dead rabbits.

We only made good twenty-three miles that day and, although the gale had abated, it left us a legacy in the shape of a heavy uncomfortable swell.

Most of the bunks were in a sad state, the ship having worked so badly that the upper deck seams opened everywhere and water had literally poured into them.

Looking at the fellows' faces in the ward-room at dinner that night there was no trace of anxiety, worry, or fatigue to be seen. We drank to sweet-hearts and wives, it being Sat.u.r.day evening, and those who had no watch were glad to turn in early.

More fresh wind next day but finer weather to follow. Gran declared he saw an iceberg on the 5th December, but it turned out to be a whale spouting. Our runs were nothing to boast of, 150 miles being well above the average, but the lengthening days told us that we were rapidly changing our lat.i.tude and approaching the ice.

CHAPTER V

ANTARCTICA--THROUGH THE PACK ICE TO LAND

We sighted our first iceberg in lat.i.tude 62 degrees on the evening of Wednesday, December 7. Cheetham's squeaky hail came down from aloft and I went up to the crow's-nest to look at it, and from this time on we pa.s.sed all kinds of icebergs, from the huge tabular variety to the little weathered water-worn bergs. Some we steamed quite close to and they seemed for all the world like great ma.s.ses of sugar floating in the sea.

From lat.i.tudes 60 to 63 degrees we saw a fair number of birds: southern fulmars, whale birds, molly-mawks, sooty albatrosses, and occasionally Cape-pigeons still. Then the brown-backed petrels began to appear, sure precursors of the pack ice--it was in sight right enough the day after the brown-backs were seen. By breakfast time on December 9, when nearly in lat.i.tude 65 degrees, we were steaming through thin streams of broken pack with floes from six to twelve feet across. A few penguins and seals were seen, and by 10 a.m. no less than twenty-seven icebergs in sight.

The newcomers to these regions were cl.u.s.tered in little groups on the forecastle and p.o.o.p sketching and painting, hanging over the bows and gleefully watching this lighter stuff being brushed aside by our strong stem.

We were pa.s.sing through pack all day, but the ice hereabouts was not close enough nor heavy enough to stop us appreciably. The ship was usually conned by Pennell and myself from the crow's-nest, and I took the ship very near one berg for Ponting to cinematograph it. We now began to see snow petrels with black beaks and pure white bodies, rather resembling doves. Also we saw great numbers of brown-backed petrels the first day in the pack, whole flights of them resting on the icebergs. The sun was just below the horizon at midnight and we had a most glorious sunset, which was first a blazing copper changing to salmon pink and then purple. The pools of water between the floes caught the reflection, the sea was perfectly still and every berg and ice-floe caught something of the delicate colour. Wilson, of course, was up and about till long after midnight sketching and painting. The Antarctic pack ice lends itself to water-colour work far better than to oils.

When conning the ship from up in the crow's-nest one has a glorious view of this great changing ice-field. Moving through lanes of clear blue water, cannoning into this floe and splitting it with iron-bound stem, overriding that and gnawing off a twenty ton lump, gliding south, east, west, through leads of open water, then charging an innocent-looking piece which brings the ship up all-standing, astern and ahead again, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and working the wonderful wooden ship steadily southward until perhaps two huge floes gradually narrow the lane and hold the little lady fast in their frozen grip.

This is the time to wait and have a look round: on one side floes the size of a football field, all jammed together, with their torn up edges showing their limits and where the pressure is taken. Then three or four bergs, carved from the distant Barrier, imprisoned a mile or so away, with the evening sun's soft rays casting beautiful shadows about them and kissing their glistening cliff faces.

Glancing down from the crow's-nest the ship throws deep shadows over the ice and, while the sun is just below the southern horizon, the still pools of water show delicate blues and greens that no artist can ever do justice to. It is a scene from fairyland.

I loved this part of the voyage, for I was in my element. At odd times during the night, if one can call it night, the crow's-nest would have visitors, and hot cocoa would be sent up in covered pots by means of signal halyards. The pack ice was new to all the ship's officers except myself, but they soon got into the way of conning and working through open water leads and, as time went on, distinguished the thinner ice from the harder and more dangerous stuff.

On December 10 we stopped the ship and secured her to a heavy floe from which we took in sufficient ice to make eight tons of fresh water, and whilst doing this Rennick sounded and obtained bottom in 1964 fathoms, fora-minifera and decomposed skeleton unicellular organs, also two pieces of black basic lava. Lillie and Nelson took plankton and water bottle samples to about 280 fathoms. A few penguins came round and a good many crab-eater seals were seen. In the afternoon we got under way again and worked for about eight miles through the pack, which was gradually becoming denser. About 2:30 p.m. I saw from the crow's-nest four seals on a floe. I slid down a backstay, and whilst the officer on watch worked the ship close to them, I got two or three others with all our firearms and shot the lot from the forecastle head. We had seal liver for dinner that night; one or two rather turned up their noses at it, but, as Scott pointed out, the time would come when seal liver would be a delicacy to dream about.

Campbell did not do much conning except in the early morning, as his executive duties kept him well occupied. The Polar sledge journey had its attractions, but Campbell's party were to have interesting work and were envied by many on board. For reasons which need not here be entered into Campbell had to abandon the King Edward VII. Land programme, but in these days his mob were known as the Eastern Party, to consist of the Wicked Mate, Levick, and Priestley, with three seamen, Abbott, Browning, and d.i.c.kason. Campbell had the face of an angel and the heart of a hornet.

With the most refined and innocent smile he would come up to me and ask whether the Eastern Party could have a small amount of this or that luxury. Of course I would agree, and sure enough Bowers would tell me that Campbell had already appropriated a far greater share than he was ever ent.i.tled to of the commodity in question. This happened again and again, but the refined smile was irresistible and I am bound to say the Wicked Mate generally got away with it, for even Bowers, the incomparable, was bowled over by that smile.

We crossed the Antarctic Circle on the morning of the 10th, little dreaming in those happy days that the finest amongst us would never recross it again.

We took a number of deep-sea soundings, several of over 2000 fathoms, on this first southward voyage. Rennick showed himself very expert with the deep-sea gear and got his soundings far more easily than we had done in the "Discovery" and "Morning" days.

We were rather unfortunate as regards the pack ice met with, and must have pa.s.sed through 400 miles of it from north to south. On my two previous voyages we had had easier conditions altogether, and then it had not mattered, but all with these dogs and ponies cooped up and losing condition, with the "Terra Nova" eating coal and sixty hungry men scoffing enormous meals, we did not seem to be doing much or getting on with the show. It was, of course, n.o.body's fault, but our patience was sorely tried.

We made frequent stops in the pack ice, even letting fires out and furling sail, and sometimes the ice would be all jammed up so that not a water hole was visible--this condition would continue for days. Then, for no apparent reason, leads would appear and black water-skies would tempt us to raise steam again. Scott himself showed an admirable patience, for the rest of us had something to occupy our time with. Pennell and I, for instance, were constantly taking sights and working them out to find our position and also to get the set and drift of the current. Then there were magnetic observations to be taken on board and out on the ice away from the magnetic influence of the ship, such as it was. Simpson had heaps to busy himself with, and Ponting was here, there, and everywhere with his camera and cinematograph machine. Had it not been for our anxiety to make southward progress, the time would have pa.s.sed pleasantly enough, especially in fine weather. Days came when we could get out on the floe and exercise on ski, and Gran zealously looked to all our requirements in this direction.

December 11 witnessed the extraordinary sight of our company standing bareheaded on deck whilst Captain Scott performed Divine Service. Two hymns were sung, which broke strangely the great white silence. The weather was against us this day in that we had snow, thaw, and actually rain, but we could not complain on the score of weather conditions generally. Practically all the ship's company exercised on the floes while we remained fast frozen. Next day there was some slight loosening of the pack and we tried sailing through it and managed half a degree southward in the forty-eight hours. We got along a few miles here and there, but when ice conditions continued favourable for making any serious advance it was better to light up and push our way onward with all the power we could command. We got some heavy b.u.mps on the 13th December and as this hammering was not doing the ship much good, since I was unable to make southing then at a greater rate than one mile an hour, we let fires right out and prepared, as Captain Scott said, "To wait till the clouds roll by." For the next few days there was not much doing nor did we experience such pleasant weather.

Constant visits were made to the crow's-nest in search of a way through.

December 16 and 17 were two very gray days with fresh wind, snow, and some sleet. Affectionate memories of Captain Colbeck and the little relief ship, "Morning," came back when the wind soughed and whistled through the rigging: This sound is most uncanny and the ice always seemed to exaggerate any noise.

I hated the overcast days in the pack. It was bitterly cold in the crow's-nest however much one put on then, and water skies often turned out to be nimbus clouds after we had laboured and cannoned towards them.

The light, too, tired and strained one's eyes far more than on clear days.

When two hundred miles into the pack the ice varied surprisingly. We would be pa.s.sing through ice a few inches thick and then suddenly great floes four feet above the water and twelve to fifteen feet deep would be encountered. December 18 saw us steaming through tremendous leads of open water. A very funny occurrence was witnessed in the evening when the wash of the ship turned a floe over under water and on its floating back a fish was left stranded. It was a funny little creature, nine inches in length, a species of notathenia. Several snow petrels and a skua-gull made attempts to secure the fish, but the afterguard kept up such a chorus of cheers, hoots and howls that the birds were scared away till one of us secured the fish from the floe.

Early on the 19th we pa.s.sed close to a large iceberg which had a shelving beach like an island. We began to make better progress to the south-westward and worked into a series of open leads. We came across our first emperor penguin, a young one, and two sea-leopards, besides crab-eater seals, many penguins, some giant petrels, and a Wilson petrel.

That afternoon tremendous pieces of ice were pa.s.sed; they were absolutely solid and regular floes, being ten to twelve feet above water and, as far as one could judge, about 50 feet below. The water here was beautifully clear.

We had now reached lat.i.tude 68 degrees and, as penguins were plentiful, Archer and Clissold, the cooks, made us penguin stews and "hooshes" to eke out our fresh provisions. Concerning the penguins, they frequently came and inspected the ship. One day Wilson and I chased some, but they continually kept just out of our reach; then Uncle Bill lay down on the snow, and when one, out of curiosity, came up to him he grabbed it by the leg and brought it to the ship, protesting violently, for all the world like a little old man in a dinner jacket. Atkinson and Wilson found a new kind of tapeworm in this penguin, with a head like a propeller. This worm has since been named after one of us!

We were now down to under 300 tons of coal, some of which had perforce to be landed, in addition to the 30 tons of patent fuel which were under the forward stores. I had no idea that Captain Scott could be so patient. He put the best face on everything, although he certainly was disappointed in the "Terra Nova" and her steaming capacity. He could not well have been otherwise when comparing her with his beloved "Discovery." Whilst in the pack our leader spent his time in getting hold of the more detailed part of our scientific programme and mildly tying the scientists in knots.