The Home Of The Blizzard Part 49

The sleeping-bags used on the first sledging journey had been hung up near the roof. They were now taken down to be thoroughly overhauled. As a consequence of their severe soaking, they had shrunk considerably and required enlarging. Dovers's bag, besides contracting a good deal, had lost much hair and was cut up to patch the others. He received a spare one to replace it.

May 15 was a beautiful bright morning and I went over to an icy cape two miles southward, with Harrisson, Hoadley, Dovers and Watson, to find a road down to the sea-ice. Here, we had good fortune at last, for, by following down a creva.s.se which opened out at sea-level into a magnificent cave, we walked straight out on to the level plain. Along the edge of the glacier there was not even a seal's blow-hole. Watson took some photos of the cave and cliff.

It was Kennedy's term night; the work keeping him in the igloo from 10 P.M. until 2.30 A.M. He had had some difficulty in finding a means of warming the observatory--an urgent necessity, since he found it impossible to manipulate delicate magnetic instruments for three or four hours with the temperature from -25 degrees F. to -30 degrees F. The trouble was to make a non-magnetic lamp and the problem was finally solved by using one of the aluminium cooking pots; converting it into a blubber stove. The stove smoked a great deal and the white walls were soon besmirched with a layer of soot.

The 17th, 18th and 19th were all calm but dull. One day I laid out a ten-hole golf course and with some homemade b.a.l.l.s and hockey sticks for clubs played a game, not devoid of interest and excitement.

During a blizzard which descended on the evening of the 20th, Zip and Sweep disappeared and on the 21st, a search on the glacier having been in vain, Dovers and Hoadley made their way down to the floe. They found Zip well and hearty in spite of having had a drop of at least forty feet off the glacier. A further search for Sweep proved fruitless. We were forced to conclude that he was either killed by falling over the precipice or he had gone far away hunting for penguins.

The regular blizzard immured us on May 22, 23 and 24; the wind at times of terrific force, approaching one hundred miles per hour. It was impossible to secure meteorological observations or to feed the dogs until noon on the 24th. Moyes and I went out during a slight cessation and, with the aid of a rope from the trap-door, managed to find the dogs, and gave them some biscuits. The drift was then so thick that six feet was as far as one could see.

We did not forget Empire Day and duly "spliced the mainbrace." The most bigoted teetotaller could not call us an intemperate party. On each Sat.u.r.day night, one drink per man was served out, the popular toast being "Sweethearts and Wives." The only other convivial meetings of our small symposium were on the birthdays of each member, Midwinter's Day and King's Birthday.

On the 25th we were able to make an inventory of a whole series of damages effected outside. The dogs' shelter had entirely carried away; a short mast which had been erected some weeks previously as a holdfast for sledges was snapped off short and the sledges buried, and, worst of all, Kennedy's igloo had parted with its roof, the interior being filled with snow, underneath which the instruments were buried. The dogs were, however, all quite well and lively. It was fortunate for them that the temperature always rose during the blizzards. At this period, when on fine days it was usual to experience -25 degrees to-37 degrees F., the temperature rose in the snowstorms to 25 degrees or even 30 degrees F.

Monday the 27th was beautifully clear. The tunnel entrance was opened and some of the party brought in ice while others undid the rope lashings which had been placed over the hut. This was so compactly covered in snow that the lashings were not required and I wanted to make a rope ladder to enable us to get down to the sea-ice and also to be used by Watson and Hoadley, who were about to dig a shaft in the glacier to examine the structure of the ice.

Fine weather continued until June 2. During this time we were occupied in digging a road from the glacier down to the sea-ice in the forenoons and hunting for seals or skiing in the afternoons. Kennedy and Harrisson rebuilt the magnetic igloo. A seal-hole was eventually found near the foot of the glacier and this was enlarged to enable the seals to come up.

At the end of May, daylight lasted from 9 A.M. until 3 P.M., and the sunrise and sunset were a marvel of exquisite colour. The nightly displays of aurora australis were not very brilliant as the moon was nearing the full.

On the days of blizzards, there was usually sufficient work to be found to keep us all employed. Thus on June 2, Watson and I were making a ladder, Jones was contriving a harpoon for seals, Hoadley was opening cases and stowing stores in the veranda, Dovers cleaning tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph and writing up the meteorological log, Harrisson cooking and Kennedy sleeping after a night-watch.

Between June 4 and 22 there was a remarkably fine spell. It was not calm all the time, as drift flew for a few days, limiting the horizon to a few hundred yards. An igloo was built as a shelter for those sinking the geological shaft, and seal-hunting was a daily recreation. On June 9, Dovers and Watson found a Weddell seal two and a half miles to the west on the sea-ice. They killed the animal but did not cut it up as there were sores on the skin. Jones went over with them afterwards and p.r.o.nounced the sores to be wounds received from some other animal, so the meat was considered innocuous and fifty pounds were brought in, being very welcome after tinned foods. Jones took culture tubes with him and made smears for bacteria. The tubes were placed in an incubator and several kinds of organisms grew, very similar to those which infect wounds in ordinary climates.

The snowstorms had by this time built up huge drifts under the lee of the ice-cliffs, some of them more than fifty feet in height and reaching almost to the top of the ice-shelf. An exhilarating sport was to ski down these ramps. The majority of them were very steep and irregular and it was seldom that any of us escaped without a fall at one time or another. Several of the party were thrown from thirty to forty feet, and, frequently enough, over twenty feet, without being hurt. The only accident serious enough to disable any one happened to Kennedy on June 19, when he twisted his knee and was laid up for a week.

There were many fine displays of the aurora in June, the best being observed on the evening of the 18th. Curtains and streamers were showing from four o'clock in the afternoon. Shortly after midnight, Kennedy, who was taking magnetic observations, called me to see the most remarkable exhibition I have so far seen. There was a double curtain 30 degrees wide unfolded from the eastern horizon through the zenith, with waves shimmering along it so rapidly that they travelled the whole length of the curtain in two seconds. The colouring was brilliant and evanescent.

When the waves reached the end of the curtain they spread out to the north and rolled in a voluminous billow slowly back to the east.

Kennedy's instruments showed that a very great magnetic disturbance was in progress during the auroral displays, and particularly on this occasion.

Hoadley and Watson set up a line of bamboos, a quarter of a mile apart and three miles long, on the 20th, and from thence onwards took measurements for snowfall every fortnight.

On Midwinter's Day the temperature ranged from -38 degrees F. to -25 degrees F. and daylight lasted from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. We proclaimed a universal holiday throughout Queen Mary Land. Being Sat.u.r.day, there were a few necessary jobs to be done, but all were finished by 11 A.M. The morning was fine and several of us went down to the floe for skiing, but after twelve o'clock the sky became overcast and the light was dimmed.

A strong breeze brought along a trail of drift, and at 6 P.M. a heavy blizzard was in full career. Inside, the hut was decorated with flags and a savoury dinner was in the throes of preparation. To make the repast still more appetising, Harrisson, Hoadley and Dovers devised some very pretty and clever menus. Speeches, toasts and a gramophone concert made the evening pa.s.s quickly and enjoyably.

From this time dated our preparations for spring sledging, which I hoped would commence about August 15. Jones made some experiments with "glaxo," of which we had a generous supply. His aim was to make biscuits which would be suitable for sledging, and, after several failures, he succeeded in compressing with a steel die a firm biscuit of glaxo and b.u.t.ter mixed, three ounces of which was the equivalent in theoretical food value to four and a half ounces of plasmon biscuit; thereby affording a pleasant variety in the usual ration.

July came in quietly, though it was dull and cloudy, and we were able to get out on the first two days for work and exercise. On the 2nd a very fine effect was caused by the sun shining through myriads of fog-crystals which a light northerly breeze had brought down from the sea. The sun, which was barely clear of the horizon, was itself a deep red, on either side and above it was a red mock sun and a rainbow-tinted halo connected the three mock suns.

On the 5th and 6th the wind blew a terrific hurricane (judged to reach a velocity of one hundred miles per hour) and, had we not known that nothing short of an earthquake could move the hut, we should have been very uneasy.

All were now busy making food-bags, opening and breaking up pemmican and emergency rations, grinding biscuits, attending to personal gear and doing odd jobs many and various.

In addition to recreations like chess, cards and dominoes, a compet.i.tion was started for each member to write a poem and short article, humorous or otherwise, connected with the Expedition. These were all read by the authors after dinner one evening and caused considerable amus.e.m.e.nt.

One man even preferred to sing his poem. These literary efforts were incorporated in a small publication known as "The Glacier Tongue."

Watson and Hoadley put in a good deal of time digging their shaft in the glacier. As a roofed shelter had been built over the top, they were able to work in all but the very worst weather. While the rest of us were fitting sledges on the 17th and 18th, they succeeded in getting down to a level of twenty-one feet below the surface of the shelf-ice.

Sandow, the leader of the dogs, disappeared on the 18th. Zip, who had been missed for two days, returned, but Sandow never came back, being killed, doubtless, by a fall of snow from the cliffs. All along the edge of the ice-shelf were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of tons; and these often broke away, collapsing with a thunderous sound. On July 31, Harrisson and Watson had a narrow escape. After finishing their day's work, they climbed down to the floe by a huge cornice and sloping ramp.

A few seconds later, the cornice fell and an immense ma.s.s of hard snow crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for more than a hundred yards around.

July had been an inclement month with three really fine and eight tolerable days. In comparison with June's, which was -14.5 degrees F., the mean temperature of July was high at -1.5 degrees F. and the early half of August was little better.

Sunday August 11 was rather an eventful day. Dovers and I went out in the wind to attend to the dogs and clear the chimney and, upon our return, found the others just recovering from rather an exciting accident. Jones had been charging the acetylene generators and by some means one of them caught fire. For a while there was the danger of a general conflagration and explosion, as the gas-tank was floating in kerosene. Throwing water over everything would have made matters worse, so blankets were used to smother the flames. As this failed to extinguish them, the whole plant was pulled down and carried into the tunnel, where the fire was at last put out. The damage amounted to two blankets singed and dirtied, Jones's face scorched and hair singed, and Kennedy, one finger jammed. It was a fortunate escape from a calamity.

A large capsized berg had been noticed for some time, eleven miles to the north. On the 14th, Harrisson, Dovers, Hoadley and Watson took three days' provisions and equipment and went off to examine it. A brief account is extracted from Harrisson's diary:

"It was a particularly fine, mild morning; we made good progress, three dogs dragging the loaded sledge over the smooth floe without difficulty, requiring a.s.sistance only when crossing banks of soft snow. One and a half miles from 'The Steps,' we saw the footprints of a penguin.

"Following the cliffs of the shelf-ice for six and three quarter miles, we sighted a Weddell seal sleeping on a drift of snow. Killing the animal, cutting off the meat and burying it in the drift delayed us for about one hour. Continuing our journey under a fine bluff, over floe-ice much cracked by tide-pressure, we crossed a small bay cutting wedge-like into the glacier and camped on its far side.

"After our midday meal we walked to the berg three miles away. When seen on June 28, this berg was tilted to the north-east, but the opposite end, apparently in contact with the ice-cliffs, had lifted higher than the glacier-shelf itself. From a distance it could be seen that the sides, for half their height, were wave-worn and smooth. Three or four acres of environing floe were buckled, ploughed up and in places heaped twenty feet high, while several large fragments of the broken floe were poised aloft on the old 'water-line' of the berg.

"However, on this visit, we found that the berg had turned completely over towards the cliffs and was now floating on its side surrounded by large separate chunks; all locked fast in the floe. In what had been the bottom of the berg Hoadley and Watson made an interesting find of stones and pebbles--the first found in this dead land!

"Leaving them collecting, I climbed the pitted wave-worn ice, brittle and badly cracked on the higher part. The highest point was fifty feet above the level of the top of the shelf-ice. There was no sign of open water to the north, but a few seals were observed sleeping under the cliffs."

Next morning the weather thickened and the wind arose, so a start was made for the Base. All that day the party groped along in the comparative shelter of the cliff-face until forced to camp. It was not till the next afternoon in moderate drift that a pair of skis which had been left at the foot of 'The Steps' were located and the hut reached once again.

After lunch on August 11, while we were excavating some buried kerosene, Jones sighted a group of seven Emperor penguins two miles away over the western floe. Taking a sledge and camera we made after them. A mile off, they saw us and advanced with their usual stately bows. It seemed an awful shame to kill them, but we were sorely in need of fresh meat. The four we secured averaged seventy pounds in weight and were a heavy load up the steep rise to the glacier; but our reward came at dinner-time.

With several fine days to give us confidence, everything was made ready for the sledge journey on August 20. The party was to consist of six men and three dogs, the object of the journey being to lay out a food-depot to the east in view of the long summer journey we were to make in that direction. Hoadley and Kennedy were to remain at the Base, the former to finish the geological shaft and the latter for magnetic work. There remained also a good deal to do preparing stores for later sledge journeys.

The load was to be one thousand four hundred and forty pounds distributed over three sledges; two hundred pounds heavier than on the March Journey, but as the dogs pulled one sledge, the actual weight per man was less.

The rations were almost precisely the same as those used by Shackleton during his Expedition, and the daily allowance was exactly the same--thirty-four ounces per man per day. For his one ounce of oatmeal, the same weighs of ground biscuit was subst.i.tuted; the food value being the same. On the second depot journey and the main summer journeys, a three-ounce glaxo biscuit was used in place of four and a half ounces of plasmon biscuit. Instead of taking cheese and chocolate as the luncheon ration, I took chocolate alone, as on Shackleton's southern journey it was found more satisfactory than the cheese, though the food value was practically the same.

The sledging equipment and clothing were identical with that used by Shackleton. Jaeger fleece combination suits were included in the outfit but, though excellent garments for work at the Base, they were much too heavy for sledging. We therefore wore Jaeger underclothing and burberry wind clothing as overalls.

The weather was not propitious for a start until Thursday, August 22.

We turned out at 5.30 A.M., had breakfast, packed up and left the Hut at seven o'clock.

After two good days' work under a magnificently clear sky, with the temperature often as low as -34 degrees F., we sighted two small nunataks among a cl.u.s.ter of pressure-ridges, eight miles to the south.

It was the first land, in the sense of rocks, seen for more than seven months. We hoped to visit the outcrops--Gillies Nunataks--on our return.

The course next day was due east and parallel to the mainland, then ten miles distant. To the north was Ma.s.son Island, while at about the same distance and ahead was a smaller island, entirely ice-covered like the former--Henderson Island.

A blizzard of three days' duration kept us in camp between August 27 and 30. Jones, Moyes and I had a three-man sleeping-bag, and the temperature being high, 11 degrees to 15 degrees F., we were very warm, but thoroughly tired of lying down for so long. Harrisson, Dovers and Watson had single bags and therefore less room in the other tent.

The last day of August was beautifully bright: temperature -12 degrees to -15 degrees F. We pa.s.sed Henderson Island in the forenoon, and, hauling up a rise to the south of it, had a good view of the surroundings. On the right, the land ran back to form a large bay, seventeen miles wide. This was later named the Bay of Winds, as a "blow"

was always encountered while crossing it.

In the centre of the bay was a nunatak, which from its shape at once received the name of the Alligator. In front, apparently fifteen miles off, was another nunatak, the Hippo, and four definite outcrops--Delay Point and Avalanche Rocks--could be seen along the mainland. The sight of this bare rock was very pleasing, as we had begun to think we were going to find nothing but ice-sheathed land. Dovers took a round of angles to all the prominent points.

The Hippo was twenty-two miles away, so deceptive is distance in these lat.i.tudes; and in one and a half days, over very heavy sastrugi, we were in its vicinity. The sledges could not be brought very near the rock as it was surrounded by ma.s.sive ridges of pressure-ice.

We climbed to the top of the nunatak which was four hundred and twenty feet high, four hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. It was composed of gneissic granite and schists. Dovers took angles from an eminence, Watson collected geological specimens and Harrisson sketched until his fingers were frost-bitten. Moss and lichens were found and a dead snow petrel--a young one--showing that the birds must breed in the vicinity.