The Home Of The Blizzard Part 50

To the south, the glacier shelf appeared to be very little broken, but to the north it was terribly torn and twisted. At each end of the nunatak there was a very fine bergschrund.** Twenty miles to the east there appeared to be an uncovered rocky islet; the mainland turning to the southward twelve miles away. During the night the minimum thermometer registered -47 degrees F.

** The term not used in the usual sense. Referring to a wide, imposing creva.s.se caused by the division of the ice as it presses past the nunatak.--ED.

An attempt to get away next morning was frustrated by a strong gale. We were two hundred yards from the shelter of the Hippo and were forced to turn back, since it was difficult to keep one's feet, while the sledges were blown sideways over the neve surface.

I resolved to leave the depot in this place and return to the Base, for our sleeping-bags were getting very wet and none of the party were having sufficient sleep. We were eighty-four miles from the hut; I had hoped to do one hundred miles, but we could make up for that by starting the summer journey a few days earlier. One sledge was left here as well as six weeks' allowance of food for three men, except tea, of which there was sufficient for fifty days, seventy days oil and seventy-eight days' biscuit. The sledge was placed on end in a hole three feet deep and a mound built up around it, six feet high; a bamboo and flag being lashed to the top.

On September 4 we were homeward bound, heading first to the mainland leaving Delay Point on our left, to examine some of the outcrops of rock. Reaching the coast about 3 P.M., camp was shortly afterwards pitched in a most beautiful spot. A wall of solid rock rose sheer for over four hundred feet and was crowned by an ice-cap half the thickness.

Grand ice-falls surged down on either side.

The tents were erected in what appeared to be a sheltered hollow, a quarter of a mile from Avalanche Rocks. One tent was up and we were setting the other in position when the wind suddenly veered right round to the east and flattened out both tents. It was almost as humorous as annoying. They were soon raised up once more, facing the other way.

While preparing for bed, a tremendous avalanche came down. The noise was awful and seemed so close that we all turned to the door and started out. The fastening of the entrance was knotted, the people from the other tent were yelling to us to come out, so we dragged up the bottom of the tent and dived beneath it.

The cliff was entirely hidden by a cloud of snow, and, though the crashing had now almost ceased, we stood ready to run, Dovers thoughtfully seizing a food-bag. However, none of the blocks had come within a hundred yards of us, and as it was now blowing hard, all hands elected to remain where they were.

Several more avalanches, which had broken away near the edge of the mainland, disturbed our sleep through the night, but they were not quite so alarming as the first one. A strong breeze was blowing at daybreak; still the weather was not too bad for travelling, and so I called the party. Moyes and I lashed up our bags, pa.s.sed them out and strapped them on the sledge; Jones, in the meantime, starting the cooker. Suddenly a terrific squall struck the front of our tent, the poles burst through the apex, and the material split from top to bottom.

Moyes and I were both knocked down. When we found our feet again, we went to the aid of the other men, whose tent had survived the gust. The wind rushed by more madly than ever, and the only thing to do was to pull away the poles and allow the tent to collapse.

Looking around for a lee where it could be raised, we found the only available shelter to be a creva.s.se three hundred yards to windward, but the wind was now so strong that it was impossible to convey the gear even to such a short distance. All were frequently upset and blown along the surface twenty or thirty yards, and, even with an ice-axe, one could not always hold his own. The only resort was to dig a shelter.

Setting to work, we excavated a hole three feet deep, twelve feet long and six feet wide; the snow being so compact that the job occupied three hours. The sledges and tent-poles were placed across the hole, the good tent being laid on top and weighted down with snow and blocks of ice.

All this sounds very easy, but it was a slow and difficult task. Many of the gusts must have exceeded one hundred miles per hour, since one of them lifted Harrisson who was standing beside me, clean over my head and threw him nearly twenty feet. Everything movable was stowed in the hole, and at noon we had a meal and retired into sleeping-bags. At three o'clock a weighty avalanche descended, its fearful crash resounding above the roar of the wind. I have never found anything which gave me a more uncomfortable feeling than those avalanches.

The gale continued on September 6, and we still remained packed in the trench. If the latter had been deeper and it had been possible to sit upright, we should have been quite comfortable. To make matters worse, several more avalanches came down, and all of them sounded horribly close.

We were confined in our burrow for five days, the wind continuing to blow with merciless force. Through being closed up so much, the temperature of the hole rose above freezing-point, consequently our sleeping-bags and clothes became very wet.

On Sunday September 8, Moyes went out to feed the dogs and to bring in some biscuit. He found a strong gusty wind with falling snow, and drift so thick that he could not see five yards. We had a cold lunch with nothing to drink, so that the primus should not raise the temperature.

In the evening we sang hymns and between us managed to remember the words of at least a dozen.

The long confinement was over on the 10th; the sky was blue and the sun brilliant, though the wind still pulsated with racking gusts. As soon as we were on the ice, away from the land, two men had to hold on to the rear of each sledge, and even then capsizes often occurred. The sledge would turn and slide broadside-on to leeward, tearing the runners badly on the rough ice. Still, by 9.30 A.M. the surface changed to snow and the travelling improved. That night we camped with twenty miles one hundred yards on the meter.

There was a cold blizzard on the 11th with a temperature of -30 degrees F. Confined in the tents, we found our sleeping-bags still sodden and uncomfortable.

With a strong beam wind and in moderate drift big marches were made for two days, during which the compa.s.s and sastrugi determined our course.

My diary of September 14 runs as follows:

"On the march at 7 A.M.; by noon we had done twelve miles one thousand five hundred yards. Lunch was hurried, as we were all anxious to get to the hut to-night, especially we in the three-man bag, as it got so wet while we were living underground that we have had very little sleep and plenty of shivering for the last four nights. Last night I had no sleep at all. By some means, in the afternoon, we got on the wrong course.

Either the compa.s.s was affected or a mistake had been made in some of the bearings, as instead of reaching home by 5 P.M. we were travelling till 8 P.M. and have done thirty-two miles one thousand one hundred yards. Light loads, good surface and a fair wind account for the good travelling, the sail doing almost all the work on the man-hauled sledge.

"The last two hours we were in the dark, except for a young moon, amongst a lot of creva.s.ses and pressure-ridges which none of us could recognize. At one time, we found ourselves on a slope within a dozen yards of the edge of the glacier; this decided me to camp. Awfully disappointing; antic.i.p.ating another wretched night. Temperature-35 degrees F."

Next day we reached home. The last camp had been four and a half miles north of the hut. I found that we had gone wrong through using 149 degrees as the bearing of Ma.s.son Island from the Base, when it should have been 139 degrees. I believe it was my own mistake, as I gave the bearing to Dovers and he is very careful.

Before having a meal, we were all weighed and found the average loss to be eight pounds. In the evening, Moyes and I weighed ourselves again; he had gained seven pounds and I five and three-quarter pounds.

Comparing notes with Hoadley and Kennedy, I found that the weather at the Base had been similar to that experienced on the sledging journey.

It was now arranged that Jones was to take charge of the main western journey in the summer. While looking for a landing-place in the 'Aurora', we had noted to the west an expanse of old, fast floe, extending for at least fifty miles. The idea was for Jones and party to march along this floe and lay a depot on the land as far west as was possible in four weeks. The party included Dovers, Harrisson, Hoadley and Moyes. They were to be a.s.sisted by the dogs.

It was my intention to take Kennedy and Watson up to the depot we had left on the hills in March, bringing back the minimum thermometer and probably some of the food. Watson was slightly lame at the time, as he had bruised his foot on the last trip.

Until Jones made a start on September 26, there were ten days of almost continuous wind and drift. The equinox may have accounted for this prolonged period of atrocious weather. No time, however, was wasted indoors. Weighing and bagging food, repairing tents, poles, cookers and other gear damaged on the last journey and sewing and mending clothes gave every man plenty of employment.

At 6 A.M. on the 26th, Jones reported that there was only a little low drift and that the wind was dying away. All hands were therefore called and breakfast served.

Watson, Kennedy and I a.s.sisted the others down to the sea-ice by a long sloping snow-drift and saw them off to a good start in a south-westerly direction. We found that the heavy sledge used for carrying ice had been blown more then five hundred yards to the edge of the glacier, capsized among the rough pressure-slabs and broken. Two heavy boxes which were on the sledge had disappeared altogether.

The rest of the day was devoted to clearing stores out of the tunnels.

It was evident to us that with the advent of warmer weather, the roof of the caves or grottoes (by the way, the hut received the name of "The Grottoes") would sink, and so it was advisable to repack the cases outside rather than dig them out of the deep snow. By 6 P.M. nearly two hundred boxes were pa.s.sed up through the trap-door and the caverns were all empty.

After two days of blizzard, Watson, Kennedy and I broke trail with loads of one hundred and seventy pounds per man. Right from the start the surface was so soft that pulling became very severe. On the first day, September 29, we managed to travel more than nine miles, but during the next six days the snow became deeper and more impa.s.sable, and only nineteen miles were covered. Creva.s.ses were mostly invisible, and on the slope upwards to the ice-cap more troublesome than usual. The weather kept up its invariable wind and drift. Finally, after making laborious headway to two thousand feet, Kennedy strained his Achilles tendon and I decided to return to "The Grottoes."

At 2 P.M. on October 8, the mast was sighted and we climbed down into the Hut, finding it very cold, empty and dark. The sun had shone powerfully that day and Kennedy and Watson had a touch of snow-blindness.

Two weeks went by and there was no sign of the western depot party. In fact, out of sixteen days, there were thirteen of thick drift and high wind, so that our sympathies went out to the men in tents with soaking bags, waiting patiently for a rift in the driving wall of snow. On October 23 they had been away for four weeks; provisions for that time having been taken. I had no doubt that they would be on reduced rations, and, if the worst came, they could eat the dogs.

During a lull on October 24, I went to the masthead with the field-gla.s.ses but saw nothing of the party. On that day we weighed out provisions and made ready to go in search of them. It was my intention to go on the outward track for a week. I wrote instructions to Jones to hoist a large flag on the mast, and to burn flares each night at 10 P.M.

if he should return while I was away.

There was a fresh gale with blinding drift early on the following morning; so we postponed the start. At 4 P.M. the wind subsided to a strong breeze and I again went up the mast to sweep the horizon.

Westward from an icy cape to the south a gale was still blowing and a heavy cloud of drift, fifty to sixty feet high, obscured everything.

An hour later Watson saw three Adelie penguins approaching across the floe and we went down to meet them, bringing them in for the larder.

Four Antarctic petrels flew above our heads: a sign of returning summer which was very cheering.

The previous night had promised a fine day and we were not disappointed on October 26. A sledge was packed with fourteen days' provisions for eight men and we started away on a search expedition at 10 A.M.

After doing a little over nine miles we camped at 5.30 P.M. Before retiring to bag, I had a last look round and was delighted to see Jones and his party about a mile to the south. It was now getting dark and we were within two hundred yards of them before being seen, and, as they were to windward, they could not hear our shouts. It was splendid to find them all looking well. They were anxious to get back to "The Grottoes," considering there was only one serviceable tent between them.

Kennedy and I offered to change with any of them but, being too eager for warm blankets and a good bed, they trudged on, arriving at the Base at midnight.

Briefly told, their story was that they were stopped in their westerly march, when forty-five miles had been covered, by a badly broken glacier--Helen Glacier--on the far side of which there was open sea.

There was only one thing to do and that was to set out for the mainland by a course so circuitous that they were brought a long way eastward, back towards "The Grottoes." They had very rough travelling, bad weather, and were beset with many difficulties in mounting on to the land-ice, where the depot had to be placed. Their distance from the Base at this point was only twenty-eight miles and the alt.i.tude was one thousand feet above sea-level. On the ice-cap they were delayed by a blizzard and for seventeen days--an unexampled time--they were unable to move from camp. One tent collapsed and the occupants, Jones, Dovers and Hoadley, had to dig a hole in the snow and lower the tent into it.

These are a few s.n.a.t.c.hes from Jones's diary:

"The next sixteen days (following Wednesday, October 9) were spent at this camp.... Harrisson and Moyes occupied one tent and Dovers, Hoadley and myself the other.

"On Sat.u.r.day, the third day of the blizzard, the wind which had been blowing steadily from the east-south-east veered almost to east and the tents commenced to flog terrifically. This change must have occurred early in the night, for we awoke at 5 A.M. to find clouds of snow blowing under the skirt on one side: the heavy pile on the flounce having been cut away by the wind. As it would have been impossible to do anything outside, we pulled the tent poles together and allowed the tent to collapse. The rest of the day was spent in confined quarters, eating dry rations and melting snow in our mugs by the warmth of our bodies....

Although Harrisson and Moyes were no more than twenty feet from us, the noise of the gale and the flogging of our tents rendered communication impossible.

"The terrible flapping at last caused one of the seams of our tent to tear; we sewed it as well as we were able and hoped that it would hold till daylight.

"On Monday morning, the same seam again parted and we decided to let the tent down again, spending the day in a half-reclining position....