The Worst Journey in the World Part 51

_November 18. Early morning._ I am thankful to say that the plateau journey idea has been given up.

Once more we have come along in thick, snowy weather. If we had not men on ski to steer we could never keep much of a course, but Wright is steering us very straight, keeping a check on the course by watching the man behind, and so far we have been picking up all the cairns. This morning we pa.s.sed the pony walls made on November 10. And yet they were nearly level with the ground; so they are not much of a mark. Yank has just had a disagreement with Kusoi--for Kusoi objected to his trying to get at the meat on the sledge. The mules have been sinking in a long way, and are marching very slowly. Pyaree eats the tea-leaves after meals: Rani and Abdullah divide a rope between them at the halts; and they have eaten the best part of a trace since our last camp. These animals eat anything but their proper food, and this some of them will hardly touch.

It cleared a bit for our second march, and we have done our 13 miles, but it was very slow travelling. Now it is drifting as much as ever. Yank, that redoubtable puller, has just eaten himself loose for the third time since hoosh. This time I had to go down to the pony walls to get him.

We have had onions for the first time to-night in our hoosh--they are most excellent. Also we have been having some Nestle's condensed milk from One Ton Depot--which I do not want to see again, the depot I mean.

Peary must know what he is about, taking milk as a ration: the sweetness is a great thing, but it would be heavy: we have been having it with temperature down to -14, when it was quite manageable, but I don't know what it would be like in colder temperatures.

_November 19. Early morning._ We have done our 13 miles to-day and have got on to a much better surface. By what we and others have seen before, it seems that last winter must have generally been an exceptional one.

There have been many parties out here: we have never before seen this wind-swept surface, on which it is often too slippery to walk comfortably. I do not know what temperatures the Discovery had in April, but it was much colder last April than it was the year before. And then nothing had been experienced down here to compare with the winds last winter.

There was a high wind and a lot of drift yesterday during the day, and now it is blowing and drifting as usual. During the last nine days there has only been one, the day we found the tent, when it has not been drifting during all or part of the day. It is all right for travelling north, but we should be having very uncomfortable marches if we were marching the other way.

_November 20. Early morning._ To-day we have seemed to be walking in circles through s.p.a.ce. Wright, by dint of having a man behind to give him a fixed point to steer upon, has steered us quite straight, and we have picked up every cairn. The pony party camped for lunch by two cairns, but they never knew the two cairns were there until a piece of paper blew away and had to be fetched: and it was caught against one of the cairns.

They left a flag there to guide us, and though we saw and brought along the flag, we never saw the cairns. The temperature is -22.5, and it is now blowing a full blizzard. All this snow has. .h.i.therto been lying on the ground and making a very soft surface, for though the wind has always been blowing it has never been very strong. This snow and wind, which have now persisted for nine out of the last ten days, make most dispiriting marches; for there is nothing to see, and finding tracks or steering is a constant strain. We are certainly lucky to have been able to march as we have.

_Note on Mules._--The most ardent admirer of mules could not say that they were a success. The question is whether they might be made so. There was really only one thing against them but that is a very important one--they would not eat on the Barrier. From the time they went away to the day they returned (those that did return, poor things) they starved themselves, and yet they pulled biggish loads for 30 days.

If they would have eaten they would have been a huge success. They travelled faster than the ponies and, with one exception, kept together better than the ponies. If both were eating their ration it is questionable whether a good mule or a good pony is to be preferred. Our mules were of the best, and they were beautifully trained and equipped by the Indian Government: yet on November 13, a fortnight from the start, Wright records, "mules are a poor subst.i.tute for ponies. Not many will see Hut Point again, I think. Doubt if any would have got much farther than this if surfaces had been as bad this year as last."[292]

Though they would not eat oats, compressed fodder and oil-cake, they were quite willing to eat all kinds of other things. If we could have arrived at the mule equivalent to a vegetarian diet they might have pulled to the Beardmore without stopping. The nearest to this diet at which we could arrive was saennegra.s.s, tea-leaves, tobacco ash and rope--all of which were eaten with gusto. But supplies were very limited. They ate dog-biscuit as long as they thought we were not looking--but as soon as they realized they were meant to eat it they went on hunger-strike again.

But during halts at cairns Rani and Pyaree would stand solemnly chewing the same piece of rope from different ends. Abdullah always led the line, and followed Wright's ski tracks faithfully, so that if another man was ahead and Wright turned aside Abdullah always turned too. It was quite a manoeuvre for Wright to read the sledge-meter at the back of the sledge. As for Begum: "Got Begum out of a soft patch by rolling her over."[293]

On the whole the mules failed to adapt themselves to this life, and as such must at present be considered to be a failure for Antarctic work.

Certainly those of our ponies which had the best chance to adapt themselves went farthest, such as n.o.bby and Jimmy Pigg, both of whom had experience of Barrier sledging before they started on the Polar Journey.

_November 21. Early morning._ It has cleared at last, the disturbance rolling away to the east during our first march. The surface was very bad and the mules were not going well. At this time last year many of the ponies were still quite difficult to make stand just before starting. But these mules start off now most dolefully. I am afraid they will not all get back to Hut Point.

Two and a half miles after lunch, i.e. just over forty miles from the depot, we turned out to the eastward and found the gear left by the Second Return Party, when Evans was so ill. The theodolite, which belonged to Evans, is I believe there, but though we dug all round we were unable to find it. The ski were all upright, drifted to within six inches of the shoes. Most of the gear was clothing, which we have left, with the skis, in the tank. We brought on a roll of Birdie's photographs, taken on the plateau, and three geological specimens: deep-seated rocks I think. This was all of importance that there was there.

The N Ration, which we have now come to, consists of about 40 oz. of food. At present, doing the work we are doing, and with these high temperatures, -23 when we started, for instance, and -17 now, the men do not want it. For what it was intended for, hard man-hauling, it would probably be an excellent ration, and very satisfying.

_November 22. Early morning._ We could not have had a more perfect night to march. Yesterday at 4 P.M., holding the thermometer in the sun, the spirit rose to 30: it was almost too warm in the tent. The cairns show very plainly--in such weather navigation of this kind would be dead easy.

But they are already being eaten away and toppling. The pony walls are drifted level--huge drifts, quite hard, running up to windward and down to lee.

The dogs are getting more hungry, and want to get at the mules, which makes them go better. They went very well to-day, but too fast once, for we had a general mix-up: Bieligla.s.s under the sledge and the rest all tangled up and ready for a fight at the first chance. How one of the front pair of dogs got under the sledge is a mystery.

Among the Polar Party's gear is a letter to the King of Norway. It was left by the Norwegians for Scott to take back. It is wrapped in a piece of thin windcloth with one dark check line in it. Coa.r.s.er and rougher and, I should say, heavier than our Mandelbergs.

_November 23. Early morning._ We were to make Dimitri Depot this morning, but we came on in a fog, and the mule party camped after running down the distance. Wright came back and said, "If we have pa.s.sed it, it's over there"--and as he pointed the depot showed--not more than 200 yards away.

So that is all right. We, the dog party, go on in advance to-morrow, so that no time may be lost, and if the ice is still good, Atkinson will get over to Cape Evans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'ATCH']

[Ill.u.s.tration: t.i.tUS OATES]

_November 24. Early morning._ A glut of foot-walloping in soft snow and breaking crusts. We have done between 17 and 18 miles to-day. We saw no creva.s.ses, and have marked the course well, building up the cairns and leaving two flags--so the mule party should be all right. The dogs were going well behind the ponies, but directly we went ahead they seemed to lose heart. I think they are tired of the Barrier: a cairn now awakens little interest: they know it is only a mark and it does not mean a camp: they are all well fed, and fairly fat and in good condition. With a large number of dogs I suppose one team can go ahead when it is going well--changing places with another--each keeping the others going. But I do not think that these dogs now will do much more; but they have already done as much as any dogs of which we have any record.

The land is clearing gradually. I have never seen such contrasts of black rock and white snow, and White Island was capped with great ranges of black c.u.mulus, over which rose the pure white peaks of the Royal Society Range in a blue sky. The Barrier itself was quite a deep grey, making a beautiful picture. And now Observation Hill and Castle Rock are in front.

I don't suppose I shall ever see this view again: but it is a.s.sociated with many memories of returning to home and plenty after some long and hard journeys: in some ways I feel sorry--but I have seen it often enough.

_November 25. Early morning._ We came in 24 miles with our loads, to find the best possible news--Campbell's Party, all well, are at Cape Evans.

They arrived here on November 6, starting from Evans Coves on September 30. What a relief it is, and how different things seem now! It is the first real bit of good news since February last--it seems an age. We mean to get over the sea-ice, if possible, as soon as we can, and then we shall hear their story.

_November 26. Early morning._ Starting from Hut Point about 6.45 P.M.

last evening, we came through by about 9 P.M., and sat up talking and hearing all the splendid news till past 2 A.M. this morning.

All the Northern Party look very fat and fit, and they are most cheerful about the time they have had, and make light of all the anxious days they must have spent and their hard times.

I cannot write all their story. When the ship was battling with the pack to try and get in to them they had open water in Terra Nova Bay to the horizon, as seen from 200 feet high. They prepared for the winter, digging their hut into a big snowdrift a mile from where they were landed. They thought that the ship had been wrecked--or that every one had been taken off from here, and that then the ship had been blown north by a succession of furious gales which they had and could not get back.

They never considered seriously the possibility of sledging down the coast before the winter. They got settled in and were very warm--so warm that in August they did away with one door, of which they had three, of biscuit boxes and sacking.

Their stove was the bottom of an oil tin, and they cooked by dripping blubber on to seal bones, which became soaked with the blubber, and Campbell tells me they cooked almost as quickly as a primus. Of course they were filthy. Their main difficulty was dysentery and ptomaine poisoning.

Their stories of the winter are most amusing--of "Placing the Plug, or Sports in the Antarctic"; of lectures; of how dirty they were; of their books, of which they had four, including David Copperfield. They had a spare tent, which was lucky, for the bamboos of one of theirs were blown in during a big wind, and the men inside it crept along the piedmont on hands and knees to the igloo and slept two in a bag. How the seal seemed as if they would give out, and they were on half rations and very hungry: and they were thinking they would have to come down in the winter, when they got two seals: of the fish they got from the stomach of a seal--"the best feed they had"--the blubber they have eaten.

But they were buried deep in the snow and quite warm. Big winds all the time from the W.S.W., cold winds off the plateau--in the igloo they could hear almost nothing outside--how they just had a biscuit a day at times, sugar on Sundays, etc.

And so all is well in this direction, and we have done right in going south, and we have at least succeeded in getting all records. I suppose any news is better than no news.

_Evening._ The Pole Party photos of themselves at the Pole and at the Norwegian cairn (a Norwegian tent, post and two flags) are very good indeed--one film is unused, one used on these two subjects: taken with Birdie's camera. All the party look fit and well, and their clothes are not iced up. It was calm at the time: the surface looks rather soft.

Atkinson and Campbell have gone to Hut Point with one dog-team, and we are all to forgather here. The ice still seems good from here to Hut Point: all else open water as far as can be seen.

A steady southerly wind has been blowing here for three days now. The mules should get into Hut Point to-day.

It is the happiest day for nearly a year--almost the only happy one.

FOOTNOTES:

[291] My own diary.

[292] Wright's diary.

[293] Wright's diary.

CHAPTER XVII

THE POLAR JOURNEY

DON JUAN. This creature Man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero. He may be abject as a citizen; but he is dangerous as a fanatic. He can only be enslaved while he is spiritually weak enough to listen to reason. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can show a man a piece of what he now calls G.o.d's work to do, and what he will later on call by many new names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally....

DON JUAN. Every idea for which Man will die will be a Catholic idea. When the Spaniard learns at last that he is no better than the Saracen, and his prophet no better than Mahomet, he will arise, more Catholic than ever, and die on a barricade across the filthy slum he starves in, for universal liberty and equality.

THE STATUE. Bosh!