Shackleton's Heroes (8 page)
Read Shackleton's Heroes Online
Authors: Wilson McOrist
By this day, 30 January, only a few days since they had started out,
Mackintosh had ailments to which Spencer-Smith attended. He mentions Borofax, a weak acidic hydrate of boric oxide with mild antiseptic. They see a âmotor car' which presumably was one of the three motor sledges that Scott took on his
Terra Nova
Expedition. Mention is also made of one of their dogs, Towser, who twelve months later would be one of the four dogs crucial in helping them return safely from Mount Hope.
Spencer-Smith:
It was cruelly hard work. Wild went in front. Mac and I harnessed up, but of course could not have our ski on as we both had to be pulling.
The heartbreaking part is the preliminary âhoicking'. Mac and I swing the sledge to get a smooth starting place and to break the frozen runners: then I heave back the team with one hand (âTeam'), keeping up the swinging with the other: then âGetty-up' and a mighty heave from both of us to get a slight move on (it usually takes three repetitions of the above) and then we get a strain on our trace â starting breathless, of course â and plug on through the yielding snow, until our combined energies, dogs and men's give out.
It is the most quaint sight in the world to see a stout seal lying luxuriously on his side, and idly scratching with the upper most flipper.
Wild killed a young seal with the ice-axe, and I helped him skin him, our weapons being (1) a shoemaker's knife belonging to Wild (2) a table knife. It was a grisly and greasy job!
Temp 31° âtonight' â a very sudden change: this morning all the metal work was sticky with the cold. I can see that cooking will be a delicate operation when we touch the minus temperatures.
Festering sores on Mac's right hand. Bathed place & sterilised instruments in Hyd. Pot. Iod. Lanced places & freed pus. Applied Boris wool and Borofax and bandaged. Gave tonic.
33
Wild:
Smithy & I killed & skinned a seal. We gave the dogs a feed & depoted the remainder.
I fell down a small crevasse with one leg only. It was only about a foot wide but went down a long way.
Came across one of Scott's depots & found dog biscuits, sack of oats, a couple of weeks provisions, seal meat & blubber & last of all a motor car.
34
Mackintosh:
Our throats are hoarse as soon as one dog appears to slacken his name is yelled out, they are doing their best poor brutes, Towser a great fat hulking animal is a fool and a great nuisance always getting tied up in his harness, with the result we had to stop the sledge.
35
Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild finally reached the Great Ice Barrier with Wild noting they had âto climb a steep hill to get onto it'.
36
Ahead they could see nothing but a featureless landscape, a gigantic land of snow stretching hundreds of miles to the south where, at the horizon, the snowy wasteland met the sky. At this point, at the start of the Barrier, there were no mountains in the background and as far as they could see there was nothing but a straight or smooth level plain sweeping away to the south.
Spencer-Smith was the only one of the Mount Hope Party to comment on seeing the Barrier. He was so impressed he described the scene as âcovered with diamonds', and he was taken in by the solitude, the absolute silence. This comment was unusual in that he gives us a (brief) description of the landscape, but he, and others of the Mount Hope Party, usually focussed diary notes on the events of the day, hardships, the distances travelled, food and the surface they were travelling over.
On the Barrier the surface became harder so they attempted to haul the total load instead of relaying.
Mackintosh:
Of all the back-breaking jobs, ye that have not done such a thing, this is absolute perfection. The great trouble is to get the sledge started. The method is: with one hand we catch hold of the line to which the dogs are attached; this is drawn in, then
with the other a wiggle is given in the bow of the sledge, shouting âgetty up' to the dogs at the same time.
Sometimes they start â more often they don't. So again and again this is repeated! Should a move be made we jump aside in case our sledge harness gets entangled and then we pull for all we are worth. This is alright if it only happened once in a way but after 30 shots in an hour one begins to weary!
We managed a direct mile. This is even better than relaying.
37
Personally I feel just done up. Smith I am sure who was taking turns with me must have felt the same. When one thinks of it we have to shove 1100 lbs and after doing this about a dozen times you begin to wish the sledge in Kingdom Come.
Sledging I have come to the conclusion is no joke. But such hard, hard work. But we are getting along. Each day one day less.
In the tent Wild is repairing our broken ski sticks which have come to grief on the poor dogs! That made Smith say to me âI do feel sorry but we have to get on and as persuasion has no effect this is the last resort'.
All kinds of subjects are discussed from meals we'd like to be eating to quandaries as to what's happening at the front, religion, seeing we have a parson, politics, in fact there's precious little that is not turned over in our conversation by one or other of us.
38
Spencer-Smith wrote of the Barrier:
A vast wall surrounding an immense snow plain bediamonded by the sun. All the old questionings seem to come up for answer in this quiet place: but one is able to think more quietly than in civilisation.
39
Had a long talk with Wild after supper tonight. He seems to have been everywhere during his service in the Navy. He talked mainly of Jerusalem & Egypt tonight â very interesting.
40
The third sledging team, led by Cope and including Hayward and Richards, started their sledging from the ship to Hut Point three days after the
others, on 31 January 1915. This team started with a motor sledge but it broke down near Hut Point and was not used again. The six men did not use dogs even though Hayward had experience with sledging with dogs in Canada. Their task over the two months of summer 1915 was to take stores to Hut Point and to lay three depots on the Barrier quite close to Hut Point. After the motor sledge broke down the team worked in two three-man parties; Hayward, Richards and Ninnis pulling one sledge and sharing a tent, Cope, Stevens and Hooke with a second sledge and tent.
Their sledging efforts in this first season were not particularly significant or admirable, but they did put down three depots, named Cope No. 1, 2 and 3 depots, which were all located within 40 miles of Hut Point. These three Cope depots would all be needed by the Mount Hope Party when they returned from Mount Hope in 1916.
Richards's initial diary entry, at the end of their first day of man-hauling, was one of only a dozen diary notes he made for all of 1915. By contrast, Hayward was writing a prolific diary, for his fiancée, Ethel Bridson, and it started as a daily record. He acknowledges the work makes him both hungry and tired but his description of having to relay was pragmatic. He tells his Ethel all the details of his sledging and how often she was on his mind. He mentions the
Ionic
, which was the ship that took Hayward and others from England to Australia.
Richards: âHauled 1100 lb with 4 men to Hut Point ⦠snow soft â heavy going (on sea-ice) â no sleep for 24 hours ⦠Last pace a crawl ⦠Turned into bunk 9 a.m. â awakened 8 p.m.'
41
Hayward:
I am going to write a daily account of my doings to you as I promised you. I must tell you that I think of you all the time, on the march, in my sleeping bag, & on all conceivable occasions & find the process a great help & comfort.
Decided to stow everything on 2 sledges & haul by relaying, that is haul 1 sledge 1 mile & return for the 2nd & so on, we got under way, & by 6 o/c AM Monday morning had advanced 4 miles in this way, this of course means that we had traversed a total distance of 12 miles.
On the way the Mirage effects were wonderful the Great Ice Barrier seeming close
at hand, at times I ought to mention that we have arranged to sleep during the day & get the advantage of the warmer atmosphere & travel during the night when it is colder & therefore more conducive to work.
It is now 5 o/c pm (Mon) & we shall get away again about 6. I am looking forward to the hoosh this morning but am now just going to have another 40 winks, while I have the opportunity. This work makes me both hungry & tired. It is hard to say which most.
Of course I am in my bag writing this & you would be surprised how comfy & warm it is. (10 minutes later) The 40 winks is not a success there is nothing doing, no sleep left in my bag I find. I have been thinking of you & shall just have a little tête à ⦠on the strength of it.
Right away down here ducky life develops on much different lines to those which prevail at home it is a hard life, to say nothing else & one continual struggle with conditions & the elements & in the ordinary way there is very little room for sentiment, as far as I am concerned however I think of you, more than anything else & am quite content, much more so than was the case when slacking about coming over on the
Ionic
& during the 7 weeks I spent in Sydney as here I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am actually engaged in the thing I am so anxious to complete satisfactorily.
I wonder if you understand what all this means to me, coming down here away from you & everything I live for with only my hopes & future plans as an incentive, of course I find it easier, when as you know my hopes & future plans are centred in you & you only, this of course would make anything possible as far as I am concerned.
Well the hoosh is underway & when disposed of it will be a case of stow sledges, âup & at it', so, so long.
Yesterday we tried skiing after the first 2 miles & found it a great advantage, it is quite good fun, 6 men hauling a sledge on skis all in time.
42
Within a week of arrival at McMurdo Sound Joyce's team and Mackintosh's team had reached the Barrier. They were to then push on south, to place a depot at Minna Bluff at latitude 79°S, and another 70 miles further on, at 80°S. Hayward and Richards had started sledging supplies out, closer to Hut Point.
1.
Richards,
The Ross Sea Shore Party
2.
Joyce,
The South Polar Trail
3.
Mackintosh diary, 12 January 1915
4.
Joyce diary transcripts, 16 January 1915
5.
Mackintosh diary, 16 January 1915
6.
Shackleton letter to Mackintosh, 18 September 1914
7.
Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, unknown date
8.
Joyce field diary, 24 January 1915
9.
F. Debenham,
In the Antarctic: Stories of Scott's Last Expedition
(London: John Murray, 1952)
10.
Mackintosh diary, 24 January 1915
11.
Wild diary, 25 January 1915
12.
Mackintosh,
Shackleton's Lieutenant
13.
Mackintosh diary, 25 January 1915
14.
Spencer-Smith diary, 25 January 1915
15.
Wild diary, 27 January 1915
16.
Ibid., 9 October 1915
17.
Joyce,
The South Polar Trail
18.
Richards,
The Ross Sea Shore Party
19.
Spencer-Smith diary, 27 January 1915
20.
Richards,
The Ross Sea Shore Party
21.
Joyce diary transcripts, 30 January 1915
22.
Joyce,
The South Polar Trail
23.
Caesar, A.,
The White
(Sydney: Picador, 1999)
24.
Joyce field diary, 27 January 1915
25.
Ibid., 30 January 1915
26.
Wild diary, 28 January 1915
27.
Ibid., 30 January 1915
28.
Spencer-Smith diary, 28 January 1915
29.
Ibid., 29 January 1915
30.
Mackintosh diary, 28 January 1915
31.
Joyce field diary, 9 February 1915
32.
R. E. Priestley,
Antarctic Adventure
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1914)
33.
Spencer-Smith diary, 30 January 1915
34.
Wild diary, 30 January 1915
35.
Mackintosh diary, 30 January 1915
36.
Wild diary, 31 January 1915
37.
Mackintosh diary, 1 February 1915
38.
Ibid., 2 February 1915
39.
Spencer-Smith diary, 31 January 1915
40.
Ibid., 7 February 1915
41.
Richards diary, 23 January 1915
42.
Hayward diary, 31 January 1915
O
UT ON THE
Barrier, Mackintosh's and Joyce's team travelled near to each other, with Joyce travelling by daytime hours and Mackintosh travelling at night. They found the surface much better than the sea-ice surface between Hut Point and the Barrier and Mackintosh even challenged Joyce's team to a race to Minna Bluff.
At times they travelled over a surface they called âthe Barrier Hush'. This occurred when a surface crust lay over softer snow and the weight of the sledging party would break the crust and the air from underneath it was expelled in a long âhush-sh'. The noise began sharply and then slowly and eerily died away in the distance.
1
Another type of surface they commented on was sastrugi, which, in his book
The Ross Sea Shore Party
, Richards described this way: âLarge hard parallel furrows running
south-east
and north-west, called sastrugi, are sculptured by the blizzards which
blow with great regularity in these fixed directions.'
2
To Spencer-Smith, sastrugi looked like a frozen sea.
There was no undressing at night. They turned in fully clothed. Their wet socks were taken off and sometimes hung up so they would lose some moisture, but in the morning they would be stiff as a board. To put them on then required beating and bending and tugging, all of which took time. If they put their wet socks in their sleeping bags they would stay wet and soft but they found them a horror to put on that way in the morning.
Their boots were wet and would freeze overnight so they had to be shaped carefully so they could get the tips of their toes inside the opening. First of all they would roll up their sleeping bags and sit on these while wrestling with their boots â pushing and pulling until their foot was completely inside.
3
Mackintosh: âSmith wrote facetious messages in the snow for Joyce's party to read: BUCK UP. SHIP WILL CATCH YOU UP YOU CRIPPLES. Wild added by way of encouragement: PUB AHEAD.'
4
Sledging with the dogs was now quite enjoyable at times for Spencer-Smith and he compared the yelling to being at a football game at Merchiston. Wild was looking forward to the day when they made 12 miles.
Spencer-Smith:
Joyce and co. came by at 4.15pm. The barking of our team woke us; and we found that our Jock had joined them and that they had their full load and were proceeding merrily. We passed Joyce a little before lunchtime, amidst a tremendous howling of the combined teams. Our lot made a great spurt as we drew near and were much disappointed when we turned aside to go on.
There was quite a good crust on top of the snow, and the dogs went well: also Mac and I were able to get into our harness and do useful work on the ski. The surface was undulating and we soon found it necessary to haul like demons up the
slopes, with plenty of âgetty-up' at the critical moment: the snow was inclined to be soft, on the slope.
Three or four times we were stuck in these drifts and had to dig to get the sledge on an even keel for starting. We had 3 good sprints â 2 mile, 1 mile, 1 mile and are fairly satisfied with the work done. Given such a surface, we ought soon to be doing our daily 12 miles, or perhaps more.
Apart from the âhoicking' and the sprint to catch up after it, this pulling on a good surface is great fun, though the continual shouting rather takes one's breath â compare a very long football match at Merchiston.
5
Wild:
Joyce passed us while we were turned in. We passed him again to-day & have left him five miles behind. He travels when we are asleep & we travel while his party sleeps so when we wake up I expect he will have passed us again. Seven miles today, we are bucking up.
When we do 12 miles in one day, we are going to splice the main-brace (with brandy) so I hope it will be tomorrow.
6
After checking the food supply Spencer-Smith found out that he, Mackintosh and Wild had been underfeeding themselves. The biscuits, although they were hard, had what has been described as âa flavour a combination of nuttiness, meatiness and plain fillingess'.
7
The most satisfactory aspect of the biscuits for the men was that they took a long time to eat.
Spencer-Smith: âIn future the tea is to be stronger and the hoosh more abundant both in oatmeal & pemmican. We have decided to have butter (which is extra) only at lunch, so that our 4 or 5 lbs may be made to spin out the 7 weeks.'
8
Mackintosh was again critical of Towser:
When we started off again Towser would keep stopping the team; also committing
the heinous offence of getting out of his harness, so he had a good beating as his crime was premeditated we are sure. We had to wait some considerable time for him whilst he was wandering about, but he thought the devil he knew was preferable.
9
Mackintosh was encouraged by words from a book he was carrying,
Being and Doing
(a 1897 book on life studies), so much so he added a poem from the book, one by Ralph Waldo Emerson, into his diary.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers well I must,
The Youth replies âI can!'
10
Spencer-Smith:
The low temperature helped us greatly: the Minimum Thermometer touched -22 F today but we did not notice the cold until the wind set in, when our beards etc (which are always thick with frost) stiffened into ice in a moment. It was quite painful once I opened my mouth rather wide to shout â and every hair on my face seemed to be tearing out at the roots.
The range of temperatures is amazing. -22 to +20 in 12 hours. So one has burns from the cooker when hot and burns from the cooker when cold, and it's all in the game.
The whole plain looks as if a vast sea, slightly troubled, had frozen in an instant, the tops of waves are smooth and slippery and one has to be careful on the ski.
11
Spencer-Smith created a special hoosh, diarising the ingredients.
Recipe for Hoosh deluxe, for 3 men:
1 mug Pemmican (¾ lb)
6 lumps sugar
¾ spoonful salt
9 spoonful oatmeal
(6 crushed biscuit) extra
Tea for 3 men.
3 spoonful Glaxo
*
3 spoonful Tea
24 lumps sugar (at lunch 30 lumps)
The pemmican is only taken at Bkft & Supper. Lunch consist of Tea, Biscuit, Chocolate (1 stick each) and Butter (if any).
Each man gets 2 Biscuits at Brft & Supper and 3 at lunch.
A hard day. 11 miles 25 yards. It is to be noted that these miles are all geographical miles (2028 yards) which makes a considerable difference to one accustomed to statute miles.
12
Mackintosh gives us an outline of their normal morning ritual. (The âcooker' he refers to was a Nansen cooker, designed by the Norwegian Arctic explorer. It was made up of five parts. There was a shallow dish in which a primus stove stood. Then there were two pots in which water was heated and meals cooked with one lid covering both pots. One pot sat inside the other and the meal was cooked in the inner one. This allowed food to be cooked and snow melted simultaneously. An outer cover was lowered gently over the whole apparatus in order to keep in as much heat
as possible. The primus stove burnt paraffin, after being started with methylated spirits. A small amount of spirit was poured into a cup at the base of the stove, lit and when it was almost burnt up an air-valve was screwed up and a few tentative pumps made. If the paraffin in the pipes was not heated sufficiently pure paraffin would come through the stove jets, which was a bright yellow flame of 2 or 3 feet long. But with patience, they could have the right mixture of paraffin vapour and air rushing up and then a blue flame would start from under the top of the burner. They would increase the air pressure with more pumping and the burner would then be surrounded by a halo of intensely hot bluish flame. Many explorers of the era made notes of the âcheery hum of the primus'.)
He also explains their method of dividing up the food, a game that ensured a fair distribution. One man, the cook, would divide up or pour out roughly equal portions into each bowl and then turn his back to the food; another would point to a bowl and say âwhose?', and the cook would say one of their names, and so on. (Shackleton is said to have made up the game on the
Nimrod
Expedition when he noted that the men stared at each other's portions as if one had deliberately received a bigger portion.)
Mackintosh:
I am usually good at waking myself, the order of things go: I wake, get out watch usually hitting the correct hour, shake self out of bag, call the others, Smith usually gets out first, I go out, fill up cooker and pass it in. By this time, Wild is up, Smith gets the primus going during this time I build a cairn, â breakfast we always find our longest period.
We always try to hustle but so far have not succeeded to an ideal routine. Today for instance. Temp +3 for us quite ânippy'. Hoosh does not take long and once down a fine tingle passes over one. â then the struggle, boots as hard as iron, this operation takes the longest, after this the rest of the gear, bags folded, sledge packed.
Wild attends dogs I attend sledge lashings. Smith takes tent down. With this completed 2½ hours have gone.
Played the sledge game of Shut Eye for our portion of butter which we have brought a small portion of as a luxury.
He added:
Tested time it takes primus to melt snow which is as follows:
Snow melts: 15 mins
Water boils: 20 mins
Total: 35 mins.
13
Mackintosh on Towser, again: âA fool, morose skulker, yellow and dashed with white; lazy and fat, always has to be hustled, gets plenty of beatings, never yelps or barks â quite hopeless for this task. Has absolutely no brains or energy.'
14
Mackintosh: âI had a weird dream, something about an operation, and I had just been wheeled to the tent and would not be able to proceed any further as a warm bed awaited me. I was soon disillusioned however on waking.'
15
From Mackintosh's words we can visualise the three men waking up and having their morning breakfast â a cup of hoosh. Note: after less than two weeks of sledging, scurvy was on their minds.
Mackintosh:
Greeted on wakening by the pattering off drift against the tent and hissing of wind outside! Smith is making some hoosh, which as we are unable to proceed, are going to have in our bags.
A little later â we have just finished sitting in bag both hands clasped round the
mug as to lose no warmth; then when hands get nicely warmed, the biscuit is broken into the hoosh by cracking it up first with our teeth â then the first spoonful gives a delicious glowing tingle right through the body. When this is over a cup of tea which is the end of the meal â but we are nicely warmed up again.
16
Spencer-Smith: âDressed Mac's finger: his right ear seems affected in a similar way and the gland beneath is also swollen. We must start the lime juice tonight. I feel sure that my toes and his hand are missing vegetables.'
17
The two parties at Minna Bluff
Joyce's party had reached a point near Minna Bluff â where the depot was established â on 9 February. It was about 70 miles south from Hut Point. Two days later Mackintosh's party joined them and the parties were then rearranged. The three navy men, Mackintosh, Joyce and Wild, and the majority of the dogs, continued on south to lay another depot 70 miles further on, and Spencer-Smith returned to Hut Point â with Jack, Gaze and a few of the dogs.
At this depot point, Mackintosh wrote a letter of instruction for Spencer-Smith.
Letter from Captain A. E. Mackintosh to Spencer-Smith
11 February 1915.
⦠it is with deep regret that I have to part with your company as a sledging companion for it has been through your ready aid and shoulders that we have enabled to reach so far on our journey.
I now depute to you the charge of the Bluff depot laying party, as I consider by your tact, discretion and character you are a fit person to take over this responsible position.
18
Spencer-Smith's trek back to Hut Point was uneventful, but he made occasional notes in his diary. His charitable nature shows through by the way he writes about one of the dogs he names as âGunboat'. This dog (called Gunboat here but he was usually called Gunner) survived the first sledging season and was one of the four dogs that went out to Mount Hope in 1916.
Spencer-Smith:
There is, of course, practically no incident to record on these marches. But one's thoughts go in curious cycles. First one's orations and a certain amount of meditation: as cairns and other definite points draw near one makes guesses of the number of paces and starts counting, and often continuously mechanically long after the spot is passed.
As meal-camps draw near, food is the predominate thought â I incline usually towards sardines, jam and chocolate (all of which we shall find at Hut Point in due course). The other two are more ambitious. Jack wants oyster soup & Irvine salmon, poached eggs and grilled steak.
19