The Worst Journey in the World (16 page)

Wilson's Journal describes the scene:

"It was a weird night's work with the howling gale and the darkness and
the immense seas running over the ship every few minutes and no engines
and no sail, and we all in the engine-room oil and bilge water, singing
chanties as we passed up slopping buckets full of bilge, each man above
slopping a little over the heads of all below him; wet through to the
skin, so much so that some of the party worked altogether naked like
Chinese coolies; and the rush of the wave backwards and forwards at the
bottom grew hourly less in the dim light of a couple of engine-room oil
lamps whose light just made the darkness visible, the ship all the time
rolling like a sodden lifeless log, her lee gunwale under water every
time."

"There was one thrilling moment in the midst of the worst hour on Friday
when we were realizing that the fires must be drawn, and when every pump
had failed to act, and when the bulwarks began to go to pieces and the
petrol cases were all afloat and going overboard, and the word was
suddenly passed in a shout from the hands at work in the waist of the
ship trying to save petrol cases that smoke was coming up through the
seams in the afterhold. As this was full of coal and patent fuel and was
next the engine-room, and as it had not been opened for the airing it
required to get rid of gas, on account of the flood of water on deck
making it impossible to open the hatchway, the possibility of a fire
there was patent to every one, and it could not possibly have been dealt
with in any way short of opening the hatches and flooding the ship, when
she must have foundered. It was therefore a thrilling moment or two until
it was discovered that the smoke was really steam, arising from the bilge
at the bottom having risen to the heated coal."
^[43]

Meanwhile men were working for all our lives to cut through two bulkheads
which cut off all communication with the suction of the hand-pumps. One
bulkhead was iron, the other wood.

Scott wrote at this time:

"We are not out of the wood, but hope dawns, as indeed it should for me,
when I find myself so wonderfully served. Officers and men are singing
chanties over their arduous work. Williams is working in sweltering heat
behind the boiler to get the door made in the bulkhead. Not a single one
has lost his good spirits. A dog was drowned last night, one pony is dead
and two others in a bad condition—probably they too will go.
Occasionally a heavy sea would bear one of them away, and he was only
saved by his chain. Meares with some helpers had constantly to be
rescuing these wretched creatures from hanging, and trying to find them
better shelter, an almost hopeless task. One poor beast was found hanging
when dead; one was washed away with such force that his chain broke and
he disappeared overboard; the next wave miraculously washed him on board
again and he is fit and well. [I believe the dog was Osman.] The gale has
exacted heavy toll, but I feel all will be well if we can only cope with
the water. Another dog has just been washed overboard—alas! Thank God
the gale is abating. The sea is still mountainously high but the ship is
not labouring so heavily as she was."
^[44]

The highest waves of which I can find any record were 36 feet high. These
were observed by Sir James C. Ross in the North Atlantic.
^[45]

On December 2 the waves were logged, probably by Pennell, who was
extremely careful in his measurements, as being 'thirty-five feet high
(estimated).' At one time I saw Scott, standing on the weather rail of
the poop, buried to his waist in green sea. The reader can then imagine
the condition of things in the waist of the ship, "over and over again
the rail, from the fore-rigging to the main, was covered by a solid sheet
of curling water which swept aft and high on the poop."
^[46]
At another
time Bowers and Campbell were standing upon the bridge, and the ship
rolled sluggishly over until the lee combings of the main hatch were
under the sea. They watched anxiously, and slowly she righted herself,
but "she won't do that often," said Bowers. As a rule if a ship gets that
far over she goes down.

Our journey was uneventful for a time, but of course it was not by any
means smooth. "I was much disturbed last night by the motion; the ship
was pitching and twisting with short sharp movements on a confused sea,
and with every plunge my thoughts flew to our poor ponies. This afternoon
they are fairly well, but one knows that they must be getting weaker as
time goes on, and one longs to give them a good sound rest with a ship on
an even keel. Poor patient beasts! One wonders how far the memory of
such fearful discomfort will remain with them—animals so often remember
places and conditions where they have encountered difficulties or hurt.
Do they only recollect circumstances which are deeply impressed by some
shock of fear or sudden pain, and does the remembrance of prolonged
strain pass away? Who can tell? But it would seem strangely merciful if
nature should blot out these weeks of slow but inevitable torture."
^[47]

On December 7, noon position 61° 22' S., 179° 56' W., one berg was
sighted far away to the west, as it gleamed every now and then in the
sun. Two more were seen the next day, and at 6.22 A.M. on December 9,
noon position 65° 8' S., 177° 41' W., the pack was sighted ahead by
Rennick. All that day we passed bergs and streams of ice. The air became
dry and bracing, the sea was calm, and the sun shining on the islands of
ice was more than beautiful. And then Bump! We had just charged the first
big floe, and we were in the pack.

"The sky has been wonderful, with every form of cloud in every condition
of light and shade; the sun has continually appeared through breaks in
the cloudy heavens from time to time, brilliantly illuminating some field
of pack, some steep-walled berg, or some patch of bluest sea. So sunlight
and shadow have chased each other across our scene. To-night there is
little or no swell—the ship is on an even keel, steady, save for the
occasional shocks on striking ice.

"It is difficult to express the sense of relief this steadiness gives
after our storm-tossed passage. One can only imagine the relief and
comfort afforded to the ponies, but the dogs are visibly cheered and the
human element is full of gaiety. The voyage seems full of promise in
spite of the imminence of delay."
^[48]

We had met the pack farther north than any other ship.

What is pack? Speaking very generally indeed, in this region it is the
sea-ice which forms over the Ross Sea area during the winter, and is
blown northwards by the southerly blizzards. But as we shall see, the
ice which forms over this area is of infinite variety. As a rule great
sheets spread over the seas which fringe the Antarctic continent in the
autumn, grow thicker and thicker during the winter and spring, and break
up when the temperatures of sea and air rise in summer. Such is the ice
which forms in normal seasons round the shores of McMurdo Sound, and up
the coast of the western mountains of Victoria Land. In sheltered bays
this ice will sometimes remain in for two years or even more, growing all
the time, until some phenomenal break-up releases it. We found an example
of this in the sea-ice which formed between Hut Point and the Barrier.
But there are great waters which can never freeze for very long. Cape
Crozier, for instance, where the Emperor penguins nest in winter, is one
of the windiest places in the world. In July it was completely frozen
over as far as we could see in the darkness from a height of 900 feet.
Within a few days a hurricane had blown it all away, and the sea was
black.

I believe, and we had experiences to prove me right, that there is a
critical period early in the winter, and that if sea-ice has not frozen
thick enough to remain fast by that time, it is probable that the sea
will remain open for the rest of the year. But this does not mean that no
ice will form. So great is the wish of the sea to freeze, and so cold is
the air, that the wind has only to lull for one instant and the surface
is covered with a thin film of ice, as though by magic. But the next
blizzard tears it out by force or a spring tide coaxes it out by stealth,
whether it be a foot thick or only a fraction of an inch. Such an example
we had at our very doors during our last winter, and the untamed winds
which blew as a result were atrocious.

Thus it is that floes from a few inches to twenty feet thick go voyaging
out to join the belt of ice which is known as the pack. Scott seems to
have thought that the whole Ross Sea freezes over.
^[49]
I myself think
this doubtful, and I am, I believe, the only person living who has seen
the Ross Sea open in mid-winter. This was on the Winter Journey
undertaken by Wilson, Bowers and myself in pursuit of Emperor penguin
eggs—but of that later.

It is clear that winds and currents are, broadly speaking, the governing
factors of the density of pack-ice. By experience we know that clear
water may be found in the autumn where great tracts of ice barred the way
in summer. The tendency of the pack is northwards, where the ice melts
into the warmer waters. But the bergs remain when all traces of the pack
have disappeared, and, drifting northwards still, form the menace to
shipping so well known to sailors rounding the Horn. It is not hard to
imagine that one monster ice island of twenty miles in length, such as do
haunt these seas, drifting into navigated waters and calving into
hundreds of great bergs as it goes, will in itself produce what seamen
call a bad year for ice. And the last stages of these, when the bergs
have degenerated into 'growlers,' are even worse, for then the sharpest
eye can hardly distinguish them as they float nearly submerged though
they have lost but little of their powers of evil.

There are two main types of Antarctic berg. The first and most common is
the tabular form. Bergs of this shape cruise about in thousands and
thousands. A less common form is known as the pinnacled berg, and in
almost every case this is a tabular berg which has been weathered or has
capsized. The number of bergs which calve direct from a mountain glacier
into the sea is probably not very great. Whence then do they come?

The origin of the tabular bergs was debated until a few years ago. They
have been recorded up to forty and even fifty miles in length, and they
have been called floe bergs, because it was supposed that they froze
first as ordinary sea-ice and increased by subsequent additions from
below. But now we know that these bergs calve off from the Antarctic
Barriers, the largest of which is known as the Great Ice Barrier, which
forms the southern boundary of the Ross Sea. We were to become very
familiar with this vast field of ice. We know that its northern face is
afloat, we guess that it may all be afloat. At any rate the open sea now
washes against its face at least forty miles south of where it ran in
the days of Ross. Though this Barrier may be the largest in the world, it
is one of many. The most modern review of this mystery, Scott's article
on The Great Ice Barrier, must serve until the next first-hand
examination by some future explorer.

A berg shows only about one-eighth of its total mass above water, and a
berg two hundred feet high will therefore reach approximately fourteen
hundred feet below the surface of the sea. Winds and currents have far
more influence upon them than they have upon the pack, through which
these bergs plough their way with a total disregard for such flimsy
obstacles, and cause much chaos as they go. For the rest woe betide the
ship which is so fixed into the pack that she cannot move if one of these
monsters bears down upon her.

Words cannot tell the beauty of the scenes through which we were to pass
during the next three weeks. I suppose the pack in winter must be a
terrible place enough: a place of darkness and desolation hardly to be
found elsewhere. But forms which under different conditions can only
betoken horror now conveyed to us impressions of the utmost peace and
beauty, for the sun had kissed them all.

"We have had a marvellous day. The morning watch was cloudy, but it
gradually cleared until the sky was a brilliant blue, fading on the
horizon into green and pink. The floes were pink, floating in a deep blue
sea, and all the shadows were mauve. We passed right under a monster
berg, and all day have been threading lake after lake and lead after
lead. 'There is Regent Street,' said somebody, and for some time we drove
through great streets of perpendicular walls of ice. Many a time they
were so straight that one imagined they had been cut off with a ruler
some hundreds of yards in length."
^[50]

On another occasion:

"Stayed on deck till midnight. The sun just dipped below the southern
horizon. The scene was incomparable. The northern sky was gloriously rosy
and reflected in the calm sea between the ice, which varied from
burnished copper to salmon pink; bergs and pack to the north had a
pale greenish hue with deep purple shadows, the sky shaded to saffron and
pale green. We gazed long at these beautiful effects."
^[51]

But this was not always so. There was one day with rain, there were days
of snow and hail and cold wet slush, and fog. "The position to-night is
very cheerless. All hope that this easterly wind will open the pack seems
to have vanished. We are surrounded with compacted floes of immense area.
Openings appear between these floes and we slide crab-like from one to
another with long delays between. It is difficult to keep hope alive.
There are streaks of water sky over open leads to the north, but
everywhere to the south we have the uniform white sky. The day has been
overcast and the wind force 3 to 5 from the E.N.E.—snow has fallen from
time to time. There could scarcely be a more dreary prospect for the eye
to rest upon."
^[52]