The Worst Journey in the World (24 page)

This blizzard lasted three days.

We now marched nearly due south, the open Barrier in front, Mount Terror
and the sea behind, for five days, covering fifty-four miles, when, being
now level with the southern extremity of the Bluff, we laid the Bluff
Depôt. The bearings of Bluff Depôt, as well as those of Corner Camp, are
given in Scott's Last Expedition.

The characteristics of these days were the collapse of two of the ponies,
Blücher and Blossom, and the partial collapse of a third, Jimmy Pigg,
although the surface hardened, becoming a marbled series of wind-swept
ridges and domes in this region. For the rest the new hands were finding
out how to keep warm on the Barrier, how to pitch a tent and cook a meal
in twenty minutes, and the thousand and one little tips which only
experience can teach. But all the care in the world could do little for
the poor ponies.

It must be confessed at once that some of these ponies were very poor
material, and it must be conceded that Oates who was in charge of them
started with a very great handicap. From first to last it was Oates'
consummate management, seconded by the care and kindness of the ponies'
leaders, which obtained results which often exceeded the most sanguine
hopes.

One evening we watched Scott digging crumbly blocks of snow out of the
Barrier and building a rough wall, something like a grouse butt, to the
south of his pony. In our inmost hearts I fear we viewed these
proceedings with distrust, and saw in it but little usefulness,—one
little bit of leaky wall in a great plain of snow. But a very little wind
(which you must understand comes almost invariably from the south)
convinced us from personal experience what a boon these walls could be.
Henceforward every night on camping each pony leader built a wall behind
his pony while his pemmican was cooking, and came out after supper to
finish this wall before he turned in to his sleeping-bag—no small thing
when you consider that the warmth of your hours of rest depends largely
upon getting into your bag immediately you have eaten your hoosh and
cocoa. And not seldom you might hear a voice in your dreams: "Bill!
Nobby's kicked his wall down"; and out Bill would go to build it up
again.

Oates wished to take certain of the ponies as far south as possible on
the Depôt journey, and then to kill them and leave the meat there as a
depôt of dog food for the Polar Journey. Scott was against this plan.
Here at Bluff Depôt he decided to send back the three weakest ponies
(Blossom, Blücher and Jimmy Pigg, with their leaders, Lieutenant Evans,
Forde and Keohane). They started back the next morning (February 13)
while the remainder of the party went forward over a surface which
gradually became softer as we left behind the windy region of the Bluff.
We now had with us the two teams of dogs, driven by Meares and Wilson,
and five ponies.

Scott with 'Nobby.'
Oates with 'Punch.'
Bowers with 'Uncle Bill.'
Gran with 'Weary Willie.'
Cherry-Garrard with 'Guts.'

Scott, Wilson, Meares and myself inhabited one tent, Bowers, Oates and
Gran the other. Scott was evolving in his mind means by which ponies
should follow one another in a string, the second pony with his leading
rein fastened to the back of the sledge of the first and so on, the
cavalcade to be managed by two or three men only, instead of one man to
lead each pony.

Sunday night (February 12) we started from Bluff Depôt and did seven
miles before lunch against a considerable drift and wind. It was pretty
cold, and ten minutes after we left our lunch camp with the ponies it was
blowing a full blizzard. The dog party had not started, so we camped and
slept five in the four-man tent, and it was by no means uncomfortable.
Probably this was the time when Scott first thought of taking a five-man
party to the Pole. By Monday evening the blizzard was over, the dogs came
up, and we did 6½ miles of very heavy going. Gran's pony, Weary Willie, a
sluggish and obstinate animal, was far behind, as usual, when we halted
our ponies at the camping place. Farther off the dog-teams were coming
up. What happened never became clear. Poor Weary, it seems, was in
difficulties in a snow-drift: the dogs of one team being very hungry
took charge of their sledge and in a moment were on the horse, to all
purposes a pack of ravenous wolves. Gran and Weary made a good fight and
the dogs were driven off, but Weary came into camp without his sledge,
covered with blood and looking very sick.

We halted after doing only ¾ mile more after lunch; for the pony was
done, and little wonder. The following day we did 7½ miles with
difficulty, both Uncle Bill and Weary Willie going very slowly and
stopping frequently. The going was very deep. The ponies were fast giving
out, and it was evident that we had much to learn as to their use on the
Barrier; they were thin and very hungry; their rations were
unsatisfactory; and the autumn temperatures and winds were beyond their
strength. We went on one more day in a minus twenty temperature and light
airs, and then in latitude 79° 29' S. it was determined to lay the depôt,
which was afterwards known as One Ton, and return. In view of subsequent
events it should be realized that this depôt was just a cairn of snow in
which were buried food and oil, and over which a flag waved on a bamboo.
There is no land visible from One Ton except on a very clear day and it
is 130 geographical miles from Hut Point.

We spent a day making up the mound which contained about a ton of
provisions, oil, compressed fodder, oats and other necessaries for the
forthcoming Polar Journey. Scott was satisfied with the result, and
indeed this depôt ensured that we could start southwards for the Pole
fully laden from this point.

Here the party was again split into two for the return. Scott was anxious
to get such news about the landing of Campbell's party on King Edward
VII.'s Land as the ship should have left at Hut Point on her return
journey. He decided to take the two dog-teams, the first with himself and
Meares, the second with Wilson and myself, and make a quick return,
leaving Bowers with Oates and Gran to help him to bring back the five
ponies, driving them one behind the other.

THE RETURN OF THE PONY PARTY FROM ONE TON DEPÔT

(
From a Letter written by Bowers
)

As our loads were so light Titus thought it would be better for the
ponies to do their full march in one stretch and so have a longer rest.
We, therefore, decided to forgo lunch and have a good meal on camping.
The recent trails were fresh enough to follow and so saved us steering by
compass, which is very difficult as the needle will only come to rest
after you have been standing still for about a minute. That march was
extraordinary, the snowy mist hid all distant objects and made all close
ones look gigantic. Although we were walking on a flat undulating plain,
one could not get away from the impression that the ground was
hilly—quite steep in places with deep hollows by the wayside. Suddenly a
herd of apparent cattle would appear in the distance, then you would
think, 'No, it's a team of dogs broken loose and rushing towards you.' In
another moment one would be walking over the black dots of some old horse
droppings which had been the cause of the hallucinations. Since then I
have often been completely taken in by appearances under certain
conditions of light, and the novelty has worn off. Sastrugi are the hard
waves formed by wind on a snow surface; these are seldom more than a foot
or so in height, and often so obscured as to be imperceptible
irregularities. On this occasion they often appeared like immense ridges
until you walked over them. After going about 10 miles we spotted a tiny
black triangle in the dead white void ahead, it was over a mile away and
was the lunch camp of the dogs. We were fairly close before they broke
camp and hurriedly packed up. I thought they looked rather sheepish at
having been caught up, like the hare and the tortoise again. Still we had
been marching very quickly and Scott was delighted to see Weary Willie
going so well. They then dashed off, and after completing just over 12
miles we reached Pagoda Cairn where a bale of fodder had been left.

Here we camped and threw up our walls as quickly as possible to shelter
the beasts from the cold wind. Weary was the most annoying, he would
deliberately back into his wall and knock the whole structure down. In
the case of my own pony, I had to put the wall out of his reach as his
aim in life was to eat it, generally beginning at the bottom. He would
diligently dislodge a block, and bring down the whole fabric. One cannot
be angry with the silly beggars—Titus says a horse has practically no
reasoning power, the thing to do is simply to throw up another wall and
keep on at it.

The weather cleared during the night, and the next day, February 19, we
started off under ideal conditions, the sun was already dipping pretty
low, marks easy to pick up, and on this occasion we could plainly see a
cairn over seven miles away, raised by the mirage; the only trouble about
seeing things so far off is that they take such an awful time to reach.
Mirage is a great feature down here and one of the most common of optical
phenomena on the Barrier; it is often difficult to persuade oneself that
open water does not lie ahead. We passed the scene of Weary Willie's
fight with the dogs during the march and also had an amusing argument as
to a dark object on the snow ahead. At first we thought it was the dog
camp again, but it turned out to be an empty biscuit tin, such is the
deceptive nature of the light. Later we sighted our old blizzard camp and
decided to utilize the walls again. Weary Willie was decidedly worse and
had to be literally jumped along by the pony to which he was attached.
Within half a mile of the walls Weary refused to go farther, and after
wasting some time in vain efforts to urge him on we had to camp where we
were, having only done 10½ miles. This was very sad, but I took hope from
the fact that Titus, who is usually pretty pessimistic, had not yet given
up hopes of getting him back alive. He had an extra whack of oats at the
expense of the other ponies, and my big beast made up for his shortage by
hauling the sledge towards him with his tethered leg, and forcing his
nose into our precious biscuit tank, out of which he helped himself
liberally at our expense. The sledges were now too light to anchor the
animals, so we had to peg them down with anything we could and bank them
up with snow.

Weary was better the next day (February 20) but we decided at the outset
to go no farther than the Bluff Camp where we had left some fodder. This
was barely 10 miles off, yet my old animal showed signs of lassitude
before the end; there was nothing alarming, however, and we saw the depôt
over five miles off which interested the beasts, who see these things and
somehow connect them, in the backs of their silly old heads, with food
and rest. Weary Willie made a decided improvement, so we camped in high
spirits. Captain Scott had asked me if possible to take some theodolite
observations for the determination of the position of Bluff Camp. Ours is
much farther off and farther beyond the Bluff than the old Discovery
Depôt A, which was practically the same position Shackleton used. In both
cases, Scott and Shackleton were keeping nearer the coast; now, however,
that the Beardmore has been discovered we can aim straight for that,
which takes one farther east by at least 15 miles off the Bluff. This is
rather an advantage, I think, as close in to this remarkable headland the
onward movement of the Barrier arrested by the immovable hills causes a
terrific chaos of crevasses off the cliffs at the end. These extend many
miles and include some chasms big enough to take the Terra Nova all
standing. Needless to remark, one is well clear of this sort of scenery
with ponies—hence our course. I was unable to get any observations,
unfortunately, as it clouded over almost at once and later in the day
started to snow without wind. This often happens before a bliz, and as we
were anxious about the ponies to say nothing of our own shortage of
biscuit we felt a trifle apprehensive. It was very gloomy when we left
camp at midnight, as the midnight sun was already cartwheeling the
southern horizon, the first sign of autumn, also the season had
undoubtedly broken up, and the sky was covered with low stratus clouds as
thick as a hedge. We lost sight of the cairn almost at once and followed
the remains of old tracks for a little while till the snowy gloom made it
impossible to see them. You will remember that it was at the Bluff Camp
that Teddy Evans returned with the three weak ponies, so there were
plenty of traces of our march now. Just on four miles from the start I
saw a small mound some distance to the west, and struck over there: it
was a small cairn without the signs of a camp and rather puzzled me at
the time. As I shall mention it later I will call it X for convenience.
We then pushed on and I found steering most difficult. In the fuzzy
nothingness ahead one could see no point on which to fix the eye, and the
compass required standing still to look at it every time. Our sledging
compasses are spirit ones, and as steady as a small hand compass could
possibly be. You will understand, however, that owing to the proximity of
the Magnetic Pole the pull on the needle is chiefly downwards. It is
forced into a horizontal position by a balancing weight on the N. side,
so it is obvious that its direction power is greatly reduced. On the
ship, owing to the vibration of the engines and the motors, we were
absolutely unable to steer by the compass at all when off the region of
the Magnetic Pole.

On this occasion (February 21) we zig-zagged all over the place—first I
went ahead, and Oates said I zig-zagged, then he went ahead, and I
understood at once, as it was impossible to walk straight for two
consecutive minutes. However, we plodded along with frequent stoppages
till the wind came away, and then having determined the direction of
that, steered by keeping the snow on our backs. The wind was not strong
enough to be unpleasant, and all was well. We legged it into the void for
nearly seven miles beyond X Cairn when I suddenly found myself only a few
yards away from another cairn. This shows that somehow, without the use
of tracks or landmarks, we had marched seven miles without being able to
see thirty yards, and had yet hit off the direct track to a T; of course,
it was only coincidence, though some people might credit themselves with
superlative navigating powers on such evidence. The wind increased, and
with the knowledge I now have of blizzards I would camp at once. Then I
thought it better to shove on, as the ponies were marching splendidly.
The danger lay in the fact that though it is easy enough for you to
march with the wind behind, you can't march for ever and you will
probably get tired before the wind does. Camping in a stiff breeze is
always difficult, to say nothing of a gale; and for three men with five
ponies to manage would be wellnigh impossible. Fortunately for us this
was not really a blizzard, though it was quite near enough to one. The
sky broke later and showed the Bluff and White Island, and then the
scurrying clouds of drift would encircle us to break again and come on
again.