The Worst Journey in the World (38 page)

As he was one of the two or three greatest friends of my life I find it
hard to give the reader a mental picture of Birdie Bowers which will not
appear extravagant. There were times when his optimism appeared forced
and formal though I believe it was not really so: there were times when I
have almost hated him for his infernal cheerfulness. To those accustomed
to judge men by the standards of their fashionable and corseted
drawing-rooms Bowers appeared crude. "You couldn't kill that man if you
took a pole-axe to him," was the comment of a New Zealander at a dance at
Christchurch. Such men may be at a discount in conventional life; but
give me a snowy ice-floe waving about on the top of a black swell, a ship
thrown aback, a sledge-party almost shattered, or one that has just upset
their supper on to the floorcloth of the tent (which is much the same
thing), and I will lie down and cry for Bowers to come and lead me to
food and safety.

Those whom the gods love die young. The gods loved him, if indeed it be
benevolent to show your favourites a clear, straight, shining path of
life, with plenty of discomfort and not a little pain, but with few
doubts and no fears. Browning might well have had Bowers in mind when he
wrote of

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward;
Never doubted clouds would break;
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph;
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

There was nothing subtle about him. He was transparently simple,
straightforward and unselfish. His capacity for work was prodigious, and
when his own work happened to take less than his full time he
characteristically found activity in serving a scientist or exercising an
animal. So he used to help to send up balloons with self-recording
instruments attached to them, and track the threads which led to them
when detached. He was responsible for putting up the three outlying
meteorological screens and read them more often than anybody else. At
times he looked after some of the dogs because at the moment there was
nobody else whose proper job it happened to be, and he took a particular
fancy to one of our strongest huskies called Krisravitza, which is the
Russian (so I'm told) for 'most beautiful.' This fancy originated in the
fact that to Kris, as the most truculent of our untamed devils, fell a
large share of well-deserved punishment. A living thing in trouble be it
dog or man was something to be helped. Being the smallest man in the
party he schemed to have allotted to him the largest pony available both
for the Depôt and Polar Journeys. Their exercise, when he succeeded, was
a matter for experiment, for his knowledge of horses was as limited as
his love of animals was intense. He started to exercise his second pony
(for the first was lost on the floe) by riding him. "I'll soon get used
to him," he said one day when Victor had just deposited him in the
tide-crack, "to say nothing of his getting used to me," he added in a
more subdued voice.

This was open-air work, and as such more congenial than that which had to
be done inside the hut. But his most important work was indoors, and he
brought to it just the same restless enthusiasm which allowed no leisure
for reading or relaxation.

He joined as one of the ship's officers in London. Given charge of the
stores, the way in which he stowed the ship aroused the admiration of
even the stevedores, especially when he fell down the main hatch one
morning on to the pig-iron below, recovered consciousness in about half a
minute, and continued work for the rest of the day as though nothing had
happened.

As the voyage out proceeded it became obvious that his knowledge of the
stores and undefeatable personality would be of great value to the shore
party, and it was decided that he should land, to his great delight. He
was personally responsible for all food supplies, whether for home
consumption or for sledging, for all sledging stores and the distribution
of weights, the loading of sledges, the consumption of coal, the issue of
clothing, bosun's stores, and carpenter's stores. Incidentally the keeper
of stores wanted a very exact knowledge of the cases which contained
them, for the drifts of snow soon buried them as they lay in the camp
outside.

As time proved his capacity Scott left one thing after another in
Bowers' hands. Scott was a leader of men, and it is a good quality in
such to delegate work from themselves on to those who prove their power
to shoulder the burden. Undoubtedly Bowers saved Scott a great deal of
work, and gave him time which he might not otherwise have been able to
spare to interest himself in the scientific work of the station, greatly
to its benefit, and do a good deal of useful writing. The two ways in
which Bowers helped Scott most this winter were in the preparation of the
plans and the working out of the weights of the Southern Journey, which
shall be discussed later, and in the routine work of the station, for
which he was largely responsible, and which ran so smoothly that I am
unable to tell the reader how the stores were issued, or the dinner
settled, by what rule the working parties for fetching ice for water and
other kindred jobs about the camp were ordered. They just happened, and I
don't know how. I only know that Bowers had the bunk above mine in the
hut, and that when I was going to sleep he was generally standing on a
chair and using his own bunk as a desk, and I conclude from the numerous
lists of stores and weights which are now in my hands that these were
being produced. Anyway the job was done, and the fact that we knew
nothing about it goes far to prove how efficiently it was carried
through.

For him difficulties simply did not exist. I have never known a more
buoyant, virile nature. Scott's writings abound in references to the
extraordinary value he placed upon his help, and after the share which he
took in the Depôt and Winter Journeys it was clear that he would probably
be taken in the Polar Party, as indeed proved to be the case. No man of
that party better deserved his place. "I believe he is the hardest
traveller that ever undertook a Polar Journey, as well as one of the most
undaunted."
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The standard is high.

Bowers gave us two of our best lectures, the first on the Evolution of
Sledge Foods, at the end of which he discussed our own rations on the
Depôt Journey, and made suggestions which he had worked out
scientifically for those of the Polar Journey. His arguments were sound
enough to disarm the hostility if not to convert to his opinions at least
one scientist who had come to hear him strongly of opinion that an
untrained man should not discuss so complex a subject. The second
lecture, on the Evolution of Polar Clothing, was also the fruit of much
work. The general conclusion come to (and this was after the Winter
Journey) was that our own clothing and equipment could not be bettered in
any important respect, though it must be always understood that the
expedition wore wind-proof clothing and not furs, except for hands and
feet. When man-hauling, wind-proof, I am convinced, cannot be improved
upon, but for dog-driving in cold weather I suspect that furs may be
better.

The table was cleared after supper and we sat round it for these lectures
three times a week. There was no compulsion about them, and the seamen
only turned up for those which especially interested them, such as
Meares' vivid account of his journeyings on the Eastern or Chinese
borderland of Thibet. This land is inhabited by the 'Eighteen Tribes,'
the original inhabitants of Thibet who were driven out by the present
inhabitants, and Meares told us chiefly of the Lolos who killed his
companion Brook after having persuaded him that they were friendly and
anxious to help him. "He had no pictures and very makeshift maps, yet he
held us really entranced for nearly two hours by the sheer interest of
his adventures. The spirit of the wanderer is in Meares' blood: he has no
happiness but in the wild places of the earth. I have never met so
extreme a type. Even now he is looking forward to getting away by himself
to Hut Point, tired already of our scant measure of civilization."
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Three lectures a week were too many in the opinion of the majority. The
second winter with our very reduced company we had two a week, and I feel
sure that this was an improvement. No officer nor seaman, however, could
have had too many of Ponting's lectures, which gave us glimpses into
many lands illustrated by his own inimitable slides. Thus we lived every
now and then for a short hour in Burmah, India or Japan, in scenes of
trees and flowers and feminine charm which were the very antithesis of
our present situation, and we were all the better for it. Ponting also
illustrated the subjects of other lectures with home-made slides of
photographs taken during the autumn or from printed books. But for the
most part the lecturers were perforce content with designs and plans,
drawn on paper and pinned one on the top of the other upon a large
drawing-board propped up on the table and torn off sheet by sheet.

From the practical point of view the most interesting evening to us was
that on which Scott produced the Plan of the Southern Journey. The reader
may ask why this was not really prepared until the winter previous to the
journey itself, and the answer clearly is that it was impossible to
arrange more than a rough idea until the autumn sledging had taught its
lesson in food, equipment, relative reliability of dogs, ponies and men,
and until the changes and chances of our life showed exactly what
transport would be available for the following sledging season. Thus it
was with lively anticipation that we sat down on May 8, an advisory
committee as it were, to hear and give our suggestions on the scheme
which Scott had evolved in the early weeks of the winter after the
adventures of the Depôt Journey and the loss of six ponies.

It was on just such a winter night, too, that Scott read his interesting
paper on the Ice Barrier and Inland Ice which will probably form the
basis for all future work on these subjects. The Barrier, he maintained,
is probably afloat, and covers at least five times the extent of the
North Sea with an average thickness of some 400 feet, though it has only
been possible to get the very roughest of levels. According to the
movement of a depôt laid in the Discovery days the Barrier moved 608
yards towards the open Ross Sea in 13½ months. It must be admitted that
the inclination of the ice-sheet is not sufficient to cause this, and the
old idea that the glacier streams flowing down from Inland Plateau
provide the necessary impetus is imperfect. It was Simpson's suggestion
that "the deposition of snow on the Barrier leads to an expansion due to
the increase of weight." Some admittedly vague ideas as to the extent and
character of the inland ice-sheet ended a clever and convincing paper
which contained a lot of good reasoning.

Simpson proved an excellent lecturer, and in meteorology and in the
explanation of the many instruments with which his corner of the hut was
full he possessed subjects which interested and concerned everybody.
Nelson on Biological Problems and Taylor on Physiography were always
interesting. "Taylor, I dreamt of your lecture last night. How could I
live so long in the world and not know something of so fascinating a
subject!" Thus Scott on the morning following one of these lectures.
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Wright on Ice Problems, Radium, and the Origin of Matter had highly
technical subjects which left many of us somewhat befogged. But Atkinson
on Scurvy had an audience each member of which felt that he had a
personal interest in the subject under discussion. Indeed one of his
hearers was to suffer the advanced stage of this dread disease within six
months. Atkinson inclined to Almroth Wright's theory that scurvy is due
to an acid intoxication of the blood caused by bacteria. He described the
litmus-paper test which was practised on us monthly, and before and after
sledge journeys. In this the blood of each individual is drawn and
various strengths of dilute sulphuric acid are added to it until it is
neutralized, the healthy man showing normal 30 to 50, while the man with
scorbutic signs will be normal 50 to 90 according to the stage to which
he has reached. The only thing which is certain to stop scurvy is fresh
vegetables: fresh meat when life is otherwise under extreme conditions
will not do so, an instance being the Siege of Paris when they had plenty
of horse meat. In 1795 voyages were being ruined by scurvy and Anson lost
300 out of 500 men, but in that year the first discoveries were made and
lime-juice was introduced by Blaine. From this time scurvy practically
disappeared from the Navy, and there was little scurvy in Nelson's days;
but the reason is not clear, since, according to modern research,
lime-juice only helps to prevent it. It continued in the Merchant
Service, and in a decade from about 1865 some 400 cases were admitted
into the Dreadnought Hospital, whereas in the decade 1887 to 1896 there
were only 38 cases. We had, at Cape Evans, a salt of sodium to be used to
alkalize the blood as an experiment, if necessity arose. Darkness, cold,
and hard work are in Atkinson's opinion important causes of scurvy.

Nansen was an advocate of variety of diet as being anti-scorbutic, and
Scott recalled a story told him by Nansen which he had never understood.
It appeared that some men had eaten tins of tainted food. Some of it was
slightly tainted, some of it was really bad. They rejected the really bad
ones, and ate those only which were slightly tainted. "And of course,"
said Nansen, "they should have eaten the worst."

I have since asked Nansen about this story. He tells me that he must have
been referring to the crew of the Windward, the ship of the
Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1894-97. The crew of
this ship, which was travelling to and from civilization, got scurvy,
though the land party kept healthy. Of this Jackson writes: "In the case
of the crew of the Windward I fear that there was considerable
carelessness in the use of tinned meats that were not free from taint,
although tins quite gone were rejected.... We [on shore] largely used
fresh bear's meat, and the crew of the Windward were also allowed as much
as they could be induced to eat. They, however, preferred tinned meat
several days a week to a diet of bear's meat alone; and some of the crew
had such a prejudice against bear's meat as to refuse to eat it at
all."
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