The Worst Journey in the World (39 page)

Of course tainted food should not have been eaten at all, but if it had
to be eaten, then, according to Nansen, the ptomaines which cause scurvy
in the earlier stages of decomposition are destroyed by the ferment which
forms in the later stages. They should therefore have taken the worst
tins, if any at all.

Wilson was strongly of opinion that fresh meat alone would stop scurvy:
on the Discovery seal meat cured it. As to scurvy on Scott's Discovery
Southern Journey, he made light of it: however, during the Winter Journey
I remember Wilson stating that Shackleton several times fell in a faint
as he got outside the tent, and he seems to have been seriously ill:
Wilson knew that he himself had scurvy some time before the others knew
it, because the discoloration of his gums did not show in front for some
time. He did not think their dogs on that journey had scurvy, but
ptomaine poisoning from fish which had travelled through the tropics. He
was of opinion that on returning from sledge journeys on the Discovery
they had wrongly attributed to scurvy such symptoms as rash on the body,
swollen legs and ankles, which were rather the result of excessive
fatigue. I may add that we had these signs on our return from the Winter
Journey.

Then there were lectures on Geology by Debenham, on birds and beasts and
also on Sketching by Wilson, on Surveying by Evans: but perhaps no
lecture remains more vividly in my memory than that given by Oates on
what
we
called 'The Mismanagement of Horses.' Of course to all of us
who were relying upon the ponies for the first stage of the Southern
Journey the subject was of interest as well as utility, but the greater
share of interest centred upon the lecturer, for it was certainly
supposed that taciturn Titus could not have concealed about his person
the gift of the gab, and it was as certain as it could be that the whole
business was most distasteful to him. Imagine our delight when he proved
to have an elaborate discourse with full notes of which no one had seen
the preparation. "I have been fortunate in securing another night," he
mentioned amidst mirth, and proceeded to give us the most interesting and
able account of the minds and bodies of horses in general and ours in
particular. He ended with a story of a dinner-party at which he was a
guest, probably against his will. A young lady was so late that the party
sat down to dinner without waiting longer. Soon she arrived covered with
blushes and confusion. "I'm so sorry," she said, "but that horse was the
limit, he ..." "Perhaps it was a jibber," suggested her hostess to help
her out. "No, he was a —-. I heard the cabby tell him so several
times."

Titus Oates was the most cheerful and lovable old pessimist that you
could imagine. Often, after tethering and feeding our ponies at a night
camp on the Barrier, we would watch the dog-teams coming up into camp.
"I'll give these dogs ten days more," he would murmur in a voice such as
some people used when they heard of a British victory. I am acquainted
with so few dragoons that I do not know their general characteristics.
Few of them, I imagine, would have gone about with the slouch which
characterized his method of locomotion, nor would many of them have dined
in a hat so shabby that it was picked off the peg and passed round as a
curiosity.

He came to look after the horses, and as an officer in the Inniskillings
he, no doubt, had excellent training. But his skill went far deeper than
that. There was little he didn't know about horses, and the pity is that
he did not choose our ponies for us in Siberia: we should have had a very
different lot. In addition to his general charge of them all, Oates took
as his own pony the aforesaid devil Christopher for the Southern Journey
and for previous training. We shall hear much more of Christopher, who
appeared to have come down to the Antarctic to initiate the well-behaved
inhabitants into all the vices of civilization, but from beginning to end
Oates' management of this animal might have proved a model to any
governor of a lunatic asylum. His tact, patience and courage, for
Christopher was a very dangerous beast, remain some of the most vivid
recollections of a very gallant gentleman.

In this connection let me add that no animals could have had more
considerate and often self-sacrificing treatment than these ponies of
ours. Granted that they must be used at all (and I do not mean to enter
into that question) they were fed, trained, and even clothed as friends
and companions rather than as beasts of burden. They were never hit, a
condition to which they were clearly unaccustomed. They lived far better
than they had before, and all this was done for them in spite of the
conditions under which we ourselves lived. We became very fond of our
beasts but we could not be blind to their faults. The mind of a horse is
a very limited concern, relying almost entirely upon memory. He rivals
our politicians in that he has little real intellect. Consequently, when
the pony was faced with conditions different from those to which he was
accustomed, he showed but little adaptability; and when you add to this
frozen harness and rugs, with all their straps and buckles and lashings,
an incredible facility for eating anything within reach including his own
tethering ropes and the headstalls, fringes and whatnots of his
companions, together with our own scanty provisions and a general wish to
do anything except the job of the moment, it must be admitted that the
pony leader's lot was full of occasions for bad temper. Nevertheless
leaders and ponies were on the best of terms (excepting always
Christopher), which is really not surprising when you come to think that
most of the leaders were sailors whose love of animals is profound.

A lean-to roof was built against the northern side of the hut, and the
ends and open side were boarded up. This building when buttressed by the
bricks of coal which formed our fuel, and drifted up with snow by the
blizzards, formed an extremely sheltered and even warm stable. The ponies
stood in stalls with their heads towards the hut and divided from it by a
corridor; the bars which kept them in carried also their food boxes. They
lay down very little, the ground was too cold, and Oates was of opinion
that litter would not have benefited them if we had had space in the ship
to bring it. The floor of their stall was formed of the gravel on which
the hut was built. On any future occasion it might be worth consideration
whether a flooring of wood might add to their comfort. As you walked down
this narrow passage you passed a line of heads, many of which would have
a nip at you in the semi-darkness, and at the far end Oates had rigged up
for himself a blubber stove, more elaborate than the one we had made
with the odds and ends at Hut Point, but in principle the same, in that
the fids of sealskin with the blubber attached to them were placed on a
grid, and the heat generated caused them to drop their oil on to ashes
below which formed the fire. This fire not only warmed the stable, but
melted the snow to water the ponies and heated their bran mashes. I do
not wonder that this warm companionable home appealed to their minds when
they were exercising in the cold, dark, windy sea-ice: they were always
trying to get rid of their leader, and if successful generally went
straight back to the hut. Here they would dodge their pursuers until such
time as they were sick of the game, when they quietly walked into the
stable of their own accord to be welcomed with triumphant squeals and
kickings by their companions.

I have already spoken of their exercise. Their ration during the winter
was as follows:

8 A.M. Chaff.

12 NOON. Snow. Chaff and oats or oil-cake alternate days.

5 P.M. Snow. Hot bran mash with oil-cake, or boiled oats and chaff;
finally a small quantity of hay.

In the spring they were got into condition on hard food all cold, and by
a carefully increased scale of exercise during the latter part of which
they drew sledges with very light loads.

Unfortunately I have no record as to what changes of feeding stuffs Oates
would have made if it had been possible. Certainly we should not have
brought the bales of compressed fodder, which as I have already
explained, was theoretically green wheat cut young, but practically
no manner of use as a food, though of some use perhaps as bulk. Probably
he would have used hay for this purpose at Winter Quarters had our stock
of it not been very limited, for hay takes up too much room on a ship
when every square inch of stowage space is of value. The original weights
of fodder with which we left New Zealand were: compressed chaff, 30
tons; hay, 5 tons; oil-cake, 5-6 tons; bran, 4-5 tons; and two kinds of
oats, of which the white was better than the black. We wanted more bran
than we had.
^[140]
This does not exhaust our list of feeding stuffs, for
one of our ponies called Snippets would eat blubber, and so far as I know
it agreed with him.

We left New Zealand with nineteen ponies, seventeen of which were
destined for the Main Party and two for the help of Campbell in the
exploration of King Edward VII.'s Land. Two of these died in the big gale
at sea, and we landed fifteen ponies at Cape Evans in January. Of these
we lost six on the Depôt Journey, while Hackenschmidt, who was a vicious
beast, sickened and wasted away in our absence, for no particular reason
that we could discover, until there was nothing to do but shoot him. Thus
eight only out of the original seventeen Main Party ponies which started
from New Zealand were left by the beginning of the winter.

I have told how, during our absence on the Depôt Journey, the ship
had tried to land Campbell with his two ponies on King Edward VII.'s
Land, but had been prevented from reaching it by pack ice. Coasting back
in search of a landing place they found Amundsen in the Bay of Whales.
Under the circumstances Campbell decided not to land his party there but
to try and land on the north coast of South Victoria Land, in which he
was finally successful. In the interval the ship returned to Cape Evans
with the news, and since he was of opinion that his animals would be
useless to him in that region he took the opportunity to swim the two
ponies ashore, a distance of half a mile, for the ship could get no
nearer and the sea-ice had gone. Thus we started the winter with
Campbell's two ponies (Jehu and Chinaman), two ponies which had survived
the Depôt Journey (Nobby and James Pigg), and six ponies which had been
left at Cape Evans (Snatcher, Snippets, Bones, Victor, Michael and
Christopher) a total of ten.

Of these ten Christopher was the only real devil with vice, but he was a
strong pony, and it was clear that he would be useful if he could be
managed. Bones, Snatcher, Victor and Snippets were all useful ponies.
Michael was a highly-strung nice beast, but his value was doubtful;
Chinaman was more doubtful still, and it was questionable sometimes
whether Jehu would be able to pull anything at all. This leaves Nobby and
Jimmy Pigg, both of which were with us on the Depôt Journey. Nobby was
the best of the two; he was the only survivor from the sea-ice disaster,
and I am not sure that his rescue did not save the situation with regard
to the Pole. Jimmy Pigg was wending his way slowly back from Corner Camp
at this time and so was also saved. He was a weak pony but did extremely
well on the Polar Journey. It may be coincidence that these two ponies,
the only ponies which had gained previous sledging experience, did better
according to their strength than any of the others, but I am inclined to
believe that their familiarity with the conditions on the Barrier was of
great value to them, doing away with much useless worry and exhaustion.

And so it will be understood with what feelings of anxiety any cases of
injury or illness to our ponies were regarded. The cases of injury were
few and of small importance, thanks to the care with which they were
exercised in the dark on ice which was by no means free from
inequalities. Let me explain in passing that this ice is almost always
covered by at least a thin layer of drifted snow and for the most part is
not slippery. Every now and then there would be a great banging and
crashing heard through the walls of the hut in the middle of the night.
The watchman would run out, Oates put on his boots, Scott be audibly
uneasy. It was generally Bones or Chinaman kicking their stalls, perhaps
to keep themselves warm, but by the time the watchman had reached the
stable he would be met by a line of sleepy faces blinking at him in the
light of the electric torch, each saying plainly that he could not
possibly have been responsible for a breach of the peace!

But antics might easily lead to accidents, and more than once a pony was
found twisted up in some way in his stall, or even to have fallen to the
ground. Their heads were tied on either side to the stanchions of the
stall, and so if they tried to lie down complications might arise. More
alarming was the one serious case of illness, preceded by a slighter case
of a similar nature in another pony. Jimmy Pigg had a slight attack of
colic in the middle of June, but he was feeding all right again during
the evening of the same day. It was at noon, July 14, that Bones went off
his feed. This was followed by spasms of acute pain. "Every now and again
he attempted to lie down, and Oates eventually thought it was wiser to
allow him to do so. Once down, his head gradually drooped until he lay at
length, every now and then twitching very horribly with the pain, and
from time to time raising his head and even scrambling to his legs when
it grew intense. I don't think I ever realized before how pathetic a
horse could be under such conditions; no sound escapes him, his misery
can only be indicated by those distressing spasms and by dumb movement of
the head with a patient expression always suggestive of appeal."
^[141]
Towards midnight it seemed that we were to lose him, and, apart from
other considerations, we knew that unless we could keep all the surviving
animals alive the risks of failure in the coming journey were much
increased.