The Worst Journey in the World (58 page)

"Wednesday, December 6. Camp 30. Noon. Miserable, utterly miserable. We
have camped in the 'Slough of Despond.' The tempest rages with unabated
violence. The temperature has gone to +33°; everything in the tent is
soaking. People returning from the outside look exactly as though they
had been in a heavy shower of rain. They drip pools on the floor-cloth.
The snow is steadily climbing higher about walls, ponies, tents and
sledges. The ponies look utterly desolate. Oh! But this is too crushing,
and we are only 12 miles from the glacier. A hopeless feeling descends on
one and is hard to fight off. What immense patience is needed for such
occasions!"
^[206]

Bowers describes the situation as follows:

"It is blowing a blizzard such as one might expect to be driven at us by
all the powers of darkness. It may be interesting to describe it, as it
is my first experience of a really warm blizzard, and I hope to be
troubled by cold ones only, or at least moderate ones only, in future as
regards temperature.

"When I swung the thermometer this morning I looked and looked again, but
unmistakably the temperature was +33°F., above freezing point (out of the
sun's direct rays) for the first time since we came down here. What this
means to us nobody can conceive. We try to treat it as a huge joke, but
our wretched condition might be amusing to read of it later. We are wet
through, our tents are wet, our bags which are our life to us and the
objects of our greatest care, are wet; the poor ponies are soaked and
shivering far more than they would be ordinarily in a temperature fifty
degrees lower. Our sledges—the parts that are dug out—are wet, our food
is wet, everything on and around and about us is the same—wet as
ourselves and our cold, clammy clothes. Water trickles down the tent
poles and only forms icicles in contact with the snow floor. The warmth
of our bodies has formed a snow bath in the floor for each of us to lie
in. This is a nice little catchwater for stray streams to run into before
they freeze. This they cannot do while a warm human lies there, so they
remain liquid and the accommodating bag mops them up. When we go out to
do the duties of life, fill the cooker, etc., for the next meal, dig out
or feed the ponies, or anything else, we are bunged up with snow. Not the
driving, sandlike snow we are used to, but great slushy flakes that run
down in water immediately and stream off you. The drifts are tremendous,
the rest of the show is indescribable. I feel most for the unfortunate
animals and am thankful that poor old Victor is spared this. I mended a
pair of half mitts to-day, and we are having two meals instead of three.
This idleness when one is simply jumping to go on is bad enough for most,
but must be worse for Captain Scott. I feel glad that he has Dr. Bill
(Wilson) in his tent; there is something always so reassuring about Bill,
he comes out best in adversity."
^[207]

"Thursday, December 7. Camp 30. The storm continues and the situation is
now serious. One small feed remains for the ponies after to-day, so that
we must either march to-morrow or sacrifice the animals. That is not the
worst; with the help of the dogs we could get on, without doubt. The
serious part is that we have this morning started our Summit
rations—that is to say, the food calculated from the Glacier Depôt has
been begun. The first supporting party can only go on a fortnight from
this date and so forth."
^[208]

This day was just as warm, and wetter—much wetter. The temperature was
+35.5°, and our bags were like sponges. The huge drifts had covered
everything, including most of the tent, the pony walls and sledges. At
intervals we dug our way out and dug up the wretched ponies, and got them
on to the top again. "Henceforward our full ration will be 16 oz.
biscuit, 12 oz. pemmican, 2 oz. butter, 0.57 oz. cocoa, 3.0 oz. sugar and
0.86 oz. tea. This is the Summit ration, total 34.43 oz., with a little
onion powder and salt. I am all for this: Seaman Evans and others are
much regretting the loss of chocolate, raisins and cereals. For the first
week up the glacier we are to go one biscuit short to provision Meares on
the way back. The motors depôted too much and Meares has been brought on
far farther than his orders were originally bringing him. Originally he
was to be back at Hut Point on December 10. The dogs, however, are
getting all the horse that is good for them, and are very fit. He has to
average 24 miles a day going back. Michael is well out of this: we are
now eating him. He was in excellent condition and tastes very good,
though tough."
^[209]

By this time there was little sleep left for us as we lay in our
sleeping-bags. Three days generally see these blizzards out, and we hoped
much from Friday, December 8. But when we breakfasted at 10 A.M. (we were
getting into day-marching routine) wind and snow were monotonously the
same. The temperature rose to +34.3°. These temperatures and those
recorded by Meares on his way home must be a record for the interior of
the Barrier. So far as we were concerned it did not much matter now
whether it was +40° or +34°. Things did look really gloomy that morning.

But at noon there came a gleam of comfort. The wind dropped, and
immediately we were out plunging about, always up to our knees in soft
downy snow, and often much farther. First we shifted our tents, digging
them up with the greatest care that the shovel might not tear them. The
valances were encased in solid ice from the water which had run down.
Then we started to find our sledges which were about four feet down: they
were dragged out, and everything on them was wringing wet. There was a
gleam of sunshine, which soon gave place to snow and gloom, but we
started to make experiments in haulage. Four men on ski managed to move a
sledge with four others sitting upon it. Nobby was led out, but sank to
his belly. As for the drifts I saw Oates standing behind one, and only
his head appeared, and this was all loose snow.

"We are all sitting round now after some tea—it is much better than
getting into the bags. I can hardly think that the ponies can pull on,
but Titus thinks they can pull to-morrow; all the food is finished, and
what they have had to-day was only what they would not eat out of their
last feed yesterday. It is a terrible end—driven to death on no more
food, to be then cut up, poor devils. I have swopped the Little Minister
with Silas Wright for Dante's Inferno!"
^[210]
The steady patter of the
falling snow upon the tents was depressing as we turned in, but the
temperature was below freezing.

The next morning (Saturday, December 9) we turned out to a cloudy snowy
day at 5.30 A.M. By 8.30 we had hauled the sledges some way out of the
camp and started to lead out the ponies. "The horses could hardly move,
sank up to their bellies, and finally lay down. They had to be driven,
lashed on. It was a grim business."
^[211]

My impressions of that day are of groping our way, for Bowers and I were
pulling a light sledge ahead to make the track, through a vague white
wall. First a confused crowd of men behind us gathered round the leading
pony sledge, pushing it forward, the poor beast barely able to struggle
out of the holes it made as it plunged forward. The others were induced
to follow, and after a start had been made the regular man-hauling party
went back to fetch their load. There was not one man there who would
willingly have caused pain to a living thing. But what else was to be
done—we could not leave our pony depôt in that bog. Hour after hour we
plugged on: and we dare not halt for lunch, we knew we could never start
again. After crossing many waves huge pressure ridges suddenly showed
themselves all round, and we got on to a steep rise with the coastal
chasm on our right hand appearing as a great dip full of enormous
pressure. Scott was naturally worried about crevasses, and though we knew
there was a way through, the finding of it in the gloom was most
difficult. For two hours we zig-zagged about, getting forward it is true,
but much bewildered, and once at any rate almost bogged. Scott joined us,
and we took off our ski so as to find the crevasses, and if possible a
hard way through. Every step we sank about fifteen inches, and often
above our knees. Meanwhile Snatcher was saving the situation in
snow-shoes, and led the line of ponies. Snippets nearly fell back into a
big crevasse, into which his hind quarters fell: but they managed to
unharness him, and scramble him out.

I do not know how long we had been going when Scott decided to follow the
chasm. We found a big dip with hard ice underneath, and it was probably
here that we made the crossing: we could now see the ring of pressure
behind us. Almost it was decided to make the depôt here, but the ponies
still plugged on in the most plucky way, though they had to be driven.
Scott settled to go as far as they could be induced to march, and they
did wonderfully. We had never thought that they would go a mile: but
painfully they marched for eleven hours without a long halt, and covered
a distance which we then estimated at seven miles. But our sledge-meters
were useless being clogged with the soft snow, and we afterwards came to
believe the distance was not so great: probably not more than five. When
we had reached a point some two miles from the top of the snow divide
which fills the Gateway we camped, thankful to rest, but more thankful
still that we need drive those weary ponies no more. Their rest was near.
It was a horrid business, and the place was known as Shambles Camp.

Oates came up to Scott as he stood in the shadow of Mount Hope. "Well! I
congratulate you, Titus," said Wilson. "And
I
thank you, Titus," said
Scott.

And that was the end of the Barrier Stage.

The Southern Journey involves the most important object of the
Expedition.... One cannot affect to be blind to the situation:
the scientific public, as well as the more general public, will
gauge the result of the scientific work of the Expedition largely
in accordance with the success or failure of the main object.
With success all roads will be made easy, all work will receive
its proper consideration. With failure even the most brilliant
work may be neglected and forgotten, at least for a time.—SCOTT.

II. THE BEARDMORE GLACIER

The ponies had dragged twenty-four weekly units of food for four men to
some five miles from the bottom of the glacier, but we were late. For
some days we had been eating the Summit ration, that is the food which
should not have been touched until the Glacier Depôt had been laid, and
we were still a day's run from the place where this was to be done: it
was of course the result of the blizzard which no one could have expected
in December, usually one of the two most settled months. Still more
serious was the deep snow which lay like down upon the surface, and into
which we sank commonly to our knees, our sledges digging themselves in
until the crosspieces were ploughing through the drift. Shackleton had
fine weather, and found blue ice in the bottom reaches of the glacier,
and Scott lamented what was unquestionably bad luck.

It was noon of December 10 before we had made the readjustments necessary
for man-hauling. We left here pony meat for man and dog food, three
ten-foot sledges, one twelve-foot sledge, and a good many oddments of
clothing and pony gear. We started with three four-man teams, each
pulling for these first few miles about 500 lbs., as follows: (I) Scott,
Wilson, Oates, Seaman Evans: (II) Lieut. Evans, Atkinson, Wright, Lashly:
(III) Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, Crean, Keohane. The team numbered (II) had
been man-hauling together some days, and two members of it, Lieut. Evans
and Lashly, had already been man-hauling since the breakdown of the
second motor at Corner Camp; it was certainly not so fit as the other
two. In addition to these three sledges the two dog-teams, which had been
doing splendid work, were carrying 600 lbs. of our weight as well as the
provisions for the Lower Glacier Depôt, weighing 200 lbs. It began to
look as if Amundsen had chosen the right form of transport.

The Gateway is a gap in the mountains, a side door, as it were, to the
great tumbled glacier. By lunch we were on the top of the divide, but it
took six hours of the hardest hauling to cover the mile which formed the
rise. As long as possible we stuck to ski, but we reached a point at
which we could not move the sledges on ski: once we had taken them off we
were up to our knees, and the sledges were ploughing the snow which would
not support them. But our gear was drying in the bright sunshine, our
bags were spread out at every opportunity, and the great jagged cliffs of
red granite were welcome to the eyes after 425 statute miles of snow. The
Gateway is filled by a giant snowdrift which has been formed between
Mount Hope on our left and the mainland on our right. From Shackleton's
book we gathered that the Beardmore was a very bad glacier indeed. Once
on the top of the divide we lunched, and we descended in the evening,
camping at midnight on the edge of the glacier, which we found, as we had
feared, covered with soft snow which was so deep as to give no indication
whatever of the hard ice which Shackleton found here. "We camped in
considerable drift and a blizzard wind, which is still blowing, and I
hope will go on, for every hour it is sweeping away inches of this soft
powdery snow into which we have been sinking all day."
^[212]

Before setting out on December 11 we rigged up the Lower Glacier Depôt,
three weekly Summit units of provisions, two cases of emergency biscuit
which was the ration for three weekly units, and two cans of oil. These
provisions were calculated to carry the three returning parties as far as
the Southern Barrier Depôt. We also left one can of spirit, used for
lighting the primus, one bottle of medical brandy and certain spare and
personal gear not required. On the sledges themselves we stowed eighteen
weekly Summit units, besides the three ready bags containing the ration
for the current week, and the complement of biscuit, for this was ten
cases in addition to the three boxes of biscuit which the three parties
were using. Then there were eighteen cans of oil, with two cans of
lighting spirit and a little additional Christmas fare which Bowers had
packed. Every unit of food was worked out for four men for one week.