The Worst Journey in the World (69 page)

Pushing into the drift round the corner I found Atkinson on the sea-ice,
and Keohane in the hut behind. In a few minutes we had the gist of one
another's news. The ship had made attempt after attempt to reach Campbell
and his five men, but they had not been taken off from Evans Coves when
she finally left McMurdo Sound on March 4: she would make another effort
on her way to New Zealand. Evans was better and was being taken home.
Meanwhile there were four of us at Hut Point and we could not communicate
with our companions at Cape Evans until the Sound froze over, for the
open sea was washing the feet of Vince's Cross.

We were not unduly alarmed about the Polar Party at present, but began to
make arrangements for further sledging if necessary. It was useless to
think of taking the dogs again for they were thoroughly done. The mules
and the new dogs were at Cape Evans. "In four or five days Atkinson
wishes to start South again to see what we can do man-hauling, if the
Polar Party is not in. I agree with him that to try and go west to meet
Campbell is useless just now. If we can go north, they can come south,
and to put two parties there on the new sea-ice is to double the risk."

"
March 17.
A blizzard day but only about force 5-6. I think they will
have been able to travel all right on the Barrier. Atkinson thinks of
starting on the 22nd: my view is that allowing three weeks and four days
for the Summit, and ten days for being hung up by weather, we can give
them five weeks after the Last Return Party (i.e. to March 26) to get
in, having been quite safe and sound all the way. We feel anxious now,
but I do not think there is need for alarm till then, and they might get
in well after that, and be all right.

"Now our only real chance of finding them, if we go out, is from here to
ten miles south of Corner Camp. After that we shall do all we can, but it
would be no good, because there is no very definite route. Therefore I
would start out on March 27, when we would travel that part with most
chance of meeting them there if they have any trouble. I have put this to
Atkinson and will willingly do what he decides. I am feeling pretty done
up, and have rested. The prospect of what will be a hard journey, feeling
as I do, is rather bad. I don't think there is really cause for alarm."

"
March 18 and 19.
We are very anxious, though the Pole Party could not
be in yet. Also I am very done, and more so than I at first thought: I am
afraid it is a bit doubtful whether I can get out again yet, but to-day I
feel better and have been for a short walk. I am taking all the rest I
can."

"
March 20.
Last night a very strong blizzard blew, wind force 9 and big
snowfall and drift. This morning the doors and windows are all drifted
up, and we could hardly get out: a lot of snow had got inside the hut
also: I was feeling rotten, and thought that to go out and clear the
window and door would do me good. This I did, but came back in a big
squall, passing Atkinson as I came in. Then I felt myself going faint,
and remember pushing the door to get in if possible. I knew no more until
I came to on the floor just inside the door, having broken some tendons
in my right hand in falling."
^[251]

Two days afterwards the dogs sang at breakfast-time: they often did this
when a party was approaching, even when it was still far away, and they
had done so when Crean came in on his walk from Corner Camp. We were
cheered by the noise. But no party arrived, and the singing of the dogs
was explained later by some seal appearing on the new ice in Arrival Bay.
Atkinson decided to go out on to the Barrier man-hauling with Keohane on
the 26th. It was obvious that I could not go with them: he told me
afterwards that when I came in with the dog-teams he was sure I could not
go out again.

"
March 25.
The wind came away yesterday evening, first S.W. and then
S.E. but not bad, though very thick. It was a surprise to find we could
see the Western Mountains this morning, and I believe it has been a good
day on the Barrier, though it is still blowing with low drift this
evening. We are now on the days when I expect the Polar Party in: pray
God I may be right. Atkinson and I look at one another, and he looks, and
I feel, quite haggard with anxiety. He says he does not think they have
scurvy. We both, I think, feel quite comfortable, in comparison, about
Campbell: he only wants to exercise care, and his great care was almost a
byword on the ship. They are fresh and they have plenty of seal.
^[252]
He
discussed with Pennell both the possibility of shipwreck and that of the
ship being unable to get to him, and for this reason landed an extra
month's rations as a depôt; also he contemplated the idea of living on
seal. He knows of the Butter Point Depôt, and knows that a party has been
sledging in that neighbourhood: though he does not know of the depôts
they left at Cape Roberts and Cape Bernacchi, they are right out on the
Points and Taylor says he could not miss them on his way down the
coast."
^[253]

This day Atkinson thought he saw Campbell's party coming in, and the next
day Keohane and Dimitri came in great excitement and said they could see
them, and we were out on the Point and on the sea-ice in the drift for
quite a long time. "Last night we had turned in about two hours when five
or six knocks were hit on the little window over our heads. Atkinson
shouted 'Hullo!' and cried, 'Cherry, they're in.' Keohane said, 'Who's
cook?' Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to
give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was no one there. It
was the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard, and it
must have been a dog which sleeps in that window. He must have shaken
himself, hitting the window with his tail. Atkinson thought he heard
footsteps!"
^[254]

On Wednesday, March 27, Atkinson started out on to the Barrier with one
companion, Keohane. During the whole of this trip the temperatures were
low, and both men obtained but little sleep, finding of course that a
tent occupied by two men only is a very cold place. The first two days
they made nine miles each day, on March 29 they pushed on in thick
weather for eleven miles, when the weather cleared enough to show them
that they had got into the White Island pressure. On March 30 they
reached a point south of Corner Camp, when "taking into consideration the
weather, and temperatures, and the time of the year, and the hopelessness
of finding the party except at any definite point like a depôt, I decided
to return from here. We depôted the major portion of a week's provisions
to enable them to communicate with Hut Point in case they should reach
this point. At this date in my own mind I was morally certain that the
party had perished, and in fact on March 29 Captain Scott, 11 miles south
of One Ton Depôt, made the last entry in his diary."
^[255]

"They arrived back on April 1. Yesterday evening at 6.30 P.M. Atkinson
and Keohane arrived. It was pretty thick here and blowing too, but they
had had a fair day on the Barrier. They had been out to Corner Camp and
eight miles farther. Their bags were bad, their clothes very bad after
six days: they must have had minus forties constantly. It is a moral
certainty that to go farther south would serve no purpose, and for two
men would be a useless risk. They did quite right to come back. They are
much in want of sleep, poor devils, and I do hope Atkinson will allow
himself to rest: he looks as though he might knock up. Keohane did well,
and is very fit. They came in over fifteen miles yesterday, and have
brought in the sledge of the Second Return Party, the one they took out
being very heavy pulling. They had no day on which they could not travel.
Here it has been blowing and drifting half the time he has been absent,"
and a few days later, "We have got to face it now. The Pole Party will
not in all probability ever get back. And there is no more that we can
do. The next step must be to get to Cape Evans as soon as it is possible.
There are fresh men there: at any rate fresh compared to us."
^[256]

Atkinson was the senior officer left, and unless Campbell and his party
came in, the command of the Main Party devolved upon him. It was not a
position which any one could envy even if he had been fresh and fit.
Amidst all his anxieties and responsibilities he looked after me with the
greatest patience and care. I was so weak that sometimes I could only
keep on my legs with difficulty: the glands of my throat were swollen so
that I could hardly speak or swallow: my heart was strained and I had
considerable pain. At such a time I was only a nuisance, but nothing
could have exceeded his kindness and his skill with the few drugs which
we possessed.

Again and again in these days some one would see one or other of the
missing parties coming in. It always proved to be mirage, a seal or
pressure or I do not know what, but never could we quite persuade
ourselves that these excitements might not have something in them, and
every time hope sprang up anew. Meanwhile the matter of serious
importance was the state of the ice in the bays between us and Cape
Evans: we
must
get help. All the ice in the middle of the Sound was
swept out by the winds of March 30 to April 2, and on the following day
Atkinson climbed Arrival Heights to see how the remaining ice looked. The
view over the Sound from here is shown in the frontispiece to this book.
"The ice in the two bays to Cape Evans is quite new—formed this morning,
I suppose, with the rest that is in the Sound. There are open leads
between Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans, inside the line joining the ends
of the two. There is a big berg in between Glacier Tongue and the
Islands, and also a flat one off Cape Evans."
^[257]

We had some good freezing days after this, and on April 5 "we tried the
ice this afternoon. It is naturally slushy and salt, but some hundred
yards from the old ice it is six inches thick: probably it averages about
this thickness all over the Sound."
^[258]
Then we had a hard blizzard, on
the fourth day of which it was possible to get up the Heights again and
see for some distance. As far as could be judged the ice in the two bays
had remained firm: these bays are those formed on either side of Glacier
Tongue, by the Hut Point Peninsula on the south, and by Cape Evans and
the islands on the north.

On April 10 Atkinson, Keohane and Dimitri started for Cape Evans, meaning
to travel along the Peninsula to the Hutton Cliffs, and thence to cross
the sea-ice in these bays, if it proved to be practicable. The amount of
daylight was now very restricted, and the sun would disappear for the
winter a week hence. Arrived at the Hutton Cliffs, where it was blowing
as usual, they lost no time in lowering themselves and their sledge on to
the sea-ice, and were then pleasantly surprised to find how slippery it
was. "We set sail before a strong following breeze and, all sitting on
the sledge, had reached the Glacier Tongue in twenty minutes. We
clambered over the Tongue, and, our luck and the breeze still holding, we
reached Cape Evans, completing the last seven miles, all sitting on the
sledge, in an hour."

"There I called together all the members and explained the situation,
telling them what had been done, and what I then proposed to do; also
asking them for their advice in this trying time. The opinion was almost
unanimous that all that was possible had been already done. Owing to
the lateness of the year, and the likelihood of our being unable to make
our way up the coast to Campbell, one or two members suggested that
another journey might be made to Corner Camp. Knowing the conditions
which had lately prevailed on the Barrier, I took it upon myself to
decide the uselessness of this."
^[259]

All was well at Cape Evans. Winds and temperatures had both been high,
the latter being in marked contrast to the low temperatures we had
experienced at Hut Point, which averaged as much as 15° lower than those
that were recorded in the previous year. The seven mules were well, but
three of the new dogs had died: we were always being troubled by that
mysterious disease.

Before she left for New Zealand the following members of our company
joined the ship: Simpson, who had to return to his work in India;
Griffith Taylor, who had been lent to us by the Australian Government for
only one year; Ponting, whose photographic work was done; Day, whose work
with the motors was done; Meares, who was recalled by family affairs;
Forde, whose hand had never recovered the effects of frost-bite during
the spring; Clissold, who fell off a berg and concussed himself; and
Anton, whose work with the ponies was done. Lieutenant Evans was
invalided home.

Archer had been landed to take Clissold's place as cook; another seaman,
Williamson, was landed to take Forde's place, and of our sledging
companions he was the only fresh man. Wright was probably the most fit
after him, and otherwise we had no one who, under ordinary circumstances,
would have been considered fit to go out sledging again this season,
especially at a time when the sun was just leaving us for the winter. We
were sledged out.

The next few days were occupied in making preparations for a further
sledge journey, and on April 13 a party started to return to Hut Point by
the Hutton Cliffs. Atkinson, Wright, Keohane and Williamson were to try
and sledge up the western coast to help Campbell: Gran and Dimitri were
to stay with me at Hut Point. The surface of the sea-ice was now
extremely slushy and bad for pulling; the ice had begun to extrude its
salt. A blizzard started in their faces, and they ran for shelter to the
lee of Little Razorback Island. The weather clearing they pushed on to
the Glacier Tongue, and camped there for the night somewhat frost-bitten.
Some difficulty was experienced the next morning in climbing the
ice-cliff on to the Peninsula, but Atkinson, using his knife as a
purchase, and the sledge held at arm's-length by four men as a ladder,
succeeded eventually in getting a foothold.