The Worst Journey in the World (82 page)

All the joy had gone from their sledging. They were hungry, they were
cold, the pulling was heavy, and two of them were not fit. As long ago as
January 14 Scott wrote that Oates was feeling the cold and fatigue more
than the others
^[299]
and again he refers to the matter on January
20.
^[300]
On January 19 Wilson wrote: "We get our hairy faces and mouths
dreadfully iced up on the march, and often one's hands very cold indeed
holding ski-sticks. Evans, who cut his knuckle some days ago at the last
depôt, has a lot of pus in it to-night." January 20: "Evans has got 4 or
5 of his finger-tips badly blistered by the cold. Titus also his nose and
cheeks—al[so] Evans and Bowers." January 28: "Evans has a number of
badly blistered finger-ends which he got at the Pole. Titus' big toe is
turning blue-black." January 31: "Evans' finger-nails all coming off,
very raw and sore." February 4: "Evans is feeling the cold a lot, always
getting frost-bitten. Titus' toes are blackening, and his nose and cheeks
are dead yellow. Dressing Evans' fingers every other day with boric
vaseline: they are quite sweet still." February 5: "Evans' fingers
suppurating. Nose very bad [hard] and rotten-looking."
^[301]

Scott was getting alarmed about Evans, who "has dislodged two
finger-nails to-night; his hands are really bad, and, to my surprise, he
shows signs of losing heart over it. He hasn't been cheerful since the
accident."
^[302]
"The party is not improving in condition, especially
Evans, who is becoming rather dull and incapable." "Evans' nose is almost
as bad as his fingers. He is a good deal crocked up."
^[303]

Bowers' diary, quoted above, finished on January 25, on which day they
picked up their One and a Half Degree Depôt. "I shall sleep much better
with our provision bag full again," wrote Scott that night. "Bowers got
another rating sight to-night—it was wonderful how he managed to observe
in such a horribly cold wind." They marched 16 miles the next day, but
got off the outward track, which was crooked. On January 27 they did 14
miles on a "very bad surface of deep-cut sastrugi all day, until late in
the afternoon when we began to get out of them."
^[304]
"By Jove, this is
tremendous labour," said Scott.

They were getting into the better surfaces again: 15.7 miles for January
28, "a fine day and a good march on very decent surface."
^[305]
On January
29 Bowers wrote his last full day's diary: "Our record march to-day.
With a good breeze and improving surface we were soon in among the double
tracks where the supporting party left us. Then we picked up the
memorable camp where I transferred to the advance party. How glad I was
to change over. The camp was much drifted up and immense sastrugi were
everywhere, S.S.E. in direction and S.E. We did 10.4 miles before lunch.
I was breaking back on sledge and controlling; it was beastly cold and my
hands were perished. In the afternoon I put on my dogskin mitts and was
far more comfortable. A stiff breeze with drift continues: temperature
-25°. Thank God our days of having to face it are over. We completed 19.5
miles [22 statute] this evening, and so are only 29 miles from our
precious [Three Degree] Depôt. It will be bad luck indeed if we do not
get there in a march and a half anyhow."
^[306]

Nineteen miles again on January 30, but during the previous day's march
Wilson had strained a tendon in his leg. "I got a nasty bruise on the
Tib[ialis] ant[icus] which gave me great pain all the afternoon." "My
left leg exceedingly painful all day, so I gave Birdie my ski and hobbled
alongside the sledge on foot. The whole of the Tibialis anticus is
swollen and tight, and full of teno synovitis, and the skin red and
oedematous over the shin. But we made a very fine march with the help of
a brisk breeze." January 31: "Again walking by the sledge with swollen
leg but not nearly so painful. We had 5.8 miles to go to reach our Three
Degree Depôt. Picked this up with a week's provision and a line from
Evans, and then for lunch an extra biscuit each, making 4 for lunch and
1/10 whack of butter extra as well. Afternoon we passed cairn where
Birdie's ski had been left. These we picked up and came on till 7.30 P.M.
when the wind which had been very light all day dropped, and with temp.
-20° it felt delightfully warm and sunny and clear. We have 1/10 extra
pemmican in the hoosh now also. My leg pretty swollen again
to-night."
^[307]
They travelled 13.5 miles that day, and 15.7 on the next.
"My leg much more comfortable, gave me no pain, and I was able to pull
all day, holding on to the sledge. Still some oedema. We came down a
hundred feet or so to-day on a fairly steep gradient."
^[308]

They were now approaching the crevassed surfaces and the ice-falls which
mark the entrance to the Beardmore Glacier, and February 2 was marked by
another accident, this time to Scott. "On a very slippery surface I came
an awful 'purler' on my shoulder. It is horribly sore to-night and
another sick person added to our tent—three out of five injured, and the
most troublesome surfaces to come. We shall be lucky if we get through
without serious injury. Wilson's leg is better, but might easily get bad
again, and Evans' fingers.... We have managed to get off 17 miles. The
extra food is certainly helping us, but we are getting pretty hungry. The
weather is already a trifle warmer, the altitude lower and only 80 miles
or so to Mount Darwin. It is time we were off the summit.—Pray God
another four days will see us pretty well clear of it. Our bags are
getting very wet and we ought to have more sleep."
^[309]

They had been spending some time in finding the old tracks. But they had
a good landfall for the depôt at the top of the glacier and on February 3
they decided to push on due north, and to worry no more for the present
about tracks and cairns. They did 16 miles that day. Wilson's diary runs:
"Sunny and breezy again. Came down a series of slopes, and finished the
day by going up one. Enormous deep-cut sastrugi and drifts and shiny
egg-shell surface. Wind all S.S.E.ly. To-day at about 11 P.M. we got our
first sight again of mountain peaks on our eastern horizon.... We crossed
the outmost line of crevassed ridge top to-day, the first on our return.

"
February 4.
18 miles. Clear cloudless blue sky, surface drift. During
forenoon we came down gradual descent including 2 or 3 irregular terrace
slopes, on crest of one of which were a good many crevasses. Southernmost
were just big enough for Scott and Evans to fall in to their waists, and
very deceptively covered up. They ran east and west. Those nearer the
crest were the ordinary broad street-like crevasses, well lidded. In the
afternoon we again came to a crest, before descending, with street
crevasses, and one we crossed had a huge hole where the lid had fallen
in, big enough for a horse and cart to go down. We have a great number of
mountain tops on our right and south of our beam as we go due north now.
We are now camped just below a great crevassed mound, on a mountain top
evidently."

"
February 5.
18.2 miles. We had a difficult day, getting in amongst a
frightful chaos of broad chasm-like crevasses. We kept too far east and
had to wind in and out amongst them and cross multitudes of bridges.
We then bore west a bit and got on better all the afternoon and got round
a good deal of the upper disturbances of the falls here."

[Scott wrote: "We are camped in a very disturbed region, but the wind has
fallen very light here, and our camp is comfortable for the first time
for many weeks."
^[310]
]

"
February 6.
15 miles. We again had a forenoon of trying to cut
corners. Got in amongst great chasms running E. and W. and had to come
out again. We then again kept west and downhill over tremendous sastrugi,
with a slight breeze, very cold. In afternoon continued bearing more and
more towards Mount Darwin: we got round one of the main lines of ice-fall
and looked back up to it.... Very cold march: many crevasses: I walking
by the sledge on foot found a good many: the others all on ski."

"
February 7.
15.5 miles. Clear day again and we made a tedious march in
the forenoon along a flat or two, and down a long slope: and then in the
afternoon we had a very fresh breeze, and very fast run down long slopes
covered with big sastrugi. It was a strenuous job steering and checking
behind by the sledge. We reached the Upper Glacier Depôt by 7.30 P.M. and
found everything right."
^[311]

This was the end of the plateau: the beginning of the glacier. Their hard
time should be over so far as the weather was concerned. Wilson notes how
fine the land looked as they approached it: "The colour of the Dominion
Range rock is in the main all brown madder or dark reddish chocolate, but
there are numerous bands of yellow rock scattered amongst it. I think it
is composed of dolerite and sandstone as on the W. side."
^[312]

The condition of the party was of course giving anxiety: how much it is
impossible to say. A good deal was to be hoped from the warm weather
ahead. Scott and Bowers were probably the fittest men. Scott's shoulder
soon mended and "Bowers is splendid, full of energy and bustle all the
time."
^[313]
Wilson was feeling the cold more than either of them now. His
leg was not yet well enough to wear ski. Oates had suffered from a cold
foot for some time. Evans, however, was the only man whom Scott seems to
have been worried about. "His cuts and wounds suppurate, his nose looks
very bad, and altogether he shows considerable signs of being played
out." ... "Well, we have come through our seven weeks' ice-cap journey
and most of us are fit, but I think another week might have had a very
bad effect on P.O. Evans, who is going steadily downhill."
^[314]
They had
all been having extra food which had helped them much, though they
complained of hunger and want of sleep. Directly they got into the warmer
weather on the glacier their food satisfied them, "but we must march to
keep on the full ration, and we want rest, yet we shall pull through all
right, D.V. We are by no means worn out."
^[315]

There are no germs in the Antarctic, save for a few isolated specimens
which almost certainly come down from civilization in the upper air
currents. You can sleep all night in a wet bag and clothing, and sledge
all day in a mail of ice, and you will not catch a cold nor get any
aches. You can get deficiency diseases, like scurvy, for inland this is a
deficiency country, without vitamines. You can also get poisoned if you
allow your food to remain thawed out too long, and if you do not cover
the provisions in a depôt with enough snow the sun will get at them, even
though the air temperature is far below freezing. But it is not easy to
become diseased.

On the other hand, once something does go wrong it is the deuce and all
to get it right: especially cuts. And the isolation of the polar
traveller may place him in most difficult circumstances. There are no
ambulances and hospitals, and a man on a sledge is a very serious weight.
Practically any man who undertakes big polar journeys must face the
possibility of having to commit suicide to save his companions, and the
difficulty of this must not be overrated, for it is in some ways more
desirable to die than to live if things are bad enough: we got to that
stage on the Winter Journey. I remember discussing this question with
Bowers, who had a scheme of doing himself in with a pick-axe if necessity
arose, though how he could have accomplished it I don't know: or, as he
said, there might be a crevasse and at any rate there was the medical
case. I was horrified at the time: I had never faced the thing out with
myself like that.

They left the Upper Glacier Depôt under Mount Darwin on February 8. This
day they collected the most important of those geological specimens to
which, at Wilson's special request, they clung to the end, and which were
mostly collected by him. Mount Darwin and Buckley Island, which are
really the tops of high mountains, stick out of the ice at the top of the
glacier, and the course ran near to both of them, but not actually up
against them. Shackleton found coal on Buckley Island, and it was clear
that the place was of great geological importance, for it was one of the
only places in the Antarctic where fossils could be found, so far as we
knew. The ice-falls stretched away as far as you could see towards the
mountains which bound the glacier on either side, and as you looked
upwards towards Buckley Island they were like a long breaking wave. One
of the great difficulties about the Beardmore was that you saw the
ice-falls as you went up, and avoided them, but coming down you knew
nothing of their whereabouts until you fell into the middle of pressure
and crevasses, and then it was almost impossible to say whether you
should go right or left to get out.

Evans was unable to pull this day, and was detached from the sledge, but
this was not necessarily a very serious sign: Shackleton on his return
journey was not able to pull at this place. Wilson wrote as follows:

"
February 8, Mt. Buckley Cliffs.
A very busy day. We had a very cold
forenoon march, blowing like blazes from the S. Birdie detached and went
on ski to Mt. Darwin and collected some dolerite, the only rock he could
see on the Nunatak, which was nearest. We got into a sort of crusted
surface where the snow broke through nearly to our knees and the
sledge-runner also. I thought at first we were all on a thinly bridged
crevasse. We then came on east a bit, and gradually got worse and worse
going over an ice-fall, having great trouble to prevent sledge taking
charge, but eventually got down and then made N.W. or N. into the land,
and camped right by the moraine under the great sandstone cliffs of Mt.
Buckley, out of the wind and quite warm again: it was a wonderful change.
After lunch we all geologized on till supper, and I was very late turning
in, examining the moraine after supper. Socks, all strewn over the rocks,
dried splendidly. Magnificent Beacon sandstone cliffs. Masses of
limestone in the moraine, and dolerite crags in various places. Coal
seams at all heights in the sandstone cliffs, and lumps of weathered coal
with fossil vegetable. Had a regular field-day and got some splendid
things in the short time."