Chapter V: The Depôt Journey (3)

"We returned to our old camp that night (March 2) with Nobby, the only one saved of the five that left One Ton Depôt. I was fearfully cut up about my pony and Punch, but it was better than last night; we knew they would not have to starve and that all their troubles were now at an end. Before supper I went for a walk along the Barrier with Scott, and the next day we started back. We left one tent, two sledges and a lot of gear as Nobby could only pull two light sledges, and we could not pull an excessive weight on that bad surface. As it was we had over 800 lbs. on the sledge when we left. It was a glaring day with the surface soft and sandy, a combination of unpleasant circumstances. It took five hours to drag as far as the place we had originally gone down on to the sea-ice from the Barrier.

"Evans and his party should now have arrived from Corner Camp, and as Captain Scott wanted to see if they had left a note at Safety Camp, I walked up there while the tea was being brewed. It was about 1¼ miles away, and I found traces of the party in the snow, but no note. It fed me up to see the walls so recently occupied by our ponies, and I was glad to leave. The afternoon march was interminable; it seemed as if we would never reach the coast. At last we came to the Pram Point Pressure Ridges where the Barrier joins the peninsula to eastward of Cape Armitage. They are waves of ice up to 20 feet in height running along parallel to each other with a valley in between each, and are only crevassed badly at the outer end as far as we have seen, though there are smaller crevasses right along. We camped in one of these valleys about 9.30 P.M.; I was thoroughly tired, so I think was everybody else. We were about a mile from the ice edge; and the problem was where to get Nobby up the precipitous slopes. This was solved by the arrival of Evans, Atkinson, Forde and Keohane about midnight. They had seen us coming in from the heights, and had come down for news. Teddy Evans had arrived the day before, and, being warned off the Barrier edge by a note left by Captain Scott, had made for the land with his party, and one horse Jimmy Pigg. He had found a good way up a mile or so farther east, almost under Castle Rock. He had walked to Hut Point with Atkinson the next day and heard of the loss of Cherry, myself and the animals from Bill Wilson and Meares who had been left there to look after their teams. I hadn't seen Atkinson for quite a while when we met this time.

"The next day we relayed the sledges up the slope which was about 700 feet high rising from a small bay. It was so steep that the pony could only be led up and we had to put on crampons to grip the ice. These are merely a sole of leather with light metal plates for foot and heel containing spikes. [These were altered afterwards.] They have leather beckets and a lanyard rove off for making them fast over the finnesko. It took us all the morning to get everything up to the top and then it started to blow. The camp was wonderfully sheltered. Jimmy Pigg and Nobby were reunited after many weeks, and to show their friendliness the former bit the latter in the back of the neck as a first introduction. Atkinson had gone to Hut Point to reassure Uncle Bill as to our safety and arrived again with Gran just as we got the last load up. There was no sugar at the hut except what the dogs had brought in, so Gran, who was quite fresh, volunteered to get a couple of bags from the depôt at Safety Camp, which could plainly be seen out on the Barrier. We all went to the edge of the slope to see him go down it on ski. He did it splendidly and must have been going with the speed of an express train down the incline, as he was on the Barrier in an incredibly short time compared to the hours we had dragged up the same slope with the loads. Teddy, Titus and Keohane were left at the camp to be joined by Gran later. Scott started off for Hut Point with Crean and Cherry on his sledge, while I followed with Forde and Atkinson. The others helped us up several hundred feet of slope and left us under Castle Rock.

"It was here that they mistook their way in the blizzard and lost a man from the Discovery. Though it was fine below it was blowing like anything on the heights. I was too busily occupied to see much of the hills and snow-slopes which I got to know so well later. It was about three miles direct to the hut, but very up and down hill. At the last, however, you see the Bay in panorama with Cape Armitage on one side, and Hut Point on the other, where the Discovery lay two whole years. It is a magnificent view from the heights and for wild desolate grandeur would take some beating; the Western Mountains and the great dome of Mount Discovery across the black strait of water, covered with dark frost smoke, and here and there an iceberg driving fast towards the sea. About half a mile below us was the little hut and, on the left, the 800-feet pyramid of Observation Hill. It is a perfect chaos of hills and extinct craters just here.

"It was blowing like fun. We left one sledge on the top of ski-slope and just took what was necessary on the other, such as our bags, etc. It was my first experience of steep downhill sledging. Instead of anybody pulling forward we all had to hang back and guide the sledge down the slippery incline without letting it take charge or getting upset. It is great fun. On reaching the head of the Bay, however, we had quite a dangerous little bit to cross. Here it was swept of snow and there was nothing but glassy ice and the incline ended in a low ice-cliff with the water below it. Attached as we were to the sledge we should have been at a disadvantage had it come to swimming, which a slip might easily have brought about. We scratched carefully across this and then headed down on the snow, arriving at the hut all well. The old hut had changed tremendously since I last saw it, having been dug out and cleared of snow and ice. Two unrecognizable sweeps greeted us heartily, they were Bill and Meares; the dogs howled a chorus for our benefit; it was quite like coming home. Inside the hut, the cause of the blackness was apparent, they had a blubber fire going, an open one, with no chimney or uptake for the smoke. After such a long open-air life it fairly choked me, and for once I could not eat a square meal. We all slept in a row against the west wall of the hut with our feet inboard.

"The next morning Captain Scott, Bill, Cherry and I set out to walk to Castle Rock and meet the other party. It was fairly fizzing from the sea, but clear. Once up on the Heights, however, we seemed to get less wind. A couple of hours later we were at the great rock, Castle Rock, which is one of the best landmarks about here. The party in the Saddle Camp had relayed two of the sledges up the slope; these we hauled on to the top while the two ponies were harnessed and brought up. There were three sledges left to take on altogether, so the ponies took one each and we the other. Meanwhile Captain Scott walked over the shoulder under Castle Rock to see down the Strait and came back with the intelligence that he could hardly believe his eyes, but half the Glacier Tongue had broken off and disappeared. This great Tongue of ice had stood there on arrival of the Discovery, ten years before, and had remained ever since; it had a depôt of Shackleton's on it, and Campbell had depôted his fodder on it for us. On the eventful night of the break-up of the ice at least three miles of the Tongue which had been considered practically terra firma had gone, after having been there probably for centuries. We headed for the hut: Bill had looked out a route for the ponies, to avoid slippery places. It started to bliz, but was not too thick for us to see our bearings. At the top of Ski Slope the ponies were taken out of the sledges and led down a circuitous route over the rocks. The rest of us put everything we wanted on one sledge and leaving the others up there went down the slope as before. The two ponies arrived before us and were stabled in the verandah.

"That night for the first time since the establishment of Safety Camp the depôt party were all together again, minus six ponies. In concluding my report to Captain Scott on the 'floe' incident, which he asked me to set down long afterwards, I said, 'In reconsidering the foregoing I have come to the conclusion that I underestimated the danger signs on the sea-ice on February 28, and on the following day might have attached more importance to the safety of my companions. As it was, however, all circumstances seemed to conspire together to make the situation unavoidable.' I did not forget to mention the splendid behaviour of Cherry and Crean, and, for my own part, I have no regrets. I took the blame for my lack of experience, but knew that having done everything I could do, it did not concern me if anybody liked to criticize my action. My own opinion is that it just had to be, the circumstances leading to it were too devious for mere coincidence. Six hours earlier we could have walked to the hut on sound sea-ice. A few hours later we should have seen open water on arrival at the Barrier edge. The blizzard that knocked out the beasts, the death of Weary, the misunderstanding of the dogs, everything, fitted in to place us on the sea-ice during the only two hours of the whole year that we could possibly have been in such a position. Let those who believe in coincidence carry on believing. Nobody will ever convince me that there was not something more. Perhaps in the light of next year we shall see what was meant by such an apparent blow to our hopes. Certainly we shall start for the Pole with less of that foolish spirit of blatant boast and ridiculous blind self-assurance, that characterized some of us on leaving Cardiff.

"Poor Captain Scott had now a new anxiety thrust upon him. The Winter Station with ponies, stores and motors was all situated on a low beach not twenty yards from the water's edge, and now that the ice had gone out (and the hut was not six feet above sea-level at the floor) how had they fared in the storm? This was a problem we could not solve without going to see. Cape Evans, though dimly in sight, was as far off as New Zealand till the sea froze over. The idea of attempting the shoulder of Erebus did occur to Captain Scott, but it was so heavily crevassed as to make a journey from our side almost impossible. On the other side Professor David's party got up to the Summit without finding a crevasse. Captain Scott took his reverses like a brick. I often went out for a walk with him and sometimes he discussed his plans for next season. He took his losses very philosophically and never blamed any of us."

* * * * *

This is the end of that part of Bowers' letter which deals with the incident. Crean told me afterwards how he got on to the Barrier. He first made for the Gap, following the best path of the ice, but then had to retrace his steps and make for White Island jumping from floe to floe. But then "I was pretty lively," said he: and "there were lots of penguins and seals and killers knocking round that day."

Crean had one of the ski sticks and that "was a great help to me for getting over the floes. It was a sloping piece like what you were on and it was very near touching the Barrier, in one corner of it only. Well, I dug a hole with the ski stick in the side of the Barrier for a step for one foot, and when I finished the hole I straddled my legs and got one on the floe and one in the side of the Barrier. Then I got the stick and dug it in on top and I gave myself a bit of a spring and got my outside leg up top. It was a terrible place but I thought it was the only chance.

"I made straight for Safety Camp and they must have spotted me: for I think it was Gran that met me on skis. Then Scott and Wilson and Oates met me a long way out: I explained how it happened. He was worried-looking a bit, but he never said anything out of the way. He told Oates to go inside and light the primus and give me a meal."

A more detailed account of the behaviour of the hundreds of whales which infested the lanes of open water between the broken floes and calved bergs is of interest. Most of them at any rate were Killer whales (Orca gladiator), and they were cruising about in great numbers, snorting and blowing, while occasionally they would in some extraordinary way raise themselves and look about over the ice, resting the fore part of their enormous yellow and black bodies on the edge of the floes. They were undisguisedly interested in us and the ponies, and we felt that if we once got into the water our ends would be swift and bloody.

But I have a very distinct recollection that the whales were not all Killers, and that some, at any rate, were Bottle-nosed whales. This was impressed upon me by one of the most dramatic moments of that night and day.

We made our way very slowly, sometimes waiting twenty minutes for the floe on which we were to touch the next one in the direction we were trying to go, but before us in the distance was a region of sea-ice which appeared to slope gradually up on to the fast Barrier beyond. As we got nearer we saw a dark line appear at intervals between the two. This we considered was a crevasse at the edge of the Barrier which was opening and shutting with the very big swell which was running, and on which all the floes were bobbing up and down. We told one another that we could rush the ponies over this as it closed.

We approached the Barrier and began to rise up on the sloping floes which had edged the Barrier and so on to small bergs which had calved from the Barrier itself. Leaving Crean with the ponies, Bowers and I went forward to prospect, and rose on to a berg from which we hoped to reach the Barrier.

I can never forget the scene that met us. Between us and the Barrier was a lane of some fifty yards wide, a seething cauldron. Bergs were calving off as we watched: and capsizing: and hitting other bergs, splitting into two and falling apart. The Killers filled the whole place. Looking downwards into a hole between our berg and the next, a hole not bigger than a small room, we saw at least six whales. They were so crowded that they could only lie so as to get their snouts out of the water, and my memory is that their snouts were bottle-nosed. At this moment our berg split into two parts and we hastily retreated to the lower and safer floes.

Now in the Zoological Report of the Discovery Expedition Wilson states that the true identity of the Bottle-nosed whale (Hyperoodon rostrata) in Antarctic Seas has not been conclusively established. But that inasmuch as it certainly frequents seas so far as 48° S. latitude it is probable that certain whales which he and other members of that expedition saw frequenting the edge of the ice were, as they appeared to be, Bottle-nosed whales. For my part, without great knowledge of whales, I am convinced that these whales which lay but twenty feet below us were whales of this species.

After our rescue by Scott we pitched our tents, as has been described, at least half a mile from the fast edge of the Barrier. All night long, or as it really was, early morning, the Killers were snorting and blowing under the Barrier, and sometimes, it seemed, under our tents. Time and again some member of the party went out of the tent to see if the Barrier had not broken farther back, but there was no visible change, and it must have been that the apparently solid ice on which we were, was split up by crevasses by the big swell which had been running, and that round us, hidden by snow bridges, were leads of water in which whales were cruising in search of seal.

The next day most of the ice had gone out to sea, and I do not think the whales were so numerous. The most noticeable thing about them that day was the organization shown by the band of whales which appeared after Bowers' pony, Uncle Bill, had fallen between two floes, and we were trying to get him towards the Barrier. "Good God, look at the whales," said some one, and there, in a pool of water behind the floe on which we were working, lay twelve great whales in perfect line, facing the floe. And out in front of them, like the captain of a company of soldiers, was another. As we turned they dived as one whale, led by the big fellow in front, and we certainly expected that they would attack the floe on which we stood. Whether they never did so, or whether they tried and failed, for the floes here were fifteen or sixteen feet thick, I do not know; we never saw them again.

One other incident of those days is worth recalling. "Cherry, Crean, we're floating out to sea," was the startling awakening from Bowers, standing in his socks outside the tent at 4.30 A.M. that Wednesday morning. And indeed at first sight on getting outside the tent it looked a quite hopeless situation. I thought it was madness to try and save the ponies and gear when, it seemed, the only chance at all of saving the men was an immediate rush for the Barrier, and I said so. "Well, I'm going to try," was Bowers' answer, and, quixotic or no, he largely succeeded. I never knew a man who treated difficulties with such scorn.

* * * * *

There must be some of my companions who look back upon Hut Point with a peculiar fondness, such as men get for places where they have experienced great joys and great trials. And Hut Point has an atmosphere of its own. I do not know what it is. Partly aesthetic, for the sea and great mountains, and the glorious colour effects which prevail in spring and autumn, would fascinate the least imaginative; partly mysterious, with the Great Barrier knocking at your door, and the smoke of Erebus by day and the curtain of Aurora by night; partly the associations of the place--the old hut, the old landmarks, so familiar to those who know the history of the Discovery Expedition, the stakes in the snow, the holes for which ice was dug to water the ship, Vince's Cross on the Point. Now there is another Cross, on Observation Hill.

And yet when we first arrived the hut was comfortless enough. Wilson and Meares and Gran had been there some days; they had found some old bricks and a grid, and there was an open blubber fire in the middle of the floor. There was no outlet for the smoke and smuts and it was impossible to see your neighbour, to speak without coughing, or to open your eyes long before they began to smart. Atkinson and Crean had cleared the floor of ice in our absence, but the space between the lower and upper roofs was solid with blue ice, and the lower roof sagged down in places in a dangerous way. The wind howled continuously and to say that the hut was cold is a very mild expression of the reality.

This hut was built by the Discovery Expedition, who themselves lived in the ship which lay off the shore frozen into the sea-ice, as a workroom and as a refuge in case of shipwreck. It was useful to them in some ways, but was too large to heat with the amount of coal available, and was rather a white elephant. Scott wrote of it that "on the whole our large hut has been and will be of use to us, but its uses are never likely to be of such importance as to render it indispensable, nor cause it to be said that circumstances have justified the outlay made on it, or the expenditure of space and trouble in bringing it to its final home. It is here now, however, and here it will stand for many a long year with such supplies as will afford the necessaries of life to any less fortunate party who may follow in our footsteps and be forced to search for food and shelter."[126]

Well! It was to be more useful to Scott in 1910 to 1913 than he imagined in 1902. We found the place with its verandah complete, the remains of the two magnetic huts and a rubbish heap. It was wonderful what that rubbish heap yielded up. Bricks to build a blubber stove, a sheet of iron to put over the top of it, a length of stove piping to form a chimney. Somehow somebody made cement, and built the bricks together, and one of the magnetic huts gave up its asbestos sheeting to insulate the chimney from the woodwork of the roofs. An old door made a cook's table, old cases turned upside down made seats. The provisions left by the Discovery were biscuits contained in some forty large packing cases. These we piled up across the middle of our house as a bulkhead and the old Discovery winter awning was dug out of the snow outside and fixed against the wall thus made to keep the warmth in. At night we cleared the floor space and spread our bags.

The two precious survivors of the eight ponies with which we started on our journey were housed in the verandah, which was made wind-proof and snow-proof. The more truculent dogs lay tethered outside, the more docile were allowed their freedom, but even so the dog fights were not infrequent. We had one poor little dog, Makaka by name. When unloading the ship this dog had been overrun by the sledge which he was helping to pull; he suffered again when the team of dogs fell down the crevasse, and was now partially paralysed. He was a wretched object, for the hair refused to grow on his hind quarters, but he was a real sportsman and had no idea of giving in. Meares and I went out one night when it was blowing hard, attracted by the cries of a dog. It was Makaka who had ventured to climb a steep slope and was now afraid to return. When the dogs finally returned to Cape Evans, Makaka was allowed to run by the side of the team; but when Cape Evans was reached he was gone. Search failed to find him and, after some weeks, hope of him was abandoned. But a month afterwards Gran and Debenham went over to Hut Point, and here at the entrance of the hut they found Makaka, pitifully weak but able to bark to them. He must have lived on seal, but how he did so in that condition is a mystery.

The reader may ask how it was that being so near our Winter Quarters at Cape Evans we were unable to reach them immediately. Cape Evans is fifteen miles across the sea from Hut Point, and though both huts are on the same island--Hut Point being at the end of a peninsula and Cape Evans on the remains of a flow of lava which juts out into the sea--the land which joins the two has never yet been crossed by a sledge party owing to the great ice falls which cover the slopes of Erebus. A glance at the map will show that although Hut Point is surrounded with sea, or sea-ice, on every side except that of Arrival Heights, the Barrier abuts upon the Hut Point Peninsula to the south beyond Pram Point. Thus there is always communication with the Barrier by a devious route by which indeed we had just arrived, but farther progress north is cut off until the cold temperature of the autumn and winter causes the open sea to freeze. We arrived at Hut Point on March 5 and Scott expected to be able to cross on the newly-frozen ice by about March 21. However, it was nearly a month after that when the first party could pass to Cape Evans, and then only the Bays were frozen and the Sound was still open water, owing to the winds which swept the ice out to sea almost as soon as it was formed.

On the top of all the anxieties which had oppressed him lately Scott had a great fear that a swell so phenomenal as to break up Glacier Tongue, a landmark which had probably been there for centuries, might have swept away our hut at Cape Evans. He was so alarmed about it that he told Wilson and myself to prepare to form a sledging party with him to penetrate the Erebus icefalls and reach Cape Evans. "Went yesterday to Castle Rock with Wilson to see what chance there might be of getting to Cape Evans. The day was bright and it was quite warm walking in the sun. There is no doubt the route to Cape Evans lies over the worst corner of Erebus. From this distance (some 7 or 8 miles at least) the whole mountain side looks a mass of crevasses, but a route might be found at a level of 3000 or 4000 feet."[127] After some days the project was abandoned as being hopeless.

On March 8 Bowers led a party to bring in the gear and provisions which had been left at Disaster Camp, the material, that is, which had been rescued from the sea-ice. They were away three days and found the pulling very hard. "At the corner of the bay the Barrier was buckled into round ridges which took a couple of hours to cross. We marched for some time alongside an enormous crevasse, which lay like a street near us. I examined it at one point which must have been 15 feet wide, and though it was impossible to see the bottom for snow cornices it was undoubtedly open as I could hear a seal blowing below."[128]

Bowers' letter describes them dragging their heavy load up the slope to Castle Rock: "It took us all the morning to reach Saddle Camp with the loads in two journeys. I found a steady plod up a steep hill without spells is better and less exhausting than a rush and a number of rests. This theory I put into practice with great success. I don't know whether everybody saw eye to eye with me over the idea of getting to the top without a spell. After the second sledge was up Atkinson said: 'I don't mind you as a rule, but there are times when I positively hate you.'"

Defoe could have written another Robinson Crusoe with Hut Point instead of San Juan Fernandez. Our sledging supplies were mostly exhausted and we depended upon the seals we could kill for food, fuel and light. We were smutty as sweeps from the blubber we burned; and a more blackguard-looking crew would have been hard to find. We spent our fine days killing, cutting up and carrying in seal when we could find them, or climbing the various interesting hills and craters which abound here, and our evenings in long discussions which seldom settled anything. Some looked after dogs, and others after ponies; some made geological collections; others sketched the wonderful sunsets; but before and above all we ate and slept. We must have spent a good twelve hours asleep in our bags every day after our six weeks' sledging. And we rested. Perhaps this is not everybody's notion of a very good time, but it was good enough for us.

The Weddell seal which frequents the seas which fringe the Antarctic continent was a standby for most of our wants; for he can at a pinch provide not only meat to eat, fuel for your fire and oil for your lamp, but also leather for your finnesko and an antidote to scurvy. As he lies out on the sea-ice, a great ungainly shape, nothing short of an actual prod will persuade him to take much notice of an Antarctic explorer. Even then he is as likely as not to yawn in your face and go to sleep again. His instincts are all to avoid the water when alarmed, for he knows his enemies the killer whales live there: but if you drive him into the water he is transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a thing of beauty and grace, which can travel and turn with extreme celerity and which can successfully chase the fish on which he feeds.

We were lucky now in that a small bay of sea-ice, about an acre in extent, still remained within two miles of us at a corner where Barrier, sea, and land meet, called Pram Point by Scott in the Discovery days.

Now Pram Point during the summer months is one of the most populous seal nurseries in McMurdo Sound. In this neighbourhood the Barrier, moving slowly towards the Peninsula, buckles the sea-ice into pressure ridges. As the trough of each ridge is forced downwards, so in summer pools of sea water are formed in which the seal make their holes and among these ridges they lie and bask in the sun: the males fight their battles, the females bring forth their young: the children play and chase their tails just like kittens. Now that the sea-ice had broken up, many seal were to be found in this sheltered corner under the green and blue ice-cliffs of Crater Hill.

If you go seal killing you want a big stick, a bayonet, a flensing knife and a steel. Any big stick will do, so long as it will hit the seal a heavy blow on the nose: this stuns him and afterwards mercifully he feels no more. The bayonet knife (which should be fitted into a handle with a cross-piece to prevent the slipping of the hand down on to the blade) should be at least 14 inches long without the handle; this is used to reach the seal's heart. Our flensing knives were one foot long including the handle, the blades were seven inches long by 1¼ inches broad: some were pointed and others round and I do not know which was best. The handles should be of wood as being warmer to hold.

Killing and cutting up seals is a gruesome but very necessary business, and the provision of suitable implements is humane as well as economic in time and labour. The skin is first cut off with the blubber attached: the meat is then cut from the skeleton, the entrails cleaned out, the liver carefully excised. The whole is then left to freeze in pieces on the snow, which are afterwards collected as rock-like lumps. The carcass can be cut up with an axe when needed and fed to the dogs. Nothing except entrails was wasted.

Lighting was literally a burning question. I do not know that any lamp was better than a tin matchbox fed with blubber, with strands of lamp wick sticking up in it, but all kinds of patterns big and small were made by proud inventors; they generally gave some light, though not a brilliant one. There were more ambitious attempts than blubber. The worst of these perhaps was produced by Oates. Somebody found some carbide and Oates immediately schemed to light the hut with acetylene. I think he was the only person who did not view the preparation with ill-concealed nervousness. However, Wilson took the situation into his tactful hands. For several days Oates and Wilson were deep in the acetylene plant scheme and then, apparently without reason, it was found that it could not be done. It was a successful piece of strategy which no woman could have bettered.

Bowers, Wilson, Atkinson and I were on Crater Hill one morning when we espied a sledge party approaching from the direction of Castle Rock. As we expected, this was the Geological party, consisting of Griffith Taylor, Wright, Debenham and Seaman Evans, home from the Western Mountains. They entirely failed to recognize in our black faces the men whom they had last seen from the ship at Glacier Tongue. I hope their story will be told by Debenham. For days their doings were the topic of conversation. Both numerically and intellectually they were an addition to our party, which now numbered sixteen. Taylor especially is seldom at a loss for conversation and his remarks are generally original, if sometimes crude. Most of us were glad to listen when the discussions in which he was a leading figure raged round the blubber stove. Scott and Wilson were always in the thick of it, and the others chimed in as their interest, knowledge and experience led. Rash statements on questions of fact were always dangerous, for our small community contained so many specialists that errors were soon exposed. At the same time there were few parts of the world that one or other of us had not visited at least once. Later, when we came to our own limited quarters, books of reference were constantly in demand to settle disputes. Such books as the Times Atlas, a good encyclopaedia and even a Latin Dictionary are invaluable to such expeditions for this purpose. To them I would add Who's Who.

From odd corners we unearthed some Contemporary Reviews, the Girls' Own Paper and the Family Herald, all of ten years ago! We also found encased in ice an incomplete copy of Stanley Weyman's My Lady Rotha; it was carefully thawed out and read by everybody, and the excitement was increased by the fact that the end of the book was missing.

"Who's going to cook?" was one of the last queries each night, and two men would volunteer. It is not great fun lighting an ordinary coal fire on a cold winter's morning, but lighting the blubber fire at Hut Point when the metal frosted your fingers and the frozen blubber had to be induced to drip was a far more arduous task. The water was converted from its icy state and, by that time, the stove was getting hot, in inverse proportion to your temper. Seal liver fry and cocoa with unlimited Discovery Cabin biscuits were the standard dish for breakfast, and when it was ready a sustained cry of 'hoosh' brought the sleepers from their bags, wiping reindeer hairs from their eyes. I think I was responsible for the greatest breakfast failure when I fried some biscuits and sardines (we only had one tin). Leaving the biscuits in the frying pan, the lid of a cooker, after taking it from the fire, they went on cooking and became as charcoal. This meal was known as 'the burnt-offering.' On April 1 Bowers prepared to make a fool of two of us by putting chaff in our pannikins and covering the top only with seal meat. The plan turned back upon the maker, for he had not enough left to make up the deficiency, and, as I found out many weeks afterwards, surreptitiously gave up his own hoosh to the April fools and went without himself. Of such are the small incidents which afforded real amusement and even live in the memory as outstanding features of our existence.

Breakfast done, there was a general clean-up. One seized the apology for a broom which existed: day foot-gear, finnesko, hair socks, ordinary socks and puttees, took the place of fleecy sleeping-socks and fur-lined sleeping-boots: lunch cooks began to make their preparations: ice was fetched for water: a frozen chunk of red seal meat or liver was levered and chopped with an ice axe from the general store of seal meat: fids of sealskin, with the blubber attached, a good three inches of it perhaps, were brought in and placed by the stove, much as we bring in a scuttle of coal. Gradually the community scattered as duty or inclination led, leaving some members to dig away the snow-drifts which had accumulated round the door and windows during the night.

By lunch time every one had some new item of interest. Wright had found a new form of ice crystal: Scott had tested the ice off the Point and found it five inches thick: Wilson had found new seal holes off Cape Armitage, and we had hopes of finding our food and fuel nearer home: Atkinson had killed an Emperor penguin which weighed over ninety pounds, a record: and the assistant zoologist felt he would have to skin it, and did not want to do so: Meares had found an excellent place to roll stones down Arrival Heights into the sea: Debenham had a new theory to account for the Great Boulder, as a mammoth block different in structure from the surrounding geological features was called: Bowers had a scheme for returning from the Pole by the Plateau instead of the Barrier: Oates might be heard saying that he thought he could do with another chupattie. A favourite pastime was the making of knots. Could you make a clove hitch with one hand?

The afternoon was like the morning, save that the sun was now sinking behind the Western Mountains. These autumn effects were among the most beautiful sights of the world, and it was now that Wilson made the sketches for many of the water-colours which he afterwards painted at Winter Quarters. The majority were taken from the summit of Observation Hill, crouching under the lee of the rocks into which, nearly two years after, we built the Cross which now stands to commemorate his death and that of his companions. He sketched quickly with bare fingers and mittened hands, jotting down the outlines of hills and clouds, and pencilling in the colours by name. After a minute, more or less, the fingers become too cold for such work, and they must be put back into the wool and fur mitts until they are again warm enough to continue. Pencil and sketch book, a Winsor and Newton, were carried in a little blubber-stained wallet on his belt. Scott carried his sledge diaries in similar books in a similar wallet made of green Willesden canvas and fastened with a lanyard.

There was a good fug in the hut by dinner time: this was a mixed blessing. It was good for our gear: sleeping-bags, finnesko, mitts, socks were all hung up and dried, most necessary after sledging, and most important for the preservation of the skins; but it also started the most infernal drip-drip from the roof. I have spoken of the double roof of the old Discovery hut. This was still full of solid ice; indeed some time afterwards a large portion of it fell, but luckily the inhabitants were outside. The immediate problem was to prevent the leaks falling on ourselves, our food or our clothing and bags. And so every tin was brought into use and hung from leaky spots, while water chutes came into their own. As the stove cooled so did the drip cease, and in no prehistoric cavern did more stalactites and stalagmites grow apace.

On March 16 the last sledge party to the Barrier that season started for Corner Camp with provisions to increase the existing depôt there. The party was in charge of Lieutenant Evans, and consisted of Bowers, Oates, Atkinson, Wright, and myself, with two seamen, Crean and Forde. The journey out and back took eight days and was uneventful as sledge journeys go. Thick weather prevailed for several days, and after running down our distance to Corner Camp we waited for it to clear. We found ourselves six miles from the depôt and among crevasses, which goes to show how easy it is to steer off the course under such conditions, and how creditable the navigation is when a course is kept correctly, sometimes more by instinct than by skill.

But we got our first experience of cold weather sledging which was useful. The minus thirties and forties are not very cold as we were to understand cold afterwards, but quite cold enough to start with; cold enough to teach you how to look after your footgear, handle metal and not to waste time. However, the sun was still well up during the day, and this makes all the difference, since any sun does more drying of clothes and gear than none at all. At the same time we began to realize the difficulties which attend upon spring journeys, though we could only imagine what might be the trials on a journey in mid-winter, such as we intended to essay.

It is easy to be wise after the event, but, in looking back upon the expedition as a whole, and the tragedy which was to come, mainly from the unforeseen cold of the autumn on the Barrier (such as minus forties in February) it seems that we might have grasped that these temperatures were lower than might have been expected in the middle of March quite near the open sea. Even if this had occurred to any one, and I do not think that it did, I doubt whether the next step of reasoning would have followed, namely, the possibility that the interior of the Barrier would, as actually happened, prove to be much colder than was expected at this date. On the contrary I several times heard Scott mention the possibility of the Polar Party not returning until April. At the same time it must be realized that pony transport to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier made a late start inevitable, for the blizzards our ponies had already suffered proved that spring weather on the Barrier would be intolerable to them. As a matter of fact, Scott says in his Message to the Public, "no one in the world would have expected the temperature and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year."

We returned to find everything at Hut Point, including the hut, covered with frozen spray. This was the result of a blizzard of which we only felt the tail end on the Barrier. Scott wrote: "The sea was breaking constantly and heavily on the ice foot. The spray carried right over the Point--covering all things and raining on the roof of the hut. Poor Vince's cross, some 30 feet above the water, was enveloped in it. Of course the dogs had a very poor time, and we went and released two or three, getting covered in spray during the operation--our wind clothes very wet. This is the third gale from the South since our arrival here (i.e. in 2½ weeks). Any one of these would have rendered the Bay impossible for a ship, and, therefore, it is extraordinary that we should have entirely escaped such a blow when the Discovery was in it in 1902."[129]

* * * * *

It is difficult to see long distances across open water at this time of year because the comparatively warm water throws up into the air a fog, known as frost-smoke. If there is a wind this smoke is carried over the surface of the sea, but if calm the smoke rises and forms a dense curtain. Standing on Arrival Heights, which form the nail of the finger-like Peninsula on which we now lived, we could see the four islands which lie near Cape Evans, and a black smudge in the face of the glaciers which descend from Erebus, which we knew to be the face of the steep slope above Cape Evans, afterwards named The Ramp. But, for the present, our comfortable hut might have been thousands of miles away for all the good it was to us. As soon as the wind fell calm the sea was covered by a thin layer of ice, in twenty-four hours it might be four or five inches thick, but as yet it never proved strong enough to resist the next blizzard. In March the ice to the south was safe; there was appearance of ice in the two bays at the foot of Erebus' slopes in the beginning of April.

We treated newly formed ice with far too little respect. It was on April 7 that Scott asked whether any of us would like to walk northwards over the newly formed ice towards Castle Rock. We had walked about two miles, the ice heaving up and down as we went, dodging the open pools and leads to the best of our ability, when Taylor went right in. Luckily he could lever himself out without help, and returned to the hut with all speed. We prepared to cross this ice to Cape Evans the next day, but the whole of it went out in the night. On another occasion we were prepared to set out the following morning, but the ice on which we were to cross went out on the turn of the tide some five hours before we timed ourselves to start.

Scott was of opinion that the ice in the two Bays under Erebus was firm, and prepared to essay this route. The first of these bays is formed by the junction of the Hut Point Peninsula with Erebus to the south, and by Glacier Tongue to the north. Crossing Glacier Tongue a party can descend on to the second bay beyond, the northern boundary of which is Cape Evans. The Dellbridge Islands, of which Great Razorback is in direct line between Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans, help to hold in any ice which forms here. The route had never been attempted before, but it was hoped that a way down from the Peninsula on to the frozen sea might be found at the Hutton Cliffs, an outcrop of lava rock in the irregular ice face.

"A party consisting of Scott, Bowers, Taylor, and Seaman Evans with one tent, and Lieutenant Evans, Wright, Debenham, Gran and Crean with another, started for Hut Point. It was dark to the south and snowing by the time they reached the top of Ski Slope. We helped them past Third Crater. The ice from Hut Point to Glacier Tongue was impossible, and so they went on past Castle Rock and were to try and get down somewhere by the Hutton Cliffs on to some fast sea-ice which seemed to have held there some time, and so across Glacier Tongue on to sea-ice which also seemed to be fast as far as Cape Evans.

"After lunch Wilson and I started about 4 P.M. in half a blizzard. It was much better on the Heights and fairly clear towards Erebus, but we could not see any traces of the party on the ice.

"April 12. This morning as it was beginning to get light a blizzard started, and it is blowing very hard now. The large amount of snow which has fallen will make it very thick. We are all anxious about the returning party, for Scott talked of camping on the sea-ice. The ice in Arrival Bay (just north of Hut Point) has gone out. They have sleeping-bags, food for two meals, and a full primus for each tent.

"April 13. We were very anxious about the returning party, especially when all the ice north of Hut Point went out. The blizzard blew itself out this morning, and it was a great change to see White Island and The Bluff once more. Atkinson came in before lunch and told me that, looking from the Heights, the ice from Glacier Tongue to Cape Evans appeared to have gone out. This sobered our lunch. We all made our way to Second Crater afterwards, and found the ice from the Hutton Cliffs to Glacier Tongue and thence to Cape Evans was still in.

"Before leaving, Scott arranged to give Véry Lights at 10 P.M. from Cape Evans on the first clear night of the next three. To-night is the third, and the first clear night. We were out punctually, and then as we watched a flare blazed up, followed by quite a firework display. We all went wild with excitement--knowing that all was well. Meares ran in and soaked some awning with paraffin, and we lifted it as an answering flare and threw it into the air again and again, until it was burning in little bits all over the snow. The relief was great."[130]

* * * * *

Bowers must tell the story of the returning party:

"We topped the ridges and headed for Erebus beyond Castle Rock. It looked a little threatening at first, but cleared a bit as we got on. It was quite interesting to be breaking new ground. Scott is a fine stepper in a sledge, and he set a fast and easy swing all the time. It was snowing and misty when we got beyond the Hutton Cliffs, but we pitched the tents for lunch before going down the slope. There was no doubt that a blizzard was coming up. It cleared during lunch, which we finished about 3.30 P.M., as it had been a long morning march.

"It was just as well for us that the mist cleared, for the slope was not only crevassed in one direction, but it ended in a high ice-cliff. By working along we found a lowish place about thirty feet down from top to bottom. Over this we lowered men and sledges. It had started to blow and the drift was flying off the cliff in clouds. We put in a couple of strong male bamboos to lower the last man away, leaving the Alpine rope there to facilitate ascent (i.e. for any party returning to Hut Point with food). We then repacked the sledges and headed across the bay towards the Glacier Tongue, where we arrived after dark about 6 P.M. The young sea-ice was covered in a salt deposit which made it like pulling a sledge over treacle instead of ice, and it was very heavy going after the snow uplands. The Tongue was mostly hard blue ice, which is slipperiness itself, and crevassed every few yards. Most of these were bridged, but you were continually pushing a foot, or sometimes two, into nothingness, in the semi-darkness. None of us, however, went down to the extent of our harness.

"Arrived on the other side we struck a sheltered dip, where we decided to camp for something to eat. It was after 8 P.M. and I was for camping there for the night, as it seemed to me folly to venture upon a piece of untried newly frozen sea-ice in inky darkness, with a blizzard coming up behind us. Against this of course we were only five miles from Cape Evans, and though we had hardly any grub with us, not having anticipated the cliff or the saltness of the sea-ice, and having to set out to do the journey in one day, I thought hunger in a sleeping-bag better than lying out in a blizzard on less than one foot of young ice.