Chapter VI: Making Winter Quarters at Cape Evans (14)

I was down below when I heard the ominous “three whistles,” which
signifies “all hands on deck.” However, in this case it was a call to
“rock ship.” We all lined up at the port bulwarks, in the waist of the
ship. Then Bruce gave the word, and we “set to partners” across the
hatches, and through the narrow spaces to the starboard side. The ship
swung very slightly in consequence. Bruce timed its swing, and then we
all ran back in unison. This time the swing was a little larger. So by
degrees the ship became a self-acting pendulum, and gradually rocked
herself free from the close embrace of the ice. At the same time the
propeller revolved about 1½ times the normal speed, and the ship began
to give a little, and finally went astern. Then more butting, and a
jam or two, and finally we got into looser pancake, where she could do
four knots.

Emperor penguins were interested spectators of our manœuvres, while
the distant coast-line was really of great interest when we had time
to observe it. Mount Melbourne was a finer sight than Erebus, for its
cone was more symmetrical, recalling that of Etna. Mount Nansen,
further south-west, was a huge, flattened scarp, resembling Mount
Lister.

On the 24th we emerged again from the pack to be greeted with a pretty
stiff wind. We steamed south to try and communicate with headquarters.
Lillie told me of some of his results. He believed he could apply the
teachings of Mendelism to the question of colour in half-caste Maoris.
He had made some large collections of fossil plants in New Zealand,
and had dredged up enough of the rare tunicate _Cephalodiscus_ (a
primitive sessile early vertebrate) to supply every museum in the
world! I found out that my thousand insects were probably
_Gomphocephalus_, of which previously only a few odd heads and legs
had been collected in specimens of Antarctic moss.

We got back to the Sound off Cape Evans about noon on the 25th. A
howling gale was blowing so much frost smoke into our teeth that we
could only just see Inaccessible Isle, now covered with a pall of
snow. We manœuvred in North Bay with the 120-foot wall of the Barne
Glacier looming very close. There was a touch of east in the blizzard,
so that the glacier was not quite on our lee. Pennell dropped anchor
when the soundings showed twenty-five fathoms, but we drifted back
quickly, and when we reached fifty fathoms (three hundred feet) the
anchor dragged.

ENGINEER WILLIAMS AT THE WINCH.
]

BERNARD DAY ON THE CAPSTAN.
]

We had an awful job hauling up the anchor! Whenever I hear the phrase
“Merrily round the capstan, boys,” I think of that weary time in North
Bay. Each capstan bar had two and sometimes three men pushing it
round. The foc’sle deck was iced over, and even a layer of ashes
afforded little grip, for the blizzard heeled the vessel over, till
the deck sloped like a roof. They tried to help the capstan by a chain
to the steam winch, but the latter ‘took charge’ and nearly flung Bill
Heald off the foc’sle! There was precious little room between the
capstan bars and the rails, and I got jammed, and received a nasty
bruise on the leg. Awful stiff on one’s hands, and on the calf
muscles—like pushing for hours in a football scrum! Pawls (or stops)
prevented the capstan from releasing the chain. Clink ... clank,
clink ... clank; these pawls would sound every minute or so, and then
we had to rest. Each clink meant only an inch or two of cable, and we
had to haul in three hundred feet! When the ship twisted, and the
cable lay along the side of the vessel, it was impossible to raise the
anchor an inch. Finally the anchor caught a firm hold on the third
attempt, about 7 p.m., and we lay steady with ninety fathoms out. The
gale increased, and we all turned in to try and get some rest, and be
ready to land if it lulled. At 11 p.m. Pennell roused us, and I got
into the whaleboat. Bruce was in charge, and I rowed three. We were
less than half a mile from the shore, and found the lee of the cape
quite calm. So I reached the hut, after five months’ absence. It was
eleven days since we had been picked up, all but a few hours, and this
was the first opportunity of communicating with our headquarters.

I stumbled up the shore, nearly waist-deep in snow, where in the
preceding March there was hardly any! We found them all asleep, and by
no means ready to come off! Simpson and Day were soon dressed. I had,
luckily, left all my gear packed in November, and I hauled my boxes
down to the ice-foot. Simpson, Day, Anton, and I returned, and after
some bumping against the ice-ridged quarter of the _Terra Nova_ we got
safely aboard.

The gale began again, and all access to the shore was blocked. Simpson
and I yarned till 5 a.m. He told me that Hooper and Day had reached
the Hut on December 21st from the Barrier. They had found their
four-man sledge too heavy, and having no suitable tool had burnt it in
half with the Primus lamp! They had been caught in a blizzard, and had
marched blindly north in the ensuing thick weather. Later, they saw
their tracks led right between two parallel crevasses, either of which
would have engulfed them!

Next day we could not bring off Meares, Clissold, and Forde. Archer
had gone ashore, so that the ship was now without a cook! The wind was
fairly shrieking, and at 10 a.m. the anchor dragged.

We spent a most wretched day trying to get it up. Not a budge out of
it, though you burst a blood-vessel! The seamen couldn’t say (as
before) that this was due to work on a Sunday. We found that a cog had
broken in the gears of the capstan; but when they again tried the
steam winch to aid the capstan it stripped off more teeth!

Diagram illustrating the way we managed to “raise anchor” by “luff
upon luff,” February 26, 1912.
]

Another method was tried in the afternoon, which was very slow, but
not so spendthrift of human energy. It was called “luff upon luff,”
and depended purely on a series of pulleys; whereby a small amount of
force at one end of the rope can slowly move a great weight at the
other. The capstan was now practically useless. So the small steam
winch was connected to a set of heavy pulleys (a “five-ply purchase,”
I believe, is the nautical term) to which a claw hook was attached.
This was hooked into the anchor chain, at the hawse hole, inside the
dark foc’sle. I was halfway man, and it was my duty to yell to the
engineer at the winch, as Bruce advised me he was ready. Another yell
meant that the purchase had done its part, and then Rennick put the
capstan brake on (which would still hold, luckily), and the claw hook
was taken off, and attached some links nearer the anchor. By 6 p.m. we
had raised anchor. It came up as bright as silver, and with the
crossbar (stock) broken clean off!

All this time we were drifting to the north-west, and had to keep up
steam to hold her from yawing, and to try and keep the cable from
“binding” on the side of the ship. Throughout the 27th we were nosing
up against the fixed ice off Castle Rock, trying to shelter from the
blizzard. By noon, on the 28th, the blizzard dropped enough for us to
lie alongside Glacier Tongue. At 3 p.m. the ice anchors held, and it
was possible to get ashore, and start “icing ship,” for the tanks were
nearly empty. We had to lie bow on, and get the ice in by a basket
slung from the foreyard. A very slow and laborious business; it took
us six hours to get 4½ tons of ice aboard.

We then moved off to Hut Point, where we landed some stores and
newspapers for the Pole Party if they should be isolated from Cape
Evans, as we had been in April, 1911. Here I met Wright again. We
learnt that Evans was very seriously ill with scurvy. They wrapped him
up in his sleeping-bag and, dragging him to the ice edge, brought him
aboard in the ship’s boat. We let down ropes to the seamen below, and
they lashed him safely, and he was hauled up, looking more like a
corpse than a live man. However, he could speak cheerfully enough, as
usual!

We returned post haste to our hut to take advantage of the unusually
calm weather. We unloaded more stores—chiefly fodder, coal, mutton,
and dog biscuits, and then moved north immediately to make a second
try for Campbell at Evans Coves (lat. 75° S.). Day, Dennistoun, and I
spent the morning of the 1st of March shifting cargo. Indeed, we
seemed to spend a large part of our time during the ensuing month in
that abode of gloom—the empty hold of the _Terra Nova_!

At 10 p.m. we were about fifteen miles from Cape Washington, in very
heavy pancake ice, with a slight swell. There was a thick ice-mush
between the blocks, and this jammed the propeller. For about ten
minutes the engine could not move the shaft. They managed to prise the
ice away finally by poking rods down the rudder post. The grinding and
bumping of the blades on the ice was physically painful. It jarred
one’s whole system just like having a tooth out. The shock to the
propeller, mainshaft, and engine must have been enormous. Luckily our
propeller was four times the usual size for a ship of our tonnage; but
Williams thinks the main shaft might go quite easily, and then we
should be in a mess!

“_2nd March._—During the morning we skirted the pack southward, doing
a sort of ‘blanket-stitch’ course in a vain endeavour to find a
passage through to Campbell.”

Dr. Atkinson was on board attending to Evans, who was unable to move
from his bunk until the day we reached New Zealand (2nd April). We had
again to give up hope of rescuing Campbell, and turned south to land
Atkinson. At 9.30 p.m. we were about thirty miles S.E. of the
Drygalski Tongue, and soon had to heave-to on account of bad weather.
But in the afternoon of the 3rd the wind dropped, and in about ten
minutes the sea was frozen over!

However, this time we reached the Cape fairly readily, and when I woke
on the morning of the 4th I found that we were off the Hut and that a
boat was going to fetch Keohane. He and Atkinson were then landed at
Hut Point, and we had to ice ship again at Glacier Tongue.

Every man was busily employed. Heald, McCarthy, Parsons, and Cheetham
quarried the ice at the nearest spot where it seemed solid and free
from snow. They filled baskets which Dennistoun, Leese, and myself
pulled to the ice edge. Here Simpson and Rennick linked the baskets on
to the rope, and Lillie, Drake, and Ponting hauled it aboard. Day and
Mather carried it to the tanks, and Meares and Bruce tipped the
baskets into the latter. It was hard work, and kept us going from 3
p.m. till 10 p.m. Still there was some fun at times. Leese harnessed
the brown sledge dog Tsigan to help him with his sledge, and Tsigan
occasionally bolted over the glacier. One basket fell into the sea,
and Bill Heald lowered me on a rope till I could grab it; then (as
usual) he hauled up too quickly, and I was dragged _through_ the snow
cornice and pretty well filled with soft snow!

“We shifted eleven tons, and now Pennell’s notice[10] can be
withdrawn. We now have enough to get back. Thank goodness!”

We had a fairly uncomfortable time on board. The stove below was
faulty, and a change of wind filled the wardroom with smoke. With a
huge skylight, various hatchways and companion ladders, and numerous
portholes, it was hopeless to keep out of draughts.

Early on the 7th I was awakened by the fiendish clamour which the
propeller was making about a foot under my bunk! “I found that we were
held up in a hole about twice the size of the ship in heavy fixed
pancake. We were over two hours alternately advancing, sticking,
putting on more steam, reversing, and getting out. All the time huge
blocks of ice were being churned round and battered by the propeller.
We had been heading about N.E. when the ship struck, and in next watch
we had to turn round and retreat as we had come. We were now about
forty miles east of Mount Melbourne.

“She would steam steady for about ten minutes and delude one into
going on deck to see our progress, and we were still in the same
ice-hole! Then we would reverse with more regular vibrations, then
catch a huge bit of ice in the blades, and it would feel as if you
were having three teeth out yourself!”

At noon Pennell abandoned hope of getting near Campbell. At each
attempt the ice was thicker and wider. Each time we got into worse
positions and spent longer in extricating ourselves. “We are later
than any former ship, not allowing for the extraordinary icebound
conditions, this autumn.” So we turned homeward on the 7th March, and
headed for Cape Adare.

On this voyage the ship was in charge of Lieutenant Pennell, while
Rennick and Bruce were the other officers, assisted by Cheetham and
Engineer Williams. Lillie carried on his biological work, while Drake
was busy as ever with secretarial duties, varied by readings of the
meteorological instruments.

We had left the rest of the Western Party at Cape Evans, while
Atkinson and Keohane were stationed at the Old Discovery Hut to
receive the Pole Party.

The members of the headquarters staff who returned to take up other
duties were Simpson, Taylor, Ponting, Meares, and Day. With the
addition of Lieutenant Evans, who was at first seriously affected by
scurvy, and Jim Dennistoun (of New Zealand), we formed a very happy
family during the month of “wind-jamming” which now awaited us.

This was Jim Dennistoun’s birthday, and to celebrate it and our start
for home, I brought out the huge cake sent down from home. Half went
forward to the mess deck, and it was much appreciated. We had a
sing-song with banjo accompaniment by Ponting and Bruce, both of whom
could sing pleasantly. Alf Cheetham gave us some typical sailor
chanties in his humorous falsetto voice. Neuralgia kept me from adding
to the entertainment, and I listened from the after cabin.

During the next few days the afterguard were glad to get warm either
coal-trimming or hauling sails. We would be shivering in the wardroom
when Pennell would come to the “balcony” and yell, “Any volunteers to
trim coal?” Dennistoun was shipped as mule-overseer for the voyage
down, and there was apparently a moral obligation that he should earn
his shilling a week on the return by trimming coal! So he always
turned out and climbed into the bunkers. We followed suit after a few
days’ rest, and worked away in the hold and in the warmer dusty
“bunkers” next the boilers. Then another naval “tyrant” would look
down at the coal trimmers and yell, “All hands on deck to haul
mainsail!” We were true sailor-men in that a chorus of anathemas
saluted our naval colleague! However, we’d go upon deck and get into
oilskins and sou’-westers, and then search out the special halyard in
question, usually finding that the operation had been concluded some
minutes previously!

With two Liberal Socialists like Simpson and myself, it is not to be
supposed that this continued long! We went on strike and delivered our
ultimatum—

“Either coal-trimming or sail-hauling—but not both.” Pennell grinned
cheerfully, and said we could do all the coal-trimming if we liked.
Personally I felt this was more scientific, as touching the
departments of statics and applied mechanics as well as geology! So we
decided to shift all the coal and so leave the engineers and stokers
free to attend to the furnaces where they were somewhat shorthanded.

Never was such an incongruous set of coal trimmers.

Trimming coal in the starboard main hold, March 7, 1912.
]

Down in the hold a high official in the Indian Weather Service
shovelled the coal into baskets, assisted by our motor expert (Day). A
Cambridge M.A. (and the authority on whales) hoisted the basket with
the help of a well-known New Zealand climber and stockowner. Ponting
bent his artistic intellect to the work of unhooking the basket and
throwing the coal through a door into the bunkers, and inside a
Thibetan explorer and the Physiographer to the Commonwealth “trimmed”
the coal in the bunkers, packed it, and raked it level!

Simpson and I were busy comparing meteorological data before he took
his notes back to India. I copied such memoranda as seemed to affect
Australian weather. The “upper air” results were very interesting. The
balloon ascents showed that there is a gradual decrease of temperature
with elevation in summer, but that in winter it grows warmer. Thus
there is a tendency to approach the same temperature in winter and
summer at high elevations. He recovered one record which had ascended
nearly twice as high as Erebus, or five miles.

Priestley’s log for the Northern Party showed that we at Cape Evans
had been having calms while they, at Cape Adare, had experienced a
twelve-days’ hurricane!

One morning I visited the scene of the pump’s disaster of December,
1910. There is a wooden shaft enclosing the two pump tubes and just
large enough to enable a man to climb down a ladder at one side. It
reached the bilge, and here the pump tubes dipped into the latter.
Before the gale it was only possible to get into the shaft by the main
hatchway. We inspected it by a lighted matchbox, for the electric lamp
was out of order. Under the main deck and at the side of the
engine-room was the hole[11] cut through the iron bulkhead during the
great gale February 12, 1910, and then the pump shaft was entered by
tearing off the side boards at Y. For it was impossible to raise the
hatches and enter in the ordinary way. Now the nozzles were made
removable, and the entry from the engine-room was kept clear, so that
the same danger could not recur. The sounding rod was let down a tube
in one corner of this well also.

On the 7th the temperature had been +7°, and now five days later we
reached freezing-point (32°). Thus the weather was about 5° warmer for
each day’s run north.

“_12th March._—I had a queer dream about the School of Geology at
Sydney, which was quite consistent, and ended with some one going out
and banging the door violently.... So violently that I awoke—to find
the rudder nearly banging itself off with the heavy swell. It is funny
how the sleeping mind adapts itself to real sounds!

“There was no wind, but we had most awful rolling, 41° from the
vertical, so that the swinging lamp in my cabin is nearly lying on its
side. My books sling off the shelves, my boxes come adrift, I was
tossed across the cabin, and all the plates, etc., on the tables jump
right over the fiddles! When we turned in I couldn’t keep still,
though jammed by my knees, toes, back, and head. I stuck in a
drawing-board to prevent my being flung out, and got no sleep, but a
stiff neck through using it as a strut.”

A. B. CHEETHAM, WHO HOLDS THE RECORD FOR CROSSING THE ANTARCTIC
CIRCLE.
]

G. C. SIMPSON, MARCH, 1902.
]

Simpson amused us with some early recollections of Sunday schools.
“How did Absalom die?” Loud chorus from the afterguard, “Caught by his
hair and hanged.” Simpson, “The Bible doesn’t say so!” “Who was the
oldest man?” _Frantic_ chorus by aforesaid, “Methusaleh.” _Simpson_,
“No, Enoch, _his_ father, because Methusaleh died before he did!” Then
Simpson quoted an essay by one school. “Moses’ mother was very cruel,
and she put him in the bulrushes, when she got sick of beating him.”
Asked to explain this the boy said, “Well, isn’t that what the Bible
says—when she could _hide_ him no longer?”

During the next few days we were busy writing the cables for the
Associated Press, and I got Drake to type a report of the last western
journey for Captain Scott (which he never saw). The hard-worked
afterguard were now set to wash the wardroom! On the 15th I note—

“Day, Meares, and Dennistoun are doing a bit of charing. This morning
Meares dropped a rag on me as I was working below and missed. Then
Dennistoun asked me to pick it up, and as I looked up, got me in the
eye. So I went for him, and scrubbed his face muchly with soft soap,
amid hilarity.”

At noon on the 16th we passed the Balleny Isles. We could see Buckle
Island about thirty miles to the south as a snow-covered mountain
occasionally showing through the clouds. Only one or two ships have
been so close to these islands since they were charted by Balleny. We
crossed the circle that evening, and celebrated it by another
sing-song. Most of us sang something, Ponting’s contribution with its
refrain of “Boil—my mother” (a study in wrong punctuation) bringing
down the house!

Very early on the 17th every one on deck was busy furling sail when
MacCarthy suddenly spotted an iceberg dead ahead. Luckily we just had
time to steer clear. We had been having “iceberg watch” for some time
now. I had been on duty from 12 to 2 a.m., though I could see nothing
through the snow. The ship was going about five knots, and the white
spume spreading from the bows was about all that was visible. A berg
shows up merely as a greyish cloud under these circumstances.

There were many visible during daytime. At noon, for instance, we
passed another much weathered, and resembling a decayed molar tooth.
Possibly this resemblance is based on similar causes—a hardened outer
skin cemented by spray, etc., and a softer core weathering from above.

I went on iceberg watch again from 8 p.m. till 10. There was some snow
again, and it was difficult to see anything. All this week we had been
driving to the west, so as to pick up the constant west winds and sail
on a slant up to New Zealand. We had only forty-seven tons of coal
left now, and if we got blown past New Zealand with no coal—as was
quite probable—it would take weeks for this bluff old whaler to beat
back against head winds.

Poor old Nigger has gone overboard, finally we fear. We were all proud
of our black Tom. He fell overboard on the last voyage, and luckily
was seen manfully (or catfully?) swimming along in the wake of the
ship. The crew got out a boat, saved him, and were back in twelve
minutes! But no one saw the last tragedy. In the hold we found two
rabbits having a thin time, and fed them on carrots and bread and
milk. I don’t know their ultimate fate. (There’s a black welcome for
bunnies in Australia, which I thought extended to New Zealand also.)

I can see the afterguard becoming regular sailor-men! On the 20th we
had another mutiny—about food this time.

_The Mutineers._ “When are you going to give us a change from this
everlasting mutton, Frankie?”

_Store-keeper Drake._ “Mutton’s very good food.”

_Mutineers._ “Why can’t we have ‘True-egg’ omelettes?”

_Drake._ “Well, perhaps we could have that as an additional dish.”

_Mutineers._ “Why _additional_, Frankie?”

_Drake._ “Because Frankie doesn’t like True-egg!” And he added, “If
you want more _mutton_, just say so!”

(A very finished “cagger” is Frankie Drake.)

We had very variable weather during the last week or so of our voyage,
and I give herewith the record of the worst gale ever experienced by
any man on the _Terra Nova_. My journal suffered in consequence, but I
will copy my notes written just after the gale, _verbatim_. First of
all, here is a copy of the ship’s log for the worst days of the gale.

A VERY “ORDINARY SEAMAN.”

(The writer.)
]

PENNELL ON BRIDGE.
]

────────┬─────────┬──────┬───────┬────────┬────────────┬────┬──────┬─────
1912. │Distance.│ Max. │Course.│ Wind. │ Force. │Sea.│Barom.│Temp.
│ │speed.│ │ │ │ │ │
────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼────────────┼────┼──────┼─────
March 22│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
a.m. │ 50 │5·9 at│ N. 30 │ S. │ 7 gale│ 7 │28·99 │30·8
│ │ │ W. │ │ │ │ │
p.m. │ 59·5 │7 a.m.│N. 7 W.│ „ │ 8 „ │ 8 │ — │ 37
────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼────────────┼────┼──────┼─────
March 23│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
a.m. │ 37 │ 5·6 │ │ W.S.W. │ 8 gale│ 8 │28·78 │ 37
p.m. │ 48 │ noon │ │ „ │ 9 9 │ „ │ — │ —
────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼────────────┼────┼──────┼─────
March 24│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
a.m. │ 52 │ 5 │ N. │ S.W. │ 8 gale│ 8 │28·73 │ 40
p.m. │ 57 │7 p.m.│N.N.W. │ „ │ 10 „ │ │ — │ —
────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼────────────┼────┼──────┼─────
March 25│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
a.m. │ 49·5 │ 4·8 │ N. 22 │ S.S.W. │9 to 11 gale│ 9 │29·03 │ 37
p.m. │ 48·3 │ noon │ W. │ „ │ 8 „ │ 8 │ — │ 43
────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼────────────┼────┼──────┼─────
March 26│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
a.m. │ 25·1 │ 3·4 │ N. 50 │S. by W.│ 7 │ 7 │29·66 │42·2
p.m. │Becalmed.│7 a.m.│ W. │ „ │ 2 │ 5 │ — │44·5
────────┴─────────┴──────┴───────┴────────┴────────────┴────┴──────┴─────

“_26th March._—It is now 12.40 p.m. We have had a satisfactory lunch
of roast mutton and treacle duff (_toujours mouton!_). It is nearly
calm, and we have all sail set, and are hurrooshing along at nearly
two miles an hour!

“I am five days behind in my diary. We have had a pretty sudden
gale—the worst ever felt by any one on board, I believe. It culminated
about midnight on the 24th or 25th. For several days it had been
blowing almost storm-force from the S.W., and so helped us along O.K.,
though rather too much westerly, and we could only drive along in
front of it. With three stormsails (main lower topsail, fore lower
topsail and inner jib) we went along for days at five miles an hour.

“On the evening of the 24th Day and I had First Watch. I was told off
to assist Pennell from 10 to 11 p.m. I put on my paraphernalia and
turned out on a wild stormy night, after prolonged bumping in my bunk
for three or four hours. It was awful on deck, the ship mostly with
her lee scuppers under water, and kept there at a constant heel, with
only three small stormsails. We were running before the gale (an
unusual experience nowadays, as Penelope cheerily pointed out!),
luckily just on our course. To windward (in south-west) the sky was
covered with gloomy clouds—several black bows, which always mean
squall-storms, being hideously apparent! White horses raced past the
bows, and were all one could see in the darkness. They looked just
like detached floes! The whole time we had to clutch the bridge rails
to prevent our rolling down to leeward.

“Then the sky got darker all over, the stars disappeared. A sudden
squall hit us, and then the shrouds started shrilling and booming. The
canvas screen on the bridge bulged in; your nose nearly blew off your
face if you looked over it, while the canvas made eddies which
deflected the wind into your face.

“The ship plunged forward into the black, sometimes partially
righting, but mostly lying over at 30°. Then the black squall passed
(in about ten minutes) and a patch of clear sky showed to windward.
Another squall-bow appeared, and we were battered and driven over
again. This lasted longer, about twenty minutes. Penelope asked me to
go to the standard compass (near the foremast) to check the steersman.
I got the electric torch and managed to crawl on to the ice-house
which supports the compass. Up a silly little ladder with no grip, and
in flapping oilskins to find Rennick there before me. Then I had to
crawl round and see that the helmsman was keeping his course. I
clutched at his screen-posts and wondered if they would blow overboard
next gust. (The screen went over next day!) About 10.40 a thick black
cloud enveloped the horizon to the west and gradually reached us. This
accompanied a squall where nature fairly burst her bounds! The sea was
blown flat, and the air filled with horizontal hurtling arrows of
sleet and water. I didn’t know that wind could show such malignancy!
Don’t know how the stormsails stood it, I suppose because the rigging
would do for a ship about twice this size! It was a snorter. Couldn’t
see more than a hundred feet, though there was no snow in the air.
Just solidified wind, I guess.

“If the sails had not held it would be called force 12—the maximum, as
it is they are content with force 11. Penelope said he enjoyed this
sort of thing, but I can’t say I was thrilled with enthusiasm, and I
preferred to be where the hurricane force was not quite so obtrusively
obvious! So at 11 p.m. I unselfishly called Bernard Day for his share
of the hell-broth, and went down below to try and forget it in sleep.”

It culminated at 3 a.m., when the starboard whaler was torn from one
davit. Just as they got a rope under the loose end the other broke
loose. So they cut it adrift after it had been bumping on the ship’s
side for some hours a few inches from Lieutenant Evans’ sickbed!

Bernard Day was nursing Evans, who was progressing satisfactorily,
though still very weak. However, by now he was nearly as cheerful as
usual, and his cabin was chiefly noticeable from the amount of
laughter emanating therefrom. He had onions, oranges, and beer in
excess of our ration, and got up for a few moments just before the
gale.

“Now that the engines are stopped (to save coal) we have to use the
hand-pumps continuously—about a quarter of an hour each four hours. In
the storm, owing to the rolling, it takes longer, for the well only
fills slowly through its small holes, and most of the bilge lies on
the lee side.

“The pump-handles (across the waist) are left on all the time now, and
with ‘life-lines’ they make something to grip as you sidle along the
deck. Ponting didn’t see the handle, and running to dodge a big wave
he was knocked silly by a blow on the brow. Result—two lovely black
eyes, and a thankful heart that his nose wasn’t broken!”

The same day a big sea pooped the ship and covered the steersman
(MacCarthy) in fifteen feet of water! It broke down the canvas screen
protecting him, but didn’t dismay MacCarthy. He had bad luck later,
also. For climbing the ratlines to free some tackle his helmet was
knocked off. It nearly came inboard on an incoming wave over the lee
bulwarks, but not quite. However, all that cheery MacCarthy said was,
“Maybe ’twill make the gale lessen a bit!”

There was naturally not much comfort anywhere on board, not even in
the cabins. I think the following extract speaks for itself—

“My bunk is just over the counter, where the waves bump every few
minutes, just over the screw; just under the chilled feet of the
steersman who dances on the deck, which is like a sounding board; and
just next the rudder, which has two dozen squeaks and groans of its
own. Add to this rolls varying from 30° to 50° each way.

“I have made a fine hanging candlestick from a chain of safety pins
and a bent wire, and this swings out and bangs my head. I stick in my
drawing-board at the side of the bunk, and so try to get some sleep in
the fearful rolling.

“There I lay, throughout the day,
Lying this and then that way,
Pain and cramp from toe to shoulder;
Up and down the tempest rolled her.
Pitch and toss, athwart across—
Never worse befell old Ross.
Waves belched round, above, right over
Poor old storm-tossed _Terra Nova_.”

On the 26th we had discussion of Amundsen’s chances, and I got Pennell
to draw a map of his winter quarters. This has some interest, as we
did not know anything of his movements for over a week yet.

Chart of Bay of Whales, 78° S. + 164° W., after Amundsen.
]

“The _Discovery_ in 1902 found several deep bays in the edge of the
Ross Ice Barrier. Balloon Bight went in about ten miles. Shackleton in
1908 found that these had merged into one and he was stopped by
sea-ice at the head.

“Pennell in the _Terra Nova_ found Amundsen’s Hut (in February, 1911)
to be about two miles from the water on a ridge of old sea-ice about
thirty feet high, but hidden from the ship by another ridge of the
same nature.

“To the west was an indifferent lane half a mile wide which reached
_behind_ the hut. Here the sea-ice was only a few feet above the water
except where pressure occurred. The ice in the west of the lane was
breaking out. Behind this about four miles off was an eighty-foot
cliff of Ice Barrier with a path up in the south-east. I wouldn’t like
his winter, though if he lasted through the autumn he might be O.K.
afterwards. Anyhow, we’ll know in about a week now. We had a great cag
to-day. Some are still sure that Amundsen did nothing at the Pole. The
arguments are: (_a_) Amundsen never liked sledging; and (_b_) if he
meant to go up another glacier than the Beardmore, he’d have acquired
merit and said so!

“Contrariwise (_a_) if he found going easy he might have prospected up
an easy one, perhaps in 1911; and (_b_) if he’d gone astray, the Fram
would have come to us to investigate this year.”

“On the 27th we finished off the cable. It runs to 7,500 words, of
which the western party contributed 900. It is to be delivered to the
agent at Akaroa on Monday (first of April). A funny day to send off a
big cable, but it won’t be published till the 2nd in England, and ten
hours later in Australia. Meanwhile we loaf about till Wednesday
morning (minimum 36 hours), and then land at Lyttelton as soon as
possible.”

On the 30th the coal gang put in about six hours filling the bunkers,
so as to rest on Sunday. We shifted seven tons. The gale had rounded
the large lumps of coal, the impacts turning them into egg-shaped
boulders. The coal-dust was packed into a hard layer which we could
hardly break out with a pick! This is what clogged the pumps in 1910,
and in that gale Teddy Evans was head and shoulders under the bilge
water groping for the mud clogging the pump-roses.

During Sunday we slowly cruised towards Akaroa. After lunch we sighted
a school of eight sperm whales. We turned off and followed them.
Mostly one saw their broad rounded brown backs. Then one would raise
his head a little and blow off “steam,” not up straight but diagonally
forward. Sometimes their large triangular tail fins showed, and once
or twice the huge torpedo head appeared above water. Our harpoon gun
was out of order, but they were too shy to let us approach within
striking distance. Each of these whales was worth £300, so that there
was a small fortune in the whole school.

_Monday, April 1._—About 6 a.m. we approached Akaroa. It was a bright
morning as we entered the very fine harbour, the Heads reminding me of
those of Sydney. We could see the friendly light of the lighthouse
twinkling a greeting to us. Then we saw ragged clumps of the first
trees—two on the skyline resembling a pair of roosters fighting, and
sheep, like rabbits, browsing on the steep hillsides. We lay about a
mile off the little town, while Pennell and Drake went off in the
cutter and were met by a launch. All communication was forbidden with
the shore, but later two men in a small launch hovered around us. As
they pushed off they called out—

“Why didn’t you get back sooner? Amundsen got the Pole in a sardine
tin on the 14th December.”

“Pennell returned about 11 a.m. and confirmed it. Amundsen has done
wonderfully. His risky hut site was not so bad as we expected. In
place of howling blizzards four days in each week, he seems to have
had calm weather! But his bold dash up another glacier, his getting
five men there, and his nice behaviour after returning with regard to
Scott and his work have changed our opinion of him _in toto_.

“Scott will have reached the Pole about January 16. When he sees the
tent and flag there he will get a most unpleasant shock. Amundsen
started eleven days before Scott and was eighty miles nearer. He got
there only thirty days sooner, so that he didn’t march much quicker.

“In the west Gran and I agreed that he had a very good chance, and
Gran has written down in my sledge diary the day he (Amundsen) would
get there. I haven’t looked at it, but believe he was at the Pole at
the day Gran said!”

This prophecy has aroused some interest among psychologists at home!
So I will explain the circumstances. Gran woke up on December 20,
1911, when we were camped in the Punch Bowl and had been sledging over
a month. He declared that he knew that Amundsen was turning back. As
natural we pooh-poohed this. He said, “Well, I’ll write it down in
Grif’s book here.” He did so; but in my Browning and not in the diary
(as I say above).

PONTING IS HERE ARRANGING THE CREW FOR A PHOTO OFF AKAROA. PROBABLY
HIS LAST EFFORT AT “PONTING” ANY OF US.

The dog Tsignan in the foreground.
]

This copy of Browning was left on Cape Roberts with all other
non-essentials on February 5. It remained there until picked up by
Priestley, six months after I had reached Australia. It was restored
to me in Priestley’s home at Tewkesbury in 1913, nearly two years
after Gran’s inscription. I looked through it and came on Gran’s note,
which I here reproduce. This is one of the most extraordinary
coincidences I know of, and owing to Gran’s isolation from all outside
information is perhaps unique.

I am personally of opinion that coincidence and not telepathy is
involved; though it is a fact that Gran never made any other attempt
to get an undoubted record of a dream, and he certainly believed this
to be something supernatural at the time!

During Monday we idled off Akaroa. Some fish were caught, Day hauling
in a huge barracouta and Evans a rock cod, which he caught as he was
sitting in a deck chair, and so celebrated his first day out of the
cabin. They tasted good at lunch! We trimmed eight tons of coal during
the day, so that only five were left! Then I had a huge bath, borrowed
a shirt, and got into clean clothes ready for civilization!

On Tuesday I packed all my gear, which was lucky, for I only had half
an hour to catch the Sydney boat finally. On Wednesday morning we
entered Lyttelton Harbour early in the morning. A tug came to meet us,
carrying Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Evans. Pennell asked me to steer the
ship into harbour—why, I know not; unless he thought I looked too
respectable and might look more natural after a trick at the wheel.
However, one of the seamen did all the heavy brain work, and I merely
assisted at the tricky corners!

Simpson, Meares, and I hurried for the first train to Lyttelton.
Simpson was not specially noticeable except for his ski-boots, I had
on his shirt and Evans’ cap. Meares was clothed in a suit lent by Jim
Dennistoun, who said it was an old one of his father’s. I think
Meares’ departure was hastened by the advance of Mr. Dennistoun senior
to greet his son!

I spent only one day in Christchurch, for finding that a ship left for
Sydney that evening, I transhipped all my gear to the mailboat and was
back in Australia on the 7th April, 1912.

VIII
THE END OF THE EXPEDITION

THE END OF THE EXPEDITION

Chart of parties, December 14, 1911 (Amundsen reaches the Pole).
]

I have brought the story of the Expedition up to April, 1912, so far
as my own part in it is concerned. But it will be of interest to give
a brief _résumé_ of the much more arduous journeys of the other
divisions of the Expedition.

Let us consider the distribution of the _personnel_ in the middle of
December. In the far north at Cape Adare, Campbell and his five mates
were awaiting the arrival of the _Terra Nova_ to take them to fresh
fields of work. The sea-ice had blown out early in spring, and they
had been cooped up on the rocky promontory unable to explore the
hinterland, just as had Borchgrevinck ten years earlier. The ship was
not due until early in January, but Levick’s penguin studies and
Priestley’s ice-notes testify to the industry of the scientific staff
during their imprisonment.

Further south my own party was preparing to climb the Mackay Glacier,
as recorded previously. We were to be taken north on the ship to Evans
Coves (to spend five weeks there during January and February) as soon
as the _Terra Nova_ could reach us.

At Headquarters Simpson was completing his meteorological
log—certainly the most valuable record of Antarctic weather which has
yet been obtained by any of the numerous expeditions to the southern
continent. Ponting was living at Cape Royds, and obtaining many of his
most successful studies of animal life.

To the south stretches the Great Ice Barrier, and somewhere off White
Island a party of two men are doggedly pursuing their homeward path.
They are dragging a queer contraption—a sledge burnt in half—and each
night have great difficulty in erecting their four-man tent. Neither
Day nor Hooper understands navigation, and their plight, if they miss
one of the old pony shelters, will be pitiable. They lie up during a
heavy blizzard, and then start off, desperate, through the drifting
snow. They arrive safely, and a few days later, returning on their
path, see their blindfold tracks passing along the narrow ridge
between two huge crevasses!

Another stage of some two hundred miles shows us, at the foot of the
Beardmore Glacier, a second supporting party, which has just bidden
farewell to Captain Scott. Meares, with Demetri and the dog teams, is
proceeding north again for his last journey on the Great Ice Barrier.
For three months he has been forwarding stores ahead of the pony
parties, and now the Pole party pushes on, unsupported by ponies or
dogs, on the two hardest stages to the Pole.

Scott has just finished the hardest day’s work he experienced on the
ascent of the Beardmore. “A most damnably dismal day,” he calls it.
Next day, the 14th—which is that on which all the positions in the
preceding figure have been charted—they begin to reach better
surfaces, and the three parties, under Evans, Bowers, and the leader,
swing along at an encouraging rate.

Far to the south—indeed, at the uttermost south—five Norwegians have
reached their goal: Amundsen, Bjaaland, Hanssen, Hassel, and Wisting.
After a few days’ rest they have verified their position, and made
sure of the Pole by a circular journey round the apparent site. And
now they are preparing to return to Framheim and the north.

Prestrud, Amundsen’s lieutenant, has just carried out his trip to King
Edward VII. Land. There, beyond the Barrier, he reached high land.
Rocky cliffs appeared in a few _nunatakker_ above the snow mantle. To
these they gave Scott’s name.

Chart of parties, January 18, 1912 (Scott reaches the Pole).
]

The next chart shows the position of the parties on the 18th of
January, 1912. Cape Adare is now deserted. Campbell has been picked up
by the _Terra Nova_, and safely landed at Evans Coves for five weeks’
exploration between Mount Nansen and Mount Melbourne. Then the ship
sails south to pick up the western party at Granite Harbour, and to
communicate with Headquarters. The pack-ice is still solid in MacMurdo
Sound; the ship can do nothing till well into February. The western
party are waiting on Cape Roberts some twenty miles from the ship. As
narrated previously, they realize that there is no hope of relief in
that quarter, and later march overland to the hut.

Day and Meares have reached the hut, and Atkinson is now halfway home
across the Great Barrier. They have had an anxious rush to keep the
balance between food and time. Only one day—Christmas—has been
different from the many weary days of sledge-hauling. Among the
moraines near the “Cloud-maker,” Wright discovered a piece of marble
containing the first large Archæocyathine fossil from Antarctica.
Although vastly larger than Shackleton’s specimens, this is only a
centimetre long!

Lieutenant Evans has now also turned northward, and, with Lashley and
Crean, is nearing the foot of the Beardmore. For him worse troubles
are approaching. Worn out by constant sledging and unsuitable food, he
is attacked by scurvy, and only saved by the gallant devotion of his
naval mates.

Captain Scott has accomplished his task, and within the time he had
allotted to it. Realizing that if Amundsen came successfully through
the winter his methods must be speedier than those of the English
party, Scott proceeded steadily along the lines he had decided upon
when he left England. It was a bitter disappointment. Since Amundsen
had reached the Pole the year 1911 had passed away; and so the record
stands: “The South Pole: Amundsen 1911, Scott 1912.” How few will
realize that but a few weeks intervened between the two achievements!

Chart of parties on March 21, 1911 (the last camp).
]

Meanwhile the Norwegian is speeding back to the _Fram_, and already
the hardest part of his journey is over. In mid-January the conditions
of the Barrier bear no remote resemblance to those in mid-March. No
one who has not experienced it can picture the enormous difference due
to the lapse of those two months.

The third chart shows the scene of the last tragedy. Far to the north
the ship is nearing civilization. Campbell’s party is isolated at
“Hell’s Gate,” their cheerless home at Evans Coves. Here in a hole in
the snow they wear out a weary existence for eight never-ending
months. No other Antarctic party has ever experienced such a test of
courage and endurance. Even Mawson’s three weeks alone gave less
opportunity for utter despair than the life of these six men from
March to October, 1912.

All communication is now cut off between Cape Evans and the Barrier.
At the 1910 Hut are Nelson, Debenham, Wright, and Gran with some of
the men, and fourteen miles south in the old _Discovery_ Hut are
Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard, Keohane, and Demetri. But two of these are
invalids—worn out by wild weather on the Barrier when they carried
further supplies to One Ton Depôt.

Eleven miles south of this depôt—and just beyond where Bowers and Gran
reached in the depôt trip of February, 1911—is the last camp of the
Pole party. All the world has been moved by Scott’s messages from this
formless yet historic site. It would be presumption in me to try and
describe it.

Why did the tragedy occur? I am convinced that no reason beyond that
of Seaman Evans’ illness is required. When Wilson was coaching us as
to how we should meet the hazards of Antarctic sledging, he told us of
frostbites, chills, blizzards, and so forth. I said that these seemed
surmountable, but I added, “What are we to do if one of the party
breaks his leg?” which seemed by no means impossible in the rough
rocky region before us. Dr. Bill replied, “Well, you will have to make
a more or less permanent camp, kill plenty of seals, and wait there
until you are relieved, or until the leg is usable again.” Two factors
were vital—rest for the invalid, and seal meat for the party’s
sustenance. When Evans met with his accident, there could be no rest
for any, sick or well. It was a race with famine, in which only strong
men had any chance. There was no need for a severe accident to
handicap the party hopelessly, as in the case of Dr. Mertz. A slight
ailment rapidly becomes mortal. A sick man must be kept warm, and in
the Antarctic the only warming agent is the human one. Very literally
a man “keeps himself warm” with the most wonderful furnace in
nature—fed with fuel in the form of biscuits and pemmican. And so, I
believe, that, short of abandonment, the party had no hope with a sick
man on their hands. Scott and Wilson would remember, however, that
they had managed to bring back Shackleton to safety in 1903, and would
hope to do the same again, even though the distance was four hundred
miles instead of a hundred and fifty.

With each hour’s delay each man grew weaker. Each day the weather grew
worse than the preceding. The sun now sank below the horizon at night
and the Antarctic cold, unopposed by his warm beams, spread resistless
through both animate and inanimate nature. Each night was longer, each
march a harder fight against the blizzard drift.

I used to wonder how Shackleton managed his wonderful feat with an
unsupported party. He told me that he would never have got through if
it had been calm, nor if the wind had been but a trifle different. For
days, on their return Barrier journey, they were marching through
drift which did not rise to their eyes and so block their view; but
was due to a southern blizzard wind just strong enough to fill their
sail and push them to the north. Captain Scott met with no such
fortune. He was a month later than Shackleton, and when Oates fell
sick their chance had gone.

_Glossopteris_, a Permo-Carboniferous fern from the Upper Beardmore
Glacier.
]

I do not believe that unaided the three men would have survived even
if they had reached One Ton Depôt. There was no chance of thorough
rest there, and nothing else could have saved them. At their slow rate
of marching they were still ten days from Discovery Hut, and such a
period of exposure would have been too much for them. Their journey
was a supreme struggle against all the powers of Nature, and when all
human effort had been expended they succumbed, winning a deathless
renown which has aroused the envy of all brave men and the admiration
of the world.

On their last few marches, when everything was fighting against them,
they kept the specimens gathered by Wilson at the head of the
Beardmore Glacier. Scott writes, “The geological specimens carried at
Wilson’s request will be found with us or on our sledge.” It is
pleasant to think that these specimens, which must have a greater
sentimental value than any others of their kind, have also a greater
scientific value than any hitherto obtained in the Antarctic. At the
Australian meetings of the British Association Professor Seward gave
two lectures dealing with the fossil leaves which they contained.
Perfect examples of the fern-like plant _Glossopteris_ were
preserved—closely related to those occurring in India, Australia,
South Africa, and South America. In fact, this plant is the emblem of
the ancient continent of Gondwanaland; and the Polar specimens give
positive and invaluable evidence of the condition of the world in
Permo-Carboniferous times, of a sort which can truly be called
epoch-making.

I can here give no account of the doings of the small band during the
last months spent by the expedition in Antarctica. The record of the
survey of Erebus by Priestley and Debenham and of the search for the
Polar party can be read in other volumes.