The Worst Journey in the World/Chapter 10

by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

 

CHAPTER X

 

THE POLAR JOURNEY (continued)

 

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

 

II. The Beardmore Glacier

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

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

The Gateway is a gap in the mountains, a side door, as it were, to the great tumbled glacier. By lunch we were on the top of the divide, but it took six hours of the hardest hauling to cover the mile which formed the rise. As long as possible we stuck to ski, but we reached a point at which we could not move the sledges on ski: once we had taken them off we were up to our knees, and the sledges were ploughing the snow which would not support them. But our gear was drying in the bright sunshine, our bags were spread out at every opportunity, and the great jagged cliffs of red granite were welcome to the eyes after 425 statute miles of snow. The Gateway is filled by a giant snowdrift which has been formed between Mount Hope on our left and the mainland on our right. From Shackleton's book we gathered that the Beardmore was a very bad glacier indeed. Once on the top of the divide we lunched, and we descended in the evening, camping at midnight on the edge of the glacier, which we found, as we had feared, covered with soft snow which was so deep as to give no indication whatever of the hard ice which Shackleton found here. "We camped in considerable drift and a blizzard wind, which is still blowing, and I hope will go on, for every hour it is sweeping away inches of this soft powdery snow into which we have been sinking all day."^[1]

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

During this time of deep snow the sledge-meters would not work and we were compelled to estimate the distance marched each day. "It has been a tremendous slog, but I think a most hopeful day. Before starting it took us about two hours to make the depôt and then we got straight into the midst of the big pressure. The dogs, with ten cases of biscuit, came behind and pulled very well. We soon caught sight of a big boulder, and Bill and I roped up and went over to it. It was a block of very coarse granite, nearly gneiss, with large crystals of quartz in it, rusty outside and quite pinkish when chipped, and with veins of quartz running through it. It was a vast thing to be carried along on the ice, and looked very typical of the rock round. Instead of keeping under the great cliff where Shackleton made his depôt, we steered for Mount Kyffin, that is towards the middle of the glacier, until lunch, when we had probably done about two or three miles. There was a crevasse wherever we went, but we managed to pull on ski and had no one down, and the deep snow saved the dogs."^[2] The dog-teams were certainly running very big risks that morning. They turned

E. A. Wilson, del.

Emery Walker, Limited Collotypers.

back after lunch, having been brought on far longer than had been originally intended, for, as I have said, they were to have been back at Hut Point before now, and their provision allowance would not allow of further advance. Perhaps we rather overestimated the dogs' capacities when Bowers wrote: "The dogs are wonderfully fit and will rush Meares and Dimitri back like the wind. I expect he will be nearly back by Christmas, as they will do about thirty miles a day." But Meares told us when we got back to the hut that the dogs had by no means had an easy journey home. Now, however, "with a whirl and a rush they were off on the homeward trail. I could not see them (being snow-blind), but heard the familiar orders as the last of our animal transport left us."^[3]

Our difficulties during the next four days were increased by the snow-blindness of half the men. The evening we reached the glacier Bowers wrote: "I am afraid I am going to pay dearly for not wearing goggles yesterday when piloting the ponies. My right eye has gone bung, and my left one is pretty dicky. If I am in for a dose of snow glare it will take three or four days to leave me, and I am afraid I am in the ditch this time. It is painful to look at this paper, and my eyes are fairly burning as if some one had thrown sand into them." And then: "I have missed my journal for four days, having been enduring the pains of hell with my eyes as well as doing the most back-breaking work I have ever come up against. . . . I was as blind as a bat, and so was Keohane in my team. Cherry pulled alongside me, with Crean and Keohane behind. By sticking plaster over my glasses except one small central spot I shut off most light and could see the points of my ski, but the glasses were always fogged with perspiration and my eyes kept on streaming water which cannot be wiped off on the march as a ski stick is held in each hand; and so heavy were our weights [we had now taken on the weights which had been on the dog sledges] that if any of the pair slacked a hand even, the sledge stopped. It was all we could do to keep the sledge moving for short spells of a few hundred yards, the whole concern sinking so deeply into the soft snow as to form a snow-plough. The starting was worse than pulling as it required from ten to fifteen desperate jerks on the harness to move the sledge at all." Many others were also snow-blind, caused partly by the strain of the last march of the ponies, partly by not having realized that now that we were day-marching the sun was more powerful and more precautions should be taken. The cocaine and zinc sulphate tablets which we had were excellent, but we also found that our tea leaves, which had been boiled twice and would otherwise have been thrown away, relieved the pain if tied into some cotton and kept pressed against the eyes. The tannic acid in the tea acted as an astringent. A snow-blind man can see practically nothing anyhow and so he is not much worse off if a handkerchief is tied over his eyes.

"Beardmore Glacier. Just a tiny note to be taken back by the dogs. Things are not so rosy as they might be, but we keep our spirits up and say the luck must turn. This is only to tell you that I find I can keep up with the rest as well as of old."^[4]

Then for the first time we were left with our full loads of 800 lbs. a sledge. Even Bowers asked Scott whether he was going to try it without relaying. That night Scott's diary runs:

"It was a very anxious business when we started after lunch, about 4.30. Could we pull our full loads or not? My own party got away first, and, to my joy, I found we could make fairly good headway. Every now and again the sledge sank in a soft patch, which brought us up, but we learned to treat such occasions with patience. We got sideways to the sledge and hauled it out, Evans (P.O.) getting out of his ski to get better purchase. The great thing is to keep the sledge moving, and for an hour or more there were dozens of critical moments when it all but stopped, and not a few when it brought up altogether. The latter were very trying and tiring."^[5] Altogether it was an encouraging day and we reckoned we had made

seven miles. Generally it was not Scott's team which made the heaviest weather these days but on December 12 they were in greater difficulties than any of us. It was indeed a gruelling day, for the surface was worse than ever and many men were snow-blind. After five hours' work in the morning we were about half a mile forward. We were in a sea of pressure, the waves coming at us from our starboard bow, the distance between the crests not being very great. We could not have advanced at all had it not been for our ski: "on foot one sinks to the knees, and if pulling on a sledge to half way between knee and thigh."^[6]

On December 13, "the sledges sank in over twelve inches, and all the gear, as well as the thwartship pieces, were acting as breaks. The tugs and heaves we enjoyed, and the number of times we had to get out of our ski to upright the sledge, were trifles compared with the strenuous exertion of every muscle and nerve to keep the wretched drag from stopping when once under weigh; and then it would stick, and all the starting operations had to be gone through afresh. We did perhaps half a mile in the forenoon. Anticipating a better surface in the afternoon we got a shock. Teddy [Evans] led off half an hour earlier to pilot a way, and Captain Scott tried some fake with his spare runners [he lashed them under the sledge to prevent the cross-pieces ploughing the snow] that involved about an hour's work. We had to continually turn our runners up to scrape the ice off them, for in these temperatures they are liable to get warm and melt the snow on them, and that freezes into knobs of ice which act like sandpaper or spikes on a pair of skates. We bust off second full of hope having done so well in the forenoon, but pride goeth [before a fall]. We stuck ten yards from the camp, and nine hours later found us little more than half a mile on. I have never seen a sledge sink so. I have never pulled so hard, or so nearly crushed my inside into my backbone by the everlasting jerking with all my strength on the canvas band round my unfortunate tummy. We were all in the same boat however.

"I saw Teddy struggling ahead and Scott astern, but we were the worst off as the leading team had topped the rise and I was too blind to pick out a better trail. We fairly played ourselves out that time, and finally had to give it up and relay. Halving the load we went forward about a mile with it, and, leaving that lot, went back for the remainder. So done were my team that we could do little more than pull the half loads. Teddy's team did the same, and though Scott's did not, we camped practically the same time, having gone over our distance three times. Mount Kyffin was still ahead of us to the left: we seemed as if we can never come up with it. To-morrow Scott decided that if we could not move our full loads we would start relaying systematically. It was a most depressing outlook after such a day of strenuous labour."^[7] We got soaked with perspiration these days, though generally pulling in vest, pants, and windproof trousers only. Directly we stopped we cooled quickly. Two skuas appeared at lunch, attracted probably by the pony flesh below, but it was a long way from the sea for them to come. On Thursday December 14, Scott wrote: "Indigestion and the soggy condition of my clothes kept me awake for some time last night, and the exceptional exercise gives bad attacks of cramp. Our lips are getting raw and blistered. The eyes of the party are improving, I am glad to say. We are just starting our march with no very hopeful outlook."

But we slogged along with much better results. "Once into the middle of the glacier we had been steering more or less for the Cloudmaker and by supper to-day were well past Mount Kyffin and were about 2000 feet up after an estimated run of 11 or 12 statute miles. But the most cheering sign was that the blue ice was gradually coming nearer the surface; at lunch it was two feet down, and at our supper camp only one foot. In pitching our tent Crean broke into a crevasse which ran about a foot in front of the door and there was another at Scott's door. We threw an empty oil can down and it echoed for a

E. A. Wilson, del.

Emery Walker, Limited Collotypers.

terribly long time."^[8] We spent the morning of December 15 crossing a maze of crevasses though they were well bridged; I believe all these lower reaches of the glacier are badly crevassed, but the thick snow and our ski kept us from tumbling in. There was a great deal of competition between the teams which was perhaps unavoidable but probably a pity. This day Bowers' diary records, "Did a splendid bust off on ski, leaving Scott in the lurch, and eventually overhauling the party which had left some time before us. All the morning we kept up a steady, even swing which was quite a pleasure." But the same day Scott wrote, "Evans' is now decidedly the slowest unit, though Bowers' is not much faster. We keep up and overhaul either without difficulty." Bowers' team considered themselves quite good, but both teams were satisfied of their own superiority; as a matter of fact Scott's was the faster, as it should have been for it was certainly the heavier of the two.

"It was a very bad light all day, but after lunch it began to get worse, and by 5 o'clock it was snowing hard and we could see nothing. We went on for nearly an hour, steering by the wind and any glimpse of sastrugi, and then, very reluctantly, Scott camped. It looks better now. The surface is much harder and more wind-swept, and as a rule the ice is only six inches underneath. We are beginning to talk about Christmas. We get very thirsty these days in the warm temperatures: we shall feel it farther up when the cold gets into our open pores and sunburnt hands and cracked lips. I am plastering some skin on mine tonight. Our routine now is: turn out 5.30, lunch 1, and camp at 7, and we get a short 8 hours' sleep, but we are so dead tired we could sleep half into the next day: we get about 9½ hours' march. Tea at lunch a positive godsend. We are raising the land to the south well, and are about 2500 feet up, latitude about 84° 8′ S."^[9]

The next day, December 16, Bowers wrote: "We have had a really enjoyable day's march, except the latter end of the afternoon. At the outset in the forenoon my sledge was a bit in the lurch, and Scott drew steadily away from us. I knew I could ordinarily hold my own with him, but for the first two hours we dropped till we were several hundred yards astern; try as I would to rally up my team we could gain nothing. On examining the runners however we soon discovered the cause by the presence of a thin film of ice. After that we ran easily. The thing one must avoid doing is to touch them with the hand or mitt, as anything damp will make ice on them. We usually turn the sledge on its side and scrape one runner at a time with the back of our knives so as to avoid any chance of cutting or chipping them. In the afternoon either the tea or the butter we had at lunch made us so strong that we fairly overran the other team."^[10]

"We must push on all we can, for we are now 6 days behind Shackleton, all due to that wretched storm. So far, since we got among the disturbances we have not seen such alarming crevasses as I had expected; certainly dogs could have come up as far as this."^[11]

"At lunch we could see big pressure ahead having done first over five miles. Soon after lunch, having gone down a bit, we rose among very rough stuff. We plugged on until 4.30, when ski became quite impossible, and we put them on the sledges and started on foot. We immediately began putting legs down: one step would be on blue ice and the next two feet down into snow: very hard going. The pressure ahead seemed to stretch right into a big glacier next the Keltic Glacier to the east, and so we altered course for a small bluff point about two-thirds of the way along the base of the Cloudmaker. We were to camp at 6, but did not do so until about 6.30, the last 1½ hours in big pressure, crossing big and smaller waves, and hundreds of crevasses which one of us generally found. We are now camped in very big pressure, and with difficulty we found a patch big enough to pitch the tent free from crevasses. We are pretty well past the Keltic Glacier which is a vast tumbled mass: there is a long line of ice falls ahead, and I think there is a hard day ahead of us to-

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morrow among that pressure which must be enormous. We can't go farther inshore here, being under the north end of the Cloudmaker, and a fine mountain it is, rising precipitously above us.^[12]

"Sunday, December 17. Nearly 11 miles. Temp. 12.5°. 3500 feet. We have had an exciting day—this morning was just like the scenic railway at Earl's Court. We got straight on to the big pressure waves, and headed for the humpy rock at the base of the Cloudmaker. It was a hard plug up the waves, very often standing pulls, and all that we could do for a course was a very varied direction. Going down the other side was the exciting part: all we could do was to set the sledge straight, hang on to the straps, give her a little push and rush down the slope, which was sometimes so sheer that the sledge was in the air. Sometimes there was no chance to brake the sledge, and we all had to get on to the top, and we rushed down with the wind whistling in our ears. After three hours of this it levelled out again a bit, and we took the top of a wave, and ran south along it on blue ice: enormous pressure to our right, largely I think caused by the Keltic Glacier. Then we ascended a rise, snowy and crevassed, and camped after doing just under five miles, with big pressure ahead."^[13]

"In the afternoon we had a hard surface. Scott started off at a great speed, Teddy [Evans] and I following. There was something wrong with my team or my sledge, as we had a desperate job to keep up at first. We did keep up all right, but were heartily glad when after about 2½ hours Scott stopped for a spell. I rearranged our harness, putting Cherry and myself on the long span again, which we had temporarily discarded in the morning. We were both winded and felt wronged. The rearrangement was a success however, and the remainder of the march was a pleasure instead of a desperate struggle. It finished up on fields of blue rippled ice with sharp knife edges, and snow patches few and far between. We are all camped on a small snow patch in the middle of a pale blue rippled sea, about 3600 feet above sea level and past the Cloudmaker, which means that we are half way up the Glacier."^[14] We had done 12½ miles (statute).

The Beardmore Glacier is twice as large as the Malaspina in Alaska, which was the largest known glacier until Shackleton discovered the Beardmore. Those who knew the Ferrar Glacier professed to find the Beardmore unattractive, but to me at any rate it was grand. Its very vastness, however, tends to dwarf its surroundings, and great tributary glaciers and tumbled ice-falls, which anywhere else would have aroused admiration, were almost unnoticed in a stream which stretched in places forty miles from bank to bank. It was only when the theodolite was levelled that we realized how vast were the mountains which surrounded us: one of which we reckoned to be well over twenty thousand feet in height, and many of the others must have approached that measurement. Lieutenant Evans and Bowers were surveying whenever the opportunity offered, whilst Wilson sat on the sledge or on his sleeping-bag, and sketched.

Before leaving on the morning of December 18 we bagged off three half-weekly units and made a depôt marked by a red flag on a bamboo which was stuck into a small mound. Unfortunately it began to snow in the night and no bearings were taken until the following morning when only the base of the mountains on the west side was visible. We knew we might have difficulty in picking up this depôt again, and certainly we all did.

"It was thick, with low stratus clouds in the morning, and snow was falling in large crystals. Our socks and finnesko, hung out to dry, were covered with most beautiful feathery crystals. In the warm weather one gets fairly saturated with perspiration on the march, and foot-gear is always wet, except the outside covering which is as a rule more or less frozen according to existing temperature. On camping at night I shift to night foot-gear as soon as ever the tent is pitched, and generally slip on my windproof blouse, as one cools down like smoke after the exertion of man-hauling a heavy sledge for hours. At lunch camp one's feet often get pretty cold, but this goes off as soon as some hot tea is got into the system. As a rule, even when snowing, one's socks, etc., will dry if there is a bit of a breeze. They are always frozen stiff in the morning and can best be thawed out by bundling the lot [under one's] jersey during breakfast. They can then be put on tolerably warm even if wet.

"We started off on a hard rippled blue surface like a sea frozen intact while the wind was playing on it. It soon got worse and we had to have one and sometimes two hands back to keep the sledge from skidding. Of course it was easy enough stuff to pull on, but the ground was very uneven, and sledges constantly capsized. It did not improve the runners either. There were few crevasses.

"All day we went on in dull cloudy weather with hardly any land visible, and the glacier to be seen only for a short distance. In the afternoon the clouds lifted somewhat and showed us the Adam Mountains. The surface was better for the sledges but worse for us, as there were countless cracks and small crevasses, into which we constantly trod, barking our shins. As the afternoon sun came round the perspiration fairly streamed down, and it was impossible to keep goggles clear. The surface was so slippery and uneven that it was difficult to keep one's foothold. However we did 12½ miles, and felt that we had really done a good day's work when we camped. It was not clear enough to survey in the evening, so I took the sledge-meter in hand and worked at it half the night to repair Christopher's damage.^[15] I ended up by making a fixing of which I was very proud, but did not dare to look at the time, so I don't know how much sleep I missed.

"There is no doubt that Scott knows where to aim for in a glacier, as it was just here that Shackleton had two or three of his worst days' work, in such a maze of crevasses that he said that often a slip meant death for the whole party. He avoids the sides of the glacier and goes nowhere near the snow: he often heads straight for apparent chaos and somehow, when we appear to have reached a cul-de-sac, we find it an open road."^[16] However, we all found the trouble on our way back.

"On our right we have now a pretty good view of the Adam, Marshall and Wild Mountains, and their very curious horizontal stratification. Wright has found, amongst bits of wind-blown debris, an undoubted bit of sandstone and a bit of black basalt. We must get to know more of the geology before leaving the glacier finally."^[17]

December 19, +7°. Total height 5800 feet. "Things are certainly looking up, seeing that we have risen 1100 feet, and marched 17 to 18 statute miles during the day, whereas Shackleton's last march was 13 statute. It was still thick when we turned out at 5.45, but it soon cleared with a fresh southerly wind, and we could see Buckley Island and the land at the head of the glacier just rising. We started late for Birdie wanted to get our sledge-meter dished up: it has been quite a job to-day getting it on, but it rode well this afternoon. We started over the same crevassed stuff, but soon got on to blue ice, and for two hours had a most pleasant pull, and then up a steepish rise sometimes on blue ice and sometimes on snow. After the pleasantest morning we have had, we completed 8½ miles.

"Angles and observations were taken at lunch, and quite a lot of work was done. There is a general getting squared up with gear, for we know that those going on will not have many more days of warm temperatures. At one time to-day I think Scott meant trying the right hand of the island or nunatak, but as we rose this was obviously impossible, for there is a huge mass of pressure coming down there. From here the Dominion Range also looks as if it were a nunatak. Some of these mountains, which don't look very big, are huge (since the six thousand feet which we have risen have to be added on to them), and many of them are very grand indeed. The Mill Glacier is a vast thing, with big pressure across it. There also seems to be a big series of ice-falls between Buckley

E. A. Wilson, del.

Emery Walker, Limited Collotypers.

Island and the Dominion Range, for the centre of which Scott is going to-morrow. A pretty hard plug this afternoon, but no disturbance, and gradually we have left the bare ice, and are mostly travelling on névé. Much of the ice is white. I have been writing down angles and times for Birdie, and writing this in the intervals. Scott's heel is troubling him again. ['I have bad bruises on knee and thigh'],^[18] and generally there has been a run on the medical cases for chafes, and minor ailments. There is now a keen southerly wind blowing. It gets a little colder each day, and we are already beginning to feel it on our sunburnt faces and hands."^[19]

Of the crevasses met in the morning Bowers wrote: "So far nobody has dropped down the length of his harness, as I did on the Cape Crozier journey. On this blue ice they are pretty conspicuous, and as they are mostly snow-bridged one is well advised to step over any line of snow. With my short legs this was strenuous work, especially as the weight of the sledge would often stop me with a jerk just before my leading foot quite cleared a crevasse, and the next minute one would be struggling out so as to keep the sledge on the move. It is fatal to stop the sledge as nobody waits for stragglers, and you have to pick up your lost ground by strenuous hurry. Of course some one often gets so far down a hole that it is necessary to stop and help him out."

December 20. "To-day has been a great march—over two miles an hour, and on the whole rising a lot. Soon after starting we got on to the most beautiful icy surface, smooth except for cracks and only patches of snow, most of which we could avoid. We came along at a great rate.

"The most interesting thing to see was that the Mill Glacier is not, as was supposed, a tributary, but probably is an outlet falling from this glacier, and a great size. However it was soon covered up with dense black cloud, and there were billows of cloud behind us and below.

"At lunch Birdie made the disastrous discovery that the registering dial of his sledge-meter was off". A screw had shaken out on the bumpy ice, and the clockwork had fallen off. This is serious for it means that one of the three returning parties will have to go without, and their navigation will be much more difficult. Birdie is very upset, especially after all the trouble he has taken with it, and the hours which he has sat up. After lunch he and Bill walked back near two miles in the tracks, but could not see it. It was then getting very thick, coming over from the north."^[20] "It appeared to be blizzing down the glacier, though clear to the south. The northerly wind drove up a back-draught of snow, and very soon fogged us completely. However we found our way back to camp by the crampon tracks on the blue ice and then packed up to leave."^[21]

"We started, making a course to hit the east side of the island where there seems to be the only break in the ice-falls which stretch right across. The weather lifted, and we are now camped with the island just to our right, the long strata of coal showing plainly in it, and just in front of us is this steep bit up through the falls. We have done nearly 23 statute miles to-day, pulling 160 lbs. a man.

"This evening has been rather a shock. As I was getting my finnesko on to the top of my ski beyond the tent Scott came up to me, and said that he was afraid he had rather a blow for me. Of course I knew what he was going to say, but could hardly grasp that I was going back—to-morrow night. The returning party is to be Atch, Silas, Keohane and self.

"Scott was very put about, said he had been thinking a lot about it but had come to the conclusion that the seamen with their special knowledge, would be needed: to rebuild the sledge, I suppose. Wilson told me it was a toss-up whether Titus or I should go on: that being so I think Titus will help him more than I can. I said all I could think of—he seemed so cut up about it, saying 'I think, somehow, it is specially hard on you.' I said I hoped I had not disappointed him, and he caught hold of me and said 'No—no—No,' so if that is the case all is well. He told me that at the bottom of the glacier he was
Night Camp. Buckley Island
December, 20, 1911 hardly expecting to go on himself: I don't know what the trouble is, but his foot is troubling him, and also, I think, indigestion."^[22]

Scott just says in his diary, "I dreaded this necessity of choosing—nothing could be more heartrending." And then he goes on to sum up the situation, "I calculated our programme to start from 85° 10′ with 12 units of food and eight men. We ought to be in this position to-morrow night, less one day's food. After all our harassing trouble one cannot but be satisfied with such a prospect."^[23]

December 21. Upper Glacier Depôt. "Started off with a nippy S.Wly. wind in our faces, but bright sunshine. One's nose and lips being chapped and much skinned with alternate heat and cold, a breeze in the face is absolute agony until you warm up. This does not take long, however, when pulling a sledge, so after the first quarter of an hour more or less one is comfortable unless the wind is very strong.

"We made towards the only place where it seemed possible to cross the mass of pressure ice caused by the junction of the plateau with the glacier, and congested between the nunatak [Buckley Island] and the Dominion Range. Scott had considered at one time going up to westward of the nunatak, but this appeared more chaotic than the other side. We made for a slope close to the end of the island or nunatak, where Shackleton must have got up also; it is obviously the only place when you look at it from a commanding rise. We did not go quite so close to the land as Shackleton did, and therefore, as had been the case with us all the way up the glacier, found less difficulties than he met with. Scott is quite wonderful in his selections of route, as we have escaped excessive dangers and difficulties all along. In this case we had fairly good going, but got into a perfect mass of crevasses into which we all continually fell; mostly one foot, but often two, and occasionally we went down altogether, some to the length of their harness to be hauled out with the Alpine rope. Most of them could be seen by the strip of snow on the blue ice. They were often too wide to jump though, and the only thing was to plant your feet on the bridge and try not to tread heavily. As a rule the centre of a bridged crevasse is the safest place, the rotten places are at the edges. We had to go over dozens by hopping right on to the bridge and then over on to the ice. It is a bit of a jar when it gives way under you, but the friendly harness is made to trust one's life to. The Lord only knows how deep these vast chasms go down, they seem to extend into blue black nothingness thousands of feet below.

"Before reaching the rise we had to go up and down many steep slopes, and on the one side the sledges were overrunning us, and on the other it fairly took the juice out of you to reach the top. We saw the stratification on the nunatak which Shackleton supposed to be coal: there was also much sandstone and red granite. I should like to have scratched round these rocks: we may get a chance on our return journey. As we topped each rise we found another one beyond it, and so on.

"About noon some clouds settled in a fog round us, and being fairly in a trough of crevasses we could not get on. Fortunately we found a snow patch to pitch the tents on, but even there were crevasses under us. However, we enjoyed a hearty lunch, and I improved the shining hour by preparing my rations for the Upper Glacier Depôt.

"At 3 P.M. it cleared, and Mount Darwin, a nunatak to the S.W. of the others, could be seen. This we made for, and some two miles on exchanged blue ice for the new snow which was much harder pulling. Scott was fairly wound up, and he went on and on. Every rise topped seemed to fire him with a desire to top the next, and every rise had another beyond and above it. We camped at 8 P.M., all pretty weary, having come up nearly 1500 feet, and done over eleven miles in a S.W. direction. We were south of Mount Darwin in 85° 7′ S., and our corrected altitude proved to be 7000 feet above the Barrier. I worked up till a very late hour getting the depôt stores ready, and also weighing out and arranging allowances for the returning party, and arranging the stores and distribution of weights of the two parties going on. The temperature was down to zero to-day, the lowest it has been for some time this summer weather."^[24]

"There is a very mournful air to-night—those going on and those turning back. Bill came in while I was cooking, to say good-bye. He told me he fully expected to come back with the next party: that he could see Scott was going to take on the strongest fellows, perhaps three seamen. It would be a great disappointment if Bill did not go on."^[25]

We gave away any gear which we could spare to those going on, and I find the following in my diary:

"I have been trying to give away my spare gear where it may be most acceptable: finnesko to Birdie, pyjama trousers to Bill, and a bag of baccy for Bill to give Scott on Christmas Day, some baccy to Titus, jaeger socks and half my scarf to Crean, and a bit of handkerchief to Birdie. Very tired to-night."

Scott wrote: "We are struggling on, considering all things against odds. The weather is a constant anxiety, otherwise arrangements are working exactly as planned.

"Here we are practically on the summit and up to date in the provision line. We ought to get through."^[26]

 

1. My own diary.
2. My own diary.
3. Bowers.
4. Scott.
5. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 497.
6. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 499.
7. Bowers.
8. My own diary.
9. Ibid.
10. Bowers.
11. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 506.
12. My own diary.
13. Ibid.
14. Bowers.
15. See p. 332.
16. Bowers.
17. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 509.
18. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 510.
19. My own diary.
20. My own diary.
21. Bowers.
22. My own diary.
23. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 511–512.
24. Bowers.
25. My own diary.
26. Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 513.