THE LANDING OF STORES AND EQUIPMENT
We now started upon a fortnight full of more checks and worries
than I or any other member of the expedition had ever experienced.
Nevertheless, in face of most trying conditions, the whole party turned
to late and early with whole-hearted devotion and cheerful readiness.
The ponies gave us cause for the most anxiety, because in their
half-broken and nervous condition it would have been practically
impossible to land them in boats. Finally we decided to build a rough
horse-box, get them into this, and then sling it over the side by means
of the main gaff. By 3.30 A.M. on the morning of the 6th we had got all
the ponies ashore, and they immediately began to paw the snow as they
were wont to do in their own far-away Manchurian home.
The poor ponies were naturally stiff after their constant buffetings,
but they negotiated the tide-crack all right, and were soon picketed
on some bare earth at the entrance to a valley, which lay about fifty
yards from the site of our hut. We thought this a good place, but in
the future the selection was to cost us dear.
The tide-crack played an important part in connection with the landing
of the stores. In the polar regions, both north and south, when the
sea is frozen, there always appears between the fast ice, which is the
ice attached to the land, and the sea ice, a crack which is due to the
sea ice moving up and down with the rise and fall of the tide. When
the bottom of the sea slopes gradually from the land, sometimes two or
three tide-cracks appear running parallel to each other. When no more
tide-cracks can be seen landwards, the ice-foot has always been thought
to be permanently joined to the land, and in our case this opinion was
strengthened by the fact that our soundings in the tide-crack shoved
that the ice-foot on the landward side of it must be aground.
I have explained this fully, for it was only after considering these
points that I, for convenience's sake, landed the bulk of the stores
below the bare rocks on what I thought was the permanent snow-slope.
On the morning of February 6 we started work with sledges, hauling
provisions and pieces of the hut to the shore. On the previous night
the foundation posts of the hut had been sunk and frozen into the
ground with a cement composed of volcanic earth and water, and the
digging of the foundations had proved extremely hard work.
Now that the ponies were ashore it was necessary to have a party living
on shore to look after them, and the first shore-party consisted
of Adams, Marston, Brocklehurst, Mackay and Murray. Two tents were
set up close to the hut, with the usual sledging requisites such as
sleeping-bags, cookers, &c. The first things landed this day were
fodder for the ponies, and sufficient petroleum and provisions for the
shore-party in case the ship had to put suddenly to sea owing to bad
weather.
The work of hauling the sledge-loads right up to the land was so heavy,
that I decided to let the stores remain on the snow slope beyond the
tide-crack, whence they could be taken at leisure. Our attempt to
substitute mechanical haulage for man haulage was not successful, and
we soon had to go back to our original plan.
Delays at once occurred, for during the afternoon of the 6th a fresh
breeze sprung up, and the ship had to stand out to the fast ice in the
strait and anchor there. Thus two valuable working days were lost.
When, however, I went ashore again I found that the little shore-party
had not only managed to get all the heavy timber that had been
landed up to the site of the hut, but also had stacked the cases of
provisions, which previously had been lying on the snow slope, upon
bare land. While we were engaged on the increasingly difficult task of
landing stores, &c., the hut-party were working day and night and the
building was rapidly assuming an appearance of solidity. The uprights
were in and the brace ties were fastened together, so that if it began
to blow there was small fear of the structure being destroyed. This was
something to be thankful for, but while the hut-party were getting on
so well, we who were engaged on landing the stores had--owing to the
breaking away of the ice--to move our spot.
The stores had now to be dragged a distance of nearly three hundred
yards from the ship to the landing-place, but this work was made easier
by our being able to use four of the ponies. A large amount of stores
was landed in this way, but a new and serious situation arose through
the breaking away of the main ice-foot. Prudence suggested that it
would be wiser to shift the stores already landed to a safer place
before discharging any more from the ship, and on this work we were
engaged during the evening of the 10th.
[Illustration: The "Nimrod" lying off the Penguin Rookery, Cape
Royds]
Next we had to find a safer place on which to land the rest of the coal
and stores, and Back Door Bay, as we named the chosen spot, became our
new depot. This was a still longer journey from the ship, but there was
no help for it, and after laying a tarpaulin on the rocks to keep the
coal from mixing with the earth, we started landing the coal.
By this time there were several ugly looking cracks in the bay ice, and
these kept opening and closing, having a play of seven or eight inches
between the floes. We improvised bridges, from the motor-car case, so
that the ponies could cross the cracks, and presently were well under
way with the work.
Then there was a most alarming occurrence, for suddenly and without
the slightest warning the greater part of the bay ice opened out into
floes, and the whole mass that had opened started to drift slowly out
to sea. The ponies on the ice were at once in a perilous position, but
the sailors rushed to loosen the one tied to the stern rope and got
it over the first crack, and Armytage also got the pony which he was
looking after from the floe nearest the ship on to the next floe.
Just, however, at that moment, Mackay appeared round the corner from
Back Door Bay with a third pony attached to an empty sledge, on his way
back to the ship to load up. Orders were shouted to him not to come
any further, but not at first grasping the situation he continued to
advance over the ice, which was already breaking away more rapidly.
When he realised what had occurred he left his sledge and pony, and
rushed towards the place where the other two ponies were adrift on the
ice, and, by jumping the widening cracks, he reached the moving floe on
which they were standing. This piece of ice gradually grew closer to a
larger piece, from which the animals would be able to gain a place of
safety. But when Mackay started to try to get the pony Chinaman across
the crack where it was only six inches wide, the pony took fright,
and rearing and backing towards the edge of the floe, which had at
that moment opened to a width of a few feet, he fell bodily into the
ice-cold water.
It looked indeed as if it was all over with poor Chinaman, but Mackay
hung on to the head rope, and Davis, Michell and Mawson rushed to his
assistance. After great difficulty a rope sling was passed underneath
Chinaman, and he was lifted up far enough to enable him to scramble on
to the ice.
A few seconds later the floe closed up against the other one, and it
was providential that it had not done so while the pony was in the
water, for in that case Chinaman would inevitably have been squeezed to
death. As it was he lived to help us very materially on another--and
more critical--day. The ship was now employed to push the floe back
against the fast ice, and directly this was accomplished the ponies
were rushed across and taken straight ashore, and the men who were on
the different floes took advantage of the temporary closing of the
crack to get themselves and the stores into safety.
As soon as the ship was backed out the loose floes began to drift away
to the west, and after this narrow escape I resolved not to risk the
ponies on the sea ice again. The breaking of the ice continued to give
us great cause for anxiety, and we had a narrow escape from losing our
cases of scientific instruments and a large quantity of fodder. Had we
lost these cases a great part of our scientific work could not have
been carried out, and the loss of the fodder would have meant also the
loss of the ponies.
We were handicapped too by such a heavy swell running on the 13th
that no stores could be landed. This swell would have been welcome a
fortnight before, for it would have broken up a large amount of fast
ice to the south, and I could not help thinking that at this date there
was open water up to Hut Point. Now, however, it was most unfortunate
for us, as precious time was passing, and still more precious coal was
being used by the continual working of the ship's engines.