NOTES ON THE SOUTHERN JOURNEY
We brought back with us from our march towards the Pole vivid memories
of how to feel intensely, fiercely hungry.
From November 15, 1908, until February 23, 1909, we had but one full
meal on Christmas Day, and even then scarcely any time had passed
before we were as hungry as ever. Our daily allowance of food would
have been a small one for a city worker in a temperate climate, and in
our own case hunger was increased by the fact that we were performing
vigorous labour in a very low temperature.
When our evening meal was prepared we used to "turn backs" in order to
ensure fair divisions of the food. The cook used to pour the hoosh into
pannikins and arrange the biscuits in four heaps, and as soon as we
were all satisfied that the divisions were equal one man would turn his
back, and another, pointing at one lot, would say "Whose?"
[Illustration: The Southern Party on board the "Nimrod." Left to right:
Wild, Shackleton, Marshall, Adams. (_See page 164_)]
Then the man with his back turned would mention a name, and so the
distribution proceeded, each of us feeling sure that the smallest share
had fallen to his lot.
On alternate days we had chocolate and cheese for lunch, and since
the former was more satisfying and easier to divide we infinitely
preferred it. Considering how greatly we depended during our march upon
pony-meat, the reader will readily understand that the loss of Socks
was a terrible blow to us.
If we had been able to use poor Socks for food there is no doubt that
we should have been able to get further south, and perhaps even have
reached the Pole itself. But I must also mention that had we managed to
get to the Pole, we could scarcely have caught the ship before she was
compelled to leave by the approach of winter.
During the last weeks of the journey outwards, and the long march back
when our allowance had been reduced to twenty ounces per man a day, I
confess without one atom of shame that we really thought of little but
food. Man becomes very primitive when he is desperately hungry, and
neither the glory of the mountains that towered high on our sides, nor
the majesty of the great glacier up which we travelled so painfully,
appealed to any extent to our emotions.
I used often to find myself wondering whether people who suffer from
hunger in the big cities of civilisation felt as we were feeling, and I
concluded that they did not, for no barrier of law and order would have
been allowed to stand between us and any food that had been available.
The difference must be that the man who starves in a city is weakened
and hopeless and without spirit while we--until nearly the end--were
vigorous and keen.
We could not joke about food in any way that is possible for the man
who is hungry in the ordinary sense. True we thought and talked about
it most of the time, but always in the most serious manner.
On the outward march we were not severely hungry until we reached
the great glacier, and then we were so occupied with the dangers of
climbing and of crossing crevasses that we were unable to talk much.
And afterwards on the plateau our faces were generally so covered with
ice that unnecessary conversation was out of the question.
It was on the march back, after we had got down the glacier, and were
tramping over the Barrier surface that we talked freely of food.
Strange feelings, indeed, did I have when I looked back over our notes,
and saw the wonderful meals that we promised to eat when we could get
inside a really good restaurant.
We used to tell each other, with perfect seriousness, about the new
dishes that we had thought of, and if the dish met with general
approval there would be a chorus of "Ah! That's good."
The "Wild roll" was admitted to be the high-water mark of gastronomic
luxury. He proposed that the cook should take a supply of well-seasoned
minced meat, wrap it in rashers of fat bacon, and place around the
whole an outer covering of rich pastry so that it would take the form
of a big sausage-roll. Then this roll was to be fried with plenty of
fat.
My best dish, which I admit I put forward with a good deal of pride
as we marched over the snow, was a sardine pasty. And I remember that
one day Marshall came forward with a proposal for a thick roll of
suet pudding with plenty of jam all over it, and there arose quite a
heated argument whether he could claim this dish to be an invention,
or whether it was not the jam roll already known to the housewives of
civilisation.
One point there was on which we were all agreed, and that was our wish
not to have any jellies or things of that sort at our future meals. The
idea of eating such slippery stuff as jelly did not appeal in the least
to any one of us.
Perhaps all this sounds very greedy and uncivilised to anyone who has
never been on the verge of starvation, but I wish to say again that
hunger makes a man primitive. Not a smile broke from us as we planned
wonderful feats of over-eating, in truth we were intensely serious
about the matter, and we noted down in the back pages of our diaries
details of feasts we would have when we got back to the land of plenty.
The dysentery from which we suffered was certainly due to the meat
from the pony Grisi. This animal was shot when greatly fatigued, and
I think that his flesh was poisoned by the presence of the poison of
exhaustion, as is the case with animals that have been hunted. The
manner in which we contrived to continue marching when suffering, and
the speed with which we recovered when we got good food, were rather
remarkable, and the reason doubtless was that the dysentery was due to
poison, and was not produced by organic trouble.
Providentially we had a strong wind behind us during that period of
distress and this assuredly saved us, for in our weakened state we
could not have made long marches against a head-wind, and without long
marches we would have starved between the depots.
In the early part of the journey over the level Barrier surface we felt
the heat of the sun severely, although the temperature was very low. It
was quite usual to feel one side of the face getting frozen while the
other side was being sunburnt. Later on when our strength had begun to
lessen, we found great difficulty in hoisting the sail on our sledge,
because when we lifted our arms over our heads to adjust the sail, the
blood ran from our fingers and they promptly froze. Our troubles with
frost-bite were doubtless due partly to the lightness of our clothing,
but there was compensation for this in the greater speed with which we
were able to travel.
I am convinced that men engaged in polar exploration should be
clothed as lightly as possible, even if they are in danger of being
frost-bitten when they halt on the march. We owe many grudges against
the glacier which caused us so many difficulties, but my chief one now
is that we brought back no photographs of a very interesting portion
of it. This was due to the facts that we expected to take as many
photographs as we had plates to spare on our return journey, and that
when we returned we were so short of food that we could not afford the
time to unpack the camera.
The glacier itself presented every variety of surface, from soft snow
to cracked and riven blue ice, but later the only constant feature were
the crevasses, from which we were never free.
Some were entirely covered with a crust of soft snow, and we discovered
them only when one of us broke through and hung by his harness from
the sledge. Others occurred in mazes of rotten ice, and were even more
difficult to negotiate than the other sort. The sledges, owing to their
length, were not liable to slip down a crevasse, and when we were
securely attached to them by their harness we felt fairly safe, but
when the surface was so bad that relay work was necessary we used to
miss the support of a sledge on the back journeys.
We would advance one sledge half a mile or a mile, put up a bamboo pole
to mark the spot, and then go back for the other. For the walk back we
were always roped together, but even then we felt a great deal less
secure than when harnessed to one of the long, heavy sledges.
One piece--or two pieces--of fortune we assuredly did have upon the
glacier, for both when we were struggling up and scrambling down it
the wind was behind us. But on the glacier we were often troubled at
night by the fact that there was no snow on which to pitch our tent,
and consequently when we were weary after the day's march an hour had
frequently to be spent in smoothing out a space for the camp on a
rippled, sharp-pointed sea of ice.
The provision bags and sledges were packed on the snow cloths round the
tents and it was indeed fortunate for us that we met no bad weather
while we were marching up the glacier. Had a blizzard come on while we
were asleep, it would have scattered our goods far and wide, and we
would have been faced with a most serious situation.
The upper glacier depot was overhung by great cliffs of rock, shattered
by the frosts and storms of countless centuries, and many fragments
were poised in such a fashion that scarcely more than a touch seemed
necessary to bring them hurtling down. All around us on the ice lay
rocks that had recently fallen, and it was not a comforting sensation
to feel that at any moment a huge boulder might drop upon our camp.
We had no choice of a camping-ground, as all around was rough ice. The
cliffs were composed largely of weathered sandstone, and it was on the
same mountain higher up on the glacier that Wild discovered coal, at a
point where the slope was comparatively gentle.
[Illustration: The "Nimrod" pushing through heavy Pack Ice on her way
South. (_See page 174_)]
One of our greatest disappointments was that the last ridge of the
great glacier having been passed and the actual plateau gained, we did
not meet with a hard surface, such as the _Discovery_ expedition had
encountered in the journey to the plateau beyond the west of McMurdo
Sound, but still had to battle with soft snow and hard sastrugi.
After the fierce blizzard which raged from the night of January 6 until
the morning of January 9, we had better conditions under which to make
our final march southwards, for the wind had swept away the soft snow
and unencumbered with the sledge we could advance more easily.
In reviewing the experience gained on the southern journey, I do not
think that I could suggest any important improvements in equipment for
future expeditions. Evidently the Barrier surface varies remarkably,
and the traveller must be prepared for either a very hard or a very
soft surface, both of which he may encounter in the same day's march.
On the glacier we should have been glad to have had heavy Alpine boots
with nails all round, but as the temperature is too cold to permit of
the explorer wearing ordinary leather boots, some boot would have to be
designed which was at once warm enough for the feel and strong enough
to carry the nails.
Our clothing proved to be quite satisfactory, but experience goes to
show that a party which hopes to reach the Pole must take more food per
man than we did I would in no case take cheese again, for chocolate is
more palatable and easier to divide.
Each member of our Southern Party had his own particular duties to
perform, Adams being responsible for the meteorological observations
which involved--among other duties--the taking of temperatures at
regular intervals. Marshall took the meridian altitudes, and the angles
and bearings of all the new land, and his work was most discomforting,
for at the end of a day's march and often at lunch-time as well, he
would be compelled to stand in the biting wind handling the screws of
the theodolite. He also prepared the map of the journey and took most
of the photographs.
Wild attended to the repair of the sledges and equipment, and also
assisted me in the geological observations and the collection of
specimens. My other work was to keep the courses and distances, and to
work out observations and lay down our directions.
I kept two diaries, one my observation book, and the other a narrative
diary. But although all of us kept diaries we were more often than I
care to remember too spent and cold at night to pay much attention to
them.