THE WESTERN PARTY
How well Joyce and his party, consisting of Mackintosh, Day and Martin,
placed a depot of stores about fourteen miles off Minna Bluff, and how
glad the Southern Party were to find them there has already been told.
In the depoting of these stores Joyce made two journeys, starting for
the first from winter quarters on January 15 and returning to Hut Point
on January 31, and leaving there again with a second load of stores
(which had been brought by a party from the _Nimrod_) and reaching the
Bluff Depot for the second time on February 8.
On their re-arrival at this depot they found, to their surprise, that
the Southern Party had not appeared, and for some days Joyce and his
companions searched the horizon with glasses, in the hope of sighting
the overdue travellers.
They waited until the Southern Party was eleven days after the time
fixed for their return, and then decided to lay a depot flag in towards
the Bluff so that by no chance could the food be missed, and, secondly,
to march due south to look for the Southern Party. In this march they
were, as is known, unsuccessful in finding the weary travellers, and
eventually they returned to the Bluff Depot and found everything as
they had left it.
Filled with gloomy thoughts as to the fate of Adams, Marshall, Wild and
myself--for we were then eighteen days overdue--they started on the
16th to march back to the coast. But although they did not find us,
they had nevertheless saved our lives by the provisions they had so
laboriously brought to the depot.
At the same time that we of the Southern Party were fighting our way
towards the Pole, the Western Party, consisting of Armytage, Priestley
and Brocklehurst, were working in the western mountains.
On December 9 they left winter quarters and reached the "stranded
moraines" four days later. These moraines, which were found by the
_Discovery_ expedition, are relics of the days of more extensive
glaciation, and as they present a most varied collection of rocks they
are of very great interest.
There the party succeeded in securing a large number of skuas' eggs,
but the anticipated feast was not enjoyed, for, to quote the words of
one of the expedition, only about a dozen of the eggs were "good enough
for eating." The other eggs were thrown on the snow near the tent, with
the result that there was an invasion of skuas, the birds not only
eating the eggs but also making themselves a nuisance by pulling about
the sledge-harness and the stores. Geological specimens this party
secured in valuable abundance, and, as was the case with the other
sledging expeditions that were out at the time, a special feast was
provided for Christmas Day.
That Priestley enjoyed this feast is shown by his diary, in which he
wrote, "The plum pudding was 'top-hole.' Must remember to give one of
the pot-holed sandstones to Wild for the New Zealand girl who gave him
the plum pudding."
This party were on the look-out for the men who had gone north in
search of the Magnetic Pole, but failing to find any sign of them, they
went back to their depot on January 14 and pitched camp to wait for
the Northern Party until the 25th, when they were either to make their
way back to winter quarters or to signal for the ship by means of the
heliograph.
On the 24th, however, this party had the narrowest escape from never
seeing either winter quarters or the _Nimrod_ again. They were camped
on the sea-ice at the foot of Butter Point, in a position which to
all appearances was one of safety. Armytage indeed had examined the
tide-crack along the shore and had found no signs of more than
ordinary movement, and the ice all round seemed to be quite fast.
[Illustration: The Bluff Depot. (_See page 179_)]
But early in the morning of the 24th, Priestley, who was first out
of the tent, abruptly dispelled any feelings of security that his
companions possessed. At once he discovered that the ice they were on
had broken away and was drifting north to the open sea, and, returning
to tell the others, they immediately turned out, to find that this
statement was only too true. Two miles of open water already intervened
between the floe and the shore, and they were to all appearances moving
steadily out.
"When," Armytage wrote in his report, "we found that the ice had gone
out, we loaded up the sledge and started to see whether we could get
off the floe to the north. The position seemed to be rather serious,
for we could not hope to cross any stretch of open water, there was no
reasonable chance of assistance from the ship, and most of our food was
at Butter Point. We had not gone very far to the north when we came
to an impassable lane of open water, and we decided to return to our
original position. We went into camp and had breakfast at 11 A.M."
After that the three men waited for some time on the off-chance of
the ship coming along one of the lanes and picking them up, or of the
current changing and the ice once more touching the shore, but at the
end of four anxious hours there was no improvement in their position.
Killer-whales were spouting in the channels, and occasionally bumping
the ice under the floe.
Unable to wait any longer, the party marched right round the floe
but met with open water in every direction, and at 10 P.M. they were
back in their old position, only encouraged by the fact that they had
apparently stopped moving north, and were possibly getting a little
nearer to fast ice again.
Soon afterwards Brocklehurst turned out to see if the position had
changed, and reported that the floe seemed to be within a few hundred
yards of the fast ice, and was still moving in that direction. Then
Armytage got up, and half an hour later saw that the floe was only
about two hundred yards off fast ice.
"I ran back," he reported, "as fast as I could, deciding that there was
a prospect of an attempt to get ashore proving successful, and gave the
other two men a shout.
They struck camp and loaded up within a few minutes, while I went back
to the edge of the floe at the spot towards which chance had first
directed my steps. Just as the sledge got up to me I felt the floe
bump the fast ice. Not more than six feet of the edge touched, but we
were just at that spot, and we rushed over the bridge thus formed. We
had only just got over when the floe moved away again, and this time
it went north to the open sea. The only place at which it touched the
fast ice was that to which I had gone when I left the tent, and had I
happened to go to any other spot we would not have escaped."
After this Providential deliverance from a perilous situation, the
party made their way back to Butter Point and camped about 3 A.M.; and
when they got up some hours later open water was to be seen where they
had been drifting on the floe, and also the _Nimrod_ was sighted some
miles out.
The heliograph was flashed to the vessel, and in the afternoon the
party--having left a depot of provisions and oil at Butter Point in
case the northern travellers should arrive there--were safe on board
again.
Towards' the end of January fine weather was very rare, for the
season was advanced, and consequently the fast ice remaining in the
Sound began to break up quickly and took the form of pack trending
northwards.
The waiting for the other parties to come in was unpleasant for the
remaining members of the shore-party and for those on board the ship,
because the time was approaching when the _Nimrod_ must either leave
for the north or be frozen in for the winter. And still both the
Southern and the Northern Parties tarried.
Instructions had been left that if the Northern Party had not returned
by February 1, a search was to be made along the western coast in a
northerly direction. This party by that time was three weeks overdue,
and so Captain Evans proceeded north with the _Nimrod_ on the 1st, and
began closely to examine the coast. This search was both dangerous and
difficult, for Captain Evans had to keep near to the coast, in order
to guard against the chance of missing any signal, and the sea was
obstructed by pack-ice. The work, however, was done most thoroughly
in the face of what Captain Evans afterwards described as "small
navigational difficulties."