CHAPTER VI

THE FIRST WINTER

The highest object that human beings can set before themselves is

not the pursuit of any such chimera as the annihilation of the

unknown; it is simply the unwearied endeavour to remove its

boundaries a little further from our little sphere of

action.--HUXLEY.

And so we came back to our comfortable hut. Whatever merit there may be

in going to the Antarctic, once there you must not credit yourself for

being there. To spend a year in the hut at Cape Evans because you explore

is no more laudable than to spend a month at Davos because you have

consumption, or to spend an English winter at the Berkeley Hotel. It is

just the most comfortable thing and the easiest thing to do under the

circumstances.

In our case the best thing was not at all bad, for the hut, as Arctic

huts go, was as palatial as is the Ritz, as hotels go. Whatever the

conditions of darkness, cold and wind, might be outside, there was

comfort and warmth and good cheer within.

And there was a mass of work to be done, as well as at least two journeys

of the first magnitude ahead.

When Scott first sat down at his little table at Winter Quarters to start

working out a most complicated scheme of weights and averages for the

Southern Journey, his thoughts were gloomy, I know. "This is the end of

the Pole," he said to me, when he pulled us off the bergs after the

sea-ice had broken up; the loss of six ponies out of the eight with which

we started the Depôt Journey, the increasing emaciation and weakness of

the pony transport as we travelled farther on the Barrier, the arrival

of the dogs after their rapid journey home, starved rakes which looked as

though they were absolutely done--these were not cheerful recollections

with which to start to plan a journey of eighteen hundred miles.

On the other hand, we had ten ponies left, though two or three of them

were of more than doubtful quality; and it was obvious that considerable

improvement could and must be made in the feeding of both ponies and

dogs. With regard to the dogs the remedy was plain; their ration was too

small. With regard to the ponies the question was not so simple. One of

the main foods for the ponies which we had brought was compressed fodder

in the shape of bales. Theoretically this fodder was excellent food

value, and was made of wheat which was cut green and pressed. Whether it

was really wheat or not I do not know, but there could be no two opinions

about its nourishing qualities for our ponies. When fed upon it they lost

weight until they were just skin and bone. Poor beasts! It was pitiful to

see them.

In Oates we had a man who had forgotten as much as most men know about

horses. It was no fault of his that this fodder was inadequate, nor that

we had lost so many of the best ponies which we had. Oates had always

been for taking the worst ponies out on the Depôt Journey: travelling as

far on to the Barrier as they could go, and there killing them and

depôting their flesh. Now Oates took the ten remaining ponies into his

capable hands. Some of them were scarecrows, especially poor Jehu, who

was never expected to start at all, and ended by gallantly pulling his

somewhat diminished load eight marches beyond One Ton Camp, a distance of

238 miles. Another, Christopher, was a man-killer if ever a horse was; he

had to be thrown in order to attach him to the sledge; to the end he

would lay out any man who was rash enough to give him the chance; once

started, and it took four men to achieve this, it was impossible to halt

him during the day's march, and so Oates and his three tent mates and

their ponies had to go without any lunch meal for 130 miles of the

Southern Journey.

Oates trained them and fed them as though they were to run in the Derby.

They were exercised whenever possible throughout the winter and spring by

those who were to lead them on the actual journey. Fresh and good food

was found in the shape of oilcake and oats, a limited quantity of each of

which had been brought and was saved for the actual Polar Journey, and

everything which care and foresight could devise was done to save them

discomfort. It is a grim life for animals, but in the end we were to know

that up to the time of that bad blizzard almost at the Glacier Gateway,

which was the finishing post of these plucky animals, they had fed all

they needed, slept as well and lived as well as any, and better than most

horses in ordinary life at home. "I congratulate you, Titus," said

Wilson, as we stood under the shadow of Mount Hope, with the ponies' task

accomplished, and "I thank you," said Scott.

Titus grunted and was pleased.

Transport difficulties for the Polar Journey were considerable, but in

every other direction the outlook was bright. The men who were to do the

sledging had been away from Winter Quarters for three months. They had

had plenty of sledging experience, some of it none too soft. The sledges,

clothing, man-food, and outfit generally were excellent, although some

changes were suggested and could be put into effect. There was no obvious

means, however, of effecting the improvement most desired, a satisfactory

snow-shoe for the ponies.

The work already accomplished was enormous. On the Polar Journey the

ponies and dogs could now travel light for the first hundred and thirty

geographical miles, when, at One Ton Camp, they would for the first time

take their full loads: the advantage of being able to start again with

full loads when so far on your way is obvious when it is considered that

the distance travelled depends upon the weight of food that can be

carried. During the geological journey on the western side of the Sound,

Taylor and his party had carried out much useful geological work in Dry

Valley and on the Ferrar and Koettlitz Glaciers, which had been

accurately plotted for the charts, and had been examined for the first

time by an expert physiographer and ice specialist. The ordinary routine

of scientific and meteorological observations usual with all Scott's

sledging parties was observed.

Further, at Cape Evans there had been running for more than three months

a scientific station, which rivalled in thoroughness and exactitude any

other such station in the world. I hope that later a more detailed

account may be given of this continuous series of observations, some of

them demanding the most complex mechanism, and all of them watched over

by enthusiastic experts. It must here suffice to say that we who on our

return saw for the first time the hut and its annexes completely equipped

were amazed; though perhaps the gadget which appealed most to us at first

was the electric apparatus by which the cook, whose invention it was,

controlled the rising of his excellent bread.

Glad as we were to find it all and to enjoy the food, bath and comfort

which it offered, we had no illusions about Cape Evans itself. It is

uninteresting, as only a low-lying spit of black lava covered for the

most part with snow, and swept constantly by high winds and drift, can be

uninteresting. The kenyte lava of which it is formed is a remarkable

rock, and is found in few parts of the world: but when you have seen one

bit of kenyte you have seen all. Unlike the spacious and lofty Hut Point

Peninsula, thirteen miles to the south, it has no outstanding hills and

craters; no landmarks such as Castle Rock. Unlike the broad folds of Cape

Royds, six miles to the north, it has none of the rambling walks and

varied lakes, in which is found most of the limited plant life which

exists in these latitudes, and though a few McCormick skuas meet here,

there is no nursery of penguins such as that which makes Cape Royds so

attractive in summer. Nor has the Great Ice Sheet, which reached up

Erebus and spread over the Ross Sea in the past, spilled over Cape Evans

in its retreat a wealth of foreign granites, dolerites, porphyrys and

sandstone such as cover the otherwise dull surface round Shackleton's old

Winter Quarters.

Cape Evans is a low lava flow jutting out some three thousand feet from

the face of the glaciers which clothe the slopes of Erebus. It is roughly

an equilateral triangle in shape, at its base some three thousand feet

(9/16th mile) across. This base-line, which divides the cape from the

slopes of Erebus and the crevassed glaciers and giant ice-falls which

clothe them, consists of a ramp with a slope of thirty degrees, and a

varying height of some 100 to 150 feet. From our hut, four hundred yards

away, it looks like a great embankment behind which rises the majestic

volcano Erebus, with its plume of steam and smoke.

The cape itself does not rise on the average more than thirty feet, and

somewhat resembles the back of a hog with several backbones. The hollows

between the ridges are for the most part filled with snow and ice, while

in one or two places where the accumulation of snow is great enough there

are little glacierets which do not travel far before they ignominiously

peter out. There are two small lakes, called Skua Lake and Island Lake

respectively. There is only one hill which is almost behind the hut, and

is called Wind Vane Hill, for on it were placed one of our wind vanes and

certain other meteorological instruments. Into the glacieret which flowed

down in the lee of this hill we drove two caves, which gave both an even

low temperature and excellent insulation. One of them was therefore used

for our magnetic observations, and the other as an ice-house for the

mutton we had brought from New Zealand.

The north side, upon which we had built our hut, slopes down by way of a

rubbly beach to the sea in North Bay. We knew there was a beach for we

landed upon it, but we never saw it again even in the height of summer,

for the winter blizzards formed an ice foot several feet thick. The other

side of the cape ends abruptly in black bastions and baby cliffs some

thirty feet high. The apex of the triangle which forms as it were the

cape proper is a similar kenyte bluff. The whole makes a tricky place on

which to walk in the dark, for the surface is strewn with boulders of all

sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and

quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery

blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to

exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other

place when the sea-ice is unsafe.

Come and stand outside the hut door. All round you, except where the cape

joins the mountain, is the sea. You are facing north with your back to

the Great Ice Barrier and the Pole, with your eyes looking out of the

mouth of McMurdo Sound over the Ross Sea towards New Zealand, two

thousand miles of open water, pack and bergs. Look over the sea to your

left. It is mid-day, and though the sun will not appear above the horizon

he is still near enough to throw a soft yellow light over the Western

Mountains. These form the coast-line thirty miles across the Sound, and

as they disappear northwards are miraged up into the air and float, black

islands in a lemon sky. Straight ahead of you there is nothing to be seen

but black open sea, with a high light over the horizon, which you know

betokens pack; this is ice blink. But as you watch there appears and

disappears a little dark smudge. This puzzles you for some time, and then

you realize that this is the mirage of some far mountain or of Beaufort

Island, which guards the mouth of McMurdo Sound against such traffic as

ever comes that way, by piling up the ice floes across the entrance.

As you still look north, in the middle distance, jutting out into the

sea, is a low black line of land, with one excrescence. This is Cape

Royds, with Shackleton's old hut upon it; the excrescence is High Peak,

and this line marks the first land upon the eastern side of McMurdo Sound

which you can see, and indeed is actually the most eastern point of Ross

Island. It disappears abruptly behind a high wall, and if you let your

eyes travel round towards your right front you see that the wall is a

perpendicular cliff two hundred feet high of pure green and blue ice,

which falls sheer into the sea, and forms, with Cape Evans, on which we

stand, the bay which lies in front of our hut, and which we called North

Bay. This great ice-cliff with its crevasses, towers, bastions and

cornices, was a never-ending source of delight to us; it forms the snout

of one of the many glaciers which slide down the slopes of Erebus: in

smooth slopes and contours where the mountain underneath is of regular

shape: in impassable icefalls where the underlying surface is steep or

broken. This particular ice stream is called the Barne Glacier, and is

about two miles across. The whole background from our right front to our

right rear, that is from N.E. to S.E., is occupied by our massive and

volcanic neighbour, Erebus. He stands 13,500 feet high. We live beneath

his shadow and have both admiration and friendship for him, sometimes

perhaps tinged with respect. However, there are no signs of dangerous

eruptive disturbances in modern times, and we feel pretty safe, despite

the fact that the smoke which issues from his crater sometimes rises in

dense clouds for many thousands of feet, and at others the trail of his

plume can be measured for at least a hundred miles.

If you are not too cold standing about (it does not pay to stand about at

Cape Evans) let us make our way behind the hut and up Wind Vane Hill.

This is only some sixty-five feet high, yet it dominates the rest of the

cape and is steep enough to require a scramble, even now when the wind is

calm. Look out that you do not step on the electric wires which connect

the wind-vane cups on the hill with the recording dial in the hut. These

cups revolve in the wind, the revolutions being registered electrically:

every four miles a signal was sent to the hut, and a pen working upon a

chronograph registered one more step. There is also a meteorological

screen on the summit, which has to be visited at eight o'clock each

morning in all weathers.

[Illustration: A SUMMER VIEW OVER CAPE EVANS AND MCMURDO SOUND FROM THE

RAMP--Emery Walker Limited, Collotypers.]

Arrived on the top you will now be facing south, that is in the opposite

direction to which you were facing before. The first thing that will

strike you is that the sea, now frozen in the bays though still unfrozen

in the open sound, flows in nearly to your feet. The second, that though

the sea stretches back for nearly twenty miles, yet the horizon shows

land or ice in every direction. For a ship this is a cul-de-sac, as Ross

found seventy years ago. But as soon as you have grasped these two

facts your whole attention will be riveted to the amazing sight on your

left. Here are the southern slopes of Erebus; but how different from

those which you have lately seen. Northwards they fell in broad calm

lines to a beautiful stately cliff which edged the sea. But here--all the

epithets and all the adjectives which denote chaotic immensity could not

adequately tell of them. Visualize a torrent ten miles long and twenty

miles broad; imagine it falling over mountainous rocks and tumbling over

itself in giant waves; imagine it arrested in the twinkling of an eye,

frozen and white. Countless blizzards have swept their drifts over it,

but have failed to hide it. And it continues to move. As you stand in the

still cold air you may sometimes hear the silence broken by the sharp

reports as the cold contracts it or its own weight splits it. Nature is

tearing up that ice as human beings tear paper.

The sea-cliff is not so high here, and is more broken up by crevasses and

caves, and more covered with snow. Some five miles along the coast the

white line is broken by a bluff and black outcrop of rock; this is Turk's

Head, and beyond it is the low white line of Glacier Tongue, jutting out

for miles into the sea. We know, for we have already crossed it, that

there is a small frozen bay of sea-ice beyond, but all we can see from

Cape Evans is the base of the Hut Point Peninsula, with a rock outcrop

just showing where the Hutton Cliffs lie. The Peninsula prevents us from

seeing the Barrier, though the Barrier wind is constantly flowing over

it, as the clouds of drift now smoking over the Cliffs bear witness.

Farther to the right still, the land is clear: Castle Rock stands up like

a sentinel, and beyond are Arrival Heights and the old craters we have

got to know so well during our stay at Hut Point. The Discovery hut,

which would, in any case, be invisible at fifteen miles, is round that

steep rocky corner which ends the Peninsula, due south from where we

stand.

There remains undescribed the quadrant which stretches to our right front

from south to west. Just as we have previously seen the line of the

Western Mountains disappearing to the north miraged up in the light of

the mid-day sun, so now we see the same line of mountains running south,

with many miles of sea or Barrier between us and them. On the far

southern horizon, almost in transit with Hut Point, stands Minna Bluff,

some ninety miles away, beyond which we have laid the One Ton Depôt, and

from this point, as our eyes move round to the right, we see peak after

peak of these great mountain ranges--Discovery, Morning, Lister, Hooker,

and the glaciers which divide them one from another. They rise almost

without a break to a height of thirteen thousand feet. Between us and

them is the Barrier to the south, and the sea to the north. Unless a

blizzard is impending or blowing, they are clearly visible, a gigantic

wall of snow and ice and rock, which bounds our view to the west,

constantly varied by the ever-changing colour of the Antarctic. Beyond is

the plateau.

We have not yet mentioned four islands which lie within a radius of about

three miles from where we stand. The most important is a mile from the

end of Cape Evans and is called Inaccessible Island, owing to the

inhospitality of its steep lava side, even when the sea is frozen; we

found a way up, but it is not a very interesting place. Tent Island lies

farther out and to the south-west. The remaining two, which are more

islets than islands, rise in front of us in South Bay. They are called

Great and Little Razorback, being ribs of rock with a sharp divide in the

centre. The latter of these is the refuge upon which Scott's party

returning to Cape Evans pitched their camp when overtaken by a blizzard

some weeks ago. All these islands are of volcanic origin and black in

general colour, but I believe there is evidence to show that the lava

stream which created them flowed from McMurdo Sound rather than from the

more obvious craters of Erebus. Their importance in this story is the

indirect help they gave in holding in sea-ice against southerly

blizzards, and in forming landmarks which proved useful more than once to

men who had lost their bearings in darkness and thick weather. In this

respect also several icebergs which sailed in from the Ross Sea and

grounded on the shallows which run between Inaccessible Island and the

cape, as well as in South Bay, were most useful as well as being

interesting and beautiful. For two years we watched the weathering of

these great towers and bastions of ice by sea and sun and wind, and left

them still lying in the same positions, but mere tumbled ruins of their

former selves.

Many places in the panorama we have examined show black rock, and the

cape on which we stand exposes at times more black than white. This fact

always puzzles those who naturally conclude that all the Antarctic is

covered with ice and snow. The explanation is simple, that winds of the

great velocity which prevails in this region will not only prevent snow

resting to windward of out-cropping rocks and cliffs, but will even wear

away the rocks themselves. The fact that these winds always blow from the

south, or southerly, causes a tendency for this aspect of any projecting

rock to be blown free from snow, while the north or lee side is drifted

up by a marbled and extremely hard tongue of snow, which disappears into

a point at a distance which depends upon the size of the rock.

Of course for the most part the land is covered to such a depth by

glaciers and snow that no wind will do more than pack the snow or expose

the ice beneath. At the same time, to visualize the Antarctic as a white

land is a mistake, for, not only is there much rock projecting wherever

mountains or rocky capes and islands rise, but the snow seldom looks

white, and if carefully looked at will be found to be shaded with many

colours, but chiefly with cobalt blue or rose-madder, and all the

gradations of lilac and mauve which the mixture of these colours will

produce. A White Day is so rare that I have recollections of going out

from the hut or the tent and being impressed by the fact that the snow

really looked white. When to the beautiful tints in the sky and the

delicate shading on the snow are added perhaps the deep colours of the

open sea, with reflections from the ice foot and ice-cliffs in it, all

brilliant blues and emerald greens, then indeed a man may realize how

beautiful this world can be, and how clean.

Though I may struggle with inadequate expression to show the reader that

this pure Land of the South has many gifts to squander upon those who

woo her, chiefest of these gifts is that of her beauty. Next, perhaps, is

that of grandeur and immensity, of giant mountains and limitless spaces,

which must awe the most casual, and may well terrify the least

imaginative of mortals. And there is one other gift which she gives with

both hands, more prosaic, but almost more desirable. That is the gift of

sleep. Perhaps it is true of others as is certainly the case with me,

that the more horrible the conditions in which we sleep, the more

soothing and wonderful are the dreams which visit us. Some of us have

slept in a hurricane of wind and a hell of drifting snow and darkness,

with no roof above our heads, with no tent to help us home, with no

conceivable chance that we should ever see our friends again, with no

food that we could eat, and only the snow which drifted into our

sleeping-bags which we could drink day after day and night after night.

We slept not only soundly the greater part of these days and nights, but

with a certain numbed pleasure. We wanted something sweet to eat: for

preference tinned peaches in syrup! Well! That is the kind of sleep the

Antarctic offers you at her worst, or nearly at her worst. And if the

worst, or best, happens, and Death comes for you in the snow, he comes

disguised as Sleep, and you greet him rather as a welcome friend than as

a gruesome foe. She treats you thus when you are in the extremity of

peril and hardship; perhaps then you can imagine what draughts of deep

and healthy slumber she will give a tired sledger at the end of a long

day's march in summer, when after a nice hot supper he tucks his soft dry

warm furry bag round him with the light beating in through the green silk

tent, the homely smell of tobacco in the air, and the only noise that of

the ponies tethered outside, munching their supper in the sun.

And so it came about that during our sojourn at Cape Evans, in our

comfortable warm roomy home, we took our full allotted span of sleep.

Most were in their bunks by 10 P.M., sometimes with a candle and a book,

not rarely with a piece of chocolate. The acetylene was turned off at

10.30, for we had a limited quantity of carbide, and soon the room was

in complete darkness, save for the glow of the galley stove and where a

splash of light showed the night watchman preparing his supper. Some

snored loudly, but none so loud as Bowers; others talked in their sleep,

the more so when some nasty experience had lately set their nerves on

edge. There was always the ticking of many instruments, and sometimes the

ring of a little bell: to this day I do not know what most of them meant.

On a calm night no sound penetrated except, perhaps, the whine of a dog,

or the occasional kick of a pony in the stable outside. Any disturbance

was the night watchman's job. But on a bad blizzard night the wind, as it

tore seawards over the hut, roared and howled in the ventilator let into

the roof: in the more furious gusts the whole hut shook, and the pebbles

picked up by the hurricane scattered themselves noisily against the

woodwork of the southern wall. We did not get many nights like these the

first winter; during the second we seemed to get nothing else. One

ghastly blizzard blew for six weeks.

The night watchman took his last hourly observation at 7 A.M., and was

free to turn in after waking the cook and making up the fire. Frequently,

however, he had so much work to do that he preferred to forgo his sleep

and remain up. For instance, if the weather looked threatening, he would

take his pony out for exercise as soon as possible in the morning, or

those lists of stores were not finished, or that fish trap had to be

looked after: all kinds of things.

A sizzling on the fire and a smell of porridge and fried seal liver

heralded breakfast, which was at 8 A.M. in theory and a good deal later

in practice. A sleepy eye might see the meteorologist stumping out

(Simpson always stumped) to change the records in his magnetic cave and

visit his instruments on the Hill. Twenty minutes later he would be back,

as often as not covered with drift and his wind helmet all iced up.

Meanwhile, the more hardy ones were washing: that is, they rubbed

themselves, all shivering, with snow, of a minus temperature, and

pretended they liked it. Perhaps they were right, but we told them it was

swank. I'm not sure that it wasn't! It should be explained that water

was seldom possible in a land where ice is more abundant than coal.

One great danger threatened all our meals in this hut, namely that of a

Cag. A Cag is an argument, sometimes well informed and always heated,

upon any subject under the sun, or temporarily in our case, the moon.

They ranged from the Pole to the Equator, from the Barrier to Portsmouth

Hard and Plymouth Hoe. They began on the smallest of excuses, they

continued through the widest field, they never ended; they were left in

mid air, perhaps to be caught up again and twisted and tortured months

after. What caused the cones on the Ramp; the formation of ice crystals;

the names and order of the public-houses if you left the Main Gate of

Portsmouth Dockyard and walked to the Unicorn Gate (if you ever reached

so far); the best kinds of crampons in the Antarctic, and the best place

in London for oysters; the ideal pony rug; would the wine steward at the

Ritz look surprised if you asked him for a pint of bitter? Though the

Times Atlas does not rise to public-houses nor Chambers's Encyclopaedia

sink to behaviour at our more expensive hotels, yet they settled more of

these disputes than anything else.

On the day we are discussing, though mutterings can still be heard from

Nelson's cubicle, the long table has been cleared and every one is busy

by 9.30. From now until supper at 7 work is done by all in some form or

other, except for a short luncheon interval. I do not mean for a minute

that we all sit down, as a man may do in an office at home, and solidly

grind away for upwards of nine hours or more. Not a bit of it. We have

much work out of doors, and exercise is a consideration of the utmost

importance. But when we go out, each individual quite naturally takes the

opportunity to carry out such work as concerns him, whether it deals with

ice or rocks, dogs or horses, meteorology or biology, tide-gauges or

balloons.

When blizzards allowed, the ponies were exercised by their respective

leaders between breakfast and mid-day, when they were fed. This

exercising of animals might be a pleasant business, on the other hand it

could be the deuce and all: it depended on the pony and the weather. A

blubber fire was kept burning in the snug stable, which was built against

the lee wall of the hut: the ponies were, therefore, quite warm, and

found it chilly directly they were led outside, even if there was no

wind.

The difficulties of exercising them in the dark were so great that with

the best intentions in the world it was difficult to give them sufficient

work for the good feeding they received. Add to this the fact that one at

any rate of these variable animals was really savage, and that most of

them were keen to break away if possible, and the hour of exercise was

not without its thrills even on the calmest and most moonlight days. The

worst days were those when it was difficult to say whether the ponies

should be taken out on the sea-ice or not. It was thick weather that was

to be feared, for then, if the leader once lost his bearings, it was most

difficult for him to return. An overcast sky, light falling snow, perhaps

a light northerly wind generally meant a blizzard, but the blizzard might

not break for twenty-four hours, it might be upon you in four seconds. It

was difficult to say whether the pony should miss his exercise, whether

the fish trap should be raised, whether to put off your intended trip to

Cape Royds. Generally the risks were taken, for, on the whole, it is

better to be a little over-bold than a little over-cautious, while always

there was a something inside urging you to do it just because there was a

certain risk, and you hardly liked not to do it. It is so easy to be

afraid of being afraid!

Let me give one instance: it must be typical of many. It was thick as it

could be, no moon, no stars, light falling snow, and not even a light

breeze to keep in your face to give direction. Bowers and I decided to

take our ponies out, and once over the tide crack, where the working

sea-ice joins the fast land-ice, we kept close under the tall cliffs of

the Barne Glacier. So far all was well, and also when we struck along a

small crack into the middle of the bay, where there was a thermometer

screen. This we read with some difficulty by the light of a match and

started back towards the hut. In about a quarter of an hour we knew we

were quite lost until an iceberg which we recognized showed us that we

had been walking at right angles to our course, and got us safe home.

On a clear crisp day, with the full moon to show you the ridges and

cracks and sastrugi, it was most pleasant to put on your ski and wander

forth with no object but that of healthy pleasure. Perhaps you would make

your way round the bluff end of the cape and strike southwards. Here you

may visit Nelson working with his thermometers and current meters and

other instruments over a circular hole in the ice, which he keeps open

from day to day by breaking out the 'biscuit' of newly formed ice. He has

connected himself with the hut by telephone, and built round himself an

igloo of drifted snow and the aforesaid 'biscuits,' which effectually

shelter him from the wind. Or you may meet Meares and Dimitri returning

with the dog-teams from a visit to Hut Point. A little farther on the

silence is complete. But now your ear catches the metallic scratch of ski

sticks on hard ice; there is some one else ski-ing over there, it may be

many miles away, for sound travels in an amazing way. Every now and then

there comes a sharp crack like a pistol shot; it is the ice contracting

in the glaciers of Erebus, and you know that it is getting colder. Your

breath smokes, forming white rime over your face, and ice in your beard;

if it is very cold you may actually hear it crackle as it freezes in mid

air!

These were the days which remain visibly in the mind as the most

enjoyable during this first winter season. It was all so novel, these

much-dreaded, and amongst us much-derided, terrors of the Long Winter

Night. The atmosphere is very clear when it is not filled with snow or

ice crystals, and the moonlight lay upon the land so that we could see

the main outlines of the Hut Point Peninsula, and even Minna Bluff out on

the Barrier ninety miles away. The ice-cliffs of Erebus showed as great

dark walls, but above them the blue ice of the glaciers gleamed silvery,

and the steam flowed lazily from the crater carried away in a long line,

showing us that the northerly breezes prevailed up there, and were

storing up trouble in the south. Sometimes a shooting star would seem to

fall right into the mountain, and for the most part the Aurora flitted

uneasily about in the sky.

The importance of plenty of out-door exercise was generally recognized,

and our experience showed us that the happiest and healthiest members of

our party during this first year were those who spent the longest period

in the fresh air. As a rule we walked and worked and ski-ed alone, not I

feel sure because of any individual distaste for the company of our

fellows but rather because of a general inclination to spend a short

period of the day without company. At least this is certainly true of the

officers: I am not so sure about the men. Under the circumstances, the

only time in the year that a man could be alone was in his walks abroad

from Winter Quarters, for the hut, of course, was always occupied, and

when sledging this sardine-like existence was continuous night and day.

There was one regular exception to this rule. Every possible evening,

that is to say if it was not blowing a full blizzard, Wilson and Bowers

went up the Ramp together 'to read Bertram.' Now this phrase will convey

little meaning without some explanation. I have already spoken of the

Ramp as the steep rubbly slope partly covered by snow and partly by ice

which divided the cape on which we lived from the glaciated slopes of

Erebus. After a breathless scramble up this embankment one came upon a

belt of rough boulder-strewn ground from which arose at intervals conical

mounds, the origin of which puzzled us for many months. At length, by the

obvious means of cutting a section through one of them, it was proved

that there was a solid kenyte lava block in the centre of this cone,

proving that the whole was formed by the weathering of a single rock.

Threading your way for some hundreds of yards through this terrain, a

scramble attended by many slips and falls on a dark night, you reached

the first signs of glaciation. A little farther, isolated in the ice

stream, is another group of debris cones, and on the largest of these we

placed meteorological Screen "B," commonly called Bertram. This screen,

together with "A" (Algernon) and "C" (Clarence), which were in North and

South Bays respectively, were erected by Bowers, who thought, rightly,

that they would form an object to which men could guide their walks, and

that at the same time the observations of maximum, minimum and present

temperatures would be a useful check to the meteorologist when he came to

compare them with those taken at the hut. As a matter of fact the book in

which we used to enter these observations shows that the air temperatures

out on the sea-ice vary considerably from those on the cape, and that the

temperatures several hundred feet up on the slopes of Erebus are often

several degrees higher than those taken at sea-level. I believe that much

of the weather in this part of the world is an intensely local affair,

and these screens produced useful data.

Wilson and Bowers would go up the Ramp when it was blowing and drifting

fairly hard, so that although the rocks and landmarks immediately round

them were visible, all beyond was blotted out. It is quite possible to

walk thus among landmarks which you know at a time when it is most unwise

to go out on to the sea-ice where there are no fixed points to act as a

guide.

It was Wilson's pleasant conceit to keep his balaclava rolled up, so that

his face was bare, on such occasions, being somewhat proud of the fact

that he had not, as yet, been frost-bitten. Imagine our joy when he

entered the hut one cold windy evening with two white spots on his cheeks

which he vainly tried to hide behind his dogskin mitts.

[Illustration: MCMURDO SOUND--Apsley Cherry-Garrard, del.--Emery Walker

Ltd., Collotypers.]

The ponies' lunch came at mid-day, when they were given snow to drink and

compressed fodder with oats or oil-cake on alternate days to eat, the

proportion of which was arranged according to the work they were able to

do in the present, or expected to do in the future. Our own lunch was

soon after one, and a few minutes before that time Hooper's voice would

be heard: "Table please, Mr. Debenham," and all writing materials,

charts, instruments and books would have to be removed. On Sunday, this

table displayed a dark blue cloth, but for meals and at all other times

it was covered with white oilcloth.

Lunch itself was a pleasant meatless meal, consisting of limited bread

and butter with plenty of jam or cheese, tea or cocoa, the latter being

undoubtedly a most useful drink in a cold country. Many controversies

raged over the rival merits of tea and cocoa. Some of us made for

ourselves buttered toast at the galley fire; I must myself confess to a

weakness for Welsh Rarebit, and others followed my example on cheese days

in making messes of which we were not a little proud. Scott sat at the

head of the table, that is at the east end, but otherwise we all took our

places haphazard from meal to meal as our conversation, or want of it,

merited, or as our arrival found a vacant chair. Thus if you felt

talkative you might always find a listener in Debenham; if inclined to

listen yourself it was only necessary to sit near Taylor or Nelson; if,

on the other hand, you just wanted to be quiet, Atkinson or Oates would,

probably, give you a congenial atmosphere.

There was never any want of conversation, largely due to the fact that no

conversation was expected: we most of us know the horrible blankness

which comes over our minds when we realize that because we are eating we

are also supposed to talk, whether we have anything to say or not. It was

also due to the more primitive reason that in a company of specialists,

whose travels extended over most parts of the earth, and whose subjects

overlapped and interlocked at so many points, topics of conversation were

not only numerous but full of possibilities of expansion. Add to this

that from the nature of our work we were probably people of an

inquisitive turn of mind and wanted to get to the bottom of the subjects

which presented themselves, and you may expect to find, as was in fact

the case, an atmosphere of pleasant and quite interesting conversation

which sometimes degenerated into heated and noisy argument.

The business of eating over, pipes were lit without further formality. I

mention pipes only because while we had a most bountiful supply of

tobacco, the kindly present of Mr. Wills, our supply of cigarettes from

the same source was purposely limited and only a small quantity were

landed, allowing of a ration to such members who wished. Consequently

cigarettes were an article of some value, and in a land where the

ordinary forms of currency are valueless they became a frequent stake to

venture when making bets. Indeed, "I bet you ten cigarettes," or "I bet

you a dinner when we get back to London," became the most frequent bids

of the argumentative gambler, occasionally varied when the bettor was

more than usually certain of the issue by the offer of a pair of socks.

By two o'clock we were dispersed once more to our various works and

duties. If it was bearable outside, the hut would soon be empty save for

the cook and a couple of seamen washing up the plates; otherwise every

one went out to make the most of any glimmering of daylight which still

came to us from the sun below the northern horizon. And here it may be

explained that whereas in England the sun rises more or less in the east,

is due south at mid-day, and sets in the west, this is not the case in

the Antarctic regions. In the latitude in which we now lived the sun is

at his highest at mid-day in the north, at his lowest at midnight in the

south. As is generally known he remains entirely above the horizon for

four months of the summer (October-February) and entirely below the

horizon for four months in the winter (April 21-August 21). About

February 27, the end of summer, he begins to set and rise due south at

midnight; the next day he sets a little earlier and dips a little deeper.

During March and April he is going deeper and deeper every day, until, by

the middle of April, he is set all the time except for just a peep over

the northern horizon at mid-day, which is his last farewell before he

goes away.

The reverse process takes place from August 21 onwards. On this date the

sun just peeped above the sea to the north of our hut. The next day he

rose a little higher and longer, and in a few weeks he was rising well in

the east and sinking behind the Western Mountains. But he did not stop

there. Soon he was rising in the S.E. until in the latter days of

September he never rose, for he never set; but circled round us by day

and night. On Midsummer Day (December 21) at the South Pole the sun

circles round for twenty-four hours without changing his altitude for one

minute of a degree, but elsewhere he is always rising in the sky until

mid-day in the north and falling from that time until midnight in the

south.

Often, far too often, it was blizzing, and it was impossible to go out

except into the camp to take the observations, to care for the dogs, to

get ice for water or to bring in stores. Even a short excursion of a few

yards had to be made with great care under such circumstances, and

certainly no one went outside more than was necessary, if only because

one was obliged to dig the accumulated drift from the door before it was

possible to proceed. Blizzard or no blizzard, most men were back in the

hut soon after four, and from then until 6.30 worked steadily at their

jobs. As supper time approached some kindly-disposed person would sit

down and play on the Broadwood pianola which was one of our blessings,

and so it was that we came to supper with good tempers as well as keen

appetites.

Soup, in which the flavour of tomatoes occurred all too frequently,

followed by seal or penguin, and twice a week by New Zealand mutton, with

tinned vegetables, formed the basis of our meal, and this was followed by

a pudding. We drank lime juice and water which sometimes included a

suspicious penguin flavour derived from the ice slopes from which our

water was quarried.

During our passage out to New Zealand in the ship (or as Meares always

insisted on calling her, the steamer) it was our pleasant custom to have

a glass of port or a liqueur after dinner. Alas, we had this no longer:

after leaving New Zealand space allowed of little wine being carried in

the Terra Nova, even if the general medical opinion of the expedition had

not considered its presence undesirable. We had, however, a few cases for

special festivals, as well as some excellent liqueur brandy which was

carried as medical comforts on our sledge journeys. Any officer who

allowed the distribution of this luxury on nearing the end of a journey

became extremely popular.

Lack of wine probably led to the suspension of a custom which had

prevailed on the Terra Nova, namely, the drinking of the old toast of

Saturday night, "Sweethearts and wives; may our sweethearts become our

wives, and our wives remain our sweethearts," and that more appropriate

(in our case) toast of Sunday, namely, "absent friends." We had but few

married officers, though I must say most survivors of the expedition

hurried to remedy this single state of affairs when they returned to

civilization. Only two of them are unmarried now. Most of them will

probably make a success of it, for the good Arctic explorer has most of

the defects and qualities of a good husband.

On the top of the pianola, close to the head of the table, lived the

gramophone; and under the one looking-glass we possessed, which hung on

the bulkhead of Scott's cubicle, was a home-made box with shelves on

which lay our records. It was usual to start the gramophone after dinner,

and its value may be imagined. It is necessary to be cut off from

civilization and all that it means to enable you to realize fully the

power music has to recall the past, or the depths of meaning in it to

soothe the present and give hope for the future. We had also records of

good classical music, and the kindly-disposed individual who played them

had his reward in the pleasant atmosphere of homeliness which made itself

felt. After dinner had been cleared away, some men sat on at the table

occupied with books and games. Others dispersed to various jobs. In the

matter of games it was noticeable that one would have its vogue and yield

place to another without any apparent reason. For a few weeks it might be

chess, which would then yield its place to draughts and backgammon, and

again come into favour. It is a remarkable fact that, though we had

playing cards with us none of our company appeared desirous to use them.

In fact I cannot remember seeing a game of cards played except in the

ship on the voyage from England.

[Illustration: THE SEA'S FRINGE OF ICE]

With regard to books we were moderately well provided with good modern

fiction, and very well provided with such authors as Thackeray, Charlotte

Brontë, Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens. With all respect to the kind givers

of these books, I would suggest that the literature most acceptable to

us in the circumstances under which we did most of our reading, that is

in Winter Quarters, was the best of the more recent novels, such as

Barrie, Kipling, Merriman and Maurice Hewlett. We certainly should have

taken with us as much of Shaw, Barker, Ibsen and Wells as we could lay

our hands on, for the train of ideas started by these works and the

discussions to which they would have given rise would have been a godsend

to us in our isolated circumstances. The one type of book in which we

were rich was Arctic and Antarctic travel. We had a library of these

given to us by Sir Lewis Beaumont and Sir Albert Markham which was very

complete. They were extremely popular, though it is probably true that

these are books which you want rather to read on your return than when

you are actually experiencing a similar life. They were used extensively

in discussions or lectures on such polar subjects as clothing, food

rations, and the building of igloos, while we were constantly referring

to them on specific points and getting useful hints, such as the use of

an inner lining to our tents, and the mechanism of a blubber stove.

I have already spoken of the importance of maps and books of reference,

and these should include a good encyclopaedia and dictionaries, English,

Latin and Greek. Oates was generally deep in Napier's History of the

Peninsular War, and some of us found Herbert Paul's History of Modern

England a great stand-by. Most of us managed to find room in our personal

gear when sledging for some book which did not weigh much and yet would

last. Scott took some Browning on the Polar Journey, though I only saw

him reading it once; Wilson took Maud and In Memoriam; Bowers always had

so many weights to tally and observations to record on reaching camp that

I feel sure he took no reading matter. Bleak House was the most

successful book I ever took away sledging, though a volume of poetry was

useful, because it gave one something to learn by heart and repeat during

the blank hours of the daily march, when the idle mind is all too apt to

think of food in times of hunger, or possibly of purely imaginary

grievances, which may become distorted into real foundations of discord

under the abnormal strain of living for months in the unrelieved company

of three other men. If your companions have much the same tastes as

yourself it is best to pool your allowance of weights and take one book

which will offer a wide field of thought and discussion. I have heard

Scott and Wilson bless the thought which led them to take Darwin's Origin

of Species on their first Southern Journey. Such is the object of your

sledging book, but you often want the book which you read for half an

hour before you go to sleep at Winter Quarters to take you into the

frivolous fripperies of modern social life which you may not know and may

never wish to know, but which it is often pleasant to read about, and

never so much so as when its charms are so remote as to be entirely

tantalizing.

Scott, who always amazed me by the amount of work he got through without

any apparent effort, was essentially the driving force of the expedition:

in the hut quietly organizing, working out masses of figures, taking the

greatest interest in the scientific work of the station, and perhaps

turning out, quite by the way, an elaborate paper on an abstruse problem

in the neighbourhood; fond of his pipe and a good book, Browning, Hardy

(Tess was one of his favourites), Galsworthy. Barrie was one of his

greatest friends.

He was eager to accept suggestions if they were workable, and always keen

to sift even the most unlikely theories if by any means they could be

shaped to the desired end: a quick and modern brain which he applied with

thoroughness to any question of practice or theory. Essentially an

attractive personality, with strong likes and dislikes, he excelled in

making his followers his friends by a few words of sympathy or praise: I

have never known anybody, man or woman, who could be so attractive when

he chose.

Sledging he went harder than any man of whom I have ever heard. Men never

realized Scott until they had gone sledging with him. On our way up the

Beardmore Glacier we were going at top pressure some seventeen hours out

of the twenty-four, and when we turned out in the morning we felt as

though we had only just turned in. By lunch time we felt that it was

impossible to get through in the afternoon a similar amount of work to

that which we had done in the morning. A cup of tea and two biscuits

worked wonders, and the first two hours of the afternoon's march went

pretty well, indeed they were the best hours' marching of the day; but by

the time we had been going some 4½ or 5 hours we were watching Scott for

that glance to right and left which betokened the search for a good

camping site. "Spell oh!" Scott would cry, and then "How's the enemy,

Titus?" to Oates, who would hopefully reply that it was, say, seven

o'clock. "Oh, well, I think we'll go on a little bit more," Scott would

say. "Come along!" It might be an hour or more before we halted and made

our camp: sometimes a blizzard had its silver lining. Scott could not

wait. However welcome a blizzard could be to tired bodies (I speak only

of summer sledging), to Scott himself any delay was intolerable. And it

is hard to realize how difficult waiting may be to one in a responsible

position. It was our simple job to follow, to get up when we were roused,

to pull our hardest, to do our special work as thoroughly and quickly as

possible; it was Scott who had to organize distances and weights and

food, as well as do the same physical work as ourselves. In sledging

responsibility and physical work are combined to an extent seldom if ever

found elsewhere.

His was a subtle character, full of lights and shades.

England knows Scott as a hero; she has little idea of him as a man. He

was certainly the most dominating character in our not uninteresting

community: indeed, there is no doubt that he would carry weight in any

gathering of human beings. But few who knew him realized how shy and

reserved the man was, and it was partly for this reason that he so often

laid himself open to misunderstanding.

Add to this that he was sensitive, femininely sensitive, to a degree

which might be considered a fault, and it will be clear that leadership

to such a man may be almost a martyrdom, and that the confidence so

necessary between leader and followers, which must of necessity be based

upon mutual knowledge and trust, becomes in itself more difficult. It

wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott quickly; to others

knowledge came with experience.

He was not a _very_ strong man physically, and was in his youth a weakly

child, at one time not expected to live. But he was well proportioned,

with broad shoulders and a good chest, a stronger man than Wilson, weaker

than Bowers or Seaman Evans. He suffered from indigestion, and told me at

the top of the Beardmore that he never expected to go on during the first

stage of the ascent.

Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might very easily have been an

irritable autocrat. As it was he had moods and depressions which might

last for weeks, and of these there is ample evidence in his diary. The

man with the nerves gets things done, but sometimes he has a terrible

time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have ever known.

What pulled Scott through was character, sheer good grain, which ran over

and under and through his weaker self and clamped it together. It would

be stupid to say he had all the virtues: he had, for instance, little

sense of humour, and he was a bad judge of men. But you have only to read

one page of what he wrote towards the end to see something of his sense

of justice. For him justice was God. Indeed I think you must read all

those pages; and if you have read them once, you will probably read them

again. You will not need much imagination to see what manner of man he

was.

And notwithstanding the immense fits of depression which attacked him,

Scott was the strongest combination of a strong mind in a strong body

that I have ever known. And this because he was so weak! Naturally so

peevish, highly strung, irritable, depressed and moody. Practically such

a conquest of himself, such vitality, such push and determination, and

withal in himself such personal and magnetic charm. He was naturally an

idle man, he has told us so;[134] he had been a poor man, and he had a

horror of leaving those dependent upon him in difficulties. You may read

it over and over again in his last letters and messages.[135]

He will go down to history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole

and who died as fine a death as any man has had the honour to die. His

triumphs are many--but the Pole was not by any means the greatest of

them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self,

and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love.

* * * * *

Scott had under him this first year in his Main Party a total of 15

officers and 9 men. These officers may be divided into three executive

officers and twelve scientific staff, but the distinction is very rough,

inasmuch as a scientist such as Wilson was every bit as executive as

anybody else, and the executive officers also did much scientific work. I

will try here briefly to give the reader some idea of the personality and

activities of these men as they work any ordinary day in the hut. It

should be noticed that not all the men we had with us were brought to do

sledging work. Some were chosen rather for their scientific knowledge

than for their physical or other fitness for sledging. The regular

sledgers in this party of officers were Scott, Wilson, Evans, Bowers,

Oates (ponies), Meares (dogs), Atkinson (surgeon), Wright (physicist),

Taylor (physiographer), Debenham (geologist), Gran and myself, while Day

was to drive his motors as far as they would go on the Polar Journey.

This leaves Simpson, who was the meteorologist and whose observations had

of necessity to be continuous; Nelson, whose observations into marine

biology, temperatures of sea, salinity, currents and tides came under the

same heading; and Ponting, whose job was photography, and whose success

in this art everybody recognizes.

However much of good I may write of Wilson, his many friends in England,

those who served with him on the ship or in the hut, and most of all

those who had the good fortune to sledge with him (for it is sledging

which is far the greatest test) will all be dissatisfied, for I know that

I cannot do justice to his value. If you knew him you could not like him:

you simply had to love him. Bill was of the salt of the earth. If I were

asked what quality it was before others that made him so useful, and so

lovable, I think I should answer that it was because he never for one

moment thought of himself. In this respect also Bowers, of whom I will

speak in a moment, was most extraordinary, and in passing may I be

allowed to say that this is a most necessary characteristic of a good

Antarctic traveller? We had many such, officers and seamen, and the

success of the expedition was in no small measure due to the general and

unselfish way in which personal likes and dislikes, wishes or tastes were

ungrudgingly subordinated to the common weal. Wilson and Pennell set an

example of expedition first and the rest nowhere which others followed

ungrudgingly: it pulled us through more than one difficulty which might

have led to friction.

Wilson was a man of many parts. He was Scott's right-hand man, he was the

expedition's Chief of the Scientific Staff: he was a doctor of St.

George's Hospital, and a zoologist specializing in vertebrates. His

published work on whales, penguins and seals contained in the Scientific

Report of the Discovery Expedition is still the best available, and makes

excellent reading even to the non-scientist. On the outward journey of

the Terra Nova he was still writing up his work for the Royal Commission

on Grouse Disease, the published report of which he never lived to see.

But those who knew him best will probably remember Wilson by his

water-colour paintings rather than by any other form of his many-sided

work.

As a boy his father sent him away on rambling holidays, the only

condition being that he should return with a certain number of drawings.

I have spoken of the drawings which he made when sledging or when

otherwise engaged away from painting facilities, as at Hut Point. He

brought back to Winter Quarters a note-book filled with such sketches of

outlines and colours: of sunsets behind the Western Mountains: of lights

reflected in the freezing sea or in the glass houses of the ice foot: of

the steam clouds on Erebus by day and of the Aurora Australis by night.

Next door to Scott he rigged up for himself a table, consisting of two

venesta cases on end supporting a large drawing-board some four feet

square. On this he set to work systematically to paint the effects which

he had seen and noted. He painted with his paper wet, and necessarily

therefore, he worked quickly. An admirer of Ruskin, he wished to paint

what he saw as truly as possible. If he failed to catch the effect he

wished, he tore up the picture however beautiful the result he had

obtained. There is no doubt as to the faithfulness of his colouring: the

pictures recalled then and will still recall now in intimate detail the

effects which we saw together. As to the accuracy of his drawing it is

sufficient to say that in the Discovery Expedition Scott wrote on his

Southern Journey:

"Wilson is the most indefatigable person. When it is fine and clear, at

the end of our fatiguing days he will spend two or three hours seated in

the door of the tent, sketching each detail of the splendid mountainous

coast-scene to the west. His sketches are most astonishingly accurate; I

have tested his proportions by actual angular measurement and found them

correct."[136]

In addition to the drawings of land, pack, icebergs and Barrier, the

primary object of which was scientific and geographical, Wilson has left

a number of paintings of atmospheric phenomena which are not only

scientifically accurate but are also exceedingly beautiful. Of such are

the records of auroral displays, parhelions, paraselene, lunar halos, fog

bows, irridescent clouds, refracted images of mountains and mirage

generally. If you look at a picture of a parhelion by Wilson not only can

you be sure that the mock suns, circles and shafts appeared in the sky as

they are shown on paper, but you can also rest assured that the number of

degrees between, say, the sun and the outer ring of light were in fact

such as he has represented them. You can also be certain in looking at

his pictures that if cirrus cloud is shown, then cirrus and not stratus

cloud was in the sky: if it is not shown, then the sky was clear. It is

accuracy such as this which gives an exceptional value to work viewed

from a scientific standpoint. Mention should also be made of the

paintings and drawings made constantly by Wilson for the various

specialists on the expedition whenever they wished for colour records of

their specimens; in this connection the paintings of fish and various

parasites are especially valuable.

I am not specially qualified to judge Wilson from the artistic point of

view. But if you want accuracy of drawing, truth of colour, and a

reproduction of the soft and delicate atmospheric effects which obtain in

this part of the world, then you have them here. Whatever may be said of

the painting as such, it is undeniable that an artist of this type is of

inestimable value to an expedition which is doing scientific and

geographical work in a little-known part of the earth.

Wilson himself set a low value on his artistic capacity. We used to

discuss what Turner would have produced in a land which offered colour

effects of such beauty. If we urged him to try and paint some peculiar

effect and he felt that to do so was beyond his powers he made no scruple

of saying so. His colour is clear, his brush-work clean: and he handled

sledging subjects with the vigour of a professional who knew all there

was to be known about a sledging life.

[Illustration: LEADING PONIES ON THE BARRIER--E. A. Wilson, del.]

Scott and Wilson worked hand in hand to further the scientific objects of

the expedition. For Scott, though no specialist in any one branch, had a

most genuine love of science. "Science--the rock foundation of all

effort," he wrote; and whether discussing ice problems with Wright,

meteorology with Simpson, or geology with Taylor, he showed not only a

mind which was receptive and keen to learn, but a knowledge which was

quick to offer valuable suggestions. I remember Pennell condemning

anything but scientific learning in dealing with the problems round us;

'no guesswork' was his argument. But he emphatically made an exception of

Scott, who had an uncanny knack of hitting upon a solution. Over and

over again in his diary we can read of the interest he took in pure and

applied science, and it is doubtful whether this side of an expedition in

high northern or southern latitudes has ever been more fortunate in their

leader.

Wilson's own share in the scientific results is more obvious because he

was the director of the work. But no published reports will give an

adequate idea of the ability he showed in co-ordinating the various

interests of a varied community, nor of the tact he displayed in dealing

with the difficulties which arose. Above all his judgment was excellent,

and Scott as well as the rest of us relied upon him to a very great

extent. The value of judgment in a land where a wrong decision may mean

disaster as well as loss of life is beyond all price; weather in which

changes are most sudden is a case in point, also the state of sea-ice,

the direction to be followed in difficult country when sledging, the best

way of taking crevassed areas when they must be crossed, and all the ways

by which the maximum of result may be combined with the minimum of danger

in a land where Nature is sometimes almost too big an enemy to fight: all

this wants judgment, and if possible experience. Wilson could supply

both, for his experience was as wide as that of Scott, and I have

constantly known Scott change his mind after a talk with Bill. For the

rest I give quotations from Scott's diary:

"He has had a hand in almost every lecture given, and has been consulted

in almost every effort which has been made towards the solution of the

practical or theoretical problems of our Polar world."[137]

Again:

"Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he

really is the finest character I ever met--the closer one gets to him the

more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and dependable; cannot

you imagine how that counts down here? Whatever the matter, one knows

Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal and quite

unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and things than is

at first guessable, a quiet vein of humour and really consummate tact,

and you have some idea of his values. I think he is the most popular

member of the party, and that is saying much."[138]

And at the end, when Scott himself lay dying, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson:

"I can do no more to comfort you, than to tell you that he died as he

lived, a brave, true man--the best of comrades and staunchest of

friends."[139]

Physically Scott had been a delicate boy but developed into a strong man,

5 feet 9 inches in height, 11 stone 6 lbs. in weight, with a chest

measurement of 39¼ inches. Wilson was not a particularly strong man. On

leaving with the Discovery he was but lately cured of consumption, yet he

went with Scott to his farthest South, and helped to get Shackleton back

alive. Shackleton owed his life to those two. Wilson was of a slimmer,

more athletic build, a great walker, 5 feet 10½ inches in height, 11

stones in weight, with a chest measurement of 36 inches. He was an ideal

example of my contention, which I believe can be proved many times over

to be a fact, that it is not strength of body but rather strength of will

which carries a man farthest where mind and body are taxed at the same

time to their utmost limit. Scott was 43 years of age at his death, and

Wilson 39.

Bowers was of a very different build. Aged 28, he was only 5 feet 4

inches in height while his chest measurement (which I give more as a

general guide to his physique than for any other reason) was 40 inches,

and his weight 12 stones. He was recommended to Scott by Sir Clements

Markham, who was dining one day with Captain Wilson-Barker on the

Worcester, on which ship Bowers was trained. Bowers was then home from

India, and the talk turned to the Antarctic. Wilson-Barker turned to Sir

Clements in the course of conversation and alluding to Bowers said: "Here

is a man who will be leading one of those expeditions some day."

He lived a rough life after passing from the Worcester into the merchant

service, sailing five times round the world in the Loch Torridon. Thence

he passed into the service of the Royal Indian Marine, commanded a river

gunboat on the Irrawaddy, and afterwards served on H.M.S. Fox, where he

had considerable experience, often in open boats, preventing the

gun-running which was carried on by the Afghans in the Persian Gulf.

Thence he came to us.

It is at any rate a curious fact, and it may be a significant one, that

Bowers, who enjoyed a greater resistance to cold than any man on this

expedition, joined it direct from one of the hottest places on the globe.

My knowledge is insufficient to say whether it is possible that any trace

can be found here of cause and effect, especially since the opposite

seems to be the more common experience, in that such people as return

from India to England generally find the English winter trying. I give

the fact for what it may be worth, remarking only that the cold of an

English winter is generally damp, while that of the Antarctic is dry, so

far at any rate as the atmosphere is concerned. Bowers himself always

professed the greatest indifference not only to cold, but also to heat,

and his indifference was not that of a 'poseur,' as many experiences will

show.

At the same time he was temperamentally one who refused to admit

difficulties. Indeed, if he did not actually welcome them he greeted them

with scorn, and in scorning went far to master them. Scott believed that

difficulties were made to be overcome: Bowers certainly believed that he

was the man to overcome them. This self-confidence was based on a very

deep and broad religious feeling, and carried conviction with it. The men

swore by him both on the ship and ashore. "He's all right," was their

judgment of his seamanship, which was admirable. "I like being with

Birdie, because I always know where I am," was the remark made to me by

an officer one evening as we pitched the tent. We had just been spending

some time in picking up a depôt which a less able man might well have

missed.

As he was one of the two or three greatest friends of my life I find it

hard to give the reader a mental picture of Birdie Bowers which will not

appear extravagant. There were times when his optimism appeared forced

and formal though I believe it was not really so: there were times when I

have almost hated him for his infernal cheerfulness. To those accustomed

to judge men by the standards of their fashionable and corseted

drawing-rooms Bowers appeared crude. "You couldn't kill that man if you

took a pole-axe to him," was the comment of a New Zealander at a dance at

Christchurch. Such men may be at a discount in conventional life; but

give me a snowy ice-floe waving about on the top of a black swell, a ship

thrown aback, a sledge-party almost shattered, or one that has just upset

their supper on to the floorcloth of the tent (which is much the same

thing), and I will lie down and cry for Bowers to come and lead me to

food and safety.

Those whom the gods love die young. The gods loved him, if indeed it be

benevolent to show your favourites a clear, straight, shining path of

life, with plenty of discomfort and not a little pain, but with few

doubts and no fears. Browning might well have had Bowers in mind when he

wrote of

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward;

Never doubted clouds would break;

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph;

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

There was nothing subtle about him. He was transparently simple,

straightforward and unselfish. His capacity for work was prodigious, and

when his own work happened to take less than his full time he

characteristically found activity in serving a scientist or exercising an

animal. So he used to help to send up balloons with self-recording

instruments attached to them, and track the threads which led to them

when detached. He was responsible for putting up the three outlying

meteorological screens and read them more often than anybody else. At

times he looked after some of the dogs because at the moment there was

nobody else whose proper job it happened to be, and he took a particular

fancy to one of our strongest huskies called Krisravitza, which is the

Russian (so I'm told) for 'most beautiful.' This fancy originated in the

fact that to Kris, as the most truculent of our untamed devils, fell a

large share of well-deserved punishment. A living thing in trouble be it

dog or man was something to be helped. Being the smallest man in the

party he schemed to have allotted to him the largest pony available both

for the Depôt and Polar Journeys. Their exercise, when he succeeded, was

a matter for experiment, for his knowledge of horses was as limited as

his love of animals was intense. He started to exercise his second pony

(for the first was lost on the floe) by riding him. "I'll soon get used

to him," he said one day when Victor had just deposited him in the

tide-crack, "to say nothing of his getting used to me," he added in a

more subdued voice.

This was open-air work, and as such more congenial than that which had to

be done inside the hut. But his most important work was indoors, and he

brought to it just the same restless enthusiasm which allowed no leisure

for reading or relaxation.

He joined as one of the ship's officers in London. Given charge of the

stores, the way in which he stowed the ship aroused the admiration of

even the stevedores, especially when he fell down the main hatch one

morning on to the pig-iron below, recovered consciousness in about half a

minute, and continued work for the rest of the day as though nothing had

happened.

As the voyage out proceeded it became obvious that his knowledge of the

stores and undefeatable personality would be of great value to the shore

party, and it was decided that he should land, to his great delight. He

was personally responsible for all food supplies, whether for home

consumption or for sledging, for all sledging stores and the distribution

of weights, the loading of sledges, the consumption of coal, the issue of

clothing, bosun's stores, and carpenter's stores. Incidentally the keeper

of stores wanted a very exact knowledge of the cases which contained

them, for the drifts of snow soon buried them as they lay in the camp

outside.

As time proved his capacity Scott left one thing after another in

Bowers' hands. Scott was a leader of men, and it is a good quality in

such to delegate work from themselves on to those who prove their power

to shoulder the burden. Undoubtedly Bowers saved Scott a great deal of

work, and gave him time which he might not otherwise have been able to

spare to interest himself in the scientific work of the station, greatly

to its benefit, and do a good deal of useful writing. The two ways in

which Bowers helped Scott most this winter were in the preparation of the

plans and the working out of the weights of the Southern Journey, which

shall be discussed later, and in the routine work of the station, for

which he was largely responsible, and which ran so smoothly that I am

unable to tell the reader how the stores were issued, or the dinner

settled, by what rule the working parties for fetching ice for water and

other kindred jobs about the camp were ordered. They just happened, and I

don't know how. I only know that Bowers had the bunk above mine in the

hut, and that when I was going to sleep he was generally standing on a

chair and using his own bunk as a desk, and I conclude from the numerous

lists of stores and weights which are now in my hands that these were

being produced. Anyway the job was done, and the fact that we knew

nothing about it goes far to prove how efficiently it was carried

through.

For him difficulties simply did not exist. I have never known a more

buoyant, virile nature. Scott's writings abound in references to the

extraordinary value he placed upon his help, and after the share which he

took in the Depôt and Winter Journeys it was clear that he would probably

be taken in the Polar Party, as indeed proved to be the case. No man of

that party better deserved his place. "I believe he is the hardest

traveller that ever undertook a Polar Journey, as well as one of the most

undaunted."[140]

The standard is high.

[Illustration: FROZEN SEA AND CLIFFS OF ICE]

Bowers gave us two of our best lectures, the first on the Evolution of

Sledge Foods, at the end of which he discussed our own rations on the

Depôt Journey, and made suggestions which he had worked out

scientifically for those of the Polar Journey. His arguments were sound

enough to disarm the hostility if not to convert to his opinions at least

one scientist who had come to hear him strongly of opinion that an

untrained man should not discuss so complex a subject. The second

lecture, on the Evolution of Polar Clothing, was also the fruit of much

work. The general conclusion come to (and this was after the Winter

Journey) was that our own clothing and equipment could not be bettered in

any important respect, though it must be always understood that the

expedition wore wind-proof clothing and not furs, except for hands and

feet. When man-hauling, wind-proof, I am convinced, cannot be improved

upon, but for dog-driving in cold weather I suspect that furs may be

better.

The table was cleared after supper and we sat round it for these lectures

three times a week. There was no compulsion about them, and the seamen

only turned up for those which especially interested them, such as

Meares' vivid account of his journeyings on the Eastern or Chinese

borderland of Thibet. This land is inhabited by the 'Eighteen Tribes,'

the original inhabitants of Thibet who were driven out by the present

inhabitants, and Meares told us chiefly of the Lolos who killed his

companion Brook after having persuaded him that they were friendly and

anxious to help him. "He had no pictures and very makeshift maps, yet he

held us really entranced for nearly two hours by the sheer interest of

his adventures. The spirit of the wanderer is in Meares' blood: he has no

happiness but in the wild places of the earth. I have never met so

extreme a type. Even now he is looking forward to getting away by himself

to Hut Point, tired already of our scant measure of civilization."[141]

Three lectures a week were too many in the opinion of the majority. The

second winter with our very reduced company we had two a week, and I feel

sure that this was an improvement. No officer nor seaman, however, could

have had too many of Ponting's lectures, which gave us glimpses into

many lands illustrated by his own inimitable slides. Thus we lived every

now and then for a short hour in Burmah, India or Japan, in scenes of

trees and flowers and feminine charm which were the very antithesis of

our present situation, and we were all the better for it. Ponting also

illustrated the subjects of other lectures with home-made slides of

photographs taken during the autumn or from printed books. But for the

most part the lecturers were perforce content with designs and plans,

drawn on paper and pinned one on the top of the other upon a large

drawing-board propped up on the table and torn off sheet by sheet.

From the practical point of view the most interesting evening to us was

that on which Scott produced the Plan of the Southern Journey. The reader

may ask why this was not really prepared until the winter previous to the

journey itself, and the answer clearly is that it was impossible to

arrange more than a rough idea until the autumn sledging had taught its

lesson in food, equipment, relative reliability of dogs, ponies and men,

and until the changes and chances of our life showed exactly what

transport would be available for the following sledging season. Thus it

was with lively anticipation that we sat down on May 8, an advisory

committee as it were, to hear and give our suggestions on the scheme

which Scott had evolved in the early weeks of the winter after the

adventures of the Depôt Journey and the loss of six ponies.

It was on just such a winter night, too, that Scott read his interesting

paper on the Ice Barrier and Inland Ice which will probably form the

basis for all future work on these subjects. The Barrier, he maintained,

is probably afloat, and covers at least five times the extent of the

North Sea with an average thickness of some 400 feet, though it has only

been possible to get the very roughest of levels. According to the

movement of a depôt laid in the Discovery days the Barrier moved 608

yards towards the open Ross Sea in 13½ months. It must be admitted that

the inclination of the ice-sheet is not sufficient to cause this, and the

old idea that the glacier streams flowing down from Inland Plateau

provide the necessary impetus is imperfect. It was Simpson's suggestion

that "the deposition of snow on the Barrier leads to an expansion due to

the increase of weight." Some admittedly vague ideas as to the extent and

character of the inland ice-sheet ended a clever and convincing paper

which contained a lot of good reasoning.

Simpson proved an excellent lecturer, and in meteorology and in the

explanation of the many instruments with which his corner of the hut was

full he possessed subjects which interested and concerned everybody.

Nelson on Biological Problems and Taylor on Physiography were always

interesting. "Taylor, I dreamt of your lecture last night. How could I

live so long in the world and not know something of so fascinating a

subject!" Thus Scott on the morning following one of these lectures.[142]

Wright on Ice Problems, Radium, and the Origin of Matter had highly

technical subjects which left many of us somewhat befogged. But Atkinson

on Scurvy had an audience each member of which felt that he had a

personal interest in the subject under discussion. Indeed one of his

hearers was to suffer the advanced stage of this dread disease within six

months. Atkinson inclined to Almroth Wright's theory that scurvy is due

to an acid intoxication of the blood caused by bacteria. He described the

litmus-paper test which was practised on us monthly, and before and after

sledge journeys. In this the blood of each individual is drawn and

various strengths of dilute sulphuric acid are added to it until it is

neutralized, the healthy man showing normal 30 to 50, while the man with

scorbutic signs will be normal 50 to 90 according to the stage to which

he has reached. The only thing which is certain to stop scurvy is fresh

vegetables: fresh meat when life is otherwise under extreme conditions

will not do so, an instance being the Siege of Paris when they had plenty

of horse meat. In 1795 voyages were being ruined by scurvy and Anson lost

300 out of 500 men, but in that year the first discoveries were made and

lime-juice was introduced by Blaine. From this time scurvy practically

disappeared from the Navy, and there was little scurvy in Nelson's days;

but the reason is not clear, since, according to modern research,

lime-juice only helps to prevent it. It continued in the Merchant

Service, and in a decade from about 1865 some 400 cases were admitted

into the Dreadnought Hospital, whereas in the decade 1887 to 1896 there

were only 38 cases. We had, at Cape Evans, a salt of sodium to be used to

alkalize the blood as an experiment, if necessity arose. Darkness, cold,

and hard work are in Atkinson's opinion important causes of scurvy.

Nansen was an advocate of variety of diet as being anti-scorbutic, and

Scott recalled a story told him by Nansen which he had never understood.

It appeared that some men had eaten tins of tainted food. Some of it was

slightly tainted, some of it was really bad. They rejected the really bad

ones, and ate those only which were slightly tainted. "And of course,"

said Nansen, "they should have eaten the worst."

I have since asked Nansen about this story. He tells me that he must have

been referring to the crew of the Windward, the ship of the

Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1894-97. The crew of

this ship, which was travelling to and from civilization, got scurvy,

though the land party kept healthy. Of this Jackson writes: "In the case

of the crew of the Windward I fear that there was considerable

carelessness in the use of tinned meats that were not free from taint,

although tins quite gone were rejected.... We [on shore] largely used

fresh bear's meat, and the crew of the Windward were also allowed as much

as they could be induced to eat. They, however, preferred tinned meat

several days a week to a diet of bear's meat alone; and some of the crew

had such a prejudice against bear's meat as to refuse to eat it at

all."[143]

Of course tainted food should not have been eaten at all, but if it had

to be eaten, then, according to Nansen, the ptomaines which cause scurvy

in the earlier stages of decomposition are destroyed by the ferment which

forms in the later stages. They should therefore have taken the worst

tins, if any at all.

Wilson was strongly of opinion that fresh meat alone would stop scurvy:

on the Discovery seal meat cured it. As to scurvy on Scott's Discovery

Southern Journey, he made light of it: however, during the Winter Journey

I remember Wilson stating that Shackleton several times fell in a faint

as he got outside the tent, and he seems to have been seriously ill:

Wilson knew that he himself had scurvy some time before the others knew

it, because the discoloration of his gums did not show in front for some

time. He did not think their dogs on that journey had scurvy, but

ptomaine poisoning from fish which had travelled through the tropics. He

was of opinion that on returning from sledge journeys on the Discovery

they had wrongly attributed to scurvy such symptoms as rash on the body,

swollen legs and ankles, which were rather the result of excessive

fatigue. I may add that we had these signs on our return from the Winter

Journey.

Then there were lectures on Geology by Debenham, on birds and beasts and

also on Sketching by Wilson, on Surveying by Evans: but perhaps no

lecture remains more vividly in my memory than that given by Oates on

what _we_ called 'The Mismanagement of Horses.' Of course to all of us

who were relying upon the ponies for the first stage of the Southern

Journey the subject was of interest as well as utility, but the greater

share of interest centred upon the lecturer, for it was certainly

supposed that taciturn Titus could not have concealed about his person

the gift of the gab, and it was as certain as it could be that the whole

business was most distasteful to him. Imagine our delight when he proved

to have an elaborate discourse with full notes of which no one had seen

the preparation. "I have been fortunate in securing another night," he

mentioned amidst mirth, and proceeded to give us the most interesting and

able account of the minds and bodies of horses in general and ours in

particular. He ended with a story of a dinner-party at which he was a

guest, probably against his will. A young lady was so late that the party

sat down to dinner without waiting longer. Soon she arrived covered with

blushes and confusion. "I'm so sorry," she said, "but that horse was the

limit, he ..." "Perhaps it was a jibber," suggested her hostess to help

her out. "No, he was a ----. I heard the cabby tell him so several

times."

Titus Oates was the most cheerful and lovable old pessimist that you

could imagine. Often, after tethering and feeding our ponies at a night

camp on the Barrier, we would watch the dog-teams coming up into camp.

"I'll give these dogs ten days more," he would murmur in a voice such as

some people used when they heard of a British victory. I am acquainted

with so few dragoons that I do not know their general characteristics.

Few of them, I imagine, would have gone about with the slouch which

characterized his method of locomotion, nor would many of them have dined

in a hat so shabby that it was picked off the peg and passed round as a

curiosity.

He came to look after the horses, and as an officer in the Inniskillings

he, no doubt, had excellent training. But his skill went far deeper than

that. There was little he didn't know about horses, and the pity is that

he did not choose our ponies for us in Siberia: we should have had a very

different lot. In addition to his general charge of them all, Oates took

as his own pony the aforesaid devil Christopher for the Southern Journey

and for previous training. We shall hear much more of Christopher, who

appeared to have come down to the Antarctic to initiate the well-behaved

inhabitants into all the vices of civilization, but from beginning to end

Oates' management of this animal might have proved a model to any

governor of a lunatic asylum. His tact, patience and courage, for

Christopher was a very dangerous beast, remain some of the most vivid

recollections of a very gallant gentleman.

In this connection let me add that no animals could have had more

considerate and often self-sacrificing treatment than these ponies of

ours. Granted that they must be used at all (and I do not mean to enter

into that question) they were fed, trained, and even clothed as friends

and companions rather than as beasts of burden. They were never hit, a

condition to which they were clearly unaccustomed. They lived far better

than they had before, and all this was done for them in spite of the

conditions under which we ourselves lived. We became very fond of our

beasts but we could not be blind to their faults. The mind of a horse is

a very limited concern, relying almost entirely upon memory. He rivals

our politicians in that he has little real intellect. Consequently, when

the pony was faced with conditions different from those to which he was

accustomed, he showed but little adaptability; and when you add to this

frozen harness and rugs, with all their straps and buckles and lashings,

an incredible facility for eating anything within reach including his own

tethering ropes and the headstalls, fringes and whatnots of his

companions, together with our own scanty provisions and a general wish to

do anything except the job of the moment, it must be admitted that the

pony leader's lot was full of occasions for bad temper. Nevertheless

leaders and ponies were on the best of terms (excepting always

Christopher), which is really not surprising when you come to think that

most of the leaders were sailors whose love of animals is profound.

A lean-to roof was built against the northern side of the hut, and the

ends and open side were boarded up. This building when buttressed by the

bricks of coal which formed our fuel, and drifted up with snow by the

blizzards, formed an extremely sheltered and even warm stable. The ponies

stood in stalls with their heads towards the hut and divided from it by a

corridor; the bars which kept them in carried also their food boxes. They

lay down very little, the ground was too cold, and Oates was of opinion

that litter would not have benefited them if we had had space in the ship

to bring it. The floor of their stall was formed of the gravel on which

the hut was built. On any future occasion it might be worth consideration

whether a flooring of wood might add to their comfort. As you walked down

this narrow passage you passed a line of heads, many of which would have

a nip at you in the semi-darkness, and at the far end Oates had rigged up

for himself a blubber stove, more elaborate than the one we had made

with the odds and ends at Hut Point, but in principle the same, in that

the fids of sealskin with the blubber attached to them were placed on a

grid, and the heat generated caused them to drop their oil on to ashes

below which formed the fire. This fire not only warmed the stable, but

melted the snow to water the ponies and heated their bran mashes. I do

not wonder that this warm companionable home appealed to their minds when

they were exercising in the cold, dark, windy sea-ice: they were always

trying to get rid of their leader, and if successful generally went

straight back to the hut. Here they would dodge their pursuers until such

time as they were sick of the game, when they quietly walked into the

stable of their own accord to be welcomed with triumphant squeals and

kickings by their companions.

I have already spoken of their exercise. Their ration during the winter

was as follows:

8 A.M. Chaff.

12 NOON. Snow. Chaff and oats or oil-cake alternate days.

5 P.M. Snow. Hot bran mash with oil-cake, or boiled oats and chaff;

finally a small quantity of hay.

In the spring they were got into condition on hard food all cold, and by

a carefully increased scale of exercise during the latter part of which

they drew sledges with very light loads.

Unfortunately I have no record as to what changes of feeding stuffs Oates

would have made if it had been possible. Certainly we should not have

brought the bales of compressed fodder, which as I have already

explained,[144] was theoretically green wheat cut young, but practically

no manner of use as a food, though of some use perhaps as bulk. Probably

he would have used hay for this purpose at Winter Quarters had our stock

of it not been very limited, for hay takes up too much room on a ship

when every square inch of stowage space is of value. The original weights

of fodder with which we left New Zealand were: compressed chaff, 30

tons; hay, 5 tons; oil-cake, 5-6 tons; bran, 4-5 tons; and two kinds of

oats, of which the white was better than the black. We wanted more bran

than we had.[145] This does not exhaust our list of feeding stuffs, for

one of our ponies called Snippets would eat blubber, and so far as I know

it agreed with him.

We left New Zealand with nineteen ponies, seventeen of which were

destined for the Main Party and two for the help of Campbell in the

exploration of King Edward VII.'s Land. Two of these died in the big gale

at sea, and we landed fifteen ponies at Cape Evans in January. Of these

we lost six on the Depôt Journey, while Hackenschmidt, who was a vicious

beast, sickened and wasted away in our absence, for no particular reason

that we could discover, until there was nothing to do but shoot him. Thus

eight only out of the original seventeen Main Party ponies which started

from New Zealand were left by the beginning of the winter.

I have told[146] how, during our absence on the Depôt Journey, the ship

had tried to land Campbell with his two ponies on King Edward VII.'s

Land, but had been prevented from reaching it by pack ice. Coasting back

in search of a landing place they found Amundsen in the Bay of Whales.

Under the circumstances Campbell decided not to land his party there but

to try and land on the north coast of South Victoria Land, in which he

was finally successful. In the interval the ship returned to Cape Evans

with the news, and since he was of opinion that his animals would be

useless to him in that region he took the opportunity to swim the two

ponies ashore, a distance of half a mile, for the ship could get no

nearer and the sea-ice had gone. Thus we started the winter with

Campbell's two ponies (Jehu and Chinaman), two ponies which had survived

the Depôt Journey (Nobby and James Pigg), and six ponies which had been

left at Cape Evans (Snatcher, Snippets, Bones, Victor, Michael and

Christopher) a total of ten.

Of these ten Christopher was the only real devil with vice, but he was a

strong pony, and it was clear that he would be useful if he could be

managed. Bones, Snatcher, Victor and Snippets were all useful ponies.

Michael was a highly-strung nice beast, but his value was doubtful;

Chinaman was more doubtful still, and it was questionable sometimes

whether Jehu would be able to pull anything at all. This leaves Nobby and

Jimmy Pigg, both of which were with us on the Depôt Journey. Nobby was

the best of the two; he was the only survivor from the sea-ice disaster,

and I am not sure that his rescue did not save the situation with regard

to the Pole. Jimmy Pigg was wending his way slowly back from Corner Camp

at this time and so was also saved. He was a weak pony but did extremely

well on the Polar Journey. It may be coincidence that these two ponies,

the only ponies which had gained previous sledging experience, did better

according to their strength than any of the others, but I am inclined to

believe that their familiarity with the conditions on the Barrier was of

great value to them, doing away with much useless worry and exhaustion.

And so it will be understood with what feelings of anxiety any cases of

injury or illness to our ponies were regarded. The cases of injury were

few and of small importance, thanks to the care with which they were

exercised in the dark on ice which was by no means free from

inequalities. Let me explain in passing that this ice is almost always

covered by at least a thin layer of drifted snow and for the most part is

not slippery. Every now and then there would be a great banging and

crashing heard through the walls of the hut in the middle of the night.

The watchman would run out, Oates put on his boots, Scott be audibly

uneasy. It was generally Bones or Chinaman kicking their stalls, perhaps

to keep themselves warm, but by the time the watchman had reached the

stable he would be met by a line of sleepy faces blinking at him in the

light of the electric torch, each saying plainly that he could not

possibly have been responsible for a breach of the peace!

But antics might easily lead to accidents, and more than once a pony was

found twisted up in some way in his stall, or even to have fallen to the

ground. Their heads were tied on either side to the stanchions of the

stall, and so if they tried to lie down complications might arise. More

alarming was the one serious case of illness, preceded by a slighter case

of a similar nature in another pony. Jimmy Pigg had a slight attack of

colic in the middle of June, but he was feeding all right again during

the evening of the same day. It was at noon, July 14, that Bones went off

his feed. This was followed by spasms of acute pain. "Every now and again

he attempted to lie down, and Oates eventually thought it was wiser to

allow him to do so. Once down, his head gradually drooped until he lay at

length, every now and then twitching very horribly with the pain, and

from time to time raising his head and even scrambling to his legs when

it grew intense. I don't think I ever realized before how pathetic a

horse could be under such conditions; no sound escapes him, his misery

can only be indicated by those distressing spasms and by dumb movement of

the head with a patient expression always suggestive of appeal."[147]

Towards midnight it seemed that we were to lose him, and, apart from

other considerations, we knew that unless we could keep all the surviving

animals alive the risks of failure in the coming journey were much

increased.

"It was shortly after midnight when I [Scott] was told that the animal

seemed a little easier. At 2.30 I was again in the stable and found the

improvement had been maintained; the horse still lay on its side with

outstretched head, but the spasms had ceased, its eye looked less

distressed, and its ears pricked to occasional noises. As I stood looking

it suddenly raised its head and rose without effort to its legs; then in

a moment, as though some bad dream had passed, it began to nose at some

hay and at its neighbour. Within three minutes it had drunk a bucket of

water and had started to feed."[148]

The immediate cause of the trouble was indicated by "a small ball of

semi-fermented hay covered with mucus and containing tape-worms; so far

not very serious, but unfortunately attached to this mass was a strip of

the lining of the intestine."[149]

The recovery of Bones was uninterrupted. Two day later another pony went

off his feed and lay down, but was soon well again.

Considerable speculation as to the original cause of this illness never

found a satisfactory answer. Some traced it to a want of ventilation, and

it is necessary to say that both the ponies who were ill stood next to

the blubber stove; at any rate a big ventilator was fitted and more fresh

air let in. Others traced it to the want of water, supposing that the

animals would not eat as much snow as they would have drunk water; the

easy remedy for this was to give them water instead of snow. We also gave

them more salt than they had had before. Whatever the cause may have been

we had no more of this colic, and the improvement in their condition

until we started sledging was uninterrupted.

All the ponies were treated for worms; it was also found that they had

lice, which were eradicated after some time and difficulty by a wash of

tobacco and water. I know that Oates wished that he had clipped the

ponies at the beginning of the winter, believing that they would have

grown far better coats if this had been done. He also would have wished

for a loose box for each pony.

No account of the ponies would be complete without mention of our Russian

pony boy, Anton. He was small in height, but he was exceedingly strong

and had a chest measurement of 40 inches.

[Illustration: EREBUS AND LANDS END]

[Illustration: EREBUS BEHIND GREAT RAZORBACK]

I believe both Anton and Dimitri, the Russian dog driver, were brought

originally to look after the ponies and dogs on their way from Siberia to

New Zealand. But they proved such good fellows and so useful that we were

very glad to take them on the strength of the landing party. I fear that

Anton, at any rate, did not realize what he was in for. When we arrived

at Cape Crozier in the ship on our voyage south, and he saw the two great

peaks of Ross Island in front and the Barrier Cliff disappearing in an

unbroken wall below the eastern horizon, he imagined that he reached

the South Pole, and was suitably elated. When the darkness of the winter

closed down upon us, this apparently unnatural order of things so preyed

upon his superstitious mind that he became seriously alarmed. Where the

sea-ice joined the land in front of the hut was of course a working

crack, caused by the rise and fall of the tide. Sometimes the sea-water

found its way up, and Anton was convinced that the weird phosphorescent

lights which danced up out of the sea were devils. In propitiation we

found that he had sacrificed to them his most cherished luxury, his

scanty allowance of cigarettes, which he had literally cast upon the

waters in the darkness. It was natural that his thoughts should turn to

the comforts of his Siberian home, and the one-legged wife whom he was

going to marry there, and when it became clear that a another year would

be spent in the South his mind was troubled. And so he went to Oates and

asked him, "If I go away at the end of this year, will Captain Scott

disinherit me?" In order to try and express his idea, for he knew little

English, he had some days before been asking "what we called it when a

father died and left his son nothing." Poor Anton!

He looked long and anxiously for the ship, and with his kit-bag on his

shoulder was amongst the first to trek across the ice to meet her. Having

asked for and obtained a job of work there was no happier man on board:

he never left her until she reached New Zealand. Nevertheless he was

always cheerful, always working, and a most useful addition to our small

community.

It is still usual to talk of people living in complete married happiness

when we really mean, so Mr. Bernard Shaw tells me, that they confine

their quarrels to Thursday nights. If then I say that we lived this life

for nearly three years, from the day when we left England until the day

we returned to New Zealand, without any friction of any kind, I shall be

supposed to be making a formal statement of somewhat limited truth. May I

say that there is really no formality about it, and nothing but the

truth. To be absolutely accurate I must admit to having seen a man in a

very 'prickly' state on one occasion. That was all. It didn't last and

may have been well justified for aught I know: I have forgotten what it

was all about. Why we should have been more fortunate than polar

travellers in general it is hard to say, but undoubtedly a very powerful

reason was that we had no idle hours: there was no time to quarrel.

Before we went South people were always saying, "You will get fed up with

one another. What will you do all the dark winter?" As a matter of fact

the difficulty was to get through with the work. Often after working all

through a long night-watch officers carried on as a matter of course

through the following day in order to clear off arrears. There was little

reading or general relaxation during the day: certainly not before

supper, if at all. And while no fixed hours for work were laid down, the

custom was general that all hours between breakfast and supper should be

so used.

Our small company was desperately keen to obtain results. The youngest

and most cynical pessimist must have had cause for wonder to see a body

of healthy and not unintellectual men striving thus single-mindedly to

add their small quota of scientific and geographical knowledge to the sum

total of the world--with no immediate prospect of its practical utility.

Laymen and scientists alike were determined to attain the objects to gain

which they had set forth.

And I believe that in a vague intangible way there was an ideal in front

of and behind this work. It is really not desirable for men who do not

believe that knowledge is of value for its own sake to take up this kind

of life. The question constantly put to us in civilization was and still

is: "What is the use? Is there gold? or Is there coal?" The commercial

spirit of the present day can see no good in pure science: the English

manufacturer is not interested in research which will not give him a

financial return within one year: the city man sees in it only so much

energy wasted on unproductive work: truly they are bound to the wheel of

conventional life.

Now unless a man believes that such a view is wrong he has no business to

be 'down South.' Our magnetic and meteorological work may, I suppose,

have a fairly immediate bearing upon commerce and shipping: otherwise I

cannot imagine any branch of our labours which will do more at present

than swell the central pool of unapplied knowledge. The members of this

expedition believed that it was worth while to discover new land and new

life, to reach the Southern Pole of the earth, to make elaborate

meteorological and magnetic observations and extended geological surveys

with all the other branches of research for which we were equipped. They

were prepared to suffer great hardship; and some of them died for their

beliefs. Without such ideals the spirit which certainly existed in our

small community would have been impossible.

But if the reasons for this happy state of our domestic life were due

largely to the adaptability and keenness of the members of our small

community, I doubt whether the frictions which have caused other

expeditions to be less comfortable than they might have been, would have

been avoided in our case, had it not been for the qualities in some of

our men which set a fashion of hard work without any thought of personal

gain.

With all its troubles it is a good life. We came back from the Barrier,

telling one another we loathed the place and nothing on earth should make

us return. But now the Barrier comes back to us, with its clean, open

life, and the smell of the cooker, and its soft sound sleep. So much of

the trouble of this world is caused by memories, for we only remember

half.

We have forgotten--or nearly forgotten--how the loss of a biscuit crumb

left a sense of injury which lasted for a week; how the greatest friends

were so much on one another's nerves that they did not speak for days for

fear of quarrelling; how angry we felt when the cook ran short on the

weekly bag; how sick we were after the first meals when we could eat as

much as we liked; how anxious we were when a man fell ill many hundreds

of miles from home, and we had a fortnight of thick weather and had to

find our depôts or starve. We remember the cry of _Camp Ho!_ which

preceded the cup of tea which gave us five more miles that evening; the

good fellowship which completed our supper after safely crossing a bad

patch of crevasses; the square inch of plum pudding which celebrated our

Christmas Day; the chanties we sang all over the Barrier as we marched

our ponies along.

We travelled for Science. Those three small embryos from Cape Crozier,

that weight of fossils from Buckley Island, and that mass of material,

less spectacular, but gathered just as carefully hour by hour in wind and

drift, darkness and cold, were striven for in order that the world may

have a little more knowledge, that it may build on what it knows instead

of on what it thinks.

Some of our men were ambitious: some wanted money, others a name; some a

help up the scientific ladder, others an F.R.S. Why not? But we had men

who did not care a rap for money or fame. I do not believe it mattered to

Wilson when he found that Amundsen had reached the Pole a few days before

him--not much. Pennell would have been very bored if you had given him a

knighthood. Lillie, Bowers, Priestley, Debenham, Atkinson and many others

were much the same.

But there is no love lost between the class of men who go out and do such

work and the authorities at home who deal with their collections. I

remember a conversation in the hut during the last bad winter. Men were

arguing fiercely that professionally they lost a lot by being down South,

that they fell behindhand in current work, got out of the running and so

forth. There is a lot in that. And then the talk went on to the

publication of results, and the way in which they would wish them done. A

said he wasn't going to hand over his work to be mucked up by such and

such a body at home; B said he wasn't going to have his buried in museum

book-shelves never to be seen again; C said he would jolly well publish

his own results in the scientific journals. And the ears of the armchair

scientists who might deal with our hard-won specimens and observations

should have been warm that night.

At the time I felt a little indignant. It seemed to me that these men

ought to think themselves lucky to be down South at all: there were

thousands who would have liked to take their place. But now I

understand quite a lot more than I did then. Science is a big thing if

you can travel a Winter Journey in her cause and not regret it. I am

not sure she is not bigger still if you can have dealings with

scientists and continue to follow in her path.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 604.

[135] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. pp. 599, 602, 607.

[136] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. p. 53.

[137] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 295.

[138] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. pp. 432-433.

[139] Ibid. p. 597.

[140] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 362.

[141] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 396.

[142] _With Scott: The Silver Lining_, Taylor, p. 240.

[143] F. G. Jackson, _A Thousand Days in the Arctic_, vol. ii. pp.

380-381.

[144] See p. 179.

[145] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 4.

[146] See pp. 130-134.

[147] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 352.

[148] Ibid. p. 353.

[149] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 353.