RETURN OF THE LAST SUPPORTING PARTY
Scott had already made a great geographical journey in spite of adverse
weather conditions, which had severely handicapped him throughout, but he
was nevertheless behindhand in his expectations, and although the
attainment of the Pole was practically within his grasp, the long 900
mile march homeward from that spot had to be considered. It was
principally on this account that Captain Scott changed his marching
organisation and took Bowers from the last supporting party. After the
first day's homeward march I realised that the nine hours' marching day
was insufficient. We had to make average daily marches of 17 miles in
order to remain on full provisions whilst returning over that featureless
snow-capped plateau.
Although the first day northward bound was radiantly fine and the
travelling surface all that could be desired, we were compelled to push
on until quite late to ensure covering the prescribed distance--for a
short march on the first day would have augured a gloomy future for us.
Reluctant as I was to confess it to myself, I soon realised that the
ceding of one man from my party had been too great a sacrifice, but there
was no denying it, and I was eventually compelled to explain the
situation to Lashly and Crean and lay bare the naked truth. No man was
ever better served than I was by these two; they cheerfully accepted the
inevitable, and throughout our home-ward march the three of us literally
stole minutes and seconds from each day in order to add to our marches,
but it was a fight for life: The rarified air made our breathing more
difficult, and we suffered from shortness of breath whenever the
inequalities of the surface became severe, and sudden jerks conveyed
themselves to our tired bodies through the medium of the rope traces.
Day after day we fought our way northward over the high Polar tableland.
The silence now that we had no other party with us was ghastly, for
beyond the sound of our own voices and the groaning of the sledge runners
when the surface was bad there was no sound whatever to remind us of the
outer world. As mile after mile was covered our thoughts wandered from
the Expedition to those in our homeland, and thought succeeded thought
while the march progressed until the satisfying effect of the last meal
had vanished and life became one vast yearning for food.
Three days after leaving Captain Scott we encountered a blizzard and were
forced to continue our marches although faced with navigational
difficulties which made it impossible for us to maintain more than a very
rough northward direction. Muffled up tightly in our wind-proof clothing,
-we did all in our power to prevent the dust-fine snow-flakes which
whirled around from penetrating into the tiniest opening in our clothes.
The blizzard blinded and baffled us, forcing us always to turn our faces
from it. The stinging wind cut and slashed our cheeks like the constant
jab of a thousand frozen needle points.
This first blizzard which fell upon us lasted for three whole days, and
at the end of that time we found ourselves considerably wide of our
course.
On the 7th January, in spite of a temperature of 22 degrees below zero, a
fresh southerly wind and driving snow, Lashly, Crean, and myself laid 19
miles behind us.
On the 8th we again covered this distance, although the weather was so
bad that we entirely lost the track, and on the following day, when the
blizzard was at its worst, we fought our way forward for over 16 miles.
When the blizzard eventually abated we had hazy weather, but got an
occasional glimpse of the sun, with which we corrected our course, and on
the 13th January my party found itself right above the Shackleton
Icefalls, and gazed down upon the more regular surface of the Beardmore
Glacier hundreds of feet below us.
To reach the glacier we were faced with two alternatives: either to march
right round the icefalls, as we had done coming south, and thus waste
three whole days, or to take our lives in our hands and attempt to get
the sledge slap over the falls. This would mean facing tremendous drops,
which might end in a catastrophe. The discussion was very short-lived,
and with rather a sinking feeling the descent of the great ice falls was
commenced. We packed our ski on the sledge, attached spiked crampons to
our finnesko, and guided the sledge through the maze of hummocks and
crevasses.
The travelling surface was wind-swept and consequently too easy, for the
sledge would charge down a slippery slope of blue ice and capsize time
after time. In places the way became so steep that our united efforts
were needed to avoid the yawning chasms which beset our path. We were
compelled to remain attached to the sledge by our harness, for otherwise
there was always the danger of our slipping into one of the very
crevasses that we were keeping the sledge clear of, and in this manner,
with the jumping and jolting of that awful descent, frequent cases of
over-running occurred, the sledge fouling our traces and whisking us off
our feet. We encountered fall after fall, bruises, cuts, and abrasions
were sustained, but we vied with one another in bringing all our grit and
patience to bear; scarcely a complaint was heard, although one or other
of us would be driven almost sick with pain as the sledge cannoned into
this or that man's heel with a thud that made the victim clench his teeth
to avoid crying out.
The whole forenoon we worked down towards the more even surface of the
great glacier itself, but the actual descent of the steep part of the
Shackleton Icefalls was accomplished in half an hour. We came down many
hundred feet in that time.
None of us can ever forget that exciting descent. The speed of the sledge
at one point must have been 60 miles an hour. We glissaded down a steep
blue ice slope; to brake was impossible, for the sledge had taken charge.
One or other of us may have attempted to check the sledge with his foot,
but to stop it in any way would have meant a broken leg. We held on for
our lives, lying face downwards on the sledge. Suddenly it seemed to
spring into the air, we had left the ice and shot over one yawning
crevasse before we had known of its existence almost--I do not imagine we
were more than a second in the air, but in that brief space of time I
looked at Crean, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, "What next!" Then
we crashed on to the ice ridge beyond this crevasse, the sledge capsized
and rolled over and over, dragging us three with it until it came to a
standstill.
How we ever escaped entirely uninjured is beyond me to explain. When we
had recovered our breath we examined ourselves and our sledge. One of my
ski-sticks had caught on a piece of ice during our headlong flight and
torn itself from the sledge. It rolled into the great blue-black chasm
over which we had come, and its fate made me feel quite cold when I
thought of what might have happened to us. When my heart had stopped
beating so rapidly from fright, and I had recovered enough to look round,
I realised that we were practically back on the Beardmore again, and that
our bold escapade had saved us three days' solid foot slogging and that
amount of food. So we pitched our little tent, had a good filling meal,
and then, delighted with our progress, we marched on until 8 p.m. That
night in our sleeping-bags we felt like three bruised pears, but being in
pretty hard condition in those days, our bruises and slight cuts in no
way kept us from hours of perfect, contented slumber.
I see in my diary for January 13, 1912, I have noted that we came down
2000 feet, but I doubt if it really was as much--we then had no means of
measuring.
January 14 found us up at 5.45 (really only 4.45, because in order not to
make my seamen companions anxious I handicapped my watch after first
day's homeward march, putting the hands on one hour each morning before
rising, and back when I got the chance, so that we marched from 10 to 12
hours a day). We hauled our sledge for six hours until we reached the
Upper Glacier Depot under Mount Darwin. Here we took 3 1/2 days' stores
as arranged, and after sorting up and repacking the depot had lunch and
away down the Glacier, camping at 7.30 p.m. off Buckley Island, fairly
close to the land. Temperature rose above zero that night.
Next day we were away at 8 a.m. with our crampons on, we came down
several steep ice slopes, blue ice like glass, Lashly hauling ahead and
Crean and I holding on to the sledge. We bumped a lot, and occasionally
the sledge capsized. But we made good nearly 22 miles. We covered between
18 and 20 miles on January 16, and were in high glee at our progress. We
camped, however, in amongst pressure ridges and huge crevasses, 14 miles
from the Cloudmaker or mid-glacier depot. We hoped next day to reach this
depot. January 16 was a pleasant day, its ending peaceful, with a
sufficiency of excellent sledging rations and the promise of a similar
day to succeed it. On this day hopes had run high; our clothes were dry,
the weather mild and promising, besides which, we were camped in the full
satisfaction of having a good many miles in hand. We cheerfully discussed
our arrival at the next depot, after which we knew that no anxieties need
be felt, given even moderately good luck and weather, that did not
include too great a proportion of blizzard days. The musical roar of the
primus and the welcome smell of the cooking pemmican whetted our
appetites deliciously, and as the three of us sat around the cooker on
our rolled up fur bags, the contented expression on our dirty brown faces
made our bearded ugliness almost handsome. We built wonderful castles in
the air as to what luxuries Lashly, who was a famous cook, should prepare
on our return to winter quarters. There we had still some of the New
Zealand beef and mutton stored in my glacier cave, and one thing I had
set my heart on was a steak and kidney pudding which my friend Lashly
swore to make me.
After the meal we unrolled our sleeping-bags and luxuriantly got into
them, for the recent fine weather had given us a chance to dry thoroughly
the fur and get the bags clear of that uncomfortable clamminess due to
the moisture from our bodies freezing until the sleeping-bags afforded
but little comfort. The weather looked glorious, there was not a cloud in
the sky, and towards 10 o'clock the sun was still visible to the S.S.W.
We could see it through the thin, green canvas tent wall as we turned in,
still in broad daylight, and the warmth derived from it made sleep come
to us quite easily.
I woke at five the next morning, and, rousing my companions, we were up
and about in a minute. The primus stove and cooking apparatus were
brought into the tent once more; our sleeping foot-gear was changed for
our marching finneskoe and good steel-spiked crampons fixed to the soft
fur boots to give us grip in places where the ice was blue and slippery.
By 6 a.m. the little green tent was struck, the sledge securely packed,
and the three of us commenced a day's march, the details of which,
although it occurred over nine years ago, are so fresh in my memory that
I have not even to refer to my sledging diary.
We commenced the day unluckily, for a low Stratus cloud had spread like a
tablecloth over the Beardmore and filled up the glacier with mist. This
added tremendously to our difficulties in steering, for we had no
landmarks by which to set our course, although I knew the approximate
direction of descent and could make this by means of a somewhat
inadequate compass. The refinements in steering were not sufficient to
keep us on the good blue ice surface down which we could have threaded
our way had we commanded a full view of the glacier. Our route led us
over rougher ice than we should normally have chosen, and the outlook was
distinctly displeasing. The air was thick with countless myriads of tiny
floating ice crystals, and the great hummocks of ice stood weirdly shapen
as they loomed through the frozen mist. I appreciated that we were
getting into trouble, but hoped that the fog would disperse as the sun
increased its altitude. We fell about a good deal, and to my
consternation the surface became worse and worse. We were, however,
covering distance in an approximately northward direction, and our team
achieved with stubborn purpose what would have appeared impossible to us
when we first visited this great, white, silent continent.
It was no good going back, and we could not tell whether the good track
was to the right or the left of our line of advance. As new and more
troublesome obstacles presented themselves, the more valiantly did my
companions set themselves to win through. Crean and Lashly had the hearts
of lions. The uncertain light of the mist worried us all three, and we
were forced to take off our goggles to see to advance at all.
We continued until midday, when to my great relief the mist showed signs
of dispersing, and the sun, a sickly yellow orb, eventually showed
through. It was surrounded by a halo which was reflected in rainbow
colouring in the minute floating ice crystals. I looked round for a spot
suitable for camping, for we were pretty well exhausted, and it was worth
while waiting for the mist to disperse. No time would be wasted since the
halt would do for our lunch. With the greatest difficulty we found
amongst the hummocky ice a place to set up our tent. A space was found
somehow, and rather gloomily the three of us made a cooker full of tea.
We munched our biscuit in silence, for we were too tired to talk. From
time to time I went outside the tent, and certainly the atmosphere was
clearer. Odd shapes to the east and west showed themselves to be the
fringing mountains which so few eyes had ever rested on. Gradually they
took form and I was able more or less to identify our whereabouts. We
finished our lunch, Crean had a smoke, and then we got under way.
A little discussion, a lot of support, and a wealth of whole-hearted
good-fellowship from my companions gave me the encouragement which made
leading these two men so easy.
Warmed by the tea, cheered by the meal, and rested by the halt, we pushed
on once more, although to go forward was uncertain and to work back
impossible since we were too exhausted to do such pulling upward as would
be necessary to reach a place from whence a new start could be made, even
if we succeeded in re-discovering our night camp of yesterday.
For hours we fought on, sometimes overcoming crevasses by bridging them
with the sledge where its length enabled this to be done. The summer sun
had cleared the snow from this part of the glacier, laying bare the great
blue, black cracks, and they were horrible to behold. If the breadth of a
crevasse was too large to be crossed we worked along the bank until an
ice bridge presented itself along which we could go. As the sun's rays
grew more powerful, the visibility became perfect, and I must confess we
were disappointed to see before us the most disheartening wilderness of
pressure ridges and disturbances. We were in the heart of the Great Ice
Fall which is to be found half-way down the Beardmore Glacier. We
struggled along, for there is no other expression which aptly describes
our case. Had we not been in superb physical training and in really hard
condition all three of us must have collapsed. We literally carried the
sledge, which weighed nearly four hundred pounds.
When the afternoon march had already extended for hours we found
ourselves travelling mile after mile across the line of our intended
route to circumvent the crevasses. They seemed to grow bigger and bigger.
At about 8 p.m. we were travelling on a ridge between two stupendous open
gulfs, and we found a connecting bridge which stretched obliquely across.
I saw that it was necessary to move round or across a number of these
wide open chasms to reach the undulations which we knew from our ice
experience must terminate this broken up part of the glacier. In vain I
told myself that these undulations could not be so far away.
To cross by the connecting bridge which I have just spoken about was, to
say the least of it, a precarious proceeding. But it would save us a mile
or two, and in our tired state this was worth considering. After a
minutes rest we placed the sledge on this ice bridge, and, as Crean
described it afterwards, "We went along the crossbar to the H of Hell."
It was not all misnamed either, for Lashly, who went ahead, dared not
walk upright. He actually sat astride the bridge and was paid out at the
end of our Alpine rope. He shuffled his way across, fearful to look down
into the inky blue chasm below, but he fixed his eyes on the opposite
wall of ice and hoped the rope would be long enough to allow him to reach
it and climb up, for he never would have dared to come back. The cord
_was_ sufficient in length, and he contrived finally to make his way on
to the top of the ridge before him. He then turned round and looked
scaredly at Crean and myself. I think all of us felt the tension of the
moment, but we wasted no time in commencing the passage. The method of
procedure was this. The sledge rested on the narrow bridge which was
indeed so shaped that the crest only admitted of the runners resting one
on each side of it; the slope away was like an inverted "V" and while
Lashly sat gingerly on the opposite ridge, hauling carefully but not too
strongly on the rope, Crean and I, facing one another, held on to the
sledge sides, balancing the whole concern. It was one of the most
exciting moments of our lives. We launched the sled across foot by foot
as I shouted "One, Two, Three--Heave." Each time the signal was obeyed we
got nearer to the opposite ice slope. The balance was preserved, of
course, by Crean and myself, and we had to exercise a most careful
judgment. Neither of us spoke, except for the launching signal, but each
looked steadfastly into the other's eyes--nor did we two look down. A
false movement might have precipitated the whole gang and the sledge
itself into the blue-black space of awful depth beneath. The danger was
very real, but this crossing was necessary to our final safety. As in
other cases of peril, the tense quiet of the moment left its mark on the
memories of our party for ever. Little absurd details attracted all our
attention, for instance, I noticed the ruts in the cheeks of my grimy
_vis-à-vis_, for Crean had recently clipped his beard and whiskers. My
gaze was also riveted on a cut, or rather open crack caused in one of his
lips by the combined sun and wind. Thousands of little fleeting thoughts
chased one another through our brains, as we afterwards found by
comparison, and finally we were so close to Lashly that he could touch
the sledge. He reached down, for the bridge was depressed somewhat where
it met the slope on which he sat.
He held on tight, and somehow Crean and I wriggled off the bridge,
sticking our crampons firmly into the ice and crawling up to where Lashly
was. We all three held on to the Alpine line, and in some extraordinary
fashion got to the top of the ridge, where we anchored ourselves and
prepared to haul up the sledge. As I said before, it weighed about 400
lb., and to three exhausted men the strain which came upon us when we
hauled the sledge off the bridge tested us to the limit of our strength.
The wretched thing slipped sideways and capsized on the slope, nearly
dragging us down into that icy chasm, but our combined efforts saved us,
and once again the perils of the moment were forgotten as we got into our
sledge harness and started to make the best of our way to the depot.
By now we were exhausted, rudely shaken, and our eyes were smarting with
the glare and the glint of the sun's reflections from that awful maze of
ice falls. I felt my heart would burst from the sustained effort of
launching that sledge, which now seemed to weigh a ton. There seemed no
way out of this confused mass of pressure ridges and, crevasses. We were
"all out," and come what may I had to change our tactics, accordingly I
ordered a halt. No room could be found to pitch our tent and I could not
see any possibility of saving my party. We could stagger on no farther
with the dreadfully heavy sledge. The prospect was hopeless and our food
was nearly gone. Some rest must be obtained to give us strength for this
absolute battle for life. The great strain of the day's efforts had
thoroughly exhausted us, and it took me back to the last day of the
December blizzard which caused the eventual loss of the Polar Party and
the ruin of Captain Scott's so excellently laid plans. I remembered the
poor ponies after their fourteen hours' march, their flanks heaving,
their black eyes dull, shrivelled and wasted. The poor beasts had stood,
with their legs stuck out in strange attitudes, mere wrecks of the
beautiful little animals that we took away from New Zealand, and I could
not help likening our condition to theirs on that painful day. The three
of us sat on the sledge--hollow-eyed and gaunt looking. We were done, our
throats were dry, and we could scarcely speak. There was no wind, the
atmosphere was perfectly still, and the sun slowly crept towards the
southern meridian, clear cut in the steel blue sky. It gave us all the
sympathy it could, for it shed warm rays upon us as it silently moved on
its way like a great eye from Heaven, looking but unable to help. We
should have gone mad with another day like this, and there were times
when we came perilously close to being insane. Something had to be done.
I got up from the sledge, cast my harness adrift, and said, "I am going
to look for a way out; we can't go on." My companions at first persuaded
me not to go, but I pointed out that we could not continue in our
exhausted condition. If only we could find a camping place, and we could
rest, perhaps we should be able to make a final effort to get clear.
I moved along a series of ice bridges, and the excitement gave me
strength once more. I was surprised at myself for not being more giddy
when I walked along the narrow ice spines, but the crampons attached to
my finneskoe were like cat's claws, and without the weight of the sledge
I seemed to develop a panther-like tenacity, for I negotiated the
dangerous parts with the utmost ease. After some twenty minutes hunting
round I came to a great ice hollow.
Down into it I went and up the other side. This hollow was free from
crevasses, and when I got to the top of the ice mound opposite I saw yet
another hollow. Turning round I gazed back towards where I had left our
sledge. Two tiny, disconsolate figures were silhouetted against the
sunlight--my two companions on our great homeward march, one sitting and
one standing, probably looking for my reappearance as I vanished and was
sighted again from time to time. I felt a tremendous love for those two
men that day. They had trusted me so implicitly and believed in my
ability to win through. I turned northward again, stepped down into the
next hollow and stopped. I was in an enormous depression but not a
crevasse to be seen, for the sides of the depression met quite firmly at
the bottom in smooth, blue, solid ice.
In a flash I called to mind the view of the Ice Fall from the glacier on
our outward journey with Captain Scott, I remembered the huge frozen
waves, and hoped with all my optimistic nature that this might be the end
of the great disturbance. I stood still and surveyed the wonderful valley
of ice, and then fell on my knees and prayed to God that a way out would
be shown me.
Then I sprang to my feet, and hurried on boldly. Clambering up the
opposite slope of ice, I found a smooth, round crest over which I ran
into a similar valley beyond. Frozen waves here followed in succession,
and hollow followed hollow, each less in magnitude than its forerunner.
Suddenly I saw before me the smooth, shining bed of the glacier itself,
and away to the north-west was the curious reddish rock under which the
Mid Glacier Depot had been placed. My feelings hardly bear setting down.
I was overcome with emotion, but my prayer was answered and we were
saved.
I had considerable difficulty in working back to the party amongst the
labyrinth of ice bridges, but I fortunately found a patch of hard snow
whereon my crampons had made their mark. From here I easily traced my
footmarks back, and was soon in company with my friends. They were truly
relieved at my news. On consulting my watch I found that I had been away
one hour. It took us actually three times as long to work our sledge out
into the smooth ice of the glacier, but this reached, we camped and made
some tea before marching on to the depot, which lay but a few miles from
us.
We ate the last of our biscuits at this camp and finished everything but
tea and sugar, then, new men, we struck our little camp, harnessed up and
swept down over the smooth ice with scarcely an effort needed to move the
sledge along. When we reached the depot we had another meal and slept
through the night and well on into the next day.
Consulting my old Antarctic diary I see that the last sentence written on
the 17th January says, "I had to keep my goggles off all day as it was a
matter of life or death with us, and snow blindness must be risked after
..." (a gap follows here until 29th January). The next day I had an awful
attack of snow blindness, but the way down the glacier was so easy that
it did not matter. I forgot whether Lashly or Crean led then, but I
marched alongside, keeping in touch with the trace by hitching the
lanyard of my sundial on to it and holding this in my hand. I usually
carried the sundial slung round my neck, so that it was easy to pick it
up and consult it. That day I was in awful pain, and although we had some
dope for putting on our eyes when so smitten, I found that the greatest
relief of all was obtained by bandaging my eyes with a poultice made of
tea leaves after use--quaint places, quaint practices but the tip is
worth considering for future generations of explorers and alpine
climbers.
Our homeward march continued for day after day with no very exciting
incidents. We met no more crevasses that were more than a foot or so
wide, and we worked our way down on to the Great Ice Barrier with
comparatively easy marches, although the distances we covered were
surprising to us all--seventeen miles a day we averaged.
On the 30th January Lashly and I had been fourteen weeks out, and we had
exhausted practically every topic of conversation beyond food, distances
made good, temperatures, and the weather. Crean, as already set down, had
started with the Main Southern Party a week after Lashly and I had first
set out as the pioneers with those wretched failures, the motor sledges.
By this time I had made the unpleasant discovery that I was suffering
from scurvy. It came on with a stiffening of the knee joints, then I
could not straighten my legs, and finally they were horrible to behold,
swollen, bruised, and green. As day followed day my condition became
worse: my gums were ulcerated and my teeth loose. Then finally I got
haemorrhage. Crean and Lashly were dreadfully concerned on my behalf, and
how they nursed me and helped me along no words of mine can properly
describe. What men they were. Those awful days--I trudged on with them
for hundreds of miles, and each step hurt me more. I had done too much on
the outward journey, for what with building all the depot cairns ahead of
the pony party, and what with the effects of the spring sledge journey,
too much had been asked of me. I had never been out of harness from the
day I left Hut Point, for even with the motor sledges we practically
pulled them along. Crean had had an easier time, for he had led a pony up
to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, and Lashly had not done the spring
sledging journey, which took a certain amount out of me with its
temperatures falling to 73 degrees below zero. The disappointment of not
being included in the Polar Party had not helped me much, and I must
admit that my prospects of winning through became duller day by day. I
suffered absolute agonies in forcing my way along, and eventually I could
only push myself by means of a ski-stick, for I could not step out
properly. I somehow waddled on ski until one day I fainted when striving
to start a march. Crean and Lashly picked me up, and Crean thought I was
dead. His hot tears fell on my face, and as I came to I gave a weak kind
of laugh.
They rigged the camp up once more and put me in my bag, and then those
two gallant fellows held a short council of war. I endeavoured to get
them to leave me when they came in with their suggestions, but it was
useless to argue with them, and I now felt that I had shot my bolt. I
vainly tried to persuade them to leave me in my sleeping-bag with what
food they could spare, but they put me on the sledge, bag and all, and
strapped me as comfortably as they could with their own sleeping-bags
spread under me to make for greater ease.
How weary their marches must have been--ten miles of foot slogging each
day. I could see them from the sledge by raising my head--how slowly
their legs seemed to move--wearily but nobly they fought on until one day
a blizzard came and completely spoilt the surface. The two men had been
marching nearly 1500 miles, their strength was spent, and great though
their hearts were, they had now to give up. In vain they tried to move
the sledge with my wasted weight upon it--it was hopeless.
Very seriously and sadly they re-erected our tent and put me once again
inside. I thought I was being put into my grave. Outside I heard them
talking, low notes of sadness, but with a certain thread of determination
running through what they said. They were discussing which should go and
which should stay. Crean had done, if anything, the lighter share of the
work, as already explained, and he therefore set out to march thirty-five
miles with no food but a few biscuits and a little stick of chocolate.
He hoped to find relief at Hut Point. Failing this, he would go on if
possible to Cape Evans.
Crean came in to say good-bye to me. I thanked him for what he was doing
in a weak, broken sort of way, and Lashly held open the little round tent
door to let me see the last of him. He strode out nobly and finely--I
wondered if I should ever see him, again. Then Lashly came in to me, shut
the tent door, and made me a little porridge out of some oatmeal we got
from the last depot we had passed.
After I had eaten it he made me comfortable by laying me on Crean's
sleeping-bag, which made my own seem softer, for I was very, very sore
after being dragged a hundred miles on a jolting, jumping sledge. Then I
slept and awoke to find Lashly's kind face looking down at me. There were
very few wounded men in the Great War nursed as I was by him.
A couple of days passed, and every now and then Lashly would open up the
tent door, go out and search the horizon for some possible sign of
relief. The end had nearly come, and I was past caring; we had no food,
except a few paraffin saturated biscuits, and Lashly in his weakened
state without food could never have marched in. He took it all very
quietly--a noble, steel true man--but relief did come at the end of that
day when everything looked its blackest.
We heard the baying of the dogs, first once, then again. Lashly, who was
lying down by my side quietly talking, sprang to his feet, looked out,
and saw!
They galloped right up to the tent door, and the leader, a beautiful gray
dog named Krisravitsa, seemed to understand the situation, for he came
right into the tent and licked my hands and face. I put my poor weak
hands up and gripped his furry ears. Perhaps to hide my feelings I kissed
his old hairy, Siberian face with the kiss that was meant for Lashly. We
were both dreadfully affected at our rescue.
Atkinson and the Russian dog-boy, Dimitri, had come out hot-foot to save
us, and of all men in the Expedition none could have been better chosen
than "Little Aitch," our clever naval doctor. After resting his dogs and
feeding me with carefully prepared foodstuffs, he got me on one sledge
and Lashly on the other, the dogs were given their head, and in little
more than three hours we covered the thirty-five miles into Hut Point,
where I was glad to see Crean's face once more and to hear first hand
about his march. It had taken him eighteen hours' plodding through those
awful snows from our camp to Hut Point, where fortunately he met Atkinson
and Dimitri and told them of my condition.
After the Expedition was over the King gave Lashly and Crean the Albert
Medal for their bravery in helping me win through.
It is little enough tribute that I have dedicated this book to these two
gallant fellows.