Part 36 (2/2)

On Sunday, November 17, we moved on together to the east with the wind at fifteen miles an hour, the temperature being 9 degrees F. The sun shone strongly soon after the start, and with four miles to our credit a tent was run up at 1 P.M., and all lunched together on tea, biscuit, b.u.t.ter and chocolate. Up to this time we had had only three al fresco lunches, but, as the weather seemed to be much milder and the benefit of tea and a rest by the way were so great, we decided to use the tent in future, and did so throughout the journey.

In the afternoon, Dr. Mawson's party forged ahead, the dogs romping along on a downhill grade. We took the bit in our teeth as we saw them sitting on their sledges, growing smaller and smaller in front of us. We came up with them again as they had waited to exchange a few more words at a point on the track where a long extent of coast to the east came into view.

Here we bade a final adieu to Dr. Mawson, Mertz and Ninnis. The surface was on the down grade towards the east, and with a cheer and farewell wave they started off, Mertz walking rapidly ahead, followed by Ninnis and Dr. Mawson with their sledges and teams. They were soon lost to view behind the rolling undulations.

A mile farther on we pitched camp at 8 P.M. in a slight depression just out of sight of the sea. Every one slept soundly after a good day's pulling.

November 18 was a bright dazzling day, the sky dotted with fleecy alto-c.u.mulus. At 6 A.M. we were out to find Stillwell's party moving in their tent. There was a rush for shovels to fill the cookers with snow and a race to boil hoosh.

At this camp we tallied up the provisions, with the intention of taking what we might require from Stillwell and proceeding independently of him, as he was likely to leave us any day. There were fifty-nine days to go until January 15, 1913, the latest date of arrival back at the Hut, for which eight weeks' rations were considered to be sufficient. There were seven weeks' food on the sledge, so Stillwell handed over another fifty-pound bag as well as an odd five pounds of wholemeal biscuit. The total amount of kerosene was five gallons, with a bottle of methylated spirit.

Shortly after eight o'clock we caught sight of Dr. Mawson's camp, and set sail to make up the interval. This we did literally as there was a light westerly breeze--the only west wind we encountered during the whole journey.

The sledge was provided with a bamboo mast, seven feet high, stepped behind the cooker-box and stayed fore and aft with wire. The yard was a bamboo of six feet, slung from the top of the mast, its height being varied by altering the length of the slings. The bamboo was threaded through canvas leads in the floor-cloth which provided a spread of thirty square feet of sail. It was often such an ample area that it had to be reefed from below.

With the grade sloping gently down and the wind freshening, the pace became so hot that the sledge often overran us. A spurious ”Epic of the East” (see 'Adelie Blizzard') records it:

Crowd on the sail- Let her speed full and free ”on the run”

Over knife-edge and glaze, marble polish and pulverized chalk The finnesko glide in the race, and there's no time for talk.

Up hill, down dale, It's all in the game and the fun.

We rapidly neared Dr. Mawson's camp, but when we were within a few miles of it, the other party started in a south-easterly direction and were soon lost to sight. Our course was due east.

At thirty-three and a half miles the sea was in sight, some fine flat-topped bergs floating in the nearest bay. Suddenly a dark, rocky nunatak sprang into view on our left. It was a sudden contrast after ten days of unchanging whiteness, and we felt very anxious to visit this new find. As it was in Stillwell's limited territory we left it to him.

According to the rhymester it was:

A rock by the way- A spot in the circle of white- A grey, craggy spur plunging stark through the deep-splintered ice.

A trifle! you say, but a glow of warm land may suffice To brighten a day Prolonged to a midsummer night.

After leaving Aladdin's Cave, our sledge-meter had worked quite satisfactorily. Just before noon, the casting attaching the recording-dial to the forks broke--the first of a series of break-downs.

Correll bound it up with copper wire and splints borrowed from the medical outfit.

The wind died away and the sail was of little use. In addition to this, we met with a slight up grade on the eastern side of the depression, our rate diminis.h.i.+ng accordingly. At 7 P.M. the tent was pitched in dead calm, after a day's run of fifteen miles with a full load of almost eight hundred pounds--a record which remained unbroken with us till near the end of the outward journey. Looking back, the nunatak and bergs were still visible.

Both parties were under way at 8 A.M. next day (November 19) on a calm and sunny morning. The course by sun-compa.s.s was set due east.

At noon I took a lat.i.tude ”shot” with the three-inch Cary theodolite.

This little instrument proved very satisfactory and was easily handled in the cold. In lat.i.tude 67 degrees 15' south, forty-six and a half miles east of the Hut, we were once more on level country with a high rise to the north-east and another shallow gully in front.

A fog which had been moving along the sea-front in an opaque wall drifted over the land and enveloped us. Beautiful crystals of ice in the form of rosettes and small fern-fronds were deposited on the cordage of the sail and mast. One moment the mists would clear, and the next, we could not see more than a few hundred yards.

We now parted with Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close, who turned off to a rising knoll--Mount Hunt--visible in the north-east, and disappeared in the fog.

After the halt at noon the sastrugi became much larger and softer. The fog cleared at 2 P.M. and the sun came out and shone very fiercely.

A very inquisitive skua gull--the first sign of life we had seen thus far--flew around the tent and settled on the snow near by. In the calm, the heat was excessive and great thirst attacked us all the afternoon, which I attempted to a.s.suage at every halt by holding snow in my hands and licking the drops of water off my knuckles?--a cold and unsatisfactory expedient. We travelled without burberrys--at that time quite a novel sensation--wearing only fleece suits and light woollen undergarments. Correll pulled for the greater part of the afternoon in underclothing alone.

At forty-nine and a half miles a new and wonderful panorama opened before us. The sea lay just below, sweeping as a narrow gulf into the great, flat plain of debouching glacier-tongue which ebbed away north into the foggy horizon. A small ice-capped island was set like a pearl in the amethyst water. To the east, the glacier seemed to fuse with the blue line of the hinterland. Southward, the snowy slope rose quickly, and the far distance was unseen.

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