Part 26 (1/2)
'Since writing the above I made a dash for it; got out of the valley out of the fog and away from [Page 364]
creva.s.ses. So here we are practically on the summit and up to date in the provision line. We ought to get through.'
After the fog had cleared off they soon got out of the worst creva.s.ses, and on to a snow slope that led past Mount Darwin. The pull up the slope was long and stiff, but by holding on until 7.30 P.M.
they got off a good march and found a satisfactory place for their depot. Fortunately the weather was both calm and bright, and all the various sorting arrangements that had to be made before the returning party left them were carried out under most favorable conditions. 'For me,' Scott says, 'it is an immense relief to have the indefatigable little Bowers to see to all detail arrangements of this sort,' and on the following day he added, 'we said an affecting farewell to the returning party, who have taken things very well, dear good fellows as they are.'
Then the reorganized parties (Scott, Wilson, Oates and P.O. Evans; Bowers, E. R. Evans, Crean and Lashly) started off with their heavy loads, and any fears they had about their ability to pull them were soon removed.
'It was a sad job saying good-bye,' Cherry-Garrard wrote in his diary, 'and I know some eyes were a bit dim. It was thick and snowing when we started after making the depot, and the last we saw of them as we swung the sledge north, was a black dot just disappearing over the next ridge, and a big white pressure wave ahead of them.'
[Page 365]
Then the returning party set off on their homeward march, and arrived at Cape Evans on January 28, 1912, after being away for three months.
Repairs to the sledgemeter delayed the advancing party for some time during their first march under the new conditions, but they managed to cover twelve miles, and, with the loads becoming lighter every day, Scott hoped to march longer hours and to make the requisite progress. Steering, however, south-west on the next morning they soon found themselves among such bad creva.s.ses and pressure, that they were compelled to haul out to the north, and then to the west.
One comfort was that all the time they were rising. 'It is rather trying having to march so far to the west, but if we keep rising we must come to the end of the disturbance some time.' During the second part of this march great changes of fortune awaited them. At first they started west up a slope, and on the top another pressure appeared on the left, but less lofty and more snow-covered than that which had troubled them in the morning. There was temptation to try this, but Scott resisted it and turned west up yet another slope, on the top of which they reached a most extraordinary surface.
Narrow creva.s.ses, that were quite invisible, ran in all directions.
All of these creva.s.ses were covered with a thin crust of hardened neve which had not a sign of a crack in it. One after another, and sometimes two at a time, they all fell in; and though they were getting fairly accustomed to unexpected falls through being unable to mark the run of [Page 366]
the surface appearances of cracks, or where such cracks were covered with soft snow, they had never expected to find a hardened crust formed over a crack, and such a surface was as puzzling as it was dangerous and troublesome.
For about ten minutes or so, while they were near these narrow creva.s.ses, they came on to snow which had a hard crust and loose crystals below it, and each step was like breaking through a gla.s.s-house. And then, quite suddenly, the hard surface gave place to regular sastrugi, and their horizon leveled in every direction.
At 6 P.M., when they reached Camp 45 (height about 7,750 feet), 17 miles stood to their credit and Scott was feeling 'very cheerful about everything.' 'My determination,' he said, 'to keep mounting irrespective of course is fully justified, and I shall be indeed surprised if we have any further difficulties with creva.s.ses or steep slopes. To me for the first time our goal seems really in sight.'
On the following day (Christmas Eve) they did not find a single creva.s.se, but high pressure ridges were still to be seen, and Scott confessed that he should be glad to lose sight of such disturbances.
Christmas Day, however, brought more trouble from creva.s.ses--'very hard, smooth neve between high ridges at the edge of creva.s.ses, and therefore very difficult to get foothold to pull the sledges.' To remedy matters they got out their ski sticks, but this did not prevent several of them from going half-down; while Lashly, disappearing completely, had to be pulled out by [Page 367]
means of the Alpine rope. 'Lashly says the creva.s.se was 50 feet deep and 8 feet across, in form U, showing that the word ”unfathomable”
can rarely be applied. Lashly is 44 to-day and as hard as nails.
His fall has not even disturbed his equanimity.'
When, however, they had reached the top of the creva.s.se ridge a better surface was found, and their Christmas lunch--at which they had such luxuries as chocolate and raisins--was all the more enjoyable because 8 miles or so had already been gained.
In the middle of the afternoon they got a fine view of the land, but more trouble was caused by creva.s.ses, until towards the end of their march they got free of them and on to a slight decline down which they progressed at a swinging pace. Then they camped and prepared for their great Christmas meal. 'I must,' Scott says, 'write a word of our supper last night. We had four courses. The first, pemmican, full whack, with slices of horse meat flavored with onion and curry powder, and thickened with biscuit; then an arrowroot, cocoa and biscuit hoosh sweetened; then a plum-pudding; then cocoa with raisins, and finally a dessert of caramels and ginger.
After the feast it was difficult to move. Wilson and I couldn't finish our share of plum-pudding. We have all slept splendidly and feel thoroughly warm--such is the effect of full feeding.'
The advance, possibly owing to the 'tightener' on Christmas night, was a little slow on the following morning, but nevertheless 15 miles were covered [Page 368]
in the day and the 86th parallel was reached. Creva.s.ses still appeared, and though they avoided them on this march, they were not so lucky during the next stage to Camp 49.
In fact Wednesday, December 27, was unfortunate owing to several reasons. To begin with, Bowers broke the only hypsometer thermometer, and so they were left with nothing to check their two aneroids.
Then during the first part of the march they got among sastrugi which jerked the sledges about, and so tired out the second team that they had great difficulty in keeping up. And, finally, they found more creva.s.ses and disturbances during the afternoon. For an hour the work was as painful as it could be, because they tumbled into the creva.s.ses and got the most painful jerks. 'Steering the party,' Scott wrote at Camp 49, 'is no light task. One cannot allow one's thoughts to wander as others do, and when, as this afternoon, one gets amongst disturbances, I find it very worrying and tiring.
I do trust we shall have no more of them. We have not lost sight of the sun since we came on the summit; we should get an extraordinary record of suns.h.i.+ne. It is monotonous work this; the sledgemeter and theodolite govern the situation.'
During the next morning the second sledge made such 'heavy weather'
that Scott changed places with E. R. Evans. That, however, did not improve matters much, for Scott soon found that the second team had [Page 369]
not the same swing as his own team, so he changed Lashly for P.O.
Evans, and then they seemed to get on better. At lunch-time they discussed the difficulties that the second party was having, and several reasons for them were put forward. One was that the team was stale, another that all the trouble was due to bad stepping and want of swing, and yet another was that the first's party's sledge pulled much more easily than the second party's.
On the chance that this last suggestion was correct, Scott and his original team took the second party's sledge in the afternoon, and soon found that it was a terrible drag to get it along in soft snow, whereas the second party found no difficulty in pulling the sledge that had been given to them. 'So the sledge is the cause of the trouble, and taking it out, I found that all is due to want of care. The runners ran excellently, but the structure has been distorted by bad strapping, bad loading, &c. The party are not done, and I have told them plainly that they must wrestle with the trouble and get it right for themselves.'