Part 3 (1/2)
We had some good views of whales in the pack. Whenever a whale was sighted Wilson was called to identify it unless it proved to belong to one of the more common species. We saw Sibbald's whale; Rorquals, and many killer whales, but no Right whales were properly identified this trip.
I very much wanted to show Scott the island we had discovered in the first Antarctic Relief Expedition and named after him, but when in its vicinity snow squalls and low visibility prevented this.
On the 22nd Bowers, Wright, Griffith Taylor and myself chased a lot of young penguins on the ice and secured nine for our Christmas dinner. We spent a very pleasant Christmas this year, devoting great attention to food. We commenced the day with kidneys from our frozen meat store.
Captain Scott conducted the Christmas church service and all hands attended since we had no steam up and were fast held in the pack. The ward-room was decorated with our sledge flags and a new blue tablecloth generally brightened up our Mess. We had fresh mutton for lunch and the seamen had their Christmas dinner at this time. The afterguard dined at 6.30 on fresh penguin, roast beef, plum pudding, mince pies, and asparagus, while we had champagne, port, and liqueurs to drink and an enormous box of Fry's fancy chocolates for dessert. This ”mortal gorge”
was followed by a sing-song lasting until midnight, nearly every one, even the most modest, contributing. Around the Christmas days we made but insignificant headway, only achieving thirty-one miles in the best part of the week, but on the 29th the floes became thin and the ice showed signs of recent formation, though intermingled with heavier floes of old and rotten ice. There was much diatomacea in the rotten floes. About 2.40 a.m. the s.h.i.+p broke through into a lead of open water six miles in length.
I spent the middle watch in the crow's-nest, Bowers being up there with me talking over the Expedition, his future and mine. He was a wonderful watch companion, especially when he got on to his favourite subject, India. He had some good tales to tell of the Persian Gulf, of days and weeks spent boat-cruising, of attacks made on gun-running dhows and kindred adventure. He told me that one dhow was boarded while he was up the Gulf, when the Arabs, waiting until most of the boat's crew of bluejackets were on board, suddenly let go the halyards of their great sail and let it down crash over the lot, the boom breaking many heads and the sail burying our seamen, while the Arabs got to work and practically scuppered the crowd.
Soon after 4 a.m. I went below and turned in, confident that we were nearing the southern extreme of the pack. Captain Scott awoke when I went into the cabin, pleased at the prospect, but after so many adverse ice conditions he shook his head, unwilling to believe that we should get clear yet awhile. I bet him ten sardine sandwiches that we should be out of the pack by noon on the 30th, and when I turned out at 8 o'clock I was delighted to find the s.h.i.+p steaming through thin floes and pa.s.sing into a series of great open water leads. By 6 p.m. on the 29th a strong breeze was blowing, snow was falling, and we were punching along under steam and sail. Sure enough we got out of the pack early on the 30th and, cracking on all our canvas, were soon doing eight knots with a following wind.
Later in the day the wind headed us with driving snow, fine rain, and, unfortunately, a considerable head swell. This caused the s.h.i.+p to pitch so badly that the ponies began to give trouble again. Oates asked for the speed to be reduced, but we got over this by setting fore and aft sail and keeping the s.h.i.+p's head three or four points off the wind. New Year's Eve gave us another anxious time, for we encountered a hard blow from the S.S.E. It was necessary to heave the s.h.i.+p to most of the day under bare poles with the engines just jogging to keep the swell on her bow. A thin line of pack ice was sighted in the morning and this turned out to be quite a blessing in disguise, for I took the s.h.i.+p close to the edge of it and skirted along to leeward. The ice formed a natural break-water and damped the swell most effectually. The swell and sea in the open would have been too much for the ponies as it must be remembered that they had been in their stalls on board for five weeks.
We had now reached the Continental Shelf, the depth of water had changed from 1111 fathoms on the 30th to 180 fathoms this day. The biologists took advantage of our jogging along in the open water to trawl, but very few specimens were obtained. At midnight the ”youth of the town” made the devil of a din by striking sixteen bells, blowing whistles on the siren, hooting with the foghorn, cheering and singing. What children we were, but what matter!
1911 came like the opening of a new volume of an exciting book. This was the year in which Scott hoped to reach the Pole, the ideal date he had given being December 21. This was the year that Campbell and his party were looking forward to so eagerly--if only they could be successful in landing their gear and equipment in King Edward VII. Land--and, for the less showy but more scientific sledgers, 1911 held a wealth of excitement in store. Griffith Taylor and Debenham knew pretty well that next New Year's Day would see them in the midst of their Western journey with the secrets of those rugged mountains revealed perhaps. I do not know what my own feelings were, it would be impossible to describe them. I read up part of Shackleton's diary and something of what his companion Wilde had written. Just this:
12 _miles_, 200 _yards_.--1/1/08.
”Started usual time. Quan (pony) got through the forenoon fairly well with a.s.sistance, but after lunch the poor chap broke down and we had to take him out of harness. Shackleton, Adams, and Marshall dragged his sledge, and I brought the ponies along with the other load. As soon as we camped I gave Quan the bullet, and Marshall and I cut him up. He was a tough one. I am cook this week with Marshall as my tent mate.”
The more one read into Shackleton's story the more wonderful it all seemed, and with our resources failure appeared impossible--yet that telegram which Captain Scott had received at Melbourne:
”Beg leave to inform you proceeding Antarctic.
----AMUNDSEN.”
We all knew that Amundsen had no previous Antarctic sledging experience, but no one could deny that to Norwegians ice-work, and particularly ski-ing, was second nature, and here lay some good food for thought and discussion. Where would the ”Fram” enter the pack? Where would Amundsen make his base? The answers never once suggested anything like the truth.
Actually on New Year's Day Amundsen was between 500 and 600 miles north of us, but of Roald Amundsen more anon.
How strange to be once more in open water, able to steer whatever course we chose, with broad daylight all night, and at noon only a couple of days' run from Cape Crozier. Practically no ice in sight, but a sunlit summer sea in place of the pack, with blue sky and c.u.mulo stratus clouds, so different from the gray, hard skies that hung so much over the great ice field we had just forced. The wind came fair as the day wore on and by 10 p.m. we were under plain sail, doing a good six knots. High mountains were visible to the west-ward, part of the Admiralty Range, two splendid peaks to be seen towering above the remainder, which appeared to be Mounts Sabine and Hersch.e.l.l. Coulman Island was seen in the distance during the day.
What odd thrills the sight of the Antarctic Continent sent through most of us. Land was first sighted late on New Year's Eve and I think everybody had come on deck at the cry ”Land oh!” To me those peaks always did and always will represent silent defiance; there were times when they made me shudder, but it is good to have looked upon them and to remember them in those post-War days of general discontent, for they remind me of the four Antarctic voyages which I have made and of the unanimous goodwill that obtained in each of the little wooden s.h.i.+ps which were our homes for so long. How infinitely distant those towering mountains seemed and how eternal their loneliness.
As we neared Cape Crozier Wilson became more and more interested. He was dreadfully keen on the beach there being selected as a base, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Certainly Scott was willing enough to try to effect a landing even apart from the advantage of having a new base. The Cape Crozier beach would probably mean a shorter journey to the Pole, for we should be spared the creva.s.ses which radiated from White Island and necessitated a big detour being made to avoid them.
As we proceeded the distant land appeared more plainly and we were able to admire and identify the various peaks of the snow-clad mountain range.
The year could not have opened more pleasantly. We had church in a warm sun, with a temperature several degrees above freezing point, and most of us spent our off-time basking in the suns.h.i.+ne, yarning, skylarking, and being happy in general.
We tried to get a white-bellied whale on the 2nd January, but our whale-gun did not seem to have any buck in it and the harpoon dribbled out a fraction of the distance it was expected to travel.
The same glorious weather continued on January 2, and Oates took five of the ponies on to the upper deck and got their stables cleared out. The poor animals had had no chance of being taken from their stalls for thirty-eight days, and their boxes were between two and three feet deep with manure. The four ponies stabled on the upper deck looked fairly well but were all stiff in their legs.
Rennick took soundings every forty or fifty miles in the Ross Sea, the depth varying from 357 fathoms comparatively close up to Cape Crozier to 180 fathoms in lat.i.tude 73 degrees.
Cape Crozier itself was sighted after breakfast on the 3rd, and the Great Ice Barrier appeared like a thin line on the southern horizon at 11.30 that morning. We were close to the Cape by lunch time, and by 1.30 we had furled sail in order to manoeuvre more freely. The ”Terra Nova” steamed close up to the face of the Barrier, then along to the westward until we arrived in a little bay where the Barrier joins Cape Crozier. Quite a tide was was.h.i.+ng past the cliff faces of the ice; it all looked very white, like chalk, while the sun was near the northern horizon, but later in the afternoon blue and green shadows were cast over the ice, giving it a softer and much more beautiful appearance. Ponting was given a chance to get some cinema films of the Barrier while we were cruising around, and then we stopped in the little bay where the Ice Barrier joins Cape Crozier, lowered a boat, and Captain Scott, Wilson, myself, and several others went insh.o.r.e in a whaler. We were, however, unable to land as the swell was rather too heavy for boat work. We saw an Emperor penguin chick and a couple of adult Emperors, besides many Adelie penguins and skua-gulls. We pulled along close under the great cliffs which frown over the end of the Great Ice Barrier. They contrasted strangely in their blackness with the low crystal ice cliffs of the Barrier itself. In one place we were splashed by the spray from quite a large waterfall, and one realised that the summer sun, beating down on those black foothills, must be melting enormous quant.i.ties of ice and snow. A curious ozone smell, which must have been the stench of the guano from the penguin rookeries, was noticed, but land smells of any sort were pleasant enough now for it brought home to us the fact that we should shortly embark on yet another stage of the Expedition.
Pennell conned the s.h.i.+p close under the cliffs and followed the boat along the coast. The ”Terra Nova” was quite dwarfed by the great rocky bluffs and we realised the height of the cliffs for the first time.
Whilst we were prospecting Nelson obtained water-bottle samples and temperatures at 10, 50, 100, and 200 fathoms. The deep water apparently continued to the foot of the cliff in most places but there were two or three tiny steep beaches close to the junction of the Barrier and Ross Island.