Part 17 (2/2)
But with the exception of Lashly and Crean that daydream never came true, for alas, those whose dearest lived for that Christmas _never_ came home, and the one other spared lost his wife, besides his five companions.
The two teams struggled on until after 8 p.m., when at last Scott signalled to camp. How tired we were--almost cross. But no sooner were the tents up than eyes looked out gladly from our dirty, bearded faces.
Once again the cooker boiled, and for that night we had a really good square meal--more than enough of everything--pemmican with pieces of pony meat in it, a chocolate biscuit, ”ragout” raisins, caramels, ginger, cocoa, b.u.t.ter, and a double ration of biscuits. How we watched Bowers cook that extra thick pemmican. Had he put too much pepper in? Would he upset it? How many pieces of pony meat would we get each? But the careful little Bowers neither burnt nor upset the hoosh: it was up to our wildest expectations. No one could have eaten more.
After the meal we gasped, we felt so comfortable.
But we had such yarns of home, such plans were made for next Christmas, and after all we got down our fur sleeping-bags, and for a change we were quite warm owing to the full amount of food which we so sorely needed.
After the others in my tent were asleep, little Birdie Bowers, bidding me ”Good-night,” said, ”Teddy, if all is well next Christmas we will get hold of all the poor children we can and just stuff them full of nice things, won't we?”
It was unthinkable then that five out of the eight of us would soon be lying frozen on the Great Ice Barrier, their lives forfeited by a series of crus.h.i.+ng defeats brought about by Nature, who alone metes out success or failure to win back for those who venture into the heart of that ice-bound continent.
Our Lat.i.tude was now 85 degrees 50 minutes S., we were 8000 feet above the Barrier. Temperature -8 degrees, with a fresh southerly wind, but we didn't care that night how hard it blew or whether it was Christmas or Easter. We had done 17 miles distance and success lay within our grasp apparently.
On the following day we were up at six and marched a good 15 miles south with no opposition from creva.s.ses or pressure ridges. The march over the Plateau continued without incident--excepting that on December 28 my team had a great struggle to keep up with Captain Scott's.
The surface was awfully soft, and though we discarded our outer garments we sweated tremendously. At about 11 a.m. Scott and I changed places. I found his sledge simply glided along whereas he found no such thing. The difference was considerable. After lunch we changed sledges and left Scott's team behind with ease. We stopped at the appointed time, and after supper Captain Scott came into our tent and told us that we had distorted our sledge by bad strapping or bad loading. This was, I think, correct, because Oates had dropped his sleeping-bag off a few days back through erring in the other direction and not strapping securely--we meant to have no recurrence and probably racked our sledge by heaving too hard on the straps.
The 29th was another day of very hard pulling. We were more than 9000 feet up--very nearly at the ”summit of the summit.” Quoting my diary I find set down for December 30 and 31 as follows.
”Sat.u.r.day, _December_ 30.
”Away at 8 a.m. Had a h.e.l.l of a day's hauling. We worked independently of the other sledge, camping for lunch at 1 p.m. about half a mile astern of them. Then off again, and hauled till 7.15 p.m., when we reached Captain Scott's camp, he being then stopped 3/4-hour. The surface was frightful and they had a heavy drag. Our distance to-day was 12 miles 1200 yards statute. We all turned in after our welcome hoosh, too tired to write up diaries even.
”Bill came in and had a yarn while we drank our cocoa.
”We are now about 9200 feet above the Barrier, temperature falls to about -15 degrees now. Position 86 degrees 49 minutes 9 seconds S., 162 degrees 50 minutes E.”
”_December_ 31.
”Out at 5.45, and then after a yarn with Captain Scott and our welcome pemmican, tea and biscuit. We in our tent depoted our ski, Alpine rope, and ski shoes, saving a considerable weight. We then started off a few minutes ahead of Captain Scott, and his team never got near us, in fact they actually lost ground. We marched for 5 1/2 hours solid, and had a good heavy drag, but not enough to distress us. We stopped at 1.30 p.m., having done 8 miles 116 yards statute. After our lunch we made a depot and put two weekly units in the snow cairn, which we built and marked with a black flag. The seamen (Evans and Crean) and Lashly spent the afternoon converting the 12 foot sledges to 10 foot with the spare runners, while the remainder of us foregathered in Captain Scott's tent, which Evans fitted with a lining to-day, making it beautifully warm. We sat in the tents with the door open and the sun s.h.i.+ning in--doing odd jobs. I worked out sights and wrote up this diary, which was a few days adrift. Temperature -10 degrees.
”We are now Past Shackleton's position for December 31, and it does look as if Captain Scott were bound to reach the Pole. Position 86 degrees 55 minutes 47 minutes S., 175 degrees 40 minutes E.
”At 7 p.m. Captain Scott cooked tea for all hands.
”At 8 p.m. the first sledge was finished and the men went straight on with the second. This was finished by midnight, and, having seen the New Year in, we had a fine pemmican hoosh and went to bed.”
New Year's Day found us in Lat.i.tude 87 degrees 7 minutes S. Height, 9300 feet above Barrier--a southerly wind, with temperature 14 degrees below zero.
On 2nd January I found the variation to be exactly 180 degrees. A skua gull appeared from the south and hovered round the sledges during the afternoon, then it settled on the snow once or twice and we tried to catch it.
Did 15 miles with ease, but we were now only pulling 130 lb. per man.
On January 3 Scott came into my tent before we began the day's march and informed me that he was taking his own team to the Pole. He also asked me to spare Bowers from mine if I thought I could make the return journey of 750 miles short-handed--this, of course, I consented to do, and so little Bowers left us to join the Polar party. Captain Scott said he felt that I was the only person capable of piloting the last supporting party back without a sledge meter. I felt very sorry for him having to break the news to us, although I had foreseen it--for Lashly and I knew we could never hope to be in the Polar party after our long drag out from Cape Evans itself.
We could not all go to the Pole--food would not allow this. Briefly then it was a disappointment, but not too great to bear; it would have been an unbearable blow to us had we known that almost in sight were Amundsen's tracks, and that all our dragging and straining at the trace had been in vain.
On 4th January we took four days' provision for three men and handed over the rest of our load to Scott.
Then we three, Lashly, Crean, and myself, marched south to Lat.i.tude 87 degrees 34 minutes S. with the Polar party, and, seeing that they were travelling rapidly yet easily, halted, shook hands all round, and said good-bye, and since no traces of the successful Norwegian had been found so far, we fondly imagined that our flag would be the first to fly at the South Pole. We gave three huge cheers for the Southern party, as they stepped off, and then turned our sledge and commenced our homeward march of between 750 and 800 statute miles. We frequently looked back until we saw the last of Captain Scott and his four companions--a tiny black speck on the horizon, and little did we think that we would be the last to see them alive, that our three cheers on that bleak and lonely plateau summit would be the last appreciation they would ever know.
<script>