Alone (17 page)

The aches and pains had not subsided; and it took me several hours to fall asleep; but that night I slept better than on any night since May 31st; and in the morning was better in mind and body both.

*****

The melancholy began to left, and I was able to do a little more for myself. Wednesday the 6th I succeeded in getting topside for the 8 a.m. weather "ob." Although the morning was clear, drift still blurred the horizon and peppered my face. I sank to my knees in soft snow at every step. It was good to possess the spaciousness of the Barrier after the narrowness of the shack. I threw the beam of my flashlight at the wind vane, and saw that the wind was in the southeast. That means cold, I muttered. Rime covered everything. The breathing slats in the sides of the instrument shelter were thick with drift, but I did not feel up to brushing it off. I was satisfied to read the thermometer, reset the pin, and retreat below.

Later, I crept to the far end of the fuel tunnel and secured a small piece of asbestos, which I cut to fit over the top of the stove. My idea was that it would help to shut off the initial fumes that poured through the chinks while the burner was still cold and smoky. I cut the piece to fit snugly around the stovepipe and fold over the edges of the stove.

In the afternoon I eavesdropped on Little America's weekly broadcast to the United States. [2 o'clock Little America time; 9 o'clock Eastern Standard time.] One reason was that prudence suggested testing my handiness with the battery-powered emergency set. But the moving reason was a hunger for familiar voices. I missed much of what was said, but I did catch the solemn to-do over the three cows at Little America; how one stood up all the time and refused to lie down; and how another, which was accustomed to lying down every night, lay down with the coming of the winter night and refused to stand up; and how the third, poor thing, couldn't make up her mind just what to do, except roll her eyes at Cox, the carpenter, who haunted the cowbarn. I really chuckled over that and over "Ike" Schlossbach's baritone solo called "Love, You Funny Thing." Other people in Antarctica, I realized, had their problems too.

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Chapter Eight -- JUNE II: THE STRUGGLE

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My scheduled contact with Little America which fell on the next day -- Thursday the 7th -- confirmed what I knew in my heart: That the improvement in my condition was more mental than physical. Though I was less weak, I was at least three hours getting fuel, heating the engine, sweating it into the shack and out, and completing the other preparations. I moved feebly like a very old man. Once I leaned against the tunnel wall, too far gone to push the engine another inch. You're mad, I whispered to myself. It would be better to stay in the bunk and cut out paper dolls than keep up this damnable nonsense.

That day the cold was worse. The thermograph showed a minimum of 48 degrees below zero. From all indications the "heat wave" was broken. The slick white film of ice on the walls had climbed from the floor halfway to the ceiling. All my resistance to cold seemed to have vanished. My flesh crawled, and my fingers beat an uncontrollable tattoo against everything they touched. It was disheartening to be so much at the mercy of something from which there was no lasting escape. Resting betweenwhiles, I huddled over the stove. The warmth was only superficial. My blood ran cold as ice.

In spite of all my efforts, I was late making contact. Dyer was playing a record, as he sometimes did when he grew tired of repeating the call. I finally recognized what it was -- "The Pilgrim's Song" from
Tannhauser
; I waited much stirred, until the record was played out. When I broke in, Charlie Murphy chided me: "Oversleep, Dick?"

"No, busy."

Charlie had little to say. Siple, however, was waiting to read a paper. As well as I can remember, it dealt with the theoretical configuration of the undiscovered coastal reaches of the Pacific Quadrant, where I was supposed to make a flight of exploration in the spring. Interesting, yes; there was no denying the thought that Siple had put into it. And, desperate as I was to close the conversation, I could not help but reflect that this was the most exquisite of ironies: that I should sit there, gripping the table for support, and listen to a theory about a coast I had never seen and now might never see.

If I remember rightly, I said: "Very interesting. Submit to scientific staff." Dyer broke in to ask if I had any further messages before signing off. I asked him if it would be possible to shift the schedules from the morning to the afternoon. He replied: "Wait a minute, please." Although the words were unintelligible, I could hear voices talking in the background. Dyer said that they were perfectly willing to make the change if I wished it, but that to do so would involve shifting their own schedules with the United States, which had been fixed after long testing. "Never mind," I said. And, for the time being, let the subject drop, not wishing to excite suspicion. Directly after the schedule I took to my bunk, and scarcely moved the rest of the day. The pain was back, and with it the bitterness and the discouragement.

Why bother? they argued mockingly. Why not let things drift? That would be the simple way. Your philosophy tells you to immerse yourself in the universal processes. Well, the processes here are in the direction of uninterrupted disintegration. That is the direction of everlasting peace. So why resist?

From that day on I came to dread the radio schedules with Little America. The task of getting the engine ready, together with the ever-present fumes, emptied me of whatever strength and resistance I had accumulated meanwhile. It seemed almost better to let the radio go by the board. I tried to think up excuses for stopping the contacts altogether which I could present to Little America over the next schedule, but none made sense. I couldn't very well say that the conversations were beginning to bore me or that the transmitter was on the verge of breakdown and not to be worried if Advance Base went off the air. For one thing, many expedition problems remained to be discussed with Poulter and Murphy; and, in spite of the explicit orders I had left with the officers at Little America and reiterated to the tractor crew just before they departed for Advance Base, I couldn't help but feel that any lasting silence on my part might tempt the camp into some rash move.

Thus, I was caught up in a vicious circle. If I kept up the schedules, the drain upon my strength plus the fumes would almost certainly finish me off; if I failed to keep them up, I had better be finished off anyway. This was the way I looked at the situation -- the way I believe that any member of the expedition in my position would have viewed it. Just as any normal man would be, I was doggedly determined to keep them from attempting a possibly disastrous relief excursion.

So I came to dread the schedules for a second reason: the fear that I would betray the condition which I was trying to hide by maintaining them. I knew that Murphy was always studying me in his cynical, penetrating fashion. As time went on, I sent amusing messages to throw him off. (I must say, though, that most of these looked pretty silly afterwards.) But, when a course of action is obvious, you take it for granted that you could not deliberately do otherwise; and, when your conscience is too weak to hold you to that course, you continue along it from momentum. By an ironical twist of circumstances the radio, which should have been the greatest safety factor, had instead become my greatest enemy.

That Thursday night I really grasped how far I had fallen. In the diary I wrote: " . . . These early morning schedules are killing. They leave me without strength to go through the day. Tremendously difficult to get even a little sleep. There are strange nagging pains in my arms, legs, shoulders, and lungs. . . . I'm doing everything possible to hold out. Could I but read, the hours would not seem half so long, the darkness half so oppressive, and my minor misfortunes half so formidable. . . ."

Across the room, in the shadows beyond the reach of the storm lantern, were rows of books, many of them great books, preserving the distillates of profound lives. But I could not read them. The pain in my eyes would not let me. The phonograph was there, but the energy to crank it had to be saved for the business of living. Every small aspect of the shack bespoke my weakness: the wavering, smoking flame in the lantern and the limp outlines of the clothing on the walls; the frozen cans of food on the table, the slick patches of ice on the deck, the darker stains of spilt kerosene, and the yellowed places where I had vomited; the overturned chair beside the stove which I hadn't bothered to pick up, and the book -- John Marquand's
Lord Timothy Dexter of Newbury
-- which lay face down on the table.

*****

June 8
I am endeavoring to set forth, day by day, the way I live. I am steadfastly holding to a routine designed to give me the best chance of pulling through. Though the mere thought of food is revolting, I force myself to eat -- a mouthful at a time. I takes me two or three minutes just to get down a single mouthful. Mostly I eat dehydrated vegetables -- dried lima beans, rice, turnip tops, corn, and canned tomatoes -- which contain the necessary vitamins -- occasionally cold cereals slaked with powdered milk, When I feel up to it, I cook fresh seal meat.

The uncertainty of my existence rises from the realization, when I blow out the candles at night, that I may lack the strength to get up on the morrow. In my stronger moments I fill the oil tank supplying the stove. I use kerosene exclusively now. Its fumes seem less injurious than those from the solvent. I no longer carry the tank into the tunnel as at first. My only container holds just one gallon, and I must make four trips into the tunnel to fill the tank and supply fuel for my lantern. I creep a bit, then rest a bit -- over an hour at the job this morning. I froze my hand rather badly. Little by little I've added to the food stores on the shelves within reach of my bunk. They are my emergency cache. The last thing I do when I turn in is to make sure that the lantern is full of oil. If some morning I cannot get out of my bunk, I shall have enough food and light at hand to carry on for a while.

What baffles me is that I have no reserve strength whatever. Climbing the ladder to go topside, I must rest at every other rung. The temperature today was only 40 degrees below zero; but, though I was clad in furs, the cold seemed to shrivel my bones. It's been blowing pretty steadily from the southeast, and I can't seem to keep any heat in the shack. At night the pains in my body nag incessantly. Sleep is what I need most, but it seldom comes. I drift into a torpor, lighted up by fearful nightmares. Mornings it's a tough job to drive myself out of the sleeping bag. I feel as if I had been drugged. But I tell myself, over and over again, that if I give in -- if I let this stupor claim me -- I may never awaken.

Little by little I came to my feet and regained a measure of control over my affairs. But the improvement came so gradually and was interrupted by so many attacks that it was perceptible only over a long period; it was most apparent in my somewhat improved ability to control my moods of depression. Although I tried to resume the auroral observations, I was in truth too weak to stay for more than a few minutes topside. What I did was to brace the trapdoor with a stick, and peer from underneath while clinging to the ladder. Sunday came in gloomy and on the warm side. On the register trace a wind no stronger than a whisper slewed out of the north, through east and into the southeast; the temperature rose to 4 degrees. I was grateful for that. Most of the afternoon the fire was out; and I persuaded myself that the letup from the fumes was helping me to throw off the exhaustion that followed the radio schedule.

Now that the agony in my eyes and head was diminishing, the hardest thing to put up with was the gloom in the shack. I had craved light before, but in June I lusted for it. The storm lantern and the candles were at best only yellow puddles in a cave. I was afraid to light the gasoline pressure lamp. For one thing, I had to pump air into it with a small piston, which took more strength than I was willing to expend. Another thing, the burner had first to be heated with meta tablets, and the fumes at first were always noticeable. No man could have been more careful than I was. During the brief conversation with Little America, I asked them to have Dr. Poulter consult with the Bureau of Standards in Washington and find out: (1) whether the wick lantern gave off less fumes than the pressure lantern; and (2) whether moisture in the kerosene or Stoddard solvent (in consequence of thawing rime in the stovepipe) would be apt to cause carbon monoxide. I presented the question in an offhand way; and Guy Hutcheson, the other radio engineer, who occasionally relieved Dyer, said he would deliver the message to Poulter and in all probability I would have a reply from Washington by the next schedule, which was Thursday. My life at this time is summed up in the diary entry for this day:

June 10
. . . During my rare "up" moments I compel myself to draw all my fuel from the farther drum in the tunnel. The roof is caving in again at that end, and I haven't the strength to shore it properly. These few extra steps I may presently be unable to take, and I want a full drum nearby. Even now I sometimes can hardly reach the nearer drum.

I dare say that every ounce of egotism has been knocked out of me; and yet, today, when I looked at the small heap of data in the tunnel, I felt some stirrings of pride. But I wish that the instruments did not always make their inevitable demands, even though they require little actual strength. How pitilessly resolute and faithful they are. In the cold and darkness of this polar silence they steadfastly do their appointed jobs, clicking day and night, demanding a replenishment I cannot give myself. Sometimes, when my body is aching and fingers won't obey, they appear utterly remorseless. Over and over they seem to say, "If we stop, you stop; if you stop, we stop."

June 11
I'm trying to reduce fumes by lagging the stovepipe with surgical tape. The stove burns low most of the day, and to be sure of good ventilation I keep the shack door always open into the tunnel much of the time. So it's always cold. A piece of meat left lying on the table hasn't thawed out in five days.

In the afternoon I put the fire out to cut fumes and got in my sleeping bag until 6:30. The pain in my shoulders is so intense that at times I cannot lie on my back. I crave sedatives, but dare not risk them. Too near the ragged edge to let down even for an hour.

Still can't eat properly -- have to force food down by chewing it to the point of dissolution. To take my mind off the distress of my stomach, I sometimes play solitaire while I eat. I use three decks of cards. They are marked A, B, C. I keep score and bet against myself. My arms grow weary just dealing the cards. Finished a whole game tonight before I downed three mouthfuls of food.

By then it was time for the 8 p.m. "ob." Rested afterwards, and went above again to note the 10 p.m. aurora. You see, my existence, like the most commonplace life, is regulated by routine -- a pattern endlessly and inexorably repeating itself. Nevertheless, since the 31st it is almost always precarious.

Snow fell during the night. When I crept up the ladder this morning, I found I couldn't budge the hatch by my usual method. I rested and tried to lift it with my shoulders. Not a stir. I came below and got a hammer. Pounding finally broke it loose. It left me exhausted for quite a while.

June 13
For an Antarctic June the weather has been surprisingly mild. I have the thermograph sheets and the Weather Bureau forms beside me as I write this (I'm stretched out in the sleeping bag), and from them I find that the lowest reading since the first was -46 degrees, on the 7th. Yesterday's minimum was -38 degrees; today's
-34 degrees. Also, the air has been almost dead still, which helped, too.

Nevertheless, I've had the fire out so much of the time that the ice on the walls never melts. I've been watching it creep slowly toward the ceiling. It seems to rise at the rate of an inch or so every day. But in spite of everything I seem to be improving. Incidentally, I have given up the morning tea. It was a wrench to do that, having been a tea-drinker all my life; but it seemed best to give up all stimulants, however mild.