The Winter Pony (9 page)

We passed the tip of the glacier and saw the ship anchored a few miles ahead, near a cape of rock and snow. Smoke wafted from its funnel. As we made our way toward it, I heard someone coming behind us, a hurried thud of hooves and feet. It was Uncle Bill, half dragging poor Birdie Bowers. The man
was wearing so many clothes that he looked as round as an egg. His face was fire-bright and slick with sweat. He’d put on his hat and his wind helmet, his parka, his sweaters, and three pairs of trousers, all to cross a bit of ice on a summer day. “It didn’t feel fair to make the pony carry my clothes,” he said. “So I wore my whole kit.” That made everyone laugh. Uncle Bill was so big that he could have carried the whole man without slowing down at all.

Smoke thickened from the ship’s funnel. I heard the sounds of motors and pulleys; I saw a group of men getting down to work. By the time we reached the ship, the motor sledges and the dogs had been unloaded. Captain Scott was helping Mr. Meares and the Russian harness their teams. Crates of supplies were swung down to the ice, but not Jehu. Not Chinaman.

From the ship came even more things than we’d unloaded at the wintering station. All our sledges and our gear, food and tents and oil—everything I could imagine came out of the ship and down to the ice. There was so much that we spent three days hauling it all to shore, and what a tremendous pile it made! The oats and fodder alone weighed more than fifteen thousand pounds.

When the ship was empty, it sailed off to the east to explore a new land, taking Jehu and Chinaman with it. Eight of us were left to tackle that pile of supplies. One load at a time, we hauled it around a ridge of ice, up a slope, up another, and on across the Barrier. The work was dreadfully difficult. We had only five miles to go to reach the Barrier, but getting there took forever. The snow was deep, the surface hard enough to hold a man or dog, but not a pony. I kept sinking to my knees
or deeper, wading through snow with my sledge bogged behind me. Uncle Bill and Guts surged their way through it, but for me and the other smaller ponies, it was a trial. I floundered badly because I couldn’t lift my legs clear of the snow. The more I fell behind, the harder I tried to catch up.

By the time we finished, I’d walked nearly a hundred miles, back and forth, with all my many trips.

At the top of the first slope, on a bit of snow-covered ground, stood an old and lonely hut. It was smaller than the one we’d built at the winter station. It looked long abandoned and now was stuffed full of snow and ice because someone had left a window open. But there was still food on the table, and more on the shelves, and signs of men all around, as if they’d heard us coming and run away to hide. Patrick found a tin of gingerbread that was crisp and sweet. Captain Scott discovered dinner rolls that had been put down half finished, and still had teeth marks in them.

I could tell that Captain Scott had been there before, that he had lived in the hut for a while. But other people had come and gone since he’d left it, and he was angry at things they had done. It made him sad and silent as he stood in the doorway, as if he was looking at ghosts.

On the sheltered side of the hut were footprints in the snow, where the wind had not swept them away. I snuffled around, wondering if I might find forgotten biscuits, or apples frozen solid. Instead, I found the marks of pony hooves pressed deeply into old drifts.

That was a curious thing. Disturbing. I didn’t like to think that other ponies had been to this frozen world and now had disappeared. I wished the men would tell me who had brought them, and what had happened in the end. But no one did.

It was late when we left the lonely hut with our first loads, heading south again. We struggled up to the Barrier, that huge, vast plain of snow and ice. It stretched farther than I could see, and its barren whiteness scared me. I kept looking sideways at the mountains on my right, glad they were nearby but afraid they would soon fade away. The men marked our path by building cairns of snow.

We traveled just half a mile more until Captain Scott blew on a whistle, and the man in the lead swung to the side with his pony. The rest of us followed, all turning out to the left, till we stood in a line sideways to our trail. As men set up their tents, our handlers stretched a picket line between two sledges and tied us to it with our tethers. They gave us food and blankets before they went away to their meals.

This was our first camp on the Barrier, and what a very cold place it was. I stood with my tail to the wind, watching Patrick’s tent. I never took my eyes away from it until he emerged in the morning.

The second day was worse. We went back with our empty sledges and brought more supplies up onto the Barrier. It was fine until we pushed past our old camp. Then we came into a big patch of soft snow, and I sank right into it. For half a mile, all of us floundered along. But I had the worst time of it, and
the other ponies passed me. When the snow grew solid again, I tried too hard to catch up. I tripped and sprained an ankle.

It was sudden. A jolt of pain burned through my leg and I fell forward onto my chest. Patrick, beside me, looked startled. “James, what’s wrong?” he said.

I didn’t want him to see that I was hurt. An injured pony was a dead pony; I had seen it a hundred times. So I clambered up and stood wobbling for a moment, trying not to cry out as I waited for the pain to go away. I ate some snow, though it chilled me right through. Then I pulled at the traces and tugged the sledge forward, hoping no one would notice my lameness.

But Patrick looked at me strangely. “You’re limping,” he said.

I tried to keep going, but he wouldn’t let me. He held my halter and called out loudly, “Captain Oates!”

His voice drifted away across the Barrier, soaked up by the snow and the sky. He shouted again, “Sir, my pony can’t walk!”

Far ahead, leading Punch, Mr. Oates stopped and looked back. Patrick waved to him with wide sweeps of his arm.

As much as I wanted to go on, it was a relief to stop walking. Big Uncle Bill was nearly a quarter of a mile ahead by then. He turned his head to see me. So did Weary Willy—much closer. So did Blucher and Guts and Blossom. But they all kept hauling through the snow. I didn’t expect them to stop, because there was nothing they could do. We had known all of our lives—or all the years we’d spent with men—what it meant to go lame.

I stared at Mr. Oates as he came trudging toward me. He
didn’t have a gun in his hand—not yet—but he didn’t look at me or at anyone else. Patrick rubbed my cheek with his bare knuckles. “It will be all right, James Pigg,” he said.

I knew he was trying to be kind. I pressed against him, and he pressed back.

I was sad. I didn’t want to be shot there in the sunshine, in that soft white snow. But I didn’t blame the men for what they had to do. This wasn’t their fault; it was mine. I felt sorry for Mr. Oates, and especially for Captain Scott because I’d let him down so badly. I wondered what he’d say when he heard the gunshot. I could almost hear his voice.
“Poor James Pigg. He was a good lad.”

Patrick kept petting me. Mr. Oates joined us, puffing his breaths in the cold. He pulled his gloves away with his teeth, squatted beside me, and lifted my sore foot.

“I think he twisted something,” said Patrick. “But he’ll be all right, won’t he, sir? A bit of a rest will sort him out?”

Mr. Oates kept pressing and poking at my tendons. “I doubt that very much,” he said.

“But he’s barely begun,” said Patrick with a small laugh. “He
has
to be all right.”

Mr. Oates stood up. He squinted at the sun, at the lonely Barrier stretching south. When he reached into his jacket, I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see the gun.

It was a hard thing to stand there and wait for the end. I heard the ponies struggling ahead, the dogs barking in the distance. Then I smelled tobacco and dared to take a look. And there was Mr. Oates with his pipe in his hand—not a gun. He lit it slowly, with nearly as much smoke as a steam engine, staring at me all that time.

“We could lighten his load, I suppose,” he said. “Give him a rest tomorrow. Maybe that will help.”

Patrick looked delighted. So was I, of course, but he didn’t really know that. He freed me from the traces and we walked very slowly together. He kept his hand firmly in my halter. “Come on, lad,” he said. “You’ll be getting to the Pole.”

To the Pole!
I didn’t really understand exactly. I pictured an actual pole somewhere very far away, a bit of wood standing lonely on the ice. I had no idea just then how far there was to go, or what troubles lay ahead. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I wanted to stay with Patrick, and now that I had his promise to take me to the Pole, I had no fear of being left behind.

I limped along beside him.

The men were cheerful, excited to be at the beginning of a big journey. They chattered all the time and laughed a lot as we plodded on. They pointed out every little thing, making sure every man shared each excitement. Someone spotted two strange mounds in the snow, and didn’t they wonder about that! They peered at them through telescopes, muttering away in their groups like the penguins on the ice. Then Captain Scott went over to have a look.

We saw him bend down and brush the snow with his mittens. Then he pulled up scraps of old cloth, and wooden sticks, and something that sparkled in the sun.

“Good Lord, they’re tents!” said Birdie Bowers.

He was right. Out there on the Barrier, buried and forgotten,
a pair of tents stood flapping in the wind where men had stopped and ate and slept.

The sparkling thing was a stove. Captain Scott got it going, and he cooked a meal from the things in the tent: cocoa and Bovril, sheeps’ tongue, cheese and biscuits. I was offered one of the biscuits by Patrick. It disappointed him badly when I wouldn’t take it, but I didn’t feel like eating. The wind blew gritty snow across the Barrier, and the men sat with their backs to the blow, eating food that I thought belonged to ghosts.

We pushed on a little farther, then stopped to make camp. Patrick offered me a biscuit again, and this time I took it. He smiled as I ate. At the other end of the picket line, Birdie Bowers was feeding biscuits to Uncle Bill, because he was worried about
him
as well. “He’s having trouble with his forefeet,” said Birdie. Even the biggest pony was struggling, so I didn’t feel so bad.

Mr. Oates made me rest the next day while the other ponies brought up more supplies. It was awful to be left behind and see them trek off through the snow. But my leg was very sore, and in truth I was glad for the rest. In my old home in the forest, I would have been kept at work until I finally fell in my tracks. That would have been hard to bear, but all I’d expect. I had believed it was the way to the ponies’ place, that I could never get there by shirking.

Hours and hours went by before I heard the ponies coming back, their sledges rasping in the snow, their breaths hot and panting. I felt lonely then, afraid they’d be angry because I hadn’t done my share. But Blossom came and nibbled at me, picking away my lice, and I knew that no one minded that I had stayed behind.