The Worst Journey in the World (7 page)

By March 17 the cave was sufficiently advanced for three men to move in.
Priestley must tell how this was done, but it should not be supposed that
the weather conditions were in any way abnormal on what they afterwards
called Inexpressible Island:

"March 17. 7 P.M. Strong south-west breeze all day, freshening to a full
gale at night. We have had an awful day, but have managed to shift
enough gear into the cave to live there temporarily. Our tempers have
never been so tried during the whole of our life together, but they have
stood the strain pretty successfully.... May I never have such another
three trips as were those to-day. Every time the wind lulled a little I
fell over to windward, and at every gust I was pitched to leeward, while
a dozen times or more I was taken off my feet and dashed against the
ground or against unfriendly boulders. The other two had equally bad
times. Dickason hurt his knee and ankle and lost his sheath knife, and
Campbell lost a compass and some revolver cartridges in the two trips
they made. Altogether it was lucky we got across at all."
^[23]

It was a fortunate thing that this wind often blew quite clear without
snowfall or drift. Two days later in the same gale the tent of the other
three men collapsed on top of them at 8 A.M. At 4 P.M. the sun was going
down and they settled to make their way across to their comrades. Levick
tells the story as follows:

"Having done this
(securing the remains of the tent, etc.)
, we started on
our journey. This lay, first of all, across half a mile of clear blue
ice, swept by the unbroken wind, which met us almost straight in the
face. We could never stand up, so had to scramble the whole distance on
'all fours,' lying flat on our bellies in the gusts. By the time we had
reached the other side we had had enough. Our faces had been rather badly
bitten, and I have a very strong recollection of the men's countenances,
which were a leaden blue, streaked with white patches of frost-bite. Once
across, however, we reached the shelter of some large boulders on the
shore of the island, and waited here long enough to thaw out our noses,
ears, and cheeks. A scramble of another six hundred yards brought us to
the half-finished igloo, into which we found that the rest of the party
had barricaded themselves, and, after a little shouting, they came and
let us in, giving us a warm welcome, and about the most welcome hot meal
that I think any of us had ever eaten."

Priestley continues:

"After the arrival of the evicted party we made hoosh, and as we warmed
up from the meal, we cheered up and had one of the most successful
sing-songs we had ever had forgetting all our troubles for an hour or
two. It is a pleasing picture to look back upon now, and, if I close my
eyes, I can see again the little cave cut out in snow and ice with the
tent flapping in the doorway, barely secured by ice-axe and shovel
arranged crosswise against the side of the shaft. The cave is lighted up
with three or four small blubber lamps, which give a soft yellow light.
At one end lie Campbell, Dickason and myself in our sleeping-bags,
resting after the day's work, and, opposite to us, on a raised dais
formed by a portion of the floor not yet levelled, Levick, Browning and
Abbott sit discussing their seal hoosh, while the primus hums cheerily
under the cooker containing the coloured water which served with us
instead of cocoa. As the diners warm up jests begin to fly between the
rival tents and the interchange is brisk, though we have the upper hand
to-day, having an inexhaustible subject in the recent disaster to their
tent, and their forced abandonment of their household gods. Suddenly some
one starts a song with a chorus, and the noise from the primus is dwarfed
immediately. One by one we go through our favourites, and the concert
lasts for a couple of hours. By this time the lamps are getting low, and
gradually the cold begins to overcome the effects of the hoosh and the
cocoa. One after another the singers begin to shiver, and all thoughts of
song disappear as we realize what we are in for. A night with one one-man
bag between two men! There is a whole world of discomfort in the very
thought, and no one feels inclined to jest about that for the moment.
Those jests will come all right to-morrow when the night is safely past,
but this evening it is anything but a cheery subject of contemplation.
There is no help for it, however, and each of us prepares to take another
man in so far as he can."
^[24]

In such spirit and under very similar conditions this dauntless party
set about passing through one of the most horrible winters which God has
invented. They were very hungry, for the wind which kept the sea open
also made the shore almost impossible for seals. There were red-letter
days, however, such as when Browning found and killed a seal, and in its
stomach, "not too far digested to be still eatable," were thirty-six
fish. And what visions of joy for the future. "We never again found a
seal with an eatable meal inside him, but we were always hoping to do so,
and a kill was, therefore, always a gamble. Whenever a seal was sighted
in future, some one said, 'Fish!' and there was always a scramble to
search the beast first."
^[25]

They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber lamps. Their clothes
and gear were soaked with blubber, and the soot blackened them, their
sleeping-bags, cookers, walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed
their eyes. Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as to
afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with blubber that
they would stand up by themselves, in spite of frequent scrapings with
knives and rubbings with penguin skins, and always there were underfoot
the great granite boulders which made walking difficult even in daylight
and calm weather. As Levick said, "the road to hell might be paved with
good intentions, but it seemed probable that hell itself would be paved
something after the style of Inexpressible Island."

But there were consolations; the long-waited-for lump of sugar: the
sing-songs—and about these there hangs a story. When Campbell's Party
and the remains of the Main Party forgathered at Cape Evans in November
1912, Campbell would give out the hymns for Church. The first Sunday we
had 'Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore Him,' and the second, and the
third. We suggested a change, to which Campbell asked, "Why?" We said it
got a bit monotonous. "Oh no," said Campbell, "we always sang it on
Inexpressible Island." It was also about the only one he knew. Apart from
this I do not know whether 'Old King Cole' or the Te Deum was more
popular. For reading they had David Copperfield, the Decameron, the Life
of Stevenson and a New Testament. And they did Swedish drill, and they
gave lectures.

Their worst difficulties were scurvy
^[26]
and ptomaine poisoning, for
which the enforced diet was responsible. From the first they decided to
keep nearly all their unused rations for sledging down the coast in the
following spring, and this meant that they must live till then on the
seal and penguin which they could kill. The first dysentery was early in
the winter, and was caused by using the salt from the sea-water. They had
some Cerebos salt, however, in their sledging rations, and used it for a
week, which stopped the disorder and they gradually got used to the
sea-ice salt. Browning, however, who had had enteric fever in the past,
had dysentery almost continually right through the winter. Had he not
been the plucky, cheerful man he is, he would have died.

In June again there was another bad attack of dysentery. Another thing
which worried them somewhat was the 'igloo back,' a semi-permanent kink
caused by seldom being able to stand upright.

Then, in the beginning of September, they had ptomaine poisoning from
meat which had been too long in what they called the oven, which was a
biscuit box, hung over the blubber stove, into which they placed the
frozen meat to thaw it out. This oven was found to be not quite level,
and in a corner a pool of old blood, water and scraps of meat had
collected. This and a tainted hoosh which they did not have the strength
of mind to throw away in their hungry condition, seems to have caused the
outbreak, which was severe. Browning and Dickason were especially bad.

They had their bad days: those first days of realization that they would
not be relieved: days of depression, disease and hunger, all at once:
when the seal seemed as if they would give out and they were thinking
they would have to travel down the coast in the winter—but Abbott killed
two seals with a greasy knife, losing the use of three fingers in the
process, and saved the situation.

But they also had their good, or less-bad, days: such was mid-winter
night when they held food in their hands and did not want to eat it, for
they were full: or when they got through the Te Deum without a hitch: or
when they killed some penguins; or got a ration of mustard plaster from
the medical stores.

Never was a more cheerful or good-tempered party. They set out to see the
humorous side of everything, and, if they could not do so one day, at any
rate they determined to see to it the next. What is more they succeeded,
and I have never seen a company of better welded men than that which
joined us for those last two months in McMurdo Sound.

On September 30 they started home—so they called it. This meant a sledge
journey of some two hundred miles along the coast, and its possibility
depended upon the presence of sea-ice, which we have seen to have been
absent at Evans Coves. It also meant crossing the Drygalski Ice Tongue,
an obstacle which bulked very formidably in their imaginations during the
winter. They reached the last rise of this glacier in the evening of
October 10, and then saw Erebus, one hundred and fifty miles off. The
igloo and the past were behind: Cape Evans and the future were in
front—and the sea-ice was in as far as they could see.

Dickason was half crippled with dysentery when they started, but
improved. Browning, however, was still very ill, but now they were able
to eat a ration of four biscuits a day and a small amount of pemmican and
cocoa which gave him a better chance than the continual meat. As they
neared Granite Harbour, a month after starting, his condition was so
serious that they discussed leaving him there with Levick until they
could get medicine and suitable food from Cape Evans.

But their troubles were nearly over, for on reaching Cape Roberts they
suddenly sighted the depôt left by Taylor in the previous year. They
searched round, like dogs, scratching in the drifts, and found—a whole
case of biscuits: and there were butter and raisins and lard. Day and
night merged into one long lingering feast, and when they started on
again their mouths were sore
^[27]
with eating biscuits. More, there is
little doubt that the change of diet saved Browning's life. As they moved
down the coast they found another depôt, and yet another. They reached
Hut Point on November 5.

The story of this, our Northern Party, has been told in full by the two
men most able to tell it: by Campbell in the second volume of Scott's
book, by Priestley in a separate volume called Antarctic Adventure.
^[28]
I
have added only these few pages because, save in so far as their
adventures touch the Main Party or the Ship, it is better that I should
refer the reader to these two accounts than that I should try and write
again at second hand what has been already twice told. I will only say
here that the history of what these men did and suffered has been
overshadowed by the more tragic tale of the Polar Party. They are not men
who wish for public applause, but that is no reason why the story of a
great adventure should not be known; indeed, it is all the more reason
why it should be known. To those who have not read it I recommend
Priestley's book mentioned above, or Campbell's equally modest account in
Scott's Last Expedition.
^[29]

The Terra Nova arrived at Cape Evans on January 18, 1913, just as we had
started to prepare for another year. And so the remains of the expedition
came home that spring. Scott's book was published in the autumn.

The story of Scott's Last Expedition of 1910-13 is a book of two volumes,
the first volume of which is Scott's personal diary of the expedition,
written from day to day before he turned into his sleeping-bag for the
night when sledging, or in the intervals of the many details of
organization and preparation in the hut, when at Winter Quarters. The
readers of this book will probably have read that diary and the accounts
of the Winter Journey, the last year, the adventures of Campbell's Party
and the travels of the Terra Nova which follow. With an object which I
will explain presently I quote a review of Scott's book from the pen of
one of Mr. Punch's staff:
^[30]

"There is courage and strength and loyalty and love shining out of the
second volume no less than out of the first; there were gallant gentlemen
who lived as well as gallant gentlemen who died; but it is the story of
Scott, told by himself, which will give the book a place among the great
books of the world. That story begins in November 1910, and ends on March
29, 1912, and it is because when you come to the end, you will have lived
with Scott for sixteen months, that you will not be able to read the last
pages without tears. That message to the public was heartrending enough
when it first came to us, but it was as the story of how a great hero
fell that we read it; now it is just the tale of how a dear friend died.
To have read this book is to have known Scott; and if I were asked to
describe him, I think I should use some such words as those which, six
months before he died, he used of the gallant gentleman who went with
him, 'Bill' Wilson. 'Words must always fail when I talk of him,' he
wrote; 'I believe he is the finest character I ever met—the closer one
gets to him the more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and
dependable. Whatever the matter, one knows Bill will be sound, shrewdly
practical, intensely loyal, and quite unselfish.' That is true of Wilson,
if Scott says so, for he knew men; but most of it is also true of Scott
himself. I have never met a more beautiful character than that which is
revealed unconsciously in these journals. His humanity, his courage, his
faith, his steadfastness, above all, his simplicity, mark him as a man
among men. It is because of his simplicity that his last message, the
last entries in his diary, his last letters, are of such undying beauty.
The letter of consolation (and almost of apology) which, on the verge of
death, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson, wife of the man dying at his side, may
well be Scott's monument. He could have no finer. And he has raised a
monument for those other gallant gentlemen who died—Wilson, Oates,
Bowers, Evans. They are all drawn for us clearly by him in these pages;
they stand out unmistakably. They, too, come to be friends of ours, their
death is as noble and as heartbreaking. And there were gallant gentlemen,
I said, who lived—you may read amazing stories of them. Indeed, it is a
wonderful tale of manliness that these two volumes tell us. I put them
down now; but I have been for a few days in the company of the brave ...
and every hour with them has made me more proud for those that died and
more humble for myself."