The Home Of The Blizzard Part 39

The toil of it none may share; By yourself must the way be won Through fervid or frozen air Till the overland journey's done.

Christmas Day! The day that ever reminds one of the sweet story of old, the lessons of childhood, the joys of Santa Claus--the day on which the thoughts of the wildest wanderer turn to home and peace and love. All the world was cheerful; the sun was bright, the air was calm. It was the hometrail, provisions were in plenty, the sledge was light and our hearts lighter.

The eastern edge of Ninnis Glacier was near, and, leaving the sea-ice, we were soon straining up the first slope, backed by a line of ridges trending north-east and south-west, with shallow valleys intervening. On the wind-swept crests there were a few creva.s.ses well packed with snow.

It was a day's work of twelve miles and we felt ready for Christmas dinner. McLean was cook and had put some apple-rings to soak in the cooker after the boil-up at lunch. Beyond this and the fact that he took some penguin-meat into the tent, he kept his plans in the deepest mystery. Correll and I were kept outside making things snug and taking the meteorological observations, until the word came to enter. When at last we scrambled in, a delicious smell diffused through the tent, and there was a sound of frying inside the cooker-pot. We were presented with a menu which read:

"Peace on earth, good will to men."

Xmas 1912 KING GEORGE V. LAND 200 miles east of Winter Quarters.

MENU DU DINER Hors d'oeuvre Biscuit de plasmon Ration du lard glace

Entree Monsieur l'Empereur Pingouin frica.s.se

Piece de Resistance Pemmican naturel a l'Antarctique

Dessert Hotch-potch de pommes et de raisins Chocolat au sucre glaxone Liqueur bien ancienne de l'Ecosse

Cigarettes Tabac

The hors d'oeuvre of bacon ration was a welcome surprise. McLean had carried the tin unknown to us up till this moment. The penguin, fried in lumps of fat taken from the pemmican, and a little b.u.t.ter, was delicious. In the same pot the hoosh was boiled and for once we noted an added piquancy. Next followed the plum-pudding--dense mixture of powdered biscuit, glaxo, sugar, raisins and apple-rings, surpa.s.sing the finest, flaming, holly-decked, Christmas creation.

Then came the toasts. McLean produced the whisky from the medical kit and served it out, much diluted, in three mugs. There was not three ounces in all, but it flavoured the water.

I was asked to call "The King." McLean proposed "The Other Sledgers" in a n.o.ble speech, wis.h.i.+ng them every success; and then there were a few drops left to drink to "Ourselves," whom Correll eulogized to our complete satisfaction. We then drew on the meagre supply of cigarettes and lay on our bags, feeling as comfortable as the daintiest epicure after a twelve-course dinner, drinking his coffee and smoking his cigar.

We talked till twelve o'clock, and then went outside to look at the midnight sun, s.h.i.+ning brightly just above the southern horizon. Turning in, we were once more at home in our dreams.

By a lat.i.tude shot at noon on Boxing Day, I found that our position was not as far north as expected. The following wind had been probably slightly east of south-east and too much westing had been made. From a tangle of broken ridges whose surface was often granular, half-consolidated ice, the end of the day opened up a lilac plain of sea-ice ahead. We were once more on the western side of Ninnis Glacier and the familiar coast of Penguin Point, partly hidden by an iceberg, sprang into view. The depot hill to the north-west could be recognized, twenty miles away, across a wide bay. By hooch-time we had found a secure path to the sea-ice, one hundred and eighty feet below.

The wind sprang up opportunely on the morning of the 27th, and the sun was serene in a blue sky. Up went the sail and with a feather-weight load we strode off for the depot eighteen miles distant. Three wide rifts in the sea-ice exercised our ingenuity during the day's march, but by the time the sun was in the south-west the sledge was sawing through the sandy snow of the depot hill. It was unfortunate that the food of this depot had been cached so far out of our westerly course, as the time expended in recovering it might have been profitably given to a survey of the mainland east of Penguin Point. At 6.20 P.M., after eighteen and a quarter miles, the food-bag was sighted on the mound, and that night the dinner at our one-hundred-and-fifty-two-mile depot was marked by some special innovations.

Penguin Point, thirty miles away, bore W. 15 degrees S., and next day we made a bid for it by a march of sixteen miles. There was eleven days'

ration on the sledge to take us to Mount Murchison, ninety miles away; consequently the circuitous route to the land was held to be a safe "proposition."

Many rock faces became visible, and I was able to fix numerous prominent points with the theodolite.

At three miles off the coast, the surface became broken by ridges, small bergs and high, narrow cupolas of ice surrounded by deep moats. One of these was very striking. It rose out of a wind-raked hollow to a height of fifty feet; just the shape of an ancient Athenian helmet. McLean took a photograph.

As at Horn Bluff, the ice became thinner and freer of snow as we drew near the Point. The rocky wall under which the tent was raised proved to be three hundred feet high, jutting out from beneath the slopes of ice.

From here the coast ran almost south on one side and north-west on the other. On either hand there were dark faces corniced with snow.

The next day was devoted to exploration. Adelie penguins waddled about the tide-crack over which we crossed to examine the rock, which was of coa.r.s.e-grained granite, presenting great, vertical faces. Hundreds of snow petrels flew about and some stray skua gulls were seen.

Near the camp, on thick ice, were several large blocks of granite which had floated out from the sh.o.r.e and lay each in its pool of thaw-water, covered with serpulae and lace coral.

Correll, our Izaak Walton, had brought a fis.h.i.+ng-line and some penguin-meat. He stopped near the camp fis.h.i.+ng while McLean and I continued down the coast, examining the outcrops. The type of granite remained unchanged in the numerous exposures.

I had noticed a continuous rustling sound for some time and found at length that it was caused by little streams of ice-crystals running down the steep slopes in cascades, finally pouring out in piles on the sea-ice. The partial thaw in the sunlight causes the semi-solid ice to break up into separate grains. Sometimes whole areas of the surface, in delicate equilibrium, would suddenly flow rapidly away.

For three miles we walked, and as the next four miles of visible coast presented no extensive outcrops, we turned back for lunch.

During the afternoon, on the summit of the Point, it was found that an uneven rocky area, about a quarter of a mile wide, ran backwards to the ice-falls of the plateau. The surface was very broken and weathered, covered in patches by abundant lichens and mosses. Fossicking round in the gravel, Correll happened on some tiny insect-like mites living amongst the moss or on the moist under side of slabs of stone. This set us all insect-hunting. Alcohol was brought in a small bottle from the tent, and into this they were swept in myriads with a camel's-hair brush. From the vantage-point of a high rock in the neighbourhood the long tongue of Mertz Glacier could be seen running away to the north.

At 8.30 A.M., on New Year's Eve, we set off for another line of rocks about four miles away to the west. There were two ma.s.ses forming an angle in the ice-front and consisting of two main ridges rising to a height of two hundred and fifty feet, running back into the ice-cap for a mile, and divided by a small glacier.

This region was soon found to be a perfect menagerie of life. Seals lay about dozing peacefully by the narrow lanes of water. Adelie penguins strutted in procession up and down the little glacier. To reach his rookery, a penguin would leap four feet on to a ledge of the ice-foot, painfully pad up the gla.s.sy slope and then awkwardly scale the rocks until he came to a level of one hundred and fifty feet. Here he took over the care of a chick or an egg, while the other bird went to fish.

Skua gulls flew about, continually molesting the rookeries. One area of the rocks was covered by a luxuriant growth of green moss covering guano and littered skeletons--the site of a deserted rookery.

Correll and I went up to where the ridges converged, selecting numerous specimens of rock and mineral and finding thousands of small red mites in the moist gravel. Down on the southern ridge we happened on a Wilson petrel with feathered nestlings. At this point McLean came along from the west with the news of silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons nesting in hundreds. He had secured two of each species and several eggs. This was indeed a discovery, as the eggs of the former birds had never before been found. Quite close to us were many snow petrels in all kinds of unexpected crevices. The light was too dull for photographing, but, while I took magnetic "dips" on the following morning, McLean visited the silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons and secured a few "snaps."

The last thing we did before leaving the mainland was to kill two penguins and cut off their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and this meat was, later, to serve us in good stead.

Crossing the Mertz Glacier at any time would have been an unpleasant undertaking, but to go straight to Mount Murchison (the site of our first depot on the outward journey) from Penguin Point meant spanning it in a long oblique line. It was preferable to travel quickly and safely over the sea-ice on a north-westerly course, which, plotted on the chart, intersected our old one-hundred-mile camp on the eastern margin of the glacier; then to cross by the route we already knew.

By January 2 we had thrown Penguin Point five miles behind, and a spell of unsettled weather commenced; in front lay a stretch of fourteen miles over a good surface. The wind was behind us, blowing between thirty and forty miles per hour, and from an overcast sky light snow was falling.

Fortunately there were fleeting glimpses of the sun, by which the course could be adjusted. Towards evening the snow had thickened, but thanks to the splendid a.s.sistance afforded by a sail, the white jutting spurs of the edge of Mertz Glacier were dimly visible.

A blizzard took possession of the next day till 7 P.M., when we all sallied out and found the identical gully in which was the one-hundred-mile camp of the outward journey. The light was still bad and the sky overcast, so the start was postponed till next morning.

There was food for five days on a slightly reduced ration and the depot on Mount Murchison was forty miles away.

Once we had left the sea-ice and stood on the glacier, Aurora Peak with its black crest showed through the gla.s.ses. Once there, the creva.s.ses we most dreaded would be over and the depot easily found.

A good fourteen and a quarter miles slipped by on January 4--a fine day.

On January 5 the "plot began to thicken." The clouds hung above like a blanket, sprinkling light snow. The light was atrocious, and a few open rents gave warning of the western zone of pitfalls. All the while there was a s.h.i.+fting spectral chaos of whiteness which seemed to benumb the faculties and destroy one's sense of reality. We decided to wait for a change in the weather.

During the night the snow ceased, and by lunch time on the 6th the sledge-meter recorded ten miles. The strange thing was that the firm sastrugi present on the outward journey were now covered inches in snow, which became deeper as we marched westward.

It was now a frequent occurrence for one of us to pitch forward with his feet down a hidden creva.s.se, sometimes going through to the waist. The travelling was most nerve-racking. When a foot went through the crust of snow, it was impossible to tell on which side of the creva.s.se one happened to be, or in what direction it ran. The only thing to do was to go ahead and trust in Providence.

At last we landed the sledge on a narrow ridge of hard snow, surrounded by blue, gaping pits in a pallid eternity of white. It was only when the tent was pitched that a wide quarry was noticed a few yards away from the door.

It was now fourteen miles to the top of Mount Murchison and we had only two more days' rations and one and a half pounds of penguin-meat.

On January 7th the light was worse than ever and snow fell. It was only six miles across the broken country between us and the gully between Mt.

Murchison and Aurora Peak, where one could travel with some surety.

A sharp look-out was kept, and towards 11 P.M. a rim of clear sky overtopped the southern horizon. We knew the sun would curve round into it at midnight, so all was made ready for marching.

When the sun's disc emerged into the rift there was light; but dim, cold and fleeting. The smallest irregularity on the surface threw a shadow hundreds of yards long. The plain around was a bluish-grey checquer-board of light and shade; ahead, sharp and clear against the leaden sky, stood beautiful Aurora Peak, swathed in l.u.s.trous gold--the chariot of the G.o.ddess herself. The awful splendour of the scene tended to depress one and make the task more trying. I have never felt more nervous than I did in that ghostly light in the tense silence, surrounded by the hidden horror of fathomless depths. All was covered with a uniform layer of snow, growing deeper and heavier at every step.

I was ahead and went through eight times in about four miles. The danger lay in getting the sledge and one, two, or all of us on a weak snow-bridge at the same time. As long as the sledge did not go down we were comparatively safe.

At 1.30 A.M. the sun was obscured and the light waned to dead white.

Still we went on, as the entrance of the gully between Aurora Peak and Mount Murchison was near at hand and we had a mind to get over the danger-zone before a snowstorm commenced.

By 5.30 A.M. we breathed freely on "terra firma," even though one sunk through a foot of snow to feel it. It had taken six hours to do the last five and three-quarter miles, and, being tired out with the strain on muscles and nerves, we raised the tent, had a meal, and then slept till noon on the 8th. It was eight miles to the depot, five miles up the gully and three miles to the summit of Mount Murchison; and no one doubted for a moment that it could not be done in a single day's march.