The Home Of The Blizzard Part 67

Blake and Hamilton returned to the Shack on the 24th, but left again on the 30th, as they had some more photographic work to do in the vicinity of Green Valley and Sandy Bay.

Blake made a special trip to Sandy Bay on October 30 to bring back some geological specimens and other things he had left there, but on reaching the spot found that the old hut had been burned to the ground, apparently only a few hours before, since it was still smouldering. Many articles were destroyed, among which were two sleeping-bags, a s.e.xtant, gun, blankets, photographic plates, bird specimens and articles of clothing. It was presumed that rats had originated the fire from wax matches which had been left lying on a small shelf.

On November 9 we heard that the 'Aurora' would leave Hobart on the 19th for Antarctica, picking us up on the way and landing three men on the island to continue the wireless and meteorological work.

We sighted the 'Rachel Cohen' bearing down on the island on November 18, and at 5.15 P.M. she came to an anchorage in North-East Bay. She brought down the remainder of our coal and some salt for Hamilton for the preservation of specimens.

On the next night it was learned that the 'Aurora' had left Hobart on her way South, expecting to reach us about the 28th, as some sounding and dredging were being done en route.

Everybody now became very busy making preparations for departure. Time pa.s.sed very quickly, and November 28 dawned fine and bright. The 'Rachel Cohen', which had been lying in the bay loading oil, had her full complement on board by 10 A.M., and shortly afterwards we trooped across to say good-bye to Bauer and the other sealers, who were all returning to Hobart. It was something of a coincidence that they took their departure on the very day our s.h.i.+p was to arrive. Their many acts of kindness towards us will ever be recalled by the members of the party, and we look upon our harmonious neighbourly a.s.sociation together with feelings of great pleasure.

A keen look-out was then kept for signs of our own s.h.i.+p, but it was not until 8 P.M. that Blake, who was up on the hill side, called out, "Here she comes," and we climbed up to take in the goodly sight. Just visible, away in the north-west, there was a line of thin smoke, and in about half an hour the 'Aurora' dropped anchor in Ha.s.selborough Bay.

CHAPTER XXVIII THE HOMEWARD CRUISE

We bring no store of ingots, Of spice or precious stones; But what we have we gathered With sweat and aching bones.

KIPLING.

As we sat in the wardroom of the 'Aurora' exchanging the news of months long gone by, we heard from Captain Davis the story of his fair-weather trip from Hobart. The s.h.i.+p had left Australian waters on November 19, and, from the outset, the weather was quite ideal. Nothing of note occurred on the run to Macquarie Island, where a party of three men were landed and Ainsworth and his loyal comrades picked up. The former party, sent by the Australian Government, were to maintain wireless communication with Hobart and to send meteorological reports to the Commonwealth Weather Bureau. A week was spent at the island and all the collections were embarked, while Correll was enabled to secure some good colour photographs and Hurley to make valuable additions to his cinematograph film.

The 'Aurora' had pa.s.sed through the "fifties" without meeting the usual gales, sighting the first ice in lat.i.tude 63 degrees 33' S., longitude 150 degrees 29' E. She stopped to take a sounding every twenty-four hours, adding to the large number already acc.u.mulated during her cruises over the vast basin of the Southern Ocean.

All spoke of the clear and beautiful days amid the floating ice and of the wonderful coloured sunsets; especially the photographers. The pack was so loosely disposed, that the s.h.i.+p made a straight course for Commonwealth Bay, steaming up to Cape Denison on the morning of December 14 to find us all eager to renew our claim on the big world up North.

There was a twenty-five-knot wind and a small sea when we pulled off in the whale-boat to the s.h.i.+p, but, as if conspiring to give us for once a gala-day, the wind fell off, the bay became blue and placid and the sun beat down in full thawing strength on the boundless ice and snow. The Adelians, if that may be used as a distinctive t.i.tle, sat on the warm deck and read letters and papers in voracious haste, with s.n.a.t.c.hes of the latest intelligence from the Macquarie Islanders and the s.h.i.+p's officers. No one could erase that day from the tablets of his memory.

Late in the afternoon the motor-launch went ash.o.r.e, and the first of the cargo was sent off. The weather remained serene and calm, and for the next six days, with the exception of a "sixty-miler" for a few hours and a land breeze overnight, there was nothing to disturb the embarkation of our bulky impedimenta which almost filled the outer Hut. Other work went on apace. The skua gulls, snow and Wilson petrels were laying their eggs, and Hamilton went ash.o.r.e to secure specimens and to add to our already considerable collection of bird skins. Hunter had a fish-trap lowered from the forecastle, used a hand dredge from the s.h.i.+p, and did tow-netting occasionally from the launch in its journeys to and from the land. Hurley and Correll had bright suns.h.i.+ne to ensure good photographic results. Bage and Hodgeman looked after the transport of stores from the Hut, and Gillies, Bickerton and Madigan ran the motor-launch. McLean, who was now in possession of an incubator and culture tubes, grew bacteria from various sources--seals and birds, soils, ice and snow.

Ainsworth, Blake and Sandell, making their first acquaintance with Adelie Land, were most often to be seen quarrying ice on the glacier or pulling loaded sledges down to the harbour.

[TEXT ILl.u.s.tRATION]

Mackellar Islets

On the 18th a party of us went off to the Mackellar Islets in the motor-launch, taking a tent and provisions, intending to spend two days there surveying and making scientific observations.

These islets, over thirty in number, are cl.u.s.tered mainly in a group about two miles off sh.o.r.e. The group is encircled by rocky "outposts,"

and there are several "links" to the southern mainland. Under a brilliant sun, across the pale blue water, heaving in a slow northerly swell, the motor-launch threaded her way between the granite k.n.o.bs, capped with solid spray. The waves had undermined the white canopies so that they stood immobile, perched on the dark, kelp-fringed rocks, casting their pallid reflections in the turquoise sea. Steaming into a natural harbour, bordered by a low ice-foot on which scores of Weddell seals lay in listless slumber, we landed on the largest islet--a succession of salt-encrusted ridges covered by straggling penguin rookeries. The place just teemed with the sporadic life of an Antarctic summer.

It was calculated that the Adelie penguins exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand in number over an area of approximately one hundred acres. Near the landing-place there were at least sixty seals and snow petrels; skua gulls and Wilson petrels soon betrayed their nests to the biologists.

The islets are flat, and afford evidence that at one time the continental ice-cap has ridden over them. The rock is a hard grey gneiss. A rough plane-table map of the group was made by Hodgeman and myself.

Our scheme of local exploration was now continued to the west. For two years we had looked curiously at a patch of rocks protruding beneath the ice-cap eight miles away, within Commonwealth Bay. It had been inaccessible to sledging parties, and so we reserved Cape Hunter, as it was ultimately called, for the coming of the s.h.i.+p.

The anchor was raised on the forenoon of the 22nd, and by midday the 'Aurora' steamed at half-speed along the ramparts of the glacier, stopping about four miles from the Cape, after sounding in four hundred and twenty-four fathoms. Through field-gla.s.ses much had already been seen; enough to arouse an intense interest.

One could not but respond to the idea that here was a new world, flawless and unblemished, into which no human being had ever pried. Here were open secrets to be read for the first time. It was not with the cold eye of science alone that we gazed at these rocks--a tiny spur of the great unseen continent; but it was with an indefinable wonder.

In perfect weather a small party set off in the launch towards a large grounded berg which appeared to lie under the ice-cliffs. Approaching it closely, after covering two miles, we could see that it was still more than a mile to the rocks.

Penguins soon began to splash around; Wilson petrels came glancing overhead and we could descry great flocks of Antarctic petrels wheeling over cliff and sea. Reefs buried in frothing surge showed their glistening mantles, and the boat swerved to avoid floating streamers of brash-ice.

The rocky cliffs, about eighty feet in height at the highest point, were formed of vertically lying slate rocks--a very uniform series of phyllite and sericite-schist. At their base lay great clinging blocks of ice deeply excavated by the restless swell. One island was separated from the parent ma.s.s by a channel cut sheer to the deep blue water.

Behind the main rocks and indenting the ice-cliff was a curving bay into which we steered, finding at its head a beautiful cove fringed with a heavy undermined ice-foot and swarming with Adelie penguins. Overhanging the water was a cavern hollowed out of a bridge of ice thrown from the glacier to the western limit of the rock outcrop.

Hurley had before him a picture in perfect proportion. The steel-blue water, paled by an icy reflection, a margin of brown rocks on which the penguins leapt through the splas.h.i.+ng surf, a curving canopy of ice-foot and, filling the background, the cavern with pendent icicles along its cornice.

The swell was so great that an anchor had to be thrown from the stern to keep the launch off sh.o.r.e, and two men remained on board to see that no damage was done.

At last we were free to roam and explore. Over the first ridge of rocks we walked suddenly into the home of the Antarctic petrels! There had always been much speculation as to where these birds nested. Jones'

party at our western base had the previous summer at Haswell Island happened upon the first rookery of Antarctic petrels ever discovered.

Here was another spot in the great wilderness peopled by their thousands. Every available nook and crevice was occupied along a wide slope which shelved away until it met the vertical cliffs falling to the ocean. One could sit down among the soft, mild birds who were fearless at the approach of man. They rested in pairs close to their eggs laid on the bare rock or among fragments of slate loosely arranged to resemble a rest. Many eggs were collected, and the birds, losing confidence in us, rose into the air in flocks, gaining in feathered volume as they circled in fear above this domain of rock and snow which had been theirs for generations.

In adjoining rookeries the Adelie penguins, with their fat, downy cheeks, were very plentiful and fiercer than usual. Skuas, snow and Wilson petrels were all in their accustomed haunts. Down on the low ice-foot at the mouth of a rocky ravine, a few seals had effected a landing. Algae, mosses and lichens made quite a display in moist localities.

Before leaving for the s.h.i.+p, we "boiled the billy" on a platform of slate near the cove where the launch was anch.o.r.ed and had a small picnic, entertained by the penguins playing about in the surf or scaling the ice-foot to join the birds which were laboriously climbing to the rookeries on the ridge. The afternoon was so peaceful and the calm hot weather such a novelty to us that we pushed off reluctantly to the 'Aurora' after an eventful day.

Those on board had had a busy time dredging, and their results were just as successful as ours. A haul was made in two hundred and fifty fathoms of ascidians, sponges, crinoids, holothurians, fish and other forms of life in such quant.i.ty that Hunter and Hamilton were occupied in sorting the specimens until five o'clock next morning. Meanwhile the 'Aurora'

had returned to her old anchorage close to Cape Denison.

The sky banked up from the south with nimbus, and early on the 23rd a strong breeze ruffled the water. There were a few things to be brought off from the sh.o.r.e, while Ainsworth, Sandell and Correll were still at the Hut, so that, as the weather conditions pointed to a coming blizzard, I decided to "cut the painter" with the land.

An hour later the motor-launch, with Madigan and Bickerton, sped away for the last load through falling snow and a rising sea. Hodgeman had battened down the windows of the Hut, the chimney was stuffed with bagging, the veranda-entrance closed with boards, and, inside, an invitation was left for future visitors to occupy and make themselves at home. After the remainder of the dogs and some miscellaneous gear had been s.h.i.+pped, the launch put off and came alongside in a squally wind through thick showers of snow. Willing hands soon unloaded the boat and slung it in the davits. Every one was at last safe on board, and in future all our operations were to be conducted from the s.h.i.+p.

During the night the wind rose and the barometer fell, while the air was filled with drifting snow. On the 24th--Christmas Eve--the velocity of the wind gradually increased to the seventies until at noon it blew with the strength of a hurricane. Chief Officer Blair, stationed with a few men under the fo'c'sle-head, kept an anxious eye on the anchor chain and windla.s.s.

About lunch time the anchor was found to be dragging and we commenced to drift before the hurricane. All view of the land and lurking dangers in the form of reefs and islets were cut off by driving snow.

The wind tw.a.n.ged the rigging to a burring drone that rose to a shriek in the shuddering gusts. The crests of the waves were cut off and sprayed in fine spindrift. With full steam on we felt our way out, we hoped to the open sea; meanwhile the chain cable and damaged anchor were slowly being hauled in. The s.h.i.+p's chances looked very small indeed, but, owing to the good seamans.h.i.+p of Captain Davis and a certain amount of luck, disaster was averted. Soon we were in a bounding sea. Each time we were lifted on a huge roller the motor-launch, swinging in the davits, would rise and then descend with a crash on the water, to be violently b.u.mped against the bulwarks. Everything possible was done to save the launch, but our efforts proved fruitless. As it was being converted into a battering ram against the s.h.i.+p itself it had to be cut away, and was soon swept astern and we saw no more of it.

Most unexpectedly there came a lull in the wind, so that it was almost calm, though the s.h.i.+p still laboured in the seas. A clearance in the atmosphere was also noticeable for Cape Hunter became discernible to the west, towards which we were rapidly drifting. This sight of the coast was a great satisfaction to us, for we then knew our approximate position ** and the direction of the wind, which had veered considerably.

** It should be borne in mind that compa.s.ses are unreliable in the vicinity of the magnetic pole.

The lull lasted scarcely five minutes when the wind came back from a somewhat different quarter, north of east, as violent as ever. The "eye" of the storm had pa.s.sed over us, and the gale continued steady for several days. That night the struggle with the elements was kept up by officers and crew, a.s.sisted by members of the sh.o.r.e party who took the lee-wheel or stood by in case of emergency.

"December 25. Christmas Day on the high seas off Adelie Land, everything wet and fairly miserable; incipient mal de mer, wind 55-60; snowing!

When Davis came down to breakfast and wished us a Merry Christmas, with a smile at the irony of it, the ward-room was swaying about in a most bewildering fas.h.i.+on."

Towards evening, after the 'Aurora' had battled for hours slowly to the east, the sea went down somewhat and some drifting ice was sighted. We continued under full steam, pus.h.i.+ng forward to gain the shelter of the Mertz glacier-tongue. It was now discovered that the fluke of the anchor had broken off short, so great had been the strain imposed upon it during the height of the hurricane.

On Boxing Day the s.h.i.+p was in calmer water heading in a more southerly direction so as to come up with the land. Fog, fine snow and an overcast sky made a gloomy combination, but during the afternoon the fog lightened sufficiently for us to perceive the mainland--a ghostly cliff shrouded in diaphanous blink. By 10 P.M. the Mertz glacier was visible on the port bow, and to starboard there was an enormous tilted berg which appeared to be magnified in the dim light.

Allowing a day for the weather to become clearer and more settled, we got out the trawl on the 28th and did a dredging in three hundred fathoms close to the glacier-tongue. Besides rocks and mud there were abundant crinoids, holothurians, corals, crustaceans and "sh.e.l.ls."