The Worst Journey in the World Part 58

The absence of wind from the south noted by Scott was, in Simpson's opinion, the cause of the low temperatures met by Scott: the temperature was reduced ten degrees below normal at Cape Evans, and perhaps twenty degrees where Scott was.[353]

The third question is that of food. It is this point which is most important to future explorers. It is a fact that the Polar Party failed to make their distance because they became weak, and that they became weak although they were eating their full ration or more than their full ration of food, save for a few days when they went short on the way down the Beardmore Glacier. The first man to weaken was the biggest and heaviest man in the expedition: "the man whom we had least expected to fail."

The rations were of two kinds. The Barrier (B) ration was that which was used on the Barrier during the outward journey towards the Pole. The Summit (S) ration was the result of our experiments on the Winter Journey. I expect it is the best ration which has been used to date, and consisted of biscuits 16, pemmican 12, b.u.t.ter 2, cocoa 0.57, sugar 3 and tea 0.86 ounces; total 34.43 ounces daily per man.

The twelve men who went forward started this S ration at the foot of the Beardmore, and it was this ration which was left in all depots to see them home. It was much more satisfying than the Barrier ration, and men could not have eaten so much when leading ponies or driving dogs in the early stages of summer Barrier sledging: but man-hauling is a different business altogether from leading ponies or driving dogs.

It is calculated that the body requires certain proportions of fat, carbohydrates and proteins to do certain work under certain conditions: but just what the absolute quant.i.ties are is not ascertained. The work of the Polar Party was laborious: the temperatures (the most important of the conditions) varied from comparative warmth up and down the glacier to an average of about -20 in the rarefied air of the plateau. The temperatures met by them on their return over the Barrier were not really low for more than a week, and then there came quite commonly minus thirties during the day with a further drop to minus forties at night, when for a time the sun was below the horizon. These temperatures, which are not very terrible to men who are fresh and whose clothing is new, were ghastly to these men who had striven night and day almost ceaselessly for four months on, as I maintain, insufficient food. Did these temperatures kill them?

Undoubtedly the low temperatures caused their death, inasmuch as they would have lived had the temperatures remained high. But Evans would not have lived: he died before the low temperatures occurred. What killed Evans? And why did the other men weaken as they did, though they were eating full rations and more? Weaken so much that in the end they starved to death?

I have always had a doubt whether the weather conditions were sufficient to cause the tragedy. These men on full rations were supposed to be eating food of sufficient value to enable them to do the work they were doing, under the conditions which they actually met until the end of February, without loss of strength. They had more than their full rations, but the conditions in March were much worse than they imagined to be possible: when three survivors out of the five pitched their Last Camp they were in a terrible state. After the war I found that Atkinson had come to wonder much as I, but he had gone farther, for he had the values of our rations worked out by a chemical expert according to the latest knowledge and standards. I may add that, being in command after Scott's death, he increased the ration for the next year's sledging, so I suppose he had already come to the conclusion that the previous ration was not sufficient. The following are some of the data for which I am indebted to him: the whole subject will be investigated by him and the results published in a more detailed form.

According to the most modern standards the food requirements for laborious work at a temperature of zero Fahr. (which is a fair Barrier average temperature to take) are 7714 calories to produce 10,069 foot-tons of work. The actual Barrier ration which we used would generate 4003 calories, equivalent to 5331 foot-tons of work. Similar requirements for laborious work at -10 Fahr. (which is a high average plateau temperature) are 8500 calories to produce 11,094 foot-tons of work. The actual Summit ration would generate 4889 calories, equivalent to 6608 foot-tons of work. These requirements are calculated for total absorption of all food-stuffs: but in practice, by visual proof, this does not take place: this is especially noticeable in the case of fats, a quant.i.ty of which were digested neither by men, ponies, nor dogs.

Several things go to prove that our ration was not enough. In the first case we were probably not as fit as we seemed after long sledge journeys.

There is no doubt that when sledging men developed an automaticity of certain muscles at the expense of other muscles: for instance, a sledge could be hauled all day at the expense of the arms, and we had little power to lift weights at the end of several months of sledging. In relation to this I would add that, when the relief s.h.i.+p arrived in February 1912, four of us were at Cape Evans, but just arrived from three months of the Polar Journey. The land party, we four among them, were turned on to sledge stores ash.o.r.e. This in practice meant twenty miles every day dragging a sledge; a good deal of 'humping' heavy cases, from five o'clock in the morning to very late at night; with uncertain meals and no rests. I can remember now how hard that work was to myself and, I expect, to those others who had been away sledging. The s.h.i.+p's party sledged only every other day "because they were not used to it." This was extremely bad organization, and in view of the possibility that some of the men might be required for further sledging in the autumn, just silly.

Again, there is the experience of the man-hauling parties of the Polar Journey. There was, you may remember, a man-hauling party on the way to the Beardmore Glacier. They travelled with a light sledge but they lost weight on the Barrier ration. It is significant that they picked up condition when they started the Summit ration, especially Lashly.

The Polar Party and the two returning parties, who were on the Summit ration from the foot of the Beardmore until the end of their journeys, weakened, in Atkinson's opinion, more than they should have done had their ration been sufficient. The First Return Party covered approximately 1100 statute miles. At the end of their journey their pulling muscles were all right, but Atkinson, who led the party, considers that they were at least 70 per cent weaker in other muscles.

They all lost a great deal of weight, though they had the best conditions of the three returning parties, and the temperatures met by them averaged well over zero.

The Second Return Party faced much worse conditions. They were only three men, and one of the three was so sick that for 120 miles he could not pull and for 90 miles he had to be dragged on the sledge. The average temperature approximated zero. They were extremely exhausted.

Scott makes constant reference to the increasing hunger of the Polar Party: it is clear that the food did not compensate for the conditions which were met in increasing severity. Yet they were eating rather more than their full ration a considerable part of the time. It has to be considered that the temperatures met by them averaged far below -10: that they did not absorb all their food: that increased heat was wanted not only for energy to do extra work caused by bad surfaces and contrary winds, but also to heat their bodies, and to thaw out their clothing and sleeping-bags.

I believe it to be clear that the rations used by us must not only be increased by future expeditions, but co-ordinated in different proportions of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Taking into consideration the fact that our bodies were not digesting the amount of fats we had provided, Atkinson suggests that it is useless to increase the fats at the expense of the protein and carbohydrates. He recommends that fats should total about 5 ounces daily. The digestion of carbohydrates is easy and complete, and though that of protein is more complicated there are plenty of the necessary digestive ferments. The ration should be increased by equal amounts of protein and carbohydrates; both should be provided in as dry and pure a form as possible.

There is no censure attached to this criticism. Our ration was probably the best which has been used: but more is known now than was known then.

We are all out to try and get these things right for the future.[354]

Campbell reached Hut Point only five days after we left it with the dog-teams. A characteristic note left to greet us on our return regretted they were too late to take part in the Search Journey. If I had lived through ten months such as those men had just endured, wild horses would not have dragged me out sledging again. But they were keen to get some useful work done in the time which remained until the s.h.i.+p arrived.

We had the Polar records: Campbell and his men, unaided, had not only survived their terrible winter, but had sledged down the coast after it.

We ourselves, faced by a difficult alternative, had fallen on our feet.

We never hoped for more than this: we seldom hoped for so much.

I wanted a series of Adelie penguin embryos from the rookery at Cape Royds, but had not expected an opportunity of getting them because I was away sledging during the summer months. Now the chance had come. Atkinson wanted to work on parasites at the same place, and others to survey. But the real job was an ascent of Erebus, the active volcano which rose from our doors to some 13,400 feet in height. A party of Shackleton's men under Professor David went up it in March, and managed to haul a sledge up to 5800 feet, from which point they had to portage their gear. A year before this Debenham, with the help of a telescope, selected a route by which they could haul a sledge up to 9000 feet. There proved to be no great difficulty about it; it was just a matter of legs and breath.

They were a cheery company, part-singing in the evenings and working hard all day. It was an uneventful trip, Debenham said, and very harmonious: the best trip he had down there. Both Debenham and d.i.c.kason suffered from mountain sickness, however, and they were the two smokers! The clearness of the air was marked. At 5000 feet they could plainly see Mount Melbourne and Cape Jones, between two and three hundred miles away, and several uncharted mountains over to the west, but they were unable to plot them accurately because they could get direction rays from one point only. The Sound itself was covered by cloud most of the time, but Beaufort Island and Franklin Island were clear. Unlike David's party, they could see no signs whatever of volcanic action on Mount Bird, which is almost entirely covered with ice on which it was to be expected that some mark might be left. At 9000 feet Terror looked very imposing, but Mount Bird and Terra Nova were insignificant and uninteresting. The valley between the old crater and the slopes of the second crater greatly impressed them, and they found a fine little creva.s.sed glacier in it.

Both Priestley and Debenham are of opinion that it is possible to get to Terror by this valley, and that there are no creva.s.sed areas or impossible slopes on the way. All the same it would probably be more sensible to go from Cape Crozier.

At a point about 9000 feet up, Priestley, Gran, Abbott and Hooper started to make the ascent to the active crater on December 10. They packed the tent, poles, bags, inner cooker and cooking gear, with four days'

provisions, and reached the second crater at about 11,500 feet, to be hung up by cloud all the next day. At these alt.i.tudes the temperature varied between -10 and -30, though at sea-level simultaneously they were round about freezing-point. By 1 A.M. on the 12th the conditions were good--clear, with a southerly wind blowing the steam away from the summit. The party got away as soon as possible and reached the lip of the active crater in a few hours. Looking down they were unable to see the bottom, for it was full of steam: the sides sloped at a steep angle for some 500 feet, when they became sheer precipices: the opening appeared to be about 14,000 paces round. The top is mostly pumice, but there is also a lot of kenyte, much the same as at sea-level: the old crater was mostly kenyte, proving that this is the oldest rock of the island: felspar crystals must be continually thrown out, for they were lying about on the top of the snow; I have one nearly 3 inches long.

Two men went back to the camp, for one had a frost-bitten foot. This left Priestley and Gran, who tried to boil the hypsometer but failed owing to the wind, which was variable and enveloped them from time to time in steam and sulphur vapour. They left a record on a cairn and started to return. But when they had got 500 feet down Priestley found that he had left a tin of exposed films on the top instead of the record. Gran said he would go back and change it. He had reached the top when there was a loud explosion: large blocks of pumice were hurled out with a big smoke cloud; probably a big bubble had burst. Gran was in the middle of it, heard it gurgle before it burst, saw "blocks of pumiceous lava, in shape like the halves of volcanic bombs, and with bunches of long, drawn-out, hair-like shreds of gla.s.s in their interior."[355] This was Pele's hair.

Gran was a bit sick from sulphur dioxide fumes afterwards. They reached Cape Royds on the 16th, the very successful trip taking fifteen days.

Meanwhile Shackleton's old hut was very pleasant at this time of year: in winter it was a bit too draughty. With bright sunlight, a lop on the sea which splashed and gurgled under the ice-foot, the beautiful mountains all round us, and the penguins nesting at our door, this was better than the Beardmore Glacier, where we had expected to be at this date. What then must it have been to the six men who were just returned from the very Gate of h.e.l.l? And the food: "Truly Shackleton's men must have fed like turkey-c.o.c.ks from all the delicacies here: boiled chicken, kidneys, mushrooms, ginger, Garibaldi biscuits, soups of all kinds: it is a splendid change. Best of all are the fresh-b.u.t.tered skua's eggs which we make for breakfast. In fact, life is bearable with all that has been unknown so long at last cleared up, and our anxieties for Campbell's party laid at rest."[356]

For three weeks I worked among the Adelie penguins at Cape Royds, and obtained a complete series of their embryos. It was always Wilson's idea that embryology was the next job of a vertebral zoologist down south. I have already explained that the penguin is an interesting link in the evolutionary chain, and the object of getting this embryo is to find out where the penguins come in.[357] Whether or no they are more primitive than other nonflying birds, such as the apteryx, the ostrich, the rhea and the moa, which last is only just extinct, is an open question. But wingless birds are still hanging on to the promontories of the southern continents, where there is less rivalry than in the highly populated land areas of the north. It may be that penguins are descended from ancestors who lived in the northern hemisphere in a winged condition (even now you may sometimes see them try to fly), and that they have been driven towards the south.

If penguins are primitive, it is rational to infer that the most primitive penguin is farthest south. These are the two Antarcticists, the Emperor and the Adelie. The latter appears to be the more numerous and successful of the two, and for this reason we are inclined to search among the Emperors as being among the most primitive penguins, if not the most primitive of birds now living: hence the Winter Journey. I was glad to get, in addition, this series of Adelie penguins' embryos, feeling somewhat like a giant who had wandered on to the wrong planet, and who was distinctly in the way of its true inhabitants.

We returned too late to see the eggs laid, and therefore it was impossible to tell how old the embryos were. My hopes rose, however, when I saw some eggless nests with penguins sitting upon them, but later I found that these were used as bachelor quarters by birds whose wives were sitting near. I tried taking eggs from nests and was delighted to find that new eggs appeared: these I carefully marked, and it was not until I opened one two days later to find inside an embryo at least two weeks old, that I realized that penguins added baby-s.n.a.t.c.hing to their other immoralities. Some of those from whom I took eggs sat upon stones of a similar size and shape with every appearance of content: one sat upon the half of the red tin of a Dutch cheese. They are not very intelligent.

All the world loves a penguin: I think it is because in many respects they are like ourselves, and in some respects what we should like to be.

Had we but half their physical courage none could stand against us. Had we a hundredth part of their maternal instinct we should have to kill our children by the thousand. Their little bodies are so full of curiosity that they have no room for fear. They like mountaineering, and joy-riding on ice-floes: they even like to drill.

One day there had been a blizzard, and lying open to the view of all was a deserted nest, a pile of coveted stones. All the surrounding rookery made their way to and fro, each husband acquiring merit, for, after each journey, he gave his wife a stone. This was the plebeian way of doing things; but my friend who stood, ever so unconcerned, upon a rock knew a trick worth two of that: he and his wife who sat so cosily upon the other side.

The victim was a third penguin. He was without a mate, but this was an opportunity to get one. With all the speed his little legs could compa.s.s he ran to and fro, taking stones from the deserted nest, laying them beneath a rock, and hurrying back for more. On that same rock was my friend. When the victim came up with his stone he had his back turned.

But as soon as the stone was laid and the other gone for more, he jumped down, seized it with his beak, ran round, gave it to his wife and was back on the rock (with his back turned) before you could say Killer Whale. Every now and then he looked over his shoulder, to see where the next stone might be.

I watched this for twenty minutes. All that time, and I do not know for how long before, that wretched bird was bringing stone after stone. And there were no stones there. Once he looked puzzled, looked up and swore at the back of my friend on his rock, but immediately he came back, and he never seemed to think he had better stop. It was getting cold and I went away: he was coming for another.

The life of an Adelie penguin is one of the most unchristian and successful in the world. The penguin which went in for being a true believer would never stand the ghost of a chance. Watch them go to bathe.

Some fifty or sixty agitated birds are gathered upon the ice-foot, peering over the edge, telling one another how nice it will be, and what a good dinner they are going to have. But this is all sw.a.n.k: they are really worried by a horrid suspicion that a sea-leopard is waiting to eat the first to dive. The really n.o.ble bird, according to our theories, would say, "I will go first and if I am killed I shall at any rate have died unselfishly, sacrificing my life for my companions"; and in time all the most n.o.ble birds would be dead. What they really do is to try and persuade a companion of weaker mind to plunge: failing this, they hastily pa.s.s a conscription act and push him over. And then--bang, helter-skelter, in go all the rest.

They take turns in sitting on their eggs, and after many days the fathers may be seen waddling down towards the sea with their s.h.i.+rt-fronts muddied, their long trick done. It may be a fortnight before they return, well-fed, clean, pleased with life, and with a grim determination to relieve their wives, to do their job. Sometimes they are met by others going to bathe. They stop and pa.s.s the time of day. Well! Perhaps it would be more pleasant, and what does a day or two matter anyhow. They turn; clean and dirty alike are off to the seaside again. This is when they say, "The women are splendid."

Life is too strenuous for them to have any use for the virtues of brotherly love, good works, charity and benevolence. When they mate the best thief wins: when they nest the best pair of thieves hatch out their eggs. In a long unbroken stream, which stretches down below the sea-ice horizon, they march in from the open sea. Some are walking on their human feet: others tobogganing upon their s.h.i.+ny white b.r.e.a.s.t.s. After their long walk they must have a sleep, and then the gentlemen make their way into the already crowded rookery to find them wives. But first a suitor must find, or steal, a pebble, for such are the penguin jewels: they are of lava, black, russet or grey, with almond-shaped crystals bedded in them.

They are rare and of all sizes, but that which is most valued is the size of a pigeon's egg. Armed with one of these he courts his maid, laying it at her feet. If accepted he steals still more stones: she guards them jealously, taking in the meantime any safe opportunity to pick others from under her nearest neighbours. Any penguin which is unable to fight and steal successfully fails to make a good high nest, or loses it when made. Then comes a blizzard, and after that a thaw: for it thaws sometimes right down by the sea-sh.o.r.e where the Adelies have their nurseries. The eggs of the strong and wicked hatch out, but those of the weak are addled. You must have a jolly good pile of stones to hatch eggs after a blizzard like that in December 1911, when the rookeries were completely snow-covered: nests, eggs, parents and all.

Once hatched the chicks grow quickly from pretty grey atoms of down to black lumps of stomach topped by a small and quite inadequate head. They are two or more weeks old, and they leave their parents, or their parents leave them, I do not know which. If socialism be the nationalization of the means of production and distribution, then they are socialists. They divide into parents and children. The adult community comes up from the open sea, bringing food inside them: they are full of half-digested shrimps. But not for their own children: these, if not already dead, are lost in a crowd of hungry tottering infants which besiege each food-provider as he arrives. But not all of them can get food, though all of them are hungry. Some have already been behindhand too long: they have not managed to secure food for days, and they are weak and cold and very weary.

"As we stood there and watched this race for food we were gradually possessed with the idea that the chicks looked upon each adult coming up full-bellied from the sh.o.r.e as not a parent only, but a food-supply. The parents were labouring under a totally different idea, and intended either to find their own infants and feed them, or else to a.s.similate their already partially digested catch themselves. The more robust of the young thus worried an adult until, because of his importunity, he was fed. But with the less robust a much more pathetic ending was the rule. A chick that had fallen behind in this literal race for life, starving and weak, and getting daily weaker because it could not run fast enough to insist on being fed, again and again ran off pursuing with the rest.

Again and again it stumbled and fell, persistently whining out its hunger in a shrill and melancholy pipe, till at last the race was given up.

Forced thus by sheer exhaustion to stop and rest, it had no chance of getting food. Each hurrying parent with its little following of hungry chicks, intent on one thing only, rushed quickly by, and the starveling dropped behind to gather strength for one more effort. Again it fails, a robuster bird has forced the pace, and again success is wanting to the runt. Sleepily it stands there, with half-shut eyes, in a torpor resulting from exhaustion, cold, and hunger, wondering perhaps what all the bustle round it means, a little dirty, dishevelled dot, in the race for life a failure, deserted by its parents, who have hunted vainly for their own offspring round the nest in which they hatched it, but from which it may by now have wandered half a mile. And so it stands, lost to everything around, till a skua in its beat drops down beside it, and with a few strong, vicious pecks puts an end to the failing life."[358]

There is a great deal to be said for this kind of treatment. The Adelie penguin has a hard life: the Emperor penguin a horrible one. Why not kill off the unfit right away, before they have had time to breed, almost before they have had time to eat? Life is a stern business in any case: why pretend that it is anything else? Or that any but the best can survive at all? And in consequence, I challenge you to find a more jolly, happy, healthy lot of old gentlemen in the world. We _must_ admire them: if only because they are so much nicer than ourselves! But it is grim: Nature is an uncompromising nurse.

Nature was going to give us a bad time too if we were not relieved, and on January 17, as there were still no signs of the s.h.i.+p, it was decided to prepare for another winter. We were to go on rations; to cook with oil, for nearly all the coal was gone; to kill and store up seal. On January 18 we started our preparations, digging a cave to store more meat, and so forth. I went off seal hunting after breakfast, and having killed and cut up two, came back across the Cape at mid-day. All the men were out working in the camp. There was nothing to be seen in the Sound, and then, quite suddenly, the bows of the s.h.i.+p came out from behind the end of the Barne Glacier, two or three miles away. We watched her cautious approach with immense relief.

"Are you all well," through a megaphone from the bridge.

"The Polar Party died on their return from the Pole: we have their records." A pause and then a boat.

Evans, who had been to England and made a good recovery from scurvy, was in command: with him were Pennell, Rennick, Bruce, Lillie and Drake. They reported having had a very big gale indeed on their way home last year.

We got some apples off the s.h.i.+p, "beauties, I want nothing better....

Pennell is first-cla.s.s, as always...." "One notices among the s.h.i.+p's men a rather unnatural way of talking: not so much in special instances, but as a whole, contact with civilization gives it an affected sound: I notice it in both officers and men."[359]

"_January 19. On board the Terra Nova._ After 28 hours' loading we left the old hut for good and all at 4 P.M. this afternoon. It has been a bit of a rush and little sleep last night. It is quite wonderful now to be travelling a day's journey in an hour: we went to Cape Royds in about that time and took off geological and zoological specimens. I should like to sit up and sketch all these views, which would have meant long travelling without the s.h.i.+p, but I feel very tired. The mail is almost too good for words. Now, with the latest waltz on the gramophone, beer for dinner and apples and fresh vegetables to eat, life is more bearable than it has been for many a long weary week and month. I leave Cape Evans with no regret: I never want to see the place again. The pleasant memories are all swallowed up in the bad ones."[360]

Before the s.h.i.+p arrived it was decided among us to urge the erection of a cross on Observation Hill to the memory of the Polar Party. On the arrival of the s.h.i.+p the carpenter immediately set to work to make a great cross of jarrah wood. There was some discussion as to the inscription, it being urged that there should be some quotation from the Bible because "the women think a lot of these things." But I was glad to see the concluding line of Tennyson's "Ulysses" adopted: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

The open water stretched about a mile and a half south of Tent Island, and here we left the s.h.i.+p to sledge the cross to Hut Point at 8 A.M. on January 20. The party consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Lashly, Crean, Debenham, Keohane and Davies, the s.h.i.+p's carpenter and myself.