The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard [free ebooks for android TXT] 📗

or over them without a thought: and when there is added some of the most wonderful scenery in the world it is hard to recall in the enjoyment of the present how irritable and weary you felt only twenty hours ago. The whisper of the sledge, the hiss of the primus, the smell of the hoosh and the soft folds of your sleeping-bag: how jolly they can all be, and generally were.

I would that I could once again
Around the cooker sit
And hearken to its soft refrain
And feel so jolly fit.

Instead of home-life’s silken chains,
The uneventful round,
I long to be mid snow-swept plains,
In harness, outward bound.

With the pad, pad, pad, of fin’skoed feet,
With two hundred pounds per man,
Not enough hoosh or biscuit to eat,
Well done, lads! Up tent! Outspan.

(Nelson in The South Polar Times.)

Certainly as we skirted these mountains, range upon range, during the next two marches (November 30 and December 1), we felt we could have little cause for complaint. They brought us to lat. 82° 7′ S., and here we left our last depot on the Barrier, called the Southern Barrier Depot, with a week’s ration for each returning party as usual. “The man food is enough for one week for each returning unit of four men, the next depot beyond being the Middle Barrier Depot, 73 miles north. As we ought easily to do over 100 miles a week on the return journey, there is little likelihood of our having to go on short commons if all goes well.”209 And this was what we all felt⁠—until we found the Polar Party. This was our twenty-seventh camp, and we had been out a month.

Plate III⁠—The Mountains Which Lie Between the Barrier and the Plateau as Seen on December 1, 1911⁠—From the drawings by Dr. E. A. Wilson; Emery Walker, Ltd., Collotypers.

It was important that we should have fine clear weather during the next few days when we should be approaching the land. On his previous southern journey Scott had been prevented from reaching the range of mountains which ran along to our right by a huge chasm. This phenomenon is known to geologists as a shear crack and is formed by the movement of a glacier away from the land which bounds it. In this case a mass of many hundred miles of Barrier has moved away from the mountains, and the disturbance is correspondingly great. Shackleton has described how he approached the Gateway, as he named the passage between Mount Hope and the mainland, by means of which he passed through on to the Beardmore Glacier. As he and his companions were exploring the way they came upon an enormous chasm, 80 feet wide and 300 feet deep, which barred their path. Moving along to the right they found a place where the chasm was filled with snow, and here they crossed to the land some miles ahead. At our Southern Barrier Depot we reckoned we were some forty-four miles from this Gateway and in three more marches we hoped to be camped under this land.

Christopher was shot at the depot. He was the only pony who did not die instantaneously. Perhaps Oates was not so calm as usual, for Chris was his own horse though such a brute. Just as Oates fired he moved, and charged into the camp with the bullet in his head. He was caught with difficulty, nearly giving Keohane a bad bite, led back and finished. We were well rid of him: while he was strong he fought, and once the Barrier had tamed him, as we were not able to do, he never pulled a fair load. He could have gone several more days, but there was not enough pony food to take all the animals forward. We began to wonder if we had done right to leave so much behind. Each pony provided at least four days’ food for the dog-teams, some of them more, and there was quite a lot of fat on them⁠—even on Jehu. This was comforting, as going to prove that their hardships were not too great. Also we put the undercut into our own hoosh, and it was very good, though we had little oil to cook it.

We had been starting later each night, in order that the transition from night to day marching might be gradual. For we intended to march by day when we started pulling up the glacier, and there were no ponies to rest when the sun was high. It may be said therefore that our next march was on December 2.

Before we started Scott walked over to Bowers. “I have come to a decision which will shock you.” Victor was to go at the end of the march, because pony food was running so short. Birdie wrote at the end of the day:⁠—He “did a splendid march and kept ahead all day, and as usual marched into camp first, pulling over 450 lbs. easily. It seemed an awful pity to have to shoot a great strong animal, and it seemed like the irony of fate to me, as I had been downed for over-provisioning the ponies with needless excess of food, and the drastic reductions had been made against my strenuous opposition up to the last. It is poor satisfaction to me to know that I was right now that my horse is dead. Good old Victor! He has always had a biscuit out of my ration, and he ate his last before the bullet sent him to his rest. Here ends my second horse in 83° S., not quite so tragically as my first when the sea-ice broke up, but none the less I feel sorry for a beast that has been my constant companion and care for so long. He has done his share in our undertaking anyhow, and may I do my share as well when