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

take as many men as possible to the Pole. He sent three men back: Lieutenant Evans in charge, and two seamen, Lashly and Crean. It is the vivid story of those three men, who turned on January 4 in latitude 87° 2′, which is told by Lashly in the next chapter. Scott wrote home: “A last note from a hopeful position. I think it’s going to be all right. We have a fine party going forward and arrangements are all going well.”252

Ten months afterwards we found their bodies.

XII The Polar Journey (Continued) The Devil And these are the creatures in whom you discover what you call a Life Force! Don Juan Yes; for now comes the most surprising part of the whole business. The Statue What’s that? Don Juan Why, that you can make any of these cowards brave by simply putting an idea into his head. The Statue Stuff! As an old soldier I admit the cowardice: it’s as universal as sea sickness, and matters just as little. But that about putting an idea into a man’s head is stuff and nonsense. In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win. Don Juan That is perhaps why battles are so useless. But men never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a universal purpose⁠—fighting for an idea, as they call it. Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman IV Returning Parties

Two Dog Teams (Meares and Dimitri) turned back from the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier on December 11, 1911. They reached Hut Point on January 4, 1912.

First Supporting Party (Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard, Wright, Keohane) turned back in lat. 85° 5′ on December 22, 1911. They reached Hut Point January 26, 1912.

Last Supporting Party (Lieut. Evans, Lashly, Crean) turned back in lat. 87° 2′ on January 4, 1912. They reached Hut Point February 22, 1912.

Of the three teams which started up the Beardmore Glacier the first to return, a fortnight after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the First Supporting Party: the second to return, a month after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the Last Supporting Party. Of the two dog-teams under Meares, which had already turned homewards at the bottom of the glacier after having been brought forward farther than had been intended, I will speak later.253

I am going to say very little about the First Return Party, which consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Keohane and myself. Atkinson was in command, and before we left Scott told him to bring the dog-teams out to meet the Polar Party if, as seemed likely, Meares returned home. Atkinson is a naval surgeon and you will find this party referred to in Lashly’s diary as “the Doctor’s.”

“It was a sad job saying goodbye. It was thick, snowing and drifting clouds when we started back after making the depot, and the last we saw of them as we swung the sledge north was a black dot just disappearing over the next ridge and a big white pressure wave ahead of them.⁠ ⁠… Scott said some nice things when we said goodbye. Anyway he has only to average seven miles a day to get to the Pole on full rations⁠—it’s practically a cert for him. I do hope he takes Bill and Birdie. The view over the icefalls and pressure by the Mill Glacier from the top of the icefalls is one of the finest things I have ever seen. Atch is doing us proud.”254

No five hundred mile journey down the Beardmore and across the Barrier can be uneventful, even in midsummer. We had the same dreary drag, the same thick weather, fears and anxieties which other parties have had. A touch of the same dysentery and sickness: the same tumbles and crevasses: the same Christmas comforts, a layer of plum pudding at the bottom of our cocoa, and some rocks collected from a moraine under the Cloudmaker: the same groping for tracks: the same cairns lost and found, the same snow-blindness and weariness, nightmares, food dreams.⁠ ⁠… Why repeat? Comparatively speaking it was a very little journey: and yet the distance from Cape Evans to the top of the Beardmore Glacier and back is 1,164 statute miles. Scott’s Southern Journey of 1902⁠–⁠3 was 950 statute miles.

One day only is worth recalling. We got into the same big pressure above the Cloudmaker which both the other parties experienced. But where the other two parties made east to get out of it, we went west at Wright’s suggestion: west was right. The day really lives in my memory because of the troubles of Keohane. He fell into crevasses to the full length of his harness eight times in twenty-five minutes. Little wonder he looked a bit dazed. And Atkinson went down into one chasm head foremost: the worst crevasse fall I’ve ever seen. But luckily the shoulder straps of his harness stood the strain and we pulled him up little the worse.

All three parties off the plateau owed a good deal to Meares, who, on his return with the two dog-teams, built up the cairns which had been obliterated by the big blizzard of December 5⁠–⁠8. The ponies’ walls were drifted level with the surface, and Meares himself had an anxious time finding his way home. The dog tracks also helped us a good deal: the dogs were sinking deeply and making heavy weather of it.

Adams Mountains Cherry-Garrard. Keohane. Atkinson⁠—First Return Party

At the Barrier Depots we found rather despondent notes from Meares about his progress. To the Southern Barrier Depot he had uncomfortably high temperatures and a very soft surface, and found the cairns drifted up and hard to see. At the Middle