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

By now I was becoming really alarmed and anxious about Dimitri, who seemed to be getting much worse, and to be able to do less and less. Sitting on a sledge the next day with a head wind and the temperature −30° was cold. The land was clear when we turned out and I could see that we must be far outside our course, but almost immediately it became foggy. We made in towards the land a good deal, and made a good run, but owing to the sledge-meter being useless and the bad weather generally during the last few days, I had a very hazy idea indeed where we were when we camped, having been steering for some time by the faint gleam of the sun through the mist. Just after camping Dimitri suddenly pointed to a black spot which seemed to wave to and fro: we decided that it was the flag of the derelict motor near Corner Camp which up to that time I thought was ten to fifteen miles away: this was a great relief, and we debated packing up again and going to it, but decided to stay where we were.

It was fairly clear on the morning of March 14, which was lucky, for it was now obvious that we were miles from Corner Camp and much too near the land. The flag we had seen must have been a miraged piece of pressure, and it was providential that we had not made for it, and found worse trouble than we actually experienced. Try all I could that morning, my team, which was leading, insisted on edging westwards. At last I saw what I thought was a cairn, but found out just in time that it was a haycock or mound of ice formed by pressure: by its side was a large open crevasse, of which about fifty yards of snow-bridge had fallen in. For several miles we knew that we were crossing big crevasses by the hollow sound, and it was with considerable relief that I sighted the motor and then Corner Camp some two or three miles to the east of us. “Dimitri had left his Alpine rope there, and also I should have liked to have brought in Evans’ sledge, but it would have meant about five miles extra, and I left it. I hope Scott, finding no note, will not think we are lost.”267

Dimitri seemed to be getting worse, and we pushed on until we camped that night only fifteen miles from Hut Point. My main anxiety was whether the sea-ice between us and Hut Point was in, because I felt that the job of getting the teams up on to the Peninsula and along it and down the other side would be almost more than we could do: there was an ominous open-water sky ahead.

On March 15 we were held up all day by a strong blizzard. But by 8 a.m. the next morning we could see just the outline of White Island. I was very anxious, for Dimitri said that he had nearly fainted, and I felt that we must get on somehow, and chance the sea-ice being in. He stayed inside the tent as long as possible, and my spirits rose as the land began to clear all round while I was packing up both sledges. From Safety Camp the mirage at the edge of the Barrier was alarming, but as we approached the edge to my very great relief I found that the sea-ice was still in, and that what we had taken for frost smoke was only drift over Cape Armitage.

Pushing into the drift round the corner I found Atkinson on the sea-ice, and Keohane in the hut behind. In a few minutes we had the gist of one another’s news. The ship had made attempt after attempt to reach Campbell and his five men, but they had not been taken off from Evans Coves when she finally left McMurdo Sound on March 4: she would make another effort on her way to New Zealand. Evans was better and was being taken home. Meanwhile there were four of us at Hut Point and we could not communicate with our companions at Cape Evans until the Sound froze over, for the open sea was washing the feet of Vince’s Cross.

We were not unduly alarmed about the Polar Party at present, but began to make arrangements for further sledging if necessary. It was useless to think of taking the dogs again for they were thoroughly done. The mules and the new dogs were at Cape Evans. “In four or five days Atkinson wishes to start South again to see what we can do man-hauling, if the Polar Party is not in. I agree with him that to try and go west to meet Campbell is useless just now. If we can go north, they can come south, and to put two parties there on the new sea-ice is to double the risk.”

“March 17. A blizzard day but only about force 5⁠–⁠6. I think they will have been able to travel all right on the Barrier. Atkinson thinks of starting on the 22nd: my view is that allowing three weeks and four days for the Summit, and ten days for being hung up by weather, we can give them five weeks after the Last Return Party (i.e. to March 26) to get in, having been quite safe and sound all the way. We feel anxious now, but I do not think there is need for alarm till then, and they might get in well after that, and be all right.

“Now our only real chance of finding them, if we go out, is from here to ten miles south of Corner Camp. After that we shall do all we can, but it would be no good, because there is no very definite route. Therefore I would start out on March 27,