The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard (online e reader .txt) 📗

Midnight, November 4⁠–⁠5. It has been blowing and drifting all day. We turned out again at midday on the 4th, and remade the depot with what we were to leave owing to the new programme. This is all rather sad, but it can’t be helped. It was then blowing a summer blizzard, and we were getting frostbitten when we started, following the mule tracks. There were plenty of cairns for us to pick up, and with the lighter loads and a very good surface we came along much better. Lunching at eight miles we arrived just as the mule party had finished their hoosh preparatory to starting, and it has been decided that the mules are not to go on tonight, but we will all start marching together tomorrow.

The news from this party is on the whole good, not the least good being that the sledge-meter is working again, though not very reliably. They are marching well, and at a great pace, except for Khan Sahib. Gulab, however, is terribly chafed both by his collar and by his breast harness, both of which have been tried. He has a great raw place where this fits on one side, and is chafed, but not so badly, on the other side. Lal Khan is pulling well, but is eating very little. Pyaree is doing very well, but has some difficulty in lifting her leg when in soft snow. Abdullah seems to be considered the best mule at present. On the whole good hearing.

Wright’s sleeping-bag is bad, letting in light through cracks in a good many places. But he makes very little of it and does not seem to be cold⁠—saying it is good ventilation. The mule cloths, which have a rough lining to their outside canvas, are collecting a lot of snow, and all the mules are matted with cakes of snow. They are terrible rope-eaters, cloth-eaters, anything to eat, though they are not hungry. And they have even learnt to pull their picketing buckles undone, and go walking about the camp. Indeed Nelson says that the only time when Khan Sahib does not cast himself adrift is when he is ready to start on the march.

November 6. Early morning. We had a really good lie-in yesterday, and after the hard slogging with the dogs during the last few days I for one was very glad of it. We came on behind, and in sight of the mules this last march, and the change in the dogs was wonderful. Where it had been a job to urge them on over quite as good a surface yesterday, today for some time we could not get off the sledge except for short runs: although we had taken 312 lbs. weight off the mules and loaded it on to the dogs.

We had a most glorious night for marching, and it is now bright sunlight, and the animals’ fur is quite warm where the sun strikes it. We have just had a bit of a fight over the dog-food, Vaida going for Dyk, and now the others are somewhat excited, and there are constant growlings and murmurings.

The camp makes more of a mark than last year, for the mules are dark while the ponies were white or grey, and the cloths are brown instead of light green. The consequence is that the camp shows up from a long distance off. We are building cairns at regular distances, and there should be no difficulty in keeping on the course in fair weather at any rate. Now in the land of big sastrugi: Erebus is beginning to look small, but we could see an unusually big smoke from the crater all day.

November 7. Early morning. Not an easy day. It was −9° and overcast when we turned out, and the wind was then dying down, but it had been blowing up to force 5, with surface drift during the day. We started in a bad light and the surface, which was the usual hard surface common here, with big sastrugi, was covered by a thin layer of crystals which were then falling. This naturally made it very much harder pulling: we with the dogs have been running nearly all the twelve miles, and I for one am tired. At lunch Atkinson thought he saw a tent away to our right⁠—the very thought of it came as a shock⁠—but it proved to be a false alarm. We have been keeping a sharp lookout for the gear which was left about this part by the Last Return Party, but have seen no sign of it.

It is now −14°, but the sun is shining brightly in a clear sky, and it feels beautifully warm. It seems a very regular thing for the sky to cloud over as the sun gets low towards nightfall⁠—and directly the sun begins to rise again the clouds disappear in a most wonderful way.

November 8. Early morning. Last night’s twelve miles was quite cold for the time of year, being −23° at lunch and now −18°. But it is calm, with bright sun, and this temperature feels warm. However, there are some frostbites as a result, both Nelson and Hooper having swollen faces. The same powder and crystals have been on the surface, but we have carried the good Bluff surface so far, being now four miles beyond Bluff Depot. This is fortunate, and to the best of my recollection we were already getting on to a soft surface at this point last summer. If so there must have been more wind here this year than last, which, according to the winter we have had, seems probable.

We made up the Bluff Depot after lunch, putting up a new flag and building up the cairn, leaving two cases of dog-biscuit for the returning dog-teams. It is curious that the drift to leeward of the cairn,