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

in exactly the same position as I fell asleep in 6 hours before⁠—never moved”: “January 2. We were surprised today by seeing a Skua gull flying over us⁠—evidently hungry but not weak. Its droppings, however, were clear mucus, nothing in them at all. It appeared in the afternoon and disappeared again about ½ hour after.” And then on January 3: “Last night Scott told us what the plans were for the South Pole. Scott, Oates, Bowers, Petty Officer Evans and I are to go to the Pole. Teddie Evans is to return from here tomorrow with Crean and Lashly. Scott finished his week’s cooking tonight and I begin mine tomorrow.” Just that.

The next day Bowers wrote:

“I had my farewell breakfast in the tent with Teddy Evans, Crean and Lashly. After so little sleep the previous night I rather dreaded the march. We gave our various notes, messages and letters to the returning party and started off. They accompanied us for about a mile before returning, to see that all was going well. Our party were on ski with the exception of myself: I first made fast to the central span, but afterwards connected up to the toggle of the sledge, pulling in the centre between the inner ends of Captain Scott’s and Dr. Wilson’s traces. This was found to be the best place, as I had to go my own step.

“Teddy and party gave us three cheers, and Crean was half in tears. They have a featherweight sledge to go back with of course, and ought to run down their distance easily.295 We found we could manage our load easily, and did 6.3 miles before lunch, completing 12.5 by 7:15 p.m. Our marching hours are nine per day. It is a long slog with a well-loaded sledge, and more tiring for me than the others, as I have no ski. However, as long as I can do my share all day and keep fit it does not matter much one way or the other.

“We had our first northerly wind on the plateau today, and a deposit of snow crystals made the surface like sand latterly on the march. The sledge dragged like lead. In the evening it fell calm, and although the temperature was −16° it was positively pleasant to stand about outside the tent and bask in the sun’s rays. It was our first calm since we reached the summit too. Our socks and other damp articles which we hang out to dry at night become immediately covered with long feathery crystals exactly like plumes. Socks, mitts and finnesko dry splendidly up here during the night. We have little trouble with them compared with spring and winter journeys. I generally spread my bag out in the sun during the 1½ hours of lunch time, which gives the reindeer hair a chance to get rid of the damage done by the deposit of breath and any perspiration during the night.”296

Plenty of sun, heavy surfaces, iridescent clouds⁠ ⁠… the worst windcut sastrugi I have seen, covered with bunches of crystals like gorse⁠ ⁠… ice blink all round⁠ ⁠… hairy faces and mouths dreadfully iced up on the march⁠ ⁠… hot and sweaty days’ work, but sometimes cold hands in the loops of the ski sticks⁠ ⁠… windy streaky cirrus in every direction, all thin and filmy and scrappy⁠ ⁠… horizon clouds all being wafted about.⁠ ⁠… These are some of the impressions here and there in Wilson’s diary during the first ten days of the party’s solitary march. On the whole he is enjoying himself, I think.

You should read Scott’s diary yourself and form your own opinions, but I think that after the Last Return Party left him there is a load off his mind. The thing had worked so far, it was up to them now: that great mass of figures and weights and averages, those years of preparation, those months of anxiety⁠—no one of them had been in vain. They were up to date in distance, and there was a very good amount of food, probably more than was necessary to see them to the Pole and off the plateau on full rations. Best thought of all, perhaps, the motors with their uncertainties, the ponies with their suffering, the glacier with its possibilities of disaster, all were behind: and the two main supporting parties were safely on their way home. Here with him was a fine party, tested and strong, and only 148 miles from the Pole.

I can see them, working with a businesslike air, with no fuss and no unnecessary talk, each man knowing his job and doing it: pitching the tent: finishing the camp work and sitting round on their sleeping-bags while their meal was cooked: warming their hands on their mugs: saving a biscuit to eat when they woke in the night: packing the sledge with a good neat stow: marching with a solid swing⁠—we have seen them do it so often, and they did it jolly well.

And the conditions did not seem so bad.

“Tonight it is flat calm; the sun so warm that in spite of the temperature we can stand about outside in the greatest comfort. It is amusing to stand thus and remember the constant horrors of our situation as they were painted for us: the sun is melting the snow on the ski, etc. The plateau is now very flat, but we are still ascending slowly. The sastrugi are getting more confused, predominant from the S. E. I wonder what is in store for us. At present everything seems to be going with extraordinary smoothness.⁠ ⁠… We feel the cold very little, the great comfort of our situation is the excellent drying effect of the sun.⁠ ⁠… Our food continues to amply satisfy. What luck to have hit on such an excellent ration. We really are an excellently found party⁠ ⁠… we lie so very comfortably, warmly clothed in our comfortable bags, within our double-walled tent.”297

Then something happened.

While Scott was