South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
“About a mile from Patience Camp we had a welcome surprise. Sir Ernest
and Hussey sledged out to meet us with dixies of hot tea, well wrapped
up to keep them warm.
“One or two of the men left behind had cut a moderately good track for
us into the camp, and they harnessed themselves up with us, and we got
in in fine style.
“One excellent result of our trip was the recovery of two cases of
lentils weighing 42 lbs. each.”
The next day I sent Macklin and Crean back to make a further selection
of the gear, but they found that several leads had opened up during the
night, and they had to return when within a mile and a half of their
destination. We were never able to reach Ocean Camp again. Still, there
was very little left there that would have been of use to us.
By the middle of February the blubber question was a serious one. I had
all the discarded seals’ heads and flippers dug up and stripped of
every vestige of blubber. Meat was very short too. We still had our
three months’ supply of sledging food practically untouched; we were
only to use this as a last resort. We had a small supply of
dog-pemmican, the dogs that were left being fed on those parts of the
seals that we could not use. This dog-pemmican we fried in suet with a
little flour and made excellent bannocks.
Our meat supply was now very low indeed; we were reduced to just a few
scraps. Fortunately, however, we caught two seals and four emperor
penguins, and next day forty adelies. We had now only forty days’ food
left, and the lack of blubber was being keenly felt. All our suet was
used up, so we used seal-blubber to fry the meat in. Once we were used
to its fishy taste we enjoyed it; in fact, like Oliver Twist, we wanted
more.
On Leap Year day, February 29, we held a special celebration, more to
cheer the men up than for anything else. Some of the cynics of the
party held that it was to celebrate their escape from woman’s wiles for
another four years. The last of our cocoa was used to-day. Henceforth
water, with an occasional drink of weak milk, is to be our only
beverage. Three lumps of sugar were now issued to each man daily.
One night one of the dogs broke loose and played havoc with our
precious stock of bannocks. He ate four and half of a fifth before he
could be stopped. The remaining half, with the marks of the dog’s teeth
on it, I gave to Worsley, who divided it up amongst his seven
tent-mates; they each received about half a square inch.
Lees, who was in charge of the food and responsible for its safe
keeping, wrote in his diary: “The shorter the provisions the more there
is to do in the commissariat department, contriving to eke out our
slender stores as the weeks pass by. No housewife ever had more to do
than we have in making a little go a long way.
“Writing about the bannock that Peter bit makes one wish now that one
could have many a meal that one has given to the dog at home. When one
is hungry, fastidiousness goes to the winds and one is only too glad to
eat up any scraps regardless of their antecedents. One is almost
ashamed to write of all the titbits one has picked up here, but it is
enough to say that when the cook upset some pemmican on to an old sooty
cloth and threw it outside his galley, one man subsequently made a
point of acquiring it and scraping off the palatable but dirty
compound.”
Another man searched for over an hour in the snow where he had dropped
a piece of cheese some days before, in the hopes of finding a few
crumbs. He was rewarded by coming across a piece as big as his
thumb-nail, and considered it well worth the trouble.
By this time blubber was a regular article of our diet—either raw,
boiled, or fried. “It is remarkable how our appetites have changed in
this respect. Until quite recently almost the thought of it was
nauseating. Now, however, we positively demand it. The thick black oil
which is rendered down from it, rather like train-oil in appearance and
cod-liver oil in taste, we drink with avidity.”
We had now about enough farinaceous food for two meals all round, and
sufficient seal to last for a month. Our forty days’ reserve sledging
rations, packed on the sledges, we wished to keep till the last.
But, as one man philosophically remarked in his diary:
“It will do us all good to be hungry like this, for we will appreciate
so much more the good things when we get home.”
Seals and penguins now seemed to studiously avoid us, and on taking
stock of our provisions on March 21 I found that we had only sufficient
meat to last us for ten days, and the blubber would not last that time
even, so one biscuit had to be our midday meal.
Our meals were now practically all seal meat, with one biscuit at
midday; and I calculated that at this rate, allowing for a certain
number of seals and penguins being caught, we could last for nearly six
months. We were all very weak though, and as soon as it appeared likely
that we should leave our floe and take to the boats I should have to
considerably increase the ration. One day a huge sea-leopard climbed on
to the floe and attacked one of the men. Wild, hearing the shouting,
ran out and shot it. When it was cut up, we found in its stomach
several undigested fish. These we fried in some of its blubber, and so
had our only “fresh” fish meal during the whole of our drift on the
ice.
“As fuel is so scarce we have had to resort to melting ice for
drinking-water in tins against our bodies, and we treat the tins of
dog-pemmican for breakfast similarly by keeping them in our
sleeping-bags all night.
“The last two teams of dogs were shot to-day (April 2) the carcasses
being dressed for food. We had some of the dog-meat cooked, and it was
not at all bad—just like beef, but, of course, very tough.”
On April 5 we killed two seals, and this, with the sea-leopard of a few
days before, enabled us to slightly increase our ration. Everybody now
felt much happier; such is the psychological effect of hunger appeased.
On cold days a few strips of raw blubber were served out to all hands,
and it is wonderful how it fortified us against the cold.
Our stock of forty days’ sledging rations remained practically
untouched, but once in the boats they were used at full strength.
When we first settled down at Patience Camp the weather was very mild.
New Year’s Eve, however, was foggy and overcast, with some snow, and
next day, though the temperature rose to 38° Fahr., it was “abominably
cold and wet underfoot.” As a rule, during the first half of January
the weather was comparatively warm, so much so that we could dispense
with our mitts and work outside for quite long periods with bare hands.
Up till the 13th it was exasperatingly warm and calm. This meant that
our drift northwards, which was almost entirely dependent on the wind,
was checked. A light southerly breeze on the 16th raised all our hopes,
and as the temperature was dropping we were looking forward to a period
of favourable winds and a long drift north.
On the 18th it had developed into a howling south-westerly gale, rising
next day to a regular blizzard with much drift. No one left the shelter
of his tent except to feed the dogs, fetch the meals from the galley
for his tent, or when his turn as watchman came round. For six days
this lasted, when the drift subsided somewhat, though the southerly
wind continued, and we were able to get a glimpse of the sun. This
showed us to have drifted 84 miles north in six days, the longest drift
we had made. For weeks we had remained on the 67th parallel, and it
seemed as though some obstruction was preventing us from passing it. By
this amazing leap, however, we had crossed the Antarctic Circle, and
were now 146 miles from the nearest land to the west of us—Snow
Hill—and 357 miles from the South Orkneys, the first land directly to
the north of us.
As if to make up for this, an equally strong north-easterly wind sprang
up next day, and not only stopped our northward drift but set us back
three miles to the south. As usual, high temperatures and wet fog
accompanied these northerly winds, though the fog disappeared on the
afternoon of January 25, and we had the unusual spectacle of bright hot
sun with a north-easterly wind. It was as hot a day as we had ever had.
The temperature was 36° Fahr. in the shade and nearly 80° Fahr. inside
the tents. This had an awful effect on the surface, covering it with
pools and making it very treacherous to walk upon. Ten days of
northerly winds rather damped our spirits, but a strong southerly wind
on February 4, backing later, to south-east, carried us north again.
High temperatures and northerly winds soon succeeded this, so that our
average rate of northerly drift was about a mile a day in February.
Throughout the month the diaries record alternately “a wet day,
overcast and mild,” and “bright and cold with light southerly winds.”
The wind was now the vital factor with us and the one topic of any real
interest.
The beginning of March brought cold, damp, calm weather, with much wet
snow and overcast skies. The effect of the weather on our mental state
was very marked. All hands felt much more cheerful on a bright sunny
day, and looked forward with much more hope to the future, than when it
was dull and overcast. This had a much greater effect than an increase
in rations.
A south-easterly gale on the 13th lasting for five days sent us twenty
miles north, and from now our good fortune, as far as the wind was
concerned, never left us for any length of time. On the 20th we
experienced the worst blizzard we had had up to that time, though worse
were to come after landing on Elephant Island. Thick snow fell, making
it impossible to see the camp from thirty yards off. To go outside for
a moment entailed getting covered all over with fine powdery snow,
which required a great deal of brushing off before one could enter
again.
As the blizzard eased up, the temperature dropped and it became
bitterly cold. In our weak condition, with torn, greasy clothes, we
felt these sudden variations in temperature much more than we otherwise
would have done. A calm, clear, magnificently warm day followed, and
next day came a strong southerly blizzard. Drifts four feet deep
covered everything, and we had to be continually digging up our scanty
stock of meat to prevent its being lost altogether. We had taken
advantage of the previous fine day to attempt to thaw out our blankets,
which were frozen stiff and could be held out like pieces of
sheet-iron; but on this day, and for the next two or three also, it was
impossible to do anything but get right inside one’s frozen
sleeping-bag to try and get warm. Too cold to read or sew, we had to
keep our hands well inside, and pass the time in conversation with each
other.
“The temperature was not strikingly low as temperatures go down here,
but the terrific winds penetrate the flimsy fabric of our fragile tents
and create so much draught that it is impossible to keep warm within.
At supper last night our drinking-water froze over in the tin in the
tent before we could drink it. It is curious how thirsty we all are.”
Two days of brilliant warm sunshine succeeded these cold times, and on
March 29 we experienced, to us, the most amazing weather. It began to
rain hard, and it was the first rain that we had seen since we left
South Georgia sixteen months ago. We regarded, it as our first touch
with civilization, and many of the men longed for the rain and fogs of
London.
Strong south winds with dull, overcast skies and occasional high
temperatures were now our lot till April 7, when the mist lifted and we