South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
snow from the motor-tractor and made some preliminary efforts to get it
into working order. They returned to Cape Evans on the 3rd. The second
trip to Hut Point was made by a party of nine, with three sledges. Two
sledges, man-hauled, were loaded with 1278 lbs. of stores, and a
smaller sledge, drawn by the dogs, carried the sleeping-bags. This
party encountered a stiff southerly breeze, with low temperature, and,
as the men were still in rather soft condition, they suffered much from
frost bites. Joyce and Gaze both had their heels badly blistered.
Mackintosh’s face suffered, and other men had fingers and ears
“bitten.” When they returned Gaze had to travel on a sledge, since he
could not set foot to the ground. They tried to haul the motor to Cape
Evans on this occasion, but left it for another time after covering a
mile or so. The motor was not working and was heavy to pull.
Eight men made the third journey to Hut Point, Gaze and Jack remaining
behind. They took 660 lbs. of oil and 630 lbs. of stores. From Hut
Point the next day (September 14) the party proceeded with loaded
sledges to Safety Camp, on the edge of the Barrier. This camp would be
the starting-point for the march over the Barrier to the Minna Bluff
depot. They left the two sledges, with 660 lbs. of oil and 500 lbs. of
oatmeal, sugar, and sundries, at Safety Camp and returned to Hut Point.
The dogs shared the work on this journey. The next day Mackintosh and
his companions took the motor to Cape Evans, hauling it with its
grip-wheels mounted on a sledge. After a pause due to bad weather, a
party of eight men took another load to Hut Point on September 24, and
on to Safety Camp the next day. They got back to Cape Evans on the
26th. Richards meanwhile had overhauled the motor and given it some
trial runs on the sea-ice. But he reported that the machine was not
working satisfactorily, and Mackintosh decided not to persevere with
it.
“Everybody is up to his eyes in work,” runs the last entry in the
journal left by Mackintosh at Cape Evans. “All gear is being
overhauled, and personal clothing is having the last stitches. We have
been improvising shoes to replace the finneskoe, of which we are badly
short. Wild has made an excellent shoe out of an old horse-rug he found
here, and this is being copied by other men. I have made myself a pair
of mitts out of an old sleeping-bag. Last night I had a bath, the
second since being here.... I close this journal to-day (September 30)
and am packing it with my papers here. To-morrow we start for Hut
Point. Nine of us are going on the sledge party for laying
depots—namely, Stevens, Spencer-Smith, Joyce, Wild, Cope, Hayward,
Jack, Richards, and myself. Gaze, who is still suffering from bad feet,
is remaining behind and will probably be relieved by Stevens after our
first trip. With us we take three months’ provisions to leave at Hut
Point. I continue this journal in another book, which I keep with me.”
The nine men reached Hut Point on October 1. They took the last loads
with them. Three sledges and three tents were to be taken on to the
Barrier, and the parties were as follows:
No. 1: Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith, and Wild; No. 2: Joyce, Cope, and
Richards; No. 3: Jack, Hayward, and Gaze. On October 3 and 4 some
stores left at Half-Way Camp were brought in, and other stores were
moved on to Safety Camp. Bad weather delayed the start of the
depot-laying expedition from Hut Point until October 9.
CHAPTER XV
LAYING THE DEPOTS
Mackintosh’s account of the depot-laying journeys undertaken by his
parties in the summer of 1915–16 unfortunately is not available. The
leader of the parties kept a diary, but he had the book with him when
he was lost on the sea-ice in the following winter. The narrative of
the journeys has been compiled from the notes kept by Joyce, Richards,
and other members of the parties, and I may say here that it is a
record of dogged endeavour in the face of great difficulties and
serious dangers. It is always easy to be wise after the event, and one
may realize now that the use of the dogs, untrained and soft from
shipboard inactivity, on the comparatively short journey undertaken
immediately after the landing in 1915 was a mistake. The result was the
loss of nearly all the dogs before the longer and more important
journeys of 1915–16 were undertaken. The men were sledging almost
continuously during a period of six months; they suffered from
frost-bite, scurvy, snow-blindness, and the utter weariness of
overtaxed bodies. But the they placed the depots in the required
positions, and if the Weddell Sea party had been able to make the
crossing of the Antarctic continent, the stores and fuel would have
been waiting for us where we expected to find them.
The position on October 9 was that the nine men at Hut Point had with
them the stores required for the depots and for their own maintenance
throughout the summer. The remaining dogs were at Cape Evans with Gaze,
who had a sore heel and had been replaced temporarily by Stevens in the
sledging party. A small quantity of stores had been conveyed already to
Safety Camp on the edge of the Barrier beyond Hut Point. Mackintosh
intended to form a large depot off Minna Bluff, seventy miles out from
Hut Point. This would necessitate several trips with heavy loads. Then
he would use the Bluff depot as a base for the journey to Mount Hope,
at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, where the final depot was to be
laid.
The party left Hut Point on the morning of October 9, the nine men
hauling on one rope and trailing three loaded sledges. They reached
Safety Camp in the early afternoon, and, after repacking the sledges
with a load of about 2000 lbs., they began the journey over the
Barrier. The pulling proved exceedingly heavy, and they camped at the
end of half a mile. It was decided next day to separate the sledges,
three men to haul each sledge. Mackintosh hoped that better progress
could be made in this way. The distance for the day was only four
miles, and the next day’s journey was no better. Joyce mentions that he
had never done harder pulling, the surface being soft, and the load
amounting to 220 lbs. per man. The new arrangement was not a success,
owing to differences in hauling capacity and inequalities in the
loading of the sledges; and on the morning of the 12th, Mackintosh,
after consultation, decided to push forward with Wild and
Spencer-Smith, hauling one sledge and a relatively light load, and
leave Joyce and the remaining five men to bring two sledges and the
rest of the stores at their best pace. This arrangement was maintained
on the later journeys. The temperatures were falling below –30° Fahr.
at some hours, and, as the men perspired freely while hauling their
heavy loads in the sun, they suffered a great deal of discomfort in the
damp and freezing clothes at night. Joyce cut down his load on the 13th
by depot-ing some rations and spare clothing, and made better progress.
He was building snow-cairns as guide-posts for use on the return
journey. He mentions passing some large crevasses during succeeding
days. Persistent head winds with occasional drift made the conditions
unpleasant and caused many frost-bites. When the surface was hard, and
the pulling comparatively easy, the men slipped and fell continually,
“looking much like classical dancers.”
On the 20th a northerly wind made possible the use of a sail, and
Joyce’s party made rapid progress. Jack sighted a bamboo pole during
the afternoon; and Joyce found that marked a depot he had laid for my
own “Farthest South” party in 1908. He dug down in the hope of finding
some stores, but the depot had been cleared. The party reached the
Bluff depot on the evening of the 21st and found that Mackintosh had
been there on the 19th. Mackintosh had left 178 lbs. of provisions, and
Joyce left one sledge and 273 lbs. of stores. The most interesting
incident of the return journey was the discovery of a note left by Mr.
Cherry Garrard for Captain Scott on March 19, 1912, only a few days
before the latter perished at his camp farther south. An upturned
sledge at this point was found to mark a depot of dog-biscuit and
motor-oil, laid by one of Captain Scott’s parties. Joyce reached Safety
Camp on the afternoon of the 27th, and, after dumping all spare gear,
pushed on to Hut Point in a blizzard. The sledges nearly went over a
big drop at the edge of the Barrier, and a few moments later Stevens
dropped down a crevasse to the length of his harness.
“Had a tough job getting him up, as we had no alpine rope and had to
use harness,” wrote Joyce. “Got over all right and had a very hard pull
against wind and snow, my face getting frost-bitten as I had to keep
looking up to steer. We arrived at the hut about 7.30 p.m. after a very
hard struggle. We found the Captain and his party there. They had been
in for three days. Gaze was also there with the dogs. We soon had a
good feed and forgot our hard day’s work.”
Mackintosh decided to make use of the dogs on the second journey to the
Bluff depot. He thought that with the aid of the dogs heavier loads
might be hauled. This plan involved the dispatch of a party to Cape
Evans to get dog-pemmican. Mackintosh himself, with Wild and
Spencer-Smith, started south again on October 29. Their sledge
overturned on the slope down to the sea-ice, and the rim of their
tent-spread was broken. The damage did not appear serious, and the
party soon disappeared round Cape Armitage. Joyce remained in charge at
Hut Point, with instructions to get dog food from Cape Evans and make a
start south as soon as possible. He sent Stevens, Hayward, and Cope to
Cape Evans the next day, and busied himself with the repair of
sledging-gear. Cope, Hayward, and Gaze arrived back from Cape Evans on
November 1, Stevens having stayed at the base. A blizzard delayed the
start southward, and the party did not get away until November 5. The
men pulled in harness with the four dogs, and, as the surface was soft
and the loads on the two sledges were heavy, the advance was slow. The
party covered 5 miles 700 yards on the 6th, 4 miles 300 yards on the
7th, and 8 miles 1800 yards on the 9th, with the aid of a light
northerly wind. They passed on the 9th a huge bergstrom, with a drop of
about 70 feet from the flat surface of the Barrier. Joyce thought that
a big crevasse had caved in. “We took some photographs,” wrote Joyce.
“It is a really extraordinary fill-in of ice, with cliffs of blue ice
about 70 feet high, and heavily crevassed, with overhanging
snow-curtains. One could easily walk over the edge coming from the
north in thick weather.” Another bergstrom, with crevassed ice around
it, was encountered on the 11th. Joyce reached the Bluff depot on the
evening of the 14th and found that he could leave 624 lbs. of
provisions. Mackintosh had been there several days earlier and had left
188 lbs. of stores.
Joyce made Hut Point again on November 20 after an adventurous day. The
surface was good in the morning and he pushed forward rapidly. About
10.30 a.m. the party encountered heavy pressure-ice with crevasses, and
had many narrow escapes. “After lunch we came on four crevasses quite
suddenly. Jack fell through. We could not alter course, or else we
should have been steering among them, so galloped right across. We were
going so fast that the dogs that went through were jerked out. It came
on very thick at 2 p.m. Every bit of land was obscured, and it was hard
to steer. Decided to make for Hut Point, and arrived at 6.30 p.m.,
after doing twenty-two miles, a very good performance. I had a bad
attack of snow-blindness and had to use cocaine. Hayward also had a bad
time. I was laid up and had to keep my eyes bandaged for three days.