CHAPTER XV
EASTWARD OVER THE SEA-ICE
by C. T. MADIGAN
Harnessed and girt in his canvas bands,
Toggled and roped to his load;
With helmeted head and bemittened hands,
This for his spur and his goad:
``Out in the derelict fastnesses bare
Some whit of truth may be won.''
Be it a will o' the wisp, he will fare
Forth to the rising sun.
The Sledge Horse
The Eastern Coastal party consisted of Dr. A. L. McLean,
P. E. Correll and myself. For weeks all preparations had been made; the
decking put on the sledge, runners polished, cooker- and instrument-boxes
attached, mast erected, spar and sail rigged, instruments and clothing collected,
tent strengthened--all the impedimenta of a sledge journey arranged and
rearranged, and still the blizzard raged on. Would we never get away? November
arrived, and still the wind kept up daily averages of over fifty miles per
hour, with scarce a day without drifting snow.
At last it was decided that a start must soon be made even though it ended
in failure, so that we received orders to set out on November 6, or the
first possible day after it.
Friday November 8 broke, a clear driftless day, and Murphy's party left
early in the morning. By noon, Stillwell's party (Stillwell, Hodgeman and
Close), and we, were ready to start. The former were bound on a short journey
to the near east and were to support us until we parted company.
All was bustle and excitement. Every one turned out to see us off. Breaking
an empty sauce-bottle over the bow of our sledge, we christened it the M.H.S.
Championship (Man-Hauled Sledge). The name was no boastful prevision of
mighty deeds, as, at the Hut, a ``Championship'' was understood to mean
some careless action usually occasioning damage to property, while our party
included several noted ``champions.''
Mertz harnessed a dog-team to the sledge and helped us up the first steep
slope. With hearty handshakes and a generous cheer from the other fellows,
we started off and were at last away, after many months of hibernation in
the Hut, to chance the hurricanes and drifting snow and to push towards
the unknown regions to the east.
At the steepest part of the rise we dismissed our helpers and said good-bye.
McLean and Correll joined me on the sledge and we continued on to Aladdin's
Cave.
As we mounted the glacier the wind increased, carrying surface drift which
obscured the view to within one hundred yards. It was this which made us
pass the Cave on the eastern side and pull up on a well-known patch of snow
in a depression to the south of our goal. It was not long before a momentary
clearing of the drift showed Aladdin's Cave with its piles of food-tanks,
kerosene, dog biscuit and pemmican, and, to our dismay, a burberry-clad
figure moving about among the accumulation. Murphy's party were in possession
when we expected them to be on the way south to another cave--the Cathedral
Grotto--eleven and three-quarter miles from the Hut. Of course the rising
wind and drift had stopped them.
It was then 5 P.M., so we did not wait to discuss the evident proposition
as to which of the three parties should occupy the Cave, but climbed down
into it at once and boiled up hoosh and tea. Borrowing tobacco from the
supporting parties, we reclined at ease, and then in that hazy atmosphere
so dear to smokers, its limpid blue enhanced by the pale azure of the ice,
we introduced the subject of occupation as if it were a sudden afterthought.
It was soon decided to enlarge the Cave to accommodate five men, the other
four consenting to squeeze into Stillwell's big tent. McLean volunteered
to join Stillwell's party in the tent, while Correll and I were to stay
in the Cave with Murphy and company.
I went outside and selected ten weeks' provisions from the pile of food-tanks
and piled them beside the sledge. McLean attended to the thermograph which
Bage and I had installed in the autumn. Meanwhile, in a fifty-mile wind,
Stillwell and his men erected the tent. Hunter and Laseron started with
picks and shovels to enlarge the Cave, and, working in relays, we had soon
expanded it to eight feet by seven feet.
The men from the tent came down to ``high dinner'' at eight o'clock. They
reported weather conditions unimproved and the temperature -3 degrees F.
Early next morning I dug my way out and found that the surface drift had
increased with a wind of fifty-five miles per hour. It was obviously impossible
to start.
After breakfast it was arranged that those outside should have their meals
separately, digging down at intervals to let us know the state of the weather.
It was not pleasant for us, congested as we were in the Cave, to have visitors
sliding down through the opening with a small avalanche of snow in their
train. Further, to increase their own discomfort, they arrived covered in
snow, and what they were unable to shake off thawed and wet them, subsequently
freezing again to the consistency of a starched collar.
The opening was, therefore, kept partly closed with a food-tank. The result
was that a good deal of snow came in, while the hole diminished in size.
For a man to try to crawl out in stiff burberrys appeared as futile as for
a porcupine to try to go backwards up a canvas hose.
The day passed slowly in our impatience. We took turns at reading `The Virginian',
warmed by a primus stove which in a land of plenty we could afford to keep
going. Later in the afternoon the smokers found that a match would not strike,
and the primus went out. Then the man reading said that he felt unwell and
could not see the words. Soon several others commented on feeling ``queer,''
and two in the sleeping-bags had fallen into a drowsy slumber. On
this evidence even the famous Watson would have ``dropped to it,'' but it
was some time before it dawned on us that the oxygen had given out. Then
there was a rush for shovels. The snow, ice and food-tank were tightly wedged,
at the mouth of the entrance, and it took some exertion to perforate through
to the outside air with an ice-axe. At once every one speedily recovered.
Later, another party had a worse experience, not forgetting to leave a warning
note behind them. We should have done the same.
The weather was no better by the evening, and during the night the minimum
thermometer registered -12 degrees F.
At six o'clock on Sunday morning, November 10, McLean dug down to us with
the news that the wind had abated to thirty miles per hour with light surface
drift.
We hurried through breakfast, rolled up the bags and started packing the
sledge. Three 100-lb. food-tanks, one 50-lb. bag opened for ready use, and
four gallons of kerosene were selected. Stillwell took for us a 50-lb. food-tank,
a 56-lb. tin of wholemeal biscuits, and a gallon of kerosene. With the 850
lbs. of food, 45 lbs. of kerosene, three sleeping-bags of 10 lbs. each,
a tent of 40 lbs., 86 lbs. of clothing and personal gear for three men,
a cooker, primus, pick, shovel, ice-axe, alpine rope, dip-circle, theodolite,
tripod, smaller instruments such as aneroid, barometer and thermometer,
tools, medical outfit and sledge-fittings, our total load amounted to nearly
800 lbs., and Stillwell's was about the same.
All were ready at 9 A.M., and, shaking hands with Murphy's party, who set
off due south, we steered with Stillwell to the south-east. The preliminary
instructions were to proceed south-east from the Cave to a distance of eighteen
miles and there await the arrival of Dr. Mawson and his party, who were
to overtake us with their dogteams.
The first few miles gave a gradual rise of one hundred feet per mile, so
that, with a heavy load against wind and drift, travelling was very slow.
The wind now dropped to almost calm, and the drift cleared. In the afternoon
progress was hampered by crevasses, which were very frequent, running east
and west and from one to twenty feet in width. The wider ones were covered
with firm snow-bridges; the snow in places having formed into granular and
even solid ice. What caused most delay were the detours of several hundreds
of yards which had to be made to find a safe crossing over a long,
wide crevasse. At 6.30 P.M. we pitched camp, having only made five miles
from the Cave.
We got away at 9 A.M. the next morning. Throughout the whole journey we
thought over the same mysterious problem as confronted many another sledger:
Where did the time go to in the mornings? Despite all our efforts we could
not cut down the interval from ``rise and shine'' to the start below two
hours.
Early that day we had our first experience of the treacherous crevasse.
Correll went down a fissure about three feet wide. I had jumped across it,
thinking the bridge looked thin, but Correll stepped on it and went through.
He dropped vertically down the full length of his harness--six feet. McLean
and I soon had him out. The icy walls fell sheer for about sixty feet, where
snow could be seen in the blue depths. Our respect for crevasses rapidly
increased after this, and we took greater precautions, shuddering to think
of the light-hearted way we had trudged over the wider ones.
At twelve miles, blue, wind-swept ice gave place to an almost flat snow
surface. Meanwhile the sky had rapidly clouded over, and the outlook was
threatening. The light became worse, and the sastrugi indistinguishable.
Such a phenomenon always occurs on what we came to call a ``snow-blind day.''
On these days the sky is covered with a white, even pall of cloud, and cloud
and plateau seem as one. One walks into a deep trench or a sastruga two
feet high without noticing it. The world seems one huge, white void, and
the only difference between it and the pitch-dark night is that the one
is white and the other black.
Light snow commenced at 2.30 P.M., the wind rising to forty-five miles per
hour with heavy drift. Thirteen miles out we pitched camp.
This, the first ``snow-blind day'' claimed McLean for its victim. By the
time we were under cover of the tent, his eyes were very sore, aching with
a throbbing pain. At his request I placed a zinc-cocaine tablet in each
eye. He spent the rest of the day in the darkness of his sleeping-bag and
had his eyes bandaged all next day. Up till then we had not worn goggles,
but were careful afterwards to use them on the trying, overcast days.
For four and a half days the weather was too bad to travel. On the 14th
the wind increased and became steady at sixty miles per hour, accompanied
by dense drifting snow. We found it very monotonous lying in the tent. As
always happens during heavy drifts, the temperature outside was high, on
this day averaging about 12 degrees F.; inside the tent it was above freezing-point,
and the accompanying thaw was most unpleasant.
Stillwell's party had pitched their tent about ten paces to the leeward
side of ours, of which stratagem they continually reminded us. Going outside
for food to supply our two small meals per day was an operation fraught
with much discomfort to all. This is what used to happen. The man on whom
the duty fell had to insinuate himself into a bundle of wet burberrys, and,
as soon as he was outside, they froze stiff. When, after a while, he signified
his intention of coming in, the other two would collect everything to one
end of the tent and roll up the floor-cloth. Plastered with snow, he entered,
and, despite every precaution, in removing burberrys and brushing himself
he would scatter snow about and increase the general wetness. On these excursions
we would visit Stillwell's tent and be hospitably, if somewhat gingerly,
admitted; the inmates drawing back and pulling away their sleeping-bags
as from one with a fell disease. As a supporting party they were good company,
among other things, supplying us with tobacco ad libitum. When we parted,
five days after, we missed them very much.
During the night the wind blew harder than ever--that terrible wind, laden
with snow, that blows for ever across the vast, mysterious plateau, the
``wind that shrills all night in a waste land, where no one comes or hath
come since the making of the world.'' In the early hours of the morning
it reached eighty miles per hour.
Not till 9 next morning did the sky clear and the drift diminish. Considering
that it had taken us eight days to do thirteen miles, we decided to move
on the 16th at any cost.
Our library consisted of `An Anthology of Australian Verse', Thackeray's
`Vanity Fair' and `Hints to Travellers' in two volumes. McLean spent much
of the time reading the Anthology and I started `Vanity Fair'. The latter
beguiled many weary hours in that tent during the journey. I read a good
deal aloud and McLean read it afterwards. Correll used to pass the days
of confinement arranging rations and costs for cycling tours and designing
wonderful stoves and cooking utensils, all on the sledging, ``cut down weight''
principle.
On the 16th we were off at 9 A.M. with a blue sky above and a ``beam'' wind
of thirty-five miles per hour. Up a gentle slope over small sastrugi the
going was heavy. We went back to help Stillwell's party occasionally, as
we were moving a little faster.
Just after lunch I saw a small black spot on the horizon to the south. Was
it a man? How could Dr. Mawson have got there? We stopped and saw that Stillwell
had noticed it too. Field-glasses showed it to be a man approaching, about
one and a half miles away. We left our sledges in a body to meet him, imagining
all kinds of wonderful things such as the possibility of it being a member
of Wild's party--we did not know where Wild had been landed. All the theories
vanished when the figure assumed the well-known form of Dr. Mawson. He had
made a little more south than we, and his sledges were just out of sight,
about two miles away.
Soon Mertz and Ninnis came into view with a dog-team, which was harnessed
on to one sledge. All hands pulled the other sledge, and we came up fifteen
minutes later with Dr. Mawson's camp at eighteen and a quarter miles. In
the good Australian way we sat round a large pot of tea and after several
cups put up our two tents.
It was a happy evening with the three tents grouped together and the dogs
securely picketed on the great plateau, forming the only spot on the limitless
plain. Every one was excited at the prospect of the weeks ahead; the mystery
and charm of the ``unknown'' had taken a strange hold on us.
Ninnis and Mertz came into our tent for a short talk before turning in.
Mertz sang the old German student song:
Studio auf einer Reis'
Immer sich zu helfen weis
Immer fort durch's Dick und Dunn
Schlendert es durch's Leben hin.
We were nearly all University graduates. We knew that this
would be our last evening together till all were safely back at the Hut.
No thought was farther from our minds than that it was the last evening
we would ever spend with two companions, who had been our dear comrades
for just a year.
Before turning into sleeping-bags, a messenger brought me dispatches from
the general's tent--a letter on the plateau. This proved to be the instructions
to the Eastern Coastal Party. Arriving back at the Hut by January 15, we
were to ascertain as much as possible of the coast lying east of the Mertz
Glacier, investigating its broad features and carrying out the following
scientific work: magnetic, biological and geological observations, the character,
especially the nature and size of the grains of ice or snow surfaces, details
of sastrugi, topographical features, heights and distances, and meteorology.
On Sunday, November 17, we moved on together to the east with the wind at
fifteen miles an hour, the temperature being 9 degrees F. The sun shone
strongly soon after the start, and with four miles to our credit a tent
was run up at 1 P.M., and all lunched together on tea, biscuit, butter and
chocolate. Up to this time we had had only three al fresco lunches, but,
as the weather seemed to be much milder and the benefit of tea and a rest
by the way were so great, we decided to use the tent in future, and did
so throughout the journey.
In the afternoon, Dr. Mawson's party forged ahead, the dogs romping along
on a downhill grade. We took the bit in our teeth as we saw them sitting
on their sledges, growing smaller and smaller in front of us. We came up
with them again as they had waited to exchange a few more words at a point
on the track where a long extent of coast to the east came into view.
Here we bade a final adieu to Dr. Mawson, Mertz and Ninnis. The surface
was on the down grade towards the east, and with a cheer and farewell wave
they started off, Mertz walking rapidly ahead, followed by Ninnis and Dr.
Mawson with their sledges and teams. They were soon lost to view behind
the rolling undulations.
A mile farther on we pitched camp at 8 P.M. in a slight depression just
out of sight of the sea. Every one slept soundly after a good day's pulling.
November 18 was a bright dazzling day, the sky dotted with fleecy alto-cumulus.
At 6 A.M. we were out to find Stillwell's party moving in their tent. There
was a rush for shovels to fill the cookers with snow and a race to boil
hoosh.
At this camp we tallied up the provisions, with the intention of taking
what we might require from Stillwell and proceeding independently of him,
as he was likely to leave us any day. There were fifty-nine days to go until
January 15, 1913, the latest date of arrival back at the Hut, for which
eight weeks' rations were considered to be sufficient. There were seven
weeks' food on the sledge, so Stillwell handed over another fifty-pound
bag as well as an odd five pounds of wholemeal biscuit. The total amount
of kerosene was five gallons, with a bottle of methylated spirit.
Shortly after eight o'clock we caught sight of Dr. Mawson's camp, and set
sail to make up the interval. This we did literally as there was a light
westerly breeze--the only west wind we encountered during the whole journey.
The sledge was provided with a bamboo mast, seven feet high, stepped behind
the cooker-box and stayed fore and aft with wire. The yard was a bamboo
of six feet, slung from the top of the mast, its height being varied by
altering the length of the slings. The bamboo was threaded through canvas
leads in the floor-cloth which provided a spread of thirty square feet of
sail. It was often such an ample area that it had to be reefed from below.
With the grade sloping gently down and the wind freshening, the pace became
so hot that the sledge often overran us. A spurious ``Epic of the East''
(see `Adelie Blizzard') records it:
Crowd on the sail--
Let her speed full and free ``on the run''
Over knife-edge and glaze, marble polish and pulverized chalk
The finnesko glide in the race, and there's no time for talk.
Up hill, down dale,
It's all in the game and the fun.
We rapidly neared Dr. Mawson's camp, but when we were within
a few miles of it, the other party started in a south-easterly direction
and were soon lost to sight. Our course was due east.
At thirty-three and a half miles the sea was in sight, some fine flat-topped
bergs floating in the nearest bay. Suddenly a dark, rocky nunatak sprang
into view on our left. It was a sudden contrast after ten days of unchanging
whiteness, and we felt very anxious to visit this new find. As it was in
Stillwell's limited territory we
left it to him.
According to the rhymester it was:
A rock by the way--
A spot in the circle of white--
A grey, craggy spur plunging stark through the deep-splintered ice.
A trifle! you say, but a glow of warm land may suffice
To brighten a day
Prolonged to a midsummer night.
After leaving Aladdin's Cave, our sledge-meter had worked
quite satisfactorily. Just before noon, the casting attaching the recording-dial
to the forks broke--the first of a series of break-downs. Correll bound
it up with copper wire and splints borrowed from the medical outfit.
The wind died away and the sail was of little use. In addition to this,
we met with a slight up grade on the eastern side of the depression, our
rate diminishing accordingly. At 7 P.M. the tent was pitched in dead calm,
after a day's run of fifteen miles with a full load of almost eight hundred
pounds--a record which remained unbroken with us till near the end of the
outward journey. Looking back, the nunatak and bergs were still visible.
Both parties were under way at 8 A.M. next day (November 19) on a calm and
sunny morning. The course by sun-compass was set due east.
At noon I took a latitude ``shot'' with the three-inch Cary theodolite.
This little instrument proved very satisfactory and was easily handled in
the cold. In latitude 67 degrees 15' south, forty- six and a half miles
east of the Hut, we were once more on level country with a high rise to
the north-east and another shallow gully
in front.
A fog which had been moving along the sea-front in an opaque wall drifted
over the land and enveloped us. Beautiful crystals of ice in the form of
rosettes and small fern-fronds were deposited on the cordage of the sail
and mast. One moment the mists would clear, and the next, we could not see
more than a few hundred yards.
We now parted with Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close, who turned off to a rising
knoll--Mount Hunt--visible in the north-east, and disappeared in the fog.
After the halt at noon the sastrugi became much larger and softer. The fog
cleared at 2 P.M. and the sun came out and shone very fiercely. A very inquisitive
skua gull--the first sign of life we had seen thus far--flew around the
tent and settled on the snow near by. In the calm, the heat was excessive
and great thirst attacked us all the afternoon, which I attempted to assuage
at every halt by holding snow in my hands and licking the drops of water
off my knuckles—--a cold and unsatisfactory expedient. We travelled without
burberrys--at that time quite a novel sensation--wearing only fleece suits
and light woollen undergarments. Correll pulled for the greater part of
the afternoon in underclothing alone.
At forty-nine and a half miles a new and wonderful panorama opened before
us. The sea lay just below, sweeping as a narrow gulf into the great, flat
plain of debouching glacier-tongue which ebbed away north into the foggy
horizon. A small ice-capped island was set like a pearl in the amethyst
water. To the east, the glacier seemed to fuse with the blue line of the
hinterland. Southward, the snowy slope rose quickly, and the far distance
was unseen.
We marched for three-quarters of a mile to where a steep down grade commenced.
Here I made a sketch and took a round of angles to all prominent features,
and the conspicuous, jutting, seaward points of the glacier. McLean and
Correll were busy making a snow cairn, six feet high, to serve as a back-sight
for angles to be taken at a higher eminence southward.
We set out for the latter, and after going one and a half miles it was late
enough to camp. During the day we had all got very sunburnt, and our faces
were flushed and smarting painfully. After the long winter at the Hut the
skin had become more delicate than usual.
Under a clear sky, the wind came down during the night at forty-five miles
per hour, lashing surface drift against the walls of the tent. It was not
till ten o'clock that the sledge started, breaking a heavy trail in snow
which became more and more like brittle piecrust. There was at first a slight
descent, and then we strained up the eminence to the south over high sastrugi
running almost north and south. Capsizes became frequent, and to extricate
the heavy sledge from some of the deep furrows it was necessary to unload
the food-bags. The drift running over the ground was troublesome when we
sat down for a rest, but, in marching, our heads were just clear of it.
It was a long laborious day, and the four miles indicated by the inexorable
sledge-meter seemed a miserable result. However, near the top of the hill
there was a rich reward. A small nunatak slanted like a steel-blue shadow
on the side of a white peak to the south-west. There was great excitement,
and the sledge slid along its tracks with new life. It was rock without
a doubt, and there was no one to dispute it with us. While speculating wildly
as to its distance, we came unexpectedly to the summit of the hill.
The wind had subsided, the sky was clear and the sun stood low in the south-west.
Our view had widened to a noble outlook. The sea, a delicate turquoise-blue,
lay in the foreground of the low, white, northern ice-cliffs. Away to the
east was the dim suggestion of land across the bed of the glacier, about
which circled the southerly highlands of the plateau, buried at times in
the haze of distance. Due south, twenty miles away, projecting from the
glacier, was another island of rock. The nunatak first seen, not many miles
to the south-west, was a snowy mountain streaked with sprouting rock, rising
solitary in an indentation of the land. We honoured our Ship by calling
it Aurora Peak, while our camp stood on what was thenceforth to be Mount
Murchison.
It was obvious that this was the place for our first depot. I had decided,
too, to make it the first magnetic station and the point from which to visit
and explore Aurora Peak. None of us made any demur over a short halt. Correll
had strained his back during the day from pulling too hard, and was troubled
with a bleeding nose. My face was very sore from sunburn, with one eye swollen
and almost closed, and McLean's eyes had not yet recovered from their first
attack of snow-blindness.
November 21 was a day in camp. Most of the morning I spent trying, with
Correll's help, to get the declination needle to set. Its pivot had been
destroyed in transit and Correll had replaced it by a gramophone needle,
which was found too insensitive. There was nothing to do but use the three-inch
theodolite, which, setting to one degree, would give a good result, with
a mean of thirty-two settings, for a region with such variable magnetic
declination. A latitude ``shot'' was made at noon, and in the afternoon
I took a set of dip determinations. These, with a panoramic sketch from
the camp, a round of angles to conspicuous points and an observation at
5.30 P.M. for time and azimuth completed the day's work. Correll did the
recording.
Meanwhile, McLean had built an eight-feet snow mound, erected a depot flag
upon it and taken several photographs.
The next day was devoted to an excursion to Aurora Peak. The weather was,
to our surprise, quite clear and calm. Armed with the paraphernalia for
a day's tour, we set off down the slope. Correll put the primus stove and
the inner pot of the cooker in the ready food-bag, McLean slung on his camera
and the aneroid barometer, while I took my ruck-sack with the rations, as
well as field-glasses and an ice-axe. In case of crevasses, we attached
ourselves to an alpine rope in long procession. According to the ``Epic''
it was something like this:
We saddled up, adventure-bent;
Locked up the house--I mean the tent--
Took ``grub'' enough for three young men
With appetite to equal ten.
A day's outing across the vale.
Aurora Peak! What ho! All hail!
We waltzed a'down the silvered slope,
Connected by an Alpine rope;
``Madi'' in front with ice-axe armed,
For fear that we should feel alarmed.
Glad was the hour, and--what a lark!
Explorers three? ``Save the mark!''
The mystery of the nunatak was about to be solved. Apparently
it rose from the level of the glacier, as our descent showed its eastern
flank more clearly outlined. It was three miles to the bottom of the gully,
and the aneroid barometer registered one thousand one hundred and ninety
feet. The surface was soft and yielding to finnesko crampons, which sank
through in places till the snow gripped the knees.
Ascending on the other side we crossed a small crevasse and the peak towered
above us. The northern side terminated in a perpendicular face of ice, below
which a deep basin had been ``scalloped'' away; evidently kept clear by
eddies of wind. In it lay broken fragments of the overhanging cliff. The
rock was a wide, outcropping band curving steeply to the summit on the eastern
aspect.
After a stiff climb we hurried eagerly to the rock as if it were a mine
of inexhaustible treasure. The boulders were all weathered a bright red
and were much pitted where ferruginous minerals were leached out. The rock
was a highly quartzose gneiss, with black bands of schist running through
it. Moss and lichens were plentiful, and McLean collected specimens.
The rocky strip was eighty feet wide and three hundred feet high, so, making
a cache of the primus, provisions and burberrys, we followed it up till
it became so steep that it was necessary to change to the snow. This was
in the form of hard neve with patches of ice. I went first, cutting steps
with the ice-axe, and the others followed on the rope. The last ten of more
than one hundred steps were in an almost vertical face, which gave a somewhat
precarious foothold.
At 11.30 A.M. we stood on the summit at an altitude of one thousand seven
hundred and fifty feet, while across the valley to the north-east rose Mount
Murchison, one hundred and fourteen feet higher. The top of the ridge was
quite a knife-edge, with barely space for standing. It ran mainly north
and south, dipping in the centre, to curve away sharply westward to a higher
eminence. At the bend was an inaccessible patch of rock. The surrounding
view was much the same at that on Mount Murchison.
The Union Jack and the Australian flag were erected on a bamboo, and photographs
taken. At the same time, low, threatening clouds rapidly emerged from the
southeast, covering the sun and creating the ``snow-blind'' light. This
was rather alarming as the climb had been difficult enough under a clear
sky, and the descent was certainly much more difficult. So we hastily ate
some chocolate and discussed the best way down.
Prospecting to the north, in search of a long snow ramp which appeared to
run away in that direction, we scrambled down to the edge of a wide snowy
crevasse full of blue chinks.
Turning back, we considered the chances of sliding down a steep scoured
hollow to the west and finally decided to descend by the track we had cut.
McLean started off first down the steps and was out of sight in a few moments.
When the rope tightened, Correll followed him and then I came last. It was
very ticklish work feeling for the steps below with one's feet, and, as
we signalled to one another in turn after moving a step, it took more than
an hour to reach a safe position on the rocks. With every step I drove my
axe into the ice, so that if the others had fallen there would still have
been a last chance.
There was no time to be wasted; light snow was falling with the prospect
of becoming thicker. In the gully the snowfall became heavy, limiting the
view to within a few hundred yards. We advanced up the hill in what seemed
to be the steepest direction, but circled half-way round it before finding
out that the course was wrong. Aimlessly trying to place the broad flat
summit I came across tracks in the snow, which were then carefully followed
and led to the tent. The wind was rising outside and the hoosh in steaming
mugs was eaten with extra relish in our snug retreat.
Specimens were labelled to be deposed and provisions were arranged for the
rest of the journey. It was evident that we had superfluous clothing, and
so the weight of the kit-bags was scrupulously cut down. By the time we
crawled into sleeping-bags, everything dispensable was piled alongside the
depot-flag.
We slept the sleep of the weary and did not hear the flapping tent nor the
hissing drift. At 6 A.M. the wind was doing forty miles per hour and the
air was filled with snow. It must have been a new climate, for by noon the
sun had unexpectedly broken through, the wind was becoming gusty and the
drift trailed like scud over the
surface.
With six weeks' food we set off on a new trail after lunch. The way to the
eastern glacier--Mertz Glacier--issued through the mouth of the gully, which
ran in an easterly direction between Aurora Peak and Mount Murchison. On
Mount Murchison ice-falls and crevasses began a short distance east of our
first line of descent, but yet I thought a slight deviation to the east
of south would bring us safely into the valley, and, at the same time, cut
off a mile. Alas! it proved to be one of those ``best-laid schemes.''
The load commenced to glide so quickly as we were leaving the crest of the
mountain that Correll and McLean unhitched from the hauling line and attached
themselves by the alpine rope to the rear of the sledge, braking its progress.
I remained harnessed in front keeping the direction. For two miles we were
going downhill at a running pace and then the slope became suddenly steeper
and the sledge overtook me. I had expected crevasses, in view of which I
did not like all the loose rope behind me. Looking round, I shouted to the
others to hold back the sledge, proceeding a few steps while doing so. The
bow of the sledge was almost at my feet, when--whizz! I was dropping down
through space. The length of the hauling rope was twenty-four feet, and
I was at the end of it. I cannot say that ``my past life flashed before
me.'' I just had time to think ``Now for the jerk--will my harness hold?''
when there was a wrench, and I was hanging breathless over the blue depth.
Then the most anxious moment came--I continued to descend. A glance showed
me that the crevasse was only four feet wide, so the sledge could not follow
me, and I knew with a thankful heart that I was safe. I only descended about
two feet more, and then stopped. I knew my companions had pulled up the
sledge and
would be anchoring it with the ice-axe.
I had a few moments in which to take in my surroundings. Opposite to me
was a vertical wall of ice, and below a beautiful blue, darkening to black
in that unseen chasm. On either hand the rift of the crevasse extended,
and above was the small hole in the snow bridge through which I had shot.
Soon I heard McLean calling, ``Are you all right?'' And I answered in what
he and Correll thought an alarmingly distant voice. They started enlarging
the hole to pull me out, until lumps of snow began to fall and I had to
yell for mercy. Then I felt they were hauling, and slowly I rose to daylight.
The crevasse ran westward along the gully, forcing us to make a detour through
a maze of smaller cracks. We had to retreat up the hill in one place, throwing
off half the load and carrying it on in relays. There was a blistering sun
and the work was hard. At last the sledge came to a clear run and tobogganed
into the snow-filled valley, turning eastward towards its outlet.
At the evening camp the sledge-meter indicated that our distance eastward
of the Hut was sixty miles, one thousand two hundred yards. The northern
face of the gully was very broken and great sentinel pillars of ice stood
out among the yawning caves, some of them leaning like the tower of Pisa,
others having fallen and rolled in shattered blocks. Filling the vision
to the south-west was Aurora Peak, in crisp silhouette against a glorious
radiant of cirrus cloud.
Reviewing the day through our peaceful smoke-rings, I was rather comforted
by the fact that the fall into the crevasse had thoroughly tested my harness.
Correll expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with his test. McLean seemed
to feel somewhat out of it, being the only one without a crevasse experience;
which happy state he maintained until the end, apparently somewhat to his
disappointment.
On the 24th we broke camp at 9 A.M., continuing down the gully towards the
glacier. A lofty wall of rocks, set within a frame of ice, was observed
on our left, one mile away. To it we diverged and found it to be gneiss
similar to that of Aurora Peak. Several photos were taken.
The land was at our back and the margin of the glacier had been crossed.
Only too soon we were in the midst of terribly crevassed ground, through
which one could only thread a slow and zig-zag course. The blue ice was
riven in every direction by gaping quarries and rose smooth and slippery
on the ridges which broke the surface into long waves. Shod with crampons,
the rear of the sledge secured by a tail-rope, we had a trying afternoon
guiding the load along the narrow ridges of ice with precipices on either
hand. Fortunately the wind was not above twenty miles per hour. As the frivolous
``Epic'' had it:
Odds fish! the solid sea is sorely rent,
And all around we're pent
With quarries, chasms, pits, depressions vast,
Their snow-lids overcast.
A devious track, all curved and serpentine
Round snow-lids superfine.
On jutting brinks and precipices sheer
Precariously we steer.
We pushed on to find a place in which to camp, as there
was scarcely safe standing-room for a primus stove. At seventy miles the
broken ice gave way to a level expanse of hard sastrugi dotted all over
with small mounds of ice about four feet high. After hoosh, a friendly little
Wilson petrel came flying from the northern sea to our tent. We considered
it to be a good omen.
Next day the icy mounds disappeared, to be replaced by a fine, flat surface,
and the day's march amounted to eleven and a quarter miles.
At 11 A.M. four snow petrels visited us, circling round
in great curiosity. It is a cheerful thing to see these birds amid the lone,
inhospitable ice.
We were taking in the surroundings from our position off the land scanning
the far coast to the south for rock and turning round to admire the bold
contours of Aurora Peak and Mount Murchison at our back. Occasionally there
were areas of rubbly snow, blue ice and crevasses completely filled with
snow, of prodigious dimensions, two hundred to three hundred yards wide
and running as far as the eye could travel. The snow filling them was perfectly
firm, but, almost always along the windward edge, probing with an ice-axe
would disclose a fissure. This part of the Mertz Glacier was apparently
afloat.
The lucky Wilson petrel came again in the evening. At this stage the daily
temperatures ranged between 10 degrees F. and near freezing- point. The
greater part of November 26 was passed in the tent, within another zone
of crevasses. The overcast sky made the light so bad that it became dangerous
to go ahead. At 5.30 P.M. we started, and managed to do five and a half
miles before 8 P.M.
It was rather an eventful day, when across the undulating sastrugi there
appeared a series of shallow valleys running eastward. As the valleys approached
closer, the ground sloped down to meet them, their sides becoming steeper,
buckled and broken. Proceeding ahead on an easterly course, our march came
to an abrupt termination on an ice-bluff.
In front lay a perfectly flat snow-covered plain--the sea-ice. In point
of fact we had arrived at the eastern side of the Mertz Glacier and were
about fifteen miles north of the mainland. Old sea-ice, deeply covered in
snow, lay ahead for miles, and the hazy, blue coast sank below the horizon
in the south-east, running for a time parallel to the course we were about
to take. It was some time before we realized all this, but at noon on the
following day there came the first reminder of the proximity of sea-water.
An Adelie penguin, skiing on its breast from the north, surprised us suddenly
by a loud croak at the rear of the sledge. As astonished as we were, it
stopped and stared, and then in sudden terror made off. But before starting
on its long trek to the land, it had to be captured and photographed.
To the south the coast was marked by two faces of rock and a short, dark
spur protruding from beneath the ice-cap. As our friendly penguin had made
off in that direction, we elected to call the place Penguin Point, intending
to touch there on the return journey. During the afternoon magnetic dips
and a round of angles to the prominences of the mainland were taken.
The next evidence on the sea-ice question came in the shape of a line of
broken slabs of ice to the north, sticking out of the snow like the ruins
of an ancient graveyard. At one hundred and fifteen miles the line was so
close that we left the sledge to investigate it, finding a depression ten
feet deep, through which wound a glistening riband of sea-water. It reminded
one of a creek in flat, Australian country, and the illusion was sustained
by a dark skua gull--in its slow flight much like a crow. It was a fissure
in old thick sea-ice.
Sunday, and the first day of December, brought good weather and a clear
view of the mainland. A bay opened to the east of Penguin Point, from which
the coast trended to the south-east. Across a crack in the sea-ice we could
just distinguish a low indented line like the glacier-tongue, we had already
crossed. It might have been a long promontory of land for all we knew. Behind
it was a continuous ice-blink and on our left, to the north, a deep blue
``water sky.'' It seemed worth while continuing on an easterly course approximately
parallel with the coast.
We were faced by another glacier-tongue; a fact which remained unproven
for a week at least. From the sea-ice on to the glacier-- the Ninnis Glacier--there
was a gentle rise to a prominent knoll of one hundred and seventy feet.
Here our distance from the Hut amounted to one hundred and fifty-two miles,
and the spot was reckoned a good situation for the last depot.
In taking magnetic observations, it was interesting to find that the ``dip''
amounted to 87 degrees 44', while the declination, which had varied towards
the west, swung at this our most northerly station a few degrees to the
east. We were curving round the South Magnetic Pole. Many points on the
coast were fixed from an adjoining hill to which Correll and I trudged through
sandy snow, while McLean stayed behind erecting the depot-mound, placing
a food-bag, kerosene tin, black cloth and miner's pick on the top.
With four weeks' provisions we made a new start to cross the Ninnis Glacier
on December 3, changing course to E. 30 degrees N., in great wonderment
as to what lay ahead. In this new land interest never flagged. One never
could foresee what the morrow would bring forth.
Across rolling ``downs'' of soft, billowy snow we floundered for twenty-four
miles, on the two following days. Not a wind-ripple could be seen. We were
evidently in a region of comparative calms, which was a remarkable thing,
considering that the windiest spot in the world was less than two hundred
miles away.
After several sunny days McLean and I had very badly cracked lips. It had
been often remarked at the Hut that the standard of humour greatly depreciated
during the winter and this caused McLean and me many a physical pang while
sledging, as we would laugh at the least provocation and open all the cracks
in our lips. Eating hard plasmon biscuits was a painful pleasure. Correll,
who was immune from this affliction, tanned to the rich hue of the ``nut-brown
maiden.''
On December 5, at the top of a rise, we were suddenly confronted with a
new vision--``Thalassa!'' was our cry, ``the sea!'' but a very different
sea from that which brought such joy to the hearts of the wandering Greeks.
Unfolded to the horizon was a plain of pack-ice, thickly studded with bergs
and intersected by black leads of open water. In the north-east was a patch
of open sea and above it, round to the north, lowering banks of steel-blue
cloud. We had come to the eastern side of Ninnis Glacier.
At this point any analogy which could possibly have been found with Wilkes's
coastline ceased. It seems probable that he charted as land the limits of
the pack-ice in 1840.
The excitement of exploring this new realm was to be deferred. Even as we
raised the tent, the wind commenced to whistle and the air became surcharged
with snow. Three skua gulls squatted a few yards away, squawking at our
approach, and a few snow petrels sailed by in the gathering blizzard.
Through the 6th, 7th and 8th and most of the 9th it raged,
during which time we came definitely to the conclusion that as social entertainers
we were complete failures. We exhausted all the reserve topics of conversation,
discussed our Universities, sports, friends and homes. We each described
the scenery we liked best; notable always for the sunny weather and perfect
calm. McLean sailed again in Sydney Harbour, Correll cycled and ran his
races, I wandered in the South Australian hills or rowed in the ``eights,''
while the snow swished round the tent and the wind roared over the wastes
of ice.
Avoiding a few crevasses on the drop to sea-level on December 10, the sledge
was manoeuvred over a tide-crack between glacier and sea-ice. The latter
was traversed by frequent pressure-ridges; hummocks and
broken pinnacles being numerous.
The next six days out on the broken sea-ice were full of incident. The weather
was gloriously sunny till the 13th, during which time the sledge had to
be dragged through a forest of pinnacles and over areas of soft, sticky
slush which made the runners execrable for hours. Ponds of open water, by
which basked a few Weddell seals, became a familiar sight. We tried to maintain
a south-easterly course for the coast, but miles were wasted in the tortuous
maze of ice--``a wildering Theban ruin of hummock and serrac.''
The sledge-meter broke down and gave the ingenious Correll a proposition
which he ably solved. McLean and I had a chronic weakness of the eyes from
the continual glare. Looking at the other two fellows with their long protruding
goggles made me think of Banquo's ghost: ``Thou hast no speculation in those
eyes that thou
dost glare with.''
I had noticed that some of the tide-cracks had opened widely and, when a
blizzard blew on December 13, the thought was a skeleton in my brain cupboard.
On the 15th an Emperor penguin was seen sunning himself by a pool of water,
so we decided to kill the bird and carry some meat in case of emergency.
McLean found the stomach full of fish and myriads of cestodes in the intestines.
By dint of hard toil over cracks, ridges and jagged, broken blocks, we came,
by diverging to the south-west, to the junction between shifting pack and
fast bay-ice, and even there, we afterwards shuddered to find, it was at
least forty-five miles, as the penguin skis, to the land.
It was a fine flat surface on which the sledge ran, and the miles commenced
to fly by, comparatively speaking. Except for an occasional deep rift, whose
bottom plumbed to the sea-water, the going was excellent. Each day the broken
ice on our left receded, the mainland to the south grew closer and traces
of rock became discernible on the low, fractured cliffs.
On December 17 a huge rocky bluff--Horn Bluff--stood out from the shore.
It had a ram-shaped bow like a Dreadnought battleship and, adjoining it,
there were smaller outcrops of rock on the seaward ice-cliffs. On its eastern
side was a wide bay with a well-defined cape--Cape Freshfield-- at the eastern
extremity about thirty miles away.
The Bluff was a place worth exploring. At a distance of more than fifteen
miles, the spot suggested all kinds of possibilities, and in council we
argued that it was useless to go much farther east, as to touch at the land
would mean a detour on the homeward track and time would have to be allowed
for that.
At a point two hundred and seventy miles from the Hut, in latitude 68 degrees
18' S., longitude 150 degrees 12' E., we erected our ``farthest east'' camp
on December 18, after a day's tramp of eighteen miles. Here, magnetic ``dips''
and other observations were made throughout the morning of the 19th. It
was densely overcast, with sago snow falling, but by 3 P.M. of the same
day the clouds had magically cleared and the first stage of the homeward
journey had commenced.
CHAPTER XVI -
HORN BLUFF AND PENGUIN POINT
