Cherry amused himself by trying to harpoon a seasnake in one of the pools. It was about five feet in length, of a grey colour striped with yellow, and once speared it twisted and bucked so violently that Cherry almost lost it. Much to his surprise it succeeded in biting him on the elbow, at which he swore loudly. Though I don’t, as a rule, approve of bad language, it’s rather a good sign in Cherry.
After examining the wound to make sure it wasn’t deep, I told him to walk further out and bathe his arm in salt water. He hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when he let out a shout and I saw he was struggling with something caught between the rocks. He returned carrying a biscuit tin which he shook excitedly under my nose.
‘There’s something in it, Uncle Bill,’ he said. ‘Something heavy’, and prising off the corroded lid he shook out another smaller tin with the likeness of Queen Victoria, much disfigured by sea water, stamped on the lid.
He spent the greater part of the walk back to West Bay trying to open the second box, without success. It was quite comical to watch him labouring away at the lid with his knife. I had earlier told him of the legend of buried treasure on the Island, gold and silver plate plundered from Peruvian churches, and I think he fully expected his little tin to contain some ancient map with a cross marking the spot.
When we reached our original landing place we were aghast to find a southerly swell rolling in and huge breakers bursting with a noise of thunder upon the beach. The natural pier was half torn away and we had a devil of a job getting a rope to the pram and swimming out with it to the whaler. Until it was my turn to cast off I sat on a crag munching a biscuit. Afterwards Birdie said my coolness had been an inspiration, and I hadn’t the heart to disillusion him; the fact is, I’d got cramp.
All our specimens had to be left behind – Lillie’s plants, my eggs, Oates’s birds, Birdie’s butterflies and spiders, as well as our guns, watches and notebooks. Oates was dreadfully put out at having to abandon the huge frigate, or man-of-war bird, he had slaughtered below the Ninepin, its wings measuring at least seventeen feet across at full spread. Worse, Seaman Murphy was considered too weak to fight the heaving seas. Atkinson elected to stay with him. Having dug out the rum and helped gather a pile of dead wood, we left them our outer clothing and plunged into the mountainous waves.
None of us slept well that night. The noise of the surf pounding on the beach was enough to waken the dead. The Terra Nova pitched like a cork; even Oates, a man with a cast-iron stomach, could be seen clinging to the rails in the small hours. We could see the glow from Atkinson’s fire and the sparks showering in the darkness.
Cherry had at last managed to open his tin, to find nothing more thrilling than a folded page torn from The Times newspaper of 1853 with a curious article to do with Gladstone encircled in faded ink. Coming home from the opera the great man had been accosted by a loose woman who had burst into tears and insisted on telling him of the several misfortunes which had led her to such a life. In the middle of this pathetic dialogue a man had stepped from the shadows and, addressing Gladstone by name, threatened to expose him in the Morning Herald unless he was given a sum of money, there and then, or a position as a clerk in Somerset House. The fact that the man’s name was Wilson tickled everyone in the ward-room; I daresay the joke will run for weeks.
Still, it’s interesting to wonder how such a salacious item from the past found its way to a deserted island. The Wilson in question was given twelve months hard labour. Teddy Evans has got it into his head that after his release the fellow signed on board some ship bound for the Cape, and either the vessel sank with all hands or Wilson died at sea and the captain slid him and his belongings overboard.
Oates, being more complex than Teddy, was intrigued by Gladstone rather than Wilson. He argued there was no smoke without fire, and what was a man in Gladstone’s position doing walking home? ‘I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as regards innocent involvement,’ he said. ‘But I won’t excuse his stupidity.’
The next morning the sky was stormy and if anything the sea wilder than on the previous night. We could see the surf breaking over rocks at least sixty foot in height. The wind was blowing in strong gusts right offshore, pushing the crests of the incoming waves into great veils of spray, bright with rainbows as the sun blazed through the clouds.
It was decided that Rennick, Bowers, Teddy Evans, Oates and myself should take the pram and the whaler in to rescue the castaways. With hindsight it was perhaps unwise of Teddy to insist on going with us. As commander of the ship it would have been unfortunate if he had come to any harm. In my capacity as chief of the scientific staff I too should have stayed behind; the truth is neither of us wanted to miss the fun.
The first idea had been to fire a rocket line to the edge of the cliff for Atkinson and the seaman to get a hold of. We realised at the second attempt that it was hopeless; the wind was too strong and the angle of the cliff all wrong. Birdie and Rennick got in the pram and somehow managed to get out a line to the shore for the gear to be taken off. It was our job to warn them of any big waves coming up behind. Time and again we bellowed ‘Look out!’, at which Birdie and Rennick rowed like the devil to pull away. I lost count of how often the line tore free. Everyone knows how the ocean swell moves in a regular rhythm, how at intervals two or three greater waves than usual come up one after the other, to be followed by a comparative calm during which, with skill, a boat can be swept ashore. Trouble was, we didn’t want to be beached, for in such seas we’d never have got off again.
At last, during one of the brief lulls, Atkinson waded close enough to throw some of the gear into the pram, and some quarter of an hour after this triumph Rennick managed to drag the sick seaman aboard, Birdie leaping out into the surf to change places with him and steady the stern. The next moment the pram flew out in the backwash and Birdie disappeared under a torrent of water to emerge thirty long seconds later, twelve feet up on the rocks. I could see him scrambling for dear life away from the suck of a second huge wave that roared after him. The odd thing was, while his old brown tennis pumps were torn from his feet and never seen again, his treasured green hat remained firmly anchored to his head.
Evans and myself hauled the pram alongside the whaler and tumbled Rennick and Seaman Murphy over the gunnel. Then, despite my protests, Evans and Oates jumped into the pram and made again for the shore. By running down between waves Birdie got the guns, cameras and specimen cases aboard, at which we all cheered. Alas, we were premature, for the next instant a gigantic curl of water hurled the pram forward, Oates and Evans diving headlong into the boiling surf a split second before the following wave washed her high onto the rocks.
A pram is a marvellously buoyant little boat, yet such manoeuvres were immensely risky, and Rennick and I yelled ourselves hoarse ordering the men to abandon everything and return. To no avail; if I could have got my hands on Birdie I might have throttled him, so great was my anger. There were moments when the clap of the waves sounded like the beating of monstrous wings, and I feared that the silver bird of death had all along been searching for Birdie, not me, and would soon find him in the heaving depths.
For those involved in their battle with the sea, alternately submerged and clawing their way to the surface, time – as they afterwards recounted – passed with the swiftness of a disconnected dream. We who watched, expecting any moment that one or other would be drowned, remained in the grip of a nightmare which lasted six insufferable hours.
In the end the gear was lashed to buoys, thrown into the sea and somehow dragged into the whaler. The day’s collection of ants, cockroaches and locusts, Birdie’s fifteen different species of spider, and the blue sea crabs in which Atkinson later discovered a hitherto unknown nematode, were all but ruined by salt water. As for the eggs Cherry and I had so carefully gathered, we pitched the resulting fishy-smelling mess into the waves. My watch was lost, along with a leather wallet in which I kept a snapshot of my father. I daresay the latter will find its way back
to the beach, where, God knows how many years hence, some other visitors may find it and view it with as much puzzlement as Cherry’s page of The Times.
Surprisingly, apart from a quantity of gashed ankles and bruised ribs, no one was any the worse for wear. True, Atkinson and Seaman Murphy had spent a ghastly night kept awake by the sinister slithering of the land crabs and the melancholy cries of the numerous terns – a sound Murphy likened to the plucking of banjo strings – but one could tell from the sparkle in their eyes that such memories had been quite washed away in the exhilaration of their rescue.
Indeed everyone concerned behaved as if they’d just returned from a particularly lively party, and could have been mistaken, from their unnaturally loud voices and swaggering gait, for men in the grip of alcoholic stimulation. Oates, wild-eyed and in the middle of telling me how he had felt as weightless as a balloon – ‘My dear Bill, you have no idea how I floated, yes floated, up the side of that damned cliff’ – suddenly fell fast asleep across the wardroom table, a position he remained in for the next twelve hours.
Atkinson, Lillie and I stayed up all night in our separate workrooms, attempting to salvage what we could of the waterlogged specimens. I was uncomfortably aware that the scientific results of the Discovery expedition of 1901 had come under heavy criticism from the President of the Physical Society, who had gone so far as to suggest that Con should undergo a scientific court martial. Fortunately, it was the meteorological observations that had come most under fire – some error had occurred in the confusing of true and magnetic compass bearings – but I didn’t want to take any chances and was determined to save as many of the birds as possible.
At sunrise, Birdie sought me out in my laboratory. He’d slept in his hat and it had buckled into the most extraordinary shape above his left ear. He also had a bruise across the bridge of his nose and looked altogether the pirate.
‘Did I tell you about my Captain on the Worcester,’ he said, looking down at the skeleton of the magnificent man-o’-war bird brought down by Oates. ‘He taught me all I know about the skinning and preserving of birds … not that it amounts to much.’
‘You have mentioned him,’ I said.
‘He was a great man. He once said, not to me, but to a cadet who had got himself into debt, “Never be particular about money, unless it’s not your own.” I’ve never forgotten that.’
‘I don’t wonder,’ I said. I was still angry with him for taking such risks the previous day I had been going to tell him that only hours before we landed on South Trinidad, Campbell had told me he wanted him for the Eastern party set to explore Edward VII Land. He’d asked if I’d put in a good word with Con when we reached the Cape. I’d said I wouldn’t, as I had every intention of recommending him for the shore party. After his recent reckless behaviour I didn’t feel Birdie deserved to be acquainted with such proof of his capabilities, let alone his popularity.
He sensed I was fed up with him. ‘Uncle Bill,’ he said, looking as close to contrite as that ridiculous hat would allow, ‘I expect we gave you a lot of worry yesterday. I do assure you we were never in any danger.’
‘I’m going to have to revise my classification of the petrels,’ I said. ‘I had thought the black-breasted ones to be a different species from the white, but Cherry and I found them nesting together.’
‘I never thought otherwise,’ he replied. ‘Black, white, yellow, we all have the same needs, though I’ve never considered the black-breasted kind to be the equal of the white,’ and at that I couldn’t help laughing, and so forgave him.
Later that day, we set sail in green seas, the southern rollers lifting us like a shuttlecock. I was still skinning in the laboratory when Birdie brought in my cocoa at ten o’clock. ‘Do you know what, Uncle Bill?’ he said. ‘Don’t let on to the other chaps, but I’ve just remembered it’s my birthday.’
At that moment the ship wallowed sickeningly and shuddered; the monotonous chonk-chonk of the screw missed a beat. I slid sideways from the sink, my cocoa slopping onto the linoleum.
‘Whoops,’ Birdie shouted, putting out his hand to steady me, and then we were level again and I raised my mug and wished him all the luck in the world. It’s a fine thing to know that wherever Birdie is, instability can only be temporary.
The Owner: Captain Robert Falcon (Con) Scott
March 1911
Having to sail on past Cape Crozier came as a frightful blow. I’d banked on establishing our winter quarters there, but it proved impossible to land owing to the swell. Nor could I risk waiting in hopes of calmer weather, for the Terra Nova had already consumed a dangerous amount of coal. All my plans and calculations had been made around this anchorage, it being in proximity to the Barrier, the volcano and the rookeries of two different kinds of penguins, thus satisfying the requirements of the geological, zoological and Polar factions of the expedition. We would have had an easy ascent of Mount Terror, a fairly easy approach to the Southern Road, ice for water, snow for the animals, good observation peaks, and so forth. In the old days the stench of guano from the rookeries used to turn my stomach, but when we were forced to steam away I wondered how I had ever found it offensive.
We pushed on beyond Cape Royds to the west coast of Ross Island. Here, in early January, we erected our base hut on the promontory that used to be known as the Skuary and since renamed Cape Evans. As soon as the hut was ready for occupation and all the stores and provision had been transferred safely from ship to shore, I took Campbell and Meares with a dog team to visit our old quarters at Hut Point.
It was a chastening experience. I suppose I’d expected to find everything as we’d left it seven years before, but some fool had forgotten to close a window, with the result that the interior had become a block of blue ice, in the middle of which were clamped several tins of ginger biscuits. We found half a loaf of bread with teeth marks in it stuck to the step of the door.
I’m inclined to think it must have been Shackleton’s party of 1909 who left the window open, not us. After all, we had plenty of time, whereas Shackleton’s lot had to bolt for the Nimrod in the lull of a blizzard. In the circumstances the securing of windows was the last thing on their minds, and then, of course, Shackleton was never a man for detail. All the same, I cannot understand the mentality of people so shallow, so lacking in foresight as to act in such a manner. Surely it’s a mark of civilised human behaviour to leave a place in the condition one would wish to find it. One would think they had walked out of an hotel in some modern town, not a shelter in the most uninhabitable spot on earth, a refuge which could mean the difference between life and death to those who follow after. Such carelessness transgresses all the boundaries of common courtesy, and plunged me into depression. Which is possibly why I slept so badly: that and the fact there was something altogether strange about the place, something eerie, as though the past, which until now had remained as frozen as that flung-down loaf, had at last begun to thaw, releasing shades of days gone by. Although we were dead-beat after our strenuous march, all of us imagined we were disturbed by voices murmuring in the darkness, and Campbell swears he heard the crank of a gramophone handle and the cracked tones of Harry Lauder raised in song. I daresay all these noises were nothing more than the seals calling to one another; none the less, we passed an uncomfortable night. We felt better the next morning after we’d climbed up into the hills, possibly due to the sunshine. The glare warmed our bones and gave us energy. I was surprised by the lack of snow, the Gap and Observation Hill almost bare and a great bald slope on the side of Arrival Heights. Below Vince’s cross we stumbled upon Ferrar’s old thermometer tubes, sticking up as if they’d been rammed home yesterday.
I still can’t come to terms with the futility of Vince’s death. If I hadn’t sent the men out to practise their sledging, if a blizzard hadn’t blown up, if Hare, who later miraculously staggered home, hadn’t been presumed lost, if the rest hadn’t gone off on that suicidal search, if Vince had been wearing crampons – the ifs are endles
s and unrewarding. I might have become despondent all over again if something slightly more pressing hadn’t struck home, namely that although the bays would freeze over early in March it would be a difficult thing to get the ponies across owing to the cliff edges at the side. I must admit it was something I hadn’t taken into account.
The weather continuing fine, we sledged home in great style. I was astonished at the ease with which the dogs made progress, though I’m not yet entirely convinced of their usefulness, as their behaviour is so often erratic. For instance, they are, as a rule, perfectly good friends in harness, so long as they’re pulling side by side; yet the second the traces get mixed up they turn savagely on one another and become raging, biting devils. There’s something disquieting about this sudden naked display of brute instinct in tame animals. Also, they indulge in the disgusting habit of eating their own excrement. The ponies do the same, but as there’s a great deal of grain in their feed the practice isn’t so nauseating to observe. Meares is wonderfully informed about the handling of them, and tells me the secret of getting the best out of them on the march is to let them choose their own leader. This turns out to be less democratic than it sounds, as the leader is invariably the one who has terrorised the rest into acceptance by virtue of his being the strongest and most intelligent. He told me to keep a close eye on Osman, our best dog, and note how he ruled the pack. I did, and found it highly instructive. The slightest slackening off in pace in one of the other animals and Osman leapt sideways, nipped the offender in the shoulder, and was back in position in a trice, the chastisement administered without the least disturbance in the rhythm of the run. I couldn’t help feeling there was something to be learnt from his example.
The welcome we received when we arrived back at Cape Evans was heartwarming, and I was delighted by the further improvements made to our already luxurious hut. The indefatigable Bowers had finished the annexe, roof and all. Not only does it provide ample storage space for spare clothing, sleeping bags, furs, provisions, etc., its extension gives complete protection to the entrance porch. The stables, a stout, well-roofed lean-to on the north side, were almost ready, and Titus Oates, in one of his rare outbursts of optimism, actually went so far as to say he thought the ponies would be exceedingly comfortable during the long winter ahead.
The Birthday Boys Page 7