Shackleton's Heroes
Page 26
Situation does not look very cheerful + this is really the worst day’s surface I have ever come across in all of my journeys here.57
Richards:
…We have left Smith, Wild and Mackintosh camped roughly 9½ mile from Bluff Depot. Our idea is to push on and try and pick up the Bluff Depot in time to save the lives of the dogs – our own too for that matter as we are out of food all round.
He added later:
Note: The reason for emphasizing that we are primarily concerned with saving the dogs was a selfish one; we knew we could not get back if they gave up.
The weather is still full blizzard and our travelling conditions do not favour rapid work nor good steering. This afternoon we did roughly three miles.
Haywood Joyce and self are weak and feel the effect of the lay up. Our gums are swollen and slightly black – mine seem to be shredding.58
Hayward:
Since the 21st we have had no kerosene & have been unable to use our Primus – Between us we have formulated a scheme whereby we heat our grub, what there is of it, (a cup of tea each & half biscuit) with methylated spirit, the process taking something like 2 hours & a half.
However we eventually turned in but found it impossible for some cause or causes unknown to sleep a wink.59
The evening of 23 February for Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild
Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild were in their tent, their first night of waiting, and hoping, for the return of the others from the Minna Bluff depot. Spencer-Smith compared Wild’s gesture, to stay and look after he and Mackintosh, to a Charles Dickens character, Emma, in the book David Copperfield. (She is the long-suffering wife of Mr Micawber, whom she swears she will never leave despite his financial difficulties.)
Wild summed up their day:
Made a start about 3 o’clock, then the Skipper went crook so we had to stop again. After a bit of a palaver the other three went on. I stopped behind with the invalids. They are going to the depot and are going to bring food and oil back to us.
I’m afraid they will have to pack up though as it is blizzarding worse than ever. However I hope to see them in 3 or 4 days time. I wonder if I’m right.60
Spencer-Smith:
After less than a mile – deep snow, terrible graft they say – poor Mac collapsed. Symptoms very much the same as mine: aggravated, of course, by the long enforced rest.
It was decided almost at once that Joyce, party and dogs shall dash on as lightly loaded as possible and bring back grub and oil as soon as possible. We wanted Wild to go too but he stoutly refused to desert Mr Micawber. So here we three are with a few biscuits, a few sticks of chocolate, 2 ‘meals’ of oil, a ¼ tin of methylated and a few oddments, vegetables, Bovril and lime juice tablets. The weather did not improve as the afternoon went on, so the others have probably not gone far yet.
We had a great and glorious cup of tea (Te Sol!) to warm us up and sat up talking pretty late, the wind still howling.61
The six men were now in two parties. Joyce, Richards and Hayward with the dogs had travelled 3 miles north since leaving the others. Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild were tent bound, completely dependent on these three men returning from the Bluff depot.
Notes
1. Hayward diary, February 1916
2. Wild diary, 18 February 1916
3. Ibid.
4. Joyce field diary, 18 February 1916
5. Spencer-Smith diary, 18 February 1916
6. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
7. Joyce field diary, 19 February 1916
8. Hayward diary, 19 February 1916
9. Spencer-Smith diary, 19 February 1916
10. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
11. Hayward diary, 3 March 1915
12. Joyce field diary, 20 February 1916
13. Wild diary, 20 February 1916
14. Spencer-Smith diary, 20 February 1916
15. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
16. Joyce field diary, 21 February 1916
17. Wild diary, 21 February 1916
18. Spencer-Smith diary, 21 February 1916
19. Hayward diary, 21 February 1916
20. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
21. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 7 March 1963
22. Richards, interview with P. Law, December 1980
23. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 7 March 1963
24. Hayward diary, 22 February 1916
25. Joyce field diary, 22 February 1916
26. Joyce diary transcripts, 22 February 1916
27. Ibid.
28. Wild diary, 22 February 1916
29. Spencer-Smith diary, 22 February 1916
30. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
31. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
32. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, date unknown.
33. Mackintosh, Shackleton’s Lieutenant
34. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
35. Hayward diary, 23 February 1916
36. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
37. Spencer-Smith diary, 23 February 1916
38. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
39. Hayward diary, 23 February 1916
40. Ibid.
41. Richards diary, 24 February 1916
42. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
43. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
44. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
45. Hayward diary, 23 February 1916
46. Richards diary, 24 February 1916
47. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
48. Ibid.
49. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
50. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
51. Ibid.
52. Hayward diary, 23 February 1916
53. Richards diary, 24 February 1916
54. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
55. Scott, Voyage
56. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
57. Joyce field diary, 23 February 1916
58. Richards diary, 23 February 1916
59. Hayward diary, 23 February 1916
60. Wild diary, 23 February 1916
61. Spencer-Smith diary, 23 February 1916
* ‘Même jeu’ – the same game.
Chapter 13
‘WE ARE ABOUT ALL IN’
24 February 1916
JOYCE, RICHARDS AND Hayward had travelled 3 miles the evening before, and were now 6 or 7 miles from the Minna Bluff depot. In the morning they found the weather much the same with a heavy wind, estimated by Joyce to be about 60 miles an hour.1
Without paraffin for their primus the only way they could melt snow was in a mug over a dish burning methylated spirits. They still had some spirits which were used to start the primus. At an interview, many years after, Richards tells us: ‘You know what methylated spirits is like, when you put a match to it, it goes up like that, well down there in the cold it’s rather hard to light. You just sort of get a match on it and coax it to light.’ When the water was warm they would put a few tea leaves into it. They could not boil the water using the methylated spirits. In Richards’s words: ‘it just wouldn’t boil’.2
They were now at a critical moment in their journey – they just had to find the Minna Bluff depot, but they did not know how because in the blizzard they could not see anything. Richards remembered that the conditions were simply impossible and they had difficulty in even maintaining their footing during the worst of the savage gusts of a hurricane force wind.3
He also wrote later on the lack of visibility. They could only see a few yards and the sky was no different in appearance to anywhere else. There appeared to be no up or down and with zero visibility they had extreme difficulty in steering. They were attempting to find and follow the course along the line of cairns that had been placed when they went out to Mount Hope but they did not know where their line of cairns lay – they had lost the
m the day before the blizzard started.
Richards knew the bearings of the line of cairns, they were in his diary, having been taken on the way out to Mount Hope, but they did not know if they were to the right or the left of them. However, they knew that if they stayed parallel to the line of cairns, by steering on the known bearings, they would be close to the right course.4
Richards and Joyce worked together, as they had before when trying to steer in a blizzard. Joyce was on the end of a long rope and Richards would take a bearing and set him on the right line. Richards wrote in his book The Ross Sea Shore Party that bearings were not easy to take because he had to get his hands out of his mitts to hold the aluminium compass. ‘It was a really painful business’, in the cold, with bare fingers, and he could only manage to hold the metal of the compass for a few moments before it had to be put away so he could return his hands to his mitts.5 After giving Joyce the direction with the rope they would judge the wind, which was coming from the south-east over their right shoulder, and try to maintain that same course, based on nothing but the direction of the wind. They would only go on for a short time, about a quarter or half an hour, halt, and Richards would take another reading.6 Richards tells us there was nothing ahead but ‘a white featureless void’, and nothing to guide Joyce to keep a straight course. The best they could do was to see the way the rope lay in reference to the wind and try to maintain that angle.7
To make matters even worse, they no longer had their sledge-meter, which meant they did not know how far they had travelled each day. They had discarded it days before to lighten their load. This meant they did not know exactly where they were when stopped by the blizzard or how far they had travelled since they had left the others. He wrote later that in their weakened state they finally decided that they would allow about a quarter of a mile per hour for their progress, and in Richards’s words, ‘this turned out to be a surprisingly correct figure’.8
They were very weak and had difficulty in hauling the sledge in the deep snow, even though they now had very little load on; the tent, sleeping bags and some equipment. Although the three men and four dogs were only pulling a light sledge, Joyce tells us they struggled to even move it at times. (Two months earlier, in January, the same team pulled 1380 lbs, 10 miles a day).9
Joyce: ‘Up at 4:30; had one cup of tea, half biscuit; under way after 7.’10
Richards: ‘3pm. Blizzard continued throughout the night. Rose at 4-45 and took 3 hours to get underway on account of the spirit having to serve as fuel.’11
Joyce:
Richards, laying the cairns had great trouble in getting the compass within 10 degrees on account of wind.
During the forenoon had to stop every quarter of an hour on account of our breath. Every time the sledge struck a drift she stuck in (although only 200 lb.) + in spite of three men + four dogs we could only shift her with the 1 – 2 – 3 haul.12
Richards:
Marched till noon – saw one cairn …We did perhaps three miles this morning – going very heavy and we and dogs are weak. Blinding snowstorm continued this morning.13
24 February: ‘lunch’
They had camped for lunch after five hours of hauling and it was as meagre as their breakfast. They planned to march on but the wind increased so they could not move. As they lay in their sleeping bags the three men, Joyce, Richards and Hayward, made a number of diary notes. They were now completely out of food, resorting to eating scraps of unused dog food in their dog-tank. Joyce later described it as the worst-tasting meal he had ever eaten, but ‘it had to go down’.14 The dog-tank was a canvas tank in which they used to keep the dog pemmican. Richards recalled later they were scraping that ‘for crumbs and stuff like that’ and putting it into hot water to get some sort of nutrient. In his mind they were ‘just about starving, there’s no question of that and very weak’.15
An easing in the conditions did come, but they were still unable to move.
Joyce: ‘Camped in an exhausted condition about 12.10. Lunch. Half cup of weak tea + ¼ biscuit, which took over half an hour to make. With scrapings from dog-tank it is a very scanty meal.’16
Richards: ‘With difficulty pitched camp owing to the extremely heavy wind and snow. Our tent is torn and threatens to run at any time.’17
Hayward:
Ready to resume at 2.30, but before we were able to stow our gear away the wind came up from the SW with such violence accompanied by such violent drift we were driven back into our tent which fortunately we had not struck.
During the short respite we were able to get our bags into the tent, everything being chock-a-block with snow and after some difficulty managed to get them spread and ourselves in.18
Joyce: ‘Richards and Hayward went out of the tent to prepare for getting under way, but the force of wind and snow drove them back. The force of wind is about 70 to 80. We decided to get the sleeping-bags in, which took some considerable time.’19
Richards: ‘We all feel cold this afternoon. After lunch cannot risk taking tent down as wind is so strong and drift so thick. We have taken bags inside and are awaiting a lull in conditions, and urgent as the need is we cannot face the weather.’
He added a note to his diary later: ‘The urgency was to march to the Bluff depot and return with food to the three men left behind.’20
Joyce:
The wind carried on with un-abating fury until 7 o’clock, and then came a lull. We at once turned out, but found it snowing so thickly that it was impossible to proceed on account of our weakness.
The worst of camping is the poor dogs and our weak condition, which means we have to get out of our wet sleeping-bags + have another ½ cup of tea without working for it.
This is the 2nd day the dogs have been without food, and if we cannot save the dogs it will be almost impossible to drag our two invalids back the 100 miles which we have to go.
No chance must we miss. Turned in again. Wind sprang up again with heavy drift 8.30.
In spite of everything my tent-mates are very cheerful and look on the bright side of everything. After a talk we decided to wait and turned in. It is really wonderful what dreams we have, especially of food. Trusting in Providence for fine weather to-morrow.21
Richards:
5pm.
Wind has now dropped but it has started to snow heavily. Had a meal of ¼ biscuit and cup of tea. Can see nothing in any direction and it would be folly to proceed as no course could be steered.
Later. Decided to remain camped till 3a.m. It is hard to know what course to pursue at times when a wrong decision means wasting the working efficiency from our meagre food. A false start means a meal wasted to a certain extent. It is very cold.22
Hayward was now becoming fearful:
We are in a very bad case indeed being practically without food and means for heating. We have no means of telling how far we are from the depot; in fact it seems to me that taking everything into consideration that it is going to be a very close call indeed.
The dogs have had nothing to eat for 2 days and if they crack up it will be very serious.23
24 February evening
Many years afterwards Richards could not remember if they even thought of Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild, or if they would even reach the Bluff depot. He thought that possibly the ‘trials of the moment’ were all that they could take in, and they did not look past those. They were weak and to all intents and purposes out of food and fuel; and the dogs seemed to have lost their spirit.24
On this evening he wrote in his diary a long summary of the events that had brought them to this predicament. He was unsure of his dates at times:
29 December 1915. Joyce, Haywood and Self, Gaze, Jack and Cope set out from Bluff Depot southward.
Met Skipper and party two days out. In conversation Skipper and Wild admitted they had little hope of reaching 83-30 S. (Where the final depot for Shackleton on the Transcontinental journey was to be placed.) In written instructions to Joyce, Skipper directed that al
l hands should proceed to 81S, and from there Joyce, Haywood and Self were to continue to 82S, and beyond if possible.
We arrived at 80S on 6 January 1916. The primus belonging to Gaze, Jack and Hayward had commenced to burn away at the top and Joyce decided instead of carrying on with the full party to 81, to send back Gaze Jack and Cope.25
Richards later added a note:
The tents and primuses and a lot of other gear was what Scott had left behind and had been in service previously. When our ship was blown away in April 1915 it took all our sledging equipment with it. The second hand gear we were forced to use plagued us continually as in the case of the primuses and the unsafe condition of the tent.26
(In fact, not all their sledging equipment was on the Aurora. When the ship was taken away in May 1915 the men at Hut Point still had their gear.)
Richards’s field diary continues:
Consequently we left 80S on 6 January with 12 weeks’ provisions on sledge and enough dog food to bring us back to this position. First afternoon we did 5 miles, 1800 yds. Second day saw 10 miles recorded. That evening saw Skipper and party caught up to us at 11p.m. by means of a forced march… Skipper has a bad leg. We joined parties.
The intention of the Skipper was I believe to take us with him to 82 S and then send us back – he to take the dogs on. Long before this position was reached it was evident to our party that Skipper and Smith were done men and we had determined not to allow Wild to go on with Smith and Skipper. I understand that Smith and Wild brought pressure to bear on Mackintosh to the same end. However there was no question of separation of the parties, but if there had been we were determined not to allow the other party to go on as it would have meant suicide. The primus in the other tent gave out and prevented any separation whatever of the two parties. I give as my opinion that even had the primus been working satisfactorily the safest and best arrangement would have been for Skipper and party to have returned from 81S and we could lay the depot at 83 30.27