Little America

by Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr.

  A cold, gray night, a dull, grotesque moon hangs on a Barrier ridge, and the snow exudes a pale distilled luminosity which is almost a half-light.

  We make a break for it, hurrying as fast as our cumbersome clothes will permit. For there is a wind stirring, and its touch on the face is not exactly a kiss. We follow a well-worn path in the snow, which ends abruptly before a gaping hole, down which we dive, literally, and come up hard, after an abrupt descent, at the end of a chamber. It is divided into two rather large rooms, with a partition made of snow blocks. The first of these is the ski repair shop, a tangle of gear, sledges, harnesses and skis. The next is the chopping room, where the seal carcasses are hacked into pieces for the dogs. A spattering of dark blotches standing out with horrid prominence on the white floor tell of a recent feeding. On the right a hole leads into the dog tunnels, from which come throaty growlings. If we peer in, we may see several pairs of eyes burning with hypnotic incandescence, which seem to say: “Be a good fellow, will you, come in and give us something to eat.”

  A strip of light is painted on a slit in the door, and in a moment we are face to face with an Antarctic phenomenon—the only two-man house in the history of Antarctic exploration. It is the shack that Walden and Braathen built out of odds and ends. They call it Luckheim—because, they said, they were lucky to get it. If we are lucky, we may find the tall and handsome Strom, with the body of a Greek athlete, the hands of a lumberjack, and the spirit of an artist, filling the place with the sounds of his accordion, singing haunting Norwegian folk songs.

  But such is not our fortune. Strom’s Muse has deserted him tonight, and he sits chatting with Balchen. Braathen is bending over the stove, the open door of which shows a fiery square, and tosses in a hunk of blubber. The frozen oil hisses and flames, and he hastily slams tight the door. The air is full of assailing odor of burning blubber, which offends the nose, causes the eyes to water and the everlasting soot quickly paints the cleanest face with an oily and well-nigh permanent scum. The stove is Braathen’s pride and joy; he made it, with less elegance than profanity, out of a steel gasoline drum, and though it smokes fearfully, I dare say Chris would not exchange it for the finest oil-burner ever made. The square-built and taciturn Walden is hunched over a half-made dog harness, tugging at a pipe. What queer bedfellows, these two men. They have nothing in common save a love of dogs. Walden, the son of a minister, veteran sledge-driver of the Alaskan Gold Rush, a man whose dogs are his life; he loathes the Antarctic, hates it for its sameness, its lack of hills and game. Braathen, a foot-loose sailor, but a graduate of an evangelical college, as much at home here as anywhere, saying little but thinking much; before he came south dogs were unknown to him, but down here he treats them like children. He has taken the cast-off dogs, the lame and the weak, and built them into a wonderful team. Whether it was this interest or another that has drawn them together, here is the most impregnable kind of friendship. It gives them a life apart.

  We had one other separate institution—Quin Blackburn, the tall, broad-shouldered surveyor from state of Washington. Behind the radio shack, he built for himself a snow house, braced with food boxes, and in the center of it he set up a tent. It was connected to the main tunnel by means of a narrow corridor—its only egress. “But suppose you have a fire. How will you get out?” we asked. Blackburn answered. “I shall depend upon the resources of Dr. Coman,” who was, incidentally, the fire marshal of the camp. So he slept in the tent during most of the winter, with a primus stove and sleeping bag providing the only heat, a well-chilled disciple to the gospel of sleeping out-of-doors. As a consequence, he was nursing blisters of frost-bite on his feet and face most of the time.

  Such, in brief, were a few of the personalities and characteristics of Little America.

  No picture of Little America would be complete without mention of the dogs. Dog Town was a fascinating place. There the most tranquil peace and the most savage ferocity went hand in hand. The will of the stronger ruled it with iron discipline. It existed for work and chunks of frozen seal meat, the scent of which plunged it into ecstatic bedlam. Nights, when a solid stillness fell over the Barrier, the strangest chorus ever sung came up from the labyrinths. It was an uncanny experience to hear half a hundred dogs lift their voices in an ascending scale, reach a quavering high note, dwell on it a moment, then cease abruptly, as if at a signal. Quiet would fall, then the chant would begin anew.

  It was the wolf in them, working off some dim emotion in melancholy song.

  No matter how often the stakes and chains were inspected, there were always a few dogs that managed to break away. Then there was war, fresh blood on the snow, and the drivers would come charging from the shacks, slashing right and left with the heavy butts of whips. It was bedlam while it lasted.

  The Eskimo dog has at times the ruthless self-will of a despot, and neither whip nor iron can prevail against it. I saw one of them, who refused to be broken to harness, face with snarling mouth the club of one of the drivers; in the end it was the driver who threw down his whip and confessed defeat. It was not a pretty sight, even if it is the law of the trail. One could not help admiring the proud, indestructible spirit of the beast.

  These dogs can also be the friendliest and most playful fellows one could ask for. As a matter of fact, their natures have been much maligned as far as their relationship with human beings is concerned. They responded wonderfully to kind and thoughtful handling. The drivers on the whole had very little trouble with them, and inevitably became very keen about their dogs. Most of them were as gentle with us as the most innocuous house pet. Braathen had a small dirty white Eskimo, blind in one eye, which had been discarded by the other drivers as useless. He named it “Moose-Moss-Mouse”, and by gentle, patient training turned him into one of the best leaders of all.

  A number of the men, however, at first had scant liking for them, thinking them to be treacherous. One dog, Oulie, who was more than half wolf, had a terrible reputation, which the drivers wilfully blackened for the benefit of the more timorous members of the camp. He was a splendid dog in the harness, but absolutely untamable. One night, during the winter, Chips Gould went down the tunnel to repair the gate in the maternity ward, to keep the young pups from overrunning the camp. He carried a kerosene lantern, which he put down on the floor and started work. In the midst of his hammering, he heard a noise and turned, just in time to see one of the pups making off with the lantern.

  “Hey, drop that,” Gould yelled. The puppy dropped it and fled, but in doing so overturned the lantern, plunging the tunnel into darkness. At once the other dogs, aroused by the shout, began to howl and the tunnel reverberated with the racket. The carpenter’s wits quitted him; he lost his bearings, collided with one wall after another in a frenzied effort to escape from Oulie, who, he thought, was prowling about in the darkness, waiting to seize him.

  He became hopelessly lost.

  As he stood for a moment, dazed and bewildered, a soft, moist muzzle, which he recognized, pressed against his hand.

  “Birch,” Gould whispered, his legs knocking.

  Birch was one of the pets of the camp, one of the gentlest dogs of all.

  The carpenter timidly ran his hand down her back, half expecting it would be torn from him. It was Birch, overjoyed to see him. “Thank God,” Gould said. He fumbled about in the darkness, to disconnect the chain from the stake; then, firmly holding on to the end of the chain, he yelled: “Let’s go, Birch.” And she raced, just as he had hoped she would, for the mess hall. Nor did Gould surrender his hold on the chain until the door had slammed behind him, shutting out the tumult in the tunnels. He led her over to the galley. “Tennant,” he said, “this dog has saved my life. I want to give her a whole leg of lamb.”

  The pups were the despair of the camp. There were at least a score of them, the sons and daughters of Lady, a small, nondescript Eskimo; Josephine 1, and Holly, a very beautiful full-blooded Eskimo.

  Literally, they ran wild. They could not be captur
ed, but prowled about the camp, feeding on scraps of food that were put out for them, enduring the lowest temperatures without visible discomfort. In mid-winter, when the thermometer was down to 65°, Amy, one of Goodale’s team, gave birth to five pups in the maternity ward. To make them as comfortable as possible, Goodale laid a bedding of straw on the floor of her crate. This was constantly damp, owing to the condensation of the mother’s breath, and being afraid that they might die, he moved them inside his shack. But the unhappy mother took them back, at the first chance, to the tunnel. Later, he tried to wean them on such delicate foods as cereal and oatmeal, which they spurned in favor of frozen seal meat. And within a few weeks they joined the wild band inhabiting the tunnel, becoming the biggest and the strongest of the lot. For all their rapacious manners, these outlaws were amiable creatures; and whenever I went walking they would come rushing forth in answer to the call, “halloa, halloa, halloa, halloa,” and escort me down to the bay.

  In the presence of these creatures Igloo was as cocky and fierce as ever. Familiarity breeds contempt, and he had long since got over the shock they first gave him during the trip South on the City of New York. He feared not even the biggest dog among them; no doubt, he believed he was a great fighter because we saved his life so often. He was even condescending in his attitude, especially toward the pups, although his life was really in great danger. We had to watch him carefully, because when he was allowed to run loose he invariably made for Dog Town. Almost always he returned in need of medical attention, which Dr. Coman never failed to give him. He accompanied me on my walks. As Nature had not provided him with a heavy coat, Ronne made him one of camel’s hair, which covered his body and legs. This jacket was a source of undiminishing curiosity to the wild pups, and at every opportunity during the jaunt they would steal up from behind and nip at it, no doubt with the intention of finding out what this queer bundle was. These assaults so humiliated Igloo that he could scarcely contain himself; he would bide his time, however, and when one of the tormentors was off his guard, Igloo was on him in a flash. How he managed to escape his amiable assassins for more than a year is a miracle. On at least two occasions a slashing stroke missed his jugular by a hair’s breadth.

  But I have digressed:

  There were ways other than work with which to make time fly. Games were popular. The ancient American institution of poker became an Antarctic pastime. The mere fact that money no longer had significance did not diminish the action of the game. No one ever thought of playing for money. A far more precious currency—cigarettes—was played for; and toward the end of the winter, when the supply ran low, the faces of the players were set with a grimness as if the Morgan millions were at stake. Eventually, those who won redistributed the gains, in order to keep the game going.

  Bridge was a game favored by a few, particularly Dean Smith, McKinley, Harrison, Rucker, Czegka and myself. An old Navy game, “Acey Deucey,” was also popular.

  The Gymnasium was a very popular place. It was nothing more than a room built into the snow, perhaps 25 feet square and 15 feet deep, with a tarpaulin for a roof, which of course was covered with snow. Here, Balchen, Thorne, Dean Smith, Siple, Bursey, Strom, Black and Blackburn took regular work outs, even though the temperature in the room got as low as 50° below zero. A boxing match between Strom and Balchen was an almost weekly feature.

  There really was no lack of entertainment. Toward the end of the winter, when radio reception was good, Petersen and Mason picked up the broadcasting stations at Wellington, which we overheard via the loud speaker in the houses. Every Saturday afternoon, at 4 o’clock, we listened in on the regular programmes broadcast by KDKA, at Pittsburg, and WGY, at Schenectady, which were sent directly to us. Most of the time these broadcasts came in perfectly, but at other times were hopelessly confused by abnormal atmospheric conditions. It was good to hear the voices of our friends speaking, but there were moments when we stirred uneasily. The last place in the world to which one should send a mushy message is the Antarctic; whatever note it may strike in the heart of the intrepid explorer to which it is addressed, it brings only pain—severe pain—to his fellows.

  On Sunday, which was officially a day of rest, we had a regular motion picture show. A curtain was lowered at one end of the mess hall, chairs were grouped in front, the lights were extinguished and Rucker and Van der Veer began the show. I recall these affairs with mingled emotion. The pictures were presented to us by the National Board of Review, which seemed to have been consistently guided in its selection by a reverent feeling for antiquity. However, they did give us Charlie Chaplin in some of his old thrillers, which were run over again and again, to the great delight of every one; and if, as it frequently happened, the most exciting part of the film was missing, our movie experts immediately grafted on a fragment of another, which often led to wonderful things. I would hesitate to describe the actions of the audience; for the emotions which a respect for law and order compelled them to suppress in the more pretentious motion picture palaces at home, were allowed to run riot here, being stimulated by scandalous comments from our distinguished surgeon.

  Twice a week during the winter the dons and pundits of Antarctic University gave lectures on the various subjects associated with the research purposes of the expedition. Dr. Gould gave the course on geology which he taught at the University of Michigan and which nearly every one attended. Mason and Hanson lectured on radio science, June conducted a ground school on aviation to which Balchen and Smith contributed, and McKinley talked on aerial surveying. These studies were a welcome interlude, and recommended themselves on the ground that they would give the men a proper appreciation of the real objectives of the expedition. A number of men gained a great deal from them.

  There was a victrola in the library in the Administration Building, which ground perpetually. The records were of jazz and classical music, and both, I think, were played to equally appreciative audiences. Every two or three days, either Chips Gould or Jack Bursey would come into the library and pick up their favorite records to play them over and over again. “The Bells of St. Mary” is a tune I am not likely to forget. I was working on my polar reports nearby, and had all the feelings of a distracted fugitive fleeing from a mad minstrel.

  Civilization was never too far from us to bridge the southern oceans and the pack. Few of us will ever forget the night when Vaughan, who was in the group before the loudspeaker, was told of the death of his brother. Some one, who realized what was coming, tried to turn off the radio; but was too late. Even the collapse of the stock market in the early (Antarctic) spring had its painful repercussions. Smith, who became known as the Dean of Antarctic financiers, watched Chrysler go down with the thermometer, while he unhappily directed his broker from the Bay of Whales. The nights when Petersen or Mason was unable to pick up the latest quotations were dull and gloomy ones, indeed.

  The daily “Press” sent out each night by the New York Times was intercepted by our radio department, and “published” each night on the Bulletin Board. Thus, we kept more or less abreast of the world’s affairs, and new fuel for discussion was rarely lacking.

  When other entertainments lagged, the amateur talent produced its own. We had our “Antarctic Follies,” which made up in brawn what it lacked in pulchritude. Crockett, Goodale, Feury and Bubier were the chorus, and they made a dashing appearance in skirts made from dish towels and wigs made from rope, although a generous showing of none too clean woolen underwear was hardly calculated to appeal to an aesthete. The humor was, I fancy, rather practical, often broad and not infrequently Rabelasian. While it delighted us beyond measure, I doubt whether it would seem particularly amusing to any one else. Too often the humor turned on some peculiarity, some phrase or incident that belonged only to us. The practical jokes, which are enjoyed only by the perpetrators, were always with us. Not long after we took up the routine winter existence, a crevasse, which widened alarmingly, was discovered in the surface to the north not far from the houses. Presently
a second crack appeared to the east, and then a third to the west. We were literally surrounded by cracks, and the men who still held to the theory of the impermanence of the Barrier, viewed them with misgivings. An ignoble conspiracy was hatched and executed. Very early one morning, at 4 A.M. to be exact, when the temperature was about 40° below, Demas aroused the administration building with a cry, into which he put the whole force of his lungs,—”The Barrier has broken.” Men who were always the last out of their bunks in the morning were first out this time. Some paused, shrewdly, to snatch adequate clothing, but others paused for nothing. Hanson, ever resourceful, grabbed a handful of tools and radio equipment with the intention of making an emergency radio set to inform the world of our peril. The vestibule was clogged with hurrying figures. But outside nothing was changed, the Barrier was still intact and the shivering, half-clad men filed back again, vowing deadly things. Poor Demas confessed later that he did not close his eyes for three nights, lest his tormentors rend him limb from limb.

  The night that Owen stood the watch was a gala occasion. When the fire in the galley went out, several conspirators from the Norwegian House stole out and tied a coal sack around the chimney flue. They were up early the next morning, hidden in the tunnel, when Russell came in, none too enthusiastically, to make the fire. It was bitter cold. Shivering and miserable, he chopped the kindling, packed it in the stove and applied a match. It blazed merrily for a few moments, then a torrent of smoke poured forth. It gathered in volume, spread across the ceiling, then whirled downward in a choking pall. The occupants in the upper bunks awakened first, sputtering, then those in the lower tier. Imprecations and unkindly advice were hurled at the watchman, who was frantically manipulating every gadget on the stove in a vain effort to promote a draft. Several sufferers, of a sterner mould, crept from their sleeping bags to help him. Meanwhile the residents of the Norwegian House were pressed against the door, enjoying the sounds with unholy glee.