Wilson’s opportunities for useful medical intervention were limited. He carried a meagre medical pack: a sort of first-aid kit containing drugs that are puzzling to the twenty-first century physician but immediately recognisable to his peer group in 1902. It contained chalk-powder, a soothing application for burns;80 morphine for pain relief; bismuth, probably for digestive problems;81 a lead compound, probably for sprains and bruises;82 a strychnine tonic to stimulate the appetite;83 and sodium lactate for its sedative properties and to ‘limit nitrogenous waste’.84 The pack also included quinine for ‘rheumatics’ and fever;85 cascara, a laxative;86 calomel, also a laxative;87 chloral hydrate for its claimed powerful antiseptic properties;88 and liquid cocaine. To these he added sticking plaster, tweezers and scalpels. He could deal with cuts, bruises, burns, constipation and snow-blindness; he could advise on cold feet and hands, give first aid in the event of fractures or other injuries, and little else.
On 20 December one of the dogs dropped dead in harness and several others ‘looked as though they would like to’.89 They would not pull, they seemed as weak as kittens. Wilson was butcher every night now, and any hope of getting any dogs back to the ship had been given up.90
At some date around 21 December Wilson told Scott that the group had developed signs of scurvy. Scott noted on 24 December that Wilson had informed him some days previously, but Wilson’s diary makes no mention of it until 24 December when he wrote that his examination that day had shown that both Scott and Shackleton had suspicious gums.91 Wilson suspected the bacon, a possible source of ptomaine poisening and ‘taint’, and this was cut out of their allowance.92 The timing is of interest. In a clinical study on scurvy, a volunteer, previously on a full diet, bravely took a diet with no vitamin C whatsoever for months. He did not develop any clinical signs for three months.93 The development of scurvy in the explorers after only forty-eight days suggests that the men suffered from vitamin C lack, (a prescorbutic phase), before starting out on their trip and further supports the premise that the diet on Discovery was significantly low in vitamin C. The possibility of one invalid bringing disaster to the whole party was obvious. But still they decided not to turn back, continuing south grimly. Wilson wrote that they had again cut back on their lunch seal meat and biscuit to eek it out so that they could go on as long as possible. He still said that he felt well and that they were all in good spirits.
As they progressed, the mountain range unrolling on their right gave way to a further group of high hills. Wilson sketched the whole panorama. Throughout the expedition, his work constantly and accurately reflected the stillness, beauty and grandeur of the Antarctic. Pictures of purple-blue ice, lime-green midnight sky and the sun on the mountain tops were seen and appreciated by thousands after the expedition. They remain superb, lasting and original records.
By 24 December they were beyond 81.33° S. They abandoned one sledge, with all the dog’s fish, but still managed only eight miles. By Christmas Day they were abreast a mountain of about 7,000 feet. Its solitary position made for a conspicuous landmark and they named it ‘Christmas Height’.94 Showing a triumph of the human spirit, they celebrated. Wilson thought of his family. He read Holy Communion. He also thought about his food, which had been increased magnificently for the celebration. Having been hungry for weeks and visibly thinner,95 he lingered over the description. Breakfast was strong sweet tea (they had had no milk since they had left the ship), biscuit and a pannikin (container) full of biscuit crumbs and seal liver fried in pemmican, followed by a spoonful of blackberry jam, brought especially for the celebration. After breakfast they took photos of themselves, grouped in front of the camp and flying their flags and the Union Jack, setting off the camera with a string. At midday they had double helpings of hot chocolate and plasmon (fortified milk), biscuit and more blackberry jam. When they camped for the night they had pulled the sledges for ten miles, leaving the dogs loose to lope along – it was a relief to the men to know that they could manage this. They celebrated with triple rations: biscuits and a tomato soup square, followed by a small plum pudding heated in cocoa and decorated with a sprig of artificial holly. Shackleton had hidden these in one of his socks, a defiant gesture to fate. They could not light the pudding as the brandy had turned black in its tin,96 but for once they enjoyed a sense of replete wellbeing, ‘the reddest of all red letter days’, and divided the food without ‘shut-eye’.97 Their content was only marred by the realisation that they would probably have to turn back in three days because of their low food reserves. Also lurking in the background was the sword of Damocles, scurvy, already affecting two of them.
All three suffered with their eyes and often only kept going with cocaine eye drops. They blindfolded the affected eye and sometimes kept going with only two functioning eyes between the three of them. But on 26 December Wilson had a particularly bad attack of snow-blindness. His left eye stabbed and was so painful and bloodshot that for once, he could not go on. He lay in his sleeping bag, groaning in agony. The drops were no help – the lid was too swollen to be rolled back – and the pain was only contained by morphine. The next day he skiied blindfolded and Scott described the new landmasses unfolding on their right to him. These were a range of gleaming black and deep-red mountains rising to over 10,000 feet with a long cape headland beyond. They camped early on 28 December so that they could photograph the scene, the biggest mountains and the furthest south they would get. Wilson, slightly improved, managed to record the panorama with his one functioning eye, so that they would still have an accurate record if the photograph did not turn out well. He was now pleased with their progress, writing in his journal that they were beyond 82° S and
though we shall not have done a good record towards the South Pole, we have the unlooked-for, hardly expected, interest of a long new coast line with very gigantic mountain ranges to survey and sketch, a thing that to my mind has made a far more interesting journey of this than if we had travelled due south on a snow plain for so many hundred miles and back again.98
The sketches that he made match the photographs well. Modern maps show that they must have been about 82°05½S 165E.99 Although they could see right along the range to a cape beyond, they could not tell whether this was an inlet, with the land continuing, or the end of the range. If they could have gone on only for a few more miles they could have solved the problem, but another dog had collapsed and progress was so slow that it would be late before they could reach the end of the cape and visibility might be bad. Scott decided on a brief dash on skis the next day.100
But on 29 December they were thwarted by a blizzard and could not go on until the following foggy day when Wilson and Scott went south on skis. They knew that if the weather lifted they should be able to see beyond the tip of the cape and to find whether there was an inlet with land running south, suggesting a continent, or a strait, showing that the land ended there. The weather did not lift. The light grew worse. They had to turn back.101 With less than two weeks’ food to get them to Depot B, they started the long treck northwards on the 31 December. They hoped against hope that the weather would clear enough for them to see the far side of the cape. But visibility continued to be poor and denied them their prize. They could not say whether the land they had discovered continued on a scale sufficient to justify the term ‘continent’. If they had been able to make a valid claim to this knowledge it would have compensated them for the disappointment at not getting near the pole, and heaped more fame on the Discovery expedition. As it was, this information would not be revealed for years. However the three could claim the furthest south record. They had pushed man’s knowledge beyond 82.17° S.102 They had discovered the mountain range that flanked the Ross Ice Barrier. Wilson said that the peaks ranged from 10,000–13,000 feet and were probably granite. The highest mountain was to be named Mount Markham.103 In addition they had mapped nearly 300 miles of coastline. Wilson’s name lives on in the region; the cape they so wished to see around was later named Cape Wilson.
/> The return to the ship was to take thirty-four arduous days. They were tortured by hunger and by the dreadful fear that they would not locate their food depot. They were eating so much less than they needed that they were in a severe negative balance. They knew that any delay due to injury, or a storm, could be fatal. They all suffered from scurvy, and Shackleton’s health deteriorated significantly.
During their first four days northwards they travelled for thirty-four miles, crossing huge pressure ridges carved up by wide crevasses, filled in and bridged over by compacted snow.104 Three of the remaining eleven dogs died. One dropped down too weak to walk; they pulled him on the sledge to the camp where his hungry neighbour immediately killed and ate him.105 Scott decided that it was useless to keep food for the dogs on the sledges and decided to distribute it. Clearly not all of it was rotten because two dogs became obviously stronger.106 But in spite of this, the men were doing virtually all the man-hauling themselves. As each dog died or was killed he was fed to the other dogs. Should the men have eaten the dogs to supplement their diet? If Wilson thought, as he said later, that the dogs were suffering from ptomaine poisoning, there would have been no question of man eating dog.107
By 13 January they knew that they were near the depot they had left in December (Depot B). But they woke to a thick blank whiteness and could see nothing. As they ate their reduced rations their fear of missing the depot was very real, so when the pall lifted and they saw the depot flag through Scott’s theodolite telescope the relief was immense. ‘We were not a demonstrative party, but I think we excused ourselves for the wild cheer that greeted this announcement’;108 they knew that they would be having a fat hoosh that night. At the depot they removed the silver strips from the sledge runners which they thought made the sledges run slower and repacked the sledges, getting rid of any unnecessary items, leaving themselves with one pair of skis for emergencies, which Shackleton used, and deciding what to do with the two remaining useless dogs (Wilson killed them). He wrote that Shackleton was now definitely ill and was coughing, very short of breath and wheezing. Shackleton’s gums were dark and swollen; he was deteriorating rapidly. Any attempt to help with the work made him worse. Scott also had signs of scurvy. Wilson just had a plum-coloured lump on his gums.109 Shackleton’s symptoms were potentially disastrous. They were still 160 miles from the ship and had sledges loaded with a total of 525 lbs to pull.110 Shackleton wrote later to his mother that he had collapsed completely on 14 January due to overstrain and haemorrhage, but he said that the other two had been awfully good to him, only allowing him to do small jobs around the camp. Wilson and Scott did all the pulling; if Shackleton had broken down completely they would have had to pull him too in relay, though Scott doubted if he or Wilson had the strength for this.111 In the event Shackleton could not get out of the tent on one day but otherwise he was able to just walk or ski.
Human endurance and courage can persist through awful circumstances. On 15 January, Wilson wrote that Shackleton had had a very bad night and was very breathless during the day, also that they had fallen into a crevasse together, holding themselves up on their elbows and harnesses, but when they camped Wilson made a sundial and learnt about rope splicing.112 It is said that the only thing to fear is fear itself; that too good an imagination is a disadvantage. There is no suggestion that Wilson’s courage ever failed him or that his imagination played destructive tricks on him; his faith kept him serene. But Shackleton’s health did become a sort of barometer for the mood of the party. Wilson and Scott were improving on more seal meat (and, they thought, because they had excluded bacon from their diet), but Shackleton alternated between good and bad. Progress was variable: Saturday 17 January, nine miles; Sunday, very little; Monday, nine miles. By the 21 January Shackleton was well enough to temporarily take his place in the traces but soon had to give up, so Wilson and Scott pulled grimly (Wilson says gaily) on.113 Wilson hoped to get back to their first depot in seven days. They were desperately hungry. The surface snow was heavy. Wilson’s eyes were weak and he gave up any attempt at reading. He slept as soon as he got into his bag.114
Shackleton improved very gradually. By late January he was able to ski. Scott wrote that in spite of his disbelief in skis, if they got back then Shackleton would owe much to the pair that he was using.115 On a glorious sunny 25 January, though they were still over twenty miles from their next depot (and ninety-five from the ship), the sight of smoke puffing from their old friend Mount Erebus gave them encouragement, though Wilson’s eyes were too bad for him to sketch, his fingers were painful, his knee hurt and his lips were raw. They all wore sun hats; the cold areas that formed under their moustaches and whiskers became frozen and encrusted in ice.
They finally arrived at the depot they had left in November on 28 January. Here they found letters, chocolate, sardines, port, raisins, prunes, pemmican and other luxuries, more than enough to reach the ship.116 They ate a substantial meal. Scott suffered badly afterwards. The pemmican had probably swollen in his stomach and he could not sit, stand or lie down comfortably. He received scant sympathy, so he was delighted when, the next morning, Wilson left the tent rapidly with his face pea green in colour.117 But in spite of the extra calories, Shackleton got worse again; he was more breathless, restless and unfit to move.118 For the first time he seemed to lose his courage and become despondent.119 It is unclear what precisely the problem was. He clearly had scurvy: Wilson had said that he was coughing and breathless, but that there were more serious symptoms which he did not detail.120 But even if he could have made a confident diagnosis there was absolutely nothing that he could do. His medicine bag did not contain anything to treat heart or chest problems. His only thought was to get Shackleton back to the ship before another blizzard caught them. He and Scott eased Shackleton out of the tent and into his skis and he kept going, just.
February opened with a successful march. They were buoyed up by the knowledge that there was only twenty miles to go. On 3 February they were delighted and relieved to see Skelton and Bernacchi hurrying towards them. ‘Clean tidy looking people they were’.121 Skelton and Bernacchi filled them in on their missing three months. The main point of interest was that the relief ship Morning had arrived with food, letters, parcels and some new personnel. The provision of a relief ship to resupply Discovery, and if necessary rescue the crew, was an integral part of Sir Clements Markham’s plans and Morning was the result of his further prolonged negotiations. With lightened hearts the three men trudged the final part of their expedition. Skelton and Bernacchi pulled the sledge, their flags flying gaily, towards a Discovery decorated from top to toe with flags and with the whole company thronged on the rigging and gangways. On the way back they met Sub-Lieutenant Mulock who was to join Discovery from Morning. Mulock must have been startled at the explorers’ appearance: frostbitten noses and lips, skin like leather, long sooty greasy hair and beards and, as they warmed up, strongly smelling; they had not taken their clothes off for over thirteen weeks.
The Morning crew had brought news from England and the world: Edward VII had been crowned in August 1902. Balfour, who had been loath to support the Antarctic project, had become prime minister. The Boer War that Wilson abhorred so much had ended in May 1902 with a British victory. The three explorers had their own momentous news: their discoveries and observations in the unknown south, their observations on the nature of the Great Ice Barrier. Many photographs were taken and they sat down to a huge dinner. Wilson did not want to rush his letters. ‘I felt an absolute confidence that all was well with all that I cared for most at home’.122
Discovery was incarcerated in miles of ice. It was hoped that the ice would break up before Morning had to leave but this did not happen in spite of sawing and blasting. Winter provisions, fruit vegetables and mutton were transferred from Morning to Discovery. Scott sent Shackleton, amongst others, home on Morning. He thought that Shackleton was not fit enough for another polar winter and wrote officially, ‘It is with great reluctance that I
order his return and trust that it will be made evident that I do so solely on account of his health and that his future prospects may not suffer’.123 Wilson wrote that the decision to send Shackleton back was because of his breakdown on the southern journey and that he, Wilson, supported the decision.124 When Morning left for New Zealand on 2 March with Shackleton on board, Shackleton wept.
9
Paintings and Penguins
Wilson was unemotional about Morning’s departure on 2 March 1903. He did not go to wave off the dejected Shackleton, but remained on Discovery and cleaned out his cabin and got everything ready for him to start work again. He painted skua heads, caught up with his correspondence and started working on pen and ink drawings from his southern journey sketches. This was a major and prolonged undertaking; the newly discovered Victoria Land coastline and the mountain ranges were of tremendous general interest and he eventually worked up 100 feet of drawings into a panoramic record.1 Nothing was easy. The light in his cabin was so poor that painting had to be done in the mess and all the artwork cleared off the mess table for each ‘prolonged’ meal. But he managed ‘3 hours in the morning if one does not go out, in the afternoon 2 and a half hours and in the evening 7.30 to 11p.m. when the acetylene gas is turned off and only those with candles to spare can go on working’.2 Lighting was a problem, not only for Wilson’s painting but for the psyche of all on board – continuous darkness can lead to depression. Wilson thought that the lack of light would make their lives miserable in the long sunless winter. They had no lights in their cabins,3 but Skelton had rigged up an acetylene light system, which ran through the inhabited parts of the ship for limited hours. This was a bonus for morale and better than smoky candles, which were in short supply anyway. But since Wilson’s work was so dependent on light he made candles by melting old wax and pouring it into glass tubes threaded through with a piece of string fixed with a cork.4 Three home-made candles equalled the light of one proper candle and lasted for eight hours.
With Scott in the Antarctic Page 16