Before setting out on December 11 we rigged up the Lower Glacier Depôt, three weekly Summit units of provisions, two cases of emergency biscuit which was the ration for three weekly units, and two cans of oil. These provisions were calculated to carry the three returning parties as far as the Southern Barrier Depôt. We also left one can of spirit, used for lighting the primus, one bottle of medical brandy and certain spare and personal gear not required. On the sledges themselves we stowed eighteen weekly Summit units, besides the three ready bags containing the ration for the current week, and the complement of biscuit, for this was ten cases in addition to the three boxes of biscuit which the three parties were using. Then there were eighteen cans of oil, with two cans of lighting spirit and a little additional Christmas fare which Bowers had packed. Every unit of food was worked out for four men for one week.
Plate IV.—Transit Sketch For The Lower Glacier Depôt.—E. A. Wilson, del. Emery Walker Limited, Collotypers.
During this time of deep snow the sledge-meters would not work and we were compelled to estimate the distance marched each day. "It has been a tremendous slog, but I think a most hopeful day. Before starting it took us about two hours to make the depôt and then we got straight into the midst of the big pressure. The dogs, with ten cases of biscuit, came behind and pulled very well. We soon caught sight of a big boulder, and Bill and I roped up and went over to it. It was a block of very coarse granite, nearly gneiss, with large crystals of quartz in it, rusty outside and quite pinkish when chipped, and with veins of quartz running through it. It was a vast thing to be carried along on the ice, and looked very typical of the rock round. Instead of keeping under the great cliff where Shackleton made his depôt, we steered for Mount Kyffin, that is towards the middle of the glacier, until lunch, when we had probably done about two or three miles. There was a crevasse wherever we went, but we managed to pull on ski and had no one down, and the deep snow saved the dogs."[222] The dog-teams were certainly running very big risks that morning. They turned back after lunch, having been brought on far longer than had been originally intended, for, as I have said, they were to have been back at Hut Point before now, and their provision allowance would not allow of further advance. Perhaps we rather overestimated the dogs' capacities when Bowers wrote: "The dogs are wonderfully fit and will rush Meares and Dimitri back like the wind. I expect he will be nearly back by Christmas, as they will do about thirty miles a day." But Meares told us when we got back to the hut that the dogs had by no means had an easy journey home. Now, however, "with a whirl and a rush they were off on the homeward trail. I could not see them (being snow-blind), but heard the familiar orders as the last of our animal transport left us."[223]
Our difficulties during the next four days were increased by the snow-blindness of half the men. The evening we reached the glacier Bowers wrote: "I am afraid I am going to pay dearly for not wearing goggles yesterday when piloting the ponies. My right eye has gone bung, and my left one is pretty dicky. If I am in for a dose of snow glare it will take three or four days to leave me, and I am afraid I am in the ditch this time. It is painful to look at this paper, and my eyes are fairly burning as if some one had thrown sand into them." And then: "I have missed my journal for four days, having been enduring the pains of hell with my eyes as well as doing the most back-breaking work I have ever come up against.... I was as blind as a bat, and so was Keohane in my team. Cherry pulled alongside me, with Crean and Keohane behind. By sticking plaster over my glasses except one small central spot I shut off most light and could see the points of my ski, but the glasses were always fogged with perspiration and my eyes kept on streaming water which cannot be wiped off on the march as a ski stick is held in each hand; and so heavy were our weights [we had now taken on the weights which had been on the dog sledges] that if any of the pair slacked a hand even, the sledge stopped. It was all we could do to keep the sledge moving for short spells of a few hundred yards, the whole concern sinking so deeply into the soft snow as to form a snow-plough. The starting was worse than pulling as it required from ten to fifteen desperate jerks on the harness to move the sledge at all." Many others were also snowblind, caused partly by the strain of the last march of the ponies, partly by not having realized that now that we were day-marching the sun was more powerful and more precautions should be taken. The cocaine and zinc sulphate tablets which we had were excellent, but we also found that our tea leaves, which had been boiled twice and would otherwise have been thrown away, relieved the pain if tied into some cotton and kept pressed against the eyes. The tannic acid in the tea acted as an astringent. A snowblind man can see practically nothing anyhow and so he is not much worse off if a handkerchief is tied over his eyes.
"Beardmore Glacier. Just a tiny note to be taken back by the dogs. Things are not so rosy as they might be, but we keep our spirits up and say the luck must turn. This is only to tell you that I find I can keep up with the rest as well as of old."[224]
Plate V.—Mount F. L. Smith And The Land To The North-West—E. A. Wilson, del. Emery Walker Limited, Collotypers.