Camp was broken at midnight and the march resumed. For three hours we plodded along, a little leg weary perhaps, on account of the unusual time for marching and working physically. We had lunch about 3 a.m. and rested the ponies for a couple of hours. The surface was still very bad, the ponies labouring heavily, and my own animal, Blossom, suffered through his hoofs being very small, so that he sank into the snow far more than did the other horses. It was on his account that we only covered nine miles. I did some surveying work after our 7.30 a.m. supper and turned in at 10 o'clock until 7 p.m. Captain Scott took over cook in our tent and made the breakfast.
For the next few days we continued marching over the Great Ice Barrier, the distances covered depending on the condition of Blossom and another pony, Blücher. Both of these animals caused anxiety from the start, and, owing to their weakness the depot-laying distances scarcely exceeded ten miles daily. There is nothing to be gained from a long description of this autumn journey, it was merely a record of patiently trudging and of carefully watching over the ponies. Generally speaking, the weather was not in our favour, the sky being frequently overcast, and we experienced an unpleasant amount of low drift.
February 5 and 6 were blizzard days during which no move could be made, and it was not until nearly 11 p.m. on the 7th that the hard wind took off and the snow ceased to drift about us. The blizzards were not serious but were quite sufficient to try the ponies severely—Blossom, Blücher, and a third animal, James Pigg, could in no way keep up with the van, although their loads were lightened considerably. The bluejackets, Forde and Keohane, showed extraordinary aptitude in handling the ponies, but in spite of their efforts their animals were quite done up by February 12, as also was poor old Blossom. It would have been cruel to continue with them, they were so wasted, and even their eyes were dull and lustreless. Accordingly, Scott decided to send Blücher, James Pigg, and Blossom back with Forde, Keohane, and myself. A reorganisation was made near the 79th parallel, and whilst the main party proceeded southward, Forde, Keohane, and I took our feeble ponies northward with the intention of getting them home to Hut Point before the temperature fell, until the cold would be too great for them to stand. It was annoying for me to be sent back, still there was plenty of survey work to be done between the turning-point and Safety Camp. Blücher failed from the start and lay down in the snow directly the depot party left us. Forde lifted him up, but his legs were limp and would not support him. We rubbed the poor pony's legs and did what we could for him, poor old Forde being practically in tears over the little beast. To give one an idea of this wretched animal's condition, when it was decided to kill him for humanity's sake and his throat was cut by Keohane with a sailor's knife, there was hardly any blood to let out. It was a rotten day for all three of us, blowing too hard to travel until very late, and a second pony, Blossom, was doing his best to die. We made some little way homeward, Keohane, James Pigg and myself pulling the sledge with our gear on it, and Forde lifting, carrying, and pushing Blossom along. I felt I ought to kill this animal but I knew how angry and disappointed Scott would be at the loss, so kept him going although he showed so much distress. It was surprising what spirit the little brute had: if we started to march away Blossom staggered along after us, looking like a spectre against the white background of snow. We kept on giving him up and making to kill him, but he actually struggled on for over thirty miles before falling down and dying in his tracks. We built a snow-cairn over him and planted what pony food we had no further use for on the top of the cairn.
The third pony, James Pigg, was kept fit and snug under a big snow-wall whenever we were not marching, and he won home to Safety Camp with very little trouble, frequently covering distances equal to our own marching capability. Once Safety Camp had been regained we got good weather again and James Pigg became quite frisky, ate all that we could give him, and, to our delight, his eyes regained their brightness and he began to put on flesh.
We spent a couple of days at Safety Camp before Captain Scott returned with the dog teams. In order to cut off corners he shaved things rather fine, and getting rather too close to White Island, the dog teams ran along the snow-bridge of a crevasse, the bridge subsided, and all the dogs of Scott's and Meares's sledge, with the exception of Osman, the leader, and the two rear animals, disappeared into a yawning chasm. Scott and Meares secured their sledge clear of the snow bridge and with the assistance of their companions, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard, who had the other team, they were lowered by means of an Alpine rope into the crevasse until they could get at the dogs. They, found the poor animals swinging round, snapping at one another and howling dismally, but in an awful tangle. The dogs were rescued a pair at a time and, fortunately for all concerned, they lay down and rested when hauled up to the surface by Uncle Bill and "Cherry." When all the animals were up and Scott and Meares themselves had regained safety, a dog fight took place between the two teams. Apart from this excitement things had gone very well. Scott was most enthusiastic about the capabilities of Meares's dogs, and he then expressed an opinion that he would probably run the dogs light on the Polar journey and do the final plateau march to the Pole itself with them. What a pity he didn't! Had he done so he might have been alive to-day.
We learnt from the dog-drivers that the depot had been established in 79 degrees 30 minutes S. 169 degrees E., practically one hundred and fifty miles distant from the base, and here a ton or so of sledging stores awaited us preparatory for the great sledge journey to the Pole.
Bowers, Oates, and Gran had been left to build up the depot and lead back the other five ponies with their empty sledges. We waited for them at Safety Camp before transporting some of the stuff we had left here out to Corner Camp, the position thirty-five miles E.S.E. of Safety Camp, where the crevasses ended. Some of us went into Hut Point to see if the ship had been there with any message. Little did we dream whilst we sauntered in over the ice of the news that awaited us. We found that the "Terra Nova" had been there the day before Atkinson and Crean had got there; she had also made a second visit on the 9th or 10th February, bringing the unwelcome news that Amundsen's expedition had been met with in the Bay of Whales. The "Terra Nova" had entered the bay and found the "Fram" there with the Norwegians working like ants unloading their stores and hut-building in rather a dangerous position quite close to the Barrier edge. Amundsen's people had about 120 dogs and a hard lot of men, mostly expert ski-runners. They were contemplating an early summer journey to the Pole and not proposing to attempt serious scientific work of any sort. Further, to our chagrin, the eastern party had not effected a landing, for Campbell realised that it would be profitless to set up his base alongside that of the Norwegians.
The ice conditions about King Edward VII. Land had been found insuperable, great masses of land ice barring the way to their objective, and so poor Campbell and his mates left news that they were reluctantly seeking a landing elsewhere. We spent a very unhappy night, in spite of all attempts to be cheerful. Clearly, there was nothing for us but to abandon science and go for the Pole directly the season for sledging was advanced enough to make travelling possible after the winter. It now became a question of dogs versus ponies, for the main bulk of our stuff must of necessity be pony-drawn unless we could rely on the motor sledges—nobody believed we could. However, all the arguing in the world wouldn't push Amundsen and his dogs off the Antarctic continent and we had to put the best face on our disappointment. Captain Scott took it very bravely, better than any of us, I think, for he had done already such wonderful work down here. It was he who initiated and founded Antarctic sledge travelling, it was he who had blazed the trail, as it were, and we were very very sorry for him, for such news, such a menace, could hardly be expected to give him a happy winter.
Scott did the best thing under the circumstances: he set us all to work on the 23rd February to get out three weeks' men provisions for eight men from the stores at Safety Camp, and these collected and packed, he, Cherry-Garrard, and Crean took a 10-ft. sledge, and Forde, Atkinson, and myself a 12-ft. one, while Keohane and James Pigg pulled another big sledge containing oats and paraffin, and we all set out in a bunch for Corner Camp, thirty odd miles away. All this depot work meant an easy start next season, since the transport of great loads over sea ice and the deep, soft snow, which is usually encountered when first getting on to the Barrier hereabouts, would strain the ponies' legs and break the hearts of the dogs. Scott thought all this out and certainly overcame preliminary difficulties by getting so much pony food, provision, and paraffin out to One Ton Camp and Corner Camp. He felt the benefit next springtime. This second little run out is not worth describing; we sighted Bowers's party coming back with the five ponies whilst we were camped one night, and we noted that they were travelling very quickly, which proved all was well with these animals.
On arrival at Corner Camp Scott left us in order to get back and see the five ponies safely conducted to Hut Point. He instructed me to make easy marches with our friend James Pigg as there was no further work for him this season. Cherry-Garrard and Crean accompanied Scott, and the three pushed on at their utmost for blizzard weather had come again and the snow fall was considerable.