South with Scott

by Baron Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans Mountevans

In spite of the cold, the gloom, and the sad whistling wind that heralded the now fast approaching darkness, I felt glad to work with my sextant and sketch-book under the shadow of those fantastic ice-foots hung round with fringes of icicle. I loved to go with Gran into the deep bays and walk for miles under the overhanging of the vast ice cliffs all purple in the reflection of the early winter noon, and to come out sometimes as we did on to the sea ice clear of a jutting glacier, to face suddenly northward over the frozen sea where nothing but a great waste of ice stretched away to meet the horizon and the rosy, copper glow of the departed sun's rays. Some of the cloud effects at the end of April were too wonderful for mere pen or brush to describe. To appreciate them one must go there and see them, those wonderful half-light tints.

Then there were the ice caves and grottos which were formed in the grounded icebergs that had overturned before we came, and the still more wonderful caves in the ice-sheet where it over-rode Ross Island and formed a cliff-face between Cape Evans and Glacier Tongue, extraordinarily like the white chalk cliffs of Studland Bay I found them, with here and there outstanding pinnacles which a little imagination would liken to Old Harry Rocks when the gray light was on them.

At the most we could only take sextant and theodolite angles for two hours on either side of noon, so Gran and I went without our lunch, taking a few biscuits and some chocolate out with us on our survey days, and as we worked farther and farther from our base we found it necessary to start out in the darkness in order to take full advantage of what light was vouchsafed us. It was good healthy work and we developed glorious appetites, so that our mouths ran with water when perhaps we met a couple of fellows leading the little white ponies on the sea ice for exercise, and they told us what they had had for lunch and what was being kept for us. We found it all most interesting and, although I detested that sunless winter, I loved the changing scenery, which never seemed monotonous when there was any daylight or moonlight. To mark our "stations" we used red and black bunting flags, and they showed up very well. We gave them all sorts of weird names, such as Sardine, Shark, and so forth, and we knew almost to a yard their distances from one another, as also their bearings, which helped us when we were overtaken by bad weather. Eventually it became too dark for any survey work, but there was always plenty to do indoors for the majority of us. Apart from our specialist duties some one was always to be found who could give employment to the willing—there were no idlers or unwilling folk amongst us. Simpson, for example, would employ as many volunteers as he could get to follow the balloons which he frequently sent up to record temperature and pressure. To each of these balloons a fine silk thread was attached, or rather the thread was attached to the little instrument it carried. When any strain was put on the thread it broke the thread connecting the small temperature and pressure instrument to the balloon, the former dropped on to the ice and was recovered by one of the volunteers, who followed the silk thread up until he came to the instrument where it had fallen. One required good eyesight for this work as for everything else down here, and I have never ceased to marvel at the way Cherry-Garrard got about and worked so well when one considers that he was very short-sighted indeed.

Everybody exercised generously, whether by himself on ski, leading a pony, digging ice for the cook or ice to melt for the ponies' drinking water, or even with a whole crowd playing rather dangerous football on the sea ice north of Cape Evans.

When the real winter came I used to walk, after winding the chronometers, until breakfast time to begin with. This gave me half an hour, then again before lunch I would put on ski and go for a run with anybody who had not a pony to exercise. The visibility was frequently limited, particularly on overcast days; one would glide along over the sea ice, which was in places wind-swept and in others covered with snow. Nothing in sight but the gray-white shadow underfoot and the blue-black sky above, a streak or band just a mere smudge of daylight in the north, but this would be sufficient to give one direction to go out on. Then slowly, dim, spectre-like shapes would appear which would gradually sort themselves out into two lots, black and white—these were Titus's ponies—the white shapes, the black were the men leading them. On they came, seemingly at a great pace, and one heard a crunching noise as the hoofs of the ponies trod down the snow crust, but one could not hear the footfalls of the men. One exchanged a "Hallo" with the leading man and passed on until a much bigger white shape loomed up in the obscurity of the noon-twilight, the going underfoot changed and skis fetched up against a great lump of ice which was scarcely discernible in the confusing darkness, and one realised that what little light there was to the northward had been blotted out by one of the big grounded icebergs. Directly one realised which berg it was a new course would be shaped, say to the end of the Barne Glacier; the cliffs of this reached, one proceeded homeward a league to the hut. This could not be missed on the darkest day if the coast-line was followed, and, at last, when stomach cried out like a striking clock, one realised that it was 2 p.m. or so, and a little glow indicated the whereabouts of the hut. Approaching it, one saw the tall chimney silhouetted against the sky, then the black shapes which oddly proclaimed themselves to be motor-sledges, store heaps or fodder dumps, and finally the hut itself. One stumbled over the tide-crack and up on to the much trodden snow which covered the Cape Evans's beach. Six or seven pairs of skis stuck in the snow near the hut door indicated that most people had come in to lunch, so there was need to haste. Off came one's own skis, and with a lusty stab in they went heel downwards into the snow alongside the other ones, so that when a new fall came they would stand up vertically and be easily found again.

The sticks one took into the hut, because even in our well-appointed family there were pirates who borrowed them and forgot to replace them. Entering the hut after kicking much snow from boots one passed first through the acetylene smelling porch—Handy Andy's pride—as we called Day's gas plant, then in to the seamen's quarters, where the smell of cooking delighted and the sight of those great, hefty sailors scoffing the midday meal hustled one still more.

In the officers' half of the hut most people were already busy with their knives and forks, two or three perhaps just sitting down, the night watch-man probably sitting up on the edge of his bunk putting on his slippers, and cheerfully accepting the friendly insults from his pals at table who told him the date and year—down went ski-sticks on the bed, room would be made at the table, and half a dozen dishes pushed your way, and although the mess-traps were enamelled, the food you shuffled down from the tin plate and the cocoa you lapped from the blue and white mug had not its equal at the Carlton, the Ritz, or the Berkeley.

Concerning the night watchman and his duties, although we had so many self-recording instruments, there were certain things which called for attention during the silent hours. Aurora observations had to be made which no instrument would record, movement of clouds had to be noted in the meteorological log, the snow cleared from the anemometer and so forth, then of course rounds had to be made in case of fire, ponies and dogs visited, the galley fire lit or kept going according to requirements, and so on. Night watch-keeping duty was only undertaken by certain members chosen from the afterguard. Scott himself always took a share in this, as he did in everything else that mattered. One came to welcome the night on, for the attendant work was not very strenuous and the eight hours' quietude gave the watchman a chance to write up a neglected diary, to wash clothes, work out observations, and perhaps make contributions to the "South Polar Times" undisturbed by casual well-wishers who were not meant to see the article in question until the day of publication. We were allowed to choose from the stores more or less what we liked for consumption in the stillness of the night watch. I always contributed special China or Ceylon tea for the benefit of the lonely watchman—I had two big canisters of the beverage, a present from one of our New Zealand well-wishers, Mrs. Arthur Rhodes of Christchurch, and these lasted the afterguard watch-keepers through the Expedition. The auroras were a little disappointing this first winter as seen from Cape Evans, they were certainly better seen from the Barrier. We only got golden bands and curtains splaying in the heavens, except for one or two rare occasions when there were distinct green rays low down amongst the shafts of weird light farthest from the zenith.

In view of the possibility of a second winter one kept a few letters going which contained a little narrative of our work to date. We had most imposing note-paper which was used for these occasions: the crest consisted of a penguin standing on the South Pole with the southern hemisphere underfoot, a garter surrounding this little picture inscribed with "British Antarctic Expedition—'Terra Nova' R.Y.S." Alas, some of the letters were never delivered, for death not only laid his hand upon certain members of the Expedition, but also upon some of our older friends, supporters, and subscribers.

One passed out of the hut hourly at least and, on moonlight nights especially, one found something beautiful in the scenery about Cape Evans. At full moon time everything turned silver, from towering Erebus with gleaming sides to the smooth ice slopes of Ross Island in the north-east, while away to the southward the high black Dellbridge Islands thrust up from a sea of flat silver ice. Even the conical hills and the majestic Castle Rock, fifteen miles away, stood out quite clearly on occasions. The weirdest thing of all was to hear the dogs howling in the middle of the night, they made one think of wolves and of Siberia.