South with Scott

by Baron Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans Mountevans

I woke at five the next morning, and, rousing my companions, we were up and about in a minute. The primus stove and cooking apparatus were brought into the tent once more; our sleeping foot-gear was changed for our marching finneskoe and good steel-spiked crampons fixed to the soft fur boots to give us grip in places where the ice was blue and slippery. By 6 a.m. the little green tent was struck, the sledge securely packed, and the three of us commenced a day's march, the details of which, although it occurred over nine years ago, are so fresh in my memory that I have not even to refer to my sledging diary.

We commenced the day unluckily, for a low Stratus cloud had spread like a tablecloth over the Beardmore and filled up the glacier with mist. This added tremendously to our difficulties in steering, for we had no landmarks by which to set our course, although I knew the approximate direction of descent and could make this by means of a somewhat inadequate compass. The refinements in steering were not sufficient to keep us on the good blue ice surface down which we could have threaded our way had we commanded a full view of the glacier. Our route led us over rougher ice than we should normally have chosen, and the outlook was distinctly displeasing. The air was thick with countless myriads of tiny floating ice crystals, and the great hummocks of ice stood weirdly shapen as they loomed through the frozen mist. I appreciated that we were getting into trouble, but hoped that the fog would disperse as the sun increased its altitude. We fell about a good deal, and to my consternation the surface became worse and worse. We were, however, covering distance in an approximately northward direction, and our team achieved with stubborn purpose what would have appeared impossible to us when we first visited this great, white, silent continent.

It was no good going back, and we could not tell whether the good track was to the right or the left of our line of advance. As new and more troublesome obstacles presented themselves, the more valiantly did my companions set themselves to win through. Crean and Lashly had the hearts of lions. The uncertain light of the mist worried us all three, and we were forced to take off our goggles to see to advance at all.

We continued until midday, when to my great relief the mist showed signs of dispersing, and the sun, a sickly yellow orb, eventually showed through. It was surrounded by a halo which was reflected in rainbow colouring in the minute floating ice crystals. I looked round for a spot suitable for camping, for we were pretty well exhausted, and it was worth while waiting for the mist to disperse. No time would be wasted since the halt would do for our lunch. With the greatest difficulty we found amongst the hummocky ice a place to set up our tent. A space was found somehow, and rather gloomily the three of us made a cooker full of tea. We munched our biscuit in silence, for we were too tired to talk. From time to time I went outside the tent, and certainly the atmosphere was clearer. Odd shapes to the east and west showed themselves to be the fringing mountains which so few eyes had ever rested on. Gradually they took form and I was able more or less to identify our whereabouts. We finished our lunch, Crean had a smoke, and then we got under way.

A little discussion, a lot of support, and a wealth of whole-hearted good-fellowship from my companions gave me the encouragement which made leading these two men so easy.

Warmed by the tea, cheered by the meal, and rested by the halt, we pushed on once more, although to go forward was uncertain and to work back impossible since we were too exhausted to do such pulling upward as would be necessary to reach a place from whence a new start could be made, even if we succeeded in re-discovering our night camp of yesterday.

For hours we fought on, sometimes overcoming crevasses by bridging them with the sledge where its length enabled this to be done. The summer sun had cleared the snow from this part of the glacier, laying bare the great blue, black cracks, and they were horrible to behold. If the breadth of a crevasse was too large to be crossed we worked along the bank until an ice bridge presented itself along which we could go. As the sun's rays grew more powerful, the visibility became perfect, and I must confess we were disappointed to see before us the most disheartening wilderness of pressure ridges and disturbances. We were in the heart of the Great Ice Fall which is to be found half-way down the Beardmore Glacier. We struggled along, for there is no other expression which aptly describes our case. Had we not been in superb physical training and in really hard condition all three of us must have collapsed. We literally carried the sledge, which weighed nearly four hundred pounds.

When the afternoon march had already extended for hours we found ourselves travelling mile after mile across the line of our intended route to circumvent the crevasses. They seemed to grow bigger and bigger. At about 8 p.m. we were travelling on a ridge between two stupendous open gulfs, and we found a connecting bridge which stretched obliquely across. I saw that it was necessary to move round or across a number of these wide open chasms to reach the undulations which we knew from our ice experience must terminate this broken up part of the glacier. In vain I told myself that these undulations could not be so far away.

To cross by the connecting bridge which I have just spoken about was, to say the least of it, a precarious proceeding. But it would save us a mile or two, and in our tired state this was worth considering. After a minutes rest we placed the sledge on this ice bridge, and, as Crean described it afterwards, "We went along the crossbar to the H of Hell." It was not all misnamed either, for Lashly, who went ahead, dared not walk upright. He actually sat astride the bridge and was paid out at the end of our Alpine rope. He shuffled his way across, fearful to look down into the inky blue chasm below, but he fixed his eyes on the opposite wall of ice and hoped the rope would be long enough to allow him to reach it and climb up, for he never would have dared to come back. The cord was sufficient in length, and he contrived finally to make his way on to the top of the ridge before him. He then turned round and looked scaredly at Crean and myself. I think all of us felt the tension of the moment, but we wasted no time in commencing the passage. The method of procedure was this. The sledge rested on the narrow bridge which was indeed so shaped that the crest only admitted of the runners resting one on each side of it; the slope away was like an inverted "V" and while Lashly sat gingerly on the opposite ridge, hauling carefully but not too strongly on the rope, Crean and I, facing one another, held on to the sledge sides, balancing the whole concern. It was one of the most exciting moments of our lives. We launched the sled across foot by foot as I shouted "One, Two, Three—Heave." Each time the signal was obeyed we got nearer to the opposite ice slope. The balance was preserved, of course, by Crean and myself, and we had to exercise a most careful judgment. Neither of us spoke, except for the launching signal, but each looked steadfastly into the other's eyes—nor did we two look down. A false movement might have precipitated the whole gang and the sledge itself into the blue-black space of awful depth beneath. The danger was very real, but this crossing was necessary to our final safety. As in other cases of peril, the tense quiet of the moment left its mark on the memories of our party for ever. Little absurd details attracted all our attention, for instance, I noticed the ruts in the cheeks of my grimy vis-à-vis, for Crean had recently clipped his beard and whiskers. My gaze was also riveted on a cut, or rather open crack caused in one of his lips by the combined sun and wind. Thousands of little fleeting thoughts chased one another through our brains, as we afterwards found by comparison, and finally we were so close to Lashly that he could touch the sledge. He reached down, for the bridge was depressed somewhat where it met the slope on which he sat.

He held on tight, and somehow Crean and I wriggled off the bridge, sticking our crampons firmly into the ice and crawling up to where Lashly was. We all three held on to the Alpine line, and in some extraordinary fashion got to the top of the ridge, where we anchored ourselves and prepared to haul up the sledge. As I said before, it weighed about 400 lb., and to three exhausted men the strain which came upon us when we hauled the sledge off the bridge tested us to the limit of our strength. The wretched thing slipped sideways and capsized on the slope, nearly dragging us down into that icy chasm, but our combined efforts saved us, and once again the perils of the moment were forgotten as we got into our sledge harness and started to make the best of our way to the depot.