When the sledges felt heavier we knew that the slope steepened. About three miles, as we guessed, from camp, they suddenly took a plunge forward on their own account and were with difficulty restrained. We had crossed a watershed, and the slope was downhill. One sledge knocked Svensen off his feet and sent his ski flying. He captured the right, but the left vanished hissing into the fog. He followed it, and became utterly invisible a few yards away. While we awaited his return, a ghostly sun appeared for a moment, but was swallowed up again. Absolute silence reigned. The air was motionless. We could just see one another, and that was all. At the foot of the hill came a level area, then uphill again, steeper than before. Fortunately for us novices on ski the snow was not in a slippery condition. On the contrary, it tended to adhere to the ski, so that they held the ground well without backsliding. It was deep, soft snow, into which we should have sunk at least to the knee had we been merely walking in boots. As it was, we did not sink into it at all, and could drag the sledges with our full weight. Nielsen was the only miserable one of the party, for he had the Canadian snowshoes. His feet kept slipping out of the straps when he strained upon them in pulling. Moreover, he could not accustom himself to keep his legs wide enough apart, and so was always tripping up or treading with one shoe on the other. All day the cold was considerable, the air full of frozen vapour which incrusted us over, so that heads, hair, and clothes became a mass of icicles tinkling as we walked. After making about seven miles, chiefly uphill, we camped at a height of some 2500 feet. It was pleasant to feel the shelter of the tents, pleasanter still to get the stove going and gain a drink of water to slake the parching thirst from which all were suffering.
Early next morning (17th) the clouds broke for a brief interval, as they have a way of doing about 6 A.M., even in the worst weather. Looking back we saw the watershed crossed the previous day, and learnt that we had (unnecessarily) descended into the head of a big valley trending west, that we had crossed this and reascended its northern side to the place of encampment. Had we been able to see ahead, both the descent and the reascent might have been avoided. De Geer Peak was in sight to the south; westward, as we looked down the valley, a single, or perhaps a double, row of hills intervened between us and Dickson Bay. They were all white with permanent snow. Not a patch of open country was visible there. One of these hills, apparently the Lyktan, was capped with a limestone crown. In the silence and stillness of the cold morning these mountains, for all their relative littleness, looked singularly dignified. They were so grey and shaggy, creatures of storm and everlasting winter, things utterly remote from all association with man, even as the very mountains of the moon. While we were watching them, clouds came up again in the lap of the south-west wind. The milky fog settled down before we started on, and nothing more was seen that day.
Svensen began to complain of feeling unwell, talked of pains in his inside, of numbness in feet and legs, and so forth. For the matter of that, no one felt particularly bright, the process of coming into condition being always laborious. The only thing to be done was to push on. It was uphill all the time, often up slopes so steep that one sledge had to be left while all four concentrated their efforts on raising the other. Now and then the slope bent away down to the west, showing that we were keeping close along the watershed. The course taken was a little east of north. The work was harder than ever. Hour after hour passed, and yet the hoped-for high plateau was not found. Snow fell heavily and the wind became violent. It had its compensations, however, for we could steer by it. The fresh snow was unsuited for ski. It froze on beneath them and balled, an impediment to the shuffling action of the feet.
As the fresh snow accumulated, the surface of the old snow beneath became so hard that ultimately ski could be discarded. A final long tug up a very steep slope completed the morning’s march. At the top Svensen threw himself down and said he could go no further. He certainly looked ill. His face was ghastly grey, his cheeks sunken, his eyes staring out of his head and bloodshot. The storm was raging furiously, driving the fresh snow along, like a waist-deep stream of opaque white fluid, with a loud hissing noise that mingled in the roar of the wind. It was decided to pitch one of the tents and take shelter in it, while a hot lunch was cooked; but to carry out the plan was not easy in the teeth of the gale. When the tent was at last set up, Svensen was pushed in and the rest of us crowded after. The sick man began to tremble all over and moaned horribly. He pitied himself in broken accents. There was nothing for it but to pitch the second tent, unpack his fur sleeping-bag and stow him away to warm up. While this was being done I rubbed him hard all over to restore circulation.
Before we had been halted half an hour tents and sledges were almost buried beneath the drifting snow. The gale was getting worse every minute, making the roofs boom and flap so that we feared they would rip asunder. Meanwhile cooking went forward, and then all slept, awaiting a change of weather. Late in the evening there was no improvement, and Svensen said he was going to die. By morning the wind had dropped, but the fog was yet denser. The sledges were not to be seen. The tents were hidden from one another behind walls and heaps of drifted snow. Nielsen shouted that Svensen was “all broken up,” and could not be moved. I went to see him, and found a miserable-looking object. He said he had swellings in his middle and talked about an old sprain and the cold. His legs were senseless below the knees. Here was a pretty mess, if his story were true! We had suspicions that fright was a large factor in his trouble; but if it were not, and we made the man go on, what a responsibility would lie upon us! He was emphatic that he could not stir a yard that day, and that if we insisted on his moving we must carry him, son of Anak that he was. There still remained food for six days, so we could afford to wait twenty-four hours at any rate. Practically we had no option.
CHAPTER III
BACK TO KLAAS BILLEN BAY
Garwood and I, for exercise, started out on ski, not daring to go far in the dense fog, for, except by following up the track, it was impossible to find the camp again once it had passed out of sight. With the surface snow in such feathery condition, a track would be obliterated in two minutes, even by a light wind. Caution, therefore, was essential. The calm continuing, we indulged in longer excursions, trudging always uphill, and sliding down again with increasing confidence and ease. Assuredly, for the mere movement, ski-glissading is first-rate fun. Taking a longer range uphill than before, we came into a thinner patch of fog, with a quarter-mile reach of vision, perhaps, and the white ghost of a sun aloft. Something suggested that a domed hilltop was close ahead. We pushed on, and rose above the fog. Clear was the atmosphere in all directions below a roof of cloud, white and level, the far-extending floor of fog through which we had just emerged, as through a trap-door on to the stage. In front (to the east), and on our left (to the north), gentle snow-slopes rose to skylines seemingly near at hand. We could not but push on. The snow was in perfect condition for sliding, the air delightfully crisp. It was grateful merely to have left the clammy fog behind. The convex curve of the snowfield was cause of the constant retreat of the skyline from our advance; but at last a distant summit peeped over, then another. Evidently there was a watershed, and from it a view. It developed very slowly, but at length it was all there—a downhill slope in front, and then the distance filled with a prospect on which no human eye had ever gazed. It was strictly an eastward view, for in the north the snowfield rose higher, and to the south fog enveloped everything.
Whether it was the effect of contrast after the blindness of three days, or whether the view was absolutely superb, is hard to say; it certainly impressed us as a very grand sight. We were standing at the head of a broad snow-white valley, to which a long slope drooped from our feet, the level of the valley-floor being at least 1000 feet below us, or more than 2000 feet above sea-level. On either side the valley was enclosed by faces of rock, bluff-fronts cut out of what was formerly a big plateau, level with our position. A splintered nunatak pierced through the glacier below and formed an effective centre-piece. The glacier itself swept away in its wide, dignified fashion, first east, then gradually round in a great curve to the south-east, on its slow crawl towards Wybe Jans Water. The row of bluffs on the left (north) were seen, one beyond another, stretching away fainter and fainter to the remote distance, where the last may look down upon the east coast. The nearest and highest of these bluffs appears to be the Mount Chydenius of Nordenskiöld. Further north and masked by clouds were indications of a range of peaks of bolder form.