Death on the ice, p.36
Death on the Ice, page 36
‘Get up too smartish and you might. I took a reading. Minus seventy-six and over seventy miles an hour. Bill was right. It’s a snorter. There.’ He finished packing the snow into some of the cracks between the rocks. ‘Think that’ll hold?’
Cherry was aware that the gale battering his head had lessened. ‘Yes. Thank you, Birdie.’
‘You want my bag lining?’
‘You need it.’
Birdie came close once more. He checked the young man for frostbite, but there was none. ‘Haven’t used it yet.’
‘Oh God,’ said Cherry. ‘What are you made of?’
Birdie laughed. ‘Want a sweet? I brought them in case we felt a bit low. And for Bill’s birthday.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Yes, it is. You can have one now.’
Cherry heard a rustle of paper and felt something popped into his mouth and the flavour of mint flooded through him. ‘That’s delicious.’
‘We’ll be all right, don’t you worry. I’d best go and thump Bill, make sure he is alive. Can’t freeze to death on the day before your birthday.’
Cherry must have dozed off. When he awoke, the howling gale had subsided slightly, but it was still as black as the depths of hell around them. No star shone in the sky, and snow had drifted up inside the igloo. But it was certainly quieter. He could even hear Bill breathing and Bowers, damn the man, snoring.
‘Bill.’
‘Yes, Cherry?’
‘Are you awake?’
‘No, I’m talking in my sleep.’
‘Sorry. I meant to ask. You have morphine?’
‘I do. Are you hurt?’
Cherry just wanted to sob in reply. ‘All over. I’ve had enough. We’ve no tent. My feet were burning but now I can’t feel my toes. My head hurts. I’m ready. I’ll only hold you up. If you are to have a chance—’
‘Stop it.’
‘Please, Bill.’
‘The storm is abating.’
Yes, he wanted to say, but we have no tent. WE HAVE NO TENT. And God alone knew what else had been tossed away into the night. It would be nineteen or twenty days back, at least. Sleeping in the open. At the mercy of elements that didn’t know the meaning of the word. It was going to be a terrible demise. ‘Please, Bill. I’m the weak one. Birdie could carry you on his back if need be. I can’t even see where I am going. I would just drift off, wouldn’t I? With the morphine, I might even feel warm. That would be worth it. I’m not worried about dying, Bill. It’s the pain. Everything aches.’
Wilson barked his reply. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Petulant now, like a child at the seaside denied a stick of rock.
‘I haven’t stopped praying yet.’
There was pause while they listened to Bowers snore, no doubt deep in one of his food dreams.
‘Bill?’
‘Cherry?’
‘Sorry about the eggs.’
For some reason, Wilson found this immensely funny. The richly ironic sound sent an even deeper shiver through Cherry. He knew now that Bill, too, reckoned they weren’t going to make it back.
Scott ascended the ladder to the top of the hut very slowly, one cautious rung at a time, bracing his body against the wind each time it gusted. The anemometer had jammed again and needed to be freed. This was the night watchman’s job and it was his turn on duty. He consoled himself that he could have his sardines on toast when he got back down.
There had been a two-day storm. The meteorological records had been frightening, with precariously low temperatures and high winds. Then the anemometer blade had jammed. Atkinson had gone out to make some readings with the portable machine, become disorientated, and was lost for hours. His face and hands were badly frostbitten, but, mercifully, he recalled little about his ordeal.
Scott made it to the apex of the roof and leaned on to it, stretching his arm to reach the damaged instrument. His face was beginning to tingle, so he knew he had little time before he was frost-nipped.
Above him the sky had cleared and there was the first shifting green curtain of the Aurora. He grabbed the blade in his mitten and gave it a shake. It made a squeaking sound and began to turn, picking up speed till it was clacking away.
Gingerly he descended the ladder and hurried back towards the entrance of the hut. As he did so, Bill Wilson’s words came back to him: ‘The Good Lord alone knows why the penguins have chosen the most windswept place on the planet to make their rookery.’
The most windswept place on the planet.
The wind was forty to fifty miles at sheltered Cape Evans, peaking at eighty-two mph some days. On the hills it was twenty per cent higher. What must the Crozier party be experiencing? Scott wondered as he stepped inside into the fug of the hut’s enveloping warmth. Five weeks they had been gone. At what point did you begin to think the worst?
Fifty-four
Cape Cozier, July 1911
OATES TOOK THE WARMED blanket off Anton and laid it over the prostrate form of Jimmy Pigg. The horse was in bad way; he’d been racked with a colic and fever since the morning.
‘Will he be all right?’ asked Crean. He had taken him for his daily walk, but had had to bring the animal back. Jimmy was walking with legs of rubber and making the most alarming noises. That had continued throughout the day till, in the evening, he had lain down. It was Oates’s job to ensure he got up again.
‘Nothing you can do here, Tom,’ said Oates. ‘Go back inside. Have something to eat.’
‘Aye.’
But he didn’t move, just kept staring at the downed animal.
Strangely, Oates welcomed the crisis. Without such incidents the days seemed interminable and he could feel the long dark sucking away his resolve and confidence. He had bucked up for the midwinter party, had even got tipsy and danced with a bemused Anton. But later, when the three men had departed for Cape Crozier—he had even envied them, having a goal to strive towards—Oates had felt despair calling again.
Why? He wasn’t normally prone to gloomy episodes. It could only be the lack of sun, something he had thought he wouldn’t miss. Moonlight football usually cheered him, as any physical competition did, but the last few times the intense cold had drilled into his old wound and he had limped from the field.
‘Off you go, Tom,’ Oates prompted him. ‘You can have a turn later.’
Crean left and Oates began to rub at the horse with a second hot blanket. When they were seriously ill, the animals stopped whinnying or snorting. Instead, there was an ominous silence and stillness, punctuated only by the spasms that shot through the flanks.
‘Make up some mash, can you, Anton,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and feed him.’
‘I get you some food, too,’ said Anton.
‘Very well, thank you. There you are, fella, how does that feel?’ He spoke softly to the horse as he rubbed him from head to tail. ‘And Anton, ask Atch for an opium tablet or two, would you?’
‘Opium?’
‘For the horse. Not me.’
Another six hours passed of hot blankets and small feeds laced with drugs. Crean returned with bread for toasting and sat with them, taking turns with Meares to relieve Oates now and then. It was a bedside vigil worthy of any human, thought Oates as he went outside.
He crunched over the fresh snow for a hundred yards and urinated under the stars. At least the weather had improved; he hoped the Croziers were experiencing the same calm after the storm. Oates had just adjusted his clothes when he became aware of a figure to his right. A match flared. Scott. Oates walked over to him.
‘Hello, skipper.’
Scott puffed on his pipe. ‘How’s Jimmy?’
‘The same. Well, his ears are pricking to some sounds, which is usually a good sign.’
It sounded like precious little to Scott. ‘Will we lose him?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
Scott grunted. ‘We can’t afford to lose even one, Soldier. I’ve overstepped the margin of safety.’
Oates said nothing.
‘You all right? In yourself, I mean.’
‘Bearing up.’
‘Home run, now. Sun will be back soon enough. What a difference that makes. You’ll see.’
I hope so, Oates thought.
‘Titus!’ It was Meares. ‘Come quick.’
Oates and Scott trotted towards the stables, both apprehensive about what they would find. They bustled in to find Jimmy Pigg on his feet, head held high.
‘Drank a bucket of water, sir,’ said Tom Crean proudly.
‘And he’s feeding,’ added Meares.
‘Well done, everyone,’ said Scott with feeling. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s two-thirty in the morning. I think we deserve some rest. You too, Titus.’
‘Sir.’
The other trudged off to bed, but Oates stayed at the stove with his pipe, listening to the soft breathing of the horses, content to enjoy the transient feeling of mild elation while it lasted.
Fifty-five
Cape Evans, 1 August 1911
‘SPREAD OUT,’ CROAKED WILSON, ‘so they will be able to see there are three men.’
Bowers and Cherry moved apart, their painful feet almost giving up as they came within sight of the hut, its brooding silhouette punctured by the glow of the acetylene lights leaking through the windows. The smoke from the chimney was clearly visible in the pale moonlight that illuminated the island to all but Cherry. He squinted through his ice-coated glasses, trying to make sense of the blurred image.
They were a few hundred yards away when the door opened, flooding more light into the Antarctic night.
‘Good Lord!’ someone shouted. ‘It’s the Crozier party.’
The door closed again and Wilson laughed. ‘That’s not quite the welcome I expected after five weeks away.’
Cherry didn’t answer. He knew, once inside the hut, he would collapse. All that horror and all they had to show for the misery were the three surviving penguin eggs.
Yet he had learned something beyond science. That Bowers and Wilson were two men you needed in a tight spot. Wilson because he was imperturbable and extraordinarily calm in the face of the most horrendous adversity. Bowers because he had the staying power of an ox, albeit one with very short legs, and was of constant good cheer.
‘We did it, then,’ Cherry said.
‘Yes,’ croaked Bowers. ‘And people said we were mad to try.’
Wilson’s rueful laugh was laced with exhaustion. At least, thought Cherry, he had two good eyes now.
The door opened once more and shadowy figures, now dressed for the outside world, sprinted across the ice towards them, the relief obvious in their voices as they shouted their welcomes.
Oates reached Cherry first and tried to take the sledge harness over his head. ‘No,’ his swollen cracked lips managed to say. ‘Like to make finish line.’
‘Of course you would, Cherry.’ Oates fell in to walk alongside him, hand pressing lightly on the young man’s shoulder blade as he heaved the last stage to the hut. He could feel the sharp ridge of bone through his mittens.
Taff Evans slapped Bowers on the back, but it was the sound of flesh on metal. His clothes had turned to iron plates.
The welcoming committee accompanying them for the last few yards unleashed a barrage of questions in rapid succession. The three tried to answer as best they could, but exhaustion and starvation had blunted their powers of thought and speech. Atkinson, who would check them for scurvy and frostbite, said: ‘Hold on, chaps, let’s get them inside first.’
Once they did, Atkinson supervised the cutting of their clothes, careful to move along the seams in case the material could be reused. Scott watched, pipe in mouth, concern on his face. He was in his night clothes. The hut had been about to turn in.
‘Tough, was it, Bill?’
Cherry laughed, a soft chuckle to himself, nudging towards hysteria, rubbing the melting ice from his lenses as he did so.
‘You could say that,’ said Wilson. There was disappointment in his voice for all to hear. He haltingly explained the journey, the sudden cold snap, the lack of penguins, the broken eggs and the lost tent. If Bowers hadn’t found the canvas triangle and its ropes wrapped around a rock, they would have died. Then there were the blizzards on the way home. ‘At one point Cherry turned his head to speak to me and his helmet froze, so he couldn’t turn his head back. We had to heave harder to make him sweat so he could move his head.’ He was silent for a moment and someone laughed. ‘It sounds humorous now …’
By the time the clothes were off, they were in three piles, looking like discarded scrap metal. The men made no comment on the soiled underwear; all knew that when a blizzard trapped you in your tent, defecation was extremely tricky and embarrassing. Cherry sponged himself down and dressed in clean underwear. It felt like mink next to his skin. He eyed his bunk and, his head filling with a fog of weariness, he stumbled towards it. ‘I could sleep for ten thousand years,’ he said, the words coming thick and slow. ‘But wake me after nine thousand for breakfast. Peaches and syrup, please.’
Scott, knowing Wilson and Bowers must be just as drained, decided a full report could wait till the next day. As Cherry snuggled down, he murmured: ‘I’ll tell you what, skipper, no matter what the Pole throws at us, it can’t be any worse than that.’
Scott was about to answer when he realised the lad was asleep, even as his head arced down towards the pillow.
The next day, Scott observed the group, hobbling on sore feet. Their cheeriness, considering what they had been through, was remarkable. He sat down and wrote up his log, striving to recall just how damaged they had been the night before.
Wednesday, 2 August
The Crozier party returned last night after enduring five weeks of the hardest conditions on record. They look more weatherworn than anyone I have yet seen. All for three surviving eggs. Their faces were scared and wrinkled, their eyes dull, their hands whitened with constant exposure to damp and cold, yet the scars of frostbite were very few and this evil had never seriously assailed them. Atkinson says that a preliminary examination uncovered no sign of scurvy. C. Garrard’s sleeping bag of reindeer and eiderdown weighed 171b when he left. Thanks to ice accumulated in it from perspiration it was 451b when he returned. It was so stiff it couldn’t be rolled up. Wilson disappointed with the number of penguins, but we learned much about the equipment and the rations. Wilson had lost the most weight (3½ lb), C-G the least (1 lb). Their feet are exceedingly sore; it will be some time before they are quite right. Apart from Bowers, who seems as indomitable as ever.
Wilson says the gear is excellent. But one can only wonder if the fur clothing of the Esquimaux might outclass our more civilised garb. That can only be speculation.
The sun will return in three weeks, then preparations for the Pole begin in earnest. I feel we are as near perfection as experience can direct.
RFS
Fifty-six
London, September 1911
THE REPORTER FROM THE Daily Mirror was nice enough on the outside, but, as Kathleen soon discovered, he was in possession of a devious mind. The paper had certainly sent a smart one: Ronald Baker was very well turned out in a grey three-piece suit and shoes that suggested a military background. His hair was neatly oiled and his moustache trimmed, not what she expected from a man of the press.
Baker looked around the nursery he had asked to see and at young Peter drawing at his desk. Kathleen had taken the precaution of having his nanny dress him in full attire, ‘proper clothes’ as the woman had said approvingly. The windows were open, with a breeze ruffling the curtains. The summer had been stifling, with London perspiring all through July and August. It became impossible to imagine what cold must be like, let alone the ice-bound permanent gloom Con was experiencing.
She knew, though, that the sun must have returned after the lengthy dark. There would be spring sledging trials and the dogs and horses could run free once more. And the men. It would be blissful after the lengthy confinement. But Scott would be well aware, even out there, cut off from the outside world, that the expedition was still badly in debt. Many of the cables from New Zealand demanded money for repairs to the Terra Nova and cash for provisions to be taken down to resupply the party for next year. Sir Clements Markham had suggested a ‘Mrs Scott and son at home await their brave husband and father’s return’ article in a newspaper might help raise some funds.
‘Is it true you fly, Mrs Scott?’
‘Fly?’ she asked, stalling for time.
‘Lighter-than-air machines. Aeroplanes.’
Kathleen shook her head vigorously, loosening a lock of hair. Oh no.’
The family had sent Con’s brother-in-law to dissuade her from such a dangerous activity. She was rather amused because the last time she had seen him was at an aerodrome when he had pleaded with her not to tell his wife that he also went up on joy rides.
‘There was a picture of you in a magazine in a machine, wasn’t there?’
She re-pinned up the stray curl. ‘Oh, I thought you meant did I fly aircraft myself. I have been up, yes. But no longer. It is a thrill, but not entirely safe. I have Peter to think of, as well as Con.’
He looked across at the boy. ‘Yes, I see. And I see you are arranging a fund-raising gala at the Coliseum?’
‘Yes. Mr Ponting sent some cinematographic film of the crossing and the unloading on the ice. We will show that. Lloyd George may come.’ The man began to scribble on his pad. ‘No, don’t publish that. It is a sure way to put him off. You can mention the films. They are quite splendid by all accounts.’
‘And will Mr Shackleton be there?’ he asked, with exaggerated innocence.
A skirmish of letter writing had broken out between Shackleton and Sir Clements Markham in the pages of The Times. Markham was promoting Con, while Shackleton was suggesting that the Norwegians might beat him to the Pole.
‘Mr Shackleton has been a great supporter of my husband. And vice-versa. He has an open invitation.’
