Shackleton's Heroes (14 page)
Read Shackleton's Heroes Online
Authors: Wilson McOrist
(Twelve months on and Joyce, with others of the Mount Hope Party, would again be at
Discovery
hut, living in the same conditions.)
Joyce:
The nonappearance of the ship causes very heated arguments. Before the darkness came on there was open water as far as one could see from the hills. Even now there is open water as the sea is only frozen over to the South of Hut Pt.
I asked Mack one day what instructions had he given to Stenhouse regarding the returning sledging parties. He was very vague on the subject. Cape Evans is only 13 miles to the North + the ship could be here in 2 hours. Stenhouse knowing the conditions ought to have anchored here until the sledging parties were picked up. There being good anchorage in the bay, or landed coal, stove, lanterns, clothes + stores. In our arguments whoever is right or wrong only common sense ought to have been heard.
It does not take any thinking and until we found out otherwise Mack is in the wrong for not leaving instructions. Anyway we are going through the mill. Although we are heated in our arguments it is forgotten soon after.
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(It appears that Joyce may have been wrong to believe that Mackintosh did not leave instructions for Stenhouse. In his diary of 27 January, when at Hut Point, Mackintosh had written: âI wrote instructions here for Stenhouse
to leave provisions here for our return in case we were not back in time to be taken off by the ship'.
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Stenhouse may not have seen the instructions because if he had, he it is hard to imagine that he would not have left stores at Hut Point when he picked up the party with Richards and Spencer-Smith in early March.)
However, the men managed, by reading and singing and in friendly arguments. Hayward mentioned a âfriendly' argument where it appears that Hayward was arguing the case for a âCanadian Cowboy' being able to go out in tougher conditions than a sailor, who he called âBroach Buster the Sailor'.
For Mackintosh, the conditions at Hut Point were now intolerable and understandably, he longed to be home. He tells us he was reading a book by a Richard Whiteing, written in 1899. No. 5 John Street was a hovel in the heart of a slum in the West End of London where Whiteing had gone to learn what it was like to live on half a crown a day, and to earn it. Mackintosh compared his predicament to that of Whiteing.
Mackintosh and Hayward had an overwhelming desire to be at Cape Evans. (Twelve months later they would again be at Hut Point and repeat their almost daily ritual of checking the sea-ice between the two locations.) Hayward was regularly taking walks, usually with Mackintosh to check the condition of the sea-ice.
On Thursday 22 April the sun did not rise and they noticed the diminishing light.
The men did not mention the First World War in their diaries and Richards tells us, in an interview, that the men placed little importance to the war because most of them thought that the end of the war was a foregone conclusion. He remembered that sometimes one of the men might say they wondered if the war was still going on and the others would look at the person who spoke as if they were mad. They did not imagine that the war could still possibly be on.
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Hayward:
1 Apr: Weather so bad that it is impossible to venture outside the Hut. I have been wondering what you are doing more than usual, in view of the close proximity of the Easter Holiday. 8 pm: Weather cleared sufficiently to enable Skipper & I to get a little walk in, very acceptable too.
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5 Apr: Lovely day. Skipper & I walked to Gap.
To-night from 7 o/c until 10.30 I have been engaged in an argument against Skipper Joyce & Wild on the respective merits of the Western Canadian Cowboy & Broach Buster the Sailor, of course I was up against a strong majority & took on rather more than I bargained for, nevertheless the Skipper thanked me for the debate. Debates have been suggested for a daily or rather nightly part of our entertainment whilst here.
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15 Apr: Strong wind from South has unfortunately completely broken up ice & again a heavy sea takes its place, this of course destroys our hope of reaching the ship without much more delay as we began to expect.
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22 Apr: Lovely day. To-day we saw the last of the sun till Sept next.
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23 Apr: The sun is leaving us rapidly & will disappear altogether within the next few days. Wind sprung up from the S & brought all the ice in packing tight with a very loud grinding & crunching. I should say that the ice now in the Sound is about 2” thick. 2 or 3 more days & we shall be able to clear I hope.
This evening we found a sort of Christmas Pudding in a linen bag, 14 years old & it was jolly good too.
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25 Apr: Blizzard set in last night & lasted all to-day. Hope it will let up to-morrow, strong wind doing its best to break up ice again.
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29 Apr: Less windy & brighter. Sea-ice promising.
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Mackintosh:
1 Apr: This place is really an appalling mess, much worse than I like to see but under the circumstances I don't like imposing tasks. I find myself getting more resigned to the grime and dirt, one minute I may be poking a lump of blubber on to the fire, one has to kneel down to get at the stove, your hands consequently get smothered in blubber lying all around.
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1 Apr: In the evenings songs are sung and everyone keeps more or less merry and bright. Yet we are grateful, I shall never forget the relief we found on getting back here safely. Arguments are rife. We have so much to settle and decide when we get back to the ship. I am sure if we should remember all that we have argued upon and not decided it will take us many days finding out.
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7 Apr: Great arguments go on. Hayward is a champion for Canada, having lived there for some time on a ranch. He and Joyce have been at it fist and tongs. Hayward stating that the blizzards in Canada are more severe than we get here and that cowboys are able to get out in any weather. This I should state goes rather against him, as I am sure no one could face some of the winds we have to. Hayward sticks to his guns however, so the point is still unsettled.
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8 Apr: Reading
No 5 John Street
, the inhabitants there were clean in respect to ourselves, but who on earth could be filthier? Our clothes are deplorable, Hayward is walking about on his âuppers',
§
all of us have an odd assortment of clothing, odd shoes etc. A decent bed and wash are constant thoughts. Oh the joy of getting back to the other hut, or the ship!
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11 Apr: Got all hands to clear out living space, it's been neglected I am afraid unless one keeps them up to mark they will soon get slack â discipline, the only thing down here, the filth we have cleared out is remarkable. We still remain more or less black with grime, but while here we have got quite immune to being without water; I am glad to say, all here are cheerful and bright.
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The smoke though is terrific, we breathe it and our clothes are practically oozing with blubber.
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12 Apr: I try to get out as much as possible, breathing all the carbon we do can't be good for one, so a little fresh air acts as an antidote. Have been making a wrapper to tie around my head to keep my ears from frost bite. What a joy it will be to get back to my cabin on the
Aurora
and have that wash and put on clean clothes once again!
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13 Apr: I am thinking of this time next year â Home Sweet Home, all that life's worth living & hoping for.
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15 Apr: Hayward and I went for a short stroll feeling lack after our lengthy period of inaction. A grand sunset, the sun diffusing to the NW, the reflected rays cast a shadow of gold in the Bay here, the heights were all bathed in gold, twinkling ice crystals made the place appear like some fairy bower instead of being what we experience it. We can look round and see a perfect kaleidoscope of changing scenery, wonderful. No one could write a description of what we see.
Do so hope the sea will freeze over and release us.
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Their day-to-day routine at
Discovery
hut revolved around killing seals. Richards tells us the killing of seals was the main activity for the men at Hut Point because they provided blubber for fuel and lighting, and meat for eating. If the weather was reasonable they would go out before breakfast and walk by a crack in the ice looking for them. At that time of the year it was dark and practically the only area they could find seals was near a break in the sea-ice, near the edge of the shore. They would search for seals before breakfast, then before lunch and again after their midday meal. Richards recalled that each session might involve 5 or 6 miles of walking, so they would do between 20 and 30 miles a day, on some days âwithout finding a single thing'. At times their supplies of blubber for fuel were very low but they never managed to quite run out.
Richards remembered in specific detail how the seals were killed. The seals were completely harmless and they would just put up their nose ready to be hit. The men used an iron-shod pick handle to give them âa smack on
the nose' which would stun them and then their throats were cut, resulting in âtwo great gushes coming out from the arteries'. Straight away they would run a slit right up the body of the seal so they could put their hands inside to warm them otherwise the hand would âgo'; that is, freeze. They had to use their bare hands with a sealing knife because with mitts on it was too dangerous, the knife could slip and cut their hands badly. But they could only hold the seal knife in their hand for a minute or two before their hand would start to freeze. Richards says the knife was just âlike cold metal and your hand would stick to that'.
If they were just taking the blubber off the seals they would run long slits down the body and with a cargo hook pull up the blubber in a strip, right down the body, just easing it with the knife as they went. It would be a strip 6 feet long, or longer. They would lay the strip out on the ice and leave it there where it would freeze like a plank. They would usually come out the next day, load the frozen planks onto a sledge and back at the hut they would cut it up with an axe. When they wanted food from the seal they would take flesh from the middle section of the body, the waist.
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Mackintosh made extensive diary notes in April on the seal-killing. We learn of his dilemma; the immorality of killing seals versus his survival instincts, but he cannot finish his notes without yet another comment on the filthy conditions. Wild wrote the notes on seals, and tobacco, later in the year.
All the men smoked, usually pipes, but a major problem now arose â their tobacco supplies had ran out â so they tried to improvise and make their own. Wild's tobacco making (âHut Point Mixture') did not impress Richards, who remembered it as âa villainous concoction' which everyone tried but only Wild ended up smoking. He tells us that those who smoked it found they were forever spitting out saliva and phlegm and they could always trail Wild over the sea-ice by the âblack gobs' that marked his track.
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Mackintosh:
6 Apr: We are rather up against it as our store of blubber for the stove is nearly done, also our candles, for the latter we have rigged up kind of lamps out of empty corned-beef tins, but running out of blubber is rather serious, as seals to enable us to get a further supply have not yet shown up.
The worst job here is to get the fire going; sometimes while the blubber lasts, it flames fiercely, but more often it gets low, then down we get on our knees, a piece of blubber is placed in the opening, then a flame is applied and after gentle manipulation which requires much patience we can get it going, but every 10 minutes we have to keep it poked up or some more blubber is applied. This is one of the aids
¶
we have to get an addition of dirt, soot and grime on to ourselves.
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15 Apr: To our joy we found seals lying on the ice which remains in the Bay along the edge of the Gap. We did not waste the opportunity, going out with the available knives to do our butchery.
It really is murder killing these innocent harmless brutes who roll their eyes and start with fright when they see you, the only sign of objection they show you is to open their mouths and perhaps a swish with the tail. They try to reach back to their ice holes which are close, but we think of it in rather an obscene way so as to make the crime more satisfactory to our consciences, for after all it's a case of survival of the fittest. If we don't keep warm we should probably freeze, hence we take a large club, bang the poor old seal on the tip of the nose, then while he is unconscious his throat is cut, so it's done as mercifully as possible.
At first I detested the job, especially when the seals looked beseechingly at me in their large eyes, but after starving in the tent I am afraid the tender instincts, if any, in us soon vanish. Now most of us can go out without turning a hair, kill and skin seals without any trouble or feelings of reluctance. Although this appears brutal, it means our only method of procuring fuel and food, but the butchery is by no means an easy task for the temperature is below zero and a ânipping' breeze blowing, while we keep our hands while skinning well under the folds of the blubber, once we expose them to the cold air we would have frostbite.
While one of us skins the other holds the âflinch' (as we call the hide) back. In this manner we accounted for 5 â what a mess we have left, the clear white snow bespattered with blood, a regular battlefield.
The trouble of this though is that we are unable to clean ourselves and the clothes are getting âblubbier' and âblubbier'. Of course our hands get washed in the seal's blood, so they can remain clean.
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