Shackleton's Heroes (15 page)
Read Shackleton's Heroes Online
Authors: Wilson McOrist
Here is Wild's take on seal-killing:
Gaze & Hayward were the seal hunters but when they found any Joyce & I used to go and help them. We were burning seal blubber all this time you know so it took quite a lot of seals to keep us going.
It was a weird sight to see us killing & skinning seals by candle light. It was no joke especially if there was a little breeze on. Sometimes with a Burberry helmet on, we would make a terrific blow at a seal's head and what with the light & the helmet would miss it and nearly fall on top of it. They look very savage too opening their mouths & showing their teeth.
We used to have rides on them sometimes; you have to look out they don't roll on top of you because they weigh anything from 700lbs to 20 cwt.
While skinning seals you have to keep dipping your hands into them to keep them from getting frozen.
40
Joyce:
What an oasis in the wilderness if only a case of tobacco had been landed. A pipe of this soothing weed makes all the world akin. Various substitutes were tried with varying degrees of satisfaction to the consumer. We failed however to top the high water mark.
Tea was attempted, also coffee. I tried some dried mixed vegetables but was speedily requested to cease. Then the inventive genius of Wild asserted itself.
41
Wild explains:
When we finished our tobacco at Hut Point we tried all sorts of things to smoke such as tea, coffee, sawdust, senna grass, different kinds of dirt scudding about, etc. We found a mixture of tea, coffee & sawdust to be the best substitute so we called it Hut Point mixture.
42
While Mackintosh, Joyce, Hayward and Richards (with Cope and Jack) waited at Hut Point for the sea-ice to freeze, Spencer-Smith and Richards remained at Cape Evans. The
Aurora
was anchored by the Cape Evans hut as the intention was to freeze the ship in over the winter months, most of the men lived on the ship. However, Spencer-Smith and Richards (and Stevens and Gaze) all worked and slept on shore, carrying out scientific work and killing seals for food and fuel. Very little in the way of stores or equipment was landed with these men and the view generally held then, both by the shore party and those on the ship, was that the ship was reasonably safe. The ship was tied up to the shore only 30â40 yards from the gravel beach by the hut and the sea-ice was usually firm so people would walk freely on it. Parties would come ashore from the ship and those on shore would go onto the ship over the sea-ice, just as a matter of routine.
43
44
Spencer-Smith seemed to enjoy life at Cape Evans. He, Richards, Stevens and Gaze slept and worked at the hut and they ate some meals and enjoyed the entertainment on board the ship.
Spencer-Smith:
4 Mar: This stay in the Hut is becoming noteworthy for a series of pleasant dreams of home, Woodbridge, Cambridge, Edinburgh. I had the best sleep of the trip last night: thoroughly warm and comfy all night, the sleep being taken in two hour periods, with half-hours of lazy thought in between.
45
6 Mar: More reading.
John of Gerisau
(Oxenham)
City of Beautiful
Nonesense
[sic] (E.T.T.)
Cardinal's Snuffbox
(Harland)
Hound of Heaven
(Thompson)
The last fascinates me more every time that I read it â every stage in the flight is so real, and so true to my own experience. S.Luke 24.44 âAll things â¦Â concerning me.'
Also 45 and 46 and the story of the two Emmaus id.13 et seqq.
It suddenly struck me tonight that I have always spoken and thought too lightly of O.T. history and prophecy. We know little of individual's hop[e]s & fears but
the aims of the prophets in arousing the national consciousness of God's personal working in Israel's affairs is clear.
The instinct of man, especially in contact with supreme joy or sorrow, love and death, cries out âIt must be so!' And the meaning of the coming of the Blessed Lord is simply this â that it is God's answer (revelation) to man's cry: âIt is so'.
46
Â
23 Mar: It is very cold but nice to be on one's own and a good sleeping bag makes up for much else. Stevens and I have the corner formerly occupied by Evans and Wilson:
||
nice and private and next to the dark room: plenty of shelving too. Our books and beds make it look furnished and I have mother's photo too.
47
Â
12 Mar: A great singsong after dinner tonight, gramophone first, and then piano: all sorts of songs, solos and chorus â âThe Wearing of the Green', âAuld Lang Syne', âThree Fishers', âOld Folks at Home', âLittle Grey Home', âWhere my caravan has rested', etc.
48
Â
1 May: Several visits & there was much tobacco & talk around the fire. I went on board about 5.30 to fetch a plum-duff presented by the cook, who seems rather better, and stayed to have yarn aft â all in good spirits.
By invitation went over again about 8 and played for a singing aft. Hymns first of all. âLead Kindly Night' â âNearer My God to Thee', âEternal Father', âAdeste Fidelis', âThe Church's One Foundation', âOld 100th', âRock of Ages' and many other old favourites, in which everyone joined.
Then we had some songs, mainly by Sten. and I did not come ashore until 10. Had a cup of cocoa with Irvine
**
and turned in at 11 for a short sleep, tired but happy.
49
Then the most serious of calamities occurred â the
Aurora
was carried
out to sea. Richards tells us that she was tied up close to the shore, with her bows to the sea and with seven steel hawsers attached to bollards in the stern attached to two huge anchors which were iced into the shore. Holes had been dug for the anchors and water poured in, which became like concrete. From time to time ice formed around the ship but the wind blows and the tide took this ice out into the bay. Every now and again the men would equalise the tensions on the hawsers on the stern and they all thought the
Aurora
was quite safe for the winter.
50
Richards clearly remembered the night of 6 May 1915. In his book
The Ross Sea Shore Party
and in interviews he tells us that the breakaway of the ship came suddenly and unexpectedly. That afternoon the wind had begun to freshen, and by midnight a moderate blizzard was blowing. It was his turn to take midnight and 4 a.m. meteorological readings; however, Spencer-Smith offered to take the midnight ones and Richards tells us he gladly accepted the offer. Richards was up at three o'clock and he went outside to find nothing more than a moderate blizzard blowing, with snow drift about 20 to 30 feet high. The night was fairly clear â it was a moonlight night. He left the door of the hut and as he looked to his right down to the beach he knew he should have been able to see the tops of the masts of the ship above the snow drift. But there was nothing there. He walked the twenty or so yards down to the water's edge to find the anchor there in the sand but with the hawsers and the cables broken. The second anchor was further down the beach also with its cables snapped.
The
Aurora
was gone. The ice clamping the ship had been swept away from the base of McMurdo Sound by the blizzard, taking the
Aurora
with it. All Richards could see was open water. He woke his three companions who, like Richards, were naturally very concerned. They thought that, given a day or two of reasonable weather, they might expect to see the
Aurora
back again. Whatever hopes they had for the return of the ship were shattered when the worst blizzard they had experienced so far raged violently
for the next three days. They now doubted whether the ship would return before January the following year.
51
52
Richards, Spencer-Smith, Stevens and Gaze were stranded at Cape Evans. Richards recalled they immediately discussed what they had on hand and what they needed to survive, for they were certain that they were marooned until the following January or February. They were wearing their only clothing except for a few extra items in their bags. Apart from a few sledging rations, no stores of food had been landed from the
Aurora
, but fortunately Scott from his
Terra Nova
Expedition had left a stockpile of food on a hill to the east of the hut. They estimated they had general stores, flour and similar items to last ten men for two years. They had almost no fuel for the stove but they could rely on seals for fresh meat, and seal blubber for fuel. They had little or no soap for washing, matches were scarce and they had no luxuries in the way of tobacco or spirits.
53
There were now four men at the Cape Evans hut, and six others living in quite primitive conditions at
Discovery
hut, who intended to walk to Cape Evans as soon as it was safe to make the crossing.
1.
Hayward diary, 11 March 1915
2.
Ibid., 12 March 1915
3.
Ibid., 13 March 1915
4.
Ibid., 14 March 1915
5.
Ibid., 15 March 1915
6.
Ibid., 21 March 1915
7.
Ibid., 22 March 1915
8.
Joyce field diary, 25 March 1915
9.
Hayward diary, 25 March 1915
10.
Mackintosh diary, 25 March 1915
11.
Joyce field diary, late March 1915
12.
Ibid., April 1915
13.
Mackintosh diary, 26 March 1915
14.
Ibid., 27 March 1915
15.
Ibid., 28 March 1915
16.
Ibid., 30 March 1915
17.
Hayward diary, 30 March 1915
18.
Joyce field diary, April 1915
19.
Ibid.
20.
Mackintosh diary, 27 January 1915
21.
Richards, interview with P. Lathlean, 1976
22.
Hayward diary, 1 April 1915
23.
Ibid., 5 April 1915
24.
Ibid., 15 April 1915
25.
Ibid., 23 April 1915
26.
Ibid., 25 April 1915
27.
Ibid., 29 April 1915
28.
Mackintosh diary, 1 April 1915
29.
Ibid., 4 April 1915
30.
Ibid., 7 April 1915
31.
Ibid., 8 April 1915
32.
Ibid., 11 April 1915
33.
Ibid., 12 April 1915
34.
Ibid., 13 April 1915
35.
Ibid., 15 April 1915
36.
Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
37.
Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 16 April 1963
38.
Mackintosh diary, 6 April 1915
39.
Ibid., 15 April 1915
40.
Wild diary, 28 December 1915
41.
Joyce diary transcripts, 1915
42.
Wild diary, 28 December 1915
43.
Richards, interview with P. Lathlean, 1976
44.
Richards,
The Ross Sea Shore Party
45.
Spencer-Smith diary, 4 March 1915
46.
Ibid., 6 March 1915
47.
Ibid., 23 March 1915
48.
Ibid., 12 March 1915
49.
Ibid., 2 May 1915
50.
Richards, interview with P. Lathlean, 1976
51.
Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
52.
Richards,
The Ross Sea Shore Party
53.
Ibid.
*
Outside all their garments âBurberry' was worn, a woven fabric that breathed â an essential in Antarctica with its low humidity and low temperatures â to stop sweat building up, and freezing, on or inside the clothing. The Burberry helmet completely enclosed the head except for the face, which remained uncovered at the bottom of a funnel stiffened by a ring of copper-wire.
â
There were only three sleeping bags because Mackintosh, Joyce and Wild had left their sledge with their sleeping bags on the hills around the Barrier in their rush to get to Hut Point.
â¡
Ally Soper was a comic strip character from the early 1900s, who sported a large red nose.
§
Uppers are that part of a shoe that does not normally contact the ground.
¶
âone of the aids' â meaning another helpful way to make his life more uncomfortable.
||
âEvans' would be Lieutenant Evans and âWilson' was Dr Edward Wilson; both members of Scott's
Terra Nova
Expedition.
**
âSten' would be Stenhouse and âIrvine' would be Irvine Gaze.
M
ACKINTOSH, JOYCE AND
Wild made few diary entries at Hut Point in May although Hayward continued to write, usually focused on their prospects of going to Cape Evans. Joyce made a note of the severe blizzard that took the
Aurora
away from Cape Evans. Hayward and Joyce mentioned that Wild fell into the sea and Wild made a comment on the relationship between the men in the hut, and on Mackintosh's behaviour. He was very critical of Mackintosh's ideas on how to make a dash to Cape Evans. His diary note for May is the only one, by any of the men, that mentioned any friction in the hut.
Hayward:
2 May: Another lovely morning. Sea-ice very promising indeed. 2 more days will see us on our way to C. Evans providing weather continues favourable. 5 May: Topping morning. Skipper & I had a walk towards C Evans ice seems pretty good & we expect to get away shortly. We afterwards killed a couple of seals & hauled in
the skins, Jack lent us a hand.
1
Joyce:
9 May: A blizzard sprang up which lasted 4 days. The velocity at times 70 to 100. As a rule when the wind is Southerly the temperature rises, but in this case the temp dropped 20 to 20 below zero. The hut temp was well below zero even alongside the blubber stove the water was frozen. One had to keep in their sleeping bags for warmth.
2
Hayward:
18 May: We are all more or less experts at draughts, having made a board & using pieces of sugar and biscuit for men. Time passes quickly this way. Went for a walk this afternoon, the Aurora Australis was really magnificent to-night.
Â
19 May: Had our usual walk. Wild distinguished himself by falling through the ice into the âditch' (sea) luckily we were not far from the Hut.
3
Joyce:
Late May: Towards the end of May Wild + I went north a couple of miles over the ice which had been frozen for 3 days. Found it bearable, on rounding the point on our return Wild fell through a seal hole which was snow covered. The temperature being almost 20 below, he was stiff as a board before I got him to the hut which was only 150 yards distant on.
4
Wild:
24 May: Everybody has had a go at me (except the Captain) for making too much noise so I thought I might as well start the log again. We have been here two months & nobody knows the date so I am guessing it. The people who have been keeping their logs are all different. We have been keeping eight hour watches & I believe when they do another watch they sometimes fancy it is another day & that has put them ahead a bit.
I managed to fall in the pond the other day & went through the ice up to my waist.
Joyce was with me, we were about a mile away from the Hut & the temp was about 30° below, so you can bet I soon made tracks back as fast as possible.
Of course I've got no other clothes here so it wasn't much of a joke. Hayward lent me a pair of his pants and Jack supplied a sweater.
I knew the Skipper had a combination suit so asked him for a loan of it, till mine were dry. He wouldn't lend it to me said it was frozen. Joyce and I cleaned the sledges yesterday and the combination suit fell out of the Skipper's bag as dry as a bone.
He and I are sharing one bag in the hut and he didn't even ask me if I would turn in to keep warm while my clothes were drying, but calmly turned in himself and went to sleep.
He has got some daft ideas about getting back to the ship. One, he wants to start back himself or with one companion & try to walk back taking nothing with them. If it comes on a blizzard he says they will lie down & cover themselves with their Burberrys until it's over. I don't know what he means. He has got all sorts of impractical schemes.
5
(Twelve months later Mackintosh would actually put these ideas into practice.)
I can't understand the people here at all; they've got no business down here at all. I don't know what they come for (with one or two exceptions) I mean the people on the ship as well; they've got no sense of humour at all.
I'll give just one instance. The other morning they were howling because they couldn't sleep, so in a jocular way I said, âof course not, you get too much sleep'. Then Jack sat up with a most ferocious & eyes sticking out like hot pegs sort of look, âwho are YOU to say I've had too much sleep'. I had to laugh. I couldn't help it.
I suppose the light (or absence of it), food & dirt made us all bad-tempered.
6
By the end of May, the sea-ice was starting to become firm, and with a full moon to give them some visibility, Mackintosh, Joyce, Wild, Hayward, Jack and Cope planned to trek the thirteen miles to Cape Evans, on 2 June. Joyce noted some of their difficulties as they made the crossing, which
may have been similar to those encountered by Mackintosh and Hayward some twelve months later, when these two men again attempted to walk from Hut Point to Cape Evans.
Hayward:
Surface good & we passed Tent Island 5 miles from our destination about 8 o/c pm, having replenished ourselves with biscuits, & shouted at frequent intervals. About 3 miles from Cape Evans picked up a flag giving instructions as to course arrived at Hut 10.30 pm.
7
Joyce:
1 Jun: Mack + I went North + found the ice bearable, so decided to trek tomorrow weather permitting. Cape Evans is 13½ miles to the North.
Â
2 Jun: Under weigh for Cape Evans the moon shining brightly had not been trekking more than an hour when the moon became obscured and this was unfortunate. A large formation of ice 8 miles from Hut Point juts out from Mt Erebus to the West for 5 miles and is about 1 mile wide.
Unfortunately through the darkness we trekked right into the churned up ice around the Glacier which placed us in an awkward predicament as we were liable to fall through the ice. Our sledge overturned several times. After a struggle we managed to get out to the West. A huge mass loomed up which was Inaccessible Island.
It is very weird sledging in total darkness. Wild said: âI think I can hear dogs barking' so we listened and sure it was â so when it is calm one can hear miles over the ice. When Wild heard the first bark we must have been 5 miles away. Eventually we made Cape Evans.
The dogs gave us a great welcome although there were only 6 of them. They made enough noise for 20. Arriving at the Hut the inmates came out + wondering why the dogs were making such a noise. We found the Padre, Gaze, Richards + Jack.
8
(The large formation of ice Joyce mentioned is Glacier Tongue. Inaccessible Island is a small 300-foot-high island approximately 1 mile to the south-west of Cape Evans. Joyce mentions six dogs but there were only
five: Oscar, Con, Gunner, Towser and a female, Nell, who did not go out to Mount Hope.)
There were now ten men at Cape Evans, where conditions were significantly better than at
Discovery
hut. They were fortunate to have made the crossing safely so early in June, in light of the changing state of the sea-ice that were still occurring. Richards and some of the others at Cape Evans thought that they took a considerable risk in making the crossing as a water stretch had been opening up consistently between the two huts during blizzards.
9
The men were satisfied with the sledging efforts of their first season. Six of them, Mackintosh, Joyce, Wild, Spencer-Smith, Hayward and Richards, would form the Mount Hope Party of 1916. The other four, Stevens, Cope, Gaze and Jack, would assist with the early sledging but they would not participate in depot-laying after early January 1916.
The loss of the
Aurora
was the most significant news for the new arrivals.
Hayward:
2 Jun: We found Smith, Gaze, Stevens & Richards in residence & heard from them that the ship after various incidents both hazardous & uncomfortable had been frozen in for a week (about) but on the 7 May a bad blizzard came up & the ship was blown out of the Sound carrying away in the process 6 wire hawsers & 1 heavy chain cable all made fast ashore & dragging her anchors.
She has not been seen or heard of since & we can only hope for the best, that is that she has been blown clear of the ice-pack & made her way to Hobart in which case we shall not see her till next January when she will come down to our relief, we cannot feel very hopeful however as when she went out her engines were undergoing repairs & instruments & her wireless gear unshipped.
At the best we are ten men who have to relieve Shackleton at the Beardmore Glacier 400 miles distant without any equipment to speak of but luckily Scott left sufficient stores in the Hut here to relieve us from any immediate anxiety in this
respect.
10
Wild:
2 June: Cape Evans. We have got here at last, after a bit of a struggle. We ran out of tobacco at Hut Point so the first thing we wanted when we got here was a smoke & a drink.
We got both I'm glad to say & then we had a great disappointment we found out that the ship had been blown away on the 11 May so we are only a little better off than we were at Hut Point. However I suppose we will get over it alright.
11
Joyce:
2 Jun: On entering we could not see for quite a long time the acetylene light was too strong so we had to put on snow goggles. The hut looked like a Palace. A lovely coal fire was burning + the hut party looked very clean. Our party looked like scavengers.
12
When we arrived and found the ship gone, oh my! As it was the only clothes I had was a signet shirt, Drawers, 2 Pairs Socks, Pair finesscoe, 1 Cardigan. What a prospect to look forward to. I think the worst hit of the lot is no tobacco.
13
We had been out practically 129 days laid depot to 80° + travelled 288 miles. A good breaking in for the coming sledging season.
14
From his diary we can see that Mackintosh was clearly in charge, the expedition leader. He outlines their daily routine and tells us his concerns, including the need to be âcivilised'. We learn of a (poorly attended) religious service, and of the âluxuries' at Cape Evans, compared to Hut Point.
Darkness had now set in for twenty-four hours but the winter was a busy period for all the men. As it was at Hut Point, the search for seals took up a great deal of their time and when they were visible on the ice, the men would make every effort to kill as many as possible and store the blubber and the meat. Water was obtained by digging out chunks of ice from a clean
ice supply and sledging them to the hut where a large container was kept filled on the cooking range.
15
Richards was left to do much of the scientific work over the winter months. He occupied himself with the construction of a dust counter for estimating the amount of dust in the air. He also started recording soundings and temperatures, observations on the rate of formation or dissolution of
freshwater
ice in the sea and the rate of removal of ice by evaporation.
16
Mackintosh:
5 Jun: The day after my arrival here I gave an outline of our situation and explained the necessity for economy in the use of fuel, light, and stores, in view of the possibility that we may have to stay here for two years.
We are not going to commence work for the sledging operations until we know more definitely the fate of the â
Aurora
'. I dare not think any disaster has occurred.
Meanwhile we are making all preparations here for a prolonged stay. The shortage of clothing is our principal hardship. The members of the party from Hut Point have the clothes we wore when we left the ship on 25 January. We have been without a wash all that time, and I cannot imagine a dirtier set of people. We have been attempting to get a wash ever since we came back, but owing to the blow during the last two days no opportunity has offered.
I would like to state how indebted we feel to Capt Scott's British Antarctic Expedition for the supply of stores that have been left here and for which we are now reaping the benefits, in fact but for them we would be in a poor way.
Four of us, myself, Stevens, Richards, and Spencer-Smith, have breakfast at 7 a.m. The others are called at 9 a.m., and their breakfast is served. Then the table is cleared, the floor is swept, and the ordinary work of the day is commenced.
At 1 p.m. we have what we call âa counter lunch,' that is, cold food and cocoa. We work from 2 p.m. till 5 p.m. After 5 p.m. people can do what they like. Dinner is at 7.
The men play games, read, write up diaries. We turn in early, since we have to economise fuel and light. Night-watches are kept by the scientific men, who have the privilege of turning in during the day.
17
Â
13 Jun: I took the opportunity, the first one I have had, as my clothes I have taken off â of having my first wash for 139 days. Stevens also cut my hair & whiskers, with the
result I felt much warmer â I wonder if anyone has had more dirt come off them. It really makes one feel much better. Stevens has given me a hair brush so now that I can brush that, which will be another luxury. I feel we are gradually getting civilised.
Smith held Holy Communion using the dark room as a chapel, where he had rigged up an altar. I suspect this is the first occasion in which Communion Services have been held on the shores of the Antarctic. Unfortunately I was the only member of the congregation.
18
My thoughts of the fate of the ship are so constant that I find myself dispirited â which I strive to fight against. I miss the services of an officer, although these are a sterling lot of chaps, it requires an intermediary.
19