Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival (26 page)

Mawson and Mertz rushed to the edge of the gaping chasm and stared into the abyss. On a narrow ledge some 150 feet below, they could see a dog, its back apparently broken from the fall. Beneath that was nothing but void.

Mertz and Mawson called into the depths for hours, but heard no response. As the reality of their comrade’s death washed over them, they were faced with another, starker reality: Ninnis’s sledge had been pulled by the six strongest dogs and had carried most of the team’s indispensable supplies, including the tent and most of the food, and spare clothing. The remaining sledge had only ten days of rations for the two men, and absolutely nothing for the six dogs. They were 315 miles—and almost five weeks—from main base.

Ninnis’s death is one of those bitter twists of fate that sometimes occurs in the wilderness and that seem particularly common among turn-of-the-century explorers. Mawson, Mertz, and Ninnis had seen themselves through weeks of trials and tribulations, were very close to their turnaround point, and were crossing a glacier as they had done dozens of times before. But this time, fate dealt them a deadly surprise.

Mertz was hysterical at Ninnis’s death. Mawson was stricken, too, but tried to remain calm. With adversity staring him squarely in the face, his survival instincts now kicked into overdrive. Mawson allowed himself and Mertz time to grieve for Ninnis, but he never lost focus. He soon brought Mertz back to the task at hand and immediately set to sizing up the situation and devising a plan of action. Survival thinking in the face of deep grief is the toughest mindset of all.

Their equipment was spare, to say the least. They had the cook stove, some kerosene, and extra tent cover material. To make matters worse, they had not cached any food while they traveled west, since they had decided they would return to the main base by a different, easterly route.

In these dire circumstances, Mawson again demonstrated his innate leadership skills and began explaining to Mertz the difficult decisions that lay ahead. The worst? They would have to eat their beloved dogs, one by one, over the course of the return journey. Coming to grips with this reality was brutally difficult, but making these types of decisions is often the key to survival, and Mawson was not one to dance around a difficult choice. Making tough decisions ahead of time is equally critical in a survival situation, as it gives you purpose and focus. However you must make sure you don’t rigidly stick to them in the face of newer (and better) information.

Their first destination was a spot some fourteen miles back, where they had dumped a sledge and some extraneous supplies a few days before. Mawson was fueled by a desperate sense of urgency to recover anything they could get their hands on, and surprisingly, he let that urgency get in the way of prudence . . . for a while. He had acted this way before, of course, when he ran out of patience at base camp and vowed to start the expedition no matter what the weather threw at them.

To make it back to the dump site as quickly as possible, he (on the sledge) and Mertz (on skis) rushed down any slope they encountered, with blatant disregard for the same risks that had taken Ninnis’s life. And as surprised as I am that someone as dogged and meticulous as Mawson let his guard down so early in the return journey, I also understand why he did it. It was a classic example of how people in survival situations often throw their hands in the air and say, “Screw it,” throw caution to the wind, and put themselves in greater danger by pushing too hard.

Mawson and Mertz made it back to the site safely, however, and picked up a few potentially useful items and disposed of everything else they deemed extraneous. From then on, Mawson became the Antarctic’s version of MacGyver. He began improvising immediately. With no tent, they needed shelter against the brutal Antarctic wind, so he set about making one by cutting one of the wooden runners off the discarded sledge, sawing it in half, and lashing the two pieces to a pair of snowshoes, thus fashioning a rudimentary frame for their tent material. There was no food for the dogs, so Mawson again put his creativity and ingenuity to work, salvaging from the dump site two old wolfskin mitts, a pair of reindeer-skin boots, and a piece of rawhide strapping. Mawson carefully sliced each into pieces and fed them to the ravenous dogs. The gloves were, after all, just animal hide, and therefore completely edible.

Progress from the dump site was steady in the days that followed. But, without adequate food, the dogs weakened quickly. It wasn’t long before the first one was unable to proceed. Mertz could not bring himself to do the deed, so Mawson shot old George through the head with his .22-caliber rifle. They fed part of George to the other dogs and saved the rest for themselves, but not before Mawson fashioned two spoons out of a piece of spare wood.

As resourceful as he was, Mawson made a serious mistake when shooting George. It would have been a better choice to suffocate the dog by simply kneeling on its chest, thereby preserving the nutrient-rich brain for him and Mertz to eat. Putting a bullet through George’s brain removed that possibility—and wasted a bullet.

Mawson used the sacrifice of the first dog as an opportunity to realistically weigh his and Mertz’s chance of survival. Always planning, he reduced their food intake from thirty-four to eight ounces per day, hoping that the dog meat would give them enough energy to complete the journey. They scorched the stringy meat in a pan and choked back the musty meal.

Not long thereafter, Mawson and Mertz dug into what they believed to be the choicest part of the dog: the liver. What Mawson didn’t know was that the liver of the Greenland husky—just like those of polar bears and bearded seals—was capable of storing enormous quantities of vitamin A, in concentrations toxic to humans. So, with each bite Mawson and Mertz took of the dog liver, they were slowly poisoning themselves.

This was perhaps the most significant bit of bad luck to strike the two men on their long journey home. There is little evidence to show that hypervitaminosis had become public knowledge at that point in history. If it had, Mawson, one of the most meticulous and well-prepared explorers the world has ever seen, would certainly have known about it. Yet he didn’t, and as a consequence, only one would survive the journey back to main base.

In the mind-numbing days to come, Mawson and Mertz fought their way back across the frozen landscape. Their compass was useless, so Mawson estimated their westerly path by the north-south alignment of the windblown ridges in the snow. As they traveled, they did what so many people do in desperate situations: they obsessed about food and made plans for their return. Mertz fantasized about butter, chocolate, and tea, all the while repulsed by the idea, and taste, of dog. Yet as torturous as it may seem to obsess about creature comforts in a survival situation, this kind of psychological exercise is vital to motivation. And motivation is a key element in the struggle to survive against all odds.

And so they trudged along. One by one, the dogs died off, their carcasses not much more than fur-clad skeletons. Eating their meat was like chewing leather; Mawson and Mertz looked forward only to the relative tenderness provided by each dog’s liver, each bite of which brought them one step closer to the grave. Though he was certainly as repulsed by the taste of dog as Mertz was, Mawson remained undeterred. He did his best to use every bit of the animals, even boiling their paws into a thick soup.

A cheerless Christmas eventually arrived for Mawson, Mertz, and their lone remaining dog, Ginger. Mawson used the holiday as an opportunity to again assess their rations and their chance of survival. Their progress had been much slower than he originally expected, so rations were cut yet again. At this point, Mawson realized that if they were to have any chance of making it back to main base alive, they would have to lighten their load even more. Reluctantly, Mawson discarded some of the gear he held most precious: Ninnis’s box camera and heavy glass plates, a host of heavy scientific instruments, the rifle and bullets. Finally, Mawson spent hours boiling down the remaining dog bones into a tasteless brew.

As much as I admire Mawson, I think he waited much too long to dump extraneous materials from the sledge. Until that point (when they had only one dog left) they were still were pulling a camera with glass plates, a rifle and bullets, scientific instruments, almanacs, and logbooks! There’s only one reason why he would have made this choice: his overwhelming resolve, ambition, and dedication to science. But with 160 miles to go, it was a foolish ideal to hold on to.

A few days after Christmas, Ginger finally reached the point where she could proceed no longer. Mawson lovingly laid her on the sledge as she quivered with her remaining stores of energy, and actually pulled her for a few miles, by which time it became obvious she had walked her last. Mertz—whose own condition was rapidly worsening—could not bring himself to finish her off, so Mawson broke her neck with one quick swing of the spade.

That night, as they ate the boiled remains of Ginger’s skull, a new sense of desperation and loneliness seemed to wash over both Mertz and Mawson. Mertz was in terrible physical shape, and in the coming days saw his strength fade to nearly nothing. Mawson took it upon himself to keep Mertz alive, and fed Mertz what he believed was the only nourishing thing he had left: dog liver. In the days to come, Mawson would give up all of his own rations of liver and feed them to Mertz. It was this act of self-sacrifice that ultimately might have kept Mawson alive. But it killed Mertz.

Mawson tried to coddle, urge, and cajole his fading companion into activity, but there was little left to be done for Mertz. At one point, when Mertz could walk no longer, Mawson placed his friend on the sledge, strapped himself into the harness and actually began pulling it
on all fours.
Mertz was unmoved by this act of kindness, but rather took offense at being hauled around like a dying dog. In an act of rage that evening, Mertz bit off his yellowed and frostbitten pinky finger and spit the severed digit onto the tent floor.

All through that dreadful night, Mertz alternated between moments of calm and fits of rage. Finally, near midnight, Mertz fell into a restless sleep; Mawson crawled into his bag and did the same. A few hours later, Mawson inexplicably awoke, troubled by the profound silence of the tent. He reached over to touch Mertz, and found him stiff, cold, lifeless. It was January 7, 1913. Mawson was one hundred miles from main base.

Yet as desperate as the situation may have been, Mawson was not one to turn his back on protocol. Recognizing his final duty to Mertz, Mawson spent several exhausting hours cutting snow blocks to make Mertz’s burial cairn. Mawson placed Mertz, still in his reindeer-skin sleeping bag, into the cairn and read the burial service. It was a noble act, but in my mind it was foolish and unnecessary. Mertz’s life was over, and Mawson had honored Mertz on every day of their journey together, particularly near the end of Mertz’s life, when Mawson spent hours caring for him. Now Mertz was gone, and Mawson’s only responsibility was to himself and those who cared for him back home, thousands of miles away. His sense of duty might have been appeased by the labor, but his own survival would have been compromised.

At a minimum, Mawson should have kept Mertz’s reindeer-skin sleeping bag, either for food or warmth. And I don’t know whether Mawson ever considered cannibalism—he doesn’t allude to it in his writing—but eating Mertz, as inhuman and barbaric as that may seem, was certainly an option. But Mawson never touched his friend, instead choosing to occupy his mind—and time—with tasks such as repairing broken equipment and planning the weeks ahead. Mawson knew his chances were slim and was sorely tempted to lay down and rest until eternal sleep took him. But somewhere in the back of his mind, his will to live was not so easily muted.

Indeed, just when he was at his lowest, Mawson found motivation in the words of the famous poet Robert Service:

Buck up! Do your damndest and fight:
It’s the plugging away that will win you the day.

Mawson himself was a great motivator, one who had often spoken of character. With Service’s words ringing in his ears, he recalled the words he had spoken when discussing the men he had chosen to accompany him to Antarctica:

I have done my best to choose men of character. The important thing to look for in members of an expedition like this—is character. It is impossible to tell how men are going to act until circumstances arise. . . . In that land of desolation, in that land of great loneliness, there are conditions that measure a man at his true worth.

Back on track, Mawson rediscovered the resolve that made him legendary among polar explorers. He reassessed his situation, his needs, the equipment he had at his behest. He spent an entire day modifying his remaining gear for one-man travel. He cut down the sledge to carry a half-load, and even crafted a mast and sail for speedier travel should conditions permit. Mawson also wisely dedicated some time to doctoring his rotting body.