South! Ernest Shackleton (affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📖

a supporting party, consisting of Cope (in charge), Stevens, Ninnis, Haywood, Hooke, and Richards, left the ship on January 30. The first two parties had dog teams. The third party took with it the motor-tractor, which does not appear to have given the good service that I had hoped to get from it. These parties had a strenuous time during the weeks that followed. The men, fresh from shipboard, were not in the best of training, and the same was true of the dogs. It was unfortunate that the dogs had to be worked so early after their arrival in the Antarctic. They were in poor condition and they had not learned to work together as teams. The result was the loss of many of the dogs, and this proved a serious matter in the following season. Captain Mackintosh’s record of the sledging in the early months of 1915 is fairly full. It will not be necessary here to follow the fortunes of the various parties in detail, for although the men were facing difficulties and dangers, they were on well-travelled ground, which has been made familiar to most readers by the histories of earlier Expeditions.

Captain Mackintosh and his party left the Aurora on the evening of January 25. They had nine dogs and one heavily loaded sledge, and started off briskly to the accompaniment of a cheer from their shipmates. The dogs were so eager for exercise after their prolonged confinement aboard the ship that they dashed forward at their best speed, and it was necessary for one man to sit upon the sledge in order to moderate the pace. Mackintosh had hoped to get to Hut Point that night, but luck was against him. The weather broke after he had travelled about five miles, and snow, which completely obscured all landmarks, sent him into camp on the sea-ice. The weather was still thick on the following morning, and the party, making a start after breakfast, missed its way.

“We shaped a course where I imagined Hut Point to be,” wrote Captain Mackintosh in his diary, “but when the sledge-meter showed thirteen miles fifty yards, which is four miles in excess of the distance from the slip to Hut Point, I decided to halt again. The surface was changing considerably and the land was still obscured. We have been travelling over a thick snow surface, in which we sink deeply, and the dogs are not too cheerful about it.”

They started again at noon on January 27, when the weather had cleared sufficiently to reveal the land, and reached Hut Point at 4 p.m. The sledge-meter showed that the total distance travelled had been over seventeen miles. Mackintosh found in the hut a note from Joyce, who had been there on the 25th, and who reported that one of his dogs had been killed in a fight with its companions. The hut contained some stores left there by earlier Expeditions. The party stayed there for the night. Mackintosh left a note for Stenhouse directing him to place provisions in the hut in case the sledging parties did not return in time to be taken off by the ship. Early next morning Joyce reached the hut. He had encountered bad ice and had come back to consult with Mackintosh regarding the route to be followed. Mackintosh directed him to steer out towards Black Island in crossing the head of the Sound beyond Hut Point.

Mackintosh left Hut Point on January 28. He had taken some additional stores, and he mentions that the sledge now weighed 1,200 lbs. This was a heavy load, but the dogs were pulling well and he thought it practicable. He encountered difficulty almost at once after descending the slope from the point to the sea-ice, for the sledge stuck in soft snow and the party had to lighten the load and relay until they reached a better surface. They were having trouble with the dogs, which did not pull cheerfully, and the total distance covered in the day was under four miles. The weather was warm and the snow consequently was soft. Mackintosh had decided that it would be best to travel at night. A fall of snow held up the party throughout the following day, and they did not get away from their camp until shortly before midnight.

“The surface was abominably soft,” wrote Mackintosh. “We harnessed ourselves on to the sledge and with the dogs made a start, but we had a struggle to get off. We had not gone very far when in deeper snow we stopped dead. Try as we would, no movement could be produced. Reluctantly we unloaded and began the tedious task of relaying. The work, in spite of the lighter load on the sledge, proved terrific for ourselves and for the dogs. We struggled for four hours, and then set camp to await the evening, when the sun would not be so fierce and the surface might be better. I must say I feel somewhat despondent, as we are not getting on as well as I expected, nor do we find it as easy as one would gather from reading.”

The two parties met again that day. Joyce also had been compelled to relay his load, and all hands laboured strenuously and advanced slowly. They reached the edge of the Barrier on the night of January 30 and climbed an easy slope to the Barrier surface, about thirty feet above the sea-ice. The dogs were showing signs of fatigue, and when Mackintosh camped at 6:30 a.m. on January 31, he reckoned that the distance covered in twelve and a half hours had been about two and a half miles. The men had killed a seal at the edge of the sea-ice and placed the meat on a cairn for future use. One dog, having refused to pull, had been left behind with a good feed of meat, and Mackintosh hoped the animal would follow. The