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

and Joyce went back to the depot, while Wild remained behind to build a cairn and attempt to dry the sleeping-bags in the sun. The stores left at the depot had been two and a quarter tins of biscuit (42 lbs. to the tin), rations for three men for three weeks in bags, each intended to last one week, and three tins of oil. Mackintosh took one of the weekly bags from the depot and returned to the camp. The party resumed the homeward journey the next morning, and with a sail on the sledge to take advantage of the southerly breeze, covered nine miles and a half during the day. But the dogs had reached almost the limit of their endurance; three of them fell out, unable to work longer, while on the march. That evening, for the first time since leaving the Aurora, the men saw the sun dip to the horizon in the south, a reminder that the Antarctic summer was nearing its close.

The remaining four dogs collapsed on March 2.

“After lunch we went off fairly well for half an hour. Then Nigger commenced to wobble about, his legs eventually giving under him. We took him out of his harness and let him travel along with us, but he has given us all he can, and now can only lie down. After Nigger, my friend Pompey collapsed. The drift, I think, accounts a good deal for this. Pompey has been splendid of late, pulling steadily and well. Then Scotty, the last dog but one, gave up. They are all lying down in our tracks. They have a painless death, for they curl up in the snow and fall into a sleep from which they will never wake. We are left with one dog, Pinkey. He has not been one of the pullers, but he is not despised. We can afford to give him plenty of biscuit. We must nurse him and see if we cannot return with one dog at least. We are now pulling ourselves, with the sail (the floor-cloth of the tent) set and Pinkey giving a hand. At one stage a terrific gust came along and capsized the sledge. The sail was blown off the sledge, out of its guys, and we prepared to camp, but the wind fell again to a moderate breeze, so we repaired the sledge and proceeded.

“It is blowing hard this evening, cold too. Another wonderful sunset. Golden colours illuminate the sky. The moon casts beautiful rays in combination with the more vivid ones from the dipping sun. If all was as beautiful as the scene we could consider ourselves in some paradise, but it is dark and cold in the tent and I shiver in a frozen sleeping-bag. The inside fur is a mass of ice, congealed from my breath. One creeps into the bag, toggles up with half-frozen fingers, and hears the crackling of the ice. Presently drops of thawing ice are falling on one’s head. Then comes a fit of shivers. You rub yourself and turn over to warm the side of the bag which has been uppermost. A puddle of water forms under the body. After about two hours you may doze off, but I always wake with the feeling that I have not slept a wink.”

The party made only three and a half miles on March 3. They were finding the sledge exceedingly heavy to pull, and Mackintosh decided to remove the outer runners and scrape the bottom. These runners should have been taken off before the party started, and the lower runners polished smooth. He also left behind all spare gear, including dog-harness in order to reduce weight, and found the lighter sledge easier to pull. The temperature that night was −28° F, the lowest recorded during the journey up to that time.

“We are struggling along at a mile an hour,” wrote Mackintosh on the 5th. “It is a very hard pull, the surface being very sticky. Pinkey still accompanies us. We hope we can get him in. He is getting all he wants to eat. So he ought.”

The conditions of travel changed the next day. A southerly wind made possible the use of the sail, and the trouble was to prevent the sledge bounding ahead over rough sastrugi and capsizing. The handling of ropes and the sail caused many frostbites, and occasionally the men were dragged along the surface by the sledge. The remaining dog collapsed during the afternoon and had to be left behind. Mackintosh did not feel that he could afford to reduce the pace. The sledge-meter, had got out of order, so the distance covered in the day was not recorded. The wind increased during the night, and by the morning of the 7th was blowing with blizzard force. The party did not move again until the morning of the 8th. They were still finding the sledge very heavy and were disappointed at their slow progress, their marches being six to eight miles a day. On the 10th they got the Bluff Peak in line with Mount Discovery. My instructions had been that the Bluff depot should be laid on this line, and as the depot had been placed north of the line on the outward journey, owing to thick weather making it impossible to pick up the landmarks, Mackintosh intended now to move the stores to the proper place. He sighted the depot flag about four miles away, and after pitching camp at the new depot site, he went across with Joyce and Wild and found the stores as he had left them.

“We loaded the sledge with the stores, placed the large mark flag on the sledge, and proceeded back to our tent, which was now out of sight. Indeed it was not wise to come out as we did without tent or bag. We had taken the chance, as the weather had promised fine. As we proceeded it grew