The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard (novel books to read TXT) 📖

cold, so we have had to remain in our bags, but things are alright and we have got plenty to eat now. We have all retired for the night as the bliz is still raging outside.

22nd February 1912.

The wind went down about 9 p.m., so we began to move and were ready to kick off at 10, and proposed to do the journey in two stages. It was fearful heavy going for the poor dogs, we arranged so that Mr. Evans was on Dimitri’s sledge and Doctor and myself was on the other. We have done about half the journey and are now camped for a rest for the dogs and ourselves. We had a stiff 16 miles: the Doctor and myself, we took turns in riding on the sledge and walking and running to keep up to the dogs. Sometimes we sank in up to the knees, but we struggled through it. My legs is the most powerful part of me now, but I am tired and shall be glad when it is over. I must lie down now, as we are starting again soon for Hut Point, but the surface is getting better as we have passed White Island and can see so plainly the land. Castle Rock and good old Erebus look so stately with the smoke rolling out. It is so clear and calm and peaceful. What a change in our surroundings of a few days ago and also our prospects. Doctor and Dimitri have done everything they could for us.

22nd February 1912.

We started off after a rest for the dogs and reached here at Hut Point at 1 p.m. where we can rest in peace for a time. Dimitri and Crean are going to Cape Evans: the ship is nowhere in sight. Have had to get some seal meat and ice and prepare a meal. Mr. Evans is alright and asleep. We are looking for a mail now. How funny we should always be looking for something else, now we are safe.

[End of Lashly’s Diary.]

Crean has told me the story of his walk as follows:

He started at 10 on Sunday morning and “the surface was good, very good surface indeed,” and he went about sixteen miles before he stopped. Good clear weather. He had three biscuits and two sticks of chocolate. He stopped about five minutes, sitting on the snow, and ate two biscuits and the chocolate, and put one biscuit back in his pocket. He was quite warm and not sleepy.

He carried on just the same and passed Safety Camp on his right some five hours later, and thinks it was about twelve-thirty on Monday morning that he reached the edge of the Barrier, tired, getting cold in the back and the weather coming on thick. It was bright behind him but it was coming over the Bluff, and White Island was obscured though he could still see Cape Armitage and Castle Rock. He slipped a lot on the sea-ice, having several falls on to his back and it was getting thicker all the time. At the Barrier edge there was a light wind, now it was blowing a strong wind, drifting and snowing. He made for the Gap and could not get up at first. To avoid taking a lot out of himself he started to go round Cape Armitage; but soon felt slush coming through his finnesko (he had no crampons) and made back for the Gap. He climbed up to the left of the Gap and climbed along the side of Observation Hill to avoid the slippery ice. When he got to the top it was still clear enough to see vaguely the outline of Hut Point, but he could see no sledges nor dogs. He sat down under the lee of Observation Hill, and finished his biscuit with a bit of ice: “I was very dry,”⁠—slid down the side of Observation Hill and thought at this time there was open water below, for he had no goggles on the march and his eyes were strained. But on getting near the ice-foot he found it was polished sea-ice and made his way round to the hut under the ice-foot. When he got close he saw the dogs and sledges on the sea-ice, and it was now blowing very hard with drift. He walked in and found the Doctor and Dimitri inside. “He gave me a tot first, and then a feed of porridge⁠—but I couldn’t keep it down: that’s the first time in my life that ever it happened, and it was the brandy that did it.”

XIII Suspense

All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Walt Whitman

Let us come back to Cape Evans after the return of the First Supporting Party.

Hitherto our ways had always been happy: for the most part they had been pleasant. Scott was going to reach the Pole, probably without great difficulty, for when we left him on the edge of the plateau he had only to average seven miles a day to go there on full rations. We ourselves had averaged 14.2 geographical miles a day on our way home to One Ton Depot, and there seemed no reason to suppose that the other two parties would not do likewise, and the food was not only sufficient but abundant if such marches were made. Thus we were content as we wandered over the cape, or sat upon some rock warmed by the sun and watched the penguins bathing in the lake which had formed in the sea-ice between us and Inaccessible Island. All round us were the cries of the skua gulls as they squabbled among themselves, and we heard the swish of their wings as