CHAPTER XLII
OBSTACLES IN OUR COURSE
It continued to snow heavily during the day. But although Mawson's leg pained him a great deal we had to push on, for we were still sixteen miles, we thought, from our depot on the Drygalski Glacier, and we had only two days' food left. So we started to sledge in the thick, driving snow, but as the work under these conditions were excessively exhausting, and we were also unable to keep our proper course while the blizzard lasted, we camped at 8 P.M. and were soon sleeping the sleep of worn and weary wanderers.
On the morning of February 2 we were rejoiced to find the sun shining, and we resolved to make a desperate attempt to reach our depot on this day, for we knew that the Nimrod would be due—perhaps overdue—by the night. On looking back we saw that our track of the day before was about as straight as a corkscrew.
Once more we pulled out over the soft snow, but although a little refreshed by our good sleep we found the work extremely trying and toilsome.
We crossed an ice donga, and about four miles out reached the edge of a second donga. Here we determined to leave everything but our sledge, tent, sleeping-bag, cooking apparatus, oil and food, and make a forced march to the Drygalski depot. Accordingly we camped and having fixed up our depot, we marked the spot with a little blue flag tied on to an ice-axe.
The sledge thus lightened was far easier to pull, and having crossed the donga by a snow-bridge we pulled steadily onwards, Mawson occasionally sweeping the horizon with our field-glasses in hopes of sighting our depot.
Suddenly he exclaimed that he saw the depot flag distinctly on its ice mound, about seven miles distant, but when Mackay and I looked through the glasses neither of us could see any trace of the flag. Mawson considered that both of us must be snow-blind, but when he looked again he at once exclaimed that he could no longer see the flag. The horizon seemed to be walloping up and down, just as though it was boiling, evidently the result of a mirage.
Mawson, however, was so confident that he had seen the flag, well round on the starboard bow of our sledge that we altered our course, and after going a little over a mile, we were rejoiced to hear that he could distinctly see the depot flag. Full of hope we kept on sledging for several miles farther, but at midnight when the temperature had fallen to zero I felt that one of my big toes was getting frost-bitten. All day my socks had been wet through, and with the sudden fall of temperature the water in the socks had turned to ice.
So we halted for me to change my socks and for all of us to have a midnight meal, and much refreshed we started off again, thinking that at last we should reach our depot, or at all events the small inlet a little over a mile from it. But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley."
There was an ominous white streak ahead of us with a dark streak just behind it, and soon we saw that this was due to a ravine in the snow and ice surface interposing itself between ourselves and our depot, and shortly afterwards we reached the near cliff of the ravine.
This ravine was 200 yds. broad, and from 30 to 40 ft. deep; and it was bounded by a vertical cliff or very steeply inclined slope on the north-west side, and by an overhanging cliff on the south-east side. Inland the ravine extended as far as the eye could reach.
We determined to try to cross the ravine, at the bottom of which we were excited to see a number of seals and Emperor penguins dotted over the ice floor. At last by means of making fast the Alpine rope to the bow of the sledge we reached the bottom, and there Mackay killed two penguins to replenish our exhausted larder. Meanwhile Mawson was looking out for a spot where we might swarm up, and as I was feeling much exhausted, I asked him to take over the leadership of the expedition.
I considered myself justified in taking this step as the work assigned to us by our leader was accomplished, and we were within two or three miles of our depot and had no reason to fear the danger of starvation.
On the other hand, as regards our ultimate personal safety, our position was rather critical. In the first place, we were not even certain that the Nimrod had arriven in Ross Sea; in the second place, assuming that she had, if was quite possible that she would miss sighting our depot flags altogether.
In the event of the ship not appearing within a few days, it would have been necessary to take immediate action with a view either to winter at the Drygalski depot or to an attempt to sledge over the steeply crevassed glacier for over 200 miles to Cape Royds.
Even at the moment, had some immediate strenuous action been necessary from the Nimrod suddenly appearing, I thought that it would be best for Mawson, who was less physically exhausted than I was, to be in charge.
He had, throughout the whole journey, shown excellent capacity for leadership, and when I spoke to him he at first demurred, but finally said he would act for a time.
At first we thought that there was one very difficult but apparently possible means of ascent up the cliff face; our efforts, however, in this direction were doomed to failure, and we were compelled to retrace our steps up the ravine down which we had previously lowered the sledge.
This was a tremendous labour, for we could only force the sledge up a few inches at a time; eventually, however, we found ourselves on the level plain at the top of the ravine, but, of course, on the wrong side as far as our depot was concerned. There we thought it safe to camp, for we were within three miles of the open sea, and had the Nimrod sighted our depot flag and stood in to the coast, we could easily have hurried down to the entrance of the inlet and made signals to her.
At 7 A.M. we turned in after toiling for twenty-three hours, and at about a quarter-past seven, as we learnt later, the Nimrod must have passed; but owing to a light wind with snow drift she was unable to sight either our depot flag or tent.
Having had four hours' rest we packed our sledge and started along the north bank of the snow gorge, the snow and ice at the bottom being dotted with basking seals and moulting Emperor penguins.
At first, in our tired and weak state, we were much dispirited to find no means of crossing the ravine, but eventually Mackay, who had gone ahead, shouted that he had discovered a snow-bridge across it, and when he had rejoined us we pulled the sledge to the head of the bridge.
There was a crevasse at both the near and far ends of the bridge, and stepping over the crevasse at the near end we launched the sledge with a run down to the centre of the bridge and then struggled up the steep slope facing us, Mackay steadying the sledge from falling off the narrow causeway, while all of us pulled for all we were worth.
In another minute or so we were safely across with our sledge, and thankful to have surmounted the last obstacle between us and our depot.