We now started upon a fortnight full of more checks and worries than I or any other member of the expedition had ever experienced. Nevertheless, in face of most trying conditions, the whole party turned to late and early with whole-hearted devotion and cheerful readiness.
The ponies gave us cause for the most anxiety, because in their half-broken and nervous condition it would have been practically impossible to land them in boats. Finally we decided to build a rough horse-box, get them into this, and then sling it over the side by means of the main gaff. By 3.30 A.M. on the morning of the 6th we had got all the ponies ashore, and they immediately began to paw the snow as they were wont to do in their own far-away Manchurian home.
The poor ponies were naturally stiff after their constant buffetings, but they negotiated the tide-crack all right, and were soon picketed on some bare earth at the entrance to a valley, which lay about fifty yards from the site of our hut. We thought this a good place, but in the future the selection was to cost us dear.
The tide-crack played an important part in connection with the landing of the stores. In the polar regions, both north and south, when the sea is frozen, there always appears between the fast ice, which is the ice attached to the land, and the sea ice, a crack which is due to the sea ice moving up and down with the rise and fall of the tide. When the bottom of the sea slopes gradually from the land, sometimes two or three tide-cracks appear running parallel to each other. When no more tide-cracks can be seen landwards, the ice-foot has always been thought to be permanently joined to the land, and in our case this opinion was strengthened by the fact that our soundings in the tide-crack shoved that the ice-foot on the landward side of it must be aground.
I have explained this fully, for it was only after considering these points that I, for convenience's sake, landed the bulk of the stores below the bare rocks on what I thought was the permanent snow-slope.
On the morning of February 6 we started work with sledges, hauling provisions and pieces of the hut to the shore. On the previous night the foundation posts of the hut had been sunk and frozen into the ground with a cement composed of volcanic earth and water, and the digging of the foundations had proved extremely hard work.
Now that the ponies were ashore it was necessary to have a party living on shore to look after them, and the first shore-party consisted of Adams, Marston, Brocklehurst, Mackay and Murray. Two tents were set up close to the hut, with the usual sledging requisites such as sleeping-bags, cookers, &c. The first things landed this day were fodder for the ponies, and sufficient petroleum and provisions for the shore-party in case the ship had to put suddenly to sea owing to bad weather.
The work of hauling the sledge-loads right up to the land was so heavy, that I decided to let the stores remain on the snow slope beyond the tide-crack, whence they could be taken at leisure. Our attempt to substitute mechanical haulage for man haulage was not successful, and we soon had to go back to our original plan.
Delays at once occurred, for during the afternoon of the 6th a fresh breeze sprung up, and the ship had to stand out to the fast ice in the strait and anchor there. Thus two valuable working days were lost.
When, however, I went ashore again I found that the little shore-party had not only managed to get all the heavy timber that had been landed up to the site of the hut, but also had stacked the cases of provisions, which previously had been lying on the snow slope, upon bare land. While we were engaged on the increasingly difficult task of landing stores, &c., the hut-party were working day and night and the building was rapidly assuming an appearance of solidity. The uprights were in and the brace ties were fastened together, so that if it began to blow there was small fear of the structure being destroyed. This was something to be thankful for, but while the hut-party were getting on so well, we who were engaged on landing the stores had—owing to the breaking away of the ice—to move our spot.
The stores had now to be dragged a distance of nearly three hundred yards from the ship to the landing-place, but this work was made easier by our being able to use four of the ponies. A large amount of stores was landed in this way, but a new and serious situation arose through the breaking away of the main ice-foot. Prudence suggested that it would be wiser to shift the stores already landed to a safer place before discharging any more from the ship, and on this work we were engaged during the evening of the 10th.
Next we had to find a safer place on which to land the rest of the coal and stores, and Back Door Bay, as we named the chosen spot, became our new depot. This was a still longer journey from the ship, but there was no help for it, and after laying a tarpaulin on the rocks to keep the coal from mixing with the earth, we started landing the coal.
By this time there were several ugly looking cracks in the bay ice, and these kept opening and closing, having a play of seven or eight inches between the floes. We improvised bridges, from the motor-car case, so that the ponies could cross the cracks, and presently were well under way with the work.
Then there was a most alarming occurrence, for suddenly and without the slightest warning the greater part of the bay ice opened out into floes, and the whole mass that had opened started to drift slowly out to sea. The ponies on the ice were at once in a perilous position, but the sailors rushed to loosen the one tied to the stern rope and got it over the first crack, and Armytage also got the pony which he was looking after from the floe nearest the ship on to the next floe.
Just, however, at that moment, Mackay appeared round the corner from Back Door Bay with a third pony attached to an empty sledge, on his way back to the ship to load up. Orders were shouted to him not to come any further, but not at first grasping the situation he continued to advance over the ice, which was already breaking away more rapidly.
When he realised what had occurred he left his sledge and pony, and rushed towards the place where the other two ponies were adrift on the ice, and, by jumping the widening cracks, he reached the moving floe on which they were standing. This piece of ice gradually grew closer to a larger piece, from which the animals would be able to gain a place of safety. But when Mackay started to try to get the pony Chinaman across the crack where it was only six inches wide, the pony took fright, and rearing and backing towards the edge of the floe, which had at that moment opened to a width of a few feet, he fell bodily into the ice-cold water.
It looked indeed as if it was all over with poor Chinaman, but Mackay hung on to the head rope, and Davis, Michell and Mawson rushed to his assistance. After great difficulty a rope sling was passed underneath Chinaman, and he was lifted up far enough to enable him to scramble on to the ice.
A few seconds later the floe closed up against the other one, and it was providential that it had not done so while the pony was in the water, for in that case Chinaman would inevitably have been squeezed to death. As it was he lived to help us very materially on another—and more critical—day. The ship was now employed to push the floe back against the fast ice, and directly this was accomplished the ponies were rushed across and taken straight ashore, and the men who were on the different floes took advantage of the temporary closing of the crack to get themselves and the stores into safety.
As soon as the ship was backed out the loose floes began to drift away to the west, and after this narrow escape I resolved not to risk the ponies on the sea ice again. The breaking of the ice continued to give us great cause for anxiety, and we had a narrow escape from losing our cases of scientific instruments and a large quantity of fodder. Had we lost these cases a great part of our scientific work could not have been carried out, and the loss of the fodder would have meant also the loss of the ponies.
We were handicapped too by such a heavy swell running on the 13th that no stores could be landed. This swell would have been welcome a fortnight before, for it would have broken up a large amount of fast ice to the south, and I could not help thinking that at this date there was open water up to Hut Point. Now, however, it was most unfortunate for us, as precious time was passing, and still more precious coal was being used by the continual working of the ship's engines.