OHYAT: Things Must Improve

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY

Bill, Birdie, and Cherry were huddling in the remains of their stone igloo. After procuring a handful of specimens from the Emperor penguin rookery, at great expense of time and effort, they'd been pinned down by a brutal hurricane-force blizzard which had first blown their tent away and then ripped the canvas roof off their hut. Occasionally they would try to think of ways to retrace their steps back to the safety and comfort of the base at Cape Evans, but –

Meanwhile we had to wait. It was nearly 70 miles home and it had taken us the best part of three weeks to come. ...Till [the morning of Jul 24] the blizzard had raged with monstrous fury ... I wondered why it did not carry away the earth.

In the early hours of Monday there was an occasional hint of a lull. ... Seven or eight more hours passed, and though it was still blowing we could make ourselves heard to one another without great difficulty. It was two days and two nights since we had had a meal.

They went out to look for the tent, 'utterly miserable,' but couldn't find it, so returned and did their best to cook a meal under the shelter of what had been their floor cloth. The hoosh 'was full of hairs from our bags, penguin feathers, dirt and debris,' but the smell of it 'was better than anything on earth.'
When the light began to grow again they decided to have another go at finding the tent, despite the sky threatening another blizzard. Birdie got a head start, followed by Bill and Cherry shortly after –

... as we searched, we heard a shout somewhere below and to the right. We got on a slope, slipped, and went sliding down quite unable to stop ourselves, and came upon Birdie with the tent, the outer lining still on the bamboos. Our lives had been taken away and given back to us.

We were so thankful we said nothing.

If that tent went again we were going with it. We made our way back up the slope with it, carrying it solemnly and reverently, precious as though it were something not quite of the earth. And we dug it in as tent was never dug in before; not by the igloo, but in the old place farther down where we had first arrived. And while Bill was doing this Birdie and I went back to the igloo and dug and scratched and shook away the drift inside until we had found nearly all our gear. It is wonderful how little we lost when the roof went. ... Of course a certain number of mitts and socks were blown away and lost, but the only important things were Bill's fur mitts, which were stuffed into a hole in the rocks of the hut. We loaded up the sledge and pushed it down the slope. I don't know how Birdie was feeling, but I felt so weak that it was the greatest labour. The blizzard looked right on top of us.

We had another meal, and we wanted it: and as the good hoosh ran down into our feet and hands, and up into our cheeks and ears and brains, we discussed what we would do next. Birdie was all for another go at the Emperor penguins. Dear Birdie, he never would admit that he was beaten—I don't know that he ever really was!

There could really be no common-sense doubt: we had to go back ...

Perspective

Despite my post-Worst Journey vow never to complain about anything ever again, I still fall into old habits.


Karma caught up with me and gave me a TRAINVENTURE on the way home, but you know what? I'm not freezing to death in Antarctica.