OHYAT: Oh, what NOW?
Jul. 22nd, 2011 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinBrief recap:
Bill Wilson, Birdie Bowers, and Apsley Cherry-Garrard have spent nineteen days in unimaginably severe conditions trekking along the south face of Ross Island to Cape Crozier, one of the coldest, windiest, harshest places on earth, where the Emperor penguins incubate their eggs through the Antarctic winter. They built a hut just down from the peak of a rocky windswept hill, and spent two days (one abortive) securing a handful of eggs for science and a few penguins for fuel. Bill got a spurt of boiling oil in his eye and they spent a miserable night in their draughty igloo in a blizzard.
They spent July 21 banking up the walls of the igloo with the snow which had fallen the night before, to stop up the holes which had made it so draughty; they also put blocks of frozen snow on the canvas roof to weigh it down so it wouldn't flap so much in the wind. They pitched the tent right outside the door of the igloo, in the lee of the wind, 'well dug in,' and stowed a large amount of their gear in it. After a hot dinner they moved back to the igloo and performed the agonizing ritual, now familiar, of thawing their way into their frozen sleeping bags, and tried to catch up on their sleep.
They were alerted to this fact by Birdie, who had rushed to the door; immediately he and Cherry began ferrying in to Bill what supplies they could from where the tent had been – luckily most of what they had stowed there remained.
The wind coming up the slope on the opposite side of the hill from where the hut was created a vacuum which sucked the canvas roof up with each gust; every time it lifted, in turn, like a diaphragm, it sucked snow and dirt into the igloo through the holes in the walls. They had piled snow blocks atop the roof the day before but the wind was so strong it was moving them off, and once they were off the flapping and suction only increased, as well as the noise – the flapping of the canvas was like rifle shots, and the wind howling, to the point where they could barely hear each other if they were shouting at the top of their lungs.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Bill Wilson, Birdie Bowers, and Apsley Cherry-Garrard have spent nineteen days in unimaginably severe conditions trekking along the south face of Ross Island to Cape Crozier, one of the coldest, windiest, harshest places on earth, where the Emperor penguins incubate their eggs through the Antarctic winter. They built a hut just down from the peak of a rocky windswept hill, and spent two days (one abortive) securing a handful of eggs for science and a few penguins for fuel. Bill got a spurt of boiling oil in his eye and they spent a miserable night in their draughty igloo in a blizzard.
The nearest approach to healthy sleep we had had for nearly a month was when during blizzards the temperature allowed the warmth of our bodies to thaw some of the ice in our clothing and sleeping-bags into water. The wear and tear on our minds was very great. We were certainly weaker. We had a little more than a tin of oil to get back on, and we knew the conditions we had to face on that journey across the Barrier: even with fresh men and fresh gear it had been almost unendurable."Things must improve" ... right?
They spent July 21 banking up the walls of the igloo with the snow which had fallen the night before, to stop up the holes which had made it so draughty; they also put blocks of frozen snow on the canvas roof to weigh it down so it wouldn't flap so much in the wind. They pitched the tent right outside the door of the igloo, in the lee of the wind, 'well dug in,' and stowed a large amount of their gear in it. After a hot dinner they moved back to the igloo and performed the agonizing ritual, now familiar, of thawing their way into their frozen sleeping bags, and tried to catch up on their sleep.
I do not know what time it was when I woke up. It was calm, with that absolute silence which can be so soothing or so terrible as circumstances dictate. Then there came a sob of wind, and all was still again. Ten minutes and it was blowing as though the world was having a fit of hysterics. The earth was torn in pieces: the indescribable fury and roar of it all cannot be imagined.
They were alerted to this fact by Birdie, who had rushed to the door; immediately he and Cherry began ferrying in to Bill what supplies they could from where the tent had been – luckily most of what they had stowed there remained.
The wind coming up the slope on the opposite side of the hill from where the hut was created a vacuum which sucked the canvas roof up with each gust; every time it lifted, in turn, like a diaphragm, it sucked snow and dirt into the igloo through the holes in the walls. They had piled snow blocks atop the roof the day before but the wind was so strong it was moving them off, and once they were off the flapping and suction only increased, as well as the noise – the flapping of the canvas was like rifle shots, and the wind howling, to the point where they could barely hear each other if they were shouting at the top of their lungs.
The tension became well-nigh unendurable: the waiting in all that welter of noise was maddening. Minute after minute, hour after hour—those snow blocks were off now anyway, and the roof was smashed up and down—no canvas ever made could stand it indefinitely.
We got a meal that Saturday morning, our last for a very long time as it happened. Oil being of such importance to us we tried to use the blubber stove, but after several preliminary spasms it came to pieces in our hands, some solder having melted; and a very good thing too, I thought, for it was more dangerous than useful. We finished cooking our meal on the primus. ... We then settled that in view of the shortage of oil we would not have another meal for as long as possible. As a matter of fact God settled that for us.
We did all we could to stop up the places where the drift was coming in, plugging the holes with our socks, mitts and other clothing. But it was no real good. Our igloo was a vacuum which was filling itself up as soon as possible: and when snow was not coming in a fine black moraine dust took its place, covering us and everything. For twenty-four hours we waited for the roof to go: things were so bad now that we dare not unlash the door.
Many hours ago Bill had told us that if the roof went he considered that our best chance would be to roll over in our sleeping-bags until we were lying on the openings, and get frozen and drifted in.
Gradually the situation got more desperate. The distance between the taut-sucked canvas and the sledge on which it should have been resting became greater, and this must have been due to the stretching of the canvas itself and the loss of the snow blocks on the top: it was not drawing out of the walls. The crashes as it dropped and banged out again were louder. There was more snow coming through the walls, though all our loose mitts, socks and smaller clothing were stuffed into the worst places: our pyjama jackets were stuffed between the roof and the rocks over the door. The rocks were lifting and shaking here till we thought they would fall.
We talked by shouting, and long before this one of us proposed to try and get the Alpine rope lashed down over the roof from outside. But Bowers said it was an absolute impossibility in that wind. "You could never ask men at sea to try such a thing," he said. He was up and out of his bag continually, stopping up holes, pressing against bits of roof to try and prevent the flapping and so forth. He was magnificent.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
