OHYAT: Safe and Sound at Home Again
Aug. 1st, 2011 06:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY: The Crozier Party finally arrived back at Cape Evans.
They'd camped the previous night in their tent inside the hut at Hut Point, to conserve heat in as small a space as possible – the hut itself was uninsulated and therefore frigid. Taking advantage of the oil stored there they ran two Primus stoves in their tent that night. Then they were off for home (for a given value of 'home') in what seemed like blazing daylight to them; they'd been in the shadow of the mountains of Ross Island the whole time, and the daylight had returned to the sunward side of the island to a greater degree than they'd expected.
As had become their habit they slept while walking, and by mid-afternoon had passed Glacier Tongue, roughly halfway, so they stopped to have lunch.
They'd camped the previous night in their tent inside the hut at Hut Point, to conserve heat in as small a space as possible – the hut itself was uninsulated and therefore frigid. Taking advantage of the oil stored there they ran two Primus stoves in their tent that night. Then they were off for home (for a given value of 'home') in what seemed like blazing daylight to them; they'd been in the shadow of the mountains of Ross Island the whole time, and the daylight had returned to the sunward side of the island to a greater degree than they'd expected.
As had become their habit they slept while walking, and by mid-afternoon had passed Glacier Tongue, roughly halfway, so they stopped to have lunch.
As we began to gather our gear together to pack up for the last time, Bill said quietly, "I want to thank you two for what you have done. I couldn't have found two better companions—and what is more I never shall."
I am proud of that.
We trudged on for several more hours and it grew very dark. There was a discussion as to where Cape Evans lay. We rounded it at last: it must have been ten or eleven o'clock, and it was possible that some one might see us as we pulled towards the hut. "Spread out well," said Bill, "and they will be able to see that there are three men." But we pulled along the cape, over the tide-crack, up the bank to the very door of the hut without a sound. No noise from the stable, nor the bark of a dog from the snowdrifts above us. We halted and stood there trying to get ourselves and one another out of our frozen harnesses — the usual long job. The door opened — "Good God! here is the Crozier Party," said a voice, and disappeared ...
Inside was pandemonium. Most men had gone to bed, and I have a blurred memory of men in pyjamas and dressing-gowns getting hold of me and trying to get the chunks of armour which were my clothes to leave my body. Finally they cut them off and threw them into an angular heap at the foot of my bunk. Next morning they were a sodden mass weighing 24 lbs. Bread and jam, and cocoa; showers of questions; "You know this is the hardest journey ever made," from Scott; a broken record of George Robey on the gramophone which started us laughing until in our weak state we found it difficult to stop. I have no doubt that I had not stood the journey as well as Wilson: my jaw had dropped when I came in, so they tell me. Then into my warm blanket bag, and I managed to keep awake just long enough to think that Paradise must feel something like this.
We slept ten thousand thousand years ...
Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds. But this journey had beggared our language: no words could express its horror.But Cherry also writes:Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World
How good the memories of those [last few] days are. With jokes about Birdie's picture hat: with songs we remembered off the gramophone: with ready words of sympathy for frost-bitten feet: with generous smiles for poor jests: with suggestions of happy beds to come. We did not forget the Please and Thank you, which mean much in such circumstances, and all the little links with decent civilization which we could still keep going. I'll swear there was still a grace about us when we staggered in. And we kept our tempers — even with God.
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Date: 2011-08-02 02:57 pm (UTC)