OHYAT: Trying Again
Mar. 27th, 2012 04:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinWhen Cherry and Dimitri came back empty-handed, as it were, Atch decided another attempt should be made to assist the Polar Party. Cherry was eager to go, after a few days' rest, but on the 20th he fainted with a strained heart after a walk outside and Atch forbade him to come along.
Although in laying out his original plans, Scott had mentioned that the final members of the southern journey would not be likely to get back to base before March 27th, the men waiting at Hut Point were getting anxious. On top of their worry about the Polar Party, there was Campbell's Northern Party weighing on their minds. The ship had picked them up from the place where they'd overwintered, further up the coast, and dropped them off to do a couple weeks' geologising in a bay closer to 'home,' with the intent of picking them up again on the way back to New Zealand. When they went back to do so, though, the ice that had been anchored to the land had broken up and drifted out to sea, and prevented them from getting to the cove where Campbell's party was. They came back to Cape Evans and did a bit of ferrying people to and from Hut Point, picked up the scientists who weren't staying for the second winter and Teddy Evans who was being invalided home, and declared they would try one more time to rescue Campbell's six men on their way back north. They ended up being unsuccessful, but there was no way to send news of this to the base. Therefore, the men left behind for the second winter knew that Campbell's party had been left in a location not scoped out for long-term accommodation and with only the supplies they needed for a few weeks' summer field work, but they did not know whether they were still there, or if the ship had succeeded in picking them up.
It was eventually agreed to concentrate efforts on assisting the Polar Party, as the men knew for certain they were out there somewhere, whereas Campbell might be safely on his way back to New Zealand already. The newly-formed sea ice over which a rescue party would have to cross, if they were to be of any assistance to the Northern Party, was likely to be unstable, and might put them in danger; if it wasn't unstable then the Northern Party was just as capable of saving themselves as the home guard were of saving them. As Cherry put it, 'If we can go north, they can come south, and to put two parties there on the new sea-ice is to double the risk.'
On March 25th, Cherry wrote:
They were undeniably keyed up: On the night of the 26th, a couple hours after they'd turned in, they heard five or six knocks on a window.
After some discussion as to the Polar Party's estimated rate of progress and the degree to which two manhaulers could be of any assistance to them (the dogs were in no condition for further work), Atch and Pat Keohane set out ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY with eighteen days' food for themselves and a week's ration for the men they aimed to meet.
Although in laying out his original plans, Scott had mentioned that the final members of the southern journey would not be likely to get back to base before March 27th, the men waiting at Hut Point were getting anxious. On top of their worry about the Polar Party, there was Campbell's Northern Party weighing on their minds. The ship had picked them up from the place where they'd overwintered, further up the coast, and dropped them off to do a couple weeks' geologising in a bay closer to 'home,' with the intent of picking them up again on the way back to New Zealand. When they went back to do so, though, the ice that had been anchored to the land had broken up and drifted out to sea, and prevented them from getting to the cove where Campbell's party was. They came back to Cape Evans and did a bit of ferrying people to and from Hut Point, picked up the scientists who weren't staying for the second winter and Teddy Evans who was being invalided home, and declared they would try one more time to rescue Campbell's six men on their way back north. They ended up being unsuccessful, but there was no way to send news of this to the base. Therefore, the men left behind for the second winter knew that Campbell's party had been left in a location not scoped out for long-term accommodation and with only the supplies they needed for a few weeks' summer field work, but they did not know whether they were still there, or if the ship had succeeded in picking them up.
It was eventually agreed to concentrate efforts on assisting the Polar Party, as the men knew for certain they were out there somewhere, whereas Campbell might be safely on his way back to New Zealand already. The newly-formed sea ice over which a rescue party would have to cross, if they were to be of any assistance to the Northern Party, was likely to be unstable, and might put them in danger; if it wasn't unstable then the Northern Party was just as capable of saving themselves as the home guard were of saving them. As Cherry put it, 'If we can go north, they can come south, and to put two parties there on the new sea-ice is to double the risk.'
On March 25th, Cherry wrote:
We are now on the days when I expect the Polar Party in: pray God I may be right. Atkinson and I look at one another, and he looks, and I feel, quite haggard with anxiety. He says he does not think they have scurvy. We both, I think, feel quite comfortable, in comparison, about Campbell: he only wants to exercise care, and his great care was almost a byword on the ship.
They were undeniably keyed up: On the night of the 26th, a couple hours after they'd turned in, they heard five or six knocks on a window.
Atkinson shouted 'Hullo!' and cried, 'Cherry, they're in.' Keohane said, 'Who's cook?' Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was no one there. ... Atkinson thought he heard footsteps!He surmised it must have been a dog which slept in that window knocking its tail as it shook itself, but called it 'the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard.'
After some discussion as to the Polar Party's estimated rate of progress and the degree to which two manhaulers could be of any assistance to them (the dogs were in no condition for further work), Atch and Pat Keohane set out ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY with eighteen days' food for themselves and a week's ration for the men they aimed to meet.
