Chapter VI: “good-Bye, Boys. It Won’t Be for Long”

And what a scene it was too.

Down below to the left was the still slumbering camp; the middle distance was the eternal snow guarded by its hills, then came the sea-beach, shingly now. They could even see their ships, next the dark blue sea dotted or flecked with the white bergs big and small.

But on that sea-beach, when they drew it a little nearer by means of their telescopes, what a scene of life and love and happiness!

The denizens of air and sea were all awake and busy. They could see seals diving and swimming or basking in the sun, flocks of bright-winged gulls, and penguins bustling about in every direction.

There was nothing but joy yonder. No attempt to solve the infinite, or pluck from Heaven its greatest secrets.

Yonder was contentment unalloyed.

And there was sunshine over all; it glimmered in the sea in radiance sublime, it spangled the snow and seemed to turn it into diamonds, it filled earth and air, and best of all it filled the hearts of the lonely beholders, till they were fain to smile at their recent gloom.

“A glorious scene, Curtis!”

“A glorious scene, Ingomar! That is our last look at the sea for a time, but not for ever. Oh, no, not for ever!”

Then down they came from the mount, with faces a-shine in the gladsome air.

* * * * *

That day’s journey was scarcely so long. The sun was resplendent, and at the evening meal every one was happy and cheerful. Nay, but hopeful in the extreme.

“I drink your healths in coffee, gentlemen, and may the united British and American flags float in the future over every land and sea in all the world. We’re bound for the end of the world, the place where people jump off, you know, and I am not so very sure we shan’t eventually reach it. But we mean to return without jumping off.”

And every one only spoke the feelings that were within him.

Coffee generally makes people wakeful. It does not if taken in the Arctic or Antarctic. It makes one contented and happy, and even if drunk last thing at night in this pure life-giving air, you get sleepy as soon as you have wriggled into your bag, and doze off almost, though not quite, before you have said your prayers. Still you have no fear. Somehow there seems to be a protecting Power around you.

“Oh, watch ye well by daylight,
For angels watch at night.”

* * * * *

Before ten days of travel had been accomplished the country had grown very wild indeed, the mountains high and rugged, some volcanic, while many of the valleys they felt they must negotiate were in places half choked with ice-boulders.

They seemed indeed to be glaciers that had been shaken and shattered by earthquake or volcanic force. But this was merely conjecture. At all events it made the progress extremely slow and hard.

The sledges had often to be unpacked and the parcels carried on the ponies’ backs and on those of the good Yak-Yaks quite over the obstructions. The animals of course had little difficulty in getting over the obstacles, but often it fell to the lot of the men to lift and carry the empty sledges.

In clear weather, and it was mostly clear, the plan of getting high up on to some hill was constantly adopted, in order to find out the most likely route.

This was not an agreeable duty, wild and weird although the scenery was. But it was one that usually fell to the lot of Slap-dash himself and one of his men.

Those Eskimos never tired.

Everything considered, they had kept their straight course with very few détours indeed, and, in ten days’ time, had made the very excellent record of a hundred and seventy miles.

Then came a wild blizzard from the south, with sheets of driving snow.

They found shelter behind a friendly precipice, creeping as closely together--men and beasts--as possible, for warmth and protection. The storm, which at times blew with hurricane force, delayed the advance for four and twenty hours.

Most of the time was spent in bag.

Honest MacDonald -- Captain X---- --pooh-poohed the blast. He would not turn into his bag.

“It’s a bit kittle storm,” he admitted; “but, losh! lads, I’ve seen mony a waur in the Hielan’ hills, when tending my father’s bits of sheepies.”

MacDonald had Bobbie Burns’s poems to comfort him, and he drank coffee and spun yarns the whole day long. He was a rare hand at telling a story--especially a fish story--but they couldn’t have been _all_ true. He generally ended every yarn with the words, “But that’s nothing. I’ll gi’e ye anither.”

And each fresh story had a broader base than the previous. Not that they were based on the solid truth.

That day he put a climax to his yarns by telling his listeners seriously that, one morning in the Arctic regions, while on shore in Yak Land, he found a stranded whale. He was looking at it when, “without a moment’s warning, the sky became overcast, and a blizzard, boys, ten times wilder than this, came on to blow.

“A blizzard,” he said, “that would have killed a regiment of Gordon Highlanders!”

“And how did you escape?”

“Crept into the whale’s mouth, of course, and quickly too. But the beggar wasna dead ava. The jaws closed, and I was a prisoner.

“I didn’t know what to dae, gintlemen; and I was getting short o’ breath, and expectin’ every minute the brute would wriggle off, as he was sure to do at high water.

“I was in despair, boys, I can tell ye.”

“I should think so,” said Charlie.

“Suddenly,” said MacDonald, without moving a muscle, “I mindit me that I had a packet o’ a terribly strong explosive in my pouch.

“To think was to act.

“I quickly stuck the long fuze, and raxed[E] my hand wi’ the parcel as far as I could down the awful beast’s gullet.

“Nane ower soon, I can assure you.

“The beast was tickled a bit when I lichtit the fuse, and made at once for the water.

“Whizz--bang! and the whole top of his head was blown off, and I walked on shore!”

“And you weren’t hurt, Mac?”

“Weel, no, mon, but I must alloo I was a wee bit shaken.”

* * * * *

Slap-dash was early to the hill next morning. The weather was as bright and fine as if blizzard had never been blowing.

When he came down his somewhat dirty face was sparkling with joy.

“As far as I can see, sah, top ob dis valley, she is one big big, long long, sea ob snow.”

This was indeed glorious news.

And this tableland, when they got up to it, was found to stretch on for probably twenty miles or more, and Slap-dash was not likely to make a mistake in a matter of this kind.

Merrily they marched on this morning; Ingomar and the rest of the white men--Eskimos are not black, however, when washed--beguiling the way with cheerful conversation and with many a song, in the choruses of which even Dumpty and the Yaks joined.

This was a little Republic, a Republic on the march; and although every respect was paid by the men to their officers and superiors, there was far more real communion than on ordinary occasions; so, on the road, or squatting around in a circle of an evening, the simple sailors were invited to sing and yarn, and they cheerfully responded.

MacDonald was not only the best yarn-spinner but the best singer in the pack. Scottish songs, of course; and what nation has sweeter or more heroic melodies than green Caledonia? But it was strange to hear the rough doric voice raised here in this wild land of snow and ice, whether in love lilts, such as “Annie Laurie,” or in those more than martial songs, which so often led the sons of the heather to death or victory in far-off foreign lands.

MacDonald’s was a voice that seemed to stir the heart-blood of even Gruff. Hear him to-day, for instance, while the great caravan of daring explorers was making its swift but almost silent passage over the tableland, and close to the hills--

“There is many a man of the Cameron clan
That has followed his chief to the field,
And sworn to protect him or die by his side,
For a Cameron never can yield.”

And big, burly MacDonald swung his arm out towards the everlasting hills as he sang the next verse--

“I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding,
Deep o’er yon mountains and glens,
While quick springing footsteps are trampling the heath,
’Tis the march of the Cameron men.”

This was a record day, in every sense of the word--a record in its sunshine, its warmth, its joyfulness, and its mileage covered. Fancy, thirty miles with all those burdens!

* * * * *

Another fortnight and over has passed and gone, and the scene is changed somewhat. A fortnight of almost forced marches, of toils and struggles with nature, most bravely and pluckily borne by all hands. Indeed, there had been an utter absence of selfishness. Every one in sunshine, storm, or tempest, seemed to think of others all the time, and not of himself.

But it had been hard work; oh, ever so hard and toilsome.

And now a camp must be formed, and a hut built--a huge, square igloo, built of blocks of snow or ice in a corner of a glen they had found well sheltered from the chilly southern blasts, on somewhat raised ground, too, so that even a snow blizzard would be little likely to bury them alive. But the construction of the igloo, and the storage of the food for men and beasts, was now to be left to the charge of our heroes, Charlie, Walter, Wright, and MacDonald; for Ingomar, with Curtis and Slap-dash, were to push on now in the lightest and fastest dog-sledges as near to the actual South Pole as it was prudent to get.

The summer is all too brief at the best, and there was not a single day to lose.

They had a good man in Dr. Wright. His Arctic experiences had taught him many a lesson, and he was little likely to make a mistake in anything that concerned the health or feeding of the men and animals under him.

A word about the food supplies. The feeding of the bears and ponies had, before starting, been Wright’s greatest concern, and many an experiment he had made.

All food was to be in the condensed and preserved form, and the biscuits, which had been prepared especially before leaving Britain, contained the best essence of beef. These for dogs, bears, and men. Those for the ponies were simple.

Being so far from their base, the ships near the sea of Ross, they could expect no succour or assistance of any kind; but with the immense dragging power at his command, Dr. Wright had carefully computed that a six months’ supply could be taken at least. In addition to this, they had frozen seal beef for the bears, when doing the heaviest work, and on this, with a biscuit or two a day, they had been hitherto fed. We very naturally believe that bears, being so very large, require a large amount to eat. This is a great mistake. There is no animal I know of who, in proportion to his size, eats less, unless it be the Eskimo dog. Both dogs and bears, in winter, can subsist on hardly anything, provided they have a large amount of sleep.

And now that they had safely reached this far south, and the really heavy work was over, Dr. Wright had a comparatively easy mind. Yet he himself would always superintend the serving-out of the stores, and the feeding of his camp, in the most economical way, and on a scientific basis.

It is this very food difficulty, I believe, and this alone, which prevents the brave hearts of Britain and America from hoisting their flags at the North Pole.

That _is_ going to be reached, and don’t forget what I say, reader. And I think--I will not say I fear--that the Stars and Stripes will float there in the Northless Land before the British.

I call the Arctic Pole the Northless Land, boys, because there the meridians or parallels of longitude all meet at point, and parallels of latitude all begin. There is no longer any east, west, nor north, to the man at the Pole, whose name, I am told, is Cameron. I suppose Cameron’s house is like John o’ Groat’s--a round one. Figuratively speaking, everything is beneath him, and from whichever window he looks he is looking due south. If Cameron has a bit of a garden encircling his house, which, being a Scotsman, he is bound to have, to grow a few potatoes and a bit of kail in, then every time he walks round this garden he walks round the earth, and it would be the same at the South Pole, only _vice versâ_, as a glance at the map will show you. All meridians point due north, as I said before.

It was in the first week of January that Ingomar and Curtis started to make their last record.

Its success would depend in a great measure on how provisions held out. But they had good hopes, good spirits and health; and the dogs, even honest Wallace, had never been in better form, nor fitter.

The instruments which Curtis loaded up were few enough, however, to make observations. But the most important one was the camera, for by turning this twice or thrice daily back upon the scenery they had passed through, they would be enabled to have a pictorial guide back again. The light is not very good in these regions, but it would serve anyhow to give them the outlines, and these would be enough.

“Good-bye, boys. Good-bye. It won’t be for long.”

That was all.

They went away seemingly with light hearts. Yet Charlie and Walter gazed sadly after them, as long as they could be seen.

Then slowly, and in silence, with Nick and Nora by their sides, they returned to camp.