Shackleton's Heroes (21 page)

T
HE TWO PARTIE
S
, one with Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild, the other of Joyce, Richards, Hayward, Cope, Jack, Gaze and the four dogs, continued on south. On 1 January they were well past the Bluff depot and coming up to the 80°S depot location. They were about 250 miles from Mount Hope.

The two parties continued to travel separately – Mackintosh's party travelled during the night-time hours and Joyce's party during daytime hours – but they now stayed reasonably close to each other. They travelled by the clock, not the sun's daylight hours, because at that time of the year the sun did not set, circling between 2° and 5° above the horizon. At this stage, Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild were man-hauling, each man attached directly to the sledge. Joyce's team were also man-hauling – heavier loads, but with the assistance of the four dogs. In his party Joyce was in the lead, followed by the dogs in a single file attached to Joyce's rope, which went back to the sledge. The other five men were attached to the sledge.

They had some clear days where the sun could be so hot that it scorched their skin and they had to wear a large sun hat. But the cold in the shade under the hat was such that their ‘moustaches and whiskers became frosted and covered with ice, making their nostrils sting and tingle painfully'.
1

Joyce's party of six men had two primus burners, one for each tent, but one started to play up. Joyce was undecided on whether to have his team stay together to help take stores to the 81°S depot point, or to send back three men at 80°S. They attempted to fix the primus by putting a wire ring made from a dog muzzle inside the primus burner to try to prolong its life. The primus then seemed to be working reasonably well, cooking their hoosh in nineteen minutes where the specified time was twenty minutes, so the heating capacity was not affected.
2
However, on 5 January Joyce made the decision to send back three of his party.

Mackintosh's intentions were that he, Spencer-Smith and Wild would be the only party to go all the way out to Mount Hope, with Joyce's party turning back at some stage. On the first day of the year he issued Joyce with more written instructions.

Hayward summarised Mackintosh's plan: ‘1 Jan: After some discussion
it was decided & written instruction given to Joyce that he, Richards & I were to go as far as possible taking into account quantity of stores available, whilst Jack, Cope & Gaze were to return at 81°S.'
4

Wild: ‘1 Jan: The other party are about ½ mile ahead. We've just had a good feed of seal meat & pemmican & finished up with cocoa & raisons.'
5

Joyce: ‘1 Jan: Skipper keeping up pretty fair. Dogs going well. Towser still short winded I have to stop every ¼ of an hour + give him 5 minutes spell. Work too hard for them.

‘Distance during day 9-1200, a splendid performance on this surface.'
6

Spencer-Smith: ‘2 Jan: The track of the others crossed ours at about one mile, almost at right angles. We can see them now far away to the right, probably they wandered in the mist.'
7

Joyce:

Hayward: ‘Before reaching depot at 80° S primus in my tent went bang & Joyce with our approval decided that it would be best to bring into force the above mentioned arrangement on reaching the depot @ 80°.'
9

Wild: ‘3 Jan: I'm just going to cut my whiskers & mous.'
10

Spencer-Smith's thoughts were of home: ‘3 Jan: Spent the afternoon in a motor picnic to Stobo
*
with T&V and telling fairy tales to K&XXX.'
11

Joyce:

Joyce:

On 6 January Joyce's team reached and stocked the 80°S depot. Cope, Gaze and Jack then turned back to the north. Later that day, the party of Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild met the three men heading northwards. Irvine Gaze spoke to Spencer-Smith and told him that he believed Joyce wanted to go on to Mount Hope and meet Shackleton.
14

Joyce:

Hayward:

Spencer-Smith: ‘At about 3.45 met Cope, Irvine and Jack sent back with a defective primus. They gave us news of Joyce's plans and also 1 lb of onions and of pair of finnesko. Joyce carrying 11 weeks has 4 hours start on us, we have 5 weeks. “TimeoDanaosetdonaferentes”.'
17

(His Latin quote translates to ‘I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts', which may have meant beware of Joyce. However, none of the others wrote of Joyce's supposed intention to go on to Mount Hope and Richards made no mention of it in any of his later interviews.)

Wild: ‘We met Cope, Jack & Gaze three miles off going back. Something the matter with their primus. The others have got 4 hours start on us. I hope we will catch them up in a couple of days.'
18

Now heading south with 210 miles to Mount Hope were six men, the ‘Mount Hope Party'. They continued to travel as two teams: Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild in one, and Joyce, Hayward and Richards, with the four dogs, in the other.

As they went south, they laid cairns, to help guide them on their return journey. Every quarter or half an hour they would stop and erect a cairn of snow about 4 or 5 feet high. They would back-steer using a cairn behind them if the visibility was poor, but primarily the cairns were set up as a guide for their way back – they would simply travel from one cairn to the other. At this time Richards started taking a bearing of the cairn that was
behind using a prismatic compass and record this bearing in a note book. He did not really know why he started doing this; he recalled years later that he seemed to have an idea in his mind that it ‘might become useful'.
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As it turned out these bearings were crucial to their survival.

On 7 January, Mackintosh's party were some miles behind but they then made Herculean efforts to catch up – travelling over eleven hours to do so. It is not clear from any diaries why they wanted to travel with Joyce. Mackintosh may have seen his party falling too far behind. Joyce's team with the dogs may have looked to be travelling with less effort. He may have noticed Spencer-Smith weakening or he may have been concerned with his own physical state. But it seems more likely that Gaze's comment to Spencer-Smith, that Joyce was out to reach Mount Hope first, may have spurred Mackintosh on to catch up with Joyce.

That night Spencer-Smith made a long note in Latin, running the words all together in his diary and these words in Latin were Spencer-Smith's only mention of his discussions with his cousin Irvine Gaze. It appears that Spencer-Smith now believed that Joyce was out to win the ‘prize' – that being to reach Mount Hope before Mackintosh. It seems likely that he would have discussed this with Mackintosh, resulting in them making every effort to catch up with Joyce, which they did, just before midnight.

Joyce:

Hayward:

Joyce:

Wild: ‘Did 15½ miles & caught the others up. We had 2 lunches though & marched 11 hours. The first 10 miles were alright, fair wind & good surface, but after that the wind dropped & surface got very bumpy. Still we caught them.'
23

Spencer-Smith: ‘
Quibusautemcognitis, ne fraudesummemlaudem aliiacciperent (!) noslongoitinereadeorumcastraprogressisumus Ad mediamnoctemdefessicastraposuimus post 11½ horas in via
.'
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(The quote translates to: Learning of this, however, to prevent others winning the first prize by trickery (!) we advanced by a long way towards their camp, to the middle of the night, worn out with the camp we have put after 11½ hours.)

At the start of 8 January the six men were just over 200 miles from Mount Hope. In the morning Mackintosh talked with Joyce and it appears that Mackintosh did not want Joyce's team to go on to Mount Hope.

Joyce: ‘Skipper had me in his tent + told me fresh plans. I think I shall have to disobey him again as I am sure if we are left to go as we are going we can easily lay this Depot. If it is not laid it will be to his bungling.'
25

Hayward:

Joyce: