All this time I lived on the food which was stored under the bunk and on the shelves. It was an uninspired diet — Klim, Eskimo biscuits, tomatoes, canned peas, turnip tops, rice, corn meal, lima beans, chocolate, jelly, preserved figs, and I still had some of my mother's wonderful ham. While these dreary things contained adequate nourishment, I did not concentrate on them for this reason alone. It was simply impossible for me, during this bad time, to prepare anything more complicated. Even after the canned stuff had stood for hours near the stove, I often had to break it out with a hammer and chisel. My fingers were burned raw again from touching cold metal; no matter how much food I forced into my stomach or how much clothing I wore, it seemed impossible to revive the heat-generating apparatus of the body. One night, when I felt up to taking a bath (the first in a week), I was horrified to find how close I was to emaciation. My ribs showed through the flesh, and the skin sagged loosely on my arms. I weighed 180 pounds when I went to Advance Base. I doubt if I weighed more than 125 pounds in July.
July 9
I've been feeling like a joke without a laugh or, more apt, like a tortoise on its back. This damnable evenness is getting me. It has been impossible to read or wind up the phonograph lately. I must pull out of it somehow, and the only way I can do it is by invoking help from my faith, which I depended upon last month. For I have lost almost entirely the inner peace which I had almost achieved then, and which I know pulled me through. I must somehow win this inner harmony back. Somewhere I must have got off the track.
July 10
. . Because of the continued cold, I have had to keep the stove going so much that I fear I'm getting a heavy dose of fumes. I know the symptoms well by now — aching eyes, head, and back. It's hard to tell which hurts me more — cold or fumes. I've learned a great deal from trial and error, but I'm still uncertain as to what is the sure middle course between the two.
Last night I couldn't get to sleep, and for the first — and I hope the last — time I took one of those sleeping pills, knowing that if I didn't get to sleep somehow, I shouldn't be able to leave the bag in the morning. I've been very weak all day, and the pill must be to blame. .
July 11
. . I was at low ebb last night. My brain was not only tired but confused. The thirst for light was so intense that in spite of my resolve I finally lighted the pressure lantern and drank in its bright light for half an hour. It was almost like seeing sunlight again, for the gloom went out of the corner, and there was a respite from the everlasting dimness and flickering. .
The trouble with me, I have decided, is that I've been thinking words without feeling their meaning; that I've been repeating my convictions about the universe without feeling their significance. That is how I have wandered from the track. If I could feel as well as assert the truth, I should regain inward peace. .
What made it even harder was losing contact with Little America. Monday the 9th I listened in on the emergency schedule, but heard nothing; this was also true of Tuesday. I gave up calling; the cranking took too much out of me. Clearly, the fault lay with my own apparatus. Every day, hours on end, I fussed with the receiver and transmitter; if I had the set apart once, I had it apart half a dozen times. I pored over the instruction book and the handy guide covering minor adjustments which Dyer had prepared for me. All that I could find wrong with the transmitter was a loose connection. On Tuesday the 12th I hear Dyer calling, very faintly. I tried to reach him. «Hear you. Have had radio trouble. Come in,» I radioed; and in my fanatic eagerness I actually spoke the words. But the code was as futile as the words. I could still hear Dyer calling KFY and asking me to come in, please. Twice, at five-minute intervals, I cranked and spelled out: «Can hear you. All OK here, OK, OK.» That was all I could manage; it never got through. I finished in time to catch Charlie Murphy's voice. What he said was unintelligible. Then silence. It was as if I were sinking in quicksand and calling to a deaf person who did not hear me.
July 14
. . Thank heavens, I seem to have found what's wrong with the radio. I found a loose connection on the antenna lead-in, which was a surprise, since I had examined it the day after the last contact. Ever since then I've been working steadily, checking all connections in the receiver and transmitter, and tightening them.
I don't like this unbroken cold. The temperature sank to -72 degrees by the thermograph, and I had to inject more glycerin into the ink of all the instruments to prevent freezing.
July 15
This has been a day of mixed news. I finally made contact with Little America — which was to the good; but the cranking has left me exhausted — which is to the bad. The most comforting fact is the discovery that the silence has evidently not stirred up Little America. They are still keeping their heads. Although I was terribly anxious to know how they had interpreted my silence, I didn't think it prudent to ask. Also, because I was afraid that Murphy would start cross-examining me, I plunged at once into the instructions I had written out for Poulter. These said: «Return to Little America if you lose trail. Have plenty of flags, gas, food, furs, and tents; but above all, you must be absolutely certain not to lose trail or run out of fuel.»
I could barely hear Dyer say that he got part of it and asking me to repeat, but I simply couldn't. Instead, I finished with a last admonition: «Take no chances with the lives of men.»
Charlie came on then and said how glad they were that contact had been restored. He explained that he wasn't going to ask what had happened because of the many important things he had to take up. He went on to say that, in the event that contact was lost again, they would attempt the trip the first good days after July 20th. Then, when he said that, I realized that the radio silence had been taken in the right way. Charlie added that, if they lost contact with me in the future, they would assume that my receiver was working and they would therefore broadcast information to me at 9:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. As he finished, I heard him say something about the anemometer pole which was incomprehensible. .
When the signal came up, Poulter was talking, carefully and deliberately, as he usually did. The party, he said, would consist of himself, Waite (radio operator), and Skinner (driver), plus Petersen and Fleming — the last two to remain at Advance Base as observers. He expected no great difficulty in navigating the trail but suggested, nevertheless, that at noon, on the days following the start, I fire a can of gasoline which would serve as a beacon.
Harold June talked a little while about the problems of the trip, but I could make out very little of what he said; and when he was done Murphy summed up, repeating himself many times to make sure I understood. What he said, in effect, was that the first attempt was considered experimental; that it was definitely understood no undue risks would be taken; and that if conditions were unfavorable Poulter would return to Little America and wait for better light. «So we'll look for you on Thursday, as usual,» he concluded, «and twice a day thereafter, at the given times.»
All of which was decidedly reassuring. I tried to frame an acknowledgment, but my strength was drained dry. Dyer was asking me to repeat as I signed off.
[By the Little America log: ". . Byrd said then: 'O.K. listen ten minutes every day mhindh dolkng k.' Dyer asked him to repeat. There came a wicked whine of the generator as he cranked; then 'So long.' We called to sign off. . no answer.»]
* * *
Even now, after four years, the whole business sounds fantastic. I was lying, because there was nothing else for me to do. But at Little America they were lying, too. The difference was that they were coming to suspect that I was lying and, even as they divined that I was concocting a fiction to mislead them, so they in turn concocted their own brand to mislead me.
It seems that sometime in the last week in June Charlie Murphy began to feel that something was wrong at Advance Base. He had nothing tangible upon which to hang his suspicions — «nothing but my imagination and intuitions and, paradoxically, the absence of news from you,» as he put the matter later. But the suspici
on was there; and, sitting at the other end of the radio channel, watching my messages take shape on Dyer's typewriter, he was like a doctor with a finger on a man's pulse. The loss of communications in July gave Murphy's suspicions something tangible to feed upon; and they grew as he noted my floundering with the hand-cranked set, the all but unintelligible code, and the long waits between the words, which to him were not easily explained except by physical weakness.
However, the rest of the men at Little America refused at first to take him seriously. It was argued that he was not psychic and that my deficiencies with the radio were only to be expected. Yet, this notwithstanding, the idea that I was in trouble would not be downed in Murphy's mind.
Although Poulter has always insisted that he was not influenced by Murphy's intuitions when he took up the proposal for the meteor trip to Advance Base, I have my doubts; knowing his gallantry, I have come to suspect increasingly as time has gone on that he told me this to spare my feelings. But I do know that, when he and Murphy started making plans for the meteor trip to Advance Base, they ran into a stone-wall opposition. Under what might be considered the constitutional government which I had set up in Little America, they were obliged to take up all important propositions with the group of sixteen officers who constituted the staff and who had veto power by a two-thirds vote over any act of the executive officers. The struggle was close and, from what I've been told, rather heated. The argument went on for days; the caves at Little America seethed with dissension. The crux of the opposition was the lack of any specific permission from me to come to Advance Base before daylight. It was argued that my original strict instructions had forbidden just such a night journey under any conditions; and it was pointed out that in authorizing the early base-laying trip, I had specifically cautioned Poulter not to start until there was ample light.
But Murphy stood on his intuitions and insisted upon decisive action, even though he admitted before the staff that he had nothing concrete to go on. «I grant you,» he told them, «that an intuition is pretty poor stuff to allow men to take risks on; but, if I am right, and you are wrong, we'll never forgive ourselves.» On his side, Poulter argued earnestly on behalf of the sheer worth of the meteor observations. But, to certain of the men, many of them navy or ex-navy ratings habituated to arbitrary orders, the proposed trip was a deliberate evasion of an explicit command, a reckless dash supported merely by a hunch, and a potential disaster which might bring disgrace upon the leader and themselves. If, as they surmised, this was to be a relief journey, common sense and the leader's instructions required that the man supposedly in need of assistance first be asked directly whether he needed it.
This Murphy would not do, on the ground that the man at Advance Base, if these facts were laid before him, would have no alternative but to veto the journey. His argument was that they could do two things in one throw: provide Poulter with the base line he needed for his observations and, at the same time, find out whether I was all right. It was on this basis that he and Poulter finally persuaded the staff to approve. Thus the field was left clear for them to continue selling the trip to me as purely a meteor project, knowing full well that I should not be apt to stand in the way of one of Poulter's big scientific projects. The instant I gave my consent, hedged in as it was, they felt they had a free hand. If Poulter found me well, so much the better; he would simply set up his meteor equipment, and no one need be the wiser except that Charlie Murphy might never hear the end of his fiasco as a polar medium. On the other hand, if I were actually in trouble, the double purpose would have been served.
During all this uproar and even while I was out of communication, they were assuring me that all was well, preparations for the meteor trip were moving smoothly, no weighty difficulties were anticipated, and they were looking forward to seeing me soon.
All this I know now. I could not know it in July, 1934; and Charlie Murphy took excellent care that I should have no reason to suspect anything. In the four years that have intervened, the story has come to me in fragments; even now I doubt that I know it all. The men who were closest to the crux of affairs have elected to keep their side of the story pretty much to themselves; the others have only a fact or two, plus their own ideas of what happened. But, since these events are as much a part of the story of Advance Base as my own misfortunes, I have felt bound to tell what I now know.
Chapter Eleven — JULY II: THE TRACTORS
Ever so slowly the day was expanding in the northern sky. The varied colors lasted half an hour or so; and the gray dawn-light lingered for an hour on either side of noon. One day, on the hump of drift in the stovepipe's lee, I sat and watched the light wax and wane, telling myself that soon, beyond the Barrier's roll, the yellow blur of a tractor's headlights would show. But I could not bear to think of this for long; I had been through too much to risk fresh disappointment. If they do come, it will be a great thing, I told myself; but, if they turn back, you will certainly be no worse off than you are. When the dawn-light faded, the aurora sprang like an open fan across the sky; for a few minutes the Barrier glistened whitely. I could see for miles; and, though I may have been misled by shadows, I counted three flags, equal to half a mile, on the Little America road.
July 16
Today, for no reason that I can define, my hopes have risen that the tractor party will actually get through. Poulter is a hard man to stop, and I know the men will be safe in his hands. I really think I feel a little better, perhaps because my hopes now have the facts of the preparations at Little America to feed on. Yet, it has been terribly cold; the temperature today has been in the minus fifties. Yesterday it touched -68 degrees; the day before -71 degrees and the day before that was -71 degrees also.
July 17
. . The thermograph trace touched -61 degrees today, but is now pushing up into the minus forties. I am praying that this will be the end of this cold spell. Today the kerosene congealed in the drums, and a primus stove left burning in the tunnel had little effect. I therefore had to keep the shack door open all afternoon, and the warmth spreading into the tunnel finally loosened the liquid so that I was able to siphon it off. But all this made the shack almost unbearably cold.
On Wednesday the 18th the cold started to break up. The wind, which had been funneling down through the Queen Mauds with the persistency of a trade wind, worked its way through west into north. In that quarter it freshened; the temperature climbed to -28 degrees. Next day the wind blew a little harder, shooting the temperature to a maximum of -23 degrees. I welcomed the change, because the break-up of the cold, though certain to be brief, promised well for the tractor party. However, it was a mixed blessing; for the winds which brought warmth also brought drift, adding to the difficulties of navigation. Indeed, Little America informed me in the afternoon over the radio schedule that a blizzard was whaling the camp and the visibility was zero. However, the meteorologists were forecasting that it would soon blow itself out. «Weather permitting,» Murphy said, «the tractor will put out at 6 o'clock in the morning.» He asked me to stand by for a weather report at that time.
«Can you make it that early without an alarm clock?» he asked.
«Think so.»
«Is there anything you want them to bring out?»
«Yes, bromide of sodium, cod-liver oil, glucose.»
«Well, we'll see how the Southern Mail works out,» Charlie said. «Incidentally, Poulter is taking along three months' rations; and he has made for himself a really ingenious searchlight out of scrap metal.»
As before, it was difficult to hear. Even with the most delicate adjustment, I was lucky to catch more than two words out of four. The fault, as I discovered long afterwards, lay in a loose connection deep within the maze of wiring of the receiver. Consequently, I had to ask them to repeat many messages, just as they had to ask me to repeat mine. I was fagged out from the cranking. It was all I could do to pump more than a word or two at a time. I had to ask them to wait while I rested.
«Sorry to make you
crank again,» Charlie said.
Thrashing around for a plausible explanation, I remembered how I had injured my arm late in March. He knew about that. «Have bad arm, hard to crank,» I told him.
«Very bad?» he wanted to know.
«No, but bothersome cranking.»
Just before we shut down, a change was made in the future schedules. Commencing at noon next day, Friday the 20th, Little America would broadcast progress bulletins to me every four hours. Although they would listen, it would not be necessary for me to reply unless I had instructions to give. Dyer's closing contribution was a time tick which he had picked up just a few hours before from Arlington.
What with the excitement over the start and the fear that I might not wake up in time for the 6 a.m. schedule, I scarcely slept that night. Before turning in, I filled the thermos jug with water and tucked it and the two remaining heat pads in at the foot of the sleeping bag. The realization that in a few hours men would actually be starting from Little America made me forget the pain. I wrote in the diary: ". . This is such wonderful news that I can't seem to grasp the fact that I am actually about to see people again. For there have been many times when I was convinced that I hadn't the slightest chance of seeing a human being again. And the auspicious fact is that the weather has turned warm. It is a good omen. The red trace has swung up to the minus-thirty-degree line. For once everything seems to be breaking in the right direction. All this makes me feel as if I had had a shot in the arm. But there is no denying that I am still very, very weak. . "
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