The Winter Pony

by Iain Lawrence

  “I’ve promised him the Pole.”

  Mr. Oates looked at my friend with a strange expression. “I’ll do all that I can,” he said. And he did. He walked me around and around in my own tracks. He sent Patrick for a hot blanket and rubbed it on my belly. Then he said, “Patrick, do you think you might fetch my boots?”

  Soon I was feeling a bit better. The creature inside still pulled at my belly, but he was fading away. I enjoyed trudging through the cold with Mr. Oates, as the southern lights danced through the sky above us. The snow crunched under our feet, and Mr. Oates talked about things that were silly and things that were not.

  “So Patrick’s promised you the Pole,” he said. “Poor fellow. Does he really think he’s going?”

  A shimmer of blue spread across the sky above us. Mr. Oates watched it flicker and fade. “We can’t all go trooping off toward the Pole like a lot of schoolboys. It’s only a few who’ll get the chance,” he said. “Oh, we’ll all do the work. We’ll hump everything up and over that glacier. But just a few will go on from there. Just a few will get the glory.”

  We walked around the circle. I could feel Mr. Oates thinking, a big whirl of thoughts going through his mind.

  “I’m not at all sure if I’ll get the chance. But given the choice, who could say no?” he asked.

  We stayed out there for hours, though the night was bitterly cold. The creature died inside me, the pain went away, and I felt like eating again. When Mr. Oates took me back to my stall, I tucked right into my dinner. Captain Scott came to see me, looking very worried. But I already felt a lot better, and by morning, I was good as new.

  According to the stick in the wooden box, it was sixty degrees below zero in the winter night. Though the blubber stove sizzled away, the cold came up through the ground and filled every corner of the stable.

  My skin grew itchy. Some of the other ponies were itchy as well, and we rubbed ourselves against the walls of the stable. We rolled in the ice whenever we could. We rubbed our hair away in great patches, but the itching went on until the men discovered that lice were living in our hair. Then Mr. Oates washed us down with water and tobacco, and that took care of the lice.

  Bones got colic next. He nearly died, but Mr. Oates got him through it. And after that, there were no more troubles. Spring was really coming, and the sun was out for hours every day, stretching his legs across the northern sky.

  Every man worked to get ready for the big push to the Pole. Birdie Bowers sorted out his stores and supplies. Mr. Meares began to practice with his dogs, and others tinkered with the dreadful motor sledges.

  Captain Scott supervised it all. He came nearly every day to the stable, looked us over and talked to Mr. Oates. “I’m relying on this lot,” he said. “If they don’t hold up, we lose the Pole.”

  Mr. Oates was doing his best. He made fancy new blankets that would keep us warmer on the Barrier. Then he tried out different ways to stop the sun from blinding us. First he dyed our forelocks darker. Then he made us little fringes, but Jehu ate mine right away. So he made us bonnets instead, with visors to shield our eyes.

  At the same time, Captain Scott experimented with our snowshoes. He wanted them bigger, but not so big that they’d trip us up. I thought they might work, but I didn’t like to wear them. It didn’t feel right to walk around with baskets on my feet. One of the sailors had a different idea, things like baggy socks that slid right over our hooves. But he couldn’t figure out how to hold them on. In the end, when Captain Scott gave up, I wasn’t disappointed.

  Every day, the dogs dashed around for exercise, one team racing another with their funny little sledges. The sun kept moving higher, and the days grew slowly warmer.

  In the north, I had always liked to see the springtime come. All the plants put on their leaves. Animals traded their heavy coats for lighter ones. Snow disappeared, and rivers rose, and the whole world seemed to change.

  But here it was different. Everything looked pretty much the same, just a little warmer and brighter.

  The only thing that really changed was the men. The sun perked them up like the northern plants, making them straighter and stronger. They laughed more often, though only on the outside. I could feel their worries growing bigger and bigger as they got ready to leave for the Pole.

  Amundsen has had a busy winter at the place he calls Framheim. He emerges from it with better tents and lightened sledges, with new bindings for the skis, new whips to drive the dogs along. Every man will have a face mask, every driver a chart to follow.

  On August 23, with a temperature colder than forty below, he hoists the sledges from the underground workrooms where they’ve been readied and loaded. Each one weighs 880 pounds. He harnesses the dogs in teams of twelve and gives them their first pull of the season, three miles uphill to the starting point for the depot journeys. The old tracks of the sledges are still plain on the surface, stretching away to the south.

  He unharnesses the dogs and turns them loose to run home for the hut. The rest of that day, and all the next, are spent gathering dogs that are scattered across the Barrier.

  For the first time since April, the sun rises over the Barrier.

  With his sledges loaded at their starting point, Amundsen is ready to head off for the Pole. He is waiting only for the weather to warm.

  It’s the twenty-fourth of August.

  The Norwegian finds waiting less pleasant than winter. “I always have the idea that I am the only one who is left behind, while all the others are out on the road,” he writes later. He records a conversation heard daily at Framheim:

  “I’d give something to know how far Scott is today.”

  “Oh, he’s not out yet, bless you! It’s much too cold for his ponies.”

  “Ah, but how do you know they have it as cold as this? I expect it’s far warmer where they are, among the mountains, and you can take your oath they’re not lying idle. Those boys have shown what they can do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MY hair at last figured out the seasons and started thinning for the summer that was now on the way. I wished it wasn’t quite so quick. Already patchy from the lice, it left me rather chilly in the southern wind.

  The other ponies felt the same. Winter had made us a bit lazy, and we liked to stay in the warm stable. But the men took us out two by two to get us used to working.

  So the bad ponies—Nobby, Christopher, and Victor—played a mean sort of game, breaking loose whenever they could, just to see the men chase them all over the place. Like enormous rabbits, they darted from here to there. When they got tired of that and went back to the stable, the other bad ponies cheered them with squeals and kicks.

  The worst was Christopher—of course. He made life a misery for poor Mr. Oates, who was always so patient and kind. Christopher tried to wreck the sledges; he tried to bite the men. He sometimes had four of them struggling all at once to wrestle him into his harness. I thought he was wicked and savage, but it was still sad to see him when he’d lost the battle. Down on his knees with his front legs hobbled, his great chest shaking as he breathed, he looked broken. But he kept a look of defiance in his eyes, and he started up again the first chance he got.

  The sun came back at the end of August. In September, we began our training runs.

  The stronger ponies, like Uncle Bill and Snatcher and Bones, went happily back to work, heaving their sledges through the new snow. For me, it was a bit of a struggle. I found the surface too soft, the air too cold. For Jehu, it was nearly impossible.

  He looked tired. He looked old and miserable. Captain Scott was very worried about the little pony and decided that Jehu was too weak for the trek to the Pole. Scott had him unharnessed and put back in the stable.

  Jehu was pleased at first, until he realized that he was going to be left behind when the rest of us struck out for the Pole. At the thought of that, he found a new strength, and from then on pulled just as hard as old Chinaman. Why, he pulled nearly as hard as me!

  I
n October, everything was ready. We waited only for the weather, for the snow to harden on the ice.

  Captain Scott sent off the motor party first, in the middle of the month. The two machines, with four men to help them, went banging across the ice, farting puffs of smoke.

  The men cheered. Even I, who hated the motors, felt something stir inside me as I watched them crawl away toward the Pole, flinging up snow from their rotating runners. They seemed like brave and steadfast things dragging their little sleds, willing to march forever.

  Big Taff Evans was amazed. “My, sir,” he said to Captain Scott. “I reckon if them things can go on like that, you wouldn’t want nothing else.”

  But even as we watched and waved, the first machine broke down. It sat quiet and sullen, bleeding oil onto the snow. The men carried a bit of it back for repairs, as though they’d saved the heart of the thing.

  I didn’t sleep that night, knowing that I’d be on my way in the morning. Our sledges were waiting, our traces were sorted out. Birdie Bowers was going over his stores one more time, and Captain Scott was checking lists.

  In my stall I heard the wind rise. I heard it whine and moan. Soon came the patter of whirling snow, and I knew a blizzard had begun.

  It buried the sledges. It covered the trail to the lonely place and pinned us down for days.

  On the twenty-third of October, the motor sledges tried again, only to break down for a second time at the edge of the ice. Captain Scott was terribly disappointed. But after a night’s rest, the motors must have felt a bit better, because they went roaring away on the twenty-fourth, over the ice and around the tongue of the glacier.

  There was another wait for us, as another blizzard blew, and it wasn’t until the last day of the month that our journey began.

  The teams of dogs went first, one driven by Mr. Meares, the other by his Russian. Untroubled by the hollows and drifts of fresh snow, the dogs took off at a run, barking like lunatics.

  Captain Scott watched them rather sadly. He shuffled his feet in the snow, his head hanging down, and he looked to me like a boy who had lost a great game.

  An hour later, I was the very first pony to strike out for the Pole. I thought it was a great honor, and I didn’t understand why I shared it only with Jehu, and not with any other ponies. Little Jehu was the weakest of all, so worn down by the winter that Captain Scott feared he might not even make it to the lonely place. This was a test, not a journey, for Jehu. If he couldn’t travel this first little bit, he would be left behind.

  I liked Jehu. He was quiet and gentle. He always did what he was told. But best of all, he was slower than me. With Jehu, I never had to worry about falling behind.

  “Ready, James Pigg?” asked Patrick that day. We stood outside the hut—two ponies and two men. He held on to my rope, and together we took our first step to the Pole. Behind us, Jehu followed with Mr. Atkinson. It was very exciting. Never before in my life had I been a leader.

  We took our second step. We took our third. I thought I might count them all the way to the Pole, just to see how many there were. But after seven, I forgot.

  Our sledges were lightly loaded. We followed the tracks of the motor sledges, through fresh snow that lay in rolling drifts. Underneath, the ice was good and solid, and we had none of the trouble we’d seen before. There were no holes to swallow me up, no killer whales to drag me down. In less than six hours, we reached the old hut at the lonely place, and though Jehu was breathing heavily—well, so was I—he surprised the men by moving along so quickly.

  The old hut at the lonely place had a wide verandah. The men took us straight up the steps and left us tethered to a post under its roof. They soon had a fire burning inside, with smoke drifting from the stovepipe.

  It was a very cold night. I expected to shiver right through it, unsleeping. The wind gusted around the corners of the hut and whirled under the roof above me. When Patrick came out through the door, I hoped he was bringing more blankets, maybe one that he’d heated by the stove if I was very lucky. But his hands were empty.

  He untied my tether line. “Come along, James Pigg,” he said, tugging me forward.

  I didn’t want to go down to the snow, into the wind. There wasn’t a lot of shelter where I was, but I did have a little, and I wished I could stay there. But if Patrick wanted me out on the snow-covered ice, that was where I’d go. I followed him along the verandah, my hooves clomping on the wood.

  “Good lad,” he said.

  To my huge surprise, we didn’t go down to the snow. At the door, we turned the other way and went right inside the hut. It was warm in there, nicely lit with paraffin lamps. It smelled of spice and beef, because Mr. Atkinson was making dinner on a Primus stove that roared away on a table. Patrick left me in the middle of the room and went back to fetch little Jehu.

  I had always wondered what it was like in a house. I had imagined a stable for people, with stalls for sleeping, troughs for eating, because that was all I’d ever known. I didn’t know that men had padded beds stacked one above another, or lots of chairs, and little things scattered all around. I watched Patrick eat his dinner. Then I watched him stretch out on a bed and read a book.

  It was so warm and pleasant in there that I hoped the snow would bury the hut, that the four of us could live inside it forever. I thought what a very different life I’d come to, and what a fortunate little pony I was.

  Mr. Atkinson lay down on a different bed. He stuffed a pipe with tobacco and lit it, then puffed big bubbles of smoke toward the ceiling. I watched Patrick turn the pages of his book. He turned quite a few before he looked at me over the top of them. I could see in his eyes that he was smiling. “Hello, James Pigg,” he said.

  Mr. Atkinson blew another smoke bubble. It rolled up from his mouth and flattened on the ceiling. “That pony never takes his eyes off you,” he said. “Have you noticed that, Patrick? He adores you.”

  “Well, now, I don’t see why,” said Patrick, all red and smiling. He lowered his book and looked right back.

  I could feel his fondness for me. At that moment, I was almost overcome with happiness. But his next words crushed me.

  “You know, he doesn’t seem as bad as Titus says. Or Scott. Not to me, he doesn’t.” Patrick turned his head to look at Mr. Atkinson. “He’s not such a crock, is he?”

  Mr. Atkinson sighed. “I’m no judge of horses,” he said. “He’s better than mine, no doubt. But that’s not saying a lot.”

  With that, Mr. Atkinson put away his pipe. He wriggled down into his sleeping bag, drawing the top of it right over his head. Jehu stood beside me, muzzling his own feet to pick away the loose skin.

  “He’s such a plucky little fellow,” said Patrick, watching me again. “I think he’s strong enough to reach the Pole. I think he’ll do it. And don’t I know him better than anyone else?”

  Mr. Atkinson grunted. “I’m not sure that it matters,” he said in a sleepy voice.

  “What do you mean?” asked Patrick.

  “I don’t believe any of them will get to the Pole.”

  That surprised me. It surprised Patrick too. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Up the Beardmore? I just can’t see ponies trekking up a glacier.” Mr. Atkinson yawned again and rolled over in the sleeping bag. He looked like a big caterpillar. “I don’t think Scott will try it.”

  Mr. Atkinson was a doctor. His interests were tapeworms and things, not ponies. I thought he was talking rubbish, but Patrick believed him. “Do you mean they’ll turn back?” he asked. “At the Beardmore? Will I have to turn back too?”

  There was no answer from Mr. Atkinson, only a muffled sort of grunt that might have been a snore. Outside, a gust of wind whistled around the roof. Beside me, Jehu raised his head and made a muttering sound with his lips.

  “They will turn back, won’t they?” asked Patrick.

  He sounded worried now, but I didn’t know why. If we couldn’t go up the glacier, we would have to turn back. What choice could there be?
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  The others arrived in the afternoon of the next day, just before another blizzard. I saw them through the window, a long line of men and ponies and sledges weaving out from a thickening sky. All the sledges were lightly loaded, and the big ponies moved quickly. Snatcher was in the lead, plowing steadily through the drifts. Way at the back was Chinaman, plodding along like an old woman.

  That night, as the wind blasted, three ponies stayed in the hut. Chinaman kept waking the men by stamping on the floor, but no one turned him out into the blizzard. They just lay with their hands over their ears, sometimes laughing and sometimes cursing.

  It was a pleasant night despite the wind, away from the wretched dogs, who had stayed behind at the winter station with Mr. Meares and the Russian. I would have liked to stay longer at the lonely place, now that it wasn’t so lonely. But with the Barrier covered in fresh snow, we moved out late in that same day, to travel in the coldest hours.

  When I was sent first, with Jehu and Chinaman, I knew for certain that I was a crock. We were so slow that we needed a head start. Mr. Oates and the others were just beginning to wrestle with Christopher when Patrick led me off. He carried a compass but watched for the fading tracks of the motor sledges, now just shallow bands that were sometimes hard to see.

  The sun swooped low and disappeared as we walked along to the south. But soon he rose again and wheeled across the sky as though in a great hurry to get ahead of us. Patrick had his goggles on, while I wore my new dark fringes clipped to my halter. The gleam of the Barrier shimmered right through them, but it was hard to see very much. When Patrick called out to the others—“What’s that up there, do you think?”—I had to squint and turn my head, and I still couldn’t tell what he was looking at.

  Mr. Atkinson came up beside us. He lifted his goggles and held a hand above his eyes as Jehu nibbled at my shoulder. “Hard to tell in this light,” he said. “I think it’s a tent. Seems a long way away.”