The Winter Pony

by Iain Lawrence

  We couldn’t pull our sledges through snow like that. So the men settled down with cups of tea, and all of us waited. And we waited some more.

  The coldness came back as the sun swooped toward the Barrier. A crust formed on the snow, and everything froze again. But still we waited. By the time the men had slept and woken, I was desperately hungry. I scraped at the snow to tell Mr. Oates I was looking for food.

  Of course he understood. He came and rubbed my neck, trying to stir up a warmth inside me. “There’s no more,” he said. “Not a handful of forage, not a scrap of oil cake. I’m sorry, James Pigg. It’s gone.”

  I couldn’t believe that Captain Scott would make us march without food, or that Mr. Oates would let him. But while the sun was climbing up again behind the clouds, the men got ready for the march.

  Traces and harnesses were laid out. The tents were struck and packed onto sledges. The dogs came awake, and for them there was plenty of food.

  Patrick fed me another piece of biscuit—just a little scrap. I knew he was offering his own food, but I couldn’t help eating it. I gobbled it greedily from his hand. Oh, I felt like a lucky pony, but not so lucky as Nobby. He got every one of Mr. Wilson’s biscuits—all five, one after the other. From the look on Mr. Wilson’s face, I guessed he was feeding his pony for the very last time.

  The snow hadn’t frozen. It was still powdery and soft, in most places as deep as a pony’s belly. The men had to wear their skis to stay on top of it.

  We had a dozen miles to go, and no more food to eat. I wondered if there was a cache of fodder waiting at the Beardmore. Or would that be the end for all of us?

  The men led the way. The big sailor Taff Evans and his crew headed off with their sledge, laboring through the drifts. Captain Scott and Birdie Bowers took another, trying to make a trail for the ponies. They hauled their sledges half a mile, then came back without them. “Right. Let’s get the ponies moving,” said Captain Scott.

  Snatcher was first. A crowd of men gathered behind his sledge and pushed it, while Mr. Oates pulled on the tether. Snatcher moved forward. He leapt up in his traces and plunged into snow to his waist. He had to struggle out of the hole he’d made, only to sink into another. The men pushed and pulled and got him moving, then came down the line to help old Bones.

  I was the last. I saw Bones get started, and Snippets and Nobby. They looked like sea lions wallowing over waves of snow. It was no easier for the men, already exhausted and covered in white. By the time they reached me, they were sullen. They were silent. I didn’t like the feelings that came off them, filling the air like smoke. There was bitterness and anger and dreadful impatience.

  A man grabbed my halter. It was the Russian, the dog driver, and it didn’t matter to him that Patrick was there already. He just grabbed and pulled. He shouted at me in Russian, commanding me to move.

  The one word brought back such terror. I remembered a hundred whippings that had begun with that word, a clubbing that had left me senseless, a bottle breaking on my shoulder.

  The man shouted again. He wrenched on my halter.

  Patrick pushed his arm away. “You leave him alone,” he snapped. “He’s my pony. I know how to handle him.”

  For Patrick, I tried my best. I pulled with every bit of strength I had, while the men pushed the sledge from behind. My traces went slack, and I hurled myself at the harness. The sledge moved along, though it slithered to one side and tried to pull me over. But I kept my balance and struggled down the broken path of ponies and sledges and men.

  “Good lad,” said Patrick. “Good lad, James Pigg.”

  I wanted to keep going. But I couldn’t. The snow was too deep. I was too hungry, too tired and cold. I took three more steps, then collapsed in the snow.

  I dragged Patrick with me. He fell forward and sideways, sprawling out across the snow.

  The Russian hit me with a ski stick, a sharp smack across my flanks. It was more shocking than painful, but I shrieked. Patrick roared at the man: “Get away!” Then Captain Scott was there, standing over us on his skis, looking down with his old look of worry and care.

  I knew he would end the march right there. He would tell the men to pitch the tents, to rebuild the wall. He would send Mr. Meares with his dogs to fetch the fodder we’d left behind, and we’d eat our fill and everything would be all right. He would make new snowshoes that would hold us up with their magic, and we would glide across the snow as though it was grass and clover.

  But he didn’t do any of that. He looked down at Patrick and said, quite coldly, “If the animal won’t move, you’ll have to drive him.”

  Patrick was on his knees beside me. He looked back at the captain as though he didn’t understand.

  “Do whatever it takes. Just get him moving,” said Captain Scott. “The sooner it’s over, the better.” He had the points of his sticks resting on his skis, leaning his weight on the handles. “We have to get out of this …” He gestured with one of the sticks, sweeping the point in an arc. “This slough of despair.”

  The Russian grabbed my halter and hauled me up. He twisted on the leather, forcing me backward. “Up! Up!” he shouted in Russian. Patrick looked terribly sad, but he didn’t try to stop him. Captain Scott watched with an expression that was more disgust than satisfaction, then turned his skis around and went off along the line.

  From ahead came the smack of leather, the frightened squeal of a pony. I saw Snippets trying to leap through the snow, a man lashing his shoulders with a harness strap. The Russian raised his hand and brought the ski stick whistling down onto my back. I struggled up, trying to watch Patrick. But he looked into my eyes for an instant, then turned away.

  A slough of despair. The captain had the right words exactly. The Barrier was more a bog than a snowfield, and we mired in it, everyone of us. The soft snow dragged us down like quicksand and held us in place as we tried to move forward. It swallowed the sledges until the men had to lever them out. And through the air flew the shouts of men, the sound of ponies screaming.

  I saw Mr. Oates strike at Snippets with a tether rope—again and again—as the pony wallowed on his knees. I saw Cherry hitting Bones so hard that his glass eyes were flung askew. And even Patrick lashed me with a tether.

  They didn’t beat us with the cruel pleasure of my old Russian masters. They didn’t leer as they did it. They didn’t laugh. But they did it. They hit us; they shouted; they drove us along.

  I felt betrayed.

  For the first time in my life, I wished I was a dog. Maybe Captain Scott wished for it to, because this was a place that was meant for dogs, not for ponies. Everyone knew it, but nobody said it.

  For twelve hours we floundered and struggled and plunged through the snow. We didn’t stop for lunch; there was no lunch. Patrick stuffed a bit of old biscuit in my mouth as I lay trembling in the snow. But he yanked on my tether before I could eat, and it fell out of my mouth as he tugged me forward. When I tried to reach it, he pulled my head around. “Come on. Get up!” he shouted, and someone strapped me from behind. I had to leave the biscuit lying on the snow. It was nibbled around the edges—a people’s biscuit—left forever on the Barrier.

  The white haze was thick all around us for most of the day. It made shadows of Snatcher and Snippets, with shadow men whipping them on. It made their cries seem softer. Then it cleared very quickly, and I saw them distinct and sharp against the snowy slope of the Gateway. One was lunging at his harness, his sledge half buried. The other had sunk to his belly, and two men were trying to haul him up.

  The mountains were close around us, the Beardmore crawling up between them. I thought again that they didn’t want us there, that they hated Captain Scott. They had piled the snow in front of him; they had turned the Barrier into a swamp. But still he’d forced us through it, right to the foot of the Gateway.

  The surface was hard and windblown there. We stood again on top of the snow, breathless and wheezing. Patrick reached out to pet me. I shied away from the moveme
nt, and that put such an awful look in his eyes that I wished I hadn’t seen it.

  “It’s all right. It’s over now,” he said. He moved his hand more slowly. But still I closed my eyes until I felt his fingers in my forelocks. “You’re a good lad, James Pigg,” he whispered.

  We marched in a ragged line toward the mountain, every pony wheezing, every man hunched over. My shadow walked beside me, our hooves stuck together. It had the long, thin legs of a racehorse, a neck like a swan’s, but its ears were as tall as a rabbit’s. Patrick’s shadow led my shadow, as though four of us walked together.

  Right ahead on the blue top of the Beardmore, where it swept to the right between the great pillars of the Gateway, I saw three ponies walking. They weren’t the gray and ghostly things I’d seen in the blizzard but sharp little figures high on the ice, white against the blue. They walked on a glaring whiteness, in the warmth of full sunlight, but they had no shadows beside them.

  I watched the distant ponies pass beyond the great pillar of rock and ice. Then Captain Scott blew his whistle, and we came to the end of the march. We turned to the left one by one, as we had done so many times before. But the men didn’t set to work building a pony wall, and they didn’t stretch out a picket line. Captain Scott nodded to Mr. Oates, who went away and got his pistol.

  He took Snatcher first. The rest of us stood with our handlers, so tired now that we could barely stand. Patrick kept rubbing my nose. He started talking to me, telling me about all the things we’d seen.

  “Do you remember the island?” he asked. “That’s the first place I saw you, James Pigg. Where that lady took a fancy to you; do you remember that? She’d be proud to see you now, I think.”

  I heard the bang of the pistol. Mr. Oates came trudging back for Snippets.

  “Then we had that long voyage. Do you remember that?” Patrick sniffed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You weren’t too keen on the sea, were you, lad? That terrible storm; do you remember? I don’t mind telling you now, James Pigg. I was badly afraid.”

  The second shot rang out. Snippets made a sound like a sob as he fell.

  Patrick’s hand shook as he kept stroking my ears. “You were so happy to get ashore. I remember how you rolled in the snow. And the crevasse; do you remember that?” He half laughed and half sobbed. “We nearly lost you down there.”

  Mr. Oates took Bones away. The big pony went slowly, a soft snort with each step.

  “And there was that time on the ice with the whales all around us,” said Patrick. “And all those poor ponies. They called you a crock; but you were never a crock.”

  There was another shot. Patrick held me firmly, so I couldn’t turn my head. By the shaking of his hands, I guessed that old Bones didn’t die right away. I heard the thud as he fell, then the scrape of hooves in the snow.

  “And the winter. That was a long time for you to stand in a stable,” said Patrick. “And you saved my life; do you remember? When we lost our way, you led me back to the hut. Maybe you meant to; I’ll never know.”

  Mr. Oates took Nobby. The pony’s handler turned away, the smell of sadness very thick around him.

  “You nearly died of the colic.” Patrick combed my forelock the way I liked so much. His tears were freezing in the corners of his eyes, making icicles on his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it. I’m sorry, James Pigg.”

  I pushed my nose up against him. I made the sound of contentment, but he didn’t understand. He thought I was looking for biscuits in the padding of his pockets.

  “Oh, lad, I haven’t any more,” he said. But he felt through his pockets anyway, and he found the smallest crumb of a biscuit, no bigger than a sugar cube.

  I licked it from the fingers of his glove. Then I kept licking, enjoying the feel of the wool, all the scents and tastes of the man I loved so much. Behind me, the pistol cracked again. There was another thud, then the sound of Mr. Oates coming to get me.

  “Oh, James Pigg.” Patrick put his arms around me. He pressed his face against my hair. “I’m going to miss you dearly,” he said. “You’re such a good lad, James Pigg.”

  Mr. Oates let me walk as slowly as I liked. He didn’t make me hurry at all for my last few yards. He led me near to Snippets and Snatcher and Bones and Nobby, all sprawled out on the snow as though they were sleeping.

  The dogs were coming now, running up from the south with a spray of powder flying up from their feet. They made a white haze of their own, half hiding Mr. Meares at the back of the sledge. I heard their barks and howls.

  Then Mr. Oates swung me around, and I was facing the Beardmore. It looked again like my old vision of the ponies’ place, and I wondered if I’d been right about that. I had come close already to finding the things I’d imagined: a heated stable, blankets made warm by the stove. I had seen men step into the harness and share my load. Men had served me, building walls to keep me sheltered, feeding me biscuits and oil cakes.

  Mr. Oates put the end of his gun to my head. I could see how much he hated doing it, but I couldn’t quite sense his feelings. It was as though he had shut them off, or shut them out, and in his mind was only the job of aiming his pistol.

  “So long, James Pigg,” he said. “If there’s a heaven for horses, I’ll find my way there.” Then he pulled the trigger.

  I went up the Gateway at a gallop. I flew across the snow like a colt again. In a moment, I was over the summit and hurtling down to the Beardmore. Snow turned to ice under my hooves and I ran along with a clatter, up to the rocky pillars, up to the arch of clouds.

  My mane streaming back, my hooves flashing, I rounded the turn in the glacier and saw a huge white plain, and a stable up ahead. It looked warm and rosy-bright inside, with a little chimney wisping smoke, little windows glowing. The snow had melted from the roof and lay in huge mounds below the eaves.

  The door swung open as I neared it. I saw Jehu in there, and old Uncle Bill and Hackenschmidt. I heard my mother cry from a line of ponies that seemed to stretch ahead for mile after mile after mile. And I raced over the threshold, onto a floor that was padded with straw.

  The ponies all whinnied to greet me.

  It’s the middle of December of 1911, nearly Midsummer Day in the high south. Captain Scott and his men set up a camp at the foot of the mountains, within a mile of the Gateway.

  On the ground lie five dead ponies. They have done their job and soon they’ll be butchered. Captain Scott writes in his journal, “Poor beasts! They have done wonderfully well considering the terrible circumstances under which they worked, but yet it is hard to have to kill them so early.”

  He names the place Shambles Camp.

  The men and the dogs go on up the glacier. The storm has covered the ice in thick, fresh snow, the worst conditions that Scott has ever seen. He wishes he could have the luck of Shackleton, who’d found clear blue ice in the same place at the same time of year.

  He thinks of Amundsen off to the east. Is the Norwegian suffering under the same conditions? Or do the constant storms blow only against the Englishmen?

  After a day and a half of steady climbing, Scott sends back the dogs. From now on, it’s nothing but man-hauling, up the long Beardmore and over the polar plateau. The plateau is higher than the Barrier by nearly two miles.

  More depots are planted along the way, and men are sent back as their sledges are emptied. Scott writes of the disappointment of men whose hopes for the Pole are dashed forever. At the top of the glacier, it’s the end of the trek for Dr. Atkinson and Silas Wright, for Patrick Keohane and Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Just eight men are left, just two teams plodding south, the first led by Scott, the second by Commander Teddy Evans. The second team is tired. On the last day of the year, Commander Evans and his men cache their skis and another hundred pounds of unnecessary gear. The next day, the first of 1912, they rebuild their sledge, making it smaller and lighter. But they still have to struggle to keep up with Scott.

  Three days later, the team is sent ho
me. One of the men has come so close to the Pole that he weeps as he turns back.

  With a hundred and fifty miles to go, Captain Scott has his polar team. There’s his old friend Bill Wilson, the doctor who went with him on Shackleton’s expedition. There’s the big sailor Taff Evans, the most powerful man on the expedition, who represents “the lower deck,” and makes the expedition equal. And there’s Lawrence Oates, who did so well with the ponies. From the very beginning, Scott has planned that four men will reach the Pole.

  But now, at the last minute, he plucks another from the supporting party. He takes little Birdie Bowers. And five men, harnessed together, pull the last sledge to the south.

  Scott is content with his choice. “I think it’s going to be all right,” he says in his journal. “We have a fine party going forward and arrangements are all going well.” But the five men share food that was meant for four. Worst, they’re short one pair of skis. Birdie Bowers has to go on foot and struggle to keep up, trotting along in the midst of the group.

  On the sixth of January they pass 88 degrees, with a hundred and twenty miles to go. Every hour takes them a mile and a quarter nearer to the Pole, each man moving in silent thought. “What lots of things we think of on these monotonous marches!” writes Scott. “What castles one builds now hopefully that the Pole is ours.”

  Another day, another march, and they pass beyond the point where Ernest Shackleton turned back in 1909. In his tent that night, within a hundred miles of the Pole, Scott writes in his journal, “I suppose I have made the most southerly camp.”

  But he can’t be certain of that. The question must haunt him: Where is Amundsen? Did the Norwegian find a new route through the mountains? Could his dogs cope with the glacier? Has he turned back, defeated, or is he somewhere up ahead? Has he reached the Pole already?

  On the eighth, a blizzard prevents the men from moving on. Dr. Wilson dresses a nasty cut on Evans’s hand. Though the wait is frustrating, the men are thankful for a day’s rest. It takes all their effort to haul their sledge ten miles in a day, and they have never worked so hard in their lives.