Friday 14th April 1911, A Guide Tour Of Our Hut And Surrounds

It was heavenly to sleep in a bed last night; I felt as though I were floating—it was so soft with its spring mattress. Breakfast was outstanding; we could not live better in civilisation. Clissold is a splendid cook and a first-class Baker. It is evening, the acetylene lights are flaring, the gramophone playing and our thoughts wander. You can almost weep at the sound of Melba’s voice.

At home it is Easter; the ski hooks half full and the mountains thronged. The heights are swarming with people whose voices echo from the sunlit peaks. I spent the day preparing a map of the surroundings, the job assigned to Teddy Evans and me. The air has been snow-laden and threatening, and it won’t be long before we have bad weather again. Yesterday evening we sent up rocket signals which were answered from Hut Point.

When we have turned our backs on Cape Evans in January we had left our winter quarters in a very primitive condition. It had hardly been finished or fitted out at all. When we returned after an absence of 80 days, we found the hood completed and indeed almost unrecognisable. Of course it was not luxurious but it really was quite comfortable, and good and warm. Nor did we have to move around in half darkness: acetylene lights had totally banished the shadows. Bernard Day, who had fixed the lighting, was someone who mastered everything he turned his hand to.

The floor area at Cape Evans measured 125 square metres. Since we were 25 men with 5 square metres each, we had plenty of room to move without

treading on our neighbours toes. A wall consisting of cases of groceries divided the hood in the ratio of 2:3. The small a part, next to the entrance, consisted of crew’s quarters and galley. The larger part housed us officers, who with the exception of Scott and Ponting had grouped themselves in sections of two, three and five. Ponting slept in his own darkroom.

The expedition was based as much on scientific as on geographical exploration, and a visit to our Antarctic home at Cape Evans, first and foremost to the part occupied by Simpson and Wright, would prove this statement to everybody’s satisfaction.

In the innermost corner of the hut, on the right side, you could from time to time here the sound of dynamo and motor, and you would see the most wonderful instruments measuring air temperature, electricity in the atmosphere, the magnetism of the Earth, and the wind’s strength and direction. The Simpson-Wright corner reminded me of nothing so much as Capt Nemo’s laboratory, courtesy of Jules Verne.

To the left and in front of their domain, Dr Atkinson conducted his parasitological studies, an activity that, because of its limited attractions, was for the most part carried on in solitary state.

A few steps to the left to you to Ponting and his rectangular darkroom in the centre of the east wall of the hut. In it you could hear many strange tale.

Ponting was not only a distinguished photographer would also an unusually gifted interpreter of all the remarkable things that had happened to him. An hour with ‘Ponko’ was like an evening at the cinema—and he always made people welcome to his den. At the rear of this wall, and in the second back-corner, Wilson and Teddy Evans made their camp. A large rectangular covered with gorgeous watercolours, sketch maps, and finished and half-finished drawings was the outstanding and characteristic feature of this section of the hut. And you will welcome there too, even though and ‘ Uncle Bill’ were usually busy with something or other. You didn’t drop in on Bill and Teddy just to pass the time of day but rather to get advice.

If you were feeling low and went to see Wilson, you’d be certain to feel better when you left him. Not without cause was he called ‘ Uncle Bill’.

The next enclosure on the north wall was Scott’s, and there he lived his private life in Spartan simplicity. His writing table consisted of a renovated packing case, the bed was his chair, while a naval greatcoat with brass buttons and badges of rank served as his quilt.

At the end of the north wall in the officers’ quarters was an open-ended enclosure of the most modest architectural merit. This, in great simplicity, housed Cavalry Capt Oates, Lieutenant Bowers, Doctor Atkinson, the zoologist Garrard and the dog expert Meares. The arrangement of the bugs resembled five-horse stalls rising from one base.

If you turn your back on this strange five-man lair and jump over the long mess table, you land at the entrance to the Day-Nelson abode. These two had spent the summer at Cape Evans and had fashioned a splendid place out of the allotted 6-7 square metres. Day was clever with his hands and ‘ Marie’ Nelson was full of ideas. Day’s and Nelson’s closest neighbours were Taylor, Debenham, and I.

Though I say it myself, we three had also made a good show out of almost nothing and made ourselves cosy and comfortable. I had the top bunk, with Griff beneath, and it was up against the wall connecting with the crew’s quarters. Debenham had rigged up his bunk opposite mine on the same level, so we hired a room on the floor level below for a small writing-table and some chairs.

Taylor, Debenham, and I went under the name of the ‘ Ubdugs’ and our den was called the ‘ Ubduggery. And the Ubdug moto was, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is greater than either.’

Our common ground ‘ the mess’ was Spartanly furnished, the most luxurious item being the pianola. On the wall in Scott’s quarters hung a large portrait of King George [V]. A huge, round stalls, which would warm up the hut however cold it was outside, dominated the scene like a lighthouse.

After this visit in doors let us now take a look at the immediate surroundings of our Antarctic home. It was true and alcove-like outhouse called the ‘ gasworks’ that we emerged into the open air. A couple more strides between high snow walls and we are in the stable, which stretched along the northern wall of the hut. Coal bricks and bales of pressed fodder provided the building material for this strange zoo. It was sheltered, if dark, in ‘ Châteaux Oates’, but the dogs strutted around full of health and well-being. Oates simply loved this stable and we could find him there, and Anton the Russian groom, at any hour of the day or night.

In the glare of the glowing globe stole or by the light of a candle you could see these two men—so completely different in background, character and life-style—United and indeed inseparable in their work. Little Anton, cradled in the Caucus Mountains, soon came to worship his master. ‘ Captain Oates very very good with ponies and me’, was the reply to almost any enquiry. He spoke or understood almost no English.

From the stables that to continue to Windmill Heights, a partially glacial ridge just south of the hut. On the way there we went past the ’ magnetic ice cave’ but, as there was nothing to see save ice-bound instruments, we continued on to the top with its meteorological windmills. We reached our goal in the few moments, and beneath us their opened up panorama of strange beauty.

Towards the North lay the sea, in this summer’s shining like a mirror and dotted with drift ice and, in the winter moonlight, frozen and white and silver;

towards the West and South West a mountainous country whose peaks seemed to touch the very heavens; towards the south Borough and Islands Reeves in the ice; and towards the east high, high over our heads stood the volcano Erebus.

And why we paused over atop Windmill Heights in deep wonderment at the savage beauty of the polar wilderness, we might hear the day of the hounds along the northern ridge. Then we would take a last lingering look round the horizon and make our way down toward the dog camp.

If our visit were on a sunny day the dogs radiated a feeling of well-being and satisfaction, but in foul weather we would soon be overtaken by an uneasy feeling of sympathy. ‘ Poor miserable brutes’ was our involuntary reaction as we hastened back to the hut. We might not have seen all the camp could offer but at any rate we had covered the most essential features.