CHAPTER III — Section 17

PERILS

On the return journey Scott, Wilson, Meares and Cherry-Garrard went back at top speed with the dog teams, leaving Bowers, Oates and Gran to follow with the ponies. For three days excellent marches were made, the dogs pulling splendidly, and anxious as Scott was to get back to Safety Camp and find out what had happened to the other parties and the ponies, he was more than satisfied with the daily records. But on Tuesday, February 21, a check came in their rapid journey, a check, moreover, which might have been a most serious disaster.

The light though good when they started about 10 P. M. on Monday night quickly became so bad that but little of the surface could be seen, and the dogs began to show signs of fatigue. About an hour and a half after the start they came upon mistily outlined

pressure ridges and were running by the sledges when, as the teams were trotting side by side, the middle dogs of the teams driven by Scott and Meares began to disappear. 'We turned,' Cherry-Garrard says, 'and saw their dogs disappearing one after another, like dogs going down a hole after a rat.'

In a moment the whole team were sinking; two by two they vanished from sight, each pair struggling for foothold. Osman, the leader, put forth all his strength and most wonderfully kept a foothold. The sledge stopped on the brink of the crevasse, and Scott and Meares jumped aside.

In another moment the situation was realized. They had actually been traveling along the bridge of a crevasse, the sledge had stopped on it, while the dogs hung in their harness in the abyss. 'Why the sledge and ourselves didn't follow the dogs we shall never know. I think a fraction of a pound of added weight must have taken us down.' Directly the sledge had been hauled clear of the bridge and anchored, they peered into the depths of the cracks. The dogs, suspended in all sorts of fantastic positions, were howling dismally and almost frantic with terror. Two of them had dropped out of their harness and, far below, could be seen indistinctly on a snow-bridge. The rope at either end of the chain had bitten deep into the snow at the side of the crevasse and with the weight below could not possibly be moved.

By this time assistance was forthcoming from Wilson and Cherry-Garrard, the latter hurriedly

bringing the Alpine rope, the exact position of which on the sledge he most fortunately knew. The prospect, however, of rescuing the team was not by any means bright, and for some minutes every attempt failed. In spite of their determined efforts they could get not an inch on the main trace of the sledge or on the leading rope, which with a throttling pressure was binding poor Osman to the snow.

Then, as their thoughts became clearer, they set to work on a definite plan of action. The sledge was unloaded, and the tent, cooker, and sleeping-bags were carried to a safe place; then Scott, seizing the lashing off Meares' sleeping-bag, passed the tent-poles across the crevasse, and with Meares managed to get a few inches on the leading line. This freed Osman, whose harness was immediately cut. The next step was to secure the leading rope to the main trace and haul up together. By this means one dog was rescued and unlashed, but the rope already had cut so far back at the edge that efforts to get more of it were useless.