Sunday was a day I should like to rub from memory. I was in ghastly shape when I awakened — too sick to eat and too tired to lose myself in any passing task. I fussed a bit with the register, but my eyes kept bothering me, and I finally sank into the chair beside the stove to wait for the noon schedule. It brought bad news. Poulter was bogged down in the crevasses on the Little America side of Amundsen Arm. He had missed the passage which had carried him safely through before; in trying to negotiate a new transit, he had lost his way and was even then trying to extricate the car from a pothole crevasse into which it had fallen.
Because the receiver was acting up again, it took me some little time to get these facts straight; and, when I had them in full view after hearing the combined reports of Murphy and Haines, they seemed enormous. If Poulter was in serious trouble, less than ten miles from Little America, why wasn't something being done to help him? My nerves broke. I jerked at the key: «Charlie and Bill, what in God's name is the matter? Won't another tractor help? Use all resources.»
Charlie was replying as I adjusted the headphone. The anger was gone, and remorse was flooding in; I would have given anything I possessed to recall those words. My friend spoke deliberately, gently, and even, I thought, a little reproachfully. If I do not remember his exact words, I do remember the sense. In his opinion, he said, Poulter was proceeding cautiously and reasonably. A stand-by tractor was ready, and had been ready from the time Poulter left. They were in constant touch with him. Although Poulter had been offered the full facilities of the camp, he had firmly declined them. So there was no cause for alarm. In all probability the tractor would be under way again within a few hours. Finishing, Charlie said, in the same unemotional tone: «Dick, the truth is that we are more worried about you. Are you ill? Are you hurt?»
I tried to dodge the questions by saying that I understood the whole tractor situation. But at this point first my legs and then my arms gave out on the cranks. The message was left dangling in mid-air. Charlie began to talk. He said that what they had heard was only partly intelligible. And again he asked what was wrong. There was no escape then. The old fiction of the lame arm just wouldn't do any more. Murphy was too insistent. He even mentioned something about sending out a doctor. «Nothing to worry about,» I answered finally; «only please don't ask me to crank any more.»
All this was duly committed to the Little America log; and with it John Dyer's incidental observation that «Byrd's strength seems to peter out after every few words.» My evasions therefore fooled nobody but myself. Murphy's misgivings deepened; yet, he professed to be satisfied. «We appreciate how hard the cranking must be,» he said. «Don't worry about us or about Poulter. See you tomorrow.»
August 6
At noon today Poulter was only twenty-one miles south. Yesterday he extricated himself from the crevasse, but since then has been crippled by continuous mechanical trouble. The clutch is slipping badly, the fan belts have all been used up, and Charlie was doubtful that Poulter could do much about it. I sent a reassuring message, only to have Charlie say that Dyer couldn't pick up a word; my signal was too weak. He tactfully suggested that I need not exert myself cranking unless I had an important message; otherwise an OK would mean I was all right. I sent two or three OK's, and closed down for the day.
I've suffered for what I said yesterday. I did my friends at Little America a grave injustice in questioning their judgment and efficiency. Of course they know what they are doing, and from this distance I have no right to meddle. Yet, my chagrin goes beyond that. It maddens me that after sixty-six days I have given myself away in a momentary fit of impatience.
I have no way of telling how much Little America has guessed. Charlie's casualness may be just a mask. Which is what torments me. The last thing I want is to see this trip degenerate into a rescue trip with all the risks and humiliations which such a trip would involve. And again I say this in all humility. This business has long since passed the ephemeral consideration of pride or face-saving; it is now one of cold calculation. If they are tempted into recklessness, and something goes wrong, my chances of ever getting out of here will suffer, too; for the Barrier is not a fit place for worried, anxious men. So my solicitude is definitely selfish. Obviously, the officers at Little America are acting with profound care as to the risks. They could not act otherwise without betraying me and the men under them. .
All this notwithstanding, I wish to heaven the matter were settled, one way or another. I can't go on this way, raised one minute by hope and dropped the next by failure. Every day my recuperative resources grow a little less; and for this I mostly blame the radio. The steady cranking has raised hell with me. When I finish a schedule, I am reduced to staggering about in a condition approaching helplessness. One can put up with such misery only so long, then something has to give. I am sinking once more to the level of beggary.
I shall go to bed now, supported by the hothouse fiction that tomorrow night will find them here. In my heart I know this can't possibly happen; not after Charlie's discouraging report. Worst of all, the cold is steepening: it's close to 60 degrees below zero now.
Tuesday was heart-breaking. In a matter-of-fact way Murphy informed me that Poulter was once more back in Little America. Twenty-six miles south, or barely half the distance made good on the first attempt, the clutch had given out entirely. Poulter had turned back and was lucky to reach Little America at all. «It's a pity, but these are the facts,» Charlie said. «The men are sleeping now. The car is being overhauled and will be ready by midnight.»
I replied that what they were doing was sensible. Nothing was to be gained by hurry and push.
«Please repeat; we couldn't get it,» Little America said. «John says that your transmitter isn't tuned properly.»
Ill fortune seldom comes unattended. My transmitter was failing. Formerly I couldn't hear Little America, but Little America could at least hear me. Now the situation was reversed. I could hear them fairly well, but they could scarcely hear me at all. «Wait,» I said. I hurriedly checked the transmitter, made a few adjustments, and started afresh.
«No good, but never mind,» said Charlie. «Try to have it fixed by tomorrow. We'll see you at the same time. Don't bother about lights for another two days or so.»
That morning I really surrendered. In the diary I wrote: «It appears that aid for me and reasonable safety for the men can't lie in the same bed. . It was a mistake to allow my hopes to rise so high. . I finally gathered today that three men were in the party, and that one of them was that fine, loyal shipmate of many years — Pete Demas — another was Bud Waite, in whom I have complete confidence. When Poulter and these two men turned back, there must have been good reason for it.»
Yet, even with hope gone, the animal tenacity in me, as in every man, would not let me give up. Ever since the first start, I had been preparing flares and firepots. Now, making one trip an hour, I hauled half a dozen more cans of gasoline to the surface. I then had twelve signal pots ready, consisting of tomato cans and a couple of gasoline tins with the tops cut away. Weighted down with snow blocks and covered with paper to keep the drift out, they were racked on the improvised bench on the roof. I stood up the kite in the veranda, at the foot of the ladder, with the line neatly coiled. There, too, I put the last of the magnesium flares, of which I had about half a dozen left. In a sense, I was preparing for a last stand.
Yet, these simple preparations, by taking me out of myself for a while, did me good. And the day itself was almost heartening. It was clear, and not too cold — only 41 degrees below zero at noon. And there was no denying that the daylight was rising with the implacable and irresistible force of the solar system behind it. Between me and Little America the darkness for a while was broken clearly in two; the pearl dawn-light expanded and turned rosy and yellowish, and it made me think of a rug being laid for the sun. The sun was only three weeks distant now. I tried to imagine what it would be like, but the conception was too vast for me to grasp.