Stubberud throws open the tent flap and swears loudly into the gale. The wind has been tearing at the canvas all night like a bearer of urgent news. With a heavy heart, the carpenter slides the reindeer hood over his head and lumbers out onto the snow.
‘It’s like we never even dug the holes!’ he rages to Bjaaland.
‘Bloody wind,’ Bjaaland mutters. He kicks around in the snowdrifts that have accumulated over the spot where they left their shovels and pickaxes the night before. His back aches just looking at the hateful tools. A full day of physical exertion followed by a night of fitful sleep. As unpleasant as the sea journey was, Bjaaland wishes he was back in his cabin aboard the Fram.
Stubberud grunts, grabs a shovel. It took all day for the two of them to dig foundations a little more than a metre deep. The first half-hour of digging was easy enough, but then they hit ice as hard as granite. Pickaxes replaced shovels. It now appears that all their effort was for nothing.
The site Amundsen has chosen for the hut is on a gentle slope in a wider basin. The hut will have an east–west orientation, with the entrance facing away from the prevailing winds. Even with the slight shelter offered by the incline, the hut needs to be anchored deep. The wind is sure to be even more of a menace during winter.
After five minutes Bjaaland stops shovelling. ‘This is hopeless. The holes are filling up quicker than we can empty them out.’
Breathless, Stubberud simply nods. They need a windbreak, some planks or a makeshift wall for the snow to gather behind.
‘Even a sledge tipped on its side would do the trick.’ Stubberud squints into the distance. ‘I wish those lads would hurry up. I’m not walking all the way down to the ship for one.’
The other members of the land party have established a dog camp roughly halfway between the building site and the Fram, where everything can be stored safely away from the water’s edge and the dogs that are not working can be chained at a safe distance from precious supplies and each other. The view from the dog camp is impressive, taking in the entire Bay of Whales. The Fram appears like a toy from this slightly higher vantage point. The 2-kilometre track leading down to the water’s edge is marked out with wildly flapping blue flags, an odd sight in the uninhabited desolation of Antarctica. But there’s precious little time to stop and admire the view. Many of the loads must continue on to the building site where their base will slowly take shape. Even with the dogs doing most of the pulling, it’s physically draining work for the men, travelling into a fierce headwind. Combined with the wind chill, the cold is at times severe. Any work takes twice as long with cumbersome reindeer mitts. While loading and unloading the sledges can be accomplished, any strapping and unstrapping of loads requires lighter gloves or sometimes painfully bare hands.
The three most experienced dog drivers, Sverre, Helmer and Johansen, are hoarse with constant shouting. The whip takes up the cause. Harnessed in the more familiar Greenland style, the dogs still don’t always do what’s required. They’re having too much fun. Having gorged themselves on seal meat the night before then fallen into a deep contented sleep, the dogs have excess energy to burn and leap about at the prospect of running and fighting. Once hitched to the sledge they blast off in multiple directions, narrowly avoiding supplies and stacks of building materials. Sometimes the only way drivers can avoid harm is by overturning the sledge. The scene is one of chaos.
Oscar knows it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be called on. But for now, he’ll do anything to avoid sledging duties. He’s seen enough. Only that morning Amundsen was travelling at tremendous speed towards the Fram when his dogs caught sight of some seals. The wide arc of the whip was a bad sign; the wild zigzagging course of the sledge a clear indication that the chief had lost control. Mere seconds before plunging headlong into the sea, Amundsen managed to capsize the sledge, the deep, loose snow bringing the madness swiftly to a close. Oscar can’t help worrying: if that can happen to the chief, what awful calamities are in store for a rookie like him?