Just how long this will go on nobody can say for sure, but the roar outside the tent sends a clear message – the blizzard is not ready to release them just yet. It’s the fifth day of their confinement. The air is thin at 3000 metres. Helmer complains that even rolling over leaves him breathless with the effort. The temperature has dropped considerably. There is no alternative but to lie in their sleeping bags bored out of their minds. Bjaaland can think of nothing but stretching his skier’s legs. Outside, amid the swirling vortex of snow, the remaining dogs sleep off their mammoth feast. Hopefully it will restore their depleted reserves of fat.
They’ve all railed against the protracted storm. Now it’s Sverre’s moment to give voice to frustration. ‘I’m sick of this tent, I’m sick of sleeping, I’m sick of scribbling in this diary about doing nothing. If I have to lie here another day I’ll scream.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Bjaaland says wearily. Rather than turn vocal, he’s retreated into his own skin. He learnt his lesson about venting his spleen back on the Axel Heiberg Glacier.
‘If we’re not first at the pole, we might as well not have left Norway,’ continues Sverre.
There’s a pause.
‘Why don’t we just head out,’ says Oscar. ‘Anything is better than this.’
Bjaaland murmurs in a noncommittal way and steals a glance at Amundsen, who is lying on his back, evidently lost in thought. His breath escapes in even clouds from his sleeping bag and his eyes watch the hypnotic flapping of fabric as the storm sucks at the tent.
‘What do you think, chief?’ asks Sverre, suddenly cheered by the prospect of action.
‘If we all agree, then why not?’ Amundsen says without moving. A smile plays about his lips. The men are becoming more like him every day.
The tent is severely iced up. The act of folding could tear it if they don’t take great care. Amundsen shouts into the wind like a general as pellets of ice, hard as gravel, break free from the tent and pound his face. Visibility is limited to a few metres. The sledges, buried under mounds of snow after five days, have to be dug out and repacked. Helmer hurriedly builds a depot. All the supplies they can jettison – spare alpine rope, heavy crampons, Sverre’s sledge, which is hoisted onto its end – are piled up alongside the rigid carcasses of fourteen dogs.
Finally, Oscar jams a broken ski upright in the snow. It’s his silent offering to the ice gods. ‘Can’t be too careful in this fog,’ he says.
Harnessing the reluctant dogs requires serious manhandling and strong language, but before long they are ready to move on, five men and three dog teams, into a ferocious gale. It is nearly impossible to keep their eyes open. The snow is as fine as sand and penetrates every hole and crevice of their clothing. It catches on the fur of their anoraks and hoods and frames their faces in a filigree of frost that soon hardens to armour. Cheeks freeze, the skin becoming candy red before turning hard and white. Noses, chins, jaws succumb to frostbite. Every now and then the men must massage life into the trouble spots with their bare hands, which they hurriedly slip back into reindeer gloves.
Amundsen goes ahead as forerunner. In the whiteout conditions, staying upright is his most pressing challenge. He might as well be blind. Melted together, the sky and land make a mockery of the world about him. Is he going up or going down? Several times he tips over like a toy soldier. The surface feels gritty; skiing on sand would be easier. Every now and then a break in the clouds allows the sun to reveal utterly alien scenery. Each time they struggle to make sense of it. Are those mountains or is it merely a bank of rising mist? The dogs are not troubled by such concerns. There is only the thrill of being in the harness together. The wide plain offers level ground for their exuberance but even as the terrain shifts downhill, their pace does not alter. Soon they are bounding with unreasonable haste down a steep incline into thick fog.
This is madness. No visibility. Blindly galloping towards some ghastly end – a cliff, a crevasse, a chasm large enough to swallow the lot of them. ‘Halt!’ Amundsen shouts.
Oscar cries out in alarm, having reached the same conclusion. Helmer and Sverre manage to bring the teams to heel only with extreme skill.
‘We go no further today,’ Amundsen says to the assembled team. Breathless, each man nods in silent agreement. Making camp on a hillside is far from ideal. Everything will be done on an uncomfortable lean tonight.
That’s an important lesson, thinks Amundsen. We should never give in to our impulses.