Spirits are high. Fog, snowfall, gales and thick cloud have all tried to waylay progress, but with little effect on morale. Amundsen has twice increased their rations over the past weeks. And there’s plenty more food in the depots up ahead. They gorge themselves at every meal, clear in the knowledge that any man eating double rations is helping to reduce the weight of the sledges. It’s an odd turn of events; there’s never been any excess to offer. Satisfied to the point where his guts ache, Bjaaland has to rub his belly in order to sleep. It seems like they have entered a new golden era where they will put on weight rather than lose it.
They are well into their descent of the Axel Heiberg Glacier, enjoying the exhilaration of skiing down the slopes that had so taxed them on their journey south. The long skis aren’t designed to turn, even for a champion skier like Bjaaland, and there are a few spectacular crashes along the way. Even the crevasses fail to strike fear in the hearts of men who, not so long ago, exercised such caution. Recent days have seen them steer around any obstacle or pitfall at speed, yahooing with little regard for personal safety. The two dog drivers watch the fun with a hefty dose of envy – they’d far rather be testing their technique than facing the stress and strain of getting the dog sledges down in one piece.
Down on the barrier once again, Amundsen glowers. A nasty thought has just occurred to him, one that increases his sense of urgency. The Norwegian route up the Axel Heiberg Glacier was short and steep but enjoyed the massive advantage of being a whole degree of latitude closer to the pole by the time they hit the high-altitude plateau. The Beardmore Glacier by comparison may have disadvantaged the British by forcing them onto the oxygen-deprived atmosphere of the plateau earlier than the Norwegians, but coming down again Captain Scott and his men will benefit from the relative ease and speed of a longer descent and find themselves out on the barrier more than 100 kilometres closer to their base.
‘What time is it?’ asks Sverre.
‘Six.’
‘What day is it?’
‘No idea.’
‘I know it’s 1912,’ says Bjaaland, yawning.
They laugh.
Sverre restates his original question: ‘So is it six in the morning or at night?’
‘Does it really matter?’ Amundsen asks.
Perennial daylight makes keeping conventional hours a pointless exercise; a rhythm of eating, sleeping and skiing marks their progress. That said, time is all they think about. A speedy return is once again their single unifying focus.
Has the Fram arrived to collect them? It’s already the second week of January. Amundsen was clear in his instructions to Captain Nilsen – make haste. That assumes nothing untoward has happened either to the ship or the crew. So many unknowns could still unseat their well-laid plans.
Warmer temperatures greet them closer to the coast. Minus 8 degrees feels tropical compared to the hard white prison of minus 50, but it is not cause for celebration. The heavy snow that falls on them melts on contact before turning to ice. It clings to the dogs’ fur, encasing their bodies in a semi-transparent carapace that splinters like candy when the harnesses are strapped tight.
‘Well, look who’s here!’ says Oscar, pointing with his ski pole at two skua gulls playing a lazy game of tag against a sky feathered with clouds.
‘They’re far from home,’ marvels Helmer. ‘The sea must be more than 350 kilometres away.’
The seabirds are the only life they’ve seen in months. Goodness only knows what they survive on in this wasteland, where lonely eddies of ancient snow twist like ghosts from the surface of the barrier.
‘No doubt Lindstrøm would see it as a sign,’ says Amundsen a little wistfully.
‘Favourable, I hope,’ says Sverre.
Bjaaland celebrates with two shots of his rifle. Neither bird falls from the sky. He swears. It would have been great to eat something other than pemmican and dog.
There are other signs of life as they approach 82 degrees. It’s almost like coming home, laying eyes on this depot, the last one they managed to lay in the autumn. How remote its location had seemed when they first set it up, like the last outpost of civilisation. Now it seems far from civilised. Boxes have been dragged off, upturned, gnawed open and emptied of much of their contents. The two carcasses that were slung atop the depot have disappeared without a trace. Judging by the paw prints, a marauding band of dogs has been through here in recent days. But from where? Could it be the dogs that went missing from Framheim over winter? It’s an intriguing thought.
Familiarity boosts confidence. Nothing can blacken their mood. They’ve made the journey to 82 degrees so many times before that this final stage of their journey home would feel like a backyard dawdle were it not for the atrocious weather. The line of flags spaced out at 1-kilometre intervals offers a surprising degree of comfort when the weather presses in and visibility is reduced. The dark flags troop forward like a marching band, announcing the men’s victorious arrival home with the rhythmic beating of fabric in the wind.