The Keith Jack Diaries & the Ross Sea Party, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917

III

The Ross Sea Party left Sydney on 15 December 1914 on board Mawson's former ship Aurora. Under the command of John Stenhouse, the ship sailed to Hobart to load stores, dogs and several expeditioners. On 24 December 1914 Aurora sailed for the Antarctic and entered the Ross Sea in January 1915. They commenced depot laying almost immediately. The ten man stores party was to overwinter in the hut built by Scott for his British Antarctic Expedition (1910-1913) at Cape Evans on Ross Island. The ship's crew would remain on Aurora. The ship lay about 40 metres off shore and was secured from the stern by a variety of cables attached to two anchors buried in rubble on shore. From the bow two further anchors had been lowered into the sea. The intention was to ice Aurora in over the winter.

There was a severe gale on 6 May 1915. Early next morning the men at Cape Evans emerged from the hut to find their ship Aurora, with the crew onboard, had disappeared. The ferocity of the storm had snapped the cables securing the ship, which had been dragged away with the ice. The stores party was stranded with limited supplies and much depot laying work to be completed the following summer.

Aurora, trapped in the ice pack and in constant danger of being crushed, was carried northwards with the ice for ten months. Finally she emerged into open water on 14 March 1916 and struggled to New Zealand, arriving on 3 April 1916.

On 1 October 1915 the men stranded on Ross Island commenced sledging journeys to lay stores as far south as the Beardmore Glacier. The glacier was discovered by Shackleton in 1908 during his attempt on the Pole. He described it as the ‘Highway to the South’(9) as it provided a traversable route through the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. The Glacier is about 650 kilometres from Ross Island and a similar distance from the South Pole.

Initially Irvine Gaze remained behind with frost bitten heels. In late October he crossed the ice to Hut Point. Chief scientist Alexander Stevens returned to the Cape Evans hut to be the sole resident while the sledging teams continued depot laying work. In early January 1916 Gaze, Keith Jack, and John Cope were sent back at 80° south, when their primus stove failed.

The remaining six men trudged on to the Beardmore Glacier. Their return was desperate. They had been without fresh meat for some time and Rev. Arnold Spencer-Smith, a Church of Scotland priest, expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh and Victor Hayward succumbed to scurvy.

Heroic efforts by their comrades saved the latter two, but Rev. Spencer-Smith died just two days from the temporary safety of Hut Point. The hut, at the southern end of Ross Island, had been built for Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904). It was icebound and in poor repair but it offered rudimentary shelter and, most importantly, access to seal meat, which negated the devastating effects of scurvy.

Once at Hut Point Mackintosh and Hayward recovered quickly. However they were impatient to return to the relative comfort of the hut at Cape Evans, about 25 kilometres away, across the sea ice. Against the pleas of their comrades Mackintosh and Hayward set off to cross the ice on 8 May 1916. They were never seen again. A storm blew up soon after they left. Caught in bad weather with no equipment they may have died of exposure, fallen through the sea ice and drowned, or been carried out to sea on ice that broke from the shore.

The three men remaining at Hut Point, Ernest Joyce, Ernest Wild and Dick Richards, waited until 15 July 1916, when they judged the sea ice to be safe, before crossing to reunite with the four at Cape Evans.

These seven surviving men endured a grim time before being finally rescued in January 1917.(10) Seal meat and blubber were indispensable for food and fuel and during the bleak darkness of winter finding seals was a constant battle. The depot laying journeys and the death of their three comrades had extracted a physical and emotional toll. The men were worried that the crew of Aurora may have perished, and had no idea whether the First World War, that had commenced just prior to their departure, was over or still continuing, and at what cost. Dick Richards suffered a health break down in August 1916 and 'remained more or less useless for the rest of our stay'.(11) John Cope stayed in bed most of the time. By October 1916 Ernest Joyce, Ernest Wild and Irvine Gaze spent considerable time at Shackleton's old hut at Cape Royds, ten kilometres further north. Alexander Stevens also spent some time at Cape Royds. He complained of smoke in the Cape Evans hut and in December retired to a tent he pitched nearby.

IV

Keith Jack began recording his experiences of the expedition on 15 December 1914 when Aurora set sail from Sydney. His first diary was actually loose sheets that appear to have been torn from a school exercise book. However when Aurora reached the Antarctic he was issued with an official diary – a fine leather book with a clasp, the title Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition embossed on the cover. His first entry in this diary was Sunday, 24 January 1915, the date they commenced the first depot laying journey.

By June 1915 Keith Jack had filled the diary. In his final entry on Sunday 27 June 1915 he wrote: Scarcely worthwhile recording our daily routine work any further. So will only note special events.

Using three rather unprepossessing notebooks, he recommenced writing on 1 October 1915, when the party set off for the second season of depot laying journeys. His entries are nearly continuous after that.

Initially writing on the recto pages, Jack reversed each diary and continued entries on the verso pages. Even after two years in the Antarctic his handwriting is neat and orderly. A final volume includes only a handful of entries for February 1917 after their rescue. The last entry is 12 February 1917, recording a civic reception in Wellington. Keith Jack later completed an abridged typescript of the diaries.

His diaries are notable as a personal account of the Ross Sea Party. He records his reaction to major events but also writes of the day to day routine, and the anxiety of their continued isolation. Keith Jack was a scientist and his diary is characterised by a scientist's attention to detail and to reason over emotion. Yet many entries reveal an underlying warmth and concern in their understatement.

In the first year Jack and several expeditioners were stranded at Hut Point for several months waiting for the sea ice to firm. They crossed the ice to Cape Evans in early June 1915, to be told that the Aurora had been carried away in a fierce gale a month earlier.

Wednesday 2nd June 1915
We were pretty upset to learn that the ship had gone out – broken away from her mooring – in a blizzard on the 6th May..

He continues in his diary to surmise the possible fate of Aurora. Finally he states:

All trust very sincerely that she has come to no great harm, but the position is obviously a serious one.

It was indeed serious. The party were stranded with limited supplies, a summer of brutal sledging and store laying was ahead, and they feared that their ship had been lost with all hands. It was in fact a desperate situation, but the party battled on without succumbing to despair.

The following year Jack and three others were at Cape Evans, the remaining expeditioners were stranded at Hut Point. The pressure of their situation became an ever greater strain and Jack began to suffer from insomnia.

Thursday 29th June 1916
Forced to remain in bed all day till 5:00pm owing to sleeplessness last night. All sorts [of ]disturbing thoughts re war, people at home, Hut Pt. party etc. keep coming to one during night and can’t discard them from my mind. And it's such a loss of time too, having to be in bed in an attempt to get some rest. However will just have to grin and bear it.

In the first season they lost most of their dogs through poor handling. In the second season four remaining dogs accompanied the six expeditioners who made the brutal trek all the way to the Beardmore Glacier. The dogs were crucial to the party's survival. Later, at Cape Evans, the men were saddened when one of the four dogs died after being injured in a fight. Jack's understated style hints at the deep sense of loss felt for this canine colleague.

Thursday 27th July 1916
The noble dog was one of Amundsen's and was one of the four which so greatly helped us right through the last arduous sledging season. Con had a character all his own, an aristocratic looking dog in appearance, white almost in colour like Samoyeds. Of slight build he was strong and wiry and a great favourite with all and always ready for work. All
were sorry to hear of his death.

The store laying journeys were a litany of blizzards, scurvy and crevasses. Occasionally, though, Jack could be reminded of an Australian summer.

Sunday 5th December 1915
Has been so hot today that I have been traveling in boots, underpants, socks and singlet – not another stitch on – not even a hat.

Castaway life was harsh, but the men were resourceful in finding activities to take their
minds from the bleakness of their situation.

Saturday 8th May 1915
Wild made a draught board today, so we enjoyed a game tonight using lumps of sugar and pieces of biscuits as men.

Tuesday 21st March 1916
After dinner tonight we had quite an animated discussion on 'Labour Party and its Tactics'. Irvine opposing and we three others supporting labourism. Discussion continued till 11:30pm. It is my watch tonight.

Thursday 13th April 1916
Finished Du Baty's "15,000 miles in a ketch" last night. In some ways we are in a somewhat similar state as they were but ours is a far worse plight. After dinner I enjoyed gramophone recital deriving intense pleasure from records of Melba, Tetrazini, Caruso etc.etc. Had the machine going for quite one and a half hours and little these great artists will know of the pleasure they have given to us poor castaways in the frozen south (12)

Sunday 21st May 1916
In the afternoon did some reading and had quite long discussion with Stevens on the Nebular Hypothesis.

Friday 1st September 1916
Great discussion tonight as to whether a search party should have been sent out to seek Scott ater Cherry-Garrard reached C[ape] Evans without him in March 1912. As usual no definite conclusion as might expect seeing we know practically no precise dates.(13)

The environment inspired Keith Jack into 'waxing poetical… after the R. W. Service style'.(14) His poem, located opposite entries for December 5, 1915, (while laying store depots), is titled The Lone South Land, it begins:

Land of the Great White Silence, grim land of the polar night;
Land of the blighting blizzard, ice fields glittering bright;
Land where the white fanged mountains, nameless and cleaving the sky;
Whisper of unknown spaces as the drifting clouds sweep by -

In another stanza he addresses the seductive danger of the landscape:

Where the shimmering mirage dances o’er the billowy Barrier plain
Luring, tempting, enticing, oft-time too – not in vain-
And the lone sledge trail leads onwards into the vast unknown
With ever the frost fiend waiting, waiting to claim his own

He views his efforts in typically self deprecating fashion.

Wonder what they would say to this at home pretty crude of course but at times you feel as if you can’t help trying to put your feelings into a rhyme, rough though it is. At all events don’t suppose anyone will ever see this so it doesn’t matter much.

Keith Jack's meticulous attention to his scientific duties gave him a focus and discipline that enabled him to endure their grim situation, even as others in the party succumbed to melancholy and lethargy.

He couldn't understand why John Cope took to his bed for long periods.

March 14th 1916
Cope still remains in his bunk the greater part of his time… he says he is not ill and if this is so it seems a most unnatural existence.

June 18th 1916
Cope too only gets up for dinner each day – wonder what can be wrong with him

Regardless what the weather was like, Jack attended to the scientific program.

Tuesday 12th September 1916
In hut all day owing to most furious blizzard. My turn for observation last night and at 3am experienced wind of more violence than ever before. Turned out at 2.55 and it was 4am before getting to bed again.

Even when thinking about the possibility of a relief ship he still considered the continuity of the scientific observation.

Friday 15th December 1916
Beginning now to have more frequently the ship to mind and wonder if relief will be sent this year. Hope so but at same time hope to get a complete set of tide charts before we have to depart, also should like to get as much information from anemometer as possibly can.