ACROSS GREENLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1936, Page 3

ACROSS GREENLAND

THREE MEN ON A SLEDGE The records of Polar journeys shine with instances of heroism and selfsacrifice. The heroism of the man who fights the blizzard with an injured comrade on his back is obvious; less obvious, but no less authentic, is the heroism of the man who, with his nerves jangled by solitude and privation, bites his lip in answer to a friend’s ill-considered remark and refuses to permit himself the luxury of a quarrel. In “Sledge,” Mr. Martin Lindsay’s account of the 1931 British TransGreenland Expedition, which he organised and led, we are introduced to the human side of Polar exploration. Slogging on over the Greenland Ice-Cap, which they crossed from Jakobshavn in the west to Angmagssalik in the east, Mr. Lindsay and his two companions thought continually of food: —

“Each of us by this time possessed his own individual lust. Croft sometimes had a positive ache for a cigarette and a glass of champagne, while Godfrey’s desires varied between “porridge with masses of sugar and cream” when he was cold, and “strawberry jam, then a hot bath and a gin ■and lime-juice” during the brief hot spell.” When they came at last to the coast, at the end of 103 days’ sledging, they had food in hand for only two and a-half days. Here they got something better to eat than pemmican and porridge: — “It was all solid and sensible food. We had been afraid that we might find such, delicacies as sardines and tinned fruit, which would have been of little use to us in our famished condition. We started cooking immediately, eating biscuits and butter as we did so. For the first time for three months we were now no longer on rations. We celebrated the fact by eating, with hardly a pause, for three hours . . . The Eskimos themselves are great trenchermen, but they looked on with amazement at this performance. Perhaps the best part of all was the tea, which we drank stewed —'troops’ tea’—with condensed milk and sugar. We each had at least eight or nine cups, for we did not stop I drinking until midnight. An unbeliev-1 able, unforgettable mdal!” “FOR LOVE OF THE GAME.” Amidst all their hardship they continued to treat the expedition as “fun,” undertaken ‘“for love of the game.” “During the journey our two principal topics of conversation, apart from the expedition, were public schools and the Services; this may be a confession of weakness, but it is the truth. At one time or another we must have discussed nearly every subject except religion and sexual ethics. That we never on any occasion talked about philosophy or religion is at first sight rather surprising, as on an expedition this is usually a very popular , topic for discussion. Personally I , carefully avoided that subject for fear . of saying anything which might have hurt one of my companions.” One evening Mr. Lindsay made a hasty remark to Godfrey, who was taking some time over the rearrangement of the boxes on his sledge: “There’s no need to do that: you’re delaying the whole show.” And the result was that Croft wrote in his diary: I " “The atmosphere is very heavy in the tent, as Martin recently told Dan-

iel he is delaying the show; why, I do not know. Daniel confided in me, and is very upset about it; poor man, what can one do?”

The hot words which passed between them on rare occasions were invariably followed by apologies. Mr. Lindsay is able to record that “we remained friends, thank Heaven; greater friends.”

“During the whole journey we never quarrelled in the true sense of the word, although on occasions the atmosphere' was certainly tense. It was inevitable that we should get on each other’s nerves. Some aspects of the intimacy of sledging life have not any parallel elsewhere; no, not even in marriage. It is common knowledge that there is usually discord when two or three men are forced to live together in the unrelieved possession of each other’s company.”

BOYISH BRAVADO. It was a delightful piece of boyish bravado to leave tms note at one of their camps in the heart of Greenland:--- . T , “First Lieutenant Martin Lindsay and First Lieutenant Arthur Godfrey of His Majesty’s Land Forces and Andrew Croft Esquire, Gentleman, having been encompassed by many and great dangers, sojourned on this location from the sixth to the eighth day of August in the Year of Our Lord, 1934. Thanks be to God ye scurvy lias spared us. We depart on this day for Angmagssalik with victuals for 32 days and 18 strong dogges.” The last fortnight did not find them in such happy mood, as Godfrey’s diary records: — “Hungrier and hungrier, bad blisters and a strained back. Ail of us are pretty beat . . Give me guts, I hope I’ve shown up all right so far. . Thank God lor pemmican hoosh which makes me feel a man again, but Id gite ten, twenty years of life for another plateful . . . One staggers along in a coma of fatigue not giving a damn it one leaves one’s bones on the Icy. Everything is so desperately shagging.”