Free 1912 by Chris Turney Page B

three men pushed forward in anticipation. The weather remained clear, and their calculations placed the pole eight kilometres away.
    A couple of hours later, some 2200 metres above sea level and more than a thousand kilometres from any other human being, they believed they had reached their goal. Disappointingly, the prismatic compass, after some tapping, still pointed to the west. There remained a small element of horizontal force acting on the compass, but it would have to do. The men had been running on less than half-rations for weeks and were exhausted.
    It was a clear day with a light wind and only a handful of clouds overhead. The men hoisted the Union Jack at 3.30 pm and congratulated one another. Mawson set up a camera, arranging all three men in frame. Connecting a string to the camera, David declared, ‘I hereby take possession of this area now containing the Magnetic Pole for the British Empire,’ andpulled the trigger. They gave three cheers for the king. The photo shows three relieved and exhausted figures standing around the flag, bareheaded in a relatively balmy -18°C. The formalities complete, Mawson packed up the camera and, after a heartfelt ‘Thank God,’ they turned and fled back to the tent they temporarily called home.
    With supplies perilously low, the men forced themselves to march back to the coast, hoping they might still be picked up by the Nimrod . In such an environment and under such physical strain it was easy to lose your temper, and both younger men became exasperated with David. Mawson’s diaries are a catalogue of concerns and irritations. On 31 January: ‘Prof’s burberry pants are now so much torn as to be falling off. He is apparently half-demented, by his actions—the strain had been too great.’ By 2 February, David’s boots were frozen on and one foot had gone numb. ‘During most of the day the Prof has been walking on his ankles. He was no doubt doing his best this way, and Mac appears to have kicked him several times when in the harness.’
    The following day Mackay threatened to declare David insane unless leadership of the team was passed to Mawson. The young geologist was uncomfortable with the plan, writing of David: ‘I again said I did not like the business and stated he had better leave matters as they were until the ship failed to turn up.’ The next day they made it to what became known as Relief Inlet, on the Victoria Land coast, where Mackay wrote, ‘We are now, of course, expecting the ship. The Professor says that Shackleton promised to send her to look for us on the 1st but one can’t believe a word he says.’
    They had no supplies to speak of and would be forced to live off seal meat; David would be unlikely to survive a journey down the coast to their winter quarters if they were forced to march south, and the inevitable delay in caring for him would almost certainly be fatal for Mackay and Mawson. As Mackay wrote,‘The whole thing is enough to make a man turn religious.’
    Indeed, the Nimrod miraculously turned up at 3.30 pm the next day. The ship had passed several days earlier, heading north. On board, the first mate, John King Davis, had been uneasy that because of fog he could not see one section of the 320-kilometre coast they were searching. Coal reserves were low, but the ship duly returned south. It was the first of many strokes of luck for Mawson and Shackleton.
    In the excitement of reaching the ship Mawson fell down a crevasse and, with the team members too weak to help, Davis had to rescue him. The South Magnetic Pole team had travelled 2030 kilometres, 1180 in relay, on a 122-day journey—with no dogs or ponies, and more than half a tonne of supplies and equipment. It remained the longest unsupported, man-hauling journey in history until the 1980s, and gave the most accurate fix yet on the location of the South Magnetic Pole.

    As David, Mawson and Mackay were heading back