A Winter Day At Wordie Hut – 1960 (continued)
Without stopping in the hall to take his outer garments off he burst into the living room.
“For goodness sake hurry and close that door!” This and other less civilised comments greeted him from around the stove where his companions sat, reading, sewing dog harnesses or just talking.
“The pups have arrived, I heard them squeaking.” “How many? What colour? Dogs or bitches?”
“I don’t know, we shall have to wait for 24 hours to find out. I don’t want to disturb the bitch just yet. We’ll leave her to look after them. She’s a good mother.”
The atmosphere in the hut became light and cheerful. Over coffee, names were discussed and everyone put in claims for pups to replace old dogs in their teams. The dog man listened, saying little; already ideas of a new pup team were forming in his mind. Creating a team completely of young dogs was rarely done, but the idea of a young, lively, fast team, mostly from the same family, appealed to him.
During the night the temperature dropped well down, forty then fifty degrees below freezing point. The diesel engine stopped. The hut was quiet except for the crack of contracting nails as they pulled loose from the wood in the walls of the hut. Down by the shore the sea-ice groaned as it moved with the tide. Issuing from the cracks along the edge a ghostly smoke drifted upwards. The sea even at freezing point was comparatively warm and steamed into the cold air.
In the kennel all was warm; the pups lay suckling their mother circled by her body, legs and great bushy tail. The bitch lay gathering her strength licking her pups in quiet contentment, every so often issuing low growls at imaginary enemies threatening her family.
Next morning winter darkness lasted until, about eleven o’clock; a dim twilight strengthened till it was possible to see. The sun, although it did not clear the horizon, gave enough reflected light to allow activity outside. The six men in the hut were at first busy with domestic chores but when the light allowed, they braved the cold. The dogs had to be exercised and trained for the spring survey journeys.
First to appear was the dog man, bulky with clothes and laden with harnesses. He was followed by the base geologist – he had no dog team but was anxious for exercise and a break from looking at thin rock sections through a microscope. He was an expert cross-country skier and he led off on his skis making a zig-zag track through the snow for the dogs to follow and turn left and right on command.
At the first sight of the men leaving the hut all the dogs stood up and then sensing action they responded by barking and howling. Careering in circles at the limits of their chains, they tried to snap their neighbours’ tails as they passed. For the past three days they had been blizzard-bound, curled up warm but cramped under a blanket of snow. Now the prospect of exercise sent them mad with excitement.
Expecting trouble the rest of the base members came out to help. First the sledge and the pulling trace were dug out of the new snow and securely fixed with long steel pickets driven into the snow.
Now the dogs had to be harnessed. Each man took a harness, looked at the name written on the lamp wick cross strap and picked out the correct dog. The dogs, when they realised they were going stood almost motionless, dancing from foot to foot on the cold snow with occasional quivers passing over their whole bodies.
Big Hamish when approached leapt at this driver, in a paroxysm of over-hearty affection. Calling Hamish with his hand to establish a semblance of control, the driver spun him round and stood astride the dog gripping him with his knees just in front of his back legs. He then quickly passed the harness over Hamish’s head and popped his front legs through the loops. One hundred and ten pounds of dog leapt suddenly away from his driver, hoping to catch him off balance. But he had been caught too often for this and he grabbed Hamish by the collar and lifted his front legs oft the ground. Without his front legs to pull he was easily controlled and walked down to be clipped into the trace. Other dogs arrived and were also clipped on. Then last of all was “Murphy”, notorious fighter, scarred and torn from innumerable battles, tolerated only because he pulled as much as two ordinary dogs. Immediately Hamish growled and stood stiff legged. Looking anywhere but at Murphy he hummed his low hymn of hate. Stalking proudly, conscious of his reputation, Murphy walked past the other dogs and was fastened to his place, well away from Hamish.
Relieved that no trouble had occurred so far, the driver called for his front picket to be taken out. An assistant removed the picket but kept a hold of Annie the lead-dog, until the driver removed his back picket and with his foot on the brake shouted, “Up dogs, Huit.”
Ignoring the brake the dogs lunged forward and started at a dead run heading for a ten foot ice-cliff. The driver shouted “Irrah, Irrah, Annie.” Responding to the command Annie headed left towards a snow-drift ramp leading easily onto the sea-ice. Holding on tightly as bumps and ridges in the ice shook the sledge and tried to throw him off, the driver braked as hard as possible trying to establish control. Accelerating as they shot down the ramp the dogs suddenly piled up in a great ball of flashing teeth and torn fur, with ferocious growls intermingled with shrill yells of pain. During the night the high tide had flowed up through the strand crack and flooded the nearby sea-ice. The very low temperature had caused a film of ice to overly this slush and deceived the lead dogs.
The first four ploughed straight in, and were immediately bogged in the morass of sodden snow. Hamish with a yelp of triumph leapt on Murphy, who was at an immediate disadvantage – he grabbed his ear and with a twist pulled Murphy on to his back. Both dogs now bit and slashed, Hamish on top easily doing the most damage, until suddenly Murphy fastened on to his foreleg, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw muscles. Still biting but yelping with the pain of this dreadful vice Hamish tried every trick he knew to dislodge Murphy. He again grabbed an ear and rolled it around his back teeth. Tasting blood he tried for Murphy’s nose but Murphy shrugged and threw him on his back, still keeping his desperate grip on Hamish.
Suddenly a roar of human rage cut through the howl of the dogs. A thick rope with a great ice-splice at its end descended on Murphy’s back. No effect. Again the rope descended. This time Murphy blinked. Two more even harder blows at last had some effect. Murphy let go and sprang to the limit of his trace, turning inwards, facing all other dogs in case of more trouble. A few random swings of the thumper dispersed the other less determined fighters.
Now for retribution! Each dog knew it must come. Lying flat they tried to disappear into the snow, hoping that they might be forgotten or passed over. A few minutes before they had been receiving arid giving extremely painful wounds. The few cries of pain had been drowned by the ferocious growls, now each blow of the thumper occasioned the most pitiful heart-rending yelps. When Murphy had locked onto Hamish he had been stuck on any part of his body that showed in the scrum of bodies. This was dangerous but necessary under the circumstances. Now, undergoing cold-blooded punishment, he received it like a schoolboy on his rump. Undignified, painful but no permanent damage could result. Even Hamish, badly wounded as he was, received his dose. He had instigated the battle and must now rue the advantage he had taken. He was removed from the trace to limp back to the hut for treatment.
The driver now had a more subdued team, each dog looked suitably penitent, and an unwary man might have reckoned they had finished fighting for the day, but the driver knew better and he quickly walked to the back of the sledge.
“Up dogs.”
Revitalised, tails once more curled, proud and firm, high like banners bent over their backs they stood, waiting, heaving tentatively against their harnesses.
Launching themselves into their work with a few excited yelps they galloped along the prepared track. Annie followed the track without deviating. Here was a thing of interest in this dead white plain of sea-ice extending flat and seemingly endless to the horizon. At every bend in the track the driver shouted the correct command. “Irrrh!” – long and rolling with burning r’s to make her turn to the left. “Ouk!” “Ouk!” Short harsh and staccato in contrast, for a turn to the right. Except for these commands he let them gallop along, allowing them to run the high spirits out of their system. After about a mile at a full gallop, they steadied, slowing down to their normal dog trot covering the ground at about 5 m.p.h.
Meanwhile back at the base the other dog teams left one by one. Some departed cleanly, others had various excitements, one team almost left without its driver, one turned its sledge over on the ramp, some had minor fights but eventually all were clear of the base. In the kennel all was quiet. The bitch, now giving her full quota of milk, was fully occupied feeding her family, keeping them warm and dry, preventing them crawling too far from the life protecting warmth of her body. The noise of the fight and departing teams had worried her and leaving her pups for a moment she had gone to the kernel door, standing her hackles erect, prepared to die rather than let any hazard to her family pass her by. With the passing of the fight she calmed and once again returned to the all-consuming task of her pups.
Gordon McCallum – Adelaide GA, 1961 & 1962