South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton · English · Gutenberg #5199 · 847,511 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
Author: Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5199]
Most recently updated: July 18, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5199
Credits: Geoffrey Cowling, Jose Menendez and Eric Eldred
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH: THE STORY OF SHACKLETON'S LAST EXPEDITION, 1914-1917 ***
South
THE STORY OF SHACKLETON’S LAST EXPEDITION 1914–1917
by Sir Ernest Shackleton C.V.O.
[Illustration: IN THE PRIDE OF HER YOUTH.
Colour Photograph by F. Hurley]
TO
MY COMRADES
WHO FELL IN THE WHITE WARFARE
OF THE SOUTH AND ON THE
RED FIELDS OF FRANCE
AND FLANDERS
Contents
PREFACE
I. INTO THE WEDDELL SEA
II. NEW LAND
III. WINTER MONTHS
IV. LOSS OF THE _ENDURANCE_
V. OCEAN CAMP
VI. THE MARCH BETWEEN
VII. PATIENCE CAMP
VIII. ESCAPE FROM THE ICE
IX. THE BOAT JOURNEY
X. ACROSS SOUTH GEORGIA
XI. THE RESCUE
XII. ELEPHANT ISLAND
XIII. THE ROSS SEA PARTY
XIV. WINTERING IN McMURDO SOUND
XV. LAYING THE DEPOTS
XVI. THE _AURORA’S_ DRIFT
XVII. THE LAST RELIEF
XVIII. THE FINAL PHASE
APPENDIX I:
SCIENTIFIC WORK
SEA-ICE NOMENCLATURE
METEOROLOGY
PHYSICS
SOUTH ATLANTIC WHALES AND WHALING
APPENDIX II:
THE EXPEDITION HUTS AT McMURDO SOUND
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN THE PRIDE OF HER YOUTH. Colour Photograph by F. Hurley
The Leader
The Weddell Sea Party
Young Emperor Penguins
A Huge Floe of Consolidated Pack
Samson
Ice-Flowers
Midnight off the New Land
New Land: Caird Coast
Close Under the Barrier
Trying to cut a way for the Ship through the Ice to a Lead ahead (February 14, 1915)
The Night Watchman’s Story
The Dying Sun: The _Endurance_ firmly frozen in
The Rampart Berg
A Bi-Weekly Performance: Scrubbing out the “Ritz”
Pylon Avenue
The Long, Long Night
The Pups
Ice-Pressure Approaching the Ship
Ice-Rafting
The Returning Sun
Wild and Shackleton in the Heavy Pressure
Exercising the Dogs
Crab-eater Seals
The Beginning of the End
“Within a few Seconds she heeled over until she had a List of Thirty Degrees to Port”
Almost Overwhelmed
[Attack of the floes]
“The Driving Floe, moving laterally across the Stern, split the Rudder and tore out the Rudder-Post and Stern-Post”
The End
A Week Later
“The Wreckage lies around in Dismal Confusion”
The First Attempt to reach the Land 346 Miles Away
Ocean Camp
The Look-out at Ocean Camp
The Emergency Sledges being packed in case of a sudden break up of the Ice
The Sledges packed and ready
Relaying the _James Caird_
Potash and Perlmutter
“Loneliness”: Patience Camp
The Kitchen at Patience Camp
The Stove at Patience Camp constructed out of old Oil-drums
Worsley taking Observations of the Sun to determine our Position
“We cut Steps in this Twenty-five Foot Slab and it makes a fine Look-out”
“There was no Sleep for us that Night, so we lit the Blubber Stove”
Hauling up the Boats for the Night
The Reeling Berg
Sailing South Again
The First Landing ever made on Elephant Island, April 15, 1916
“We Pulled the Three Boats a little Higher on the Beach”
Rough sketch map of landing place and first camp at C. Valentine, Elephant Island
The First Drink and Hot Food for Three-and-a-Half Days
Mount Frank Houlder, Elephant Island
Launching the _James Caird_
The _Stancomb Wills_
In Sight of our Goal: Nearing South Georgia
Landing on South Georgia
[Cave Cove on South Georgia]
[Surroundings of King Haakon Bay]
[Plan of Sleeping Berths in Cave]
Sea Elephants on South Georgia
The Cliffs we descended whilst crossing the Island
One of the Glaciers we Crossed
A Typical View in South Georgia
[Rough Memory Map of Route Across South Georgia]
Panorama of South Georgia
The _Yelcho_
Arrival at Punta Arenas with the Rescued Men
Frank Wild, Second in Command of the Expedition
Our Dugout
The Hut on Elephant Island
View of Interior of Hut on Elephant Island
Marooned on Elephant Island
Elephant Island
The Rescue Ship Sighted
“All Safe! All Well!”
View through a Cave on Elephant Island
The Aurora
Ice Stalactites at the Entrance to a Cave on Elephant Island
A Newly-frozen Lead
The Ross Sea Party
Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith being dragged on the sledge
“The Rudder was bent over to Starboard and Smashed”
“Next Morning the Jury-Rudder was Shipped”
Ice Nomenclature: 1. Young Ice (Bay Ice of Scoresby) in the Middle Distance
2. Light Pack
3. Heavy Hummocked Pack
4. Hummocky Pack and Frozen Lead of Young-Ice
5. Close Pack
6. Open Pack
7. Very Open Pack, approximating to Drift-ice
8. Drift-Ice
“The Rookery”
The Anemometer covered with Rime
Map: The Voyage of the _Endurance_
PREFACE
After the conquest of the South Pole by Amundsen, who, by a narrow
margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under
Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic
journeyings—the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea.
When I returned from the _Nimrod_ Expedition on which we had to turn
back from our attempt to plant the British flag on the South Pole,
being beaten by stress of circumstances within ninety-seven miles of
our goal, my mind turned to the crossing of the continent, for I was
morally certain that either Amundsen or Scott would reach the Pole on
our own route or a parallel one. After hearing of the Norwegian success
I began to make preparations to start a last great journey—so that the
first crossing of the last continent should be achieved by a British
Expedition.
We failed in this object, but the story of our attempt is the subject
for the following pages, and I think that though failure in the actual
accomplishment must be recorded, there are chapters in this book of
high adventure, strenuous days, lonely nights, unique experiences, and,
above all, records of unflinching determination, supreme loyalty, and
generous self-sacrifice on the part of my men which, even in these days
that have witnessed the sacrifices of nations and regardlessness of
self on the part of individuals, still will be of interest to readers
who now turn gladly from the red horror of war and the strain of the
last five years to read, perhaps with more understanding minds, the
tale of the White Warfare of the South. The struggles, the
disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers,
hidden away for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the Polar ice,
striving to carry out the ordained task and ignorant of the crises
through which the world was passing, make a story which is unique in
the history of Antarctic exploration.
Owing to the loss of the _Endurance_ and the disaster to the _Aurora_,
certain documents relating mainly to the organization and preparation
of the Expedition have been lost; but, anyhow, I had no intention of
presenting a detailed account of the scheme of preparation, storing,
and other necessary but, to the general reader, unimportant affairs, as
since the beginning of this century, every book on Antarctic
exploration has dealt fully with this matter. I therefore briefly place
before you the inception and organization of the Expedition, and insert
here the copy of the programme which I prepared in order to arouse the
interest of the general public in the Expedition.
“_The Trans-continental Party._
“The first crossing of the Antarctic continent, from sea to sea via the
Pole, apart from its historic value, will be a journey of great
scientific importance.
“The distance will be roughly 1800 miles, and the first half of this,
from the Weddell Sea to the Pole, will be over unknown ground. Every
step will be an advance in geographical science. It will be learned
whether the great Victoria chain of mountains, which has been traced
from the Ross Sea to the Pole, extends across the continent and thus
links up (except for the ocean break) with the Andes of South America,
and whether the great plateau around the Pole dips gradually towards
the Weddell Sea.
“Continuous magnetic observations will be taken on the journey. The
route will lead towards the Magnetic Pole, and the determination of the
dip of the magnetic needle will be of importance in practical
magnetism. The meteorological conditions will be carefully noted, and
this should help to solve many of our weather problems.
“The glaciologist and geologist will study ice formations and the
nature of the mountains, and this report will prove of great scientific
interest.
“_Scientific Work by Other Parties._
“While the Trans-continental party is carrying out, for the British
Flag, the greatest Polar journey ever attempted, the other parties will
be engaged in important scientific work.
“Two sledging parties will operate from the base on the Weddell Sea.
One will travel westwards towards Graham Land, making observations,
collecting geological specimens, and proving whether there are
mountains in that region linked up with those found on the other side
of the Pole.
“Another party will travel eastward toward Enderby Land, carrying out a
similar programme, and a third, remaining at the base, will study the
fauna of the land and sea, and the meteorological conditions.
“From the Ross Sea base, on the other side of the Pole, another party
will push southward and will probably await the arrival of the
Trans-continental party at the top of the Beardmore Glacier, near Mount
Buckley, where the first seams of coal were discovered in the
Antarctic. This region is of great importance to the geologist, who
will be enabled to read much of the history of the Antarctic in the
rocks.
“Both the ships of the Expedition will be equipped for dredging,
sounding, and every variety of hydrographical work. The Weddell Sea
ship will endeavour to trace the unknown coast-line of Graham Land, and
from both the vessels, with their scientific staffs, important results
may be expected.
“The several shore parties and the two ships will thus carry out
geographical and scientific work on a scale and over an area never
before attempted by any one Polar expedition.
“This will be the first use of the Weddell Sea as a base for
exploration, and all the parties will open up vast stretches of unknown
land. It is appropriate that this work should be carried out under the
British Flag, since the whole of the area southward to the Pole is
British territory. In July 1908, Letters Patent were issued under the
Great Seal declaring that the Governor of the Falkland Islands should
be the Governor of Graham Land (which forms the western side of the
Weddell Sea), and another section of the same proclamation defines the
area of British territory as ‘situated in the South Atlantic Ocean to
the south of the 50th parallel of south latitude, and lying between 20
degrees and 80 degrees west longitude.’ Reference to a map will show
that this includes the area in which the present Expedition will work.
“_How the Continent will be crossed._
“The Weddell Sea ship, with all the members of the Expedition operating
from that base, will leave Buenos Ayres in October 1914, and endeavour
to land in November in latitude 78 degrees south.
“Should this be done, the Trans-continental party will set out on their
1800-mile journey at once, in the hope of accomplishing the march
across the Pole and reaching the Ross Sea base in five months. Should
the landing be made too late in the season, the party will go into
winter quarters, lay out depots during the autumn and the following
spring, and as early as possible in 1915 set out on the journey.
“The Trans-continental party will be led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, and
will consist of six men. It will take 100 dogs with sledges, and two
motor-sledges with aerial propellers. The equipment will embody
everything that the experience of the leader and his expert advisers
can suggest. When this party has reached the area of the Pole, after
covering 800 miles of unknown ground, it will strike due north towards
the head of the Beardmore Glacier, and there it is hoped to meet the
outcoming party from the Ross Sea. Both will join up and make for the
Ross Sea base, where the previous Expedition had its winter quarters.
“In all, fourteen men will be landed by the _Endurance_ on the Weddell
Sea. Six will set out on the Trans-continental journey, three will go
westward, three eastward, and two remain at the base carrying on the
work already outlined.
“The _Aurora_ will land six men at the Ross Sea base. They will lay
down depots on the route of the Trans-continental party, and make a
march south to assist that party, and to make geological and other
observations as already described.
“Should the Trans-continental party succeed, as is hoped, in crossing
during the first season, its return to civilization may be expected
about April 1915. The other sections in April 1916.
“_The Ships of the Expedition._
“The two ships for the Expedition have now been selected.
“The _Endurance_, the ship which will take the Trans-continental party
to the Weddell Sea, and will afterwards explore along an unknown
coast-line, is a new vessel, specially constructed for Polar work under
the supervision of a committee of Polar explorers. She was built by
Christensen, the famous Norwegian constructor of sealing vessels, at
Sandefjord. She is barquentine rigged, and has triple-expansion engines
giving her a speed under steam of nine to ten knots. To enable her to
stay longer at sea, she will carry oil fuel as well as coal. She is of
about 350 tons, and built of selected pine, oak, and greenheart. This
fine vessel, equipped, has cost the Expedition £14,000.
“The _Aurora_, the ship which will take out the Ross Sea party, has
been bought from Dr. Mawson. She is similar in all respects to the
_Terra Nova_, of Captain Scott’s last Expedition. She had extensive
alterations made by the Government authorities in Australia to fit her
for Dr. Mawson’s Expedition, and is now at Hobart, Tasmania, where the
Ross Sea party will join her in October next.”
I started the preparations in the middle of 1913, but no public
announcement was made until January 13, 1914. For the last six months
of 1913 I was engaged in the necessary preliminaries, solid mule work,
showing nothing particular to interest the public, but essential for an
Expedition that had to have a ship on each side of the Continent, with
a land journey of eighteen hundred miles to be made, the first nine
hundred miles to be across an absolutely unknown land mass.
On January 1, 1914, having received a promised financial support
sufficient to warrant the announcement of the Expedition, I made it
public.
The first result of this was a flood of applications from all classes
of the community to join the adventure. I received nearly five thousand
applications, and out of these were picked fifty-six men.
In March, to my great disappointment and anxiety, the promised
financial help did not materialize, and I was now faced with the fact
that I had contracted for a ship and stores, and had engaged the staff,
and I was not in possession of funds to meet these liabilities. I
immediately set about appealing for help, and met with generous
response from all sides. I cannot here give the names of all who
supported my application, but whilst taking this opportunity of
thanking every one for their support, which came from parts as far
apart as the interior of China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, I
must particularly refer to the munificent donation of £24,000 from the
late Sir James Caird, and to one of £10,000 from the British
Government. I must also thank Mr. Dudley Docker, who enabled me to
complete the purchase of the _Endurance_, and Miss Elizabeth Dawson
Lambton, who since 1901 has always been a firm friend to Antarctic
exploration, and who again, on this occasion, assisted largely. The
Royal Geographical Society made a grant of £1000; and last, but by no
means least, I take this opportunity of tendering my grateful thanks to
Dame Janet Stancomb Wills, whose generosity enabled me to equip the
_Endurance_ efficiently, especially as regards boats (which boats were
the means of our ultimate safety), and who not only, at the inception
of the Expedition, gave financial help, but also continued it through
the dark days when we were overdue, and funds were required to meet the
need of the dependents of the Expedition.
The only return and privilege an explorer has in the way of
acknowledgment for the help accorded him is to record on the discovered
lands the names of those to whom the Expedition owes its being.
Owing to the exigencies of the war the publication of this book has
been long delayed, and the detailed maps must come with the scientific
monographs. I have the honour to place on the new land the names of the
above and other generous donors to the Expedition. The two hundred
miles of new coast-line I have called Caird Coast. Also, as a more
personal note, I named the three ship’s boats, in which we ultimately
escaped from the grip of the ice, after the three principal donors to
the Expedition—the _James Caird_, the _Stancomb Wills_ and the _Dudley
Docker_. The two last-named are still on the desolate sandy spit of
Elephant Island, where under their shelter twenty-two of my comrades
eked out a bare existence for four and a half months.
The _James Caird_ is now in Liverpool, having been brought home from
South Georgia after her adventurous voyage across the sub-Antarctic
ocean.
Most of the Public Schools of England and Scotland helped the
Expedition to purchase the dog teams, and I named a dog after each
school that helped. But apart from these particular donations I again
thank the many people who assisted us.
So the equipment and organization went on. I purchased the _Aurora_
from Sir Douglas Mawson, and arranged for Mackintosh to go to Australia
and take charge of her, there sending sledges, equipment and most of
the stores from this side, but depending somewhat on the sympathy and
help of Australia and New Zealand for coal and certain other
necessities, knowing that previously these two countries had always
generously supported the exploration of what one might call their
hinterland.
Towards the end of July all was ready, when suddenly the war clouds
darkened over Europe.
It had been arranged for the _Endurance_ to proceed to Cowes, to be
inspected by His Majesty on the Monday of Cowes week. But on Friday I
received a message to say that the King would not be able to go to
Cowes. My readers will remember how suddenly came the menace of war.
Naturally, both my comrades and I were greatly exercised as to the
probable outcome of the danger threatening the peace of the world.
We sailed from London on Friday, August 1, 1914, and anchored off
Southend all Saturday. On Sunday afternoon I took the ship off Margate,
growing hourly more anxious as the ever-increasing rumours spread; and
on Monday morning I went ashore and read in the morning paper the order
for general mobilization.
I immediately went on board and mustered all hands and told them that I
proposed to send a telegram to the Admiralty offering the ships,
stores, and, if they agreed, our own services to the country in the
event of war breaking out. All hands immediately agreed, and I sent off
a telegram in which everything was placed at the disposal of the
Admiralty. We only asked that, in the event of the declaration of war,
the Expedition might be considered as a single unit, so as to preserve
its homogeneity. There were enough trained and experienced men amongst
us to man a destroyer. Within an hour I received a laconic wire from
the Admiralty saying “Proceed.” Within two hours a longer wire came
from Mr. Winston Churchill, in which we were thanked for our offer, and
saying that the authorities desired that the Expedition, which had the
full sanction and support of the Scientific and Geographical Societies,
should go on.
So, according to these definite instructions, the _Endurance_ sailed to
Plymouth. On Tuesday the King sent for me and handed me the Union Jack
to carry on the Expedition. That night, at midnight, war broke out. On
the following Saturday, August 8, the _Endurance_ sailed from Plymouth,
obeying the direct order of the Admiralty. I make particular reference
to this phase of the Expedition as I am aware that there was a certain
amount of criticism of the Expedition having left the country, and
regarding this I wish further to add that the preparation of the
Expedition had been proceeding for over a year, and large sums of money
had been spent. We offered to give the Expedition up without even
consulting the donors of this money, and but few thought that the war
would last through these five years and involve the whole world. The
Expedition was not going on a peaceful cruise to the South Sea Islands,
but to a most dangerous, difficult, and strenuous work that has nearly
always involved a certain percentage of loss of life. Finally, when the
Expedition did return, practically the whole of those members who had
come unscathed through the dangers of the Antarctic took their places
in the wider field of battle, and the percentage of casualties amongst
the members of this Expedition is high.
The voyage out to Buenos Ayres was uneventful, and on October 26 we
sailed from that port for South Georgia, the most southerly outpost of
the British Empire. Here, for a month, we were engaged in final
preparation. The last we heard of the war was when we left Buenos
Ayres. Then the Russian Steam-Roller was advancing. According to many
the war would be over within six months. And so we left, not without
regret that we could not take our place there, but secure in the
knowledge that we were taking part in a strenuous campaign for the
credit of our country.
Apart from private individuals and societies I here acknowledge most
gratefully the assistance rendered by the Dominion Government of New
Zealand and the Commonwealth Government of Australia at the start of
the Ross Sea section of the Expedition; and to the people of New
Zealand and the Dominion Government I tender my most grateful thanks
for their continued help, which was invaluable during the dark days
before the relief of the Ross Sea Party.
Mr. James Allen (acting Premier), the late Mr. McNab (Minister of
Marine), Mr. Leonard Tripp, Mr. Mabin, and Mr. Toogood, and many others
have laid me under a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
This is also the opportunity for me to thank the Uruguayan Government
for their generous assistance in placing the government trawler,
_Instituto de Pesca_, for the second attempt at the relief of my men on
Elephant Island.
Finally, it was the Chilian Government that was directly responsible
for the rescue of my comrades. This southern Republic was unwearied in
its efforts to make a successful rescue, and the gratitude of our whole
party is due to them. I especially mention the sympathetic attitude of
Admiral Muñoz Hurtado, head of the Chilian Navy, and Captain Luis
Pardo, who commanded the _Yelcho_ on our last and successful venture.
Sir Daniel Gooch came with us as far as South Georgia. I owe him my
special thanks for his help with the dogs, and we all regretted losing
his cheery presence, when we sailed for the South.
CHAPTER I
INTO THE WEDDELL SEA
I decided to leave South Georgia about December 5, and in the intervals
of final preparation scanned again the plans for the voyage to winter
quarters. What welcome was the Weddell Sea preparing for us? The
whaling captains at South Georgia were generously ready to share with
me their knowledge of the waters in which they pursued their trade,
and, while confirming earlier information as to the extreme severity of
the ice conditions in this sector of the Antarctic, they were able to
give advice that was worth attention.
It will be convenient to state here briefly some of the considerations
that weighed with me at that time and in the weeks that followed. I
knew that the ice had come far north that season and, after listening
to the suggestions of the whaling captains, had decided to steer to the
South Sandwich Group, round Ultima Thule, and work as far to the
eastward as the fifteenth meridian west longitude before pushing south.
The whalers emphasized the difficulty of getting through the ice in the
neighbourhood of the South Sandwich Group. They told me they had often
seen the floes come right up to the group in the summer-time, and they
thought the Expedition would have to push through heavy pack in order
to reach the Weddell Sea. Probably the best time to get into the
Weddell Sea would be the end of February or the beginning of March. The
whalers had gone right round the South Sandwich Group and they were
familiar with the conditions. The predictions they made induced me to
take the deck-load of coal, for if we had to fight our way through to
Coats’ Land we would need every ton of fuel the ship could carry.
I hoped that by first moving to the east as far as the fifteenth
meridian west we would be able to go south through looser ice, pick up
Coats’ Land and finally reach Vahsel Bay, where Filchner made his
attempt at landing in 1912. Two considerations were occupying my mind
at this juncture. I was anxious for certain reasons to winter the
_Endurance_ in the Weddell Sea, but the difficulty of finding a safe
harbour might be very great. If no safe harbour could be found, the
ship must winter at South Georgia. It seemed to me hopeless now to
think of making the journey across the continent in the first summer,
as the season was far advanced and the ice conditions were likely to
prove unfavourable. In view of the possibility of wintering the ship in
the ice, we took extra clothing from the stores at the various stations
in South Georgia.
The other question that was giving me anxious thought was the size of
the shore party. If the ship had to go out during the winter, or if she
broke away from winter quarters, it would be preferable to have only a
small, carefully selected party of men ashore after the hut had been
built and the stores landed. These men could proceed to lay out depots
by man-haulage and make short journeys with the dogs, training them for
the long early march in the following spring. The majority of the
scientific men would live aboard the ship, where they could do their
work under good conditions. They would be able to make short journeys
if required, using the _Endurance_ as a base. All these plans were
based on an expectation that the finding of winter quarters was likely
to be difficult. If a really safe base could be established on the
continent, I would adhere to the original programme of sending one
party to the south, one to the west round the head of the Weddell Sea
towards Graham Land, and one to the east towards Enderby Land.
We had worked out details of distances, courses, stores required, and
so forth. Our sledging ration, the result of experience as well as
close study, was perfect. The dogs gave promise, after training, of
being able to cover fifteen to twenty miles a day with loaded sledges.
The trans-continental journey, at this rate, should be completed in 120
days unless some unforeseen obstacle intervened. We longed keenly for
the day when we could begin this march, the last great adventure in the
history of South Polar exploration, but a knowledge of the obstacles
that lay between us and our starting-point served as a curb on
impatience. Everything depended upon the landing. If we could land at
Filchner’s base there was no reason why a band of experienced men
should not winter there in safety. But the Weddell Sea was notoriously
inhospitable and already we knew that its sternest face was turned
toward us. All the conditions in the Weddell Sea are unfavourable from
the navigator’s point of view. The winds are comparatively light, and
consequently new ice can form even in the summer-time. The absence of
strong winds has the additional effect of allowing the ice to
accumulate in masses, undisturbed. Then great quantities of ice sweep
along the coast from the east under the influence of the prevailing
current, and fill up the bight of the Weddell Sea as they move north in
a great semicircle. Some of this ice doubtless describes almost a
complete circle, and is held up eventually, in bad seasons, against the
South Sandwich Islands. The strong currents, pressing the ice masses
against the coasts, create heavier pressure than is found in any other
part of the Antarctic. This pressure must be at least as severe as the
pressure experienced in the congested North Polar basin, and I am
inclined to think that a comparison would be to the advantage of the
Arctic. All these considerations naturally had a bearing upon our
immediate problem, the penetration of the pack and the finding of a
safe harbour on the continental coast.
The day of departure arrived. I gave the order to heave anchor at 8.45
a.m. on December 5, 1914, and the clanking of the windlass broke for us
the last link with civilization. The morning was dull and overcast,
with occasional gusts of snow and sleet, but hearts were light aboard
the _Endurance_. The long days of preparation were over and the
adventure lay ahead.
We had hoped that some steamer from the north would bring news of war
and perhaps letters from home before our departure. A ship did arrive
on the evening of the 4th, but she carried no letters, and nothing
useful in the way of information could be gleaned from her. The captain
and crew were all stoutly pro-German, and the “news” they had to give
took the unsatisfying form of accounts of British and French reverses.
We would have been glad to have had the latest tidings from a
friendlier source. A year and a half later we were to learn that the
_Harpoon_, the steamer which tends the Grytviken station, had arrived
with mail for us not more than two hours after the _Endurance_ had
proceeded down the coast.
The bows of the _Endurance_ were turned to the south, and the good ship
dipped to the south-westerly swell. Misty rain fell during the
forenoon, but the weather cleared later in the day, and we had a good
view of the coast of South Georgia as we moved under steam and sail to
the south-east. The course was laid to carry us clear of the island and
then south of South Thule, Sandwich Group. The wind freshened during
the day, and all square sail was set, with the foresail reefed in order
to give the look-out a clear view ahead; for we did not wish to risk
contact with a “growler,” one of those treacherous fragments of ice
that float with surface awash. The ship was very steady in the
quarterly sea, but certainly did not look as neat and trim as she had
done when leaving the shores of England four months earlier. We had
filled up with coal at Grytviken, and this extra fuel was stored on
deck, where it impeded movement considerably. The carpenter had built a
false deck, extending from the poop-deck to the chart-room. We had also
taken aboard a ton of whale-meat for the dogs. The big chunks of meat
were hung up in the rigging, out of reach but not out of sight of the
dogs, and as the _Endurance_ rolled and pitched, they watched with
wolfish eyes for a windfall.
I was greatly pleased with the dogs, which were tethered about the ship
in the most comfortable positions we could find for them. They were in
excellent condition, and I felt that the Expedition had the right
tractive-power. They were big, sturdy animals, chosen for endurance and
strength, and if they were as keen to pull our sledges as they were now
to fight one another all would be well. The men in charge of the dogs
were doing their work enthusiastically, and the eagerness they showed
to study the natures and habits of their charges gave promise of
efficient handling and good work later on.
[Illustration: The Leader]
[Illustration: The Weddell Sea Party]
During December 6 the _Endurance_ made good progress on a
south-easterly course. The northerly breeze had freshened during the
night and had brought up a high following sea. The weather was hazy,
and we passed two bergs, several growlers, and numerous lumps of ice.
Staff and crew were settling down to the routine. Bird life was
plentiful, and we noticed Cape pigeons, whale-birds, terns, mollymauks,
nellies, sooty, and wandering albatrosses in the neighbourhood of the
ship. The course was laid for the passage between Sanders Island and
Candlemas Volcano. December 7 brought the first check. At six o’clock
that morning the sea, which had been green in colour all the previous
day, changed suddenly to a deep indigo. The ship was behaving well in a
rough sea, and some members of the scientific staff were transferring
to the bunkers the coal we had stowed on deck. Sanders Island and
Candlemas were sighted early in the afternoon, and the _Endurance_
passed between them at 6 p.m. Worsley’s observations indicated that
Sanders Island was, roughly, three miles east and five miles north of
the charted position. Large numbers of bergs, mostly tabular in form,
lay to the west of the islands, and we noticed that many of them were
yellow with _diatoms_. One berg had large patches of red-brown soil
down its sides. The presence of so many bergs was ominous, and
immediately after passing between the islands we encountered
stream-ice. All sail was taken in and we proceeded slowly under steam.
Two hours later, fifteen miles north-east of Sanders Island, the
_Endurance_ was confronted by a belt of heavy pack-ice, half a mile
broad and extending north and south. There was clear water beyond, but
the heavy south-westerly swell made the pack impenetrable in our
neighbourhood. This was disconcerting. The noon latitude had been 57°
26´ S., and I had not expected to find pack-ice nearly so far north,
though the whalers had reported pack-ice right up to South Thule.
The situation became dangerous that night. We pushed into the pack in
the hope of reaching open water beyond, and found ourselves after dark
in a pool which was growing smaller and smaller. The ice was grinding
around the ship in the heavy swell, and I watched with some anxiety for
any indication of a change of wind to the east, since a breeze from
that quarter would have driven us towards the land. Worsley and I were
on deck all night, dodging the pack. At 3 a.m. we ran south, taking
advantage of some openings that had appeared, but met heavy rafted
pack-ice, evidently old; some of it had been subjected to severe
pressure. Then we steamed north-west and saw open water to the
north-east. I put the _Endurance’s_ head for the opening, and, steaming
at full speed, we got clear. Then we went east in the hope of getting
better ice, and five hours later, after some dodging, we rounded the
pack and were able to set sail once more. This initial tussle with the
pack had been exciting at times. Pieces of ice and bergs of all sizes
were heaving and jostling against each other in the heavy
south-westerly swell. In spite of all our care the _Endurance_ struck
large lumps stem on, but the engines were stopped in time and no harm
was done. The scene and sounds throughout the day were very fine. The
swell was dashing against the sides of huge bergs and leaping right to
the top of their icy cliffs. Sanders Island lay to the south, with a
few rocky faces peering through the misty, swirling clouds that swathed
it most of the time, the booming of the sea running into ice-caverns,
the swishing break of the swell on the loose pack, and the graceful
bowing and undulating of the inner pack to the steeply rolling swell,
which here was robbed of its break by the masses of ice to windward.
We skirted the northern edge of the pack in clear weather with a light
south-westerly breeze and an overcast sky. The bergs were numerous.
During the morning of December 9 an easterly breeze brought hazy
weather with snow, and at 4.30 p.m. we encountered the edge of pack-ice
in lat. 58° 27´ S., long. 22° 08´ W. It was one-year-old ice
interspersed with older pack, all heavily snow-covered and lying
west-south-west to east-north-east. We entered the pack at 5 p.m., but
could not make progress, and cleared it again at 7.40 p.m. Then we
steered east-north-east and spent the rest of the night rounding the
pack. During the day we had seen adelie and ringed penguins, also
several humpback and finner whales. An ice-blink to the westward
indicated the presence of pack in that direction. After rounding the
pack we steered S. 40° E., and at noon on the 10th had reached lat. 58°
28´ S., long. 20° 28´ W. Observations showed the compass variation to
be 1½° less than the chart recorded. I kept the _Endurance_ on the
course till midnight, when we entered loose open ice about ninety miles
south-east of our noon position. This ice proved to fringe the pack,
and progress became slow. There was a long easterly swell with a light
northerly breeze, and the weather was clear and fine. Numerous bergs
lay outside the pack.
The _Endurance_ steamed through loose open ice till 8 a.m. on the 11th,
when we entered the pack in lat. 59° 46´ S., long. 18° 22´ W. We could
have gone farther east, but the pack extended far in that direction,
and an effort to circle it might have involved a lot of northing. I did
not wish to lose the benefit of the original southing. The extra miles
would not have mattered to a ship with larger coal capacity than the
_Endurance_ possessed, but we could not afford to sacrifice miles
unnecessarily. The pack was loose and did not present great
difficulties at this stage. The foresail was set in order to take
advantage of the northerly breeze. The ship was in contact with the ice
occasionally and received some heavy blows. Once or twice she was
brought up all standing against solid pieces, but no harm was done. The
chief concern was to protect the propeller and rudder. If a collision
seemed to be inevitable the officer in charge would order “slow” or
“half speed” with the engines, and put the helm over so as to strike
floe a glancing blow. Then the helm would be put over towards the ice
with the object of throwing the propeller clear of it, and the ship
would forge ahead again. Worsley, Wild, and I, with three officers,
kept three watches while we were working through the pack, so that we
had two officers on deck all the time. The carpenter had rigged a
six-foot wooden semaphore on the bridge to enable the navigating
officer to give the seamen or scientists at the wheel the direction and
the exact amount of helm required. This device saved time, as well as
the effort of shouting. We were pushing through this loose pack all
day, and the view from the crow’s-nest gave no promise of improved
conditions ahead. A Weddell seal and a crab-eater seal were noticed on
the floes, but we did not pause to secure fresh meat. It was important
that we should make progress towards our goal as rapidly as possible,
and there was reason to fear that we should have plenty of time to
spare later on if the ice conditions continued to increase in severity.
On the morning of December 12 we were working through loose pack which
later became thick in places. The sky was overcast and light snow was
falling. I had all square sail set at 7 a.m. in order to take advantage
of the northerly breeze, but it had to come in again five hours later
when the wind hauled round to the west. The noon position was lat. 60°
26´ S., long. 17° 58´ W., and the run for the twenty-four hours had
been only 33 miles. The ice was still badly congested, and we were
pushing through narrow leads and occasional openings with the floes
often close abeam on either side. Antarctic, snow and stormy petrels,
fulmars, white-rumped terns, and adelies were around us. The quaint
little penguins found the ship a cause of much apparent excitement and
provided a lot of amusement aboard. One of the standing jokes was that
all the adelies on the floe seemed to know Clark, and when he was at
the wheel rushed along as fast as their legs could carry them, yelling
out “Clark! Clark!” and apparently very indignant and perturbed that he
never waited for them or even answered them.
We found several good leads to the south in the evening, and continued
to work southward throughout the night and the following day. The pack
extended in all directions as far as the eye could reach. The noon
observation showed the run for the twenty-four hours to be 54 miles, a
satisfactory result under the conditions. Wild shot a young Ross seal
on the floe, and we manœuvred the ship alongside. Hudson jumped down,
bent a line on to the seal, and the pair of them were hauled up. The
seal was 4 ft. 9 in. long and weighed about ninety pounds. He was a
young male and proved very good eating, but when dressed and minus the
blubber made little more than a square meal for our twenty-eight men,
with a few scraps for our breakfast and tea. The stomach contained only
_amphipods_ about an inch long, allied to those found in the whales at
Grytviken.
[Illustration: Young Emperor Penguins]
[Illustration: A Huge Floe of Consolidated Pack]
The conditions became harder on December 14. There was a misty haze,
and occasional falls of snow. A few bergs were in sight. The pack was
denser than it had been on the previous days. Older ice was
intermingled with the young ice, and our progress became slower. The
propeller received several blows in the early morning, but no damage
was done. A platform was rigged under the jib-boom in order that Hurley
might secure some kinematograph pictures of the ship breaking through
the ice. The young ice did not present difficulties to the _Endurance_,
which was able to smash a way through, but the lumps of older ice were
more formidable obstacles, and conning the ship was a task requiring
close attention. The most careful navigation could not prevent an
occasional bump against ice too thick to be broken or pushed aside. The
southerly breeze strengthened to a moderate south-westerly gale during
the afternoon, and at 8 p.m. we hove to, stem against a floe, it being
impossible to proceed without serious risk of damage to rudder or
propeller. I was interested to notice that, although we had been
steaming through the pack for three days, the north-westerly swell
still held with us. It added to the difficulties of navigation in the
lanes, since the ice was constantly in movement.
The _Endurance_ remained against the floe for the next twenty-four
hours, when the gale moderated. The pack extended to the horizon in all
directions and was broken by innumerable narrow lanes. Many bergs were
in sight, and they appeared to be travelling through the pack in a
south-westerly direction under the current influence. Probably the pack
itself was moving north-east with the gale. Clark put down a net in
search of specimens, and at two fathoms it was carried south-west by
the current and fouled the propeller. He lost the net, two leads, and a
line. Ten bergs drove to the south through the pack during the
twenty-four hours. The noon position was 61° 31´ S., long. 18° 12´ W.
The gale had moderated at 8 p.m., and we made five miles to the south
before midnight and then we stopped at the end of a long lead, waiting
till the weather cleared. It was during this short run that the
captain, with semaphore hard-a-port, shouted to the scientist at the
wheel: “Why in Paradise don’t you port!” The answer came in indignant
tones: “I am blowing my nose.”
The _Endurance_ made some progress on the following day. Long leads of
open water ran towards the south-west, and the ship smashed at full
speed through occasional areas of young ice till brought up with a
heavy thud against a section of older floe. Worsley was out on the
jib-boom end for a few minutes while Wild was conning the ship, and he
came back with a glowing account of a novel sensation. The boom was
swinging high and low and from side to side, while the massive bows of
the ship smashed through the ice, splitting it across, piling it mass
on mass and then shouldering it aside. The air temperature was 37°
Fahr., pleasantly warm, and the water temperature 29° Fahr. We
continued to advance through fine long leads till 4 a.m. on December
17, when the ice became difficult again. Very large floes of
six-months-old ice lay close together. Some of these floes presented a
square mile of unbroken surface, and among them were patches of thin
ice and several floes of heavy old ice. Many bergs were in sight, and
the course became devious. The ship was blocked at one point by a
wedge-shaped piece of floe, but we put the ice-anchor through it, towed
it astern, and proceeded through the gap. Steering under these
conditions required muscle as well as nerve. There was a clatter aft
during the afternoon, and Hussey, who was at the wheel, explained that
“The wheel spun round and threw me over the top of it!” The noon
position was lat. 62° 13´ S., long. 18° 53´ W., and the run for the
preceding twenty-four hours had been 32 miles in a south-westerly
direction. We saw three blue whales during the day and one emperor
penguin, a 58-lb. bird, which was added to the larder.
The morning of December 18 found the _Endurance_ proceeding amongst
large floes with thin ice between them. The leads were few. There was a
northerly breeze with occasional snow-flurries. We secured three
crab-eater seals—two cows and a bull. The bull was a fine specimen,
nearly white all over and 9 ft. 3 in. long; he weighed 600 lbs. Shortly
before noon further progress was barred by heavy pack, and we put an
ice-anchor on the floe and banked the fires. I had been prepared for
evil conditions in the Weddell Sea, but had hoped that in December and
January, at any rate, the pack would be loose, even if no open water
was to be found. What we were actually encountering was fairly dense
pack of a very obstinate character. Pack-ice might be described as a
gigantic and interminable jigsaw-puzzle devised by nature. The parts of
the puzzle in loose pack have floated slightly apart and become
disarranged; at numerous places they have pressed together again; as
the pack gets closer the congested areas grow larger and the parts are
jammed harder till finally it becomes “close pack,” when the whole of
the jigsaw-puzzle becomes jammed to such an extent that with care and
labour it can be traversed in every direction on foot. Where the parts
do not fit closely there is, of course, open water, which freezes over,
in a few hours after giving off volumes of “frost-smoke.” In obedience
to renewed pressure this young ice “rafts,” so forming double
thicknesses of a toffee-like consistency. Again the opposing edges of
heavy floes rear up in slow and almost silent conflict, till high
“hedgerows” are formed round each part of the puzzle. At the junction
of several floes chaotic areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are
formed. Sometimes 5-ft. to 6-ft. piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice
are seen so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be
Nature’s work. Again, a winding canyon may be traversed between icy
walls 6 ft. to 10 ft. high, or a dome may be formed that under renewed
pressure bursts upward like a volcano. All the winter the drifting pack
changes—grows by freezing, thickens by rafting, and corrugates by
pressure. If, finally, in its drift it impinges on a coast, such as the
western shore of the Weddell Sea, terrific pressure is set up and an
inferno of ice-blocks, ridges, and hedgerows results, extending
possibly for 150 or 200 miles off shore. Sections of pressure ice may
drift away subsequently and become embedded in new ice.
I have given this brief explanation here in order that the reader may
understand the nature of the ice through which we pushed our way for
many hundreds of miles. Another point that may require to be explained
was the delay caused by wind while we were in the pack. When a strong
breeze or moderate gale was blowing the ship could not safely work
through any except young ice, up to about two feet in thickness. As ice
of that nature never extended for more than a mile or so, it followed
that in a gale in the pack we had always to lie to. The ship was 3 ft.
3 in. down by the stern, and while this saved the propeller and rudder
a good deal, it made the _Endurance_ practically unmanageable in close
pack when the wind attained a force of six miles an hour from ahead,
since the air currents had such a big surface forward to act upon. The
pressure of wind on bows and the yards of the foremast would cause the
bows to fall away, and in these conditions the ship could not be
steered into the narrow lanes and leads through which we had to thread
our way. The falling away of the bows, moreover, would tend to bring
the stern against the ice, compelling us to stop the engines in order
to save the propeller. Then the ship would become unmanageable and
drift away, with the possibility of getting excessive sternway on her
and so damaging rudder or propeller, the Achilles’ heel of a ship in
pack-ice.
While we were waiting for the weather to moderate and the ice to open,
I had the Lucas sounding-machine rigged over the rudder-trunk and found
the depth to be 2810 fathoms. The bottom sample was lost owing to the
line parting 60 fathoms from the end. During the afternoon three adelie
penguins approached the ship across the floe while Hussey was
discoursing sweet music on the banjo. The solemn-looking little birds
appeared to appreciate “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” but they fled in
horror when Hussey treated them to a little of the music that comes
from Scotland. The shouts of laughter from the ship added to their
dismay, and they made off as fast as their short legs would carry them.
The pack opened slightly at 6.15 p.m., and we proceeded through lanes
for three hours before being forced to anchor to a floe for the night.
We fired a Hjort mark harpoon, No. 171, into a blue whale on this day.
The conditions did not improve during December 19. A fresh to strong
northerly breeze brought haze and snow, and after proceeding for two
hours the _Endurance_ was stopped again by heavy floes. It was
impossible to manœuvre the ship in the ice owing to the strong wind,
which kept the floes in movement and caused lanes to open and close
with dangerous rapidity. The noon observation showed that we had made
six miles to the south-east in the previous twenty-four hours. All
hands were engaged during the day in rubbing shoots off our potatoes,
which were found to be sprouting freely. We remained moored to a floe
over the following day, the wind not having moderated; indeed, it
freshened to a gale in the afternoon, and the members of the staff and
crew took advantage of the pause to enjoy a vigorously contested game
of football on the level surface of the floe alongside the ship. Twelve
bergs were in sight at this time. The noon position was lat. 62° 42´
S., long. 17° 54´ W., showing that we had drifted about six miles in a
north-easterly direction.
[Illustration: Samson]
[Illustration: Ice-Flowers]
Monday, December 21, was beautifully fine, with a gentle
west-north-westerly breeze. We made a start at 3 a.m. and proceeded
through the pack in a south-westerly direction. At noon we had gained
seven miles almost due east, the northerly drift of the pack having
continued while the ship was apparently moving to the south. Petrels of
several species, penguins, and seals were plentiful, and we saw four
small blue whales. At noon we entered a long lead to the southward and
passed around and between nine splendid bergs. One mighty specimen was
shaped like the Rock of Gibraltar but with steeper cliffs, and another
had a natural dock that would have contained the _Aquitania_. A spur of
ice closed the entrance to the huge blue pool. Hurley brought out his
kinematograph-camera, in order to make a record of these bergs. Fine
long leads running east and south-east among bergs were found during
the afternoon, but at midnight the ship was stopped by small, heavy
ice-floes, tightly packed against an unbroken plain of ice. The outlook
from the mast-head was not encouraging. The big floe was at least 15
miles long and 10 miles wide. The edge could not be seen at the widest
part, and the area of the floe must have been not less than 150 square
miles. It appeared to be formed of year-old ice, not very thick and
with very few hummocks or ridges in it. We thought it must have been
formed at sea in very calm weather and drifted up from the south-east.
I had never seen such a large area of unbroken ice in the Ross Sea.
We waited with banked fires for the strong easterly breeze to moderate
or the pack to open. At 6.30 p.m. on December 22 some lanes opened and
we were able to move towards the south again. The following morning
found us working slowly through the pack, and the noon observation gave
us a gain of 19 miles S. 41° W. for the seventeen and a half hours
under steam. Many year-old adelies, three crab-eaters, six
sea-leopards, one Weddell and two blue whales were seen. The air
temperature, which had been down to 25° Fahr. on December 21, had risen
to 34° Fahr. While we were working along leads to the southward in the
afternoon, we counted fifteen bergs. Three of these were table-topped,
and one was about 70 ft high and 5 miles long. Evidently it had come
from a barrier-edge. The ice became heavier but slightly more open, and
we had a calm night with fine long leads of open water. The water was
so still that new ice was forming on the leads. We had a run of 70
miles to our credit at noon on December 24, the position being lat. 64°
32´ S., long. 17° 17´ W. All the dogs except eight had been named. I do
not know who had been responsible for some of the names, which seemed
to represent a variety of tastes. They were as follows Rugby, Upton
Bristol, Millhill, Songster, Sandy, Mack, Mercury, Wolf, Amundsen,
Hercules, Hackenschmidt, Samson, Sammy, Skipper, Caruso, Sub, Ulysses,
Spotty, Bosun, Slobbers, Sadie, Sue, Sally, Jasper, Tim, Sweep, Martin,
Splitlip, Luke, Saint, Satan, Chips, Stumps, Snapper, Painful, Bob,
Snowball, Jerry, Judge, Sooty, Rufus, Sidelights, Simeon, Swanker,
Chirgwin, Steamer, Peter, Fluffy, Steward, Slippery, Elliott, Roy,
Noel, Shakespeare, Jamie, Bummer, Smuts, Lupoid, Spider, and Sailor.
Some of the names, it will be noticed, had a descriptive flavour.
Heavy floes held up the ship from midnight till 6 a.m. on December 25,
Christmas Day. Then they opened a little and we made progress till
11.30 a.m., when the leads closed again. We had encountered good leads
and workable ice during the early part of the night, and the noon
observation showed that our run for the twenty-four hours was the best
since we entered the pack a fortnight earlier. We had made 71 miles S.
4° W. The ice held us up till the evening, and then we were able to
follow some leads for a couple of hours before the tightly packed floes
and the increasing wind compelled a stop. The celebration of Christmas
was not forgotten. Grog was served at midnight to all on deck. There
was grog again at breakfast, for the benefit of those who had been in
their bunks at midnight. Lees had decorated the wardroom with flags and
had a little Christmas present for each of us. Some of us had presents
from home to open. Later there was a really splendid dinner, consisting
of turtle soup, whitebait, jugged hare, Christmas pudding, mince-pies,
dates, figs and crystallized fruits, with rum and stout as drinks. In
the evening everybody joined in a “sing-song.” Hussey had made a
one-stringed violin, on which, in the words of Worsley, he “discoursed
quite painlessly.” The wind was increasing to a moderate south-easterly
gale and no advance could be made, so we were able to settle down to
the enjoyments of the evening.
The weather was still bad on December 26 and 27, and the _Endurance_
remained anchored to a floe. The noon position on the 26th was lat. 65°
43´ S., long. 17° 36´ W. We made another sounding on this day with the
Lucas machine and found bottom at 2819 fathoms. The specimen brought up
was a terrigenous blue mud (glacial deposit) with some _radiolaria_.
Every one took turns at the work of heaving in, two men working
together in ten-minute spells.
Sunday, December 27, was a quiet day aboard. The southerly gale was
blowing the snow in clouds off the floe and the temperature had fallen
to 23° Fahr. The dogs were having an uncomfortable time in their deck
quarters. The wind had moderated by the following morning, but it was
squally with snow-flurries, and I did not order a start till 11 p.m.
The pack was still close, but the ice was softer and more easily
broken. During the pause the carpenter had rigged a small stage over
the stern. A man was stationed there to watch the propeller and prevent
it striking heavy ice, and the arrangement proved very valuable. It
saved the rudder as well as the propeller from many blows.
The high winds that had prevailed for four and a half days gave way to
a gentle southerly breeze in the evening of December 29. Owing to the
drift we were actually eleven miles farther north than we had been on
December 25. But we made fairly good progress on the 30th in fine,
clear weather. The ship followed a long lead to the south-east during
the afternoon and evening, and at 11 p.m. we crossed the Antarctic
Circle. An examination of the horizon disclosed considerable breaks in
the vast circle of pack-ice, interspersed with bergs of different
sizes. Leads could be traced in various directions, but I looked in
vain for an indication of open water. The sun did not set that night,
and as it was concealed behind a bank of clouds we had a glow of
crimson and gold to the southward, with delicate pale green reflections
in the water of the lanes to the south-east.
The ship had a serious encounter with the ice on the morning of
December 31. We were stopped first by floes closing around us, and then
about noon the _Endurance_ got jammed between two floes heading
east-north-east. The pressure heeled the ship over six degrees while we
were getting an ice-anchor on to the floe in order to heave astern and
thus assist the engines, which were running at full speed. The effort
was successful. Immediately afterwards, at the spot where the
_Endurance_ had been held, slabs of ice 50 ft. by 15 ft. and 4 ft.
thick were forced ten or twelve feet up on the lee floe at an angle of
45°. The pressure was severe, and we were not sorry to have the ship
out of its reach. The noon position was lat. 66° 47´ S., long. 15° 52´
W., and the run for the preceding twenty-four hours was 51 miles S. 29°
E.
“Since noon the character of the pack has improved,” wrote Worsley on
this day. “Though the leads are short, the floes are rotten and easily
broken through if a good place is selected with care and judgment. In
many cases we find large sheets of young ice through which the ship
cuts for a mile or two miles at a stretch. I have been conning and
working the ship from the crow’s-nest and find it much the best place,
as from there one can see ahead and work out the course beforehand, and
can also guard the rudder and propeller, the most vulnerable parts of a
ship in the ice. At midnight, as I was sitting in the ‘tub’ I heard a
clamorous noise down on the deck, with ringing of bells, and realized
that it was the New Year.” Worsley came down from his lofty seat and
met Wild, Hudson, and myself on the bridge, where we shook hands and
wished one another a happy and successful New Year. Since entering the
pack on December 11 we had come 480 miles, through loose and close
pack-ice. We had pushed and fought the little ship through, and she had
stood the test well, though the propeller had received some shrewd
blows against hard ice and the vessel had been driven against the floe
until she had fairly mounted up on it and slid back rolling heavily
from side to side. The rolling had been more frequently caused by the
operation of cracking through thickish young ice, where the crack had
taken a sinuous course. The ship, in attempting to follow it, struck
first one bilge and then the other, causing her to roll six or seven
degrees. Our advance through the pack had been in a S. 10° E.
direction, and I estimated that the total steaming distance had
exceeded 700 miles. The first 100 miles had been through loose pack,
but the greatest hindrances had been three moderate south-westerly
gales, two lasting for three days each and one for four and a half
days. The last 250 miles had been through close pack alternating with
fine long leads and stretches of open water.
During the weeks we spent manœuvring to the south through the tortuous
mazes of the pack it was necessary often to split floes by driving the
ship against them. This form of attack was effective against ice up to
three feet in thickness, and the process is interesting enough to be
worth describing briefly. When the way was barred by a floe of moderate
thickness we would drive the ship at half speed against it, stopping
the engines just before the impact. At the first blow the _Endurance_
would cut a V-shaped nick in the face of the floe, the slope of her
cutwater often causing her bows to rise till nearly clear of the water,
when she would slide backwards, rolling slightly. Watching carefully
that loose lumps of ice did not damage the propeller, we would reverse
the engines and back the ship off 200 to 300 yds. She would then be
driven full speed into the V, taking care to hit the centre accurately.
The operation would be repeated until a short dock was cut, into which
the ship, acting as a large wedge, was driven. At about the fourth
attempt, if it was to succeed at all, the floe would yield. A black,
sinuous line, as though pen-drawn on white paper, would appear ahead,
broadening as the eye traced it back to the ship. Presently it would be
broad enough to receive her, and we would forge ahead. Under the bows
and alongside, great slabs of ice were being turned over and slid back
on the floe, or driven down and under the ice or ship. In this way the
_Endurance_ would split a 2-ft. to 3-ft. floe a square mile in extent.
Occasionally the floe, although cracked across, would be so held by
other floes that it would refuse to open wide, and so gradually would
bring the ship to a standstill. We would then go astern for some
distance and again drive her full speed into the crack, till finally
the floe would yield to the repeated onslaughts.
CHAPTER II
NEW LAND
The first day of the New Year (January 1, 1915) was cloudy, with a
gentle northerly breeze and occasional snow-squalls. The condition of
the pack improved in the evening, and after 8 p.m. we forged ahead
rapidly through brittle young ice, easily broken by the ship. A few
hours later a moderate gale came up from the east, with continuous
snow. After 4 a.m. on the 2nd we got into thick old pack-ice, showing
signs of heavy pressure. It was much hummocked, but large areas of open
water and long leads to the south-west continued until noon. The
position then was lat. 69° 49´ S., long. 15° 42´ W., and the run for
the twenty-four hours had been 124 miles S. 3° W. This was cheering.
The heavy pack blocked the way south after midday. It would have been
almost impossible to have pushed the ship into the ice, and in any case
the gale would have made such a proceeding highly dangerous. So we
dodged along to the west and north, looking for a suitable opening
towards the south. The good run had given me hope of sighting the land
on the following day, and the delay was annoying. I was growing anxious
to reach land on account of the dogs, which had not been able to get
exercise for four weeks, and were becoming run down. We passed at least
two hundred bergs during the day, and we noticed also large masses of
hummocky bay-ice and ice-foot. One floe of bay-ice had black earth upon
it, apparently basaltic in origin, and there was a large berg with a
broad band of yellowish brown right through it. The stain may have been
volcanic dust. Many of the bergs had quaint shapes. There was one that
exactly resembled a large two-funnel liner, complete in silhouette
except for smoke. Later in the day we found an opening in the pack and
made 9 miles to the south-west, but at 2 a.m. on January 3 the lead
ended in hummocky ice, impossible to penetrate. A moderate easterly
gale had come up with snow-squalls, and we could not get a clear view
in any direction. The hummocky ice did not offer a suitable anchorage
for the ship, and we were compelled to dodge up and down for ten hours
before we were able to make fast to a small floe under the lee of a
berg 120 ft. high. The berg broke the wind and saved us drifting fast
to leeward. The position was lat. 69° 59´ S., long. 17° 31´ W. We made
a move again at 7 p.m., when we took in the ice-anchor and proceeded
south, and at 10 p.m. we passed a small berg that the ship had nearly
touched twelve hours previously. Obviously we were not making much
headway. Several of the bergs passed during this day were of solid blue
ice, indicating true glacier origin.
By midnight of the 3rd we had made 11 miles to the south, and then came
to a full stop in weather so thick with snow that we could not learn if
the leads and lanes were worth entering. The ice was hummocky, but,
fortunately, the gale was decreasing, and after we had scanned all the
leads and pools within our reach we turned back to the north-east. Two
sperm and two large blue whales were sighted, the first we had seen for
260 miles. We saw also petrels, numerous adelies, emperors,
crab-eaters, and sea-leopards. The clearer weather of the morning
showed us that the pack was solid and impassable from the south-east to
the south-west, and at 10 a.m. on the 4th we again passed within five
yards of the small berg that we had passed twice on the previous day.
We had been steaming and dodging about over an area of twenty square
miles for fifty hours, trying to find an opening to the south,
south-east, or south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or
north-west. It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were pointing
us to the backward track—the track we were determined not to follow.
Our desire was to make easting as well as southing so as to reach the
land, if possible, east of Ross’s farthest South and well east of
Coats’ Land. This was more important as the prevailing winds appeared
to be to easterly, and every mile of easting would count. In the
afternoon we went west in some open water, and by 4 p.m. we were making
west-south-west with more water opening up ahead. The sun was shining
brightly, over three degrees high at midnight, and we were able to
maintain this direction in fine weather till the following noon. The
position then was lat. 70° 28´ S., long. 20° 16´ W., and the run had
been 62 miles S. 62° W. At 8 a.m. there had been open water from north
round by west to south-west, but impenetrable pack to the south and
east. At 3 p.m. the way to the south-west and west-north-west was
absolutely blocked, and as we experienced a set to the west, I did not
feel justified in burning more of the reduced stock of coal to go west
or north. I took the ship back over our course for four miles, to a
point where some looser pack gave faint promise of a way through; but,
after battling for three hours with very heavy hummocked ice and making
four miles to the south, we were brought up by huge blocks and floes of
very old pack. Further effort seemed useless at that time, and I gave
the order to bank fires after we had moored the _Endurance_ to a solid
floe. The weather was clear, and some enthusiastic football-players had
a game on the floe until, about midnight, Worsley dropped through a
hole in rotten ice while retrieving the ball. He had to be retrieved
himself.
Solid pack still barred the way to the south on the following morning
(January 6). There was some open water north of the floe, but as the
day was calm and I did not wish to use coal in a possibly vain search
for an opening to the southward, I kept the ship moored to the floe.
This pause in good weather gave an opportunity to exercise the dogs,
which were taken on to the floe by the men in charge of them. The
excitement of the animals was intense. Several managed to get into the
water, and the muzzles they were wearing did not prevent some hot
fights. Two dogs which had contrived to slip their muzzles fought
themselves into an icy pool and were hauled out still locked in a
grapple. However, men and dogs enjoyed the exercise. A sounding gave a
depth of 2400 fathoms, with a blue mud bottom. The wind freshened from
the west early the next morning, and we started to skirt the northern
edge of the solid pack in an easterly direction under sail. We had
cleared the close pack by noon, but the outlook to the south gave small
promise of useful progress, and I was anxious now to make easting. We
went north-east under sail, and after making thirty-nine miles passed a
peculiar berg that we had been abreast of sixty hours earlier.
Killer-whales were becoming active around us, and I had to exercise
caution in allowing any one to leave the ship. These beasts have a
habit of locating a resting seal by looking over the edge of a floe and
then striking through the ice from below in search of a meal; they
would not distinguish between seal and man.
The noon position on January 8 was lat. 70° 0´ S., long. 19° 09´ W. We
had made 66 miles in a north-easterly direction during the preceding
twenty-four hours. The course during the afternoon was east-south-east
through loose pack and open water, with deep hummocky floes to the
south. Several leads to the south came in view, but we held on the
easterly course. The floes were becoming looser, and there were
indications of open water ahead. The ship passed not fewer than five
hundred bergs that day, some of them very large. A dark water-sky
extended from east to south-south-east on the following morning, and
the _Endurance_, working through loose pack at half speed, reached open
water just before noon. A rampart berg 150 ft. high and a quarter of a
mile long lay at the edge of the loose pack, and we sailed over a
projecting foot of this berg into rolling ocean, stretching to the
horizon. The sea extended from a little to the west of south, round by
east to north-north-east, and its welcome promise was supported by a
deep water-sky to the south. I laid a course south by east in an
endeavour to get south and east of Ross’s farthest south (lat. 71° 30´
S.).
We kept the open water for a hundred miles, passing many bergs but
encountering no pack. Two very large whales, probably blue whales, came
up close to the ship, and we saw spouts in all directions. Open water
inside the pack in that latitude might have the appeal of sanctuary to
the whales, which are harried by man farther north. The run southward
in blue water, with a path clear ahead and the miles falling away
behind us, was a joyful experience after the long struggle through the
ice-lanes. But, like other good things, our spell of free movement had
to end. The _Endurance_ encountered the ice again at 1 a.m. on the
10th. Loose pack stretched to east and south, with open water to the
west and a good watersky. It consisted partly of heavy hummocky ice
showing evidence of great pressure, but contained also many thick, flat
floes evidently formed in some sheltered bay and never subjected to
pressure or to much motion. The swirl of the ship’s wash brought
diatomaceous scum from the sides of this ice. The water became thick
with _diatoms_ at 9 a.m., and I ordered a cast to be made. No bottom
was found at 210 fathoms. The _Endurance_ continued to advance
southward through loose pack that morning. We saw the spouts of
numerous whales and noticed some hundreds of crab-eaters lying on the
floes. White-rumped terns, Antarctic petrels and snow petrels were
numerous, and there was a colony of adelies on a low berg. A few
killer-whales, with their characteristic high dorsal fin, also came in
view. The noon position was lat. 72° 02´ S., long. 16° 07´ W., and the
run for the twenty-four hours had been 136 miles S. 6° E.
We were now in the vicinity of the land discovered by Dr. W. S. Bruce,
leader of the _Scotia_ Expedition, in 1904, and named by him Coats’
Land. Dr. Bruce encountered an ice-barrier in lat. 72° 18´ S., long.
10° W., stretching from north-east to south-west. He followed the
barrier-edge to the south-west for 150 miles and reached lat. 74° 1´
S., long. 22° W. He saw no naked rock, but his description of rising
slopes of snow and ice, with shoaling water off the barrier-wall,
indicated clearly the presence of land. It was up those slopes, at a
point as far south as possible, that I planned to begin the march
across the Antarctic continent. All hands were watching now for the
coast described by Dr. Bruce, and at 5 p.m. the look-out reported an
appearance of land to the south-south-east. We could see a gentle
snow-slope rising to a height of about one thousand feet. It seemed to
be an island or a peninsula with a sound on its south side, and the
position of its most northerly point was about 72° 34´ S., 16° 40´ W.
The _Endurance_ was passing through heavy loose pack, and shortly
before midnight she broke into a lead of open sea along a barrier-edge.
A sounding within one cable’s length of the barrier-edge gave no bottom
with 210 fathoms of line. The barrier was 70 ft. high, with cliffs of
about 40 ft. The _Scotia_ must have passed this point when pushing to
Bruce’s farthest south on March 6, 1904, and I knew from the narrative
of that voyage, as well as from our own observation, that the coast
trended away to the south-west. The lead of open water continued along
the barrier-edge, and we pushed forward without delay.
An easterly breeze brought cloud and falls of snow during the morning
of January 11. The barrier trended south-west by south, and we skirted
it for fifty miles until 11 am. The cliffs in the morning were 20 ft.
high, and by noon they had increased to 110 and 115 ft. The brow
apparently rose 20 to 30 ft. higher. We were forced away from the
barrier once for three hours by a line of very heavy pack-ice.
Otherwise there was open water along the edge, with high loose pack to
the west and north-west. We noticed a seal bobbing up and down in an
apparent effort to swallow a long silvery fish that projected at least
eighteen inches from its mouth. The noon position was lat. 73° 13´ S.,
long. 20° 43´ W., and a sounding then gave 155 fathoms at a distance of
a mile from the barrier. The bottom consisted of large igneous pebbles.
The weather then became thick, and I held away to the westward, where
the sky had given indications of open water, until 7 p.m., when we laid
the ship alongside a floe in loose pack. Heavy snow was falling, and I
was anxious lest the westerly wind should bring the pack hard against
the coast and jam the ship. The _Nimrod_ had a narrow escape from a
misadventure of this kind in the Ross Sea early in 1908.
We made a start again at 5 a.m. the next morning (January 12) in
overcast weather with mist and snow-showers, and four hours later broke
through loose pack-ice into open water. The view was obscured, but we
proceeded to the south-east and had gained 24 miles by noon, when three
soundings in lat. 74° 4´ S., long. 22° 48´ W. gave 95, 128, and 103
fathoms, with a bottom of sand, pebbles, and mud. Clark got a good haul
of biological specimens in the dredge. The _Endurance_ was now close to
what appeared to be the barrier, with a heavy pack-ice foot containing
numerous bergs frozen in and possibly aground. The solid ice turned
away towards the north-west, and we followed the edge for 48 miles N.
60° W. to clear it.
[Illustration: Midnight off the New Land]
[Illustration: New Land: Caird Coast]
Now we were beyond the point reached by the _Scotia_, and the land
underlying the ice-sheet we were skirting was new. The northerly trend
was unexpected, and I began to suspect that we were really rounding a
huge ice-tongue attached to the true barrier-edge and extending
northward. Events confirmed this suspicion. We skirted the pack all
night, steering north-west; then went west by north till 4 a.m. and
round to south-west. The course at 8 a.m. on the 13th was
south-south-west. The barrier at midnight was low and distant, and at 8
a.m. there was merely a narrow ice-foot about two hundred yards across
separating it from the open water. By noon there was only an occasional
shelf of ice-foot. The barrier in one place came with an easy sweep to
the sea. We could have landed stores there without difficulty. We made
a sounding 400 ft. off the barrier but got no bottom at 676 fathoms. At
4 p.m., still following the barrier to the south-west, we reached a
corner and found it receding abruptly to the south-east. Our way was
blocked by very heavy pack, and after spending two hours in a vain
search for an opening, we moored the _Endurance_ to a floe and banked
fires. During that day we passed two schools of seals, swimming fast to
the north-west and north-north-east. The animals swam in close order,
rising and blowing like porpoises, and we wondered if there was any
significance in their journey northward at that time of the year.
Several young emperor penguins had been captured and brought aboard on
the previous day. Two of them were still alive when the _Endurance_ was
brought alongside the floe. They promptly hopped on to the ice, turned
round, bowed gracefully three times, and retired to the far side of the
floe. There is something curiously human about the manners and
movements of these birds. I was concerned about the dogs. They were
losing condition and some of them appeared to be ailing. One dog had to
be shot on the 12th. We did not move the ship on the 14th. A breeze
came from the east in the evening, and under its influence the pack
began to work off shore. Before midnight the close ice that had barred
our way had opened and left a lane along the foot of the barrier. I
decided to wait for the morning, not wishing to risk getting caught
between the barrier and the pack in the event of the wind changing. A
sounding gave 1357 fathoms, with a bottom of glacial mud. The noon
observation showed the position to be lat. 74° 09´ S., long. 27° 16´ W.
We cast off at 6 a.m. on the 15th in hazy weather with a north-easterly
breeze, and proceeded along the barrier in open water. The course was
south-east for sixteen miles, then south-south-east. We now had solid
pack to windward, and at 3 p.m. we passed a bight probably ten miles
deep and running to the north-east. A similar bight appeared at 6 p.m.
These deep cuts strengthened the impression we had already formed that
for several days we had been rounding a great mass of ice, at least
fifty miles across, stretching out from the coast and possibly destined
to float away at some time in the future. The soundings—roughly, 200
fathoms at the landward side and 1300 fathoms at the seaward
side—suggested that this mighty projection was afloat. Seals were
plentiful. We saw large numbers on the pack and several on low parts of
the barrier, where the slope was easy. The ship passed through large
schools of seals swimming from the barrier to the pack off shore. The
animals were splashing and blowing around the _Endurance_, and Hurley
made a record of this unusual sight with the kinematograph-camera.
The barrier now stretched to the south-west again. Sail was set to a
fresh easterly breeze, but at 7 p.m. it had to be furled, the
_Endurance_ being held up by pack-ice against the barrier for an hour.
We took advantage of the pause to sound and got 268 fathoms with
glacial mud and pebbles. Then a small lane appeared ahead. We pushed
through at full speed, and by 8.30 p.m. the _Endurance_ was moving
southward with sails set in a fine expanse of open water. We continued
to skirt the barrier in clear weather. I was watching for possible
landing-places, though as a matter of fact I had no intention of
landing north of Vahsel Bay, in Luitpold Land, except under pressure of
necessity. Every mile gained towards the south meant a mile less
sledging when the time came for the overland journey.
Shortly before midnight on the 15th we came abreast of the northern
edge of a great glacier or overflow from the inland ice, projecting
beyond the barrier into the sea. It was 400 or 500 ft. high, and at its
edge was a large mass of thick bay-ice. The bay formed by the northern
edge of this glacier would have made an excellent landing-place. A flat
ice-foot nearly three feet above sea-level looked like a natural quay.
From this ice-foot a snow-slope rose to the top of the barrier. The bay
was protected from the south-easterly wind and was open only to the
northerly wind, which is rare in those latitudes. A sounding gave 80
fathoms, indicating that the glacier was aground. I named the place
Glacier Bay, and had reason later to remember it with regret.
The _Endurance_ steamed along the front of this ice-flow for about
seventeen miles. The glacier showed huge crevasses and high pressure
ridges, and appeared to run back to ice-covered slopes or hills 1000 or
2000 ft. high. Some bays in its front were filled with smooth ice,
dotted with seals and penguins. At 4 a.m. on the 16th we reached the
edge of another huge glacial overflow from the ice-sheet. The ice
appeared to be coming over low hills and was heavily broken. The
cliff-face was 250 to 350 ft. high, and the ice surface two miles
inland was probably 2000 ft. high. The cliff-front showed a tide-mark
of about 6 ft., proving that it was not afloat. We steamed along the
front of this tremendous glacier for 40 miles and then, at 8.30 a.m.,
we were held up by solid pack-ice, which appeared to be held by
stranded bergs. The depth, two cables off the barrier-cliff, was 134
fathoms. No further advance was possible that day, but the noon
observation, which gave the position as lat. 76° 27´ S. long. 28° 51´
W., showed that we had gained 124 miles to the south-west during the
preceding twenty-four hours. The afternoon was not without incident.
The bergs in the neighbourhood were very large, several being over 200
ft. high, and some of them were firmly aground, showing tidemarks. A
barrier-berg bearing north-west appeared to be about 25 miles long. We
pushed the ship against a small banded berg, from which Wordie secured
several large lumps of biotite granite. While the _Endurance_ was being
held slow ahead against the berg a loud crack was heard, and the
geologist had to scramble aboard at once. The bands on this berg were
particularly well defined; they were due to morainic action in the
parent glacier. Later in the day the easterly wind increased to a gale.
Fragments of floe drifted past at about two knots, and the pack to
leeward began to break up fast. A low berg of shallow draught drove
down into the grinding pack and, smashing against two larger stranded
bergs, pushed them off the bank. The three went away together
pell-mell. We took shelter under the lee of a large stranded berg.
A blizzard from the east-north-east prevented us leaving the shelter of
the berg on the following day (Sunday, January 17). The weather was
clear, but the gale drove dense clouds of snow off the land and
obscured the coast-line most of the time. “The land, seen when the air
is clear, appears higher than we thought it yesterday; probably it
rises to 3000 ft. above the head of the glacier. Caird Coast, as I have
named it, connects Coats’ Land, discovered by Bruce in 1904, with
Luitpold Land, discovered by Filchner in 1912. The northern part is
similar in character to Coats’ Land. It is fronted by an undulating
barrier, the van of a mighty ice-sheet that is being forced outward
from the high interior of the Antarctic Continent and apparently is
sweeping over low hills, plains, and shallow seas as the great Arctic
ice-sheet once pressed over Northern Europe. The barrier surface, seen
from the sea, is of a faint golden brown colour. It terminates usually
in cliffs ranging from 10 to 300 ft. in height, but in a very few
places sweeps down level with the sea. The cliffs are of dazzling
whiteness, with wonderful blue shadows. Far inland higher slopes can be
seen, appearing like dim blue or faint golden fleecy clouds. These
distant slopes have increased in nearness and clearness as we have come
to the south-west, while the barrier cliffs here are higher and
apparently firmer. We are now close to the junction with Luitpold Land.
At this southern end of the Caird Coast the ice-sheet, undulating over
the hidden and imprisoned land, is bursting down a steep slope in
tremendous glaciers, bristling with ridges and spikes of ice and seamed
by thousands of crevasses. Along the whole length of the coast we have
seen no bare land or rock. Not as much as a solitary nunatak has
appeared to relieve the surface of ice and snow. But the upward sweep
of the ice-slopes towards the horizon and the ridges, terraces, and
crevasses that appear as the ice approaches the sea tell of the hills
and valleys that lie below.”
[Illustration: Close Under the Barrier]
[Illustration: Trying to cut a way for the Ship through the Ice to a
Lead ahead (February 14, 1915)]
The _Endurance_ lay under the lee of the stranded berg until 7 a.m. on
January 18. The gale had moderated by that time, and we proceeded under
sail to the south-west through a lane that had opened along the
glacier-front. We skirted the glacier till 9.30 a.m., when it ended in
two bays, open to the north-west but sheltered by stranded bergs to the
west. The coast beyond trended south-south-west with a gentle
land-slope.
“The pack now forces us to go west 14 miles, when we break through a
long line of heavy brash mixed with large lumps and ‘growlers.’ We do
this under the fore-topsail only, the engines being stopped to protect
the propeller. This takes us into open water, where we make S. 50° W.
for 24 miles. Then we again encounter pack which forces us to the
north-west for 10 miles, when we are brought up by heavy snow-lumps,
brash, and large, loose floes. The character of the pack shows change.
The floes are very thick and are covered by deep snow. The brash
between the floes is so thick and heavy that we cannot push through
without a great expenditure of power, and then for a short distance
only. We therefore lie to for a while to see if the pack opens at all
when this north-east wind ceases.”
Our position on the morning of the 19th was lat. 76° 34´ S., long. 31°
30´ W. The weather was good, but no advance could be made. The ice had
closed around the ship during the night, and no water could be seen in
any direction from the deck. A few lanes were in sight from the
mast-head. We sounded in 312 fathoms, finding mud, sand, and pebbles.
The land showed faintly to the east. We waited for the conditions to
improve, and the scientists took the opportunity to dredge for
biological and geological specimens. During the night a moderate
north-easterly gale sprang up, and a survey of the position on the 20th
showed that the ship was firmly beset. The ice was packed heavily and
firmly all round the _Endurance_ in every direction as far as the eye
could reach from the masthead. There was nothing to be done till the
conditions changed, and we waited through that day and the succeeding
days with increasing anxiety. The east-north-easterly gale that had
forced us to take shelter behind the stranded berg on the 16th had
veered later to the north-east, and it continued with varying intensity
until the 22nd. Apparently this wind had crowded the ice into the bight
of the Weddell Sea, and the ship was now drifting south-west with the
floes which had enclosed it. A slight movement of the ice round the
ship caused the rudder to become dangerously jammed on the 21st, and we
had to cut away the ice with ice-chisels, heavy pieces of iron with
6-ft. wooden hafts. We kept steam up in readiness for a move if the
opportunity offered, and the engines running full speed ahead helped to
clear the rudder. Land was in sight to the east and south about sixteen
miles distant on the 22nd. The land-ice seemed to be faced with
ice-cliffs at most points, but here and there slopes ran down to
sea-level. Large crevassed areas in terraces parallel with the coast
showed where the ice was moving down over foot-hills. The inland ice
appeared for the most part to be undulating, smooth, and easy to march
over, but many crevasses might have been concealed from us by the
surface snow or by the absence of shadows. I thought that the land
probably rose to a height of 5000 ft. forty or fifty miles inland. The
accurate estimation of heights and distances in the Antarctic is always
difficult, owing to the clear air, the confusing monotony of colouring,
and the deceptive effect of mirage and refraction. The land appeared to
increase in height to the southward, where we saw a line of land or
barrier that must have been seventy miles, and possibly was even more
distant.
Sunday, January 24, was a clear sunny day, with gentle easterly and
southerly breezes. No open water could be seen from the mast-head, but
there was a slight water-sky to the west and north-west. “This is the
first time for ten days that the wind has varied from north-east and
east, and on five of these days it has risen to a gale. Evidently the
ice has become firmly packed in this quarter, and we must wait
patiently till a southerly gale occurs or currents open the ice. We are
drifting slowly. The position to-day was 76° 49´ S., 33° 51´ W. Worsley
and James, working on the floe with a Kew magnetometer, found the
variation to be six degrees west.” Just before midnight a crack
developed in the ice five yards wide and a mile long, fifty yards ahead
of the ship. The crack had widened to a quarter of a mile by 10 a.m. on
the 25th, and for three hours we tried to force the ship into this
opening with engines at full speed ahead and all sails set. The sole
effect was to wash some ice away astern and clear the rudder, and after
convincing myself that the ship was firmly held I abandoned the
attempt. Later in the day Crean and two other men were over the side on
a stage chipping at a large piece of ice that had got under the ship
and appeared to be impeding her movement. The ice broke away suddenly,
shot upward and overturned, pinning Crean between the stage and the
haft of the heavy 11-ft. iron pincher. He was in danger for a few
moments, but we got him clear, suffering merely from a few bad bruises.
The thick iron bar had been bent against him to an angle of 45 degrees.
The days that followed were uneventful. Moderate breezes from the east
and south-west had no apparent effect upon the ice, and the ship
remained firmly held. On the 27th, the tenth day of inactivity, I
decided to let the fires out. We had been burning half a ton of coal a
day to keep steam in the boilers, and as the bunkers now contained only
67 tons, representing thirty-three days’ steaming, we could not afford
to continue this expenditure of fuel. Land still showed to the east and
south when the horizon was clear. The biologist was securing some
interesting specimens with the hand-dredge at various depths. A
sounding on the 26th gave 360 fathoms, and another on the 29th 449
fathoms. The drift was to the west, and an observation on the 31st
(Sunday) showed that the ship had made eight miles during the week.
James and Hudson rigged the wireless in the hope of hearing the monthly
message from the Falkland Islands. This message would be due about 3.20
a.m. on the following morning, but James was doubtful about hearing
anything with our small apparatus at a distance of 1630 miles from the
dispatching station. We heard nothing, as a matter of fact, and later
efforts were similarly unsuccessful. The conditions would have been
difficult even for a station of high power.
We were accumulating gradually a stock of seal meat during these days
of waiting. Fresh meat for the dogs was needed, and seal-steaks and
liver made a very welcome change from the ship’s rations aboard the
_Endurance_. Four crab-eaters and three Weddells, over a ton of meat
for dog and man, fell to our guns on February 2, and all hands were
occupied most of the day getting the carcasses back to the ship over
the rough ice. We rigged three sledges for man-haulage and brought the
seals about two miles, the sledging parties being guided among the
ridges and pools by semaphore from the crow’s-nest. Two more seals were
sighted on the far side of a big pool, but I did not allow them to be
pursued. Some of the ice was in a treacherous condition, with thin
films hiding cracks and pools, and I did not wish to risk an accident.
A crack about four miles long opened in the floe to the stern of the
ship on the 3rd. The narrow lane in front was still open, but the
prevailing light breezes did not seem likely to produce any useful
movement in the ice. Early on the morning of the 5th a north-easterly
gale sprang up, bringing overcast skies and thick snow. Soon the pack
was opening and closing without much loosening effect. At noon the ship
gave a sudden start and heeled over three degrees. Immediately
afterwards a crack ran from the bows to the lead ahead and another to
the lead astern. I thought it might be possible to reeve the ship
through one of these leads towards open water, but we could see no
water through the thick snow; and before steam was raised, and while
the view was still obscured, the pack closed again. The northerly gale
had given place to light westerly breezes on the 6th. The pack seemed
to be more solid than ever. It stretched almost unbroken to the horizon
in every direction, and the situation was made worse by very low
temperatures in succeeding days. The temperature was down to zero on
the night of the 7th and was two degrees below zero on the 8th. This
cold spell in midsummer was most unfortunate from our point of view,
since it cemented the pack and tightened the grip of the ice upon the
ship. The slow drift to the south-west continued, and we caught
occasional glimpses of distant uplands on the eastern horizon. The
position on the 7th was lat. 76° 57´ S., long. 35° 7´ W. Soundings on
the 6th and 8th found glacial mud at 630 and 529 fathoms.
The _Endurance_ was lying in a pool covered by young ice on the 9th.
The solid floes had loosened their grip on the ship itself, but they
were packed tightly all around. The weather was foggy. We felt a slight
northerly swell coming through the pack, and the movement gave rise to
hope that there was open water near to us. At 11 a.m. a long crack
developed in the pack, running east and west as far as we could see
through the fog, and I ordered steam to be raised in the hope of being
able to break away into this lead. The effort failed. We could break
the young ice in the pool, but the pack defied us. The attempt was
renewed on the 11th, a fine clear day with blue sky. The temperature
was still low, –2° Fahr. at midnight. After breaking through some young
ice the _Endurance_ became jammed against soft floe. The engines
running full speed astern produced no effect until all hands joined in
“sallying” ship. The dog-kennels amidships made it necessary for the
people to gather aft, where they rushed from side to side in a mass in
the confined space around the wheel. This was a ludicrous affair, the
men falling over one another amid shouts of laughter without producing
much effect on the ship. She remained fast, while all hands jumped at
the word of command, but finally slid off when the men were stamping
hard at the double. We were now in a position to take advantage of any
opening that might appear. The ice was firm around us, and as there
seemed small chance of making a move that day, I had the motor crawler
and warper put out on the floe for a trial run. The motor worked most
successfully, running at about six miles an hour over slabs and ridges
of ice hidden by a foot or two of soft snow. The surface was worse than
we would expect to face on land or barrier-ice. The motor warped itself
back on a 500-fathom steel wire and was taken aboard again. “From the
mast-head the mirage is continually giving us false alarms. Everything
wears an aspect of unreality. Icebergs hang upside down in the sky; the
land appears as layers of silvery or golden cloud. Cloud-banks look
like land, icebergs masquerade as islands or nunataks, and the distant
barrier to the south is thrown into view, although it really is outside
our range of vision. Worst of all is the deceptive appearance of open
water, caused by the refraction of distant water, or by the sun shining
at an angle on a field of smooth snow or the face of ice-cliffs below
the horizon.”
The second half of February produced no important change in our
situation. Early in the morning of the 14th I ordered a good head of
steam on the engines and sent all hands on to the floe with
ice-chisels, prickers, saws, and picks. We worked all day and
throughout most of the next day in a strenuous effort to get the ship
into the lead ahead. The men cut away the young ice before the bows and
pulled it aside with great energy. After twenty-four hours’ labour we
had got the ship a third of the way to the lead. But about 400 yards of
heavy ice, including old rafted pack, still separated the _Endurance_
from the water, and reluctantly I had to admit that further effort was
useless. Every opening we made froze up again quickly owing to the
unseasonably low temperature. The young ice was elastic and prevented
the ship delivering a strong, splitting blow to the floe, while at the
same time it held the older ice against any movement. The abandonment
of the attack was a great disappointment to all hands. The men had
worked long hours without thought of rest, and they deserved success.
But the task was beyond our powers. I had not abandoned hope of getting
clear, but was counting now on the possibility of having to spend a
winter in the inhospitable arms of the pack. The sun, which had been
above the horizon for two months, set at midnight on the 17th, and,
although it would not disappear until April, its slanting rays warned
us of the approach of winter. Pools and leads appeared occasionally,
but they froze over very quickly.
We continued to accumulate a supply of seal meat and blubber, and the
excursions across the floes to shoot and bring in the seals provided
welcome exercise for all hands. Three crab-eater cows shot on the 21st
were not accompanied by a bull, and blood was to be seen about the hole
from which they had crawled. We surmised that the bull had become the
prey of one of the killer-whales. These aggressive creatures were to be
seen often in the lanes and pools, and we were always distrustful of
their ability or willingness to discriminate between seal and man. A
lizard-like head would show while the killer gazed along the floe with
wicked eyes. Then the brute would dive, to come up a few moments later,
perhaps, under some unfortunate seal reposing on the ice. Worsley
examined a spot where a killer had smashed a hole 8 ft. by 12 ft. in
12½ in. of hard ice, covered by 2½ in. of snow. Big blocks of ice had
been tossed on to the floe surface. Wordie, engaged in measuring the
thickness of young ice, went through to his waist one day just as a
killer rose to blow in the adjacent lead. His companions pulled him out
hurriedly.
On the 22nd the _Endurance_ reached the farthest south point of her
drift, touching the 77th parallel of latitude in long. 35° W. The
summer had gone; indeed the summer had scarcely been with us at all.
The temperatures were low day and night, and the pack was freezing
solidly around the ship. The thermometer recorded 10° below zero Fahr.
at 2 a.m. on the 22nd. Some hours earlier we had watched a wonderful
golden mist to the southward, where the rays of the declining sun shone
through vapour rising from the ice. All normal standards of perspective
vanish under such conditions, and the low ridges of the pack, with mist
lying between them, gave the illusion of a wilderness of mountain-peaks
like the Bernese Oberland. I could not doubt now that the _Endurance_
was confined for the winter. Gentle breezes from the east, south, and
south-west did not disturb the hardening floes. The seals were
disappearing and the birds were leaving us. The land showed still in
fair weather on the distant horizon, but it was beyond our reach now,
and regrets for havens that lay behind us were vain.
“We must wait for the spring, which may bring us better fortune. If I
had guessed a month ago that the ice would grip us here, I would have
established our base at one of the landing-places at the great glacier.
But there seemed no reason to anticipate then that the fates would
prove unkind. This calm weather with intense cold in a summer month is
surely exceptional. My chief anxiety is the drift. Where will the
vagrant winds and currents carry the ship during the long winter months
that are ahead of us? We will go west, no doubt, but how far? And will
it be possible to break out of the pack early in the spring and reach
Vahsel Bay or some other suitable landing-place? These are momentous
questions for us.”
On February 24 we ceased to observe ship routine, and the _Endurance_
became a winter station. All hands were on duty during the day and
slept at night, except a watchman who looked after the dogs and watched
for any sign of movement in the ice. We cleared a space of 10 ft. by 20
ft. round the rudder and propeller, sawing through ice 2 ft. thick, and
lifting the blocks with a pair of tongs made by the carpenter. Crean
used the blocks to make an ice-house for the dog Sally, which had added
a little litter of pups to the strength of the expedition. Seals
appeared occasionally, and we killed all that came within our reach.
They represented fuel as well as food for men and dogs. Orders were
given for the after-hold to be cleared and the stores checked, so that
we might know exactly how we stood for a siege by an Antarctic winter.
The dogs went off the ship on the following day. Their kennels were
placed on the floe along the length of a wire rope to which the leashes
were fastened. The dogs seemed heartily glad to leave the ship, and
yelped loudly and joyously as they were moved to their new quarters. We
had begun the training of teams, and already there was keen rivalry
between the drivers. The flat floes and frozen leads in the
neighbourhood of the ship made excellent training grounds. Hockey and
football on the floe were our chief recreations, and all hands joined
in many a strenuous game.
[Illustration: The Night Watchman’s Story]
[Illustration: The Dying Sun: The _Endurance_ firmly frozen in]
Worsley took a party to the floe on the 26th and started building a
line of igloos and “dogloos” round the ship. These little buildings
were constructed, Esquimaux fashion, of big blocks of ice, with thin
sheets for the roofs. Boards or frozen sealskins were placed over all,
snow was piled on top and pressed into the joints, and then water was
thrown over the structures to make everything firm. The ice was packed
down flat inside and covered with snow for the dogs, which preferred,
however, to sleep outside except when the weather was extraordinarily
severe. The tethering of the dogs was a simple matter. The end of a
chain was buried about eight inches in the snow, some fragments of ice
were pressed around it, and a little water poured over all. The icy
breath of the Antarctic cemented it in a few moments. Four dogs which
had been ailing were shot. Some of the dogs were suffering badly from
worms, and the remedies at our disposal, unfortunately, were not
effective. All the fit dogs were being exercised in the sledges, and
they took to the work with enthusiasm. Sometimes their eagerness to be
off and away produced laughable results, but the drivers learned to be
alert. The wireless apparatus was still rigged, but we listened in vain
for the Saturday-night time signals from New Year Island, ordered for
our benefit by the Argentine Government. On Sunday the 28th, Hudson
waited at 2 a.m. for the Port Stanley monthly signals, but could hear
nothing. Evidently the distances were too great for our small plant.
CHAPTER III
WINTER MONTHS
The month of March opened with a severe north-easterly gale. Five
Weddells and two crab-eaters were shot on the floe during the morning
of March 1, and the wind, with fine drifting snow, sprang up while the
carcasses were being brought in by sledging parties. The men were
compelled to abandon some of the blubber and meat, and they had a
struggle to get back to the ship over the rough ice in the teeth of the
storm. This gale continued until the 3rd, and all hands were employed
clearing out the ’tween decks, which was to be converted into a living-
and dining-room for officers and scientists. The carpenter erected in
this room the stove that had been intended for use in the shore hut,
and the quarters were made very snug. The dogs appeared indifferent to
the blizzard. They emerged occasionally from the drift to shake
themselves and bark, but were content most of the time to lie, curled
into tight balls, under the snow. One of the old dogs, Saint, died on
the night of the 2nd, and the doctors reported that the cause of death
was appendicitis.
When the gale cleared we found that the pack had been driven in from
the north-east and was now more firmly consolidated than before. A new
berg, probably fifteen miles in length, had appeared on the northern
horizon. The bergs within our circle of vision had all become familiar
objects, and we had names for some of them. Apparently they were all
drifting with the pack. The sighting of a new berg was of more than
passing interest, since in that comparatively shallow sea it would be
possible for a big berg to become stranded. Then the island of ice
would be a centre of tremendous pressure and disturbance amid the
drifting pack. We had seen something already of the smashing effect of
a contest between berg and floe, and had no wish to have the helpless
_Endurance_ involved in such a battle of giants. During the 3rd the
seal meat and blubber was re-stowed on hummocks around the ship. The
frozen masses had been sinking into the floe. Ice, though hard and
solid to the touch, is never firm against heavy weights. An article
left on the floe for any length of time is likely to sink into the
surface-ice. Then the salt water will percolate through and the article
will become frozen into the body of the floe.
Clear weather followed the gale, and we had a series of mock suns and
parhelia. Minus temperatures were the rule, 21° below zero Fahr. being
recorded on the 6th. We made mattresses for the dogs by stuffing sacks
with straw and rubbish, and most of the animals were glad to receive
this furnishing in their kennels. Some of them had suffered through the
snow melting with the heat of their bodies and then freezing solid. The
scientific members of the expedition were all busy by this time. The
meteorologist had got his recording station, containing anemometer,
barograph, and thermograph, rigged over the stern. The geologist was
making the best of what to him was an unhappy situation; but was not
altogether without material. The pebbles found in the penguins were
often of considerable interest, and some fragments of rock were brought
up from the sea floor with the sounding-lead and the drag-net. On the
7th Wordie and Worsley found some small pebbles, a piece of moss, a
perfect bivalve shell, and some dust on a berg fragment, and brought
their treasure-trove proudly to the ship. Clark was using the drag-net
frequently in the leads and secured good hauls of _plankton_, with
occasional specimens of greater scientific interest. Seals were not
plentiful, but our store of meat and blubber grew gradually. All hands
ate seal meat with relish and would not have cared to become dependent
on the ship’s tinned meat. We preferred the crab-eater to the Weddell,
which is a very sluggish beast. The crab-eater seemed cleaner and
healthier. The killer-whales were still with us. On the 8th we examined
a spot where the floe-ice had been smashed up by a blow from beneath,
delivered presumably by a large whale in search of a breathing-place.
The force that had been exercised was astonishing. Slabs of ice 3 ft.
thick, and weighing tons, had been tented upwards over a circular area
with a diameter of about 25 ft., and cracks radiated outwards for more
than 20 ft.
The quarters in the ’tween decks were completed by the 10th, and the
men took possession of the cubicles that had been built. The largest
cubicle contained Macklin, McIlroy, Hurley, and Hussey and it was named
“The Billabong.” Clark and Wordie lived opposite in a room called “Auld
Reekie.” Next came the abode of “The Nuts” or engineers, followed by
“The Sailors’ Rest,” inhabited by Cheetham and McNeish. “The Anchorage”
and “The Fumarole” were on the other side. The new quarters became
known as “The Ritz,” and meals were served there instead of in the ward
room. Breakfast was at 9 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m., tea at 4 p.m., and
dinner at 6 p.m. Wild, Marston, Crean, and Worsley established
themselves in cubicles in the wardroom, and by the middle of the month
all hands had settled down to the winter routine. I lived alone aft.
Worsley, Hurley, and Wordie made a journey to a big berg, called by us
the Rampart Berg, on the 11th. The distance out was 7½ miles, and the
party covered a total distance of about 17 miles. Hurley took some
photographs and Wordie came back rejoicing with a little dust and some
moss.
“Within a radius of one mile round the berg there is thin young ice,
strong enough to march over with care,” wrote Worsley. “The area of
dangerous pressure, as regards a ship, does not seem to extend for more
than a quarter of a mile from the berg. Here there are cracks and
constant slight movement, which becomes exciting to the traveller when
he feels a piece of ice gradually upending beneath his feet. Close to
the berg the pressure makes all sorts of quaint noises. We heard
tapping as from a hammer, grunts, groans and squeaks, electric trams
running, birds singing, kettles boiling noisily, and an occasional
swish as a large piece of ice, released from pressure, suddenly jumped
or turned over. We noticed all sorts of quaint effects, such as huge
bubbles or domes of ice, 40 ft. across and 4 or 5 ft. high. Large
sinuous pancake-sheets were spread over the floe in places, and in one
spot we counted five such sheets, each about 2½ in. thick, imbricated
under one another. They look as though made of barley-sugar and are
very slippery.”
The noon position on the 14th was lat. 76° 54´ S., long. 36° 10´ W. The
land was visible faintly to the south-east, distant about 36 miles. A
few small leads could be seen from the ship, but the ice was firm in
our neighbourhood. The drift of the _Endurance_ was still towards the
north-west.
[Illustration: The Rampart Berg]
[Illustration: A Bi-Weekly Performance: Scrubbing out the “Ritz”]
I had the boilers blown down on the 15th, and the consumption of 2 cwt.
of coal per day to keep the boilers from freezing then ceased. The
bunkers still contained 52 tons of coal, and the daily consumption in
the stoves was about 2½ cwt. There would not be much coal left for
steaming purposes in the spring, but I anticipated eking out the supply
with blubber. A moderate gale from the north-east on the 17th brought
fine, penetrating snow. The weather cleared in the evening, and a
beautiful crimson sunset held our eyes. At the same time the ice-cliffs
of the land were thrown up in the sky by mirage, with an apparent
reflection in open water, though the land itself could not be seen
definitely. The effect was repeated in an exaggerated form on the
following day, when the ice-cliffs were thrown up above the horizon in
double and treble parallel lines, some inverted. The mirage was due
probably to lanes of open water near the land. The water would be about
30° warmer than the air and would cause warmed strata to ascend. A
sounding gave 606 fathoms, with a bottom of glacial mud. Six days
later, on the 24th, the depth was 419 fathoms. We were drifting
steadily, and the constant movement, coupled with the appearance of
lanes near the land, convinced me that we must stay by the ship till
she got clear. I had considered the possibility of making a landing
across the ice in the spring, but the hazards of such an undertaking
would be too great.
The training of the dogs in sledge teams was making progress. The
orders used by the drivers were “Mush” (Go on), “Gee” (Right), “Haw”
(Left), and “Whoa” (Stop). These are the words that the Canadian
drivers long ago adopted, borrowing them originally from England. There
were many fights at first, until the dogs learned their positions and
their duties, but as days passed drivers and teams became efficient.
Each team had its leader, and efficiency depended largely on the
willingness and ability of this dog to punish skulking and
disobedience. We learned not to interfere unless the disciplinary
measures threatened to have a fatal termination. The drivers could sit
on the sledge and jog along at ease if they chose. But the prevailing
minus temperatures made riding unpopular, and the men preferred usually
to run or walk alongside the teams. We were still losing dogs through
sickness, due to stomach and intestinal worms.
Dredging for specimens at various depths was one of the duties during
these days. The dredge and several hundred fathoms of wire line made a
heavy load, far beyond the unaided strength of the scientists. On the
23rd, for example, we put down a 2 ft. dredge and 650 fathoms of wire.
The dredge was hove in four hours later and brought much glacial mud,
several pebbles and rock fragments, three sponges, some worms,
_brachiapods_, and _foraminiferæ_. The mud was troublesome. It was
heavy to lift, and as it froze rapidly when brought to the surface, the
recovery of the specimens embedded in it was difficult. A haul made on
the 26th brought a prize for the geologist in the form of a lump of
sandstone weighing 75 lbs., a piece of fossiliferous limestone, a
fragment of striated shale, sandstone-grit, and some pebbles. Hauling
in the dredge by hand was severe work, and on the 24th we used the
Girling tractor-motor, which brought in 500 fathoms of line in thirty
minutes, including stops. One stop was due to water having run over the
friction gear and frozen. It was a day or two later that we heard a
great yell from the floe and found Clark dancing about and shouting
Scottish war-cries. He had secured his first complete specimen of an
Antarctic fish, apparently a new species.
Mirages were frequent. Barrier-cliffs appeared all around us on the
29th, even in places where we knew there was deep water.
“Bergs and pack are thrown up in the sky and distorted into the most
fantastic shapes. They climb, trembling, upwards, spreading out into
long lines at different levels, then contract and fall down, leaving
nothing but an uncertain, wavering smudge which comes and goes.
Presently the smudge swells and grows, taking shape until it presents
the perfect inverted reflection of a berg on the horizon, the shadow
hovering over the substance. More smudges appear at different points on
the horizon. These spread out into long lines till they meet, and we
are girdled by lines of shining snow-cliffs, laved at their bases by
waters of illusion in which they appear to be faithfully reflected. So
the shadows come and go silently, melting away finally as the sun
declines to the west. We seem to be drifting helplessly in a strange
world of unreality. It is reassuring to feel the ship beneath one’s
feet and to look down at the familiar line of kennels and igloos on the
solid floe.”
The floe was not so solid as it appeared. We had reminders occasionally
that the greedy sea was very close, and that the floe was but a
treacherous friend, which might open suddenly beneath us. Towards the
end of the month I had our store of seal meat and blubber brought
aboard. The depth as recorded by a sounding on the last day of March
was 256 fathoms. The continuous shoaling from 606 fathoms in a drift of
39 miles N. 26° W. in thirty days was interesting. The sea shoaled as
we went north, either to east or to west, and the fact suggested that
the contour-lines ran east and west, roughly. Our total drift between
January 19, when the ship was frozen in, and March 31, a period of
seventy-one days, had been 95 miles in a N. 80° W. direction. The
icebergs around us had not changed their relative positions.
The sun sank lower in the sky, the temperatures became lower, and the
_Endurance_ felt the grip of the icy hand of winter. Two north-easterly
gales in the early part of April assisted to consolidate the pack. The
young ice was thickening rapidly, and though leads were visible
occasionally from the ship, no opening of a considerable size appeared
in our neighbourhood. In the early morning of April 1 we listened again
for the wireless signals from Port Stanley. The crew had lashed three
20-ft. rickers to the mast-heads in order to increase the spread of our
aerials, but still we failed to hear anything. The rickers had to come
down subsequently, since we found that the gear could not carry the
accumulating weight of rime. Soundings proved that the sea continued to
shoal as the _Endurance_ drifted to the north-west. The depth on April
2 was 262 fathoms, with a bottom of glacial mud. Four weeks later a
sounding gave 172 fathoms. The presence of grit in the bottom samples
towards the end of the month suggested that we were approaching land
again.
The month was not uneventful. During the night of the 3rd we heard the
ice grinding to the eastward, and in the morning we saw that young ice
was rafted 8 to 10 ft. high in places. This was the first murmur of the
danger that was to reach menacing proportions in later months. The ice
was heard grinding and creaking during the 4th and the ship vibrated
slightly. The movement of the floe was sufficiently pronounced to
interfere with the magnetic work. I gave orders that accumulations of
snow, ice, and rubbish alongside the _Endurance_ should be shovelled
away, so that in case of pressure there would be no weight against the
topsides to check the ship rising above the ice. All hands were busy
with pick and shovel during the day, and moved many tons of material.
Again, on the 9th, there were signs of pressure. Young ice was piled up
to a height of 11 ft. astern of the ship, and the old floe was cracked
in places. The movement was not serious, but I realized that it might
be the beginning of trouble for the Expedition. We brought certain
stores aboard and provided space on deck for the dogs in case they had
to be removed from the floe at short notice. We had run a 500-fathom
steel wire round the ship, snow-huts, and kennels, with a loop out to
the lead ahead, where the dredge was used. This wire was supported on
ice-pillars, and it served as a guide in bad weather when the view was
obscured by driving snow and a man might have lost himself altogether.
I had this wire cut in five places, since otherwise it might have been
dragged across our section of the floe with damaging effect in the
event of the ice splitting suddenly.
The dogs had been divided into six teams of nine dogs each. Wild,
Crean, Macklin, McIlroy, Marston, and Hurley each had charge of a team,
and were fully responsible for the exercising, training, and feeding of
their own dogs. They called in one of the surgeons when an animal was
sick. We were still losing some dogs through worms, and it was
unfortunate that the doctors had not the proper remedies. Worm-powders
were to have been provided by the expert Canadian dog-driver I had
engaged before sailing for the south, and when this man did not join
the Expedition the matter was overlooked. We had fifty-four dogs and
eight pups early in April, but several were ailing, and the number of
mature dogs was reduced to fifty by the end of the month. Our store of
seal meat amounted now to about 5000 lbs., and I calculated that we had
enough meat and blubber to feed the dogs for ninety days without
trenching upon the sledging rations. The teams were working well, often
with heavy loads. The biggest dog was Hercules, who tipped the beam at
86 lbs. Samson was 11 lbs. lighter, but he justified his name one day
by starting off at a smart pace with a sledge carrying 200 lbs. of
blubber and a driver.
[Illustration: Pylon Avenue]
[Illustration: The Long, Long Night]
A new berg that was going to give us some cause for anxiety made its
appearance on the 14th. It was a big berg, and we noticed as it lay on
the north-west horizon that it had a hummocky, crevassed appearance at
the east end. During the day this berg increased its apparent altitude
and changed its bearing slightly. Evidently it was aground and was
holding its position against the drifting pack. A sounding at 11 a.m.
gave 197 fathoms, with a hard stony or rocky bottom. During the next
twenty-four hours the _Endurance_ moved steadily towards the crevassed
berg, which doubled its altitude in that time. We could see from the
mast-head that the pack was piling and rafting against the mass of ice,
and it was easy to imagine what would be the fate of the ship if she
entered the area of disturbance. She would be crushed like an egg-shell
amid the shattering masses.
Worsley was in the crow’s-nest on the evening of the 15th, watching for
signs of land to the westward, and he reported an interesting
phenomenon. The sun set amid a glow of prismatic colours on a line of
clouds just above the horizon. A minute later Worsley saw a golden
glow, which expanded as he watched it, and presently the sun appeared
again and rose a semi-diameter clear above the western horizon. He
hailed Crean, who from a position on the floe 90 ft. below the
crow’s-nest also saw the re-born sun. A quarter of an hour later from
the deck Worsley saw the sun set a second time. This strange phenomenon
was due to mirage or refraction. We attributed it to an ice-crack to
the westward, where the band of open water had heated a stratum of air.
The drift of the pack was not constant, and during the succeeding days
the crevassed berg alternately advanced and receded as the _Endurance_
moved with the floe. On Sunday, April 18, it was only seven miles
distant from the ship.
“It is a large berg, about three-quarters of a mile long on the side
presented to us and probably well over 200 ft. high. It is heavily
crevassed, as though it once formed the serac portion of a glacier. Two
specially wide and deep chasms across it from south-east to north-west
give it the appearance of having broken its back on the shoal-ground.
Huge masses of pressure-ice are piled against its cliffs to a height of
about 60 ft., showing the stupendous force that is being brought to
bear upon it by the drifting pack. The berg must be very firmly
aground. We swing the arrow on the current-meter frequently and watch
with keen attention to see where it will come to rest. Will it point
straight for the berg, showing that our drift is in that direction? It
swings slowly round. It points to the north-east end of the berg, then
shifts slowly to the centre and seems to stop; but it moves again and
swings 20 degrees clear of our enemy to the south-west.... We notice
that two familiar bergs, the Rampart Berg and the Peak Berg, have moved
away from the ship. Probably they also have grounded or dragged on the
shoal.”
A strong drift to the westward during the night of the 18th relieved
our anxiety by carrying the _Endurance_ to the lee of the crevassed
berg, which passed out of our range of vision before the end of the
month.
We said good-bye to the sun on May 1 and entered the period of twilight
that would be followed by the darkness of midwinter. The sun by the aid
of refraction just cleared the horizon at noon and set shortly before 2
p.m. A fine aurora in the evening was dimmed by the full moon, which
had risen on April 27 and would not set again until May 6. The
disappearance of the sun is apt to be a depressing event in the polar
regions, where the long months of darkness involve mental as well as
physical strain. But the _Endurance’s_ company refused to abandon their
customary cheerfulness, and a concert in the evening made the Ritz a
scene of noisy merriment, in strange contrast with the cold, silent
world that lay outside. “One feels our helplessness as the long winter
night closes upon us. By this time, if fortune had smiled upon the
Expedition, we would have been comfortably and securely established in
a shore base, with depots laid to the south and plans made for the long
march in the spring and summer. Where will we make a landing now? It is
not easy to forecast the future. The ice may open in the spring, but by
that time we will be far to the north-west. I do not think we shall be
able to work back to Vahsel Bay. There are possible landing-places on
the western coast of the Weddell Sea, but can we reach any suitable
spot early enough to attempt the overland journey next year? Time alone
will tell. I do not think any member of the Expedition is disheartened
by our disappointment. All hands are cheery and busy, and will do their
best when the time for action comes. In the meantime we must wait.”
The ship’s position on Sunday, May 2, was lat. 75° 23´ S., long. 42°
14´ W. The temperature at noon was 5° below zero Fahr., and the sky was
overcast. A seal was sighted from the mast-head at lunch-time, and five
men, with two dog teams, set off after the prize. They had an
uncomfortable journey outward in the dim, diffused light, which cast no
shadows and so gave no warning of irregularities in the white surface.
It is a strange sensation to be running along on apparently smooth snow
and to fall suddenly into an unseen hollow, or bump against a ridge.
“After going out three miles to the eastward,” wrote Worsley in
describing this seal-hunt, “we range up and down but find nothing,
until from a hummock I fancy I see something apparently a mile away,
but probably little more than half that distance. I ran for it, found
the seal, and with a shout brought up the others at the double. The
seal was a big Weddell, over 10 ft. long and weighing more than 800
lbs. But Soldier, one of the team leaders, went for its throat without
a moment’s hesitation, and we had to beat off the dogs before we could
shoot the seal. We caught five or six gallons of blood in a tin for the
dogs, and let the teams have a drink of fresh blood from the seal. The
light was worse than ever on our return, and we arrived back in the
dark. Sir Ernest met us with a lantern and guided us into the lead
astern and thence to the ship.”
This was the first seal we had secured since March 19, and the meat and
blubber made a welcome addition to the stores.
Three emperor penguins made their appearance in a lead west of the ship
on May 3. They pushed their heads through the young ice while two of
the men were standing by the lead. The men imitated the emperor’s call
and walked slowly, penguin fashion, away from the lead. The birds in
succession made a magnificent leap 3 ft. clear from the water on to the
young ice. Thence they tobogganed to the bank and followed the men away
from the lead. Their retreat was soon cut off by a line of men.
“We walk up to them, talking loudly and assuming a threatening aspect.
Notwithstanding our bad manners, the three birds turn towards us,
bowing ceremoniously. Then, after a closer inspection, they conclude
that we are undesirable acquaintances and make off across the floe. We
head them off and finally shepherd them close to the ship, where the
frenzied barking of the dogs so frightens them that they make a
determined effort to break through the line. We seize them. One bird of
philosophic mien goes quietly, led by one flipper. The others show
fight, but all are imprisoned in an igloo for the night.... In the
afternoon we see five emperors in the western lead and capture one.
Kerr and Cheetham fight a valiant action with two large birds. Kerr
rushes at one, seizes it, and is promptly knocked down by the angered
penguin, which jumps on his chest before retiring. Cheetham comes to
Kerr’s assistance; and between them they seize another penguin, bind
his bill and lead him, muttering muffled protests, to the ship like an
inebriated old man between two policemen. He weighs 85 lbs., or 5 lbs.
less than the heaviest emperor captured previously. Kerr and Cheetham
insist that he is nothing to the big fellow who escaped them.”
This penguin’s stomach proved to be filled with freshly caught fish up
to 10 in. long. Some of the fish were of a coastal or littoral variety.
Two more emperors were captured on the following day, and, while Wordie
was leading one of them towards the ship, Wild came along with his
team. The dogs, uncontrollable in a moment, made a frantic rush for the
bird, and were almost upon him when their harness caught upon an
ice-pylon, which they had tried to pass on both sides at once. The
result was a seething tangle of dogs, traces, and men, and an
overturned sled, while the penguin, three yards away, nonchalantly and
indifferently surveyed the disturbance. He had never seen anything of
the kind before and had no idea at all that the strange disorder might
concern him. Several cracks had opened in the neighbourhood of the
ship, and the emperor penguins, fat and glossy of plumage, were
appearing in considerable numbers. We secured nine of them on May 6, an
important addition to our supply of fresh food.
The sun, which had made “positively his last appearance” seven days
earlier, surprised us by lifting more than half its disk above the
horizon on May 8. A glow on the northern horizon resolved itself into
the sun at 11 a.m. that day. A quarter of an hour later the
unseasonable visitor disappeared again, only to rise again at 11.40
a.m., set at 1 p.m., rise at 1.10 p.m., and set lingeringly at 1.20
p.m. These curious phenomena were due to refraction, which amounted to
2° 37´ at 1.20 p.m. The temperature was 15° below zero Fahr. and we
calculated that the refraction was 2° above normal. In other words, the
sun was visible 120 miles farther south than the refraction tables gave
it any right to be. The navigating officer naturally was aggrieved. He
had informed all hands on May 1 that they would not see the sun again
for seventy days, and now had to endure the jeers of friends who
affected to believe that his observations were inaccurate by a few
degrees.
The _Endurance_ was drifting north-north-east under the influence of a
succession of westerly and south-westerly breezes. The ship’s head, at
the same time, swung gradually to the left, indicating that the floe in
which she was held was turning. During the night of the 14th a very
pronounced swing occurred, and when daylight came at noon on the 15th
we observed a large lead running from the north-west horizon towards
the ship till it struck the western lead, circling ahead of the ship,
then continuing to the south-south-east. A lead astern connected with
this new lead on either side of the _Endurance_, thus separating our
floe completely from the main body of the pack. A blizzard from the
south-east swept down during the 16th. At 1 p.m. the blizzard lulled
for five minutes; then the wind jumped round to the opposite quarter
and the barometer rose suddenly. The centre of a cyclonic movement had
passed over us, and the compass recorded an extraordinarily rapid swing
of the floe. I could see nothing through the mist and snow, and I
thought it possible that a magnetic storm or a patch of local magnetic
attraction had caused the compass, and not the floe, to swing, Our floe
was now about 2½ miles long north and south and 3 miles wide east and
west.
The month of May passed with few incidents of importance. Hurley, our
handy man, installed our small electric-lighting plant and placed
lights for occasional use in the observatory, the meteorological
station, and various other points. We could not afford to use the
electric lamps freely. Hurley also rigged two powerful lights on poles
projecting from the ship to port and starboard. These lamps would
illuminate the “dogloos” brilliantly on the darkest winter’s day and
would be invaluable in the event of the floe breaking during the dark
days of winter. We could imagine what it would mean to get fifty dogs
aboard without lights while the floe was breaking and rafting under our
feet. May 24, Empire Day, was celebrated with the singing of patriotic
songs in the Ritz, where all hands joined in wishing a speedy victory
for the British arms. We could not know how the war was progressing,
but we hoped that the Germans had already been driven from France and
that the Russian armies had put the seal on the Allies’ success. The
war was a constant subject of discussion aboard the _Endurance_, and
many campaigns were fought on the map during the long months of
drifting. The moon in the latter part of May was sweeping continuously
through our starlit sky in great high circles. The weather generally
was good, with constant minus temperatures. The log on May 27 recorded:
“Brilliantly fine clear weather with bright moonlight throughout. The
moon’s rays are wonderfully strong, making midnight seem as light as an
ordinary overcast midday in temperate climes. The great clearness of
the atmosphere probably accounts for our having eight hours of twilight
with a beautiful soft golden glow to the northward. A little rime and
glazed frost are found aloft. The temperature is –20° Fahr. A few wisps
of cirrus-cloud are seen and a little frost-smoke shows in one or two
directions, but the cracks and leads near the ship appear to have
frozen over again.”
[Illustration: The Pups]
[Illustration: Ice-Pressure Approaching the Ship]
Crean had started to take the pups out for runs, and it was very
amusing to see them with their rolling canter just managing to keep
abreast by the sledge and occasionally cocking an eye with an appealing
look in the hope of being taken aboard for a ride. As an addition to
their foster-father, Crean, the pups had adopted Amundsen. They
tyrannized over him most unmercifully. It was a common sight to see
him, the biggest dog in the pack, sitting out in the cold with an air
of philosophic resignation while a corpulent pup occupied the entrance
to his “dogloo.” The intruder was generally the pup Nelson, who just
showed his forepaws and face, and one was fairly sure to find Nelly,
Roger, and Toby coiled up comfortably behind him. At hoosh-time Crean
had to stand by Amundsen’s food, since otherwise the pups would eat the
big dog’s ration while he stood back to give them fair play. Sometimes
their consciences would smite them and they would drag round a seal’s
head, half a penguin, or a large lump of frozen meat or blubber to
Amundsen’s kennel for rent. It was interesting to watch the big dog
play with them, seizing them by throat or neck in what appeared to be a
fierce fashion, while really quite gentle with them, and all the time
teaching them how to hold their own in the world and putting them up to
all the tricks of dog life.
The drift of the _Endurance_ in the grip of the pack continued without
incident of importance through June. Pressure was reported
occasionally, but the ice in the immediate vicinity of the ship
remained firm. The light was now very bad except in the period when the
friendly moon was above the horizon. A faint twilight round about noon
of each day reminded us of the sun, and assisted us in the important
work of exercising the dogs. The care of the teams was our heaviest
responsibility in those days. The movement of the floes was beyond all
human control, and there was nothing to be gained by allowing one’s
mind to struggle with the problems of the future, though it was hard to
avoid anxiety at times. The conditioning and training of the dogs
seemed essential, whatever fate might be in store for us, and the teams
were taken out by their drivers whenever the weather permitted.
Rivalries arose, as might have been expected, and on the 15th of the
month a great race, the “Antarctic Derby,” took place. It was a notable
event. The betting had been heavy, and every man aboard the ship stood
to win or lose on the result of the contest. Some money had been
staked, but the wagers that thrilled were those involving stores of
chocolate and cigarettes. The course had been laid off from Khyber
Pass, at the eastern end of the old lead ahead of the ship, to a point
clear of the jib-boom, a distance of about 700 yds. Five teams went out
in the dim noon twilight, with a zero temperature and an aurora
flickering faintly to the southward. The starting signal was to be
given by the flashing of a light on the meteorological station. I was
appointed starter, Worsley was judge, and James was timekeeper. The
bos’n, with a straw hat added to his usual Antarctic attire, stood on a
box near the winning-post, and was assisted by a couple of shady
characters to shout the odds, which were displayed on a board hung
around his neck—6 to 4 on Wild, “evens” on Crean, 2 to 1 against
Hurley, 6 to 1 against Macklin, and 8 to 1 against McIlroy. Canvas
handkerchiefs fluttered from an improvised grand stand, and the pups,
which had never seen such strange happenings before, sat round and
howled with excitement. The spectators could not see far in the dim
light, but they heard the shouts of the drivers as the teams approached
and greeted the victory of the favourite with a roar of cheering that
must have sounded strange indeed to any seals or penguins that happened
to be in our neighbourhood. Wild’s time was 2 min. 16 sec., or at the
rate of 10½ miles per hour for the course.
We celebrated Midwinter’s Day on the 22nd. The twilight extended over a
period of about six hours that day, and there was a good light at noon
from the moon, and also a northern glow with wisps of beautiful pink
cloud along the horizon. A sounding gave 262 fathoms with a mud bottom.
No land was in sight from the mast-head, although our range of vision
extended probably a full degree to the westward. The day was observed
as a holiday, necessary work only being undertaken, and, after the best
dinner the cook could provide, all hands gathered in the Ritz, where
speeches, songs, and toasts occupied the evening. After supper at
midnight we sang “God Save the King” and wished each other all success
in the days of sunshine and effort that lay ahead. At this time the
_Endurance_ was making an unusually rapid drift to the north under the
influence of a fresh southerly to south-westerly breeze. We travelled
39 miles to the north in five days before a breeze that only once
attained the force of a gale and then for no more than an hour. The
absence of strong winds, in comparison with the almost unceasing winter
blizzards of the Ross Sea, was a feature of the Weddell Sea that
impressed itself upon me during the winter months.
Another race took place a few days after the “Derby.” The two crack
teams, driven by Hurley and Wild, met in a race from Khyber Pass.
Wild’s team, pulling 910 lbs., or 130 lbs. per dog, covered the 700
yds. in 2 min. 9 sec., or at the rate of 11.1 miles per hour. Hurley’s
team, with the same load, did the run in 2 min. 16 sec. The race was
awarded by the judge to Hurley owing to Wild failing to “weigh in”
correctly. I happened to be a part of the load on his sledge, and a
skid over some new drift within fifty yards of the winning post
resulted in my being left on the snow. It should be said in justice to
the dogs that this accident, while justifying the disqualification,
could not have made any material difference in the time.
The approach of the returning sun was indicated by beautiful sunrise
glows on the horizon in the early days of July. We had nine hours’
twilight on the 10th, and the northern sky, low to the horizon, was
tinted with gold for about seven hours. Numerous cracks and leads
extended in all directions to within 300 yds. of the ship. Thin
wavering black lines close to the northern horizon were probably
distant leads refracted into the sky. Sounds of moderate pressure came
to our ears occasionally, but the ship was not involved. At midnight on
the 11th a crack in the lead ahead of the _Endurance_ opened out
rapidly, and by 2 a.m. was over 200 yds. wide in places with an area of
open water to the south-west. Sounds of pressure were heard along this
lead, which soon closed to a width of about 30 yds. and then froze
over. The temperature at that time was –23° Fahr.
The most severe blizzard we had experienced in the Weddell Sea swept
down upon the _Endurance_ on the evening of the 13th, and by
breakfast-time on the following morning the kennels to the windward, or
southern side of the ship were buried under 5 ft. of drift. I gave
orders that no man should venture beyond the kennels. The ship was
invisible at a distance of fifty yards, and it was impossible to
preserve one’s sense of direction in the raging wind and suffocating
drift. To walk against the gale was out of the question. Face and eyes
became snowed up within two minutes, and serious frost-bites would have
been the penalty of perseverance. The dogs stayed in their kennels for
the most part, the “old stagers” putting out a paw occasionally in
order to keep open a breathing-hole. By evening the gale had attained a
force of 60 or 70 miles an hour, and the ship was trembling under the
attack. But we were snug enough in our quarters aboard until the
morning of the 14th, when all hands turned out to shovel the snow from
deck and kennels. The wind was still keen and searching, with a
temperature of something like –30° Fahr., and it was necessary for us
to be on guard against frost-bite. At least 100 tons of snow were piled
against the bows and port side, where the weight of the drift had
forced the floe downward. The lead ahead had opened out during the
night, cracked the pack from north to south and frozen over again,
adding 300 yds. to the distance between the ship and “Khyber Pass.” The
breakdown gang had completed its work by lunch-time. The gale was then
decreasing and the three-days-old moon showed as a red crescent on the
northern horizon. The temperature during the blizzard had ranged from
–21° to –33.5° Fahr. It is usual for the temperature to rise during a
blizzard, and the failure to produce any Föhn effect of this nature
suggested an absence of high land for at least 200 miles to the south
and south-west. The weather did not clear until the 16th. We saw then
that the appearance of the surrounding pack had been altered completely
by the blizzard. The “island” floe containing the _Endurance_ still
stood fast, but cracks and masses of ice thrown up by pressure could be
seen in all directions. An area of open water was visible on the
horizon to the north, with a water indication in the northern sky.
The ice-pressure, which was indicated by distant rumblings and the
appearance of formidable ridges, was increasingly a cause of anxiety.
The areas of disturbance were gradually approaching the ship. During
July 21 we could bear the grinding and crashing of the working floes to
the south-west and west and could see cracks opening, working, and
closing ahead.
“The ice is rafting up to a height of 10 or 15 ft. in places, the
opposing floes are moving against one another at the rate of about 200
yds. per hour. The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf.
Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the
breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below.”
Early on the afternoon of the 22nd a 2-ft. crack, running south-west
and north-east for a distance of about two miles, approached to within
35 yds. of the port quarter. I had all the sledges brought aboard and
set a special watch in case it became necessary to get the dogs off the
floe in a hurry. This crack was the result of heavy pressure 300 yds.
away on the port bow, where huge blocks of ice were piled up in wild
and threatening confusion. The pressure at that point was enormous.
Blocks weighing many tons were raised 15 ft. above the level of the
floe. I arranged to divide the night watches with Worsley and Wild, and
none of us had much rest. The ship was shaken by heavy bumps, and we
were on the alert to see that no dogs had fallen into cracks. The
morning light showed that our island had been reduced considerably
during the night. Our long months of rest and safety seemed to be at an
end, and a period of stress had begun.
During the following day I had a store of sledging provisions, oil,
matches, and other essentials placed on the upper deck handy to the
starboard quarter boat, so as to be in readiness for a sudden
emergency. The ice was grinding and working steadily to the southward,
and in the evening some large cracks appeared on the port quarter,
while a crack alongside opened out to 15 yds. The blizzard seemed to
have set the ice in strong movement towards the north, and the
south-westerly and west-south-westerly winds that prevailed two days
out of three maintained the drift. I hoped that this would continue
unchecked, since our chance of getting clear of the pack early in the
spring appeared to depend upon our making a good northing. Soundings at
this time gave depths of from 186 to 190 fathoms, with a glacial mud
bottom. No land was in sight. The light was improving. A great deal of
ice-pressure was heard and observed in all directions during the 25th,
much of it close to the port quarter of the ship. On the starboard bow
huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons and 5 ft. in thickness, were
pushed up on the old floe to a height of 15 to 20 ft. The floe that
held the _Endurance_ was swung to and fro by the pressure during the
day, but came back to the old bearing before midnight.
“The ice for miles around is much looser. There are numerous cracks and
short leads to the north-east and south-east. Ridges are being forced
up in all directions, and there is a water-sky to the south-east. It
would be a relief to be able to make some effort on our own behalf; but
we can do nothing until the ice releases our ship. If the floes
continue to loosen, we may break out within the next few weeks and
resume the fight. In the meantime the pressure continues, and it is
hard to foresee the outcome. Just before noon to-day (July 26) the top
of the sun appeared by refraction for one minute, seventy-nine days
after our last sunset. A few minutes earlier a small patch of the sun
had been thrown up on one of the black streaks above the horizon. All
hands are cheered by the indication that the end of the winter darkness
is near.... Clark finds that with returning daylight the _diatoms_ are
again appearing. His nets and line are stained a pale yellow, and much
of the newly formed ice has also a faint brown or yellow tinge. The
_diatoms_ cannot multiply without light, and the ice formed since
February can be distinguished in the pressure-ridges by its clear blue
colour. The older masses of ice are of a dark earthy brown, dull
yellow, or reddish brown.”
[Illustration: Ice-Rafting]
[Illustration: The Returning Sun]
The break-up of our floe came suddenly on Sunday, August 1, just one
year after the _Endurance_ left the South-West India Docks on the
voyage to the Far South. The position was lat. 72° 26´ S., long. 48°
10´ W. The morning brought a moderate south-westerly gale with heavy
snow, and at 8 a.m., after some warning movements of the ice, the floe
cracked 40 yds. off the starboard bow. Two hours later the floe began
to break up all round us under pressure and the ship listed over 10
degrees to starboard. I had the dogs and sledges brought aboard at once
and the gangway hoisted. The animals behaved well. They came aboard
eagerly as though realizing their danger, and were placed in their
quarters on deck without a single fight occurring. The pressure was
cracking the floe rapidly, rafting it close to the slip and forcing
masses of ice beneath the keel. Presently the _Endurance_ listed
heavily to port against the gale, and at the same time was forced
ahead, astern, and sideways several times by the grinding floes. She
received one or two hard nips, but resisted them without as much as a
creak. It looked at one stage as if the ship was to be made the
plaything of successive floes, and I was relieved when she came to a
standstill with a large piece of our old “dock” under the starboard
bilge. I had the boats cleared away ready for lowering, got up some
additional stores, and set a double watch. All hands were warned to
stand by, get what sleep they could, and have their warmest clothing at
hand. Around us lay the ruins of “Dog Town” amid the debris of
pressure-ridges. Some of the little dwellings had been crushed flat
beneath blocks of ice; others had been swallowed and pulverized when
the ice opened beneath them and closed again. It was a sad sight, but
my chief concern just then was the safety of the rudder, which was
being attacked viciously by the ice. We managed to pole away a large
lump that had become jammed between the rudder and the stern-post, but
I could see that damage had been done, though a close examination was
not possible that day.
After the ship had come to a standstill in her new position very heavy
pressure was set up. Some of the trenails were started and beams
buckled slightly under the terrific stresses. But the _Endurance_ had
been built to withstand the attacks of the ice, and she lifted bravely
as the floes drove beneath her. The effects of the pressure around us
were awe-inspiring. Mighty blocks of ice, gripped between meeting
floes, rose slowly till they jumped like cherry-stones squeezed between
thumb and finger. The pressure of millions of tons of moving ice was
crushing and smashing inexorably. If the ship was once gripped firmly
her fate would be sealed.
The gale from the south-west blew all night and moderated during the
afternoon of the 2nd to a stiff breeze. The pressure had almost ceased.
Apparently the gale had driven the southern pack down upon us, causing
congestion in our area; the pressure had stopped when the whole of the
pack got into motion. The gale had given us some northing, but it had
dealt the _Endurance_ what might prove to be a severe blow. The rudder
had been driven hard over to starboard and the blade partially torn
away from the rudder-head. Heavy masses of ice were still jammed
against the stern, and it was impossible to ascertain the extent of the
damage at that time. I felt that it would be impossible in any case to
effect repairs in the moving pack. The ship lay steady all night, and
the sole sign of continuing pressure was an occasional slight rumbling
shock. We rigged shelters and kennels for the dogs inboard.
The weather on August 3 was overcast and misty. We had nine hours of
twilight, with good light at noon. There was no land in sight for ten
miles from the mast-head. The pack as far as the eye could reach was in
a condition of chaos, much rafted and consolidated, with very large
pressure-ridges in all directions. At 9 p.m. a rough altitude of
_Canopus_ gave the latitude as 71° 55´ 17´´ S. The drift, therefore,
had been about 37 miles to the north in three days. Four of the poorest
dogs were shot this day. They were suffering severely from worms, and
we could not afford to keep sick dogs under the changed conditions. The
sun showed through the clouds on the northern horizon for an hour on
the 4th. There was no open water to be seen from aloft in any
direction. We saw from the masthead to west-south-west an appearance of
barrier, land, or a very long iceberg, about 20 odd miles away, but the
horizon clouded over before we could determine its nature. We tried
twice to make a sounding that day, but failed on each occasion. The
Kelvin machine gave no bottom at the full length of the line, 370
fathoms. After much labour we made a hole in the ice near the
stern-post large enough for the Lucas machine with a 32-lb. lead; but
this appeared to be too light. The machine stopped at 452 fathoms,
leaving us in doubt as to whether bottom had been reached. Then in
heaving up we lost the lead, the thin wire cutting its way into the ice
and snapping. All hands and the carpenter were busy this day making and
placing kennels on the upper deck, and by nightfall all the dogs were
comfortably housed, ready for any weather. The sun showed through the
clouds above the northern horizon for nearly an hour.
The remaining days of August were comparatively uneventful. The ice
around the ship froze firm again and little movement occurred in our
neighbourhood. The training of the dogs, including the puppies,
proceeded actively, and provided exercise as well as occupation. The
drift to the north-west continued steadily. We had bad luck with
soundings, the weather interfering at times and the gear breaking on
several occasions, but a big increase in the depth showed that we had
passed over the edge of the Weddell Sea plateau. A sounding of about
1700 fathoms on August 10 agreed fairly well with Filchner’s 1924
fathoms, 130 miles east of our then position. An observation at noon of
the 8th had given us lat. 71° 23´ S., long. 49° 13´ W. Minus
temperatures prevailed still, but the daylight was increasing. We
captured a few emperor penguins which were making their way to the
south-west. Ten penguins taken on the 19th were all in poor condition,
and their stomachs contained nothing but stones and a few cuttle-fish
beaks. A sounding on the 17th gave 1676 fathoms, 10 miles west of the
charted position of Morell Land. No land could be seen from the
mast-head, and I decided that Morell Land must be added to the long
list of Antarctic islands and continental coasts that on close
investigation have resolved themselves into icebergs. On clear days we
could get an extended view in all directions from the mast-head, and
the line of the pack was broken only by familiar bergs. About one
hundred bergs were in view on a fine day, and they seemed practically
the same as when they started their drift with us nearly seven months
earlier. The scientists wished to inspect some of the neighbouring
bergs at close quarters, but sledge travelling outside the well-trodden
area immediately around the ship proved difficult and occasionally
dangerous. On August 20, for example, Worsley, Hurley, and Greenstreet
started off for the Rampart Berg and got on to a lead of young ice that
undulated perilously beneath their feet. A quick turn saved them.
A wonderful mirage of the Fata Morgana type was visible on August 20.
The day was clear and bright, with a blue sky overhead and some rime
aloft.
“The distant pack is thrown up into towering barrier-like cliffs, which
are reflected in blue lakes and lanes of water at their base. Great
white and golden cities of Oriental appearance at close intervals along
these clifftops indicate distant bergs, some not previously known to
us. Floating above these are wavering violet and creamy lines of still
more remote bergs and pack. The lines rise and fall, tremble,
dissipate, and reappear in an endless transformation scene. The
southern pack and bergs, catching the sun’s rays, are golden, but to
the north the ice-masses are purple. Here the bergs assume changing
forms, first a castle, then a balloon just clear of the horizon, that
changes swiftly into an immense mushroom, a mosque, or a cathedral. The
principal characteristic is the vertical lengthening of the object, a
small pressure-ridge being given the appearance of a line of
battlements or towering cliffs. The mirage is produced by refraction
and is intensified by the columns of comparatively warm air rising from
several cracks and leads that have opened eight to twenty miles away
north and south.”
We noticed this day that a considerable change had taken place in our
position relative to the Rampart Berg. It appeared that a big lead had
opened and that there had been some differential movement of the pack.
The opening movement might presage renewed pressure. A few hours later
the dog teams, returning from exercise, crossed a narrow crack that had
appeared ahead of the ship. This crack opened quickly to 60 ft. and
would have given us trouble if the dogs had been left on the wrong
side. It closed on the 25th and pressure followed in its neighbourhood.
[Illustration: Wild and Shackleton in the Heavy Pressure]
[Illustration: Exercising the Dogs]
On August 24 we were two miles north of the latitude of Morell’s
farthest south, and over 10° of longitude, or more than 200 miles, west
of his position. From the mast-head no land could be seen within twenty
miles, and no land of over 500 ft. altitude could have escaped
observation on our side of long. 52° W. A sounding of 1900 fathoms on
August 25 was further evidence of the non-existence of New South
Greenland. There was some movement of the ice near the ship during the
concluding days of the month. All hands were called out in the night of
August 26, sounds of pressure having been followed by the cracking of
the ice alongside the ship, but the trouble did not develop
immediately. Late on the night of the 31st the ice began to work ahead
of the ship and along the port side. Creaking and groaning of timbers,
accompanied by loud snapping sounds fore and aft, told their story of
strain. The pressure continued during the following day, beams and deck
planks occasionally buckling to the strain. The ponderous floes were
grinding against each other under the influence of wind and current,
and our ship seemed to occupy for the time being an undesirable
position near the centre of the disturbance; but she resisted staunchly
and showed no sign of water in the bilges, although she had not been
pumped out for six months. The pack extended to the horizon in every
direction. I calculated that we were 250 miles from the nearest known
land to the westward, and more than 500 miles from the nearest outpost
of civilization, Wilhelmina Bay. I hoped we would not have to undertake
a march across the moving ice-fields. The _Endurance_ we knew to be
stout and true; but no ship ever built by man could live if taken
fairly in the grip of the floes and prevented from rising to the
surface of the grinding ice. These were anxious days. In the early
morning of September 2 the ship jumped and shook to the accompaniment
of cracks and groans, and some of the men who had been in the berths
hurried on deck. The pressure eased a little later in the day, when the
ice on the port side broke away from the ship to just abaft the main
rigging. The _Endurance_ was still held aft and at the rudder, and a
large mass of ice could be seen adhering to the port bow, rising to
within three feet of the surface. I wondered if this ice had got its
grip by piercing the sheathing.
CHAPTER IV
LOSS OF THE _ENDURANCE_
The ice did not trouble us again seriously until the end of September,
though during the whole month the floes were seldom entirely without
movement. The roar of pressure would come to us across the otherwise
silent ice-fields, and bring with it a threat and a warning. Watching
from the crow’s-nest, we could see sometimes the formation of
pressure-ridges. The sunshine glittered on newly riven ice-surfaces as
the masses of shattered floe rose and fell away from the line of
pressure. The area of disturbance would advance towards us, recede, and
advance again. The routine of work and play on the _Endurance_
proceeded steadily. Our plans and preparations for any contingency that
might arise during the approaching summer had been made, but there
seemed always plenty to do in and about our prisoned ship. Runs with
the dogs and vigorous games of hockey and football on the rough
snow-covered floe kept all hands in good fettle. The record of one or
two of these September days will indicate the nature of our life and
our surroundings:
“_September_ 4.—Temperature, –14.1° Fahr. Light easterly breeze, blue
sky, and stratus clouds. During forenoon notice a distinct terra-cotta
or biscuit colour in the stratus clouds to the north. This travelled
from east to west and could conceivably have come from some of the
Graham Land volcanoes, now about 300 miles distant to the north-west.
The upper current of air probably would come from that direction. Heavy
rime. Pack unbroken and unchanged as far as visible. No land for 22
miles. No animal life observed.”
“_September_ 7.—Temperature, –10.8° Fahr. Moderate easterly to
southerly winds, overcast and misty, with light snow till midnight,
when weather cleared. Blue sky and fine clear weather to noon. Much
rime aloft. Thick fresh snow on ship and floe that glistens brilliantly
in the morning sunlight. Little clouds of faint violet-coloured mist
rise from the lower and brinier portions of the pack, which stretches
unbroken to the horizon. Very great refraction all round. A tabular
berg about fifty feet high ten miles west is a good index of the amount
of refraction. On ordinary days it shows from the mast-head, clear-cut
against the sky; with much refraction, the pack beyond at the back of
it lifts up into view; to-day a broad expanse of miles of pack is seen
above it. Numerous other bergs generally seen in silhouette are, at
first sight, lost, but after a closer scrutiny they appear as large
lumps or dark masses well below the horizon. Refraction generally
results in too big an altitude when observing the sun for position, but
to-day, the horizon is thrown up so much that the altitude is about 12´
too small. No land visible for twenty miles. No animal life observed.
Lower Clark’s tow-net with 566 fathoms of wire, and hoist it up at two
and a half miles an hour by walking across the floe with the wire.
Result rather meagre—jelly-fish and some fish larvæ. Exercise dogs in
sledge teams. The young dogs, under Crean’s care, pull as well, though
not so strongly, as the best team in the pack. Hercules for the last
fortnight or more has constituted himself leader of the orchestra. Two
or three times in the twenty-four hours he starts a howl—a deep,
melodious howl—and in about thirty seconds he has the whole pack in
full song, the great deep, booming, harmonious song of the half-wolf
pack.”
By the middle of September we were running short of fresh meat for the
dogs. The seals and penguins seemed to have abandoned our neighbourhood
altogether. Nearly five months had passed since we killed a seal, and
penguins had been seen seldom. Clark, who was using his trawl as often
as possible, reported that there was a marked absence of _plankton_ in
the sea, and we assumed that the seals and the penguins had gone in
search of their accustomed food. The men got an emperor on the 23rd.
The dogs, which were having their sledging exercise, became wildly
excited when the penguin, which had risen in a crack, was driven
ashore, and the best efforts of the drivers failed to save it alive. On
the following day Wild, Hurley, Macklin, and McIlroy took their teams
to the Stained Berg, about seven miles west of the ship, and on their
way back got a female crab-eater, which they killed, skinned, and left
to be picked up later. They ascended to the top of the berg, which lay
in about lat. 69° 30´ S., long. 51° W., and from an elevation of 110
ft. could see no land. Samples of the discoloured ice from the berg
proved to contain dust with black gritty particles or sand-grains.
Another seal, a bull Weddell, was secured on the 26th. The return of
seal-life was opportune, since we had nearly finished the winter supply
of dog-biscuit and wished to be able to feed the dogs on meat. The
seals meant a supply of blubber, moreover, to supplement our small
remaining stock of coal when the time came to get up steam again. We
initiated a daylight-saving system on this day by putting forward the
clock one hour. “This is really pandering to the base but universal
passion that men, and especially seafarers, have for getting up late,
otherwise we would be honest and make our routine earlier instead of
flogging the clock.”
During the concluding days of September the roar of the pressure grew
louder, and I could see that the area of disturbance was rapidly
approaching the ship. Stupendous forces were at work and the fields of
firm ice around the _Endurance_ were being diminished steadily.
September 30 was a bad day. It began well, for we got two penguins and
five seals during the morning. Three other seals were seen. But at 3
p.m. cracks that had opened during the night alongside the ship
commenced to work in a lateral direction. The ship sustained terrific
pressure on the port side forward, the heaviest shocks being under the
forerigging. It was the worst squeeze we had experienced. The decks
shuddered and jumped, beams arched, and stanchions buckled and shook. I
ordered all hands to stand by in readiness for whatever emergency might
arise. Even the dogs seemed to feel the tense anxiety of the moment.
But the ship resisted valiantly, and just when it appeared that the
limit of her strength was being reached the huge floe that was pressing
down upon us cracked across and so gave relief.
“The behaviour of our ship in the ice has been magnificent,” wrote
Worsley. “Since we have been beset her staunchness and endurance have
been almost past belief again and again. She has been nipped with a
million-ton pressure and risen nobly, falling clear of the water out on
the ice. She has been thrown to and fro like a shuttlecock a dozen
times. She has been strained, her beams arched upwards, by the fearful
pressure; her very sides opened and closed again as she was actually
bent and curved along her length, groaning like a living thing. It will
be sad if such a brave little craft should be finally crushed in the
remorseless, slowly strangling grip of the Weddell pack after ten
months of the bravest and most gallant fight ever put up by a ship.”
The _Endurance_ deserved all that could be said in praise of her.
Shipwrights had never done sounder or better work; but how long could
she continue the fight under such conditions? We were drifting into the
congested area of the western Weddell Sea, the worst portion of the
worst sea in the world, where the pack, forced on irresistibly by wind
and current, impinges on the western shore and is driven up in huge
corrugated ridges and chaotic fields of pressure. The vital question
for us was whether or not the ice would open sufficiently to release
us, or at least give us a chance of release, before the drift carried
us into the most dangerous area. There was no answer to be got from the
silent bergs and the grinding floes, and we faced the month of October
with anxious hearts.
The leads in the pack appeared to have opened out a little on October
1, but not sufficiently to be workable even if we had been able to
release the _Endurance_ from the floe. The day was calm, cloudy and
misty in the forenoon and clearer in the afternoon, when we observed
well-defined parhelia. The ship was subjected to slight pressure at
intervals. Two bull crab-eaters climbed on to the floe close to the
ship and were shot by Wild. They were both big animals in prime
condition, and I felt that there was no more need for anxiety as to the
supply of fresh meat for the dogs. Seal-liver made a welcome change in
our own menu. The two bulls were marked, like many of their kind, with
long parallel scars about three inches apart, evidently the work of the
killers. A bull we killed on the following day had four parallel scars,
sixteen inches long, on each side of its body; they were fairly deep
and one flipper had been nearly torn away. The creature must have
escaped from the jaws of a killer by a very small margin. Evidently
life beneath the pack is not always monotonous. We noticed that several
of the bergs in the neighbourhood of the ship were changing their
relative positions more than they had done for months past. The floes
were moving.
[Illustration: Crab-eater Seals]
[Illustration: The Beginning of the End]
Our position on Sunday, October 3, was lat. 69° 14´ S., long. 51° 8´ W.
During the night the floe holding the ship aft cracked in several
places, and this appeared to have eased the strain on the rudder. The
forenoon was misty, with falls of snow, but the weather cleared later
in the day and we could see that the pack was breaking. New leads had
appeared, while several old leads had closed. Pressure-ridges had risen
along some of the cracks. The thickness of the season’s ice, now about
230 days old, was 4 ft. 5 in. under 7 or 8 in. of snow. This ice had
been slightly thicker in the early part of September, and I assumed
that some melting had begun below. Clark had recorded plus temperatures
at depths of 150 and 200 fathoms in the concluding days of September.
The ice obviously had attained its maximum thickness by direct
freezing, and the heavier older floes had been created by the
consolidation of pressure-ice and the overlapping of floes under
strain. The air temperatures were still low, –24.5° Fahr. being
recorded on October 4.
The movement of the ice was increasing. Frost-smoke from opening cracks
was showing in all directions during October 6. It had the appearance
in one place of a great prairie fire, rising from the surface and
getting higher as it drifted off before the wind in heavy, dark,
rolling masses. At another point there was the appearance of a train
running before the wind, the smoke rising from the locomotive straight
upwards; and the smoke columns elsewhere gave the effect of warships
steaming in line ahead. During the following day the leads and cracks
opened to such an extent that if the _Endurance_ could have been forced
forward for thirty yards we could have proceeded for two or three
miles; but the effort did not promise any really useful result. The
conditions did not change materially during the rest of that week. The
position on Sunday, October 10, was lat. 69° 21´ S., long. 50° 34´ W. A
thaw made things uncomfortable for us that day. The temperature had
risen from –10° Fahr. to +29.8° Fahr., the highest we had experienced
since January, and the ship got dripping wet between decks. The upper
deck was clear of ice and snow and the cabins became unpleasantly
messy. The dogs, who hated wet, had a most unhappy air. Undoubtedly one
grows to like familiar conditions. We had lived long in temperatures
that would have seemed distressingly low in civilized life, and now we
were made uncomfortable by a degree of warmth that would have left the
unaccustomed human being still shivering. The thaw was an indication
that winter was over, and we began preparations for reoccupying the
cabins on the main deck. I had the shelter-house round the stern pulled
down on the 11th and made other preparations for working the ship as
soon as she got clear. The carpenter had built a wheel-house over the
wheel aft as shelter in cold and heavy weather. The ice was still
loosening and no land was visible for twenty miles.
The temperature remained relatively high for several days. All hands
moved to their summer quarters in the upper cabins on the 12th, to the
accompaniment of much noise and laughter. Spring was in the air, and if
there were no green growing things to gladden our eyes, there were at
least many seals, penguins, and even whales disporting themselves in
the leads. The time for renewed action was coming, and though our
situation was grave enough, we were facing the future hopefully. The
dogs were kept in a state of uproar by the sight of so much game. They
became almost frenzied when a solemn-looking emperor penguin inspected
them gravely from some point of vantage on the floe and gave utterance
to an apparently derisive “Knark!” At 7 p.m. on the 13th the ship broke
free of the floe on which she had rested to starboard sufficiently to
come upright. The rudder freed itself, but the propeller was found to
be athwartship, having been forced into that position by the floe some
time after August 1. The water was very clear and we could see the
rudder, which appeared to have suffered only a slight twist to port at
the water-line. It moved quite freely. The propeller, as far as we
could see, was intact, but it could not be moved by the hand-gear,
probably owing to a film of ice in the stern gland and sleeve. I did
not think it advisable to attempt to deal with it at that stage. The
ship had not been pumped for eight months, but there was no water and
not much ice in the bilges. Meals were served again in the wardroom
that day.
The south-westerly breeze freshened to a gale on the 14th, and the
temperature fell from +31° Fahr. to –1° Fahr. At midnight the ship came
free from the floe and drifted rapidly astern. Her head fell off before
the wind until she lay nearly at right-angles across the narrow lead.
This was a dangerous position for rudder and propeller. The spanker was
set, but the weight of the wind on the ship gradually forced the floes
open until the _Endurance_ swung right round and drove 100 yds. along
the lead. Then the ice closed and at 3 a.m. we were fast again. The
wind died down during the day and the pack opened for five or six miles
to the north. It was still loose on the following morning, and I had
the boiler pumped up with the intention of attempting to clear the
propeller; but one of the manholes developed a leak, the packing being
perished by cold or loosened by contraction, and the boiler had to be
emptied out again.
The pack was rather closer on Sunday the 17th. Top-sails and head-sails
were set in the afternoon, and with a moderate north-easterly breeze we
tried to force the ship ahead out of the lead; but she was held fast.
Later that day heavy pressure developed. The two floes between which
the _Endurance_ was lying began to close and the ship was subjected to
a series of tremendously heavy strains. In the engine-room, the weakest
point, loud groans, crashes, and hammering sounds were heard. The iron
plates on the floor buckled up and overrode with loud clangs. Meanwhile
the floes were grinding off each other’s projecting points and throwing
up pressure-ridges. The ship stood the strain well for nearly an hour
and then, to my great relief, began to rise with heavy jerks and jars.
She lifted ten inches forward and three feet four inches aft, at the
same time heeling six degrees to port. The ice was getting below us and
the immediate danger had passed. The position was lat. 69° 19´ S.,
long. 50° 40´ W.
The next attack of the ice came on the afternoon of October 18th. The
two floes began to move laterally, exerting great pressure on the ship.
Suddenly the floe on the port side cracked and huge pieces of ice shot
up from under the port bilge. Within a few seconds the ship heeled over
until she had a list of thirty degrees to port, being held under the
starboard bilge by the opposing floe. The lee boats were now almost
resting on the floe. The midship dog-kennels broke away and crashed
down on to the lee kennels, and the howls and barks of the frightened
dogs assisted to create a perfect pandemonium. Everything movable on
deck and below fell to the lee side, and for a few minutes it looked as
if the _Endurance_ would be thrown upon her beam ends. Order was soon
restored. I had all fires put out and battens nailed on the deck to
give the dogs a foothold and enable people to get about. Then the crew
lashed all the movable gear. If the ship had heeled any farther it
would have been necessary to release the lee boats and pull them clear,
and Worsley was watching to give the alarm. Hurley meanwhile descended
to the floe and took some photographs of the ship in her unusual
position. Dinner in the wardroom that evening was a curious affair.
Most of the diners had to sit on the deck, their feet against battens
and their plates on their knees. At 8 p.m. the floes opened, and within
a few minutes the _Endurance_ was nearly upright again. Orders were
given for the ice to be chipped clear of the rudder. The men poled the
blocks out of the way when they had been detached from the floe with
the long ice-chisels, and we were able to haul the ship’s stern into a
clear berth. Then the boiler was pumped up. This work was completed
early in the morning of October 19, and during that day the engineer
lit fires and got up steam very slowly, in order to economize fuel and
avoid any strain on the chilled boilers by unequal heating. The crew
cut up all loose lumber, boxes, etc., and put them in the bunkers for
fuel. The day was overcast, with occasional snowfalls, the temperature
+12° Fahr. The ice in our neighbourhood was quiet, but in the distance
pressure was at work. The wind freshened in the evening, and we ran a
wire-mooring astern. The barometer at 11 p.m. stood at 28.96, the
lowest since the gales of July. An uproar among the dogs attracted
attention late in the afternoon, and we found a 25-ft. whale cruising
up and down in our pool. It pushed its head up once in characteristic
killer fashion, but we judged from its small curved dorsal fin that it
was a specimen of _Balænoptera acutorostrata_, not _Orca gladiator_.
[Illustration: “Within a few Seconds she heeled over until she had a
List of Thirty Degrees to Port”]
[Illustration: Almost Overwhelmed]
A strong south-westerly wind was blowing on October 20 and the pack was
working. The _Endurance_ was imprisoned securely in the pool, but our
chance might come at any time. Watches were set so as to be ready for
working ship. Wild and Hudson, Greenstreet and Cheetham, Worsley and
Crean, took the deck watches, and the Chief Engineer and Second
Engineer kept watch and watch with three of the A.B.’s for stokers. The
staff and the forward hands, with the exception of the cook, the
carpenter and his mate, were on “watch and watch”—that is, four hours
on deck and four hours below, or off duty. The carpenter was busy
making a light punt, which might prove useful in the navigation of
lanes and channels. At 11 a.m. we gave the engines a gentle trial turn
astern. Everything worked well after eight months of frozen inactivity,
except that the bilge-pump and the discharge proved to be frozen up;
they were cleared with some little difficulty. The engineer reported
that to get steam he had used one ton of coal, with wood-ashes and
blubber. The fires required to keep the boiler warm consumed one and a
quarter to one and a half hundred-weight of coal per day. We had about
fifty tons of coal remaining in the bunkers.
October 21 and 22 were days of low temperature, which caused the open
leads to freeze over. The pack was working, and ever and anon the roar
of pressure came to our ears. We waited for the next move of the
gigantic forces arrayed against us. The 23rd brought a strong
north-westerly wind, and the movement of the floes and pressure-ridges
became more formidable. Then on Sunday, October 24, there came what for
the _Endurance_ was the beginning of the end. The position was lat. 69°
11´ S., long. 51° 5´ W. We had now twenty-two and a half hours of
daylight, and throughout the day we watched the threatening advance of
the floes. At 6.45 p.m. the ship sustained heavy pressure in a
dangerous position. The attack of the ice is illustrated roughly in the
appended diagram. The shaded portions represent the pool, covered with
new ice that afforded no support to the ship, and the arrows indicate
the direction of the pressure exercised by the thick floes and
pressure-ridges. The onslaught was all but irresistible. The
_Endurance_ groaned and quivered as her starboard quarter was forced
against the floe, twisting the sternpost and starting the heads and
ends of planking. The ice had lateral as well as forward movement, and
the ship was twisted and actually bent by the stresses. She began to
leak dangerously at once.
[Illustration]
I had the pumps rigged, got up steam, and started the bilge-pumps at 8
p.m. The pressure by that time had relaxed. The ship was making water
rapidly aft, and the carpenter set to work to make a coffer-dam astern
of the engines. All hands worked, watch and watch, throughout the
night, pumping ship and helping the carpenter. By morning the leak was
being kept in check. The carpenter and his assistants caulked the
coffer-dam with strips of blankets and nailed strips over the seams
wherever possible. The main or hand pump was frozen up and could not be
used at once. After it had been knocked out Worsley, Greenstreet, and
Hudson went down in the bunkers and cleared the ice from the bilges.
“This is not a pleasant job,” wrote Worsley. “We have to dig a hole
down through the coal while the beams and timbers groan and crack all
around us like pistol-shots. The darkness is almost complete, and we
mess about in the wet with half-frozen hands and try to keep the coal
from slipping back into the bilges. The men on deck pour buckets of
boiling water from the galley down the pipe as we prod and hammer from
below, and at last we get the pump clear, cover up the bilges to keep
the coal out, and rush on deck, very thankful to find ourselves safe
again in the open air.”
Monday, October 25, dawned cloudy and misty, with a minus temperature
and a strong south-easterly breeze. All hands were pumping at intervals
and assisting the carpenter with the coffer-dam. The leak was being
kept under fairly easily, but the outlook was bad. Heavy
pressure-ridges were forming in all directions, and though the
immediate pressure upon the ship was not severe, I realized that the
respite would not be prolonged. The pack within our range of vision was
being subjected to enormous compression, such as might be caused by
cyclonic winds, opposing ocean currents, or constriction in a channel
of some description. The pressure-ridges, massive and threatening,
testified to the overwhelming nature of the forces that were at work.
Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and
tossed aside as other masses rose beneath them. We were helpless
intruders in a strange world, our lives dependent upon the play of grim
elementary forces that made a mock of our puny efforts. I scarcely
dared hope now that the _Endurance_ would live, and throughout that
anxious day I reviewed again the plans made long before for the
sledging journey that we must make in the event of our having to take
to the ice. We were ready, as far as forethought could make us, for
every contingency. Stores, dogs, sledges, and equipment were ready to
be moved from the ship at a moment’s notice.
The following day brought bright clear weather, with a blue sky. The
sunshine was inspiriting. The roar of pressure could be heard all
around us. New ridges were rising, and I could see as the day wore on
that the lines of major disturbance were drawing nearer to the ship.
The _Endurance_ suffered some strains at intervals. Listening below, I
could hear the creaking and groaning of her timbers, the pistol-like
cracks that told of the starting of a trenail or plank, and the faint,
indefinable whispers of our ship’s distress. Overhead the sun shone
serenely; occasional fleecy clouds drifted before the southerly breeze,
and the light glinted and sparkled on the million facets of the new
pressure-ridges. The day passed slowly. At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure
developed, with twisting strains that racked the ship fore and aft. The
butts of planking were opened four and five inches on the starboard
side, and at the same time we could see from the bridge that the ship
was bending like a bow under titanic pressure. Almost like a living
creature, she resisted the forces that would crush her; but it was a
one-sided battle. Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon the
little ship that had dared the challenge of the Antarctic. The
_Endurance_ was now leaking badly, and at 9 p.m. I gave the order to
lower boats, gear, provisions, and sledges to the floe, and move them
to the flat ice a little way from the ship. The working of the ice
closed the leaks slightly at midnight, but all hands were pumping all
night. A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor
penguins from a crack 100 yds. away at the moment when the pressure
upon the ship was at its climax. They walked a little way towards us,
halted, and after a few ordinary calls proceeded to utter weird cries
that sounded like a dirge for the ship. None of us had ever before
heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries,
and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling.
Then came a fateful day—Wednesday, October 27. The position was lat.
69° 5´ S., long. 51° 30´ W. The temperature was –8.5° Fahr., a gentle
southerly breeze was blowing and the sun shone in a clear sky.
“After long months of ceaseless anxiety and strain, after times when
hope beat high and times when the outlook was black indeed, the end of
the _Endurance_ has come. But though we have been compelled to abandon
the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we
are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that
lies before us. The task is to reach land with all the members of the
Expedition. It is hard to write what I feel. To a sailor his ship is
more than a floating home, and in the _Endurance_ I had centred
ambitions, hopes, and desires. Now, straining and groaning, her timbers
cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient
life at the very outset of her career. She is crushed and abandoned
after drifting more than 570 miles in a north-westerly direction during
the 281 days since she became locked in the ice. The distance from the
point where she became beset to the place where she now rests mortally
hurt in the grip of the floes is 573 miles, but the total drift through
all observed positions has been 1186 miles, and probably we actually
covered more than 1500 miles. We are now 346 miles from Paulet Island,
the nearest point where there is any possibility of finding food and
shelter. A small hut built there by the Swedish expedition in 1902 is
filled with stores left by the Argentine relief ship. I know all about
those stores, for I purchased them in London on behalf of the Argentine
Government when they asked me to equip the relief expedition. The
distance to the nearest barrier west of us is about 180 miles, but a
party going there would still be about 360 miles from Paulet Island and
there would be no means of sustaining life on the barrier. We could not
take from here food enough for the whole journey; the weight would be
too great.
“This morning, our last on the ship, the weather was clear, with a
gentle south-south-easterly to south-south-westerly breeze. From the
crow’s-nest there was no sign of land of any sort. The pressure was
increasing steadily, and the passing hours brought no relief or respite
for the ship. The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4 p.m. The
ship was hove stern up by the pressure, and the driving floe, moving
laterally across the stern, split the rudder and tore out the
rudder-post and stern-post. Then, while we watched, the ice loosened
and the _Endurance_ sank a little. The decks were breaking upwards and
the water was pouring in below. Again the pressure began, and at 5 p.m.
I ordered all hands on to the ice. The twisting, grinding floes were
working their will at last on the ship. It was a sickening sensation to
feel the decks breaking up under one’s feet, the great beams bending
and then snapping with a noise like heavy gunfire. The water was
overmastering the pumps, and to avoid an explosion when it reached the
boilers I had to give orders for the fires to be drawn and the steam
let down. The plans for abandoning the ship in case of emergency had
been made well in advance, and men and dogs descended to the floe and
made their way to the comparative safety of an unbroken portion of the
floe without a hitch. Just before leaving, I looked down the
engine-room skylight as I stood on the quivering deck, and saw the
engines dropping sideways as the stays and bed-plates gave way. I
cannot describe the impression of relentless destruction that was
forced upon me as I looked down and around. The floes, with the force
of millions of tons of moving ice behind them, were simply annihilating
the ship.”
Essential supplies had been placed on the floe about 100 yds. from the
ship, and there we set about making a camp for the night. But about 7
p.m., after the tents were up, the ice we were occupying became
involved in the pressure and started to split and smash beneath our
feet. I had the camp moved to a bigger floe about 200 yds. away, just
beyond the bow of the ship. Boats, stores, and camp equipment had to be
conveyed across a working pressure-ridge. The movement of the ice was
so slow that it did not interfere much with our short trek, but the
weight of the ridge had caused the floes to sink on either side and
there were pools of water there. A pioneer party with picks and shovels
had to build a snow-causeway before we could get all our possessions
across. By 8 p.m. the camp had been pitched again. We had two
pole-tents and three hoop-tents. I took charge of the small pole-tent,
No. 1, with Hudson, Hurley, and James as companions; Wild had the small
hoop-tent, No. 2, with Wordie, McNeish, and McIlroy. These hoop-tents
are very easily shifted and set up. The eight forward hands had the
large hoop-tent, No. 3; Crean had charge of No. 4 hoop-tent with
Hussey, Marston, and Cheetham; and Worsley had the other pole-tent, No.
5, with Greenstreet, Lees, Clark, Kerr, Rickenson, Macklin, and
Blackborrow, the last named being the youngest of the forward hands.
[Illustration: “The Driving Floe, moving laterally across the Stern,
split the Rudder and tore out the Rudder-Post and Stern-Post”]
[Illustration: The End]
“To-night the temperature has dropped to –16° Fahr., and most of the
men are cold and uncomfortable. After the tents had been pitched I
mustered all hands and explained the position to them briefly and, I
hope, clearly. I have told them the distance to the Barrier and the
distance to Paulet Island, and have stated that I propose to try to
march with equipment across the ice in the direction of Paulet Island.
I thanked the men for the steadiness and good morale they have shown in
these trying circumstances, and told them I had no doubt that, provided
they continued to work their utmost and to trust me, we will all reach
safety in the end. Then we had supper, which the cook had prepared at
the big blubber-stove, and after a watch had been set all hands except
the watch turned in.” For myself, I could not sleep. The destruction
and abandonment of the ship was no sudden shock. The disaster had been
looming ahead for many months, and I had studied my plans for all
contingencies a hundred times. But the thoughts that came to me as I
walked up and down in the darkness were not particularly cheerful. The
task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend
my energies and mental power and apply every bit of knowledge that
experience of the Antarctic had given me. The task was likely to be
long and strenuous, and an ordered mind and a clear programme were
essential if we were to come through without loss of life. A man must
shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.
At midnight I was pacing the ice, listening to the grinding floe and to
the groans and crashes that told of the death-agony of the _Endurance_,
when I noticed suddenly a crack running across our floe right through
the camp. The alarm-whistle brought all hands tumbling out, and we
moved the tents and stores lying on what was now the smaller portion of
the floe to the larger portion. Nothing more could be done at that
moment, and the men turned in again; but there was little sleep. Each
time I came to the end of my beat on the floe I could just see in the
darkness the uprearing piles of pressure-ice, which toppled over and
narrowed still further the little floating island we occupied. I did
not notice at the time that my tent, which had been on the wrong side
of the crack, had not been erected again. Hudson and James had managed
to squeeze themselves into other tents, and Hurley had wrapped himself
in the canvas of No. 1 tent. I discovered this about 5 a.m. All night
long the electric light gleamed from the stern of the dying
_Endurance_. Hussey had left this light switched on when he took a last
observation, and, like a lamp in a cottage window, it braved the night
until in the early morning the _Endurance_ received a particularly
violent squeeze. There was a sound of rending beams and the light
disappeared. The connexion had been cut.
Morning came in chill and cheerless. All hands were stiff and weary
after their first disturbed night on the floe. Just at daybreak I went
over to the _Endurance_ with Wild and Hurley, in order to retrieve some
tins of petrol that could be used to boil up milk for the rest of the
men. The ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck. The
jib-boom and bowsprit had snapped off during the night and now lay at
right angles to the ship, with the chains, martingale, and bob-stay
dragging them as the vessel quivered and moved in the grinding pack.
The ice had driven over the forecastle and she was well down by the
head. We secured two tins of petrol with some difficulty, and postponed
the further examination of the ship until after breakfast. Jumping
across cracks with the tins, we soon reached camp, and built a
fireplace out of the triangular water-tight tanks we had ripped from
the lifeboat. This we had done in order to make more room. Then we
pierced a petrol-tin in half a dozen places with an ice-axe and set
fire to it. The petrol blazed fiercely under the five-gallon drum we
used as a cooker, and the hot milk was ready in quick time. Then we
three ministering angels went round the tents with the life-giving
drink, and were surprised and a trifle chagrined at the matter-of-fact
manner in which some of the men accepted this contribution to their
comfort. They did not quite understand what work we had done for them
in the early dawn, and I heard Wild say, “If any of you gentlemen would
like your boots cleaned just put them outside.” This was his gentle way
of reminding them that a little thanks will go a long way on such
occasions.
The cook prepared breakfast, which consisted of biscuit and hoosh, at 8
a.m., and I then went over to the _Endurance_ again and made a fuller
examination of the wreck. Only six of the cabins had not been pierced
by floes and blocks of ice. Every one of the starboard cabins had been
crushed. The whole of the after part of the ship had been crushed
concertina fashion. The forecastle and the Ritz were submerged, and the
wardroom was three-quarters full of ice. The starboard side of the
wardroom had come away. The motor-engine forward had been driven
through the galley. Petrol-cases that had been stacked on the fore-deck
had been driven by the floe through the wall into the wardroom and had
carried before them a large picture. Curiously enough, the glass of
this picture had not been cracked, whereas in the immediate
neighbourhood I saw heavy iron davits that had been twisted and bent
like the ironwork of a wrecked train. The ship was being crushed
remorselessly.
Under a dull, overcast sky I returned to camp and examined our
situation. The floe occupied by the camp was still subject to pressure,
and I thought it wise to move to a larger and apparently stronger floe
about 200 yds. away, off the starboard bow of the ship. This camp was
to become known as Dump Camp, owing to the amount of stuff that was
thrown away there. We could not afford to carry unnecessary gear, and a
drastic sorting of equipment took place. I decided to issue a complete
new set of Burberrys and underclothing to each man, and also a supply
of new socks. The camp was transferred to the larger floe quickly, and
I began there to direct the preparations for the long journey across
the floes to Paulet Island or Snow Hill.
Hurley meanwhile had rigged his kinematograph-camera and was getting
pictures of the _Endurance_ in her death-throes. While he was engaged
thus, the ice, driving against the standing rigging and the fore-,
main- and mizzen-masts, snapped the shrouds. The foretop and
topgallant-mast came down with a run and hung in wreckage on the
fore-mast, with the fore-yard vertical. The main-mast followed
immediately, snapping off about 10 ft. above the main deck. The
crow’s-nest fell within 10 ft. of where Hurley stood turning the handle
of his camera, but he did not stop the machine, and so secured a
unique, though sad, picture.
The issue of clothing was quickly accomplished. Sleeping-bags were
required also. We had eighteen fur bags, and it was necessary,
therefore, to issue ten of the Jaeger woollen bags in order to provide
for the twenty-eight men of the party. The woollen bags were lighter
and less warm than the reindeer bags, and so each man who received one
of them was allowed also a reindeer-skin to lie upon. It seemed fair to
distribute the fur bags by lot, but some of us older hands did not join
in the lottery. We thought we could do quite as well with the Jaegers
as with the furs. With quick dispatch the clothing was apportioned, and
then we turned one of the boats on its side and supported it with two
broken oars to make a lee for the galley. The cook got the
blubber-stove going, and a little later, when I was sitting round the
corner of the stove, I heard one man say, “Cook, I like my tea strong.”
Another joined in, “Cook, I like mine weak.” It was pleasant to know
that their minds were untroubled, but I thought the time opportune to
mention that the tea would be the same for all hands and that we would
be fortunate if two months later we had any tea at all. It occurred to
me at the time that the incident had psychological interest. Here were
men, their home crushed, the camp pitched on the unstable floes, and
their chance of reaching safety apparently remote, calmly attending to
the details of existence and giving their attention to such trifles as
the strength of a brew of tea.
During the afternoon the work continued. Every now and then we heard a
noise like heavy guns or distant thunder, caused by the floes grinding
together.
“The pressure caused by the congestion in this area of the pack is
producing a scene of absolute chaos. The floes grind stupendously,
throw up great ridges, and shatter one another mercilessly. The ridges,
or hedgerows, marking the pressure-lines that border the
fast-diminishing pieces of smooth floe-ice, are enormous. The ice moves
majestically, irresistibly. Human effort is not futile, but man fights
against the giant forces of Nature in a spirit of humility. One has a
sense of dependence on the higher Power. To-day two seals, a Weddell
and a crabeater, came close to the camp and were shot. Four others were
chased back into the water, for their presence disturbed the dog teams,
and this meant floggings an
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