We Run into Ice
On the night following the easing up of the storm I got a fine
sleep, and all the troubles we’d experienced seemed to fade into
insignificance. Sleep is a great healer of wounds and it soothes many
a problem. But in the morning there was a pretty big sea running and
the wind was high, whilst, as the feverish pitching of the hull caused
the propeller to race so disconcertingly that it appeared determined
to twist itself off and sink down to rest on the ocean floor, the
engines were stopped and the ship proceeded under sail alone. I had
the wheel on this morning; but I’d got the knack of handling her by
now, and found it none so irksome. The wind kept on freshening all
the time—not to the same proportions as those of our recent blow,
but some of the black squalls were heavy enough to set the rigging
harping with the real storm-note, which is an inspiring sound—and
we shipped quite a lot of water over the bows. So, as the conditions
seemed to be worsening rather than improving, we hove-to again after
lunch, with the mizen and staysail set; and the clank of the pumps
recommenced.
Down below everything was soaked, even Sir Ernest’s cabin and Mr.
Wild’s had suffered with the rest. The Boss’s bunk was so completely
saturated that he had a bed made up on the wardroom settee; though he
used this makeshift berth only a little, for during the bad weather
he was almost constantly on the bridge, though his officers, sensing
that all was not well with him, repeatedly urged him to go below and
rest. But instead of resting he actually stood another officer’s
watch in addition to his own in order that his subordinate might
secure what he considered to be much-needed rest. That, of course,
was Shackleton all over, one of the qualities that made him a leader.
But certain of the officers were growing uneasy; they thought the Boss
was doing far too much, taking more out of himself than he should
have done; and yet, despite their protests, Sir Ernest said: “You
fellows are tired and must get rest; leave the ship to me.” And from
that he would not be shifted, although he must have known in his own
heart that the strain was telling more unbearably every day.
Throughout the day the wild conditions continued; but, abating somewhat
towards three in the morning, way was once more got on the ship and
the voyage proceeded. Some idea of the havoc wrought by the pouring
seas was conveyed to my mind when I baled out Sir Ernest’s cabin,
which was literally awash with dirty water, everything floating about
at hazard, the whole presenting anything but an inviting spectacle.
But a bit of conscientious swabbing restored things, and in a while,
with a light breeze and a calming sea, it was almost impossible to
believe that we had weathered such a snorter as had befallen us.
[Illustration:
1. South Georgian Whaling Station: At Work on Blue Whales.
2. Some Finny Spoil from St. Paul’s Rocks.
3. Launching the Kite for Aerial Observation.
4. Sir Ernest’s Cabin on the _Quest_.
5. Penguins at Home.
6. Dead Whales in Prince Olaf Harbour.
7. View from above a South Georgia Glacier.]
[Illustration: Cape Pigeons at South Georgia.]
[Illustration: Gentoo Penguins. (Note the Baby Penguin in Centre.)]
So the Old Year came to an end; its departure signalled by a double
ringing of the ship’s bell; and we looked forward with better heart to
1922. I had the first wheel of the New Year—from midnight to 2 p.m.;
the sea was smooth and the wind just sufficient to be comfortable,
so that we ran along easily under fore and aft canvas alone. After
breakfast I came in for a bit of amateur engineering, being detailed
to assist the second engineer to repair the deck-winch—an interesting
if somewhat greasy task. The wind was dropping; in place of the
turbulent waters which had thrashed us so unkindly, a long, oily swell
ran across to the narrowed horizon, and a wet mist drooped over all,
a mist that later turned to heavy rain, persistent rain, which was by
way of being a blessing to people limited in their fresh water supply.
To-day I sighted my first penguin; it was swimming some distance away
from the ship, and, as an inhabitant of the waste world of the South,
was an object of considerable interest.
The weather was becoming increasingly cold; and already many of the
members of the crew had donned clothing that gave them the look of
Antarctic explorers; most of them, also, were growing beards, which
gave them the aspect of pirates who had lost all self-respect. Early
on the morning of the 2nd of January we passed quite close to a large
school of whales, and later on vast numbers of penguins and other
Antarctic birds. The temperature having dropped to 38, a close look-out
was kept for the ice this temperature indicated, and at 10 a.m. our
first iceberg was plainly in sight, though but a mere speck on the
horizon. I don’t know what the others felt; I know I was decidedly
thrilled, for this was the far-flung sentinel of those vast defences
that it was our aim to penetrate. It was like seeing an enemy’s picket
and knowing that away behind him were massed formidable odds against
which, indomitably, we must pit our strength and courage.
Course was altered, and by one o’clock we were abreast the berg; no
monster, but all the same, quite big enough to be impressive. It was
a hundred feet high—which means seven hundred feet were submerged,
as icebergs only show one-eighth their bulk above the surface; and,
judging by the gaping fissures in its sides, it was an old-stager,
rapidly tiring of life and returning to its native element as quickly
as it could. It looked very austere, very cold, though undeniably
beautiful, with the blue cavern boring into its massiveness. The sea
about was strewn with smaller pieces of ice which had broken away and
not yet melted; these formed what I was told is called the tail of
the berg. By the time we had passed it fairly the sun was dropping
down the western sky in a blaze of scarlet and saffron and gold; an
inspiring sight that reminded me of that picture of Turner’s, “The
Fighting Téméraire.”
During the middle watch two more bergs were seen, without difficulty,
for they show up whitely, and seem to give off a curious illumination,
called “ice-blink” by old-timers; so there is slight difficulty in
avoiding them. The blacker the night is the more perceptible the
ice-blink; it is chiefly between lights that the sharpest look-out
must be kept. Nevertheless, whenever in the neighbourhood of ice a
very careful watch must be maintained, for in addition to the lofty
bergs there are also “growlers,” washed masses of ice that lie low in
the water, lurking evilly as though anxious only to tear the bottom
out of a ship and fling her helpless to the seafloor below. But even
with growlers the seas that race over them and cause the growling
note, from which they take their name, create sufficient noise to
give a timely warning; and sharp eyes can detect the thin, white line
of the water breaking upon them.
Bergs come from two sources. Either they may be large pieces broken
away from the Great Ice Barrier which hems in the Southern Continent,
or they may have detached themselves from some great glaciers,
which glaciers “calve” periodically, on account of their resistless
forward movement down the ravines they create towards the sea. Most
Antarctic bergs are flat-topped, lacking those fantastic pinnacles
that are usually associated with bergs; but many of them are enormous
masses, several square miles in extent and weighing millions of tons.
Not that the bigger fellows are the more picturesque, they are only
awe-inspiring. Gradually, acted on by rain above and warm currents
of the sea below, the berg wears away, whole acres are detached, and
in the course of time the vast concern capsizes; and it is a capsized
berg that is the most beautiful, for its outlines—worn by the action
of the currents—are indeed picturesque.
Fine weather continuing, it was possible to settle down again to an
orderly routine, and Jimmy Dell found me sufficient work to keep me
from fretting. I learnt the art of splicing—working on the topsail
sheet; and as lamp-trimmer, too, I was occupied in getting the steaming
lights into shape. Maybe it was the strenuous nature of this work
that caused me to commit the unmentionable sea-crime of giving a late
relief next morning. I was aroused by the skipper yelling down the
hatch that eight bells had gone, and I made a record turn-out, being
on the bridge within one minute of the alarm. As a rule, I sleep very
lightly; but this morning I erred, failed to respond to the usual
call at one bell, and so slept on. But I think that quick turn-out
made amends!
It was the Boss’s watch on deck, and during my trick at the wheel
he talked to me with the utmost freedom and enthusiasm of his last
memorable expedition, and pointed out the route by which he had
crossed South Georgia, the land that was now in view ahead and towards
which we were making for refit and overhaul. He called it “a land
of storm”; and the term fits it well. It is a little, lonely island
situated in the very south of the South Atlantic Ocean, amongst the
stormiest seas of all the world. It is over a thousand miles from Cape
Horn—the sailors’ graveyard—and nearly three thousand from the Cape
of Good Hope. Captain Cook discovered it in 1775, and no doubt was
sorry such a dreary wilderness existed. For a long time it was the
happy hunting-ground of American sealers, who played such havoc with
the valuable fur-seal with which the island then abounded that these
animals are now practically extinct. To-day this far-flung outpost
of the British Empire—for South Georgia is a British possession, and
surely one of its most dismal—is the headquarters of five permanent
whaling stations, one of them British, one Argentine, and the rest
Norwegian.
At this time of year—official summer—the snow was present on the
mountains in patches, but the valleys which open very invitingly
to the sea were all white. In each valley was a glacier which ended
abruptly at the water’s edge in a high, pale blue wall. But the whole
aspect of the island was grim and forbidding: a wilderness of rock
and ice.
Preparations were put in hand for entering harbour; the doctor, with
me helping, put a genuine harbour-stow on the sails, and squared up
all ropes and gear forward into an orderliness that would not have
disgraced a man-of-war. As we plodded on towards our destination
large numbers of penguins insisted on popping up unexpectedly out of
the still water alongside, and Cape pigeons were numerous. Shortly
after 3 p.m. we dropped anchor in the safe and sheltered harbour of
Gritviken, near to the whaling station.
The old-timers amongst the crew were in their element now; you’d
have thought they had suddenly come in sight of home. Particularly
was the Boss exultant; he kept on pointing out familiar sights, and
the weight of depression that had recently troubled him was quite
shaken off. He was brimming over with vigour and energy, as happy as
a sand-boy, and sniffed the air like a war-horse scenting a far-off
battle. Sight of past victories must have quickened the fighting
blood in his veins, and he could hardly restrain himself from rushing
ashore at once. There was so much to do and so little time to do it
in, that he felt as though every second were precious.
The water of the harbour was red with blood, and everywhere was the
awful, nauseous stench of rotten whale carcasses. Whale oil may be
a very necessary thing, but it is beastly in its securing! Several
whalers were anchored near where we lay, and alongside the rough
wooden quay lay an Argentine barque and a Norwegian cargo steamer.
We were promptly visited by the manager of the whaling station, who
went ashore with the Boss, who was bursting with lively zeal; and as
soon as possible such of us as were to be spared, pulled ashore in
the surf boat, to watch the process of flensing a whale on the slip.
For whalers nowadays do not cut-in and try-out their blubber in open
water—they tow their catches into harbour where machinery exists for
the purpose. The Norwegians who worked at the flensing struck me as
being mighty heavy and ponderous, and distinctly bovine of feature.
The whole system of whaling is, of course, very interesting, even
though unpleasant to those not accustomed to it; but it differs
entirely from the methods in the old days of the Dundee whalers. It
was then counted an exciting, dangerous calling, and to hunt a whale,
harpoon it and bring the fish alongside was about the most thrilling
sport in the world. The odds seemed to be somewhat in favour of the
whale, and the risks the whalemen ran were unquestionably great.
Nowadays there is so little danger as to be negligible, for instead
of going out for months and years in lumbering barques, hunting
the cetaceans in small whale-boats, and securing them by means of
hand-harpoons, untiring persistence and cold pluck, tediously flensing
them in the ship’s tackles and rendering down the blubber in the
try-works established on the deck, fast steamers set forth in quest
of the mighty game, and these steamers are armed with powerful little
guns which project a heavy and deadly harpoon, which, fitted with
a bomb that bursts when the weapon has penetrated into the whale’s
interior, invariably inflicts a fatal wound. No doubt this is a
more merciful way of dispatching the monsters; but it savours of
cold-blooded slaughter. The whale stands no chance, the whalers run
no risk; whaling to-day is merely systematized butchery. And to me,
steeped in the old whaling traditions, primed with the picturesque
accounts of real whaling, it was subject for sadness to think of these
huge and nowadays helpless creatures being preyed upon so mercilessly.
Once the whale-ship has secured as many whales as can conveniently
be towed—each dead whale being buoyed and marked until the tale is
complete—full steam is made for port, and the catch is hauled ashore
on to a sloping plane, where the blubber is rapidly and scientifically
stripped from the unwieldy corpse and conveyed to the try-pots to be
converted into the oil of commerce.
We spectators found it treacherous work walking on the slip, which
was several inches deep in a slimy horror of blood and blubber. For
a considerable distance on each side of the whaling station there is
a white fringe of bleached bones washed up by the tide, sole relics
of what were once huge fish; but when man, and the sharks, and the
birds had all taken toll, these poor remains were all that showed
the magnitude of the sea’s finny spoil.
Having completed the round of the works, having breathed the oily
atmosphere to our complete satisfaction, having seen the entire process
of creating oil out of dead whale, we went for a short walk inland,
up a slope to a small lake, turning to the left along a route where
wet moss and sparse grass grew, returning by way of the shore, where
the going was difficult on account of the dry bones littered there.
So far as I could see, the land is mainly barren. This wet moss and
short tussocky grass flourish to a height of about three hundred feet
above sea level, but elsewhere I saw nothing but bare scree slopes,
glacier-polished rocks and snow-covered shoulders, topped by the
high-soaring, white-clad peaks that never alter though centuries come
and go.
Better places than South Georgia certainly exist as holiday resorts,
I must say. It is administered by certain Britishers, notably a
magistrate, an assistant magistrate, two Customs officers, and one
policeman. Every barrel of oil exported from the island has to pay a
tax, and this staff is here to see the law is enforced. It must be a
lonely, monotonous life enough, I should say. These Britishers live
together in a house at the entrance to Gritviken Harbour, and what
they do in their leisure moments puzzles me to know.
We had a volunteer for the _Quest_ here in the shape of a nigger,
who spoke with a pronounced Yankee accent, and seemed anxious to
enrol himself as assistant cook or something of the sort. He paddled
alongside in a canvas canoe, and seemed anything but happy—which is
not surprising, for South Georgia and black men somehow don’t seem
to mix. He had stowed away aboard an outward-bound steamer from St.
Vincent, and he must have found the change trying; but as he belonged
to a breed that is noteworthy for its loafing propensities he appealed
to us in vain for employment. That night the Boss was in excellent
spirits, and vowed our Christmas should be kept on the morrow!