Going Doggedly On
Commander Wild decided to get clear of the pack altogether and work
to the westward before again attempting to make for the land, and
consequently he held on the northerly course, through close but broken
ice. I had the wheel at 4 a.m., after he came to this decision, and
as the steering was nothing to worry about, I found myself with time
on my hands to study the trifling happenings that went on around the
ship; and it is the trifles that make for interest during a sojourn
in solitudes. So that I found a lot of enjoyment in watching the
manœuvres of a sea-leopard, who kept shoving his big ugly head up
above water some little distance away. He differed from ordinary
seals in the respect that he refused to come near to the ship. Every
now and then it was as though his curiosity got the upper hand. He
stared at the _Quest_ with an expression that was laughably suggestive
of a taxi-driver estimating the tip-giving possibilities of a fare;
but discretion was his strongest feature, and after a long survey
he invariably turned up his nose at us, gave a flick of his tail and
dived again.
The _Quest_ was leaking badly again, by reason of the savage bumping
she had endured in her struggles through the pack, and the order of
the day was: Hands to the pumps! Some of us pathetically declared
that we had pumped the entire Antarctic Ocean out of our bilges, and
that in a little while we should be aground for sheer lack of water;
but much as we pumped there was always more water trickling in; for
exercise, indeed, we lacked nothing. When day came the clear sky
was gone, a dull grey and brooding had given place to the brilliant
colouring, and the breeze was cold and biting. We thought longingly
of our Polar clothing lying uselessly in store at Cape Town, whence
we had been unable to retrieve it, and, biting on the bullet, made
the best of it.
There was plenty of variety that day. Our course alternated between
steady steaming through wide-open lanes and dogged thrusting through
close pack-ice, whilst during the official hours of night a lot of
snow fell; and, to remind us that the _Quest_ was a mobile entity,
a moderate but growing swell began to tempt her into a fresh display
of her aquatic gymnastics.
For the next twenty-four hours or so we continued along similar lines.
Open water in stretches, loose pack alternating, and a lot of snow
falling; there you have the conditions. But the increasing predominance
of water showed us that we were approaching open sea; so, too, did
the growing swell. A sounding of 2,340 fathoms showed us that we were
leaving the land behind us, and an increasing temperature backed the
idea; but though the thermometer registered 34° F. we found the cold
much more biting and penetrating, by reason of the raw-edged wind that
was blowing stirring up the marrow in our bones and setting the teeth
a-chatter. Killer whales and seals provided plenty of local colour,
and I was much interested in watching one seal that was perched on a
lonely floe far too small for it. It was like a very fat woman in a
very small donkey-chaise, and I wondered what would happen when the
floe capsized.
After a while we ran alongside the ice and moored the ship to a big,
hummocky floe. What this was for I did not immediately understand,
for the seniors of the ship did not go about the decks shouting their
intentions to all hands; and though I felt myself an integral part of
the expedition, I was not in the leader’s confidence at every moment
of the day. No doubt if I’d been a hero of fiction the commander of
the expedition would have left the running of the show to me, and
welcomed my advice; but this being real life I kept in the background
and did as I was told. Then I learnt by chance that we were about
to water ship. It seemed to me that ice congealed from salt water
was about the last substance in the world out of which to make fresh
water; but I was told that in the process of freezing much of the
salt in sea-water is precipitated, and that the upper portions of
the floes at least are always quite fresh.
Several of the hands went out on the ice with pickaxes and commenced
to chip off the tops of the hummocks. Others carried the resultant
blocks to the edge of the floe and hove them to waiting hands on
deck, who stowed them in a huge heap on the poop. By stretching the
imagination during this operation it was possible to conceive oneself
a millionaire potentially. Ice in a tropical city was worth so much a
pound. We had ice, lots of it—continents of it. If only the ice could
be transported and retailed, the treasures of the Indies would have
seemed like chicken-feed by comparison, and Jules Verne could quite
easily have managed the trifling task of efficient transportation.
However, he was not aboard. So we remained poor.
Melted down, this ice-water proved quite palatable; a great
improvement, indeed, on the stale water, much churned about by long
rolling, in our tanks.
With a sufficient store of ice aboard we cast off from the floe
and proceeded, until we ran clear of the pack altogether; and then
Commander Wild, realizing how rapidly our fuel was diminishing,
and knowing how many hundreds of miles of icy wastes we still had
to penetrate—with no coaling stations nearer than a few thousand
miles—ordered the engines to be stopped and sail to be made. At 6
p.m. we were well clear of ice and bowling along at a vigorous pace
to the N.W., with a stiff, uncommonly chilly wind astern.
At three o’clock in the morning, cold, raw and dark, all hands were
roused out to wear ship. I doubt if I shall ever forget those bitter
bleak mornings. To turn out of a snug, if narrow bunk, half-awake,
with the dregs of sleep still clinging to sticky eyelids and parched
palates, to be required to heave and haul at cold, frozen ropes, with
water swishing weirdly above your knees and slapping its feathers
of spray into your face—ugh! To grope for a stray coil of iron-hard
rope in two feet of water, and, just as you were gripping it, to
have the heel of some shipmate’s sea-boot come down on your fingers
excruciatingly—ugh—ugh! To feel the raw wind biting through to the
core of your dismal soul; to hear the hurl and rush of water against
your oilskins; to steady to the ship’s wild plunging—who’d sell a farm
and go to sea! But the job had to be done; the welfare of the ship
demanded that every man should do his best and bite off his natural
growls ere they were definitely enunciated, lest growl begot louder
and bitterer growl; so the job was worried through. By the manœuvre of
wearing, the ship—not quick in stays by reason of her propeller—was
turned to face the pack-ice again, and by nine o’clock at night we
were again in the stream-ice, with a heavy swell running, the ship
improving on her previous liveliness and thick snow falling. Peggying
was actually a welcome task, because it occupied the mind and kept
one below.
For a change the middle watch was entirely dark, and as we were moving
amongst some really nasty lumps of ice—chunks that could have made
a comprehensive mess of the ship—it was necessary to proceed with
the utmost caution. The swell continued with unabated determination,
and all the ship’s upperworks were thickly covered with snow. We had
miniature avalanches every few minutes through the wild rolling, the
ship seeming determined to rid herself of her fleecy covering. Imagine
a buck-jumping mustang newly harnessed into a landau, and you will
get some idea of her fretful behaviour.
With the coming of the grey dawn Mac and myself, lone-handed, set the
squaresail; but shortly before eight bells Mr. Jeffrey gave orders to
stow it again. By some mischance we let it go by the run, and, thanks
to the rolling and the breeze, it promptly went overboard, to trail
in the water and soak itself with icy brine. There was nothing for it
save to try to retrieve the runaway canvas. The squaresail is a heavy
sail, and in the ordinary way seven or eight hands are told off to
handle it. We were two alone, so picture Mac’s attitude towards the
matter. He made a great outcry, lifted his face to the indifferent
sky and cursed—how he cursed!—the Antarctic gods who decreed that
two poor men should be required to perform the work of half a score.
Cursing, he worked like a plantation full of niggers; the harder he
cursed, indeed, the harder he pulled, until, as though the bad language
were indeed, as Marryat says, the powder behind the cannon-ball, we
mastered the refractory canvas and brought it aboard, saturated, stiff
and unkindly. Believe me, we bragged about our achievement afterwards.
I am not sure that we did not derisively inform the other members of
the expedition that they might conveniently apply for long leave,
in that we two were quite capable of carrying on unaided. And the
many, very many, stormy petrels that surrounded the ship in the early
morning seemed to be cheering us for our display of heroic endurance.
The snow continued to fall with unabated persistence, and, meeting
on our sluicing decks the water Mac and the sail had lifted aboard
over our rails, dissolved into hideous slush. The stoutest sea-boots
in existence cannot adequately cope with the bite of such slush, and
for myself I lost all sensation in my feet. The afternoon brought
a lessening of the snowfall—brought fine weather, indeed; and we
smiled and patted ourselves on the back, and assured ourselves that
we were steaming nobly in the right direction—Southward Ho! In open
water, too, though that water was very unkindly in its motions, and
the _Quest_ as lively as ever.
By 5.30 we ran into ice again, and after bumping and boring until
ten o’clock hove-to for the coming of daylight, so that we should
not waste coal in aimless wandering to and fro without any resultant
progress in the right direction. Blundering about in the dark was
certainly an unprofitable pastime for a ship with depleted bunkers.
Let it be remembered that the atmosphere near the edge of the pack
is not nearly so clear as it is well inside the ice masses, and
consequently the weather is generally very dirty and the nights as
black as the inside of your hat. To my regret the doctor on this day
sent me to bed because of a chill I had acquired, possibly after the
frantic struggle with that pernicious squaresail.
On Monday, February 20, Commander Wild decided to work to the westward,
towards rumoured land, reported by Ross as “an appearance of land” in
1842. We accordingly got under way once more at three in the morning,
steaming a S.W. course through plenty of thick ice dotted with large
bergs. At nightfall the engines were stopped through the dark hours,
and I, still in my bunk, enjoyed an undisturbed sleep. It made up
for the lost food, denied to me by the doctor—not that I wanted it.
At the first show of daylight the _Quest_ once again got under way, to
plough a devious course through fairly thick ice. I was told that I
might get up and eat a meal, though I was still kept from performing
duty on deck. Just as well, maybe, for it was snowing heavily, and I
found occupation enough in restowing my locker and bunk and donning
a change of warmer clothing—with which I was well supplied, thanks
be to kindly donors. Then, in a spirit of carelessness, for the day
of leisure seemed to demand some ceremonial, I opened two boxes of
Scotch shortbread that I had brought with me from Aberdeen; discovered
the contents beautifully crisp and fresh; sent one box forrard to
the other mess, and we aft consumed the remaining box with eager
appetites. As though even the weather were growing hilarious, it
blew a heavy gale that night, and the ship was necessarily hove-to.
Sleep was impossible by reason of the scream of the wind amongst our
stripped spars and the grinding and scraping of ice along our outboard
planking. Not very easeful hours for a pseudo-invalid; but I’d been
told that I could turn to on the morrow, so what did it matter?
During the morning watch we drifted clear of the ice, and going on
deck I found open water about, snow thickly falling and the ship
wreathed in sound-deadening white. The wind, vigorous and chilly,
gave us a level six knots of speed with all sail set, and we bowled
along in heroic fashion, until at midnight ice was sighted, and then
it was a case of “all hands shorten sail!” with a vengeance, for we
found that otherwise we couldn’t check our headlong career and seemed
disposed to ram solid floes, which could only result in disaster.
This day was Worsley’s birthday, a day to be celebrated with mirth
and feasting, for the birthday boy had reached his fiftieth year and
was still going strong and looking youthful. From some hidden corner
of the ship beer materialized—genuine, actual beer, which was greeted
with loud acclamations. After a satisfying repast of seal-meat and
the like—and seal meat can be jolly good—Green entered, bearing with
graceful ease, posturing like a Pavlova, a noble birthday cake that
was iced to perfection and inscribed with an insulting motto. Worsley
himself, as being the pivot on which these celebrations turned, was
instructed to cut the cake, and was furnished with a boarding-axe to
do it. It resisted his efforts; for Green, in a humorous moment, had
iced a 56-lb. sinker belonging to the sounding machine. However, after
the gibes and lurid language had ceased, the real cake was produced
and we stodged ourselves to our complete satisfaction. The occasion
was a welcome break in an existence that tended to become monotonous
and also somewhat wearing, for the work of grinding through the pack
tends to deaden one’s senses somewhat and breed a fretting irritation
against unavoidable circumstances.
Shortly before midnight Mr. Wilkins, who had charge of the first
watch, roused out the watch below to set the squaresail. We groaned
both inwardly and outwardly. We knew what it would be—clambering on
top of the forrard deck-house, fumbling about with the steel-hard,
frozen canvas, with everybody growling and everybody in everybody
else’s way! A lovely job, but nothing, so I was repeatedly told, to
real old-fashioned windjamming. Oh, but it tests one’s temper to be
turned out on a cold night, with the ship dipping her rails under
water at every roll, for such a job. But mark how Nature brings
its own palliative! Once the arduous task was performed—thanks to
our efforts—our blood was hot and tingling, our spirits elated, and
we felt more like singing than cursing—we forgot that we cordially
detested our next neighbours and had sworn cold-blooded feud against
those we most esteemed, and in a happy frame of mind repaired to the
bridge to comfort ourselves with hot, strong coffee, shared with Mr.
Jeffrey, who had the wheel. The sea was rather plentifully dotted
with “growlers,” but we had little difficulty in clearing them,
since the ship was proceeding under sail alone and more kindly on
her helm. Later in the day we passed through a very strange area of
finely powdered ice—this powder lying on top of small snowball-like
fragments of ice—which gave one the impression of moving through a
lake of milk. From this phenomenal area we passed into a belt of
newly-freezing ice, and everywhere was greyness—sky, sea and ice
alike blending into one grim monotone.
During the night we sailed into heavy ice, which checked our way and
compelled us to head again for the north and open water, which was
reached before 8 a.m., the engines going slowly. Followed a period of
dodging bergs and finding the pack again, pack that grew heavier until
nightfall brought the need to heave-to, by reason of the indifferent
visibility, until daybreak came, when course was resumed, but always
to the north and west. We tried the pack repeatedly, but instead
of butting our heads against an implacable wall, whenever we found
that further progress was impossible we followed the line of least
resistance and edged away in search of more impressionable zones. The
sound of shots startled me from a peaceful doze at 8 a.m., and with
mad dreams of hectic adventure troubling me, raced on deck, where I
was greeted with a truly wonderful sight. Hundreds, literally hundreds
of seals were in plain view; many of the floes—not very big ones—held
ten or a dozen of the brutes apiece. We made very good use of this
opportunity, you may be sure, because of our yearning bunkers.
A little later in the day, as I was scrubbing down below, some would-be
benefactor yelled to me to get on deck as quickly as I could, to
behold another great sight. A sight for the gods it was, indeed, for
the ship had run into a great school of whales—more than eighty really
large fellows, and in every direction these giants were blowing like
geysers. The click of a cinema camera showed us that Mr. Wilkins
was already busy—I feel sure that if the _Quest_ had been sinking
he would have secured a realistic picture of her final plunge from
the truck!—and we others could only marvel at the wondrous splendour
of the sight. The whales did not remain long in view, however; they
disappeared ahead on their own occasions, and we spectators discovered
that work called us. We spent a watch trying to pump out the forehold,
and did not entirely succeed. The other principal event of note was
when Major Carr cut my hair with a very blunt machine—and I decided
that scalping might have been preferable.
The night came on very dark and misty, and it was necessary to exercise
the greatest caution in proceeding, for the sea was thickly strewn
with growlers of a dangerous size, so that it would have been folly
to continue at our customary speed. Consequently we crawled, engines
going dead-slow, and two men alertly on watch on the bridge to direct
the helmsman whenever solid ice showed looming through the haze.
Day followed day with but small variety now. The cold and the actual
fatigue engendered by this ice-fighting bred a love of sleep; so that
we spent our every spare moment, I think, in coiling down reserves
of slumber. In one waking period it was decided to tie up alongside
a big growler and renew our fresh water in a manner similar to that
I have previously described, but the heavy swell caused the berg to
pitch and heave very alarmingly, so we desisted; and it was just as
well, for had we continued we should probably have had our side stove
in, and that would have concluded my narrative before the appointed
time. With wind falling light it was necessary to make fresh inroads
on our very precious fuel, but we proceeded at an economical speed and
entered open pack, where we continued during an entire day. Seal-meat
was our staple diet, and we grew to like it, though I discovered that
it lacked in “spirit.”
At midnight we were once more among the growlers, and it was so dark
that we could only tell their presence by hearing the growling wash
of the seas on them as they tilted with the high-running swell. Even
with engines merely turning over the centres we hit several of these
ugly fellows, and from the reluctance with which they bobbed and bowed
away it was plain to understand that they were very deeply submerged.
With welcome light showing at 2 a.m. it was possible to proceed with
greater confidence, and in the forenoon, well assured of the safety of
the ship, the two surgeons, Dell, Argles, and myself spent a strenuous
watch trimming coal in the bunkers. By contrast with previous trimming
in tropical waters, we found it quite a pleasant operation; and no
doubt, at the South Pole itself, had we gone there, we should have
counted it a pastime! Latitude means as much, perhaps, so far as work
is concerned, as it does in regard to morals! During the afternoon
we hard workers were also strenuously employed in ballasting ship
more satisfactorily. She was carrying too much topweight, and the
opinion was that this added to her dire rolling propensities; so
as our depleted coal supply afforded us plenty of room, we carried
below and methodically stowed an amazing assortment of oil-drums,
spare spars, oars, davits, and, indeed, everything that could be
spared from the upper deck. A lot of snow petrels watched and seemed
to criticize our labours—we had been seeing numbers of these birds
of late. Apparently as a result of high living on seal-steaks and
brain sauce, the men of the skipper’s watch took a pull on the main
topsail sheet and carried it away as if it were a piece of twine. To
all seeming a reduced diet was indicated; but maybe it was merely zeal!
The 1st of March was conspicuous by reason of its sunny brightness;
a day of which to take advantage to dry soaked gear. All spare sails
were run into the rigging for the genial breeze to play through, and
when thoroughly dried were stowed away below as an addition to the
ballast. We sighted a most beautiful iceberg of towering height on
this day, and I express the opinion here—expecting no profits from
the same—that it is worth anyone’s while to go South if only for the
sake of seeing such stupendous loveliness.
Being once more in open sea the ship’s rolling recommenced, as a sign
and a token that our arduous labours in ballasting her had been in
vain. Not that we were hitting the floes. Thanks to the tempestuous
brash and several belts of heavier ice; but officially we were out of
the pack. Then once more we ran into heavier ice after breakfast on
March 2nd, and it was necessary to shorten sail because of the force
with which we were hitting the floes. The heavy weather continuing, I
got another job of work: to clean out the chart-room. Two jam tarts
had slipped free from their moorings, and the chart-room was simply
a viscous horror of jam. Sir Ernest Shackleton always contended
that a square inch of jam was sufficient to anoint a square mile of
surface, and he was right. Several square inches of jam went to the
making of those tarts, and so the chart-room was sticky! This done,
I accompanied Mac aloft, where he delights to be, especially when the
ship is throwing herself about, to repair the port squaresail outhaul,
which had carried away when the sail was let go in the forenoon.
Proceeding steadily to the westward, always in search of open leads
to the south, we encountered fickle weather: one day fine and serene,
the next squally and snowy, the ship placid and comfortable now,
and, again, making heavy weather of it and washing herself down
fore and aft with water that no pumps were needed to supply. Argles
contrived to mix himself up with quite a number of accidents, as a
result of the big rolls we took. Argles, it should be remembered,
is the stokehold’s bright light, the bunker king—being the official
coal-trimmer. Emerging from his favourite den into the stokehold,
the ship rolled savagely, and he, missing his hold, was thrown clean
across the stokehold, bruising his side badly. No doubt thoroughly
sickened of the dangers of below, he made his painful way on deck,
and here found no better luck. He slipped, travelled at express speed
from scupper to lee scupper, and fetched up with a thud against a
chance stanchion. Now, a hurt man demands a sympathetic audience to
whom his woes can be recounted. Argles discovered in me the proper
recipient of his confidences concerning the _Quest_ and her rolling,
and came down to the wardroom to ease his overloaded soul. The _Quest_,
righteously angry at the aspersions cast upon her—for she was a very
model of dignity when she was not trying to dance a cake-walk, and no
doubt considered herself superior to all other craft afloat—promptly
gave the father and mother of a roll and chucked him clean over the
table! After that he retired in a silence that was redolent with the
odours of brimstone.
With our waking hours amply occupied in work of varying kinds—and
especially the never-ending labour of cleaning ship—time passed
uneventfully enough. We saw much floating ice—bergs of vast expanse
and mighty height; and as the nights were black dark between ten and
two—regular graveyard blackness—it was necessary for the watch to
supply extra look-outs in the narrowest part of the bows, where, from
a comparatively low level, it was possible to detect the presence of
big ice by its blackness against the greater blackness of the sky. By
dint of these precautions we successfully negotiated quite a number
of large bergs that might otherwise have brought disaster upon us.
The second we saw a shadow we yelled, and the ship, answering her
helm cleverly, dodged. No time to waste at this job, because often
enough we were almost on top of the berg before we realized it was
anything beyond a fantasy of the strained brain. But after dense
nights we were given one with star-spangled, luminous heavens, and
got a glimpse of the eerie dancing lights of the Aurora Australis.
After seeing this atmospheric phenomenon I went below and turned in,
and was rudely wakened by several considerable bumps and jolts, which
gave me the impression that the ship was being ruthlessly battered
to pieces. Hurrying on deck, I found that we were under plain sail
in amongst a veritable morass of large growlers—some big enough to
deserve being called bergs, indeed; and were hitting them right and
left, willy-nilly. To my uninstructed mind it appeared the ship must
be suffering really serious damage; she seemed uncontrollable and
determined to batter herself to splinters against the implacable
bergs; but whatever her other faults, she was a stout little packet,
built by men with consciences, if without imagination, and beyond
a few slivers of timber torn from her and a few started planks she
appeared to be but little the worse. Of course, had we been under
steam, we should probably have run through this chain of bergs; but
a high berg becalmed her and made her temporarily unresponsive to
her helm.
It was a delightful morning: bright and clear, and the sun played gay
games with the whiteness and soft yellows, the browns, purples and
deep blues of the pack. We reached open water again about noon—where
were only a few smallish pieces of ice; and when evening fell had
another of those wonders of colourful splendour presented to our
attention by Nature, the master scene-painter, who seems to wield a
more glorious brush down in the Antarctic than anywhere else in the
world.
Morning brought a flaming golden sun uplifting itself from the
south-east in a welter of radiant glory that suffused the entire
horizon. Being once again free of ice we made sail and stopped the
engines—harbouring our precious coal—and continued on a westerly course
with a light northerly breeze, balmy and soothing, to urge us forward.
But early appearances were deceptive; and by eight o’clock the wind
had freshened considerably, whilst by noon a full gale was blowing.
We were, however, under the lee of the pack, and the sea failed
to rise, consequently even the _Quest_ behaved decently. The snow,
though, drove down in a blizzard, the harsh flakes striking the skin
like grapeshot, and the face of the waters was blotted out in a fine
powdery drift of ice particles that gave an aspect of utterly bleak
desolation. The gale continued to increase in violence until 2 p.m.,
when it was so heavy that all hands were roused out to double-reef
the foresail. Strenuous work in that breeze of wind, with the driven
snow pelting us mercilessly; but we reaped the reward of our labours,
for it eased the weight of the sail, making the ship pretty snug and
sea-kindly. Not for long was our peace to endure, however. At eight
bells—4 p.m.—heavy ice was met, and we were required to take in the
foresail altogether. Some difficulty was experienced in making it
fast. We struggled with might and main; and just as we congratulated
ourselves that we had the lashing, cracking monster under control,
the wind, with a howl of demoniacal glee, snatched it from our grasp
and flung it riotously aboard on its breast, whilst we, our fingers
numbed and the blood oozing from beneath our torn nails, had to set
our teeth and start all over again. But, as usually happens after
shortening down, the wind quickly abated, so that by midnight we were
able to proceed in something approaching comfort again.