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 and trouble with the harness. The arrangement
of the tents has been completed and their internal management settled.
Each tent has a mess orderly, the duty being taken in turn on an
alphabetical rota. The orderly takes the hoosh-pots of his tent to the
galley, gets all the hoosh he is allowed, and, after the meal, cleans
the vessels with snow and stores them in sledge or boat ready for a
possible move.”
[Illustration: A Week Later]
[Illustration: “The Wreckage lies around in Dismal Confusion”]
“_October_ 29.—We passed a quiet night, although the pressure was
grinding around us. Our floe is a heavy one and it withstood the blows
it received. There is a light wind from the north-west to
north-north-west, and the weather is fine. We are twenty-eight men with
forty-nine dogs, including Sue’s and Sallie’s five grown-up pups. All
hands this morning were busy preparing gear, fitting boats on sledges,
and building up and strengthening the sledges to carry the boats....
The main motor-sledge, with a little fitting from the carpenter,
carried our largest boat admirably. For the next boat four ordinary
sledges were lashed together, but we were dubious as to the strength of
this contrivance, and as a matter of fact it broke down quickly under
strain.... The ship is still afloat, with the spurs of the pack driven
through her and holding her up. The forecastle-head is under water, the
decks are burst up by the pressure, the wreckage lies around in dismal
confusion, but over all the blue ensign flies still.
“This afternoon Sallie’s three youngest pups, Sue’s Sirius, and Mrs.
Chippy, the carpenter’s cat, have to be shot. We could not undertake
the maintenance of weaklings under the new conditions. Macklin, Crean,
and the carpenter seemed to feel the loss of their friends rather
badly. We propose making a short trial journey to-morrow, starting with
two of the boats and the ten sledges. The number of dog teams has been
increased to seven, Greenstreet taking charge of the new additional
team, consisting of Snapper and Sallie’s four oldest pups. We have ten
working sledges to relay with five teams. Wild’s and Hurley’s teams
will haul the cutter with the assistance of four men. The whaler and
the other boats will follow, and the men who are hauling them will be
able to help with the cutter at the rough places. We cannot hope to
make rapid progress, but each mile counts. Crean this afternoon has a
bad attack of snow-blindness.”
The weather on the morning of October 30 was overcast and misty, with
occasional falls of snow. A moderate north-easterly breeze was blowing.
We were still living on extra food, brought from the ship when we
abandoned her, and the sledging and boating rations were intact. These
rations would provide for twenty-eight men for fifty-six days on full
rations, but we could count on getting enough seal and penguin meat to
at least double this time. We could even, if progress proved too
difficult and too injurious to the boats, which we must guard as our
ultimate means of salvation, camp on the nearest heavy floe, scour the
neighbouring pack for penguins and seals, and await the outward rift of
the pack, to open and navigable water.
“This plan would avoid the grave dangers we are now incurring of
getting entangled in impassable pressure-ridges and possibly
irretrievably damaging the boats, which are bound to suffer in rough
ice; it would also minimize the peril of the ice splitting under us, as
it did twice during the night at our first camp. Yet I feel sure that
it is the right thing to attempt a march, since if we can make five or
seven miles a day to the north-west our chance of reaching safety in
the months to come will be increased greatly. There is a psychological
aspect to the question also. It will be much better for the men in
general to feel that, even though progress is slow, they are on their
way to land than it will be simply to sit down and wait for the tardy
north-westerly drift to take us out of this cruel waste of ice. We will
make an attempt to move. The issue is beyond my power either to predict
or to control.”
That afternoon Wild and I went out in the mist and snow to find a road
to the north-east. After many devious turnings to avoid the heavier
pressure-ridges, we pioneered a way for at least a mile and a half. and
then returned by a rather better route to the camp. The pressure now
was rapid in movement and our floe was suffering from the shakes and
jerks of the ice. At 3 p.m., after lunch, we got under way, leaving
Dump Camp a mass of debris. The order was that personal gear must not
exceed two pounds per man, and this meant that nothing but bare
necessaries was to be taken on the march. We could not afford to cumber
ourselves with unnecessary weight. Holes had been dug in the snow for
the reception of private letters and little personal trifles, the Lares
and Penates of the members of the Expedition, and into the privacy of
these white graves were consigned much of sentimental value and not a
little of intrinsic worth. I rather grudged the two pounds allowance
per man, owing to my keen anxiety to keep weights at a minimum, but
some personal belongings could fairly be regarded as indispensable. The
journey might be a long one, and there was a possibility of a winter in
improvised quarters on an inhospitable coast at the other end. A man
under such conditions needs something to occupy his thoughts, some
tangible memento of his home and people beyond the seas. So sovereigns
were thrown away and photographs were kept. I tore the fly-leaf out of
the Bible that Queen Alexandra had given to the ship, with her own
writing in it, and also the wonderful page of Job containing the verse:
Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoary frost of Heaven, who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone,
And the face of the deep is frozen.
—[Job 38:29–30]
The other Bible, which Queen Alexandra had given for the use of the
shore party, was down below in the lower hold in one of the cases when
the ship received her death-blow. Suitcases were thrown away; these
were retrieved later as material for making boots, and some of them,
marked “solid leather,” proved, to our disappointment, to contain a
large percentage of cardboard. The manufacturer would have had
difficulty in convincing us at the time that the deception was anything
short of criminal.
The pioneer sledge party, consisting of Wordie, Hussey, Hudson, and
myself, carrying picks and shovels, started to break a road through the
pressure-ridges for the sledges carrying the boats. The boats, with
their gear and the sledges beneath them, weighed each more than a ton.
The cutter was smaller than the whaler, but weighed more and was a much
more strongly built boat. The whaler was mounted on the sledge part of
the Girling tractor forward and two sledges amidships and aft. These
sledges were strengthened with cross-timbers and shortened oars fore
and aft. The cutter was mounted on the aero-sledge. The sledges were
the point of weakness. It appeared almost hopeless to prevent them
smashing under their heavy loads when travelling over rough
pressure-ice which stretched ahead of us for probably 300 miles. After
the pioneer sledge had started the seven dog teams got off. They took
their sledges forward for half a mile, then went back for the other
sledges. Worsley took charge of the two boats, with fifteen men
hauling, and these also had to be relayed. It was heavy work for dogs
and men, but there were intervals of comparative rest on the backward
journey, after the first portion of the load had been taken forward. We
passed over two opening cracks, through which killers were pushing
their ugly snouts, and by 5 p.m. had covered a mile in a
north-north-westerly direction. The condition of the ice ahead was
chaotic, for since the morning increased pressure had developed and the
pack was moving and crushing in all directions. So I gave the order to
pitch camp for the night on flat ice, which, unfortunately, proved to
be young and salty. The older pack was too rough and too deeply laden
with snow to offer a suitable camping-ground. Although we had gained
only one mile in a direct line, the necessary deviations made the
distance travelled at least two miles, and the relays brought the
distance marched up to six miles. Some of the dog teams had covered at
least ten miles. I set the watch from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., one hour for
each man in each tent in rotation.
[Illustration: The First Attempt to reach the Land 346 Miles Away]
[Illustration: Ocean Camp]
During the night snow fell heavily, and the floor-cloths of the tents
got wet through, as the temperature had risen to +25° Fahr. One of the
things we hoped for in those days was a temperature in the
neighbourhood of zero, for then the snow surface would be hard, we
would not be troubled by damp, and our gear would not become covered in
soft snow. The killers were blowing all night, and a crack appeared
about 20 ft. from the camp at 2 a.m. The ice below us was quite thin
enough for the killers to break through if they took a fancy to do so,
but there was no other camping-ground within our reach and we had to
take the risk. When morning came the snow was falling so heavily that
we could not see more than a few score yards ahead, and I decided not
to strike camp. A path over the shattered floes would be hard to find,
and to get the boats into a position of peril might be disastrous.
Rickenson and Worsley started back for Dump Camp at 7 a.m. to get some
wood and blubber for the fire, and an hour later we had hoosh, with one
biscuit each. At 10 a.m. Hurley and Hudson left for the old camp in
order to bring some additional dog-pemmican, since there were no seals
to be found near us. Then, as the weather cleared, Worsley and I made a
prospect to the west and tried to find a practicable road. A large floe
offered a fairly good road for at least another mile to the north-west,
and we went back prepared for another move. The weather cleared a
little, and after lunch we struck camp. I took Rickenson, Kerr, Wordie,
and Hudson as a breakdown gang to pioneer a path among the
pressure-ridges. Five dog teams followed. Wild’s and Hurley’s teams
were hitched on to the cutter and they started off in splendid style.
They needed to be helped only once; indeed fourteen dogs did as well or
even better than eighteen men. The ice was moving beneath and around us
as we worked towards the big floe, and where this floe met the smaller
ones there was a mass of pressed-up ice, still in motion, with water
between the ridges. But it is wonderful what a dozen men can do with
picks and shovels. We could cut a road through a pressure-ridge about
14 ft. high in ten minutes and leave a smooth, or comparatively smooth,
path for the sledges and teams.