THE RESCUE
Our first night at the whaling-station was blissful. Crean and I shared
a beautiful room in Mr. Sorlle’s house, with electric light and two
beds, warm and soft. We were so comfortable that we were unable to
sleep. Late at night a steward brought us tea, bread and butter and
cakes, and we lay in bed, revelling in the luxury of it all. Outside a
dense snow-storm, which started two hours after our arrival and lasted
until the following day, was swirling and driving about the
mountain-slopes. We were thankful indeed that we had made a place of
safety, for it would have gone hard with us if we had been out on the
mountains that night. Deep snow lay everywhere when we got up the
following morning.
After breakfast Mr. Sorlle took us round to Husvik in a motor-launch.
We were listening avidly to his account of the war and of all that had
happened while we were out of the world of men. We were like men arisen
from the dead to a world gone mad. Our minds accustomed themselves
gradually to the tales of nations in arms, of deathless courage and
unimagined slaughter, of a world-conflict that had grown beyond all
conceptions, of vast red battlefields in grimmest contrast with the
frigid whiteness we had left behind us. The reader may not realize
quite how difficult it was for us to envisage nearly two years of the
most stupendous war of history. The locking of the armies in the
trenches, the sinking of the _Lusitania_, the murder of Nurse Cavell,
the use of poison-gas and liquid fire, the submarine warfare, the
Gallipoli campaign, the hundred other incidents of the war, almost
stunned us at first, and then our minds began to compass the train of
events and develop a perspective. I suppose our experience was unique.
No other civilized men could have been as blankly ignorant of
world-shaking happenings as we were when we reached Stromness Whaling
Station.
[Illustration: The _Yelcho_]
I heard the first rumour of the _Aurora’s_ misadventures in the Ross
Sea from Mr. Sorlle. Our host could tell me very little. He had been
informed that the _Aurora_ had broken away from winter quarters in
McMurdo Sound and reached New Zealand after a long drift, and that
there was no news of the shore party. His information was indefinite as
to details, and I had to wait until I reached the Falkland Islands some
time later before getting a definite report concerning the _Aurora_.
The rumour that had reached South Georgia, however, made it more than
ever important that I should bring out the rest of the Weddell Sea
party quickly, so as to free myself for whatever effort was required on
the Ross Sea side.
When we reached Husvik that Sunday morning we were warmly greeted by
the magistrate (Mr. Bernsten), whom I knew of old, and the other
members of the little community. Moored in the harbour was one of the
largest of the whalers, the _Southern Sky_, owned by an English company
but now laid up for the winter. I had no means of getting into
communication with the owners without dangerous delay, and on my
accepting all responsibility Mr. Bernsten made arrangements for me to
take this ship down to Elephant Island. I wrote out an agreement with
Lloyd’s for the insurance of the ship. Captain Thom, an old friend of
the Expedition, happened to be in Husvik with his ship, the _Orwell_,
loading oil for use in Britain’s munition works, and he at once
volunteered to come with us in any capacity. I asked him to come as
captain of the _Southern Sky_. There was no difficulty about getting a
crew. The whalers were eager to assist in the rescue of men in
distress. They started work that Sunday to prepare and stow the ship.
Parts of the engines were ashore, but willing hands made light labour.
I purchased from the station stores all the stores and equipment
required, including special comforts for the men we hoped to rescue,
and by Tuesday morning the _Southern Sky_ was ready to sail. I feel it
is my duty as well as my pleasure to thank here the Norwegian whalers
of South Georgia for the sympathetic hands they stretched out to us in
our need. Among memories of kindness received in many lands sundered by
the seas, the recollection of the hospitality and help given to me in
South Georgia ranks high. There is a brotherhood of the sea. The men
who go down to the sea in ships, serving and suffering, fighting their
endless battle against the caprice of wind and ocean, bring into their
own horizons the perils and troubles of their brother sailormen.
The _Southern Sky_ was ready on Tuesday morning, and at nine o’clock we
steamed out of the bay, while the whistles of the whaling-station
sounded a friendly farewell. We had forgathered aboard Captain Thom’s
ship on the Monday night with several whaling captains who were
bringing up their sons to their own profession. They were “old stagers”
with faces lined and seamed by the storms of half a century, and they
were even more interested in the story of our voyage from Elephant
Island than the younger generation was. They congratulated us on having
accomplished a remarkable boat journey. I do not wish to belittle our
success with the pride that apes humility. Under Providence we had
overcome great difficulties and dangers, and it was pleasant to tell
the tale to men who knew those sullen and treacherous southern seas.
McCarthy, McNeish, and Vincent had been landed on the Monday afternoon.
They were already showing some signs of increasing strength under a
regime of warm quarters and abundant food. The carpenter looked
woefully thin after he had emerged from a bath. He must have worn a lot
of clothes when he landed from the boat, and I did not realize how he
had wasted till I saw him washed and changed. He was a man over fifty
years of age, and the strain had told upon him more than upon the rest
of us. The rescue came just in time for him.
The early part of the voyage down to Elephant Island in the _Southern
Sky_ was uneventful. At noon on Tuesday, May 23, we were at sea and
steaming at ten knots on a south-westerly course. We made good
progress, but the temperature fell very low, and the signs gave me some
cause for anxiety as to the probability of encountering ice. On the
third night out the sea seemed to grow silent. I looked over the side
and saw a thin film of ice. The sea was freezing around us and the ice
gradually grew thicker, reducing our speed to about five knots. Then
lumps of old pack began to appear among the new ice. I realized that an
advance through pack-ice was out of the question. The _Southern Sky_
was a steel-built steamer, and her structure, while strong to resist
the waves, would not endure the blows of masses of ice. So I took the
ship north, and at daylight on Friday we got clear of the pancake-ice.
We skirted westward, awaiting favourable conditions. The morning of the
28th was dull and overcast, with little wind. Again the ship’s head was
turned to the south-west, but at 3 p.m. a definite line of pack showed
up on the horizon. We were about 70 miles from Elephant Island, but
there was no possibility of taking the steamer through the ice that
barred the way. North-west again we turned. We were directly north of
the island on the following day, and I made another move south. Heavy
pack formed an impenetrable barrier.
To admit failure at this stage was hard, but the facts had to be faced.
The _Southern Sky_ could not enter ice of even moderate thickness. The
season was late, and we could not be sure that the ice would open for
many months, though my opinion was that the pack would not become fast
in that quarter even in the winter, owing to the strong winds and
currents. The _Southern Sky_ could carry coal for ten days only, and we
had been out six days. We were 500 miles from the Falkland Islands and
about 600 miles from South Georgia. So I determined that, since we
could not wait about for an opening, I would proceed to the Falklands,
get a more suitable vessel either locally or from England, and make a
second attempt to reach Elephant Island from that point.
We encountered very bad weather on the way up, but in the early
afternoon of May 31 we arrived at Port Stanley, where the cable
provided a link with the outer world. The harbour-master came out to
meet us, and after we had dropped anchor I went ashore and met the
Governor, Mr. Douglas Young. He offered me his assistance at once. He
telephoned to Mr. Harding, the manager of the Falkland Islands station,
and I learned, to my keen regret, that no ship of the type required was
available at the islands. That evening I cabled to London a message to
His Majesty the King, the first account of the loss of the _Endurance_
and the subsequent adventures of the Expedition. The next day I
received the following message from the King:
“Rejoice to hear of your safe arrival in the Falkland Islands and trust
your comrades on Elephant Island may soon be rescued.
“GEORGE R.I.”
The events of the days that followed our arrival at the Falkland
Islands I will not attempt to describe in detail. My mind was bent upon
the rescue of the party on Elephant Island at the earliest possible
moment. Winter was advancing, and I was fully conscious that the lives
of some of my comrades might be the price of unnecessary delay. A
proposal had been made to send a relief ship from England, but she
could not reach the southern seas for many weeks. In the meantime I got
into communication with the Governments of the South American Republics
by wireless and cable and asked if they had any suitable ship I could
use for a rescue. I wanted a wooden ship capable of pushing into loose
ice, with fair speed and a reasonable coal capacity. Messages of
congratulation and goodwill were reaching me from all parts of the
world, and the kindness of hundreds of friends in many lands was a very
real comfort in a time of anxiety and stress.
The British Admiralty informed me that no suitable vessel was available
in England and that no relief could be expected before October. I
replied that October would be too late. Then the British Minister in
Montevideo telegraphed me regarding a trawler named _Instituto de Pesca
No. 1_, belonging to the Uruguayan Government. She was a stout little
vessel, and the Government had generously offered to equip her with
coal, provisions, clothing, etc., and send her across to the Falkland
Islands for me to take down to Elephant Island. I accepted this offer
gladly, and the trawler was in Port Stanley on June 10. We started
south at once.
The weather was bad but the trawler made good progress, steaming
steadily at about six knots, and in the bright, clear dawn of the third
day we sighted the peaks of Elephant Island. Hope ran high; but our
ancient enemy the pack was lying in wait, and within twenty miles of
the island the trawler was stopped by an impenetrable barrier of ice.
The pack lay in the form of a crescent, with a horn to the west of the
ship stretching north. Steaming north-east, we reached another horn and
saw that the pack, heavy and dense, then trended away to the east. We
made an attempt to push into the ice, but it was so heavy that the
trawler was held up at once and began to grind in the small thick
floes, so we cautiously backed out. The propeller, going slowly, was
not damaged, though any moment I feared we might strip the blades. The
island lay on our starboard quarter, but there was no possibility of
approaching it. The Uruguayan engineer reported to me that he had three
days’ coal left, and I had to give the order to turn back. A screen of
fog hid the lower slopes of the island, and the men watching from the
camp on the beach could not have seen the ship. Northward we steamed
again, with the engines knocking badly, and after encountering a new
gale, made Port Stanley with the bunkers nearly empty and the engines
almost broken down. H.M.S. _Glasgow_ was in the port, and the British
sailors gave us a hearty welcome as we steamed in.
The Uruguayan Government offered to send the trawler to Punta Arenas
and have her dry-docked there and made ready for another effort. One of
the troubles on the voyage was that according to estimate the trawler
could do ten knots on six tons of coal a day, which would have given us
a good margin to allow for lying off the ice; but in reality, owing to
the fact that she had not been in dock for a year, she only developed a
speed of six knots on a consumption of ten tons a day. Time was
precious and these preparations would have taken too long. I thanked
the Government then for its very generous offer, and I want to say now
that the kindness of the Uruguayans at this time earned my warmest
gratitude. I ought to mention also the assistance given me by Lieut.
Ryan, a Naval Reserve officer who navigated the trawler to the
Falklands and came south on the attempt at relief. The _Instituto de
Pesca_ went off to Montevideo and I looked around for another ship.
A British mail-boat, the _Orita_ called at Port Stanley opportunely,
and I boarded her with Worsley and Crean and crossed to Punta Arenas in
the Magellan Straits. The reception we received there was heartening.
The members of the British Association of Magellanes took us to their
hearts. Mr. Allan McDonald was especially prominent in his untiring
efforts to assist in the rescue of our twenty-two companions on
Elephant Island. He worked day and night, and it was mainly due to him
that within three days they had raised a sum of £1500 amongst
themselves, chartered the schooner _Emma_ and equipped her for our use.
She was a forty-year-old oak schooner, strong and seaworthy, with an
auxiliary oil-engine.
Out of the complement of ten men all told who were manning the ship,
there were eight different nationalities; but they were all good
fellows and understood perfectly what was wanted. The Chilian
Government lent us a small steamer, the _Yelcho_, to tow us part of the
way. She could not touch ice, though, as she was built of steel.
However, on July 12 we passed her our tow-rope and proceeded on our
way. In bad weather we anchored next day, and although the wind
increased to a gale I could delay no longer, so we hove up anchor in
the early morning of the 14th. The strain on the tow-rope was too
great. With the crack of a gun the rope broke. Next day the gale
continued, and I will quote from the log of the _Emma_, which Worsley
kept as navigating officer.
“9 a.m.—Fresh, increasing gale; very rough, lumpy sea. 10 a.m.—Tow-rope
parted. 12 noon. Similar weather. 1 p.m.—Tow-rope parted again. Set
foresail and forestay-sail and steered south-east by south. 3
p.m.—_Yelcho_ hailed us and said that the ship’s bilges were full of
water (so were our decks) and they were short of coal. Sir Ernest told
them that they could return to harbour. After this the _Yelcho_ steamed
into San Sebastian Bay.”
After three days of continuous bad weather we were left alone to
attempt once more to rescue the twenty-two men on Elephant Island, for
whom by this time I entertained very grave fears.
At dawn of Friday, July 21, we were within a hundred miles of the
island, and we encountered the ice in the half-light. I waited for the
full day and then tried to push through. The little craft was tossing
in the heavy swell, and before she had been in the pack for ten minutes
she came down on a cake of ice and broke the bobstay. Then the
water-inlet of the motor choked with ice. The schooner was tossing like
a cork in the swell, and I saw after a few bumps that she was actually
lighter than the fragments of ice around her. Progress under such
conditions was out of the question. I worked the schooner out of the
pack and stood to the east. I ran her through a line of pack towards
the south that night, but was forced to turn to the north-east, for the
ice trended in that direction as far as I could see. We hove to for the
night, which was now sixteen hours long. The winter was well advanced
and the weather conditions were thoroughly bad. The ice to the
southward was moving north rapidly. The motor-engine had broken down
and we were entirely dependent on the sails. We managed to make a
little southing during the next day, but noon found us 108 miles from
the island. That night we lay off the ice in a gale, hove to, and
morning found the schooner iced up. The ropes, cased in frozen spray,
were as thick as a man’s arm, and if the wind had increased much we
would have had to cut away the sails, since there was no possibility of
lowering them. Some members of the scratch crew were played out by the
cold and the violent tossing. The schooner was about seventy feet long,
and she responded to the motions of the storm-racked sea in a manner
that might have disconcerted the most seasoned sailors.
I took the schooner south at every chance, but always the line of ice
blocked the way. The engineer, who happened to be an American, did
things to the engines occasionally, but he could not keep them running,
and, the persistent south winds were dead ahead. It was hard to turn
back a third time, but I realized we could not reach the island under
those conditions, and we must turn north in order to clear the ship of
heavy masses of ice. So we set a northerly course, and after a
tempestuous passage reached Port Stanley once more. This was the third
reverse, but I did not abandon my belief that the ice would not remain
fast around Elephant Island during the winter, whatever the arm-chair
experts at home might say. We reached Port Stanley in the schooner on
August 8, and I learned there that the ship _Discovery_ was to leave
England at once and would be at the Falkland Islands about the middle
of September. My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at
Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of
that port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughter-house
at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief distraction is to
walk from the slaughter-house to the graveyard. For a change one may
walk from the graveyard to the slaughter-house. Ellaline Terriss was
born at Port Stanley—a fact not forgotten by the residents, but she has
not lived there much since. I could not content myself to wait for six
or seven weeks, knowing that six hundred miles away my comrades were in
dire need. I asked the Chilian Government to send the _Yelcho_, the
steamer that had towed us before, to take the schooner across to Punta
Arenas, and they consented promptly, as they had done to every other
request of mine. So in a north-west gale we went across, narrowly
escaping disaster on the way, and reached Punta Arenas on August 14.
There was no suitable ship to be obtained. The weather was showing some
signs of improvement, and I begged the Chilian Government to let me
have the _Yelcho_ for a last attempt to reach the island. She was a
small steel-built steamer, quite unsuitable for work in the pack, but I
promised that I would not touch the ice. The Government was willing to
give me another chance, and on August 25 I started south on the fourth
attempt at relief. This time Providence favoured us. The little steamer
made a quick run down in comparatively fine weather, and I found as we
neared Elephant Island that the ice was open. A southerly gale had sent
it northward temporarily, and the _Yelcho_ had her chance to slip
through. We approached the island in a thick fog. I did not dare to
wait for this to clear, and at 10 a.m. on August 30 we passed some
stranded bergs. Then we saw the sea breaking on a reef, and I knew that
we were just outside the island. It was an anxious moment, for we had
still to locate the camp and the pack could not be trusted to allow
time for a prolonged search in thick weather; but presently the fog
lifted and revealed the cliffs and glaciers of Elephant Island. I
proceeded to the east, and at 11.40 a.m. Worsley’s keen eyes detected
the camp, almost invisible under its covering of snow. The men ashore
saw us at the same time, and we saw tiny black figures hurry to the
beach and wave signals to us. We were about a mile and a half away from
the camp. I turned the _Yelcho_ in, and within half an hour reached the
beach with Crean and some of the Chilian sailors. I saw a little figure
on a surf-beaten rock and recognized Wild. As I came nearer I called
out, “Are you all well?” and he answered, “We are all well, boss,” and
then I heard three cheers. As I drew close to the rock I flung packets
of cigarettes ashore; they fell on them like hungry tigers, for well I
knew that for months tobacco was dreamed of and talked of. Some of the
hands were in a rather bad way, but Wild had held the party together
and kept hope alive in their hearts. There was no time then to exchange
news or congratulations. I did not even go up the beach to see the
camp, which Wild assured me had been much improved. A heavy sea was
running and a change of wind might bring the ice back at any time. I
hurried the party aboard with all possible speed, taking also the
records of the Expedition and essential portions of equipment.
Everybody was aboard the _Yelcho_ within an hour, and we steamed north
at the little steamer’s best speed. The ice was open still, and nothing
worse than an expanse of stormy ocean separated us from the South
American coast.
During the run up to Punta Arenas I heard Wild’s story, and blessed
again the cheerfulness and resource that had served the party so well
during four and a half months of privation. The twenty-two men on
Elephant Island were just at the end of their resources when the
_Yelcho_ reached them. Wild had husbanded the scanty stock of food as
far as possible and had fought off the devils of despondency and
despair on that little sand-spit, where the party had a precarious
foothold between the grim ice-fields and the treacherous, ice-strewn
sea. The pack had opened occasionally, but much of the time the way to
the north had been barred. The _Yelcho_ had arrived at the right
moment. Two days earlier she could not have reached the island, and a
few hours later the pack may have been impenetrable again. Wild had
reckoned that help would come in August, and every morning he had
packed his kit, in cheerful anticipation that proved infectious, as I
have no doubt it was meant to be. One of the party to whom I had said
“Well, you all were packed up ready,” replied, “You see, boss, Wild
never gave up hope, and whenever the sea was at all clear of ice he
rolled up his sleeping-bag and said to all hands, ‘Roll up your
sleeping-bags, boys; the boss may come to-day.’” And so it came to
pass that we suddenly came out of the fog, and, from a black outlook,
in an hour all were in safety homeward bound. The food was eked out
with seal and penguin meat, limpets, and seaweed. Seals had been
scarce, but the supply of penguins had held out fairly well during the
first three months. The men were down to the last Bovril ration, the
only form of hot drink they had, and had scarcely four days’ food in
hand at the time of the rescue. The camp was in constant danger of
being buried by the snow, which drifted heavily from the heights
behind, and the men moved the accumulations with what implements they
could provide. There was danger that the camp would become completely
invisible from the sea, so that a rescue party might look for it in
vain.
“It had been arranged that a gun should be fired from the relief ship
when she got near the island,” said Wild. “Many times when the glaciers
were ‘calving,’ and chunks fell off with a report like a gun, we
thought that it was the real thing, and after a time we got to distrust
these signals. As a matter of fact, we saw the _Yelcho_ before we heard
any gun. It was an occasion one will not easily forget. We were just
assembling for lunch to the call of ‘Lunch O!’ and I was serving out
the soup, which was particularly good that day, consisting of boiled
seal’s backbone, limpets, and seaweed, when there was another hail from
Marston of ‘Ship O!’ Some of the men thought it was ‘Lunch O!’ over
again, but when there was another yell from Marston lunch had no
further attractions. The ship was about a mile and a half away and
steaming past us. A smoke-signal was the agreed sign from the shore,
and, catching up somebody’s coat that was lying about, I struck a pick
into a tin of kerosene kept for the purpose, poured it over the coat,
and set it alight. It flared instead of smoking; but that didn’t
matter, for you had already recognized the spot where you had left us
and the _Yelcho_ was turning in.”
We encountered bad weather on the way back to Punta Arenas, and the
little _Yelcho_ laboured heavily; but she had light hearts aboard. We
entered the Straits of Magellan on September 3 and reached Rio Secco at
8 a.m. I went ashore, found a telephone, and told the Governor and my
friends at Punta Arenas that the men were safe. Two hours later we were
at Punta Arenas, where we were given a welcome none of us is likely to
forget. The Chilian people were no less enthusiastic than the British
residents. The police had been instructed to spread the news that the
_Yelcho_ was coming with the rescued men, and lest the message should
fail to reach some people, the fire-alarm had been rung. The whole
populace appeared to be in the streets. It was a great reception, and
with the strain of long, anxious months lifted at last, we were in a
mood to enjoy it.
[Illustration: Arrival at Punta Arenas with the Rescued Men]
[Illustration: Frank Wild, Second in Command of the Expedition]
The next few weeks were crowded ones, but I will not attempt here to
record their history in detail. I received congratulations and messages
of friendship and good cheer from all over the world, and my heart went
out to the good people who had remembered my men and myself in the
press of terrible events on the battlefields. The Chilian Government
placed the _Yelcho_ at my disposal to take the men up to Valparaiso and
Santiago. We reached Valparaiso on September 27. Everything that could
swim in the way of a boat was out to meet us, the crews of Chilian
warships were lined up, and at least thirty thousand thronged the
streets. I lectured in Santiago on the following evening for the
British Red Cross and a Chilian naval charity. The Chilian flag and the
Union Jack were draped together, the band played the Chilian national
anthem, “God Save the King,” and the “Marseillaise,” and the Chilian
Minister for Foreign Affairs spoke from the platform and pinned an
Order on my coat. I saw the President and thanked him for the help that
he had given a British expedition. His Government had spent £4000 on
coal alone. In reply he recalled the part that British sailors had
taken in the making of the Chilian Navy.
The Chilian Railway Department provided a special train to take us
across the Andes, and I proceeded to Montevideo in order to thank
personally the President and Government of Uruguay for the help they
had given generously in the earlier relief voyages. We were entertained
royally at various spots _en route_. We went also to Buenos Ayres on a
brief call. Then we crossed the Andes again. I had made arrangements by
this time for the men and the staff to go to England. All hands were
keen to take their places in the Empire’s fighting forces. My own
immediate task was the relief of the marooned Ross Sea party, for news
had come to me of the _Aurora’s_ long drift in the Ross Sea and of her
return in a damaged condition to New Zealand. Worsley was to come with
me. We hurried northwards via Panama, steamship and train companies
giving us everywhere the most cordial and generous assistance, and
caught at San Francisco a steamer that would get us to New Zealand at
the end of November. I had been informed that the New Zealand
Government was making arrangements for the relief of the Ross Sea
party, but my information was incomplete, and I was very anxious to be
on the spot myself as quickly as possible.