 CHAPTER IX THE BOAT JOURNEY, PART II The tale of the next sixteen days is one of supreme strife amid the heaving waters. The sub-antarctic ocean lived up to its evil winter reputation. I decided to run north for at least two days while the wind held and so get into warmer weather before turning to the east and laying a course for South Georgia. We took two hourly spells at the tiller. The men who were not on watch crawled into the sod and sleeping bags and tried to forget their troubles for a period, but there was no comfort in the boat. The bags and cases seemed to be alive in the unfailing knack of presenting their most uncomfortable angles to our rest-seeking bodies. A man might imagine for a moment that he had found the position of ease, but always discovered quickly that some unyielding point was impinging on muscle or bone. The first night aboard the boat was one of acute discomfort for us all, and we were heartily glad when the dawn came and we could set about the preparation of a hot breakfast. This record of the voyage to South Georgia is based upon scanty notes made day by day. The notes dealt usually with the bare facts of distances, positions, and weather, but our memories retained the incidents of the passing days in a period never to be forgotten. By running north for the first two days I hoped to get warmer weather and also to avoid lines of pack that might be extending beyond the main body. We needed all the advantage that we could obtain from the higher latitude for sailing on the Great Circle, but we had to be cautious regarding possible ice storms. Cramped in our narrow quarters and continually wet by the spray, we suffered severely from cold throughout the journey. We fought the seas and the winds, and at the same time had a daily struggle to keep ourselves alive. At times we were in dire peril. Generally we were upheld by the knowledge that we were making progress towards the land where we would be, but there were days and nights when we lay hoeved to, drifting across the storm-witened seas and watching with eyes interested, rather than apprehensive, the uprearing masses of water, flung to and fro by nature in the pride of her strength. Deep seemed the valleys when we lay between the reeling seas. High were the hills when we perched momentarily on the tops of giant comers. Nearly always there were gales. So small was our boat and so great were the seas that often our sail flapped idly in the calm between the crests of two waves. Then we would climb the next slope and catch the full fury of the gale where the wool-like whiteness of the breaking water surged around us. We had our moments of laughter—rare, it is true, but hardy enough. Even when cracked lips and swollen mouths checked the outward and visible signs of amusement, we could see a joke of the primitive kind. Man's sense of humor is always most easily stirred by the petty misfortunes of his neighbors, and I shall never forget Worsley's efforts, on one occasion, to place the hot aluminum stand on top of the primus stove after it had fallen off in an extra heavy roll. With his frost-bitten fingers he picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, and toyed with it gingerly as though it were some fragile article of ladies' wear. We laughed, or rather, gurgled with laughter. The wind came up strong and worked into a gale from the northwest on the third day out. We stood away to the east. The increasing seas discovered the weaknesses of our decking. The continuous blows shifted the box lids and sludge runners so that the canvas sagged down in accumulated water. Then icy trickles, distinct from the driving sprays, poured fore and aft into the boat. The nails that the carpenter had extracted from cases at Elephant Island and used to fasten down the battens were too short to make firm the decking. We did what we could to secure it, but our means were very limited, and the water continued to enter the boat at a dozen points. Much bailing was necessary, and nothing that we could do prevented our gear from becoming sodden. The searching runnels from the canvas were really more unpleasant than the sudden definite touches of the sprays. Lying under the thwarts during watches below, we tried vainly to avoid them. There were no dry places in the boat, and at last we simply covered our heads with our berberies and endured the all-pervading water. The bailing was work for the watch. Real rest we had none. The perpetual motion of the boat made repose impossible. We were cold, sore, and anxious. We moved on hands and knees in the semi-darkness of the day under the decking. The darkness was complete by six p.m., and not until seven a.m. of the following day could we see one another under the thwarts. We had a few scraps of candle, and they were preserved carefully in order that we might have light at mealtimes. There was one fairly dry spot in the boat. Under the solid, original decking at the bowels, and we managed to protect some of our biscuit from the salt water, but I do not think any of us got the taste of salt out of our mouths during the voyage. The difficulty of movement in the boat would have had its humorous side if it had not involved us in so many aches and pains. We had to crawl under the thwarts in order to move along the boat, and our knees suffered considerably. When watch turned out it was necessary for me to direct each man by name when and where to move, since if all hands had crawled about at the same time the result would have been dire confusion and many bruises. Then there was the trim of the boat to be considered. The order of the watch was four hours on and four hours off, three men to the watch. One man had the tiller-robes, the second man attended to the sail, and the third bailed for all he was worth. Sometimes when the water in the boat had been reduced to reasonable proportions our pump could be used. This pump, which Hurley had made from the Flinders bar case of our ship's standard compass, was quite effective, though its capacity was not large. The man who was attending the sail could pump into the big outer cooker, which was lifted and emptied overboard when full. We had a device by which the water could go direct from the pump into the sea through a hole in the gun-whale, but this hole had to be blocked at an early stage of the voyage, since we found that it admitted water when the boat rolled. While a new watch was shivering in the wind and spray, the men who had been relieved groped hurriedly among the soaked sleeping bags and tried to steal a little of the warmth created by the last occupants. But it was not always possible for us to find even this comfort when we went off-watch. The boulders that we had taken aboard for ballast had to be shifted continually in order to trim the boat and give access to the pump, which became choked with hairs from the molting sleeping bags and finisco. The four reindeer-skin sleeping bags shed their hair freely owing to the continuous wetting, and soon became quite bald in appearance. The moving of the boulders was weary and painful work. We came to know every one of the stones by side and touch, and I have vivid memories of their angular peculiarities even today. They might have been of considerable interest as geological specimens to a scientific man under happier conditions. As ballast they were useful. As weights to be moved about in cramped quarters they were simply appalling. They spared no portion of our poor bodies. Another of our troubles, worth mentioned here, was the chafing of our legs by our wet clothes, which had not been changed now for seven months. The insides of our thighs were rubbed raw, and the one tube of hazeline cream in our medicine chest did not go far in alleviating our pain, which was increased by the bite of the salt water. We thought at the time that we never slept. The fact was that we would doze off uncomfortably to be aroused quickly by some new ache or another to call to effort. My own share of the general unpleasantness was accentuated by a finely-developed bout of sciatica. I had become possessor of this originally on the flow seven months earlier. Our meals were regular in spite of the gales. Attention to this point was essential, since the conditions of the voyage made increasing calls upon our vitality. Breakfast at 8 a.m. consisted of a panicin of hot hoosh made from bovereal sludging ration, two biscuits, and some lumps of sugar. Lunch came at 1 p.m. and comprised bovereal sludging ration, eaten raw, and a panicin of hot milk for each man. Tea at 5 p.m. had the same menu. Then during the night we had a hot drink, generally of milk. The meals were the bright beacons in those cold and stormy days. The glow of warmth and comfort produced by the food and drink made optimists of us all. We had two tins of Vero, which we were keeping for an emergency, but finding ourselves in need of oil lamp to eke out our supply of candles, we emptied one of the tins in the manner that most appealed to us, and fitted it with a wick made by shredding a bit of canvas. When this lamp was filled with oil it gave a certain amount of light, though it was easily blown out, and was of great assistance to us at night. We were fairly well off as regarded fuel, since we had six and a half gallons of petroleum. A severe southwesterly gale on the fourth day out forced us to heave to. I would have liked to have run before the wind, but the sea was very high and the James card was in danger of broaching to and swamping. The delay was vexatious, since up to that time we had been making sixty or seventy miles a day, good going with our limited sail area. We hoped to under double reefed mainsail and our little jigger and waited for the gale to blow itself out. During that afternoon we saw bits of wreckage, the remains probably of some unfortunate vessel that had failed to weather the strong gale south of Cape Horn. The weather conditions did not improve, and on the fifth day out the gale was so fierce that we were compelled to take in the double reefed mainsail and hoist our small jib instead. We put out a sea anchor to keep the James card's head up to the sea. This anchor consisted of a triangular canvas bag, fastened to the end of the painter and allowed to stream out from the bowels. The boat was high enough to catch the wind, and as she drifted to leeward the drag of the anchor kept her head to windward. Thus our boat took most of the seas more or less end on. Even then the crests of the waves would often curl right over us and we shipped a great deal of water, which necessitated unceasing bailing and pumping. Looking out a beam we would see a hollow like a tunnel formed as the crest of a big wave toppled over onto the swelling body of water. A thousand times it appeared as though the James card must be engulfed, but the boat lived. The southwesterly gale had its birthplace above the Antarctic continent, and its freezing breath lowered the temperature far toward zero. The sprays froze upon the boat and gave boughs, sides, and decking a heavy coat of mail. This accumulation of ice reduced the buoyancy of the boat, and to that extent was an added peril, but it possessed a notable advantage from one point of view. The water ceased to drop and trickle from the canvas, and the spray came in solely at the well in the after part of the boat. We could not allow the load of ice to grow beyond a certain point, and in turns we crawled out, about the decking forward, chipping and picking at it with the available tools. When daylight came on the morning of the sixth day out, we saw and felt that the James card had lost her resiliency. She was not rising to the oncoming seas. The weight of the ice that had formed in her and upon her during the night was having its effect, and she was becoming more like a log than a boat. The situation called for immediate action. We first broke away the spare oars which were encased in ice and frozen to the sides of the boat, and threw them overboard. We retained two oars for use when we got inshore. Two of the first sleeping bags went over the side. They were thoroughly wet, weighing probably forty pounds each, and they had frozen stiff during the night. Three men constituted the watch below, and when a man went down it was better to turn into the wet bag just vacated by another man than to thaw out a frozen bag with the heat of his unfortunate body. We now had four bags, three in use and one for emergency in case a member of the party should break down permanently. The reduction of weight relieved the boat to some extent, and vigorous chipping and scraping did more. We had to be very careful not to put axe or knife through the frozen canvas of the decking as we crawled over it, but gradually we got rid of a lot of ice. The James card lifted to the endless waves as though she lived again. About eleven a.m. the boat suddenly fell off into the trough of the sea. The painter had parted and the sea anchor had gone. This was serious. The James card went away to Leeward, and we had no chance of recovering the anchor and our valuable rope, which had been our only means of keeping the boat's head up to the seas without the risk of hoisting a sail in a gale. Now we had to set the sail and trust to hit's holy. While the James card rolled heavily in the trough, we beat the frozen canvas until the bulk of the ice had cracked off of it and then hoisted it. The frozen gear worked protesting Lee, but after a struggle our little craft came up to the wind again, and we breathed more freely. Skin frostbites were troubling us, and we had developed large blisters on our fingers and hands. I shall always carry the scar of one of these frostbites on my left hand, which became badly inflamed after the skin had burst and the cold had bitten deeply. We held the boat up to the gale during that day, enduring as best we could discomforts that amounted to pain. The boat tossed interminably on the big waves under gray threatening skies. Our thoughts did not embrace much more than the necessities of the hour. Every surge of the sea was an enemy to be watched and circumvented. We ate our scanty meals, treated our frostbites, and hoped for the improved conditions that the morrow might bring. Night fell early, and in the lagging hours of darkness we were cheered by a change for the better in the weather. The wind dropped, the snow squalls became less frequent, and the sea moderated. When the morning of the seventh day dawned there was not much wind. We shook the reef out of the sail and laid our course once more for South Georgia. The sun came out bright and clear, and presently worstly got a snap for longitude. We hoped that the sky would remain clear until noon so that we could get the latitude. We had been six days out without an observation, and our dead reckoning naturally was uncertain. The boat must have presented a strange appearance that morning. All hands basked in the sun. We hung our sleeping bags to the mast and spread our socks and other gear all over the deck. Some of the ice had melted off the James card in the early morning after the gale began to slacken, and dry patches were appearing in the decking. Porpoises came blowing round the boat, and Kate pigeons wheeled and swooped within a few feet of us. These little black-and-white birds have an era friendliness that is not possessed by the great circling albatross. They had looked gray against the swaying sea during the storm as they darted about over our heads and uttered their plaintive cries. The albatrosses of the black or sooty variety had watched with hard, bright eyes, and seemed to have quite impersonal interest in our struggle to keep afloat amid the battering seas. In addition to the Kate pigeons, an occasional stormy petrol flashed overhead. Then there was a small bird, unknown to me, that appeared always to be in a fussy, bustling state, quite out of keeping with the surroundings. It irritated me. It had practically no tail, and it flitted about vaguely as though in search of the lost member. I used to find myself wishing it would find its tail and have done with the silly fluttering. We reveled in the warmth of the sun that day. Life was not so bad, after all. We felt we were well on our way. Our gear was drying, and we could have a hot meal in comparative comfort. The swell was still heavy, but it was not breaking in the boat road easily. That noon, Worsley balanced himself on the gun-whale and clung with one hand to the stay of the mainmist while he got a snap of the sun. The result was more than encouraging. We had done over three hundred and eighty miles, and were getting on for half way to South Georgia. It looked as though we were going to get through. The wind freshened to a good stiff breeze during the afternoon, and the James card made satisfactory progress. I had not realized until the sunlight came how small our boat really was. There was some influence in that light and warmth, some hint of happier days, that made us revive memories of other voyages, when we had stout decks beneath our feet, unlimited food at our command, and pleasant cabins for our ease. Now we clung to a battered little boat, alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea. So low in the water were we that each succeeding swell cut off our view of the skyline. We were a tiny speck in the vast vista of the sea, the ocean that is open to all and merciful to none, that threatens even when it seems to yield, and that is pitiless always to weakness. For a moment the consciousness of the forces arrayed against us would be almost overwhelming. Then hope and confidence would rise again as our boat rose to a wave and tossed aside the crest in sparkling shower, like the play of prismatic colors at the foot of a waterfall. My double-barreled gun and some cartridges had been stowed aboard the boat as an emergency precaution against a shortage of food. But we were not disposed to destroy our little neighbors, the Cape Pigeons, even for the sake of fresh meat. We might have shot an albatross, but the wandering kings of the ocean aroused in us something of the feeling that inspired, too late, the ancient mariner. Though the gun remained among the stores and sleeping bags in the narrow quarters beneath our leaking deck, and the birds followed us unmolested. The eighth, ninth, and tenth days of the voyage had few features worthy of special notice. The wind blew hard during these days, and the strain of navigating the boat was unceasing, but always we made some advance toward our goal. No birds showed on our horizon, and we knew that we were clear of the ice fields. Each day brought us its little round of troubles, but also compensation in the form of food and growing hope. We felt that we were going to succeed. The odds against us had been great, but we were winning through. We still suffered severely from the cold, for though the temperature was rising, our vitality was declining, owing to shortage of food, exposure, and the necessity of maintaining our cramped positions day and night. I found that it was now absolutely necessary to prepare hot milk for all hands during the night in order to sustain life till dawn. This meant lighting the primus lamp in the darkness and involved an increased drain on our small store of matches. It was the rule that one match must serve when the primus was being lit. We had no lamp for the compass, and during the early days of the voyage we would strike a match when the steersman wanted to see the course at night. But later the necessity for strict economy impressed itself upon us, and the practice of striking matches at night was stopped. We had one watertight tin of matches. I had stowed away in a pocket in readiness for a sunny day, a lens from one of the telescopes, but this was of no use during the voyage. The sun seldom shone upon us. The glass of the compass got broken one night, and we contrived to mend it with adhesive tape from the medicine chest. One of the memories that comes to me from those days is of Korean singing at the tiller. He always sang when he was steering, and nobody ever discovered what the song was. It was devoid of tune and as monotonous as the chanting of a Buddhist monk at his prayers. Yet somehow it was cheerful. In moments of inspiration, Korean would attempt the wearing of the green. On the tenth night Worsley could not straighten his body after his spell at the tiller. He was thoroughly cramped, and we had to drag him beneath the decking and massage him before he could unbend himself and get into a sleeping bag. A hard northwesterly gale came up on the eleventh day, May 5, and shifted to the southwest in the late afternoon. The sky was overcast and occasional snow squalls added to the discomfort produced by a tremendous cross-sea, the worst I thought that we had experienced. At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and southwest. I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds, but the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted, For God's sakes, hold on, it's got us! Then came a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into ours. White surged the foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf. We were in a seething chaos of tortured water, but somehow the boat lived through it, half full of water, sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow. We bailed with the energy of men fighting for life, flinging the water over the sides with every receptacle that came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty we felt the boat renew her life beneath us. She floated again and ceased to lurch drunkenly as though dazed by the attack of the sea. Earnestly we hoped that never again would we encounter such a wave. The conditions in the boat, uncomfortable before, had been made worse by the deluge of water. All our gear was thoroughly wet again. Our cooking stove had been floating about in the bottom of the boat, and portions of our last hoosh seemed to have permeated everything. Not until three a.m. when we were all chilled almost to the limit of endurance did we manage to get the stove alight and make ourselves hot drinks. The carpenter was suffering particularly, but he showed grit and spirit. Vincent had for the past week ceased to be an active member of the crew, and I could not easily account for his collapse. Physically he was one of the strongest men in the boat. He was a young man. He has served on North Sea trawlers, and he should have been able to bear hardships better than McCarthy, who, not so strong, was always happy. CHAPTER IX THE BOAT JOURNEY The weather was better on the following day, May 6, and we got a glimpse of the sun. Worsley's observation showed that we were not more than a hundred miles from the northwest corner of South Georgia. Two more days with a favorable wind, and we would cite the promised land. I hoped that there would be no delay, for our supply of water was running very low. The hot drink at night was essential, but I decided that the daily allowance of water must be cut down to half a pint per man. The lumps of ice we had taken aboard had gone long ago. We were dependent upon the water we had brought from Elephant Island, and our thirst was increased by the fact that we were now using the brackish water in the breaker that had been slightly stove-in in the surf when the boat was being loaded. Some sea water had entered at that time. The thirst took possession of us. I dared not permit the allowance of water to be increased, since an unfavorable wind might drive us away from the island and lengthen our voyage by many days. Lack of water is always the most severe privation that men can be condemned to endure, and we found, as during our earlier boat voyage, that the salt water in our clothing and the salt spray that lashed our faces made our thirst grow quickly to a burning pain. I had to be very firm in refusing to allow anyone to anticipate the morrow's allowance, which I was sometimes begged to do. We did the necessary work dullly and hoped for the land. I had altered the course to the east so as to make sure of our striking the island, which would have been impossible to regain if we had run past the northern end. The course was laid on our scrap of chart for a point some thirty miles down the coast. That day and the following day passed for us in a sort of nightmare. Our mouths were dry and our tongues were swollen. The wind was still strong and the heavy sea forced us to navigate carefully, but any thought of our apparel from the waves was buried beneath the consciousness of our raging thirst. The bright moments were those when we each received our one mug of hot milk during the long, bitter watches of the night. Things were bad for us in those days, but the end was coming. The morning of May 8 broke thick and stormy with squalls from the northwest. We searched the waters ahead for a sign of land, and though we could see nothing more than had met our eyes for many days, we were cheered by a sense that the goal was near at hand. About ten o'clock that morning we passed a little bit of kelp, a glad signal of the proximity of land. An hour later we saw two shags sitting on a big mass of kelp and knew then that we must be within ten or fifteen miles of the shore. These birds are a sure indication of the proximity of land as a lighthouse, for they never venture far to sea. We gazed ahead with increasing eagerness, and at twelve-thirty p.m. threw a rift in the clouds, McCarthy caught a glimpse of the black cliffs of South Georgia, just fourteen days after our departure from Elephant Island. It was a glad moment, thirst-ridden, chilled and weak as we were, happiness irradiated us. The job was nearly done. We stood in towards the shore to look for a landing-place, and presently we could see the green, tusset grass on the ledges above the surf-beaten rocks. Ahead of us and to the south, blind rollers showed the presence of uncharted reefs along the coast. Here and there the hungry rocks were close to the surface, and over them the great waves broke, swirling viciously and spouting thirty and forty feet into the air. The rocky coast appeared to descend sheer to the sea. Our need of water and rest was well nigh desperate, but to have attempted a landing at that time would have been suicidal. Night was drawing near, and the weather indications were not favorable. There was nothing for it but to haul off till the following morning, so we stood away on the starboard tack until we had made what appeared to be a safe offing. Then we hoved to in the high westerly swell. The hours passed slowly as we waded to the dawn, which would herald, we fondly hoped, the last stage of our journey. Our thirst was a torment, and we could scarcely touch our food. The cold night seemed to strike right through our weakened bodies. At five a.m. the winds shifted to the northwest and quickly increased to one of the worst hurricanes any of us had ever experienced. A great cross-sea was running, and the winds simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves and converted the whole seascape into a haze of driving spray. Down into valleys, up to tossing heights, straining until her seams opened, swung our little boat, brave still but laboring heavily. We knew that the wind, instead of the sea, was driving us ashore, but we could do nothing. The dawn showed us a storm-torn ocean, and the morning passed without bringing us aside of the land. But at one p.m. through a rift in the flying mists we got a glimpse of the huge crags of the island and realized that our position had become desperate. We were on a deadly shore, and we could gauge our approach to the unseen cliffs by the roar of the breakers against the sheer walls of rock. I ordered the double-reefed mainsail to be set in the hope that we might claw off, and this attempt increased the strain upon the boat. The James card was bumping heavily, and the water was pouring in everywhere. Our thirst was forgotten in the realization of our eminent danger, as we bailed unceasingly and adjusted our weights from time to time. Occasional glimpses showed that the shore was nearer. I knew that Anahouk Island lay to the south of us, but our small and badly marked chart showed uncertain reefs in the passage between the island and the mainland, and I dared not trust it, though as a last resort we could try to lie under the lee of the island. The afternoon wore away as we edged down the coast, with the thunder of the breakers in our ears. The approach of evening found us still some distance from Anahouk Island, and dimly in the twilight we could see a snow-capped mountain looming above us. The chance of surviving the night with the driving gale in the implacable sea forcing us on to the lee shore seemed small. I think most of us had a feeling that the end was very near. Just after six p.m. in the dark as the boat was in the yeasty backwash from the seas flung from this ironbound coast, then, just when things looked their worst, they changed for the best. I have marveled often at the thin line that divides success from failure and the sudden turn that leads from apparent disaster to comparative safety. The wind suddenly shifted, and we were free once more to make an offing. Almost as soon as the gale eased, the pin that locked the mast to the thwart fell out. It must have been on the point of doing this throughout the hurricane, and if it had gone nothing could have saved us. The mast would have snapped like a carrot. Our backstays had carried away once before the ice was up, and were not too strongly fastened now. We were thankful indeed for the mercy that had held that pin in its place throughout the hurricane. We stood offshore again, tired almost to the point of apathy. Our water had long been finished. The last was about a pint of hairy liquid which we strained through a bit of gauze from the medicine chest. The pangs of thirst attacked us with redoubled intensity, and I felt that we must make a landing on the following day at almost any hazard. The night wore on. We were very tired. We longed for the day. When at last the dawn came on the morning of May 10, there was practically no wind, but a high crossy was running. We made slow progress towards the shore. About eight a.m. the wind back to the northwest and threatened another blow. We incited in the meantime a big indentation which I thought must be King Hakun Bay, and I decided that we must land there. We set the bowels of the boat toward the bay and ran before the freshening gale. Soon we had angry reefs on either side. Great glaciers came down to the sea and offered no landing place. The sea spouted on the reefs and thundered against the water. About noon we sided a line of jagged reef, like blackened teeth that seemed to bar the entrance to the bay. Inside comparatively smooth water stretched eight or nine miles to the head of the bay. A gap in the reef appeared, and we made for it. But the fates had another rebuff for us. The wind shifted in blue from the east right out of the bay. We could see the way through the reef, but we could not approach it directly. That afternoon we bore up, tacking five times in the strong wind. The last tack enabled us to get through, and at last we were in the wide mouth of the bay. Dusk was approaching. A small cove with a boulder-strewn beach guarded by a reef made a break in the cliffs on the south side of the bay, and we turned in that direction. I stood in the bowels directing the steering as we ran through the kelp and made the passage of the reef. The entrance was so narrow that we had to take in the yours, and the swell was piling itself right over the reef into the cove. But in a minute or two we were inside, and in the gathering darkness the James card ran in on a swell and touched the beach. I sprang ashore with the short painter and held on when the boat went out with the backward surge. When the James card came in again three of the men got ashore, and they held the painter while I climbed some rocks with another line. A slip on the wet rocks twenty feet up nearly closed my part of the story just at the moment when we were achieving safety. A jagged piece of rock held me and at the same time bruised me sorely. However I made fast the line, and in a few minutes we were all safe on the beach, with the boat floating in the surging water just off the shore. We heard a gurgling sound that was sweet music in our ears, and peering around found a stream of fresh water almost at our feet. A moment later we were down on our knees drinking the pure ice cold water in long drafts that put new life into us. It was a splendid moment. The next thing was to get the stores and ballast out of the boat in order that we might secure her for the night. We carried the stores and gear above high watermark and threw out the bags of sand and the boulders that we knew so well. Then we attempted to pull the empty boat up the beach, and discovered by this effort how weak we had become. Our united strength was not sufficient to get the James card clear of the water. Time after time we pulled together but without a veil. I saw that it would be necessary to have food and rest before we beached the boat. We made fast a line to a heavy boulder and set a watch to fend the James card off the rocks of the beach. Then I sent Crean round to the left side of the cove about thirty yards away where I had noticed a little cave as we were running in. He could not see much in the darkness, but reported that the place certainly promised some shelter. We carried the sleeping bags round and found a mere hollow in the rock face with a shingle floor sloping at a steep angle to the sea. There we prepared a hot meal, and when the food was finished I ordered the men to turn in. The time was now about eight p.m. and I took the first watch beside the James card, which was still afloat in the tossing water just off the beach. Fending the James card off the rocks in the darkness was awkward work. The boat would have bumped dangerously if allowed to ride in with the waves that drove into the cove. I found a flat rock for my feet, which were in a bad way owing to cold, wetness, and lack of exercise in the boat, and during the next few hours I labored to keep the James card clear of the beach. Finally I had to rush into the seething water. Then as a wave receded I let the boat out on the alpine rope so as to void a sudden jerk. The heavy painter had been lost when the sea anchor went adrift. The James card could be seen but dimly in the cove where the high black cliffs made the darkness almost complete, and the strain upon one's attention was great. After several hours had passed I found that my desire for sleep was becoming irresistible, and at one a.m. I called Creen. I could hear him groaning as he stumbled over the sharp rocks on his way down the beach. While he was taking charge of the James card she got adrift, and we had some anxious moments. Fortunately she went across towards the cave and we secured her unharmed. The loss or destruction of the little boat at this stage would have been a very serious matter, since we probably would have found it impossible to leave the cove except by sea. The cliffs and glaciers around offered no practicable path towards the head of the bay. I arranged for one hour watches during the remainder of the night and then took Creen's place among the sleeping men and got some sleep before the dawn came. The sea went down in the early hours of the morning, May 11, and after sunrise we were able to set about getting the boat ashore, first bracing ourselves for the task with another meal. We were all weak still. We cut off the top sides and took out all the movable gear. Then we waited for Byron's great ninth wave, and when it lifted the James card in we held her, and by dint of great exertion worked her around broadside to the sea. Inch by inch we dragged her up until we reached the fringe of the tusset grass and knew that the boat was above high water mark. The rise of the tide was about five feet, and at spring tide the water must have reached almost to the edge of the tusset grass. The completion of this job removed our immediate anxieties, and we were free to examine our surroundings and plan the next move. The day was bright and clear. King Hackon Bay is an eight-mile sound penetrating the coast of south Georgia in an easterly direction. We had noticed that the northern and southern sides of the sound were formed by steep mountain ranges, their flanks furrowed by mighty glaciers, the outlets of the great ice sheet of the interior. It was obvious that these glaciers and the precipitous slopes of the mountains bared our way inland from the cove. We must sail to the head of the sound. Swirling clouds and mist wreaths had obscured our view of the sound when we were entering, but glimpses of snow slopes had given us hope that an overland journey could be begun from that point. A few patches of very rough, tussocky land dotted with the little tarns lay between the glaciers along the foot of the mountains, which were heavily scarred with scree slopes. Several magnificent peaks and crags gazed out across their snowy domains to the sparkling waters of the sound. Our cove lay a little inside the southern headland of King Hackon Bay. A narrow break in the cliffs, which were about a hundred feet high at this point, formed the entrance to the cove. The cliffs continued inside the cove on each side and merged into a hill which descended at a steep slope to the boulder beach. The slope, which carried tussock grass, was not continuous. It eased at two points into little peaty swamp terraces dotted with frozen pools and drained by two small streams. Our cave was a recess in the cliff on the left-hand end of the beach. The rocky face of the cliff was undercut at this point, and the shingle thrown up by the waves formed a steep slope, which we reduced to about one in six by scraping the stones away from the inside. Later we strewed the rough floor with the dead, nearly dry underleaves of the tussock grass, so as to form a slightly soft bed for our sleeping beds. Water had trickled down the face of the cliff and formed long icicles, which hung down in front of the cave to the length of about 15 feet. These icicles provided shelter, and when we had spread our sails below them with the assistance of oars, we had quarters that, in the circumstances, had to be regarded as reasonably comfortable. The camp, at least, was dry, and we moved our gear there with confidence. We built a fireplace and arranged our sleeping bags and blankets around it. The cave was about eight foot deep and 12 foot wide at the entrance. While the camp was being arranged, Creein and I climbed the tussock slope behind the beach and reached the top of a headland overlooking the sound. There we found the nests of albatrosses, and much to our delight, the nest contained young birds. The fledglings were fat and lusty, and we had no hesitation about deciding that they were destined to die at an early age. Our most pressing anxiety at this stage was a shortage of fuel for the cooker. We had rations for 10 more days, and we knew now that we could get birds for food. But if we were to have hot meals, we must secure fuel. The store of petroleum carried in the boat was running very low, and it seemed necessary to keep some quantity for use on the overland journey that lay ahead of us. A sea elephant or a seal would have provided fuel as well as food, but we could see none in the neighborhood. During the morning we started a fire in the cave with wood from the top sides of the boat, and though the dense smoke from the damp sticks inflamed our tired eyes, the warmth and the prospect of hot food were ample compensation. Creein was cooked that day, and I suggested to him that he should wear his goggles, which he happened to have brought with him. The goggles helped him a great deal as he bent over the fire and tended the stew. And what a stew it was! The young albatrosses weighed about fourteen pounds each, fresh killed, and we estimated that they weighed at least six pounds each when cleaned and dressed for the pot. Four birds went into the pot for six men, with a vulveral ration for thickening. The flesh was white and succulent, and the bones not fully formed almost melted in our mouths. That was a memorable meal. When we had eaten our fill we dried our tobacco in the embers of the fire and smoked contentedly. We made an attempt to dry our clothes which were soaked with saltwater, but did not meet with much success. We could not afford to have a fire except for cooking purposes until blubber or driftwood had come our way. The final stage of the journey had still to be attempted. I realized that the condition of the party generally, and particularly of Magnesian Vincent, would prevent us from putting to sea again except under pressure of dire necessity. Our boat, moreover, had been weakened by the cutting away of the top sides, and I doubted if we could weather the island. We were still one hundred and fifty miles away from Stormness whaling station by sea. The alternative was to attempt the crossing of the island. If we could not get over then we must try to secure enough food and fuel to keep us alive through the winter, but this possibility was scarcely thinkable. Over on Elephant Island twenty-two men were waiting for the relief that we alone could secure for them. Their plight was worse than ours. We must push on somehow. Several days must elapse before our strength would be sufficiently recovered to allow us to row or sail the last nine miles up to the head of the bay. In the meantime we could make what preparations were possible and dry our clothes by taking advantage of every scrap of heat from the fires we lit for the cooking of our meals. We turned in early that night, and I remember that I dreamed of the great wave and aroused my companions with a shout of warning as I saw with half-awakened eyes the towering cliff on the opposite side of the cove. Shortly before midnight a gale sprang up suddenly from the northeast with rain and sleet showers. It brought quantities of glacier ice into the cove, and by two a.m., May twelve, our little harbor was filled with ice, which surged to and fro in the swell and pushed its way onto the beach. We had solid rock beneath our feet and could watch without anxiety. When daylight came rain was falling heavily and the temperature was the highest we had experienced for many months. The icicles overhanging our cave were melting down in streams and we had to move smartly when passing in and out lest we should be struck by falling lumps. A fragment weighing fifteen or twenty pounds crashed down while we were having breakfast. We found that a big hole had been burned in the bottom of Worsley's reindeer sleeping bag during the night. Worsley had been awakened by a burning sensation in his feet, and had asked the men near him if his bag was all right. They looked and could see nothing wrong. We were all superficially frostbitten about the feet, and this condition caused the extremities to burn painfully, while at the same time sensation was lost in the skin. Worsley thought that the uncomfortable heat of his feet was due to the frostbites, and he stayed in his bag and presently went to sleep again. He discovered when he turned out in the morning that the tusset grass which we had laid on the floor of the cave had smoldered outwards from the fire and had actually burned a large hole in the bag beneath his feet. Worsley's feet were not harmed. Our party spent a quiet day, attending to clothing and gear, checking stores, eating and resting. Some more of the young albatrosses made a noble end in our pot. The birds were nesting on a small plateau above the right-hand end of our beach. We had previously discovered that when we were landing from the boat on the night of May 10 we had lost the rudder. The James card had been bumping heavily a stern as we were scrambling ashore, and evidently the rudder was then knocked off. A careful search of the beach and the rocks within our reach failed to reveal the missing article. This was a serious loss, even if the voyage to the head of the sound could be made in good weather. At dusk the ice in the cove was rearing and crashing on the beach. It had forced up a ridge of stones close to where the James card lay at the edge of the tusset grass. Some pieces of ice were driven right up to the canvas wall at the front of our cave. Fragments lodged within two feet of Vincent, who had the lowest sleeping place, and within four feet of our fire. Crean and McCarthy had brought down six more of the young albatrosses in the afternoon, so we were well supplied with fresh food. The air temperature that night probably was not lower than thirty-eight or forty degrees Fahrenheit, and we were rendered uncomfortable in our cramped sleeping quarters by the unaccustomed warmth. Our feelings towards our neighbors underwent a change. When the temperature was below twenty degrees Fahrenheit we could not get too close to one another. Every man wanted to cuddle against his neighbor. But let the temperature rise a few degrees, and the warmth of another man's body ceased to be a blessing. The ice and the waves had a voice of menace that night, but I heard it only in my dreams. by Sir Ernest Shackleton. CHAPTER IX The Boat Journey, Part IV The bay was still filled with ice on the morning of Saturday, May 13, but the tide took it all away in the afternoon. Then a strange thing happened. The rudder, with all the broad Atlantic to sail and the coasts of two continents to search for a resting place, came bobbing back into our cove. With anxious eyes we watched it as it advanced, receded again, and then advanced once more under the capricious influence of wind and wave. Nearer and nearer it came as we waited on the shore, oars in hand, and at last we were able to seize it. Surely a remarkable salvage. The day was bright and clear, our clothes were drying and our strength was returning. Running water made a musical sound down the tussock slope and among the boulders. We carried our blankets up the hill and tried to dry them in the breeze three hundred foot above sea level. In the afternoon we began to prepare the James card for the journey to the head of King Hacken Bay. A noon observation on this day gave our latitude as fifty-four degrees ten minutes forty-seven seconds south, but according to the German chart the position should have been fifty-four degrees twelve minutes south. Probably Worsley's observation was the more accurate. We were able to keep the fire alight until we went to sleep that night, for while climbing the rocks above the cove I had seen at the foot of a cliff a broken spar, which had been thrown up by the waves. We could reach this spar by climbing down the cliff and, with a reserve supply of fuel thus in sight, we could afford to burn the fragments of the James card's top sides more freely. During the morning of this day, May 13, Worsley and I tramped across the hills in a northeasterly direction with the object of getting a view of the sound and possibly gathering some information that would be useful to us in the next stage of our journey. It was exhausting work, but after covering about two and a half miles in two hours we were able to look east up the bay. We could not see very much of the country that we would have to cross in order to reach the whaling station on the other side of the island. We had passed several brooks and frozen tarns, and at a point where we had to take to the beach on the shore of the sound we found some wreckage, an eighteen-foot pine spar, probably part of a ship's top mast, several pieces of timber, and a little model of a ship's hull, evidently a child's toy. We wondered what tragedy that pitiful little plaything indicated. We encountered also some gentoo penguins and a young sea elephant, which Worsley killed. When we got back to the cave at three p.m., tired, hungry, but rather pleased with ourselves, we found a splendid meal of stewed albatross chicken waiting for us. We had carried a quantity of blubber and the sea elephant's liver in our blouses, and we produced our treasures as a surprise for the men. Rough climbing on the way back to camp had nearly persuaded us to throw the stuff away, but we held on, regardless of the condition of our already sorely tried clothing, and had our reward at the camp. The long bay had been a magnificent sight, even to eyes that had dwelt on grandeur long enough and were hungry for the simple, familiar things of everyday life. Its green blue waters were being beaten to a fury by the northwesterly gale. The mountains, stern peaks that dared the stars, peered through the mists, and between them huge glaciers poured down from that great ice slopes and fields that lay beyond. We counted twelve glaciers and heard every few minutes the reverberating roar caused by the masses of ice calving from the parent's streams. On May 14 we made our preparations for an early start on the following day if the weather held fair. We expected to be able to pick up the remains of the sea elephant on our way up the sound. All hands were recovering from the chafing caused by our wet clothes during the boat journey. The insides of our legs had suffered severely, and for some time after landing in the cove we found movement extremely uncomfortable. We paid our last visit to the nests of the albatrosses, which were situated on a little undulating plateau above the cave amid tussocks, snow patches, and little frozen tarns. Each nest consisted of a mound over a foot high of tussock grass, roots, and a little earth. The albatross lays one egg and very rarely two. The chicks, which are hatched in January, are fed on the nest by the parent birds for almost seven months before they take to the sea and fend for themselves. Up to four months of age the chicks are beautiful white masses of downy fluff, but when we arrived on the scene their plumage was almost complete. Very often one of the parent birds was on guard near the nest. We did not enjoy attacking these birds, but our hunger knew no law. They tasted so very good and assisted our recuperation to such an extent that each time we killed one of them we felt a little less remorseful. May fifteen was a great day. We made our hoosh at seven thirty a.m. Then we loaded up the boat and gave her a flying launch down the steep beach into the surf. Heavy rain had fallen in the night and a gusty northwesterly wind was now blowing with misty showers. The James card headed to the sea as if anxious to face the battle of the waves once more. We passed through the narrow mouth of the cove with the ugly rocks and waving kelp close on either side, turned to the east, and sailed merrily up the bay as the sun broke through the mists and made the tossing water sparkle around us. We were a curious looking party on that bright morning, but we were feeling happy. We even broke into song, and, but for our Robinson Caruso appearance, a casual observer might have taken us for a picnic party sailing in a Norwegian fjord, or one of the beautiful sounds of the west coast of New Zealand. The wind blew fresh and strong, and a small sea broke on the coast as we advanced. The surf was sufficient to have endangered the boat if we had attempted to land where the carcass of the sea elephant was lying, so we decided to go on to the head of the bay without risking anything, particularly as we were likely to find sea elephants on the upper beaches. The big creatures have a habit of seeking peaceful quarters protected from the waves. We had hopes, too, of finding penguins. Our expectation as far as the sea elephants were concerned was not at fault. We heard the roar of the bulls as we neared the head of the bay, and soon afterwards saw the great unwieldy forms of the beast lying on a shelving beach towards the bay head. We rounded a high, glacier-worn bluff on the north side, and at twelve-thirty p.m. we ran the boat ashore on a low beach of sand and pebbles, with tusk sick growing above high watermark. There were hundreds of sea elephants lying about, and our anxieties with regard to food disappeared. Food and blubber enough to feed our party for years was in sight. Our landing-place was about a mile-and-a-half west of the northeast corner of the bay. Just east of us was a glacier-snout ending on the beach but giving a passage towards the head of the bay, except at high water or when a very heavy surf was running. A cold, drizzling rain had begun to fall, and we provided ourselves with shelter as quickly as possible. We hauled the James card up above the high watermark and turned her over just to the lee or east side of the bluff. The spot was separated from the mountainside by a low, moranic bank, rising twenty or thirty feet above sea level. Soon we had converted the boat into a very comfortable cabin, a la Pegatee, turfitting it round with tusks, which we dug up with knives. One side of the James card rested on stones so as to afford a low entrance, and when we had finished she looked as though she had grown there. We entered into this work with great spirit. A sea-elephant provided us with fuel and meat, and that evening found a well-fed and fairly contented party at rest in Pegatee camp. Our camp, as I have said, lay on the north side of King Hacken Bay near the head. Our path towards the whaling stations led round the seaward end of the snouted glacier on the east side of the camp, and up a snow-slope that appeared to lead to a pass in the great Allardyce range, which runs northwest and southeast and forms the main backbone of South Georgia. The range dipped opposite the bay into a well-defined pass from east to west. An ice-sheet covered most of the interior, filling the valleys and disguising the configurations of the land, which indeed showed only in big rocky ridges, peaks, and nunnetucks. When we looked up the pass from Pegatee camp, the country to the left appeared to offer too easy pass through to the opposite coast, but we knew that the island was uninhabited at that point, possession bay. We had to turn our attention farther east, and it was impossible from the camp to learn much of the conditions that would confront us on the overland journey. I planned to climb to the pass and then be guided by the configuration of the country in the selection of a route eastward to Stromnes Bay, where the whaling stations were established in the minor bays, Leith, Husvick, and Stromnes. A range of mountains with precipitous slopes, forbidding peaks, and large glaciers lay immediately to the south of King Hakun Bay, and seemed to form a continuation of the main range. Between this secondary range and the pass above our camp, a great snow upland sloped to the inland ice-sheet and reached a rocky ridge that stretched a thwart our path and seemed to bar the way. This ridge was a right-angled offshoot from the main ridge. Its chief features were four rocky peaks, with spaces between that looked from a distance as though they might prove to be passes. The weather was bad on Tuesday, May 16, and we stayed under the boat nearly all day. The quarters were cramped but gave full protection from the weather, and we regarded our little cabin with a great deal of satisfaction. Abundant meals of sea-elephant steak and liver increased our contentment. McNiche reported during the day that he had seen rats feeding on the scraps, but this interesting statement was not verified. One would not expect to find rats at such a spot, but there was a bare possibility that they had landed from a wreck and managed to survive the very rigorous conditions. A fresh west-southwesterly breeze was blowing on the following morning, Wednesday, May 17, with misty squalls, sleet, and rain. I took Worsley with me on a pioneer journey to the west with the object of examining the country to be traversed at the beginning of the overland journey. We went round the seaward end of the snouted glacier, and, after tramping about a mile over stony ground and snow-coated debris, we crossed some big ridges of scree and moraines. We found that there was a good going for a sledge as far as the northeast corner of the bay, but did not get much information regarding the conditions farther on, owing to the view becoming obscured by a snow squall. We waited a quarter of an hour for the weather to clear, but were forced to turn back without having seen more of the country. I had satisfied myself, however, that we could reach a good snow slope leading, apparently, to the inland ice. Worsley reckoned from the chart that the distance from our camp to Husvick, on an east magnetic course, was seventeen geographical miles, but we could not expect to follow a direct line. The carpenter started making a sledge for use on the overland journey. The materials at his disposal were limited in quantity and scarcely suitable in quality. We overhauled our gear on Thursday, May 18, and hauled our sledge to the lower ledge of the snouted glacier. The vehicle proved heavy and cumbrous. We had to lift it empty over bare patches of rock along the shore, and I realized that it would be too heavy for three men to manage amid the snow planes, glaciers, and peaks of the interior. Worsley and Creen were coming with me, and after consultation we decided to leave the sleeping bags behind us and make the journey in a very light marching order. We would take three days' provisions for each man in the form of sledging ration and biscuit. The food was to be packed in three sacks, so that each member of the party could carry his own supply. Then we were to take the primus lamp filled with oil, the small cooker, the carpenter's ads for uses in ice-axe, and the alpine rope which made a total length of fifty feet when knotted. We might have to lower ourselves down steep slopes or cross crevast glaciers. The filled lamp would provide six hot meals, which would consist of sledging ration boiled up with biscuit. There were two boxes and matches left, one full and the other partially used. We left the full box with the men at the camp and took the second box, which contained forty-eight matches. I was unfortunate as regarded footgear, since I had given away my heavy berbery boots on the flow, and had now a comparatively light pair in poor condition. The carpenter assisted me by putting several screws in the sole of each boot with the object of providing a grip on the ice. The screws came out of the James cart. We turned in early that night, but sleep did not come to me. My mind was busy with the task of the following day. The weather was clear, and the outlook for an early start in the morning was good. We were going to leave a weak party behind us in the camp. Vincent was still in the same condition, and he could not march. McNeish was pretty well broken up. The two men were not capable of managing for themselves, and McCarthy must stay to look after them. He might have a difficult task if we failed to reach the whaling station. The distance to Husvick, according to the chart, was no more than seventeen geographical miles in a direct line, but we had very scanty knowledge of the conditions of the interior. No man had ever penetrated a mile from the coast of South Georgia at any point, and the whalers I knew regarded the country as inaccessible. During that day, while we were walking to the snouted glacier, we had seen three wild ducks flying towards the head of the bay from the eastward. I hoped that the presence of these birds indicated tussock land and not snow fields and glaciers in the interior, but the hope was not a very bright one. We turned out at two a.m. on the Friday morning and had our hoosh ready an hour later. The full moon was shining in a practically cloudless sky. Its rays reflected gloriously from the pinnacles and creviced ice of the adjacent glaciers. The huge peaks of the mountains stood in bold relief against the sky and threw dark shadows on the waters of the sound. There was no need for delay, and we made a start as soon as we had eaten our meal. McNeish walked about two hundred yards with us. He could do no more. Then we said goodbye, and he turned back to the camp. The first task was to get round the edge of the snouted glacier, which had points like fingers projecting towards the sea. The waves were reaching the points of these fingers, and we had to rush from one recess to another when the waters receded. We soon reached the east side of the glacier and noticed its great activity at this point. Changes had occurred within the preceding twenty-four hours. Some huge pieces had broken off, and the masses of mud and stone that were being driven before the advancing ice showed movement. The glacier was like a gigantic plow driving irresistibly towards the sea. Lying on the beach beyond the glacier was wreckage that was told of many ill-fated ships. We noticed staunchens of teakwood, liberally carved, that must have come from ships of the older type, iron-bound timbers with the iron almost rested through, battered barrels, and all the usual debris of the ocean. We had difficulties and anxieties of our own, but as we passed that graveyard of the sea we thought of the many tragedies written in the wave-borne fragments of lost vessels. We did not pause, and soon we were ascending along a snow slope heading due east on the last lap of our long trail. The snow surface was disappointing. Two days before we had been able to move rapidly on hard-packed snow, now we sank over our ankles at each step and progress was slow. After two hours steady climbing we were twenty-five hundred feet above sea level. The weather continued fine and calm, and as the ridges drew nearer and the western coast of the island spread out below, the bright moonlight showed us that the interior was broken tremendously. High peaks, impassable cliffs, steep snow slopes, and sharply descending glaciers were prominent features in all directions, with stretches of snow plain overlaying the ice sheet of the interior. The slope we were ascending mounted to a ridge and our course lay direct to the top. The moon, which proved a good friend during this journey, threw a long shadow at one point and told us that the surface was broken in our path. And in time we avoided a huge hole capable of swallowing an army. The bay was now about three miles away and the continued roaring of a big glacier at the head of the bay came to our ears. This glacier, which we had noticed during the day at Pegatee Camp, seemed to be calving almost continuously. I had hope to get a view of the country ahead of us from the top of the slope, but as the surface became more level beneath our feet a thick fog drifted down. The moon became obscured and produced a diffused light that was more trying than darkness, since it illuminated the fog without guiding our steps. We roped ourselves together as a precaution against holds, crevasses, and precipices, and I broke trail through the stoff's snow. With almost the full length of the rope between myself and the last man we were able to steer an approximate straight course, since if I veered to the right or the left when marching into the blank wall of the fog, the last man on the rope could shout a direction. So like a ship with its port, starbird, and steady, we tramped through the fog for the next two hours. Then as daylight came, the fog thinned and lifted, and from an elevation of about three thousand feet we looked down on what seemed to be a huge frozen lake, with its farther shores still obscured by the fog. We halted there to eat a bit of biscuit while we discussed whether we would go down and cross the flat surface of the lake, or keep on the ridge we had already reached. I decided to go down, since the lake lay on our course. After an hour of comparatively easy travel through the snow we noticed the thin beginnings of crevasses. Soon they were increasing in size and showing fractures, indicating that we were traveling on a glacier. As the daylight brightened the fog dissipated, the lake could be seen more clearly, but still we could not discover its east shore. A little later the fog lifted completely, and then we saw that our lake stretched to the horizon, and realized suddenly that we were looking down upon the open sea on the east coast of the island. The slight pulsation at the shore soared that the sea was not even frozen. It was the bad light that had deceived us. Evidently, we were at the top of Possession Bay, and the island at that point could not be more than five miles across from the head of King Hakan Bay. Our rough chart was inaccurate. There was nothing for it but to start up the glacier again. That was about seven o'clock in the morning, and by nine o'clock we had more than recovered our lost ground. We regained the ridge and then struck southeast, for the chart showed that two more bays indented the coast before stromeness. It was comforting to realize that we would have the eastern water in sight during our journey, although we could see there was no way around the shoreline owing to steep cliffs and glaciers. Everyone lived in houses lit by electric light on the east coast. News of the outside world waited us there, and above all the east coast meant for us the means of rescuing the twenty-two men we had left on Elephant Island. End of Chapter 9, Part 4. The sun rose in the sky with every appearance of a fine day, and we grew warmer as we toiled through the soft snow. Ahead of us lay the ridges and spurs of a range of mountains, the transverse range that we'd noticed from the bay. We were travelling over a gently rising plateau, and at the end of an hour we found ourselves growing uncomfortably hot. Years before, on an earlier expedition, I had declared that I would never again growl at the heat of the sun, and my resolution had been strengthened during the boat journey. I called it to mind as the sun beat fiercely on the blinding white snow slope. After passing an area of crevasses, we passed for our first meal. We dug a hole in the snow about three feet deep with the adds and put the primers into it. There was no wind at the moment, but a gust might come suddenly. A hot hush was soon eaten, and we plotted on towards a sharp ridge between two of the peaks already mentioned. By eleven a.m. we were almost at the crest. The slope had become precipitous, and it was necessary to cut steps as we advanced. The adds proved an excellent instrument for this purpose, a blow sufficing to provide a foothold. Anxiously but hopefully I cut the last few steps and stood upon the razorback, while the other man held the rope and waited for my news. The outlook was disappointing. I looked down a sheer precipice to a chaos of crumpled ice fifteen hundred feet below. There was no way down for us. The country to the east was a great snow upland, sloping upwards for a distance of seven or eight miles to a height of over four thousand feet. To the north it fell away steeply in glaciers into the bays, and to the south it was broken by huge outfalls from the inland ice sheet. Our path lay between the glaciers and the outfalls, but first we had to descend from the ridge on which we stood. Cutting steps with the adds, we moved in an electoral direction round the bays of a dolomite which blocked our view to the north. The same precipice confronted us. Away to the northeast there appeared to be a snow slope that might give a path to the lower country, and so we retraced our steps down the long slope that had taken us three hours to climb. We were at the bottom in an hour. We were now feeling the strain of the unaccustomed marching. We had done little walking since January, and our muscles were out of tune. Skirting the bays of the mountain above us, we came to a gigantic Beerschrund, a mile-and-a-half long and one thousand feet deep. This tremendous gully, cut in the snow and ice by the fierce winds blowing round the mountain, was semicircular in form, and it ended in a gentle incline. We passed through it, under the towering precipice of ice, and at the far end we had another meal and a short rest. This was at twelve-thirty p.m. Half a pot of steaming bovereal ration warmed us up, and when we marched again, icing clines at angles of forty-five degrees did not look quite as formidable as before. Once more we started for the crest. After another wary climb we reached the top. The snow lay thinly on blue ice at the ridge, and we had to cut steps over the last fifty yards. The same precipice lay below, and my eyes surged vainly for a way down. The hot sun had loosened the snow, which was now in a treacherous condition, and we had to pick our way carefully. Looking back we could see that a fog was rolling up behind us, and meeting in the valleys a fog that was coming up from the east. The creeping grey clouds were a plain warning that we must get down to lower levels before becoming enveloped. The ridge was started with peaks, which prevented us getting a clear view either to the right or to the left. The situation in this respect seemed no better at other points within our reach, and I had to decide that our course lay back the way we had come. The afternoon was wearing on, and the fog was rolling up ominously from the west. It was of the utmost importance for us to get down into the next valley before dark. We were now up 4,500 feet, and the night temperature at that elevation would be very low. We had no tent and no sleeping bags, and our clothes had endured much rough usage, and it weathered many storms during the last ten months. In the distance, down the valley below us, we could see tussock grass close to the shore, and if we could get down it might be possible to dig out a hole in one of the lower snow banks, line it with dry grass, and make ourselves fairly comfortable for the night. Back we went, and after a detour we reached the top of another ridge in the fading light. After a glance over the top, I turned to the anxious faces of the two men behind me and said, Come on, boys. Within a minute they stood beside me on the ice ridge. The surface fell away at a sharp incline in front of us, but it merged into a snow slope. We could not see the bottom clearly, owing to the mist and bad light, and the possibility of the slope ending in a sheer fall occurred to us. But the fog that was creeping up behind allowed no time for hesitation. We descended slowly at first, cutting steps in the snow. Then the surface became softer, indicating that the gradient was less severe. There could be no turning back now, so we unrobed and slid in the fashion of youthful days. When we stopped on a snowbank at the foot of the slope, we found that we descended at least 900 feet in two or three minutes. We looked back and saw the gray fingers of the fog appearing on the ridge, as though reaching after the intruders into untrodden wilds. But we had escaped. The country to the east was an ascending snow upland, dividing the glaciers of the north coast from the outfalls of the south. We'd seen from the top that our course lay between two huge masses of crevasses, and we thought that the road ahead lay clear. This belief and the increasing cold made us abandon the idea of camping. We had another meal at 6 p.m. A little breeze made cooking difficult in spite of the shelter provided for the cooker by a whole. Cream was to cook, and, worstly an eye, lay on the snow to windward of the lamp so as to break the wind with our bodies. The meal over, we started up the long, gentle ascent. Night was upon us, and for an hour we plotted along in an almost complete darkness, watching warily for signs of crevasses. Then about 8 p.m., a glow which we'd seen behind the jacket peaks resolved itself into the full moon, which rose ahead of us, and made a silver pathway for our feet. Along that pathway in the wake of the moon, we advanced in safety, with the shadows cast by the edges of crevasses showing black on either side of us. Onwards and upwards through the soft snow we marched, resting now and then on hard patches which had revealed themselves by glittering ahead of us in the white light. By midnight we were again at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. Still we were following the light, for as the moon swung round towards the northeast, our path curved in that direction. The friendly moon seemed to pilot our wary feet. We could have had no better guide. If in bright daylight we had made that march, we would have followed the course that was traced for us that night. Midnight found us approaching the edge of a great snow field, pierced by isolated none-attacks, which cast long shadows like black rivers along the wide expanse. A gentle slope to the northeast lured our all-too-willing feet in that direction. We thought that at the base of the slope lay Stromnus Bay. After we'd descended about 300 feet, a thin wind began to attack us. We'd now been on the march for over 20 hours, only halting for our occasional meals. Wisps of cloud drove over the high peaks to the southward, warning us that wind and snow were likely to come. After one a.m. we cut a pit in the snow, piled up loose snow around it, and started the primers again. The hot food gave us another renewal of energy. Wesley and Queen sang their old songs when the primers was going merrily. Laughter was in our hearts, though not on our parched and cracked lips. We were up and away again within half an hour, still downward to the coast. We felt almost sure now that we were above Stromnus Bay. A dark object down at the foot of the slope looked like mutton island, which lies off Hasvik. I suppose our desires were giving wings to our fancies, for we pointed out joyfully various landmarks revealed by the now-vacrant light of the moon, whose friendly face was cloud-swept. Our high hopes were soon shattered. Crevasses warned us that we were on another glacier, and soon we looked down almost to the sea-well edge of the Great Riven ice-mass. I knew there was no glacier in Stromnus, and realized that this must be Fortuna Glacier. The disappointment was severe. Back we turned, and tramped up the glacier again, not directly tracing our steps, but working at a tangent to the southeast. We were very tired. At five a.m. we were at the foot of the rocky spurs of the range. We were tired, and the wind that blew down from the heights was chilling us. We decided to get down under the lee of a rock for a rest. We put our sticks and the ads on the snow, sat down on them as close to one another as possible, and put our arms round each other. The wind was bringing a little drift with it, and the white dust lay on our clothes. I thought that we might be able to keep warm and have half an hour's rest this way. Within a minute my two companions were fast asleep. I realized that it would be disastrous if we all slumbered together for sleep under such conditions merges into death. After five minutes I shook them into consciousness again, told them that they had slept for half an hour, and gave the word for a fresh start. We were so stiff that for the first two or three hundred yards we marched with our knees bent. A jagged line of peaks with a gap like a broken tooth confronted us. This was the ridge that runs in a southerly direction from Fortuna Bay, and our course eastward to Stromnes lay across it. A very steep slope led up to the ridge, and an icy wind burst through the gap. We went through the gap at six a.m., with anxious hearts as well as wary bodies. If the farther slope had proved impassable, our situation would have been almost desperate, but the worst was turning to the best for us. The twisted, wave-like rock formations of Huswick Harbour appeared right ahead in the opening of dawn. Without a word we shook hands with one another. To our minds the journey was over, though as a matter of fact twelve miles of difficult country had still to be traversed. A gentle snow slope descended at our feet towards a valley that separated our ridge from the hills immediately behind Huswick, and as we stood gazing, worthily said solemnly, Boss, it looks too good to be true. When we went, to be checked presently by the side of water, two thousand five hundred feet below, we could see the little rave ripples on the black beach, penguins strutting to and fro, and dark objects that looked like seals lolling lazily on the sand. This was an eastern arm of Fortuna Bay, separated by the ridge from the arm we had seen below us during the night. The slope we were traversing appeared to end in a precipice above this beach, but our revived spirit were not to be damned by difficulties on the last stage of the journey, and we camped cheerfully for breakfast. Whilst Worsley and Creen were digging a hole for the lamp and starting the cooker, I climbed a ridge above us, cutting steps with the ads in order to secure an extended view of the country below. At six thirty a.m. I thought I heard the sound of a steam whistle. I dared not be certain, but I knew that the men at the wailing station would be called from their beds about that time. Descending to the camp I told the others, and in intense excitement we watched the chronometer for seven o'clock when the wailers would be summoned to work. Right to the minute the steam whistle came to us, born clearly on the wind across the intervening miles of rock and snow. Never had any one of us heard sweeter music. It was the first sound created by outside human agency that had come to our ears since we left Strumless Bay in December 1914. That whistle told us that men were living near, that ships were ready, and that within a few hours we should be on our way back to Elephant Island to the rescue of the men waiting there under the watch and ward of wild. It was a moment hard to describe. Pain and ache, boat journeys, marches, hunger and fatigue seemed to belong to the limbo of forgotten things, and they remained only the perfect contentment that comes of work accomplished. My examination of the country from a higher point had not provided definite information, and after descending I put the situation before Worsley and Creen. Our obvious cause lay down a snow slope in the direction of Husvick. Boy, as I said, this snow slope seems to end in a precipice, but perhaps there is no precipice. If we don't go down we shall have to make a detour of at least five miles before we reach level going. What shall it be? They both replied at once, try the slope. So we started our way again downwards. We abandoned the prime's lamp, now empty, at the breakfast camp, and carried with us one ration and a biscuit each. The deepest snow we had yet encountered clocked our feet, but we plotted downward, and after descending about 500 feet, reducing our altitude 2,000 feet above sea level, we thought we saw the way clear ahead. A steep gradient of blue eyes was the next obstacle. Worsley and Creen got a firm footing in a hole excavated with the adds, and then lowered me as I cut steps, until the full fifty feet of our alpine rope was out. Then I made a hole big enough for the three of us, and the other two men came down the steps. My end of the rope was anchored to the adds, and I had settled myself on the hole braced for a strain in case it slipped. When we all stood in the second hole, I went down again to make more steps, and in this laborious fashion we spent two hours descending about 500 feet. Halfway down we had to strike away diagonally to the left, for we noticed that the fragments of ice loosened by the adds were taking a leap into space at the bottom of the slope. Eventually we got off the steep ice very gratefully, at a point where some rocks protruded, and we could see then that there was a perilous precipice directly below the point where we had started to cut steps. A slide down a slippery slope with the adds and our cooker going ahead completed this descent, and incidentally did considerable damage to our much tried trousers. When we picked ourselves up at the bottom we were not more than 1500 feet above the sea. The slope was comparatively easy. Water was running beneath the snow, making pockets between the rocks that protruded along the wide surface. The shells of snow over these pockets were traps for our feet, but we scrambled down, and presently came to patches of tussock. A few minutes later we reached the sandy beach. The tracks of some animals were to be seen, and we were puzzled until I remembered that reindeer, brought from Norway, had been placed on the island and now ranged along the lower land of the eastern coast. We did not pause to investigate. Our minds were set upon reaching the hounds of man, and at our best speed we went along the beach to another rising ridge of tussock. Here we saw the first evidence of the proximity of man, whose work, as is so often the case, was one of destruction. A recently killed seal was lying there, and presently we saw several other bodies bearing the marks of bullet wounds. I learned later that men from the wailing station at Stromnes sometimes go around to Fortuna Bay by boat to shoot seals. Nunn found us well up the slope on the other side of the bay, working east-southeast, and half an hour later we were on a flat plateau, with one more ridge to cross before we descended into Hasvik. I was leading the way over this plateau, when I suddenly found myself up to my knees in water and quickly sinking deeper through the snowcrust. I flung myself down and called to the others to do the same, so as to distribute our weight on the treacherous surface. We were on top of a small lake, snow-covered. After lying still for a few moments, we got to our feet and walked delicately, like a gag, for two hundred yards, until a rise in the surface showed us that we were clear of the lake. At one-thirty p.m. we climbed round the final ridge and saw a little steamer, a wailing boat, entering the bay two thousand five hundred feet below. A few moments later, as we hurried forward, the masts of a sailing ship lying at a wharf came in sight. My nude figures moving to and fro about the boats caught our gaze, and then we saw the sheds and factory of Stromnes' wailing station. We paused and shook hands, a form of mutual congratulation that had seemed necessary in four other occasions in the course of the expedition. The first time was when we landed on Elephant Island, the second when we reached South Georgia, and the third when we reached the ridge and saw the snow slope stretching below on the first day of the overland journey, then when we saw Husfeg Rocks. Cautiously, we started down the slope that led to warmth and comfort. The last lap of the journey proved extraordinarily difficult. Vainly, we searched for a safe, or reasonably safe, way down the steep ice-clad mountainside. The sole possible pathway seemed to be a channel cut by water running from the upland. Down through icy water we followed the course of the stream. We were red to the waist, shivering, cold and tired. Presently, our ears detected an unwelcome sound that might have been musical under other conditions. It was the splashing of a waterfall, and we were at the wrong end. When we reached the top of this fall, we peered over cautiously and discovered that there was a drop of 25 or 30 feet with impassable ice-cliffs on both sides. To go up again was scarcely thinkable in our utterly wearied condition. The way down was through the waterfall itself. We made fast one end of our rope to a boulder with some difficulty due to the fact that the rocks had been worn smooth by the running water. Then Wesley and I lowered Creen, who was the heaviest man. He disappeared altogether in the falling water and came out gasping at the bottom. I went next, sliding down the rope, and Wesley, who was the lightest and most nimble member of the party, came last. At the bottom of the fall, we were able to stand again on dry land. The rope could not be recovered. We'd flung down the ads from the top of the fall and also the logbook and the cooker wrapped in one of our blouses. That was all except our wet clothes that we brought out of the Antarctic, which we had entered a year and a half before with well-found ship, full equipment, and high hopes. That was all of tangible things, but in memories we were rich. We'd pierced the veneer of outside things. We'd suffered, starved, and triumphed, groveled down yet grasped glory, grown bigger in the bigness of the whole. We had seen God in his splendours, heard the text that nature renders. We'd reached the naked soul of man. Shivering with cold, yet with hearts light and happy, we set off towards the wailing station, now not more than a mile and a half distant. The difficulties of the journey lay behind us. We tried to straighten ourselves up a bit for the thought that there might be women at the station made us painfully conscious of our uncivilized appearance. Our beards were long and our hair was matted. We were unwashed, and the garments that we had worn for nearly a year without a change were tattered and stained. Three more unpleasant-looking ruffians could hardly have been imagined. Worsley produced several safety pins from some corner of his garments and affected some temporary repairs that really emphasised his general disrepair. Down we hurried, and went quite close to the station. We met two small boys, ten or twelve years of age. I asked these lads whether manager's house was situated. They did not answer. They gave us one look, a comprehensive look that did not need to be repeated. Then they ran from us as fast as their legs would carry them. We reached the outskirts of the station and passed through the digesting house, which was dark inside. Emerging at the other end, we met an old man who started as if he had seen the devil himself and gave us no time to ask any question. He hurried away. This greeting was not friendly. Then we came to the wharf where the man-in-charge stuck to his station. I asked him if Mr. Sorrell, the manager, was in the house. Yes, he said, as he started this. We would like to see him, said I. Who are you? he asked. We have lost our ship and come over the island, I replied. You have come over the island? He said in a tone of entire disbelief. The man went towards the manager's house and we followed him. I learned afterwards that he said to Mr. Sorrell, there are three funny looking men outside who say they have come over the island and they know you. I have left them outside. A very necessary precaution from his point of view. Mr. Sorrell came out to the door and said, well, don't you know me? I said. I know your voice, he replied doubtfully. You're the maid of the daisy. My name is Shackleton, I said. Immediately he put out his hand and said, come in, come in. Tell me, when was the war over? I asked. The war is not over, he answered. Millions are being killed. Europe is mad. The world is mad. Mr. Sorrell's hospitality had no bounds. He would scarcely let us wait to remove our freezing boots before he took us into his house and gave us seats in a warm and comfortable room. We were in no condition to sit in anybody's house until we had washed and got into clean clothes. But the kindness of the station manager was proof even against the unpleasantness of being in a room with us. He gave us coffee and cakes in the Norwegian fashion and then showed us upstairs to the bathroom, where we shed our rags and scrubbed ourselves luxuriously. Mr. Sorrell's kindness did not end with his personal care for the three wayfarers who had come to his door. While we were washing, he gave orders for one of the wailing vessels to be prepared at once in order that it might leave that night for the other side of the island and pick up the three men there. The wailers knew King Harkon Bay, though they never worked on that side of the island. Soon we were clean again. Then we put on delightful new clothes supplied from the station stalls and got rid of our superfluous hair. Within an hour or two, we'd seized to be savages and had become civilized men again. Then came a splendid meal, while Mr. Sorrell told us of the arrangements he had made and we discussed plans for the rescue of the main party on Elephant Island. I arranged that Wersley should go with the relief ship to show the exact spot where the carpenter and his two companions were camped while I started to prepare for the relief of the party on Elephant Island. The wailing vessel that was going round to King Harkon Bay was expected back on the Monday morning and was to call at Grittweig and Harbour the port from which we had sailed in December 1914 in order that the magistrate resident there might be informed to fade of the endurance. It was possible that letters were awaiting us there. Wersley went aboard the wailer at ten o'clock that night and turned in. The next day the relief ship entered King Harkon Bay and he reached Pegadie Camp in a boat. The three men were delighted beyond measure to know that we've made the crossing and safety and that their weight under the upturned James Caird was ended. Curiously enough they did not recognise Wersley who had left them a hairy, dirty ruffian and had returned his spruce and shaven self. They thought he was one of the wailers. When one of them asked why no member of the party had come round with the relief Wersley said, What do you mean? We thought the boss or one of the others would come round. They explained, What's the matter with you? said Wersley. Then it suddenly dawned upon them that they were talking to the men who had been their close companion for a year and a half. Within a few minutes the wailers had moved our bits of gear into their boat. They towed off the James Caird and hoisted her to the deck of their ship. Then they started on the return voyage. Just at dusk on Monday afternoon they entered Stromnes Bay where the men of the wailing station mustered on the beach to receive the rescued party and to examine with professional interest the boat we had navigated across eight hundred miles of the stormy ocean they knew so well. When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us not only across those snow fields but across the storm-wide sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point but afterwards Worsley said to me, Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us. Queen confessed to the same idea. One feels the dearth of human words the roughness of mortal speech in trying to describe things intangible. But a record of our journeys will be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts. End of chapter 10.