 CHAPTER III. PART I. CHAPTER MONTHS The month of March opened with a severe northeasterly gale. Five Waddells and two crab-eaters were shot on the flow during the morning of March 1, and the wind, with fine drifting snow, sprang up while the carcasses were being brought in by sledging parties. The men were compelled to abandon some of the blubber and meat, and they had a struggle to get back to the ship over the rough ice in the teeth of the storm. This gale continued until the third, and all hands were employed clearing out the tween decks, which was to be converted into a living and dining room for officers and scientists. The carpenter erected in this room the stove that had been intended for use in the shore hut, and the quarters were made very snug. The dogs appeared indifferent to the blizzard. They emerged occasionally from the drift to shake themselves and bark, but were content most of the time to lie curled into tight balls under the snow. One of the old dogs, Saint, died on the night of the second, and the doctors reported that the cause of death was appendicitis. When the gale cleared, we found that the pack had been driven in from the northeast and was now more firmly consolidated than before. A new berg, probably fifteen miles in length, had appeared on the northern horizon. The bergs within our circle of vision had all become familiar objects, and we had names for some of them. Apparently they were all drifting with the pack. The sighting of a new berg was of more than passing interest, since in that comparatively shallow sea it would be possible for a big berg to become stranded. Then the island of ice would be a center of tremendous pressure and disturbance amid the drifting pack. We had seen something already of the smashing effect of a contest between berg and flow, and had no wish to have the helpless endurance involved in such a battle of giants. During the third the seal meat emblubber was restowed on hummocks around the ship. The frozen masses had been sinking into the flow. Ice, though hard and solid to the touch, is never firm against heavy weights. An article left on the flow for any length of time is likely to sink into the surface ice. Then the salt water will percolate through, and the article will become frozen into the body of the flow. Clear weather followed the gale, and we had a series of mock suns and perhelia. Minus temperatures were the rule, twenty-one degrees below zero Fahrenheit being recorded on the sixth. We made mattresses for the dogs by stuffing sacks with straw and rubbish, and most of the animals were glad to receive this furnishing in their kennels. Some of them had suffered through the snow melting with the heat of their bodies and then freezing solid. The scientific members of the expedition were all busy by this time. The meteorologist had got his recording station containing anemometer, barograph, and thermograph rigged over the stern. The geologist was making the best of what to him was an unhappy situation, but was not altogether without material. The pebbles found in the penguins were often of considerable interest, and some fragments of rock were brought up from the sea floor with the sounding lead in the dragnet. On the seventh, wordy and worsley found some small pebbles, a piece of moss, a perfect bivalve shell, and some dust on a burg fragment, and brought their treasure trove proudly to the ship. Clark was using the dragnet frequently in the leads and secured good halls of plankton with occasional specimens of greater scientific interest. Seals were not plentiful, but our store of meat and blubber grew gradually. All hands ate seal meat with relish, and would not have cared to become dependent on the ship's tinned meat. We preferred the crab-eater to the woodell, which is a very sluggish beast. The crab-eater was cleaner and healthier. The killer whales were still with us. On the eighth, we examined a spot where the flow ice had been smashed up by a blow from beneath, delivered presumably by a large whale in search of a breathing place. The force that had been exercised was astonishing. Slabs of ice three feet thick and weighing tons had been tented upwards over a circular area with a diameter of about twenty-five feet, and cracks radiated outwards for more than twenty feet. The quarters in the tween decks were completed by the tenth, and the men took possession of the cubicles that had been built. The largest cubicle contained Macklin, McElroy, Hurley, and Hussie, and it was named the Billabong. Clark and Wardy lived opposite in a room called Old Reekie. Next came the abode of the nuts, or engineers, followed by the sailors' rest inhabited by Cheatham and McNeish. The anchorage and the fumarole were on the other side. The new quarters became known as the Ritz, and meals were served there instead of in the wardroom. Breakfast was at nine a.m., lunch at one p.m., tea at four p.m., and dinner at six p.m. Wild, Marston, Creen, and Worsley established themselves in cubicles in the wardroom, and by the middle of the month all hands had settled down to the winter routine. I lived alone, aft. Worsley, Hurley, and Wardy made a journey to a big berg called by us the Rampart berg on the eleventh. The distance out was seven and a half miles, and the party covered a total distance of about seventeen miles. Hurley took some photographs, and Wardy came back rejoicing with a little dust and some moss. Within a radius of one mile around the berg there is thin young ice strong enough to march over with care, wrote Worsley. The area of dangerous pressure as regards a ship does not seem to extend for more than a quarter of a mile from the berg. Here there are cracks and constant slight movement which becomes exciting to the traveller when he feels a piece of ice gradually upending beneath his feet. Close to the berg the pressure makes all sorts of quaint noises. We heard tapping as from a hammer, grunts, groans, and squeaks, electric trams running, birds singing, kettles boiling noisily, and an occasional swish as a large piece of ice released from pressure suddenly jumped or turned over. We noticed all sorts of quaint effects such as huge bubbles or domes of ice 40 feet across and four or five feet high. Large sinuous pancake sheets were spread over the flow in places and in one spot we counted five such sheets each about two and a half inches thick, implicated under one another. They looked as though made of barley sugar and are very slippery. The noon position on the fourteenth was latitude seventy six degrees fifty four minutes south, longitude thirty six degrees ten minutes west. The land was visible faintly to the southeast distant about thirty six miles. A few small leads could be seen from the ship but the ice was firm in our neighborhood. The drift of the endurance was still towards the northwest. I had the boilers blown down on the fifteenth and the consumption of two hundred weight of coal per day to keep the boilers from freezing then ceased. The bunker still contained fifty two tons of coal and the daily consumption in the stoves was about two and a half hundred weight. There would not be much coal left for steaming purposes in the spring but I anticipated eking out the supply with blubber. A moderate gale from the northeast on the seventeenth brought fine penetrating snow. The weather cleared in the evening and a beautiful crimson sunset held our eyes. At the same time the ice cliffs of the land were thrown up in the sky by mirage with an apparent reflection in open water though the land itself could not be seen definitely. The effect was repeated in an exaggerated form on the following day when the ice cliffs were thrown up above the horizon in double and treble parallel lines some inverted. The mirage was due probably to lanes of open water near the land. The water would be about thirty degrees warmer than the air and would cause warm strata to ascend. A sounding gave six hundred and six fathoms with a bottom of glacial mud. Six days later on the twenty-fourth the depth was four hundred and nineteen fathoms. We were drifting steadily and the constant movement coupled with the appearance of lanes near the land convinced me that we must stay by the ship till she got clear. I had considered the possibility of making a landing across the ice in the spring but the hazards of such an undertaking would be too great. The training of the dogs and sledge teams was making progress. The orders used by the drivers were mush go on g right ha left and woe stop. These are the words that the Canadian drivers long ago adopted borrowing them originally from England. There were many fights at first until the dogs learned their positions and their duties but as days passed drivers and teams became efficient. Each team had its leader and efficiency depended largely on the willingness and ability of this dog to punish skulking and disobedience. We learned not to interfere unless the disciplinary measures threatened to have a fatal termination. The drivers could sit on the sledge and jog along at ease if they chose but the prevailing minus temperatures made riding unpopular and the men preferred usually to run or walk alongside the teams. We were still losing dogs through sickness due to stomach and intestinal worms. Dredging for specimens at various steps was one of the duties during these days. The dredge and several hundred fathoms of wire line made a heavy load far beyond the unaided strength of the scientists. On the 23rd for example we put down a two-foot dredge and 650 fathoms of wire. The dredge was hove in four hours later and brought much glacial mud, several pebbles and rock fragments, three sponges, some worms, brachia pods, and four miniferae. The mud was troublesome. It was heavy to lift and as it froze rapidly when brought to the surface the recovery of specimens embedded in it was difficult. A haul made on the 26th brought a prize for the geologist in the form of a lump of sandstone weighing 75 pounds, a piece of fossiliferous limestone, a fragment of striated shale, sandstone grit, and some pebbles. Hauling in the dredge by hand was severe work and on the 24th we used the girling tractor motor which brought in 500 fathoms of line in 30 minutes including stops. One stop was due to water having run over the friction gear and frozen. It was a day or two later that we heard a great yell from the flow and found Clark dancing about and shouting Scottish war cries. He had secured his first complete specimen of an Antarctic fish, apparently a new species. Mirages were frequent. Barrier cliffs appeared all around us on the 29th, even in places where we knew there was deep water. Burgs and pack are thrown up in the sky and distorted into the most fantastic shapes. They climb, trembling upwards, spreading out into long lines at different levels, then contract and fall down, leaving nothing but an uncertain wavering smudge which comes and goes. Presently the smudge swells and grows, taking shape until it presents the perfect inverted reflection of a burg on the horizon, the shadow hovering over the substance. More smudges appear at different points on the horizon. These spread out into long lines till they meet and we are girdled by lines of shining snow cliffs, laved at their bases by water of illusion in which they appear to be faithfully reflected. So the shadows come and go silently, melting away finally as the sun declines to the west. We seem to be drifting helplessly in a strange world of unreality. It is reassuring to feel the ship beneath one's feet and to look down at the familiar line of kennels and igloos on the solid flow. The flow was not so solid as it appeared. We had reminders occasionally that the greedy sea was very close and that the flow was but a treacherous friend which might open suddenly beneath us. Towards the end of the month I had our store of seal meat and blubber brought aboard. The depth as recorded by a sounding on the last day of March was 256 fathoms. The continuous shoaling from 606 fathoms in a drift of 39 miles north 26 degrees west in 30 days was interesting. The sea shoaled as we went north either to east or to west and the fact suggested that the contour lines ran east and west roughly. Our total drift between January 19th when the ship was frozen in and March 31st a period of 71 days had been 95 miles in a north 80 degrees west direction. The icebergs around us had not changed their relative positions. The sun sank lower in the sky the temperatures became lower and the endurance felt the grip of the icy hand of winter. Two northeasterly gales in the early part of April assisted to consolidate the pack. The young ice was thickening rapidly and though leads were visible occasionally from the ship no opening of a considerable size appeared in our neighborhood. In the early morning of April 1st we listened again for the wireless signals from Port Stanley. The crew had lashed three 20-foot rickers to the mast heads in order to increase the spread of our aerials but still we failed to hear anything. The rickers had to come down subsequently since we found that the gear could not carry the accumulating weight of rhyme. Soundings proved that the sea continued to shull as the endurance drifted to the northwest. The depth on April 2nd was 262 fathoms with a bottom of glacial mud. Four weeks later a sounding gave 172 fathoms. The presence of grit in the bottom samples towards the end of the month suggested that we were approaching land again. The month was not uneventful during the night of the third we heard the ice grinding to the eastward. And in the morning we saw that young ice was rafted eight to ten feet high in places. This was the first murmur of the danger that was to reach menacing proportions in later months. The ice was heard grinding and creaking during the fourth and the ship vibrated slightly. The movement of the flow was sufficiently pronounced to interfere with the magnetic work. I gave orders that accumulations of snow, ice, and rubbish alongside the endurance should be shoveled away so that in case of pressure there would be no way against the top sides to check the ship rising above the ice. All hands were busy with pick and shovel during the day and moved many tons of material. Again on the ninth there were signs of pressure. Young ice was piled up to a height of eleven feet a stern of the ship and the old flow was cracked in places. The movement was not serious but I realized that it might be the beginning of trouble for the expedition. We brought certain stores aboard and provided space on deck for the dogs in case they had to be removed from the flow at short notice. We had run a five hundred fathom steel wire round the ship, snow huts, and kennels with a loop out to the lead ahead where the dredge was used. This wire was supported on ice pillars and it served as a guide in bad weather when the view was obscured by driving snow and a man might have lost himself altogether. I had this wire cut in five places since otherwise it might have been dragged across our section of the flow with damaging effect in the event of the ice splitting suddenly. The dogs had been divided into six teams of nine dogs each. Wild, Creen, Macklin, McElroy, Marston, and Hurley each had charge of a team and were fully responsible for the exercising, training, and feeding of their own dogs. They called in one of the surgeons when an animal was sick. We were still losing some dogs through worms and it was unfortunate that the doctors had not the proper remedies. Worm powders were to have been provided by the expert Canadian dog driver I had engaged before sailing for the south and when this man did not join the expedition the matter was overlooked. We had fifty-four dogs and eight pups early in April but several were ailing and the number of mature dogs was reduced to fifty by the end of the month. Our store of seal meat amounted now to about five thousand pounds and I calculated that we had enough meat in blubber to feed the dogs for ninety days without trenching upon the sledging rations. The teams were working well, often with heavy loads. The biggest dog was Hercules who tipped the beam at eighty-six pounds. Samson was eleven pounds lighter but he justified his name one day by starting off at a smart pace with a sledge carrying two hundred pounds of blubber and a driver. A new berg that was going to give us some cause for anxiety made its appearance on the fourteenth. It was a big berg and we noticed as it lay on the northwest horizon that it had a humickey crevice appearance at the east end. During the day this berg increased its apparent altitude and changed its bearing slightly. Evidently it was a ground and was holding its position against the drifting pack. A sounding at eleven a.m. gave one hundred and ninety-seven fathoms with a hard stony or rocky bottom. During the next twenty-four hours the endurance moved steadily towards the crevice berg which doubled its altitude in that time. We could see from the masthead that the pack was piling and rafting against the mass of ice and it was easy to imagine what would be the fate of the ship if she entered the area of disturbance. She would be crushed like an eggshell amid the shattering masses. Worsley was in the crow's nest on the evening of the fifteenth watching for signs of land to the westward and he reported an interesting phenomenon. The sun set amid a glow of prismatic colors on a line of clouds just above the horizon. A minute later Worsley saw a golden glow which expanded as he watched it and presently the sun appeared again and rose to a semi-diameter clear above the western horizon. He hailed Creen who from a position on the flow ninety feet below the crow's nest also saw the reborn sun. A quarter of an hour later from the deck Worsley saw the sun set a second time. This strange phenomenon was due to mirage or refraction. We attributed it to an ice crack to the westward where the band of open water had heated a stratum of air. The drift of the pack was not constant and during the succeeding days the crevice berg alternately advanced and receded as the endurance moved with the flow. On Sunday, April 18th, it was only seven miles distant from the ship. It is a large berg about three-quarters of a mile long on the side presented to us and probably well over two hundred feet high. It is heavily creviced as though it once formed the syrac portion of a glacier. Two specially wide and deep chasms across it from southeast to northwest give it the appearance of having broken its back on the shoal ground. Huge masses of pressure ice are piled against its cliffs to a height of about sixty feet showing the stupendous force that is being brought to bear upon it by the drifting pack. The berg must be very firmly aground. We swing the arrow on the current meter frequently and watch with keen attention to see where it will come to rest. Will it point straight for the berg showing that our drift is in that direction? It swings slowly round. It points to the northeast end of the berg, then shifts slowly to the center and seems to stop, but it moves again and swings twenty degrees clear of our enemy to the southwest. We notice that two familiar bergs, the rampart berg and the peak berg, have moved away from the ship. Probably they also have grounded or dragged on the shoal. A strong drift to the westward during the night of the eighteenth relieved our anxiety by carrying the endurance to the lee of the crevice berg, which passed out of our range of vision before the end of the month. We said good-bye to the sun on May 1st, and entered the period of twilight that would be followed by the darkness of midwinter. The sun, by the aid of refraction, just cleared the horizon at noon and set shortly before two p.m. A fine aurora in the evening was dimmed by the full moon which had risen on April 27th and would not set again until May 6th. The disappearance of the sun is apt to be a depressing event in the polar regions, where the long months of darkness involve mental as well as physical strain. But the endurance's company refused to abandon their customary cheerfulness, and a concert in the evening made the Ritz a scene of noisy merriment in strange contrast with the cold, silent world that lay outside. One feels our helplessness as the long winter night closes upon us. By this time, if fortune had smiled upon the expedition, we would have been comfortably and securely established in a shore base, with depots laid to the south and plans made for the long march in the spring and summer. Where will we make a landing now? It is not easy to forecast the future. The ice may open in the spring, but by that time we will be far to the northwest. I do not think we shall be able to work back to Vossel Bay. There are possible landing places on the western coast of the wet old sea, but can we reach any suitable spot early enough to attempt the overland journey next year? Time alone will tell. I do not think any member of the expedition is disheartened by our disappointment. All hands are cheery and busy, and will do their best when the time for action comes. In the meantime, we must wait. The ship's position on Sunday, May 2nd, was latitude seventy-five degrees, twenty-three minutes south, longitude forty-two degrees, fourteen minutes west. The temperature at noon was five degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and the sky was overcast. A seal was sighted from the mast head at lunchtime, and five men with two dog teams set off after the prize. They had an uncomfortable journey outward in the dim, diffused light, which cast no shadows and gave no warning of irregularities in the white surface. It is a strange sensation to be running along on apparently smooth snow and to fall suddenly into an unseen hollow or bump against a ridge. After going out three miles to the eastward, wrote Worsley, in describing this seal hunt, we range up and down but find nothing, until from a hummock I fancy I see something, apparently a mile away, but probably little more than half that distance. I ran for it, found the seal, and with a shout brought up the others at the double. The seal was a big widow over ten feet long and weighing more than eight hundred pounds. But soldier, one of the team leaders, went for its throat without a moment's hesitation, and we had to beat off the dogs before we could shoot the seal. We caught five or six gallons of blood in a tin for the dogs, and let the teams have a drink of fresh blood from the seal. The light was worse than ever on our return, and we arrived back in the dark. Sir Ernest met us with a lantern, and guided us into the lead astern and fenced to the ship. This was the first seal we had secured since March 19th, and the Mea Imblubber made a welcome addition to the stores. Three Emperor Penguins made their appearance in the lead west of the ship on May 3rd. They pushed their heads through the young ice while two of the men were standing by the lead. The men imitated the Emperor's call and walked slowly, penguin fashion, away from the lead. The birds in succession made a magnificent leap, three feet clear from the water, onto the young ice. Since they toboggan to the bank and followed the men away from the lead, their retreat was soon cut off by a line of men. We walked up to them, talking loudly and assuming a threatening aspect. Notwithstanding our bad manners, the three birds turned toward us, bowing ceremoniously. Then, after a closer inspection, they conclude that we are undesirable acquaintances and make off across the flow. We head them off and finally shepherd them close to the ship, where the frenzied barking of the dogs so frightens them that they make a determined effort to break through the line. We seize them. One bird of philosophic mean goes quietly, led by one flipper. The others show fight, but all are imprisoned in an igloo for the night. In the afternoon we see five emperors in the western lead in Capture One. Kerr and Cheetham fight a valiant action with two large birds. Kerr rushes at one, seizes it, and is promptly knocked down by the angered penguin, which jumps on his chest before retiring. Cheetham comes to Kerr's assistance, and between them they seize another penguin, bind his bill and lead him, muttering muffled protest to the ship like an inebriated old man between two policemen. He weighs eighty-five pounds, or five pounds less than the heaviest emperor captured previously. Kerr and Cheetham insist that he is nothing to the big fellow who escaped them. This penguin's stomach proved to be filled with freshly caught fish up to ten inches long. Some of the fish were of a coastal or literal variety. Two more emperors were captured on the following day, and while Wardy was leading one of them towards the ship, Wild came along with his team. The dog's uncontrollable in a moment made a frantic rush for the bird, and were almost upon him when their harness caught upon an ice pylon, which they had tried to pass on both sides at once. The result was a seething tangle of dogs, traces, and men, and an overturned sled, while the penguin, three yards away, nonchalantly and indifferently, surveyed the disturbance. He had never seen anything of the kind before, and had no idea at all that the strange disorder might concern him. Several cracks had opened in the neighborhood of the ship, and the emperor penguins, fat and glossy of plumage, were appearing in considerable numbers. We secured nine of them on May 6th, an important addition to our supply of fresh food. The sun, which had made positively his last appearance, seven days earlier, surprised us by lifting more than half its disk above the horizon on May 8th. A glow on the northern horizon resolved itself into the sun at eleven a.m. that day. A quarter of an hour later the unseasonable visitor disappeared again, only to rise again at eleven forty a.m., set at one p.m., rise at one ten p.m., and set lingeringly at one twenty p.m. These curious phenomena were due to refraction, which amounted to two degrees thirty seven minutes at one twenty p.m. The temperature was fifteen degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and we calculated that the refraction was two degrees above normal. In other words, the sun was visible one hundred twenty miles farther south than the refraction tables give it any right to be. The navigating officer naturally was aggrieved. He had informed all hands on May 1st that they would not see the sun again for seventy days, and now had to endure the jeers of friends who affected to believe that his observations were inaccurate by a few degrees. The endurance was drifting north northeast under the influence of a succession of westerly and southwesternly breezes. The ship's head at the same time swung gradually to the left, indicating that the flow in which she was held was turning. During the night of the fourteenth, a very pronounced swing occurred, and when daylight came at noon on the fifteenth, we observed a large lead running from the northwest horizon towards the ship till it struck the western lead, circling ahead of the ship, then continuing to the south southeast. A lead astern connected with this new lead on either side of the endurance, thus separating our flow completely from the main body of the pack. A blizzard from the southeast swept down during the sixteenth. At one p.m. the blizzard lulled for five minutes, then the wind jumped round to the opposite quarter and the barometer rose suddenly. The center of a cyclonic movement had passed over us, and the compass recorded an extraordinarily rapid swing of the flow. I could see nothing through the mist and snow, and I thought it possible that a magnetic storm or a patch of local magnetic attraction had caused the compass and not the flow to swing. Our flow was now about two-and-a-half miles long north and south, and three miles wide east and west. End of Chapter 3 Part 1 Chapter 3 Part 2 of South This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org South The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 by Sir Ernest Shackleton Chapter 3 Part 2 The month of May passed with few incidents of importance. Hurley, our handyman, installed our small electric lighting plant and placed lights for occasional use in the observatory, the meteorological station, and various other points. We could not afford to use the electric lamps freely. Hurley also rigged two powerful lights on poles projecting from the ship to Port and Starboard. These lamps would illuminate the dog lose brilliantly on the darkest winter's day and would be invaluable in the event of the flow breaking during the dark days of winter. We could imagine what it would mean to get fifty dogs aboard without lights while the flow was breaking and rafting under our feet. May 24th, Empire Day, was celebrated with the singing of patriotic songs in the Ritz, where all hands joined in wishing a speedy victory for the British arms. We could not know how the war was progressing, but we hoped that the Germans had already been driven from France and that the Russian armies had put the seal on the Allies' success. The war was a constant subject of discussion aboard the endurance, and many campaigns were fought on the map during the long months of drifting. The moon in the latter part of May was sweeping continuously through our starlit sky in great high circles. The weather generally was good, with constant minus temperatures. The log on May 27th recorded, brilliantly fine clear weather with bright moonlight throughout. The moon's rays are wonderfully strong, making midnight seem as light as an ordinary overcast midday in temperate climbs. The great clearness of the atmosphere probably accounts for our having eight hours of twilight with a beautiful soft golden glow to the northward. A little rhyme and glazed frost are found aloft. The temperature is minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit. A few wisps of cirrus clouds are seen, and a little frost smoke shows in one or two directions, but the cracks and leads near the ship appear to have frozen over again. Kreen had started to take the pups out for runs, and it was very amusing to see them with their rolling canter just managing to keep abreast by the sledge and occasionally cocking an eye with an appealing look in the hope of being taken aboard for a ride. As an addition to their foster father, Kreen, the pups had adopted Amundsen. They tyrannized over him most unmercifully. It was a common sight to see him, the biggest dog in the pack, sitting out on the cold with an era of philosophic resignation while a corpulent pup occupied the entrance to his dog-loo. The intruder was generally the pup Nelson, who just showed his forepaws and face, and one was fairly sure to find Nellie, Roger, and Toby coiled up comfortably behind him. At Hoosh time Kreen had to stand by Amundsen's food, since otherwise the pups would eat the big dog's ration while he stood back to give them fair play. Sometimes their consciences would smite them and they would drag around the seal's head, half a penguin, or a large lump of frozen meat or blubber to Amundsen's kennel for rent. It was interesting to watch the big dog play with them, seizing them by throat or neck in what appeared to be a fierce fashion, while really quite gentle with them, and all the time teaching them how to hold their own in the world and putting them up to all the tricks of dog life. The drift of the endurance in the group of the pack continued without incident of importance through June. Pressure was reported occasionally, but the ice in the immediate vicinity of the ship remained firm. The light was now very bad except in the period when the friendly moon was above the horizon. A faint twilight round about noon of each day reminded us of the sun and assisted us in the important work of exercising the dogs. The care of the teams was our heaviest responsibility in those days. The movement of the flows was beyond all human control, and there was nothing to be gained by allowing one's mind to struggle with the problems of the future, though it was hard to avoid anxiety at times. The conditioning and training of the dogs seemed essential, whatever fate might be in store for us, and the teams were taken out by their drivers whenever the weather permitted. Rivalries arose, as might have been expected, and on the fifteenth of the month a great race, the Antarctic Derby, took place. It was a notable event. The bedding had been heavy, and every man aboard the ships stood to win or lose on the result of the contest. Some money had been staked, but the wagers that thrilled were those involving stores of chocolate and cigarettes. The course had been laid off from Khyber Pass at the eastern end of the old lead ahead of the ship to a point clear of the jib boom a distance of about seven hundred yards. Five teams went out in the dim noon twilight with a zero temperature and an aurora flickering faintly to the southward. The starting signal was to be given by the flashing of a light on the meteorological station. I was a pointed starter, Worsley was judge, and James was timekeeper. The boson, with a straw hat added to his usual Antarctic attire, stood on a box near the winning post and was assisted by a couple of shady characters to shout the odds, which were displayed on a board hung around his neck, six to four unwild, evens uncreen, two to one against Hurley, six to one against Macklin, and eight to one against McElroy. Canvas hankerches fluttered from an improvised grandstand, and the pups, which had never seen such strange happenings before, sat round and howled with excitement. The spectators could not see far in the dim light, but they heard the shouts of the drivers as the teams approached and greeted the victory of the favorite with a roar of cheering that must have sounded strange indeed to any seals or penguins that happened to be in our neighborhood. Wild's time was two minutes sixteen seconds or at the rate of ten and a half miles per hour for the course. We celebrated midwinter's day on the twenty-second. The twilight extended over a period of about six hours that day, and there was a good light at noon from the moon, and also a northern glow with wists of beautiful pink cloud along the horizon. A sounding gave two hundred and sixty two fathoms with a mud bottom. No land was in sight from the masthead, although our range of vision extended probably a full degree to the westward. The day was observed as a holiday, necessary work only being undertaken, and after the best dinner the cook could provide, all hands gathered in the writs where speeches, songs, and toast occupied the evening. After supper at midnight we sang God Save the King and wished each other all success in the days of sunshine and effort that lay ahead. At this time the endurance was making an unusually rapid drift to the north under the influence of a fresh southerly to southwesterly breeze. We traveled thirty-nine miles to the north in five days before a breeze that only once attained the force of a gale and then for no more than an hour. The absence of strong winds in comparison with the almost unceasing winter blizzards of the Ross Sea was a feature of the Waddell Sea that impressed itself upon me during the winter months. Another race took place a few days after the Derby. The two crack teams driven by Hurley and Wild met in a race from Khyber Pass. Wild's team pulling 910 pounds or 130 pounds per dog covered the 700 yards in two minutes nine seconds or at the rate of 11.1 miles per hour. Hurley's team with the same load did the run in two minutes sixteen seconds. The race was awarded by the judge to Hurley owing to Wild failing to weigh in correctly. I happened to be a part of the load on his sledge and a skid over some new drift within fifty yards of the winning post resulted in my being left on the snow. It should be said in justice to the dogs that this accident while justifying the disqualification could not have made any material difference in the time. The approach of the returning sun was indicated by beautiful sunrise glows on the horizon in the early days of July. We had nine hours twilight on the tenth and the northern sky low to the horizon was tinted with gold for about seven hours. Numerous cracks and leads extended in all directions to within three hundred yards of the ship. Thin wavering black lines close to the northern horizon were probably distant leads refracted into the sky. Sounds of moderate pressure came to our ears occasionally but the ship was not involved. At midnight on the eleventh a crack in the lead ahead of the endurance opened out rapidly and by two a.m. was over two hundred yards wide in places with an area of open water to the southwest. Sounds of pressure were heard along this lead which soon closed to a width of about thirty yards and then froze over. The temperature at that time was minus twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit. The most severe blizzard we had experienced in the Waddell Sea swept down upon the endurance on the evening of the thirteenth and by breakfast time on the following morning the kennels to the windward or southern side of the ship were buried under five feet of drift. I gave orders that no man should venture beyond the kennels. The ship was invisible at a distance of fifty yards and it was impossible to preserve one sense of direction in the raging wind and suffocating drift. To walk against the gale was out of the question. Face and eyes became snowed up within two minutes and serious frostbites would have been the penalty of perseverance. The dogs stayed in their kennels for the most part, the old stages putting out a paw occasionally in order to keep open a breathing hole. By evening the gale had attained a force of sixty or seventy miles an hour and the ship was trembling under the attack but we were snug enough in our quarters aboard until the morning of the fourteenth when all hands turned out to shovel the snow from deck and kennels. The wind was still keen in searching with a temperature of something like minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit and it was necessary for us to be on guard against frostbite. At least a hundred tons of snow were piled against the bowels and portside where the weight of the drift had forced the flow downward. The lead ahead had opened out during the night, cracked the pack from north to south and frozen over again adding three hundred yards to the distance between the ship and Khyber Pass. The breakdown gang had completed its work by lunchtime. The gale was then decreasing and the three days old moon showed as a red crescent on the northern horizon. The temperature during the blizzard had ranged from minus twenty-one degrees to minus thirty-three point five degrees Fahrenheit. It is usual for the temperature to rise during a blizzard and the failure to produce any fine effect of this nature suggested an absence of high land for at least two hundred miles to the south and southwest. The weather did not clear until the sixteenth. We saw then that the appearance of the surrounding pack had been altered completely by the blizzard. The island flow containing the endurance still stood fast but cracks and masses of ice thrown up by pressure could be seen in all directions. An area of open water was visible on the horizon to the north with a water indication in the northern sky. The ice pressure which was indicated by distant rumblings and the appearance of formidable ridges was increasingly a cause of anxiety. The areas of disturbance were gradually approaching the ship. During July 21st we could bear the grinding and crashing of the working flows to the southwest and west and could see cracks opening, working and closing ahead. The ice is rafting up to a height of 10 or 15 feet in places. The opposing flows are moving against one another at the rate of about 200 yards per hour. The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice, one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a muddy giant below. Early on the afternoon of the 22nd a two-foot crack running southwest and northeast for a distance of about two miles approached within 35 yards of the port quarter. I had all the sledges brought aboard and set a special watch in case it became necessary to get the dogs off the flow in a hurry. This crack was the result of heavy pressure 300 yards away on the port bow where huge blocks of ice were piled up in wild and threatening confusion. The pressure at that point was enormous. Blocks weighing many tons were raised 15 feet above the level of the flow. I arranged to divide the night watches with worsley and wild and none of us had much rest. The ship was shaken by heavy bumps and we were on the alert to see that no dogs had fallen into cracks. The morning light showed that our island had been reduced considerably during the night. Our long months of rest and safety seemed to be at an end and a period of stress had begun. During the following day I had a store of sledging provisions, oil, matches, and other essentials placed on the upper deck handy to the starboard quarter boat so as to be in readiness for a sudden emergency. The ice was grinding and working steadily to the southward and in the evening some large cracks appear on the port quarter while a crack alongside opened out to 15 yards. The blizzard seemed to have set the ice in strong movement towards the north and the southwesterly and west-southwesterly winds that prevailed two days out of three maintained the drift. I hoped that this would continue unchecked since our chance of getting clear of the pack early in the spring appeared to depend upon our making a good northing. Soundings at this time gave depths of from 186 to 190 fathoms with a glacial mud bottom. No land was in sight. The light was improving. A great deal of ice pressure was heard and observed in all directions during the twenty-fifth much of it close to the port quarter of the ship. On the starboard bow huge blocks of ice weighing many tons and five feet in thickness were pushed up on the old flow to a height of 15 to 20 feet. The flow that held the endurance was swung to and fro by the pressure during the day but came back to the old bearing before midnight. The ice for miles around is much looser. There are numerous cracks and short leads to the northeast and southeast. Ridges are being forced up in all directions and there is a water sky to the southeast. It would be a relief to be able to make some effort on our own behalf but we can do nothing until the ice releases our ship. If the flows continue to loosen we may break out within the next few weeks and resume the fight. In the meantime the pressure continues and it is hard to foresee the outcome. Just before noon today July 26th the top of the sun appeared by refraction for one minute seventy-nine days after our last sunset. A few minutes earlier a small patch of the sun had been thrown up on one of the black streaks above the horizon. All hands are cheered by the indication that the end of the winter darkness is near. Clark finds that with returning daylight the diatoms are again appearing. His nets and line are stained a pale yellow and much of the newly formed ice has also a faint brown or yellow tinge. The diatoms cannot multiply without light and the ice form since February can be distinguished in the pressure ridges by its clear blue color. The older masses of ice are of a dark earthy brown dull yellow or reddish brown. The breakup of our flow came suddenly on Sunday August 1st just one year after the endurance left the southwest India docks on the voyage to the far south. The position was latitude 72 degrees 26 minutes south longitude 48 degrees 10 minutes west. The morning brought a moderate southwestern legale with heavy snow and at 8 a.m. after some morning movements of the ice the flow cracked 40 yards off the starboard bow. Two hours later the flow began to break up all around us under pressure and the ship listed over 10 degrees to starboard. I had the dogs and sledges brought aboard at once and the gangway hoisted. The animals behaved well. They came aboard eagerly as though realizing their danger and were placed in their quarters on deck without a single fight occurring. The pressure was cracking the flow rapidly rafting it close to the slip and forcing masses of ice beneath the keel. Presently the endurance listed heavily to port against the gale and at the same time was forced ahead a stern and sideways several times by the grinding flows. She received one or two hard nips but resisted them without as much as a creek. It looked at one stage as if the ship was to be made the plaything of success of flows and I was relieved when she came to a standstill with a large piece of our old dock under the starboard bilge. I had the boats cleared away ready for lowering and got up some additional stores and set a double watch. All hands were worn to stand by get what sleep they could and have their warmest clothing at hand. Around us lay the ruins of Dogtown amid the debris of pressure ridges. Some of the little dwellings had been crushed flat beneath blocks of ice. Others had been swallowed and pulverized when the ice opened beneath them and closed again. It was a sad sight but my chief concern just then was the safety of the rudder which was being attacked viciously by the ice. We managed to pull away a large lump that had become jammed between the rudder and the stern post but I could see that damage had been done though a close examination was not possible that day. After the ship had come to a standstill in her new position very heavy pressure was set up. Some of the treadles were started and the beams buckled slightly under the terrific stresses. But the endurance had been built to withstand the attacks of the ice and she lifted bravely as the flows drove beneath her. The effects of the pressure around us were awe-inspiring. Mighty blocks of ice gripped between meeting flows rose slowly till they jumped like cherry stones squeezed between thumb and finger. The pressure of millions of tons of moving ice was crushing and smashing inexorably. If the ship was once gripped firmly her fate would be sealed. The gale from the southwest blew all night and moderated during the afternoon of the second to a stiff breeze. The pressure had almost ceased. Apparently the gale had driven the southern pack down upon us causing congestion in our area. The pressure had stopped when the whole of the pack got into motion. The gale had given us some northing but it had dealt the endurance what might prove to be a severe blow. The rudder had been driven hard over to starburg and the blade partially torn away from the rudder head. Heavy masses of ice were still jammed against the stern and it was impossible to ascertain the extent of the damage at that time. I felt that it would be impossible in any case to affect repairs in the moving pack. The ship lay steady all night and the sole sign of continuing pressure was an occasional slight rumbling shock. We rigged shelters and kennels for the dogs inboard. The weather on August 3rd was overcast and misty. We had nine hours of twilight with good light at noon. There was no land in sight for ten miles from the mast head. The pack as far as the eye could reach was in a condition of chaos much rafted and consolidated with very large pressure ridges in all directions. At 9 p.m. a rough altitude of Canopus gave the latitude at 71 degrees 55 minutes 17 seconds south. The drift therefore had been about 37 miles to the north in three days. Four of the poorest dogs were shot this day. They were suffering severely from worms and we could not afford to keep sick dogs under the changed conditions. The sun showed through the clouds on the northern horizon for an hour on the 4th. There was no open water to be seen from aloft in any direction. We saw from the mast head to west southwest an appearance of barrier, land, or a very long iceberg about 20 odd miles away, but the horizon clouded over before we could determine its nature. We tried twice to make a sounding that day but failed on each occasion. The Kelvin machine gave no bottom at the full length of the line 370 fathoms. After much labor we made a hole in the ice near the stern post large enough for the Lucas machine was a 32 pound lead but this appeared to be too light. The machine stopped at 452 fathoms leaving us in doubt as to whether the bottom had been reached. Then in heaving up we lost the lead the thin wire cutting its way into the ice and snapping. All hands and the carpenter were busy this day making and placing kennels on the upper deck and by nightfall all the dogs were comfortably housed ready for any weather. The sun showed through the clouds above the northern horizon for nearly an hour. The remaining days of August were comparatively uneventful the ice around the ship froze firm again and little movement occurred in our neighborhood. The training of the dogs including the puppies proceeded actively and provided exercise as well as occupation. The drift to the northwest continued steadily. We had bad luck with soundings the weather interfering at times and the gear breaking on several occasions but a big increase in the depth showed that we had passed over the edge of the Waddell Sea Plateau. A sounding of about 1700 fathoms on August 10th agreed fairly well with Filchner's 1924 fathoms 130 miles east of our then position. An observation at noon of the 8th had given us latitude 71 degrees 23 minutes south longitude 49 degrees 13 minutes west. Minus temperatures prevailed still but the daylight was increasing. We captured a few emperor penguins which were making their way to the southwest. Ten penguins taken on the 19th were all in poor condition and their stomachs contained nothing but stones and a few cuttlefish beaks. A sounding on the 17th gave 1676 fathoms 10 miles west of the chartered position of Morrell land. No land could be seen from the mast head and I decided that Morrell land must be added to the long list of Antarctic islands and continental coasts that on close investigation have resolved themselves into icebergs. On clear days we could get an extended view in all directions from the mast head and the line of the pack was broken only by familiar bergs. About 100 bergs were in view on a fine day and they seemed practically the same as when they started their drift with us nearly seven months earlier. The scientists wished to inspect some of the neighboring bergs at close quarters but sledge traveling outside the well-trodden area immediately around the ship proved difficult and occasionally dangerous. On August 20th for example Worsley, Hurley and Green Street started off for the rampart berg and got onto a lead of young ice that undulated perilously beneath their feet. A quick turn saved them. A wonderful mirage of the Fatal Morgana type was visible on August 20th. The day was clear and bright with a blue sky overhead and some rhyme aloft. The distant pack is thrown up into towering barrier-like cliffs which are reflected in blue lakes and lanes of water at their base. Great white and golden cities of oriental appearance at close intervals along these cliff tops indicate distant bergs some not previously known to us. Floating above these are wavering violet and creamy lines of still more remote bergs and pack. The lines rise and fall, tremble, dissipate and reappear in an endless transformation scene. The southern pack and bergs catching the sun's rays are golden but to the north the ice masses are purple. Here the bergs assume changing forms first a castle then a balloon just clear of the horizon that changes swiftly into an immense mushroom a mosque or a cathedral. The principal characteristic is the vertical lengthing of the object a small pressure ridge being given the appearance of a line of battlements or towering cliffs. The mirage is produced by refraction and is intensified by the columns of comparatively warm air rising from several cracks and leads that have opened eight to twenty miles away north and south. We notice this day that a considerable change had taken place in our position relative to the rampart berg. It appeared that a big lead had opened and that there had been some differential movement of the pack. The opening movement might presage renewed pressure. A few hours later the dog teams returning from exercise crossed a narrow crack that had appeared ahead of the ship. This crack opened quickly to sixty feet and would have given us trouble if the dogs had been left on the wrong side. It closed on the twenty-fifth and pressure followed in its neighborhood. On August twenty-fourth we were two miles north of the latitude of Morell's farthest south and over ten degrees of longitude or more than two hundred miles west of his position. From the mast head no land could be seen within twenty miles and no land over five hundred feet altitude could have escaped observation on our side of longitude fifty-two degrees west. A sounding of one thousand nine hundred fathoms on August twenty-fifth was further evidence of the non-existence of New South Greenland. There was some movement of the ice near the ship during the concluding days of the month. All hands were cold out in the night of August twenty-sixth, sounds of pressure having been followed by the cracking of the ice alongside the ship, but the trouble did not develop immediately. Late on the night of the thirty-first the ice began to work ahead of the ship and along the port side. Creaking and groaning of timbers accompanied by loud snapping sounds fore and aft told their story of strain. The pressure continued during the following day. Beams and deck planks occasionally buckling to the strain. The ponderous flows were grinding against each other under the influence of wind and current, and our ship seemed to occupy for the time being an undesirable position near the center of the disturbance, but she resisted staunchly and showed no sign of water in the bilges, although she had not been pumped out for six months. The pack extended to the horizon in every direction. I calculated that we were two hundred fifty miles from the nearest known land to the westward and more than five hundred miles from the nearest outpost of civilization Wilhelmina Bay. I hoped we would not have to undertake a march across the moving ice fields. The endurance we knew to be stout and true, but no ship ever built by man could live if taken fairly in the grip of the flows and prevented from rising to the surface of the grinding ice. These were anxious days. In the early morning of September 2nd the ship jumped and shook to the accompaniment of cracks and groans and some of the men who had been in the berths hurried on deck. The pressure eased a little later in the day when the ice on the port side broke away from the ship to just abaff the main rigging. The endurance was still held aft and at the rudder, and a large mass of ice could be seen adhering to the port bow, rising to within three feet of the surface. I wondered if this ice had got its grip by piercing the sheathing. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Part 1 of South This is the Librivox Recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Lizzie Driver South The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 by Sir Ernest Shackleton Chapter 4 Part 1 Loss of the Endurance Chapter 5 The ice did not trouble us again seriously until the end of September, though during the whole month the flow was seldom entirely without movement. The roar of pressure would come to us across the otherwise silent ice fields, and bring with it a threat and a warning. Watching from the crow's nest, we could see sometimes the formation of pressure ridges. The sunshine glitted on newly-riven ice services, as the masses of shattered flow rose and fell away from the line of pressure. The area of disturbance would advance towards us, recede at advance again. The routine of work and play on the endurance proceeded steadily. Our plans and preparations for any contingency that might arise during the approaching summer had been made, but there seemed always plenty to do, in and about our prison ship. Runs with the dogs, and vigorous games of hockey and football on the rough snow-covered flow, kept all hands in good fettle. The record of one or two of these September days will indicate the nature of our life and our surroundings. September 4th Temperature Minus 14.1 degrees Fahrenheit Light easily breeze blue sky and stratus clouds During forenoon notice a distinct terracotta or biscuit colour in the stratus clouds to the north. This travelled from east to west and could conceivably have come from some of the Graham land volcanoes, now about 300 miles distant to the northwest. The upper current of air probably would come from that direction. Heavy rhyme. Pack unbroken and unchanged as far as visible. No land of 22 miles. No animal life observed. September 7th Temperature Minus 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit Moderate easterly to southerly winds overcast and misty with light snow till midnight when weather cleared. Blue sky and fine clear weather to noon much rumour loft thick fresh snow on ship and flow that glistens brilliantly in the morning sunlight. Little clouds of faint violet coloured mist rise from the lower and briny apportions of the pack which stretches unbroken to the horizon. Very great refraction all around. A tabular burg about 50 feet high 10 miles west is a good index of the amount of refraction. On ordinary days it shows from the mast head clear cut against the sky with much refraction. The pack beyond at the back of it lifts up into view. Today a broad expanse of miles of pack is seen above it. Numerous other burgs generally seen in silhouette are at first sight lost but after a closer scrutiny they appear as large lumps or dark masses well below the horizon. Refraction generally results in too big an altitude when observing the sun for position. But today the horizon is thrown up so much that the altitude is about 12 minutes too small. No land visible for 20 miles. No animal life observed. Lower Clarks Tonenet with 566th fathoms of wire and hoisted up at two and a half miles an hour by walking along the flow with the wire. Results rather meagre jellyfish and some fish lava. Exercise dogs and sledge teams. The young dogs, under cream's care, pull as well though not as strongly as the best team in the pack. Hercules for the last fortnight or more has constituted himself leader of the orchestra. Two or three times in the 24 hours he starts a howl, a deep melodious howl, and in about 30 seconds he has the whole pack in full song. The great deep, booming, harmonious song of the half wolf pack. By the middle of September we were running short on fresh meat for the dogs. The seals and penguins seemed to have abandoned our neighbourhood altogether. Nearly five months had passed since we killed a seal, and penguins had been seen seldom. Clark, who was using his trail as often as possible, reported that there was a marked absence of plankton in the sea, and we assumed that the seals and the penguins had gone in search of their accustomed food. The men got an emperor on the 23rd. The dogs, which were having their sledging exercise, became wildly excited when the penguin, which had risen in a crack, was driven ashore. And the best efforts of the drivers failed to save it alive. On the following day, Wild, Hurley, Macklin and McIlroy took their teams to the stained berg, about seven miles west of the ship, and on their way back got a female crabita, which they killed, skinned, and left to be picked up later. They ascended to the top of the berg, which lay in about latitude, 69 degrees, 30 minutes south, longitude, 51 degrees west, and from an elevation of 110 feet could see no land. Samples of the discolour dyes from the berg proved to contain dust with black gritty particles or sand grains. Another seal, a bull weddle, was secured on the 26th. The return of seal life was opportune, since we had nearly finished the winter supply of dog biscuit and wished to be able to feed the dogs and meat. The seals meant a supply of blubber, moreover, to supplement our small remaining stock of coal, when the time came to get up steam again. We initiated Daylight Saving System, on this day by putting forward the clock one hour. This is really pandering to the base, but universal passion that men, and especially seafarers, have for getting up late. Otherwise, you would be honest and make our routine earlier instead of flogging the clock. During the concluding days of September, the roar of the pressure grew louder, and I could see that the area of disturbance was rapidly approaching the ship. Stupendous forces were at work, and the fields of firm ice around the endurance were being diminished steadily. September 30th was a bad day. It began well, for we got two penguins and five seals during the morning. Three other seals were seen. But at three p.m., cracks that had opened during the night alongside the ship, commenced to work in a lateral direction. The ship sustained terrific pressure on the portside forward, the heaviest shocks being under the forewregging. It was the worst squeeze we had experienced. The decks shuddered and jumped, beams arched, and stanchions buckled and shook. I ordered all hands to stand by in readiness for whatever emergency might arise. Even the dogs seemed to feel the tense anxiety of the moment. But the ship resisted valiantly, and just when it appeared that the limit of her strength was reached, the huge flow that was pressing down upon us cracked across and so gave relief. The behaviour of our ship in the ice has been magnificent, wrote Warsley. Since we have been beset, her staunchness and endurance have been almost past belief again and again. She has been nipped with a million-ton pressure and risen nobly, falling clear of the water out on the ice. She has been thrown to and fro, like a shuttlecock a dozen times. She has been strained, her beams arched upwards, by the fearful pressure. Her very sides opened and closed again as she was actually bent and curved along her length, groaning like a living thing. It would be sad if such a brave little craft should be finally crushed in the remorseless, slowly strangling grip of the weddle pack, after ten months of the bravest and most gallant fight ever put up by a ship. The endurance deserved all that could be said in praise of her. Shipwrights had never done sounder or better work. But how long could she continue to fight under such conditions? We were drifting into the congested area of the western weddle sea, the worst portion of the worst sea in the world, where the pack, forced on irresistibly by wind and current, impinges on the western shore, and is driven up in huge corrugated ridges and chaotic fields of pressure. The vital question for us was whether or not the ice would open sufficiently to release us, or at least give us a chance of release, before the drift carried us into the most dangerous area. There was no answer to be got from the silent bergs and the grinding flows, and we faced the month of October with anxious hearts. The leads in the pack appear to have opened up a little on October 1st, but not sufficiently to be workable, even if we had been able to release the endurance from the flow. The day was calm, cloudy and misty in the forenoon, and clearer in the afternoon, when we observed well-defined pahelia. The ship was subjected to slight pressure at intervals. Two bull crab-eaters climbed onto the flow close to the ship, and were shot by wild. They were both big animals in prime condition, and I felt that there was no more need for anxiety as to the supply of fresh meat for the dogs. Sea Oliver made a welcome change in our own menu. The two bulls were marked, like many of their kind, with long parallel scars about three inches apart, evidently the work of the killers. A bull we killed on the following day had four parallel scars, sixteen inches long, on each side of its body. They were fairly deep, and one flipper had been nearly torn away. The creature must have escaped from the jaws of a killer by a very small margin. Evidently life beneath the pack is not always monotonous. We noticed that several of the bergs in the neighbourhood of the ship were changing their relative positions more than they had done for months past. The flows were moving. Opposition on Sunday, October 3, was latitude 69 degrees, fourteen minutes south, longitude 51 degrees, eight minutes west. During the night the flow holding the ship aft cracked in several places, and this appeared to have eased the strain on the rudder. The forenoon was misty with falls of snow, but the weather cleared later in the day, and we could see that the pack was breaking. New leads had appeared, while several old leads had closed. Pressure ridges had risen along some of the cracks. The thickness of the season's ice, now about 230 days old, was four foot five inches, under seven or eight inches of snow. The ice had been slightly thicker in the early part of September, and I assumed that some melting had begun below. Clark had recorded plus temperatures at depths of 150 and 200 fathoms in the concluding days of September. The ice obviously had attained its maximum thickness by direct freezing, and the heavier older flows had been created by the consolidation of pressure ice, and the overlapping of flows under strain. The air temperatures were still low, minus 24.5 degrees Fahrenheit, being recorded on October 4th. The movement of the ice was increasing. Frost smoke from opening cracks was showing in all directions during October sick. It had the appearance in one place of a great prairie fire, rising from the surface and getting higher as it drifted off before the wind in heavy, dark, rolling masses. At another point there was the appearance of a train running before the wind, the smoke rising from the locomotive straight upwards, and the smoke columns elsewhere gave the effects of warships steaming in line ahead. During the following day the leads and cracks opened to such an extent that if the endurance could have been forced forward for 30 yards, we could have proceeded for two or three miles. But the effort did not promise any really useful result. The conditions did not change materially during the rest of that week. The position on Sunday October 10th was latitude 69 degrees, 21 minutes south, longitude 50 degrees, 34 minutes west. A thaw made things uncomfortable for us that day. The temperature had risen from minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit to plus 29.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest we had experienced since January, and the ship got dripping wet between decks. The upper deck was clear of ice and snow, and their cabins became unpleasantly messy. The dogs, who hated wet, had a most unhappy air. Undoubtedly one grows to like familiar conditions. We had lived long in temperatures that would have seemed distressingly low in civilized life, and now we were made uncomfortable by a degree of warmth that would have left the unaccustomed human being still shivering. The thaw was an indication that winter was over, and we began preparations for re-occupying the cabins on the main deck. I had the shelter-house round the stern, pulled down on the eleventh, and made other preparations for work in the ship as soon as she got clear. The carpenter had built a wheel-house over the wheel-haft, a shelter in cold and heavy weather. The ice was still loosening, and no land was visible for twenty miles. The temperature remained relatively high for several days. All hands moved to their summer quarters in the upper cabins on the twelfth, to the accompaniment of much noise and laughter. Spring was in the air, and if there were no green-growing things to gladden our eyes, there were at least many seals, penguins, and even whales, desporting themselves in the leads. The time for renewed action was coming, and though our situation was grave enough, we were facing the future, hopefully. The dogs were kept in a state of uproar by the sight of so much game. They became almost frenzied when a solemn-looking emperor penguin inspected them gravely from some point of vantage on the flow, and gave utterance to an apparently derisive, gnawk! At seven p.m. on the thirteenth, the ship broke free of the flow, on which she had rested to Saarbud sufficiently to come upright. The rudder freed itself, but the propeller was found to be a thwart ship, having been forced into that position by the flow some time after August first. The water was very clear, and we could see the rudder, which appeared to have suffered only a slight twist to port at the waterline. It moved quite freely. The propeller, as far as we could see, was intact, but you could not be moved by the handgear, probably owing to a film of ice in the stern gland and sleeve. I did not think it advisable to attempt to deal with it at this stage. The ship had not been pumped for eight months, but there was no water, and not much ice in the bilges. Mills was served again in the wardroom that day. The southwesterly breeze freshened to a gale on the fourteenth, and the temperature fell from plus thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit to minus one degree Fahrenheit. At midnight the ship came free from the flow, and drifted rapidly astern. Her head fell off before the wind until she lay nearly at right angles across the narrow lead. This was a dangerous position for rudder and propeller. The spanker was set, but the weight of the wind on the ship gradually forced the flows open, until the endurance swung right round and drove a hundred yards along the lead. Then the ice closed, and at three a.m. we were fast again. The wind died down during the day, and the pack opened for five or six miles to the north. It was still loose on the following morning, and I had the boiler pumped with the intention of attempting to clear the propeller. But one of the manholes developed a leak, the packing being perished by cold or loosened by contraction, and the boiler had to be emptied out again. The pack was rather closer on Sunday the seventeenth. Top sales and head sales were set in the afternoon, and with a moderate northeasterly breeze we tried to force the ship ahead out of the lead. But she was held fast. Later that day heavy pressure developed. The two flows between which the endurance was lying began to close, and the ship was subjected to a series of tremendously heavy strains. In the engine room, the weakest point, loud groans, crashes and hammering sounds were heard. The iron plates on the floor buckled up, and overrode with loud clangs. Me and Mar the flows were grinding off each other's projecting points, and throwing up pressure ridges. The ships stood the strain well for nearly an hour, and then, to my great relief, began to rise with heavy jerks and jars. She lifted ten inches forward, and then three-foot-four inches aft, at the same time healing six degrees to port. The ice was getting below us, and the immediate danger had passed. The position was latitude sixty-nine degrees, nineteen minutes south, longer chewed, fifty degrees, forty minutes west. The next attack of the ice came on the afternoon of October eighteenth. The two flows began to move laterally, exerting great pressure on the ship. Suddenly the flow on the port side cracked, and huge pieces of ice shot up from under the port bilge. Within a few seconds the ship healed over, until she had a list of thirty degrees to port, being held under the starboard bilge by the opposing flow. The leeboats were now almost resting on the flow. The midship dog kennels broke away and crashed down onto the lee kennels, and the howls and barks of the frightened dogs assisted to create a perfect pandemonium. Everything movable on deck and below fell to the lee side, and for a few minutes it looked as if the endurance would be thrown upon her beam ends. Order soon restored. I heard all fires put out, and battens nailed on the decks to give the dogs a foothold, and enable people to get about. Then the crew lashed or the movable gear. If the ship had healed any farther, it would have been necessary to release the leeboats and pull them clear, and Wasley was watching to give the alarm. Hurley meanwhile descended to the flow, and took some photographs of the ship in her unusual position. Dinner in the wardroom that evening was a curious affair. Most of the dines had to sit on the deck, their feet against battens and their plates on their knees. At eight p.m the flows opened, and within a few minutes the endurance was nearly upright again. Orders were given for the ice to be chipped clear of the rudder. The men pulled the blocks out of the way, when they had been detached from the flow with the long ice chisels, and were able to haul the ship's stern into a clear berth. Then the boiler was pumped up. This work was completed early in the morning of October 19th, and during that day the engineer lit fires, and got up steam very slowly, in order to economize fuel, and avoid any strain on the chilled boilers by unequal heating. The crew cut up all loose lumber, boxes, etc., and put them in the bunkers for fuel. The day was overcast with occasional snowfalls, the temperature plus 12 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice in our neighbourhood was quiet, but in the distance pressure was at work. The wind freshened in the evening, and we ran a wire mooring astern. The barometer at 11 p.m stood at 28.96, the lowest since the gales of July. An uproar among the dogs attracted attention late in the afternoon, and we found a 25-foot well cruising up and down in our pool. It pushed its head up once in characteristic killer fashion, but we judged from its small curved dorsal fin, that it was a specimen of Baleenoptera Akotorostrata, not Orca Gladiator. A strong south-westerly wind was blowing on October 20th, and the pack was working. The endurance was imprisoned securely in the pool, but our chance might come at any time. Watches were set so as to be ready for working-ship. Wild and Hudson, Green Street and Cheetham, Warsley and Creen, took the deck-watches, and the chief engineer and second engineer kept watch, and watched with three of the A.B.s for stokers. The staff and the forward hands, with the exception of the cook, the carpenter and his mate, were on watch and watch, that is, four hours on deck, and four hours below, or off duty. The carpenter was busy making a light punt, which might prove useful in the navigation of lanes and channels. At eleven a.m. we gave the engines a gentle trial turn astern. Everything worked well after eight months of frozen inactivity, except that the bilge pump and the discharge proved to be frozen up. They were cleared with some little difficulty. The engineer reported that to get steam he had to use one ton of coal, with wood ashes and blubber. The fires, required to keep the boiler warm, consumed one and a quarter to one and a half hundred weight of coal per day. We had about fifty tons of coal remaining in the bunkers. October twenty-first and twenty-second were days of low temperature, which caused the open leads to freeze over. The pack was working, and ever and on the roar of pressure came to our ears. We waited for the next move of the gigantic forces that arrayed against us. The twenty-third brought a strong northwesterly wind, and the movement of the flows and pressure ridges became more formidable. Then, on Sunday October twenty-fourth, there came what for the endurance was the beginning of the end. The position was latitude sixty-nine degrees eleven minutes south, longitude fifty-one degrees five minutes west. We had now twenty-two and a half hours of daylight, and throughout the day we watched the threatening advance of the flows. At six forty-five p.m. the ship sustained heavy pressure in a dangerous position. The attack of the ice illustrated roughly in the appended diagram. The shaded portions represent the pool, covered with new ice, that afforded no support to the ship, and the areas indicate the direction of the pressure exercised by the thick flows and pressure ridges. The onslaught was all but irresistible. The endurance groaned and quivered as a starboard quarter was forced against the flow, twisting the stern post and starting the heads and ends of planking. The ice had lateral as well as forward movement, and the ship was twisted and actually bent by the stresses. She began to leak dangerously at once. I had the pumps rigged, got up steam, and started the bilge pumps at eight p.m. The pressure by that time had relaxed. This ship was making water rapidly aft, and the carpenter set to work to make a coffer dam a stern of the engines. All hands worked, watch and watch, throughout the night, pumping ship and helping the carpenter. By morning the leak was being kept in check. The carpenter and his assistants chalked the coffer dam with straps of blankets, and nailed strips over the seams wherever possible. The main or hand pump was frozen up, and could not be used at once. After it had been knocked out, Warsley, Green Street and Hudson went down in the bunkers, and cleared the ice from the bilges. This is not a pleasant job, wrote Warsley. We have to dig a hole down through the coal, while the beams and timbers groan and creak all around us like pistol shots. The darkness is almost complete, and we mess about in the wet with half-frozen hands, and try to keep the coal from slipping back into the bilges. The men on deck pour buckets of boiling water from the galley down the pipe, as we prod and hammer from below. And at last we get the pump clear, cover up the bilges to keep the coal out, and rush on deck, very thankful to find ourselves safe in the open air. Monday, October 25th, dawned cloud and misty, with a minus temperature and a strong south-easterly breeze. All hands were pumping at intervals, and assisting the carpenter with the cofferdam. The leak was being kept under fairly easily, but the outlook was bad. Heavy pressure ridges were forming in all directions, and though the immediate pressure upon the ship was not severe, I realised that the rest-spite would not be prolonged. The pack within our range of vision was being subjugated to enormous compression, such as might be caused by cyclonic winds, opposing ocean currents, or constriction in a channel of some description. I realised that the rest-spite would not be prolonged. The pressure ridges, massive and threatening, testify to the overwhelming nature of the forces that were at work. Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and tossed aside, as other masses rose beneath them. We were helpless, intruded as in a strange world, our lives depended upon the play of grim elementary forces that made a mockery of our puny efforts. A scarcely dead hope now, that the endurance would live, and throughout that anxious day I reviewed again the plans made long before the sledging journey that we must make in the event of our having to take to the ice. We were ready, as far as forethought could make us, for every contingency. Stores, dogs, sledges and equipment were ready to be moved from the ship at a moment's notice. The following day brought clear weather with a blue sky. The sunshine was inspirating. The roar of pressure could be heard all around us. New ridges were rising, and I could see as the day wore on, that the lines of major disturbance were drawing nearer to the ship. The endurance suffered some strains at intervals. Listening below I could hear the cracking and groaning of her timbers, the pistol-like cracks that told of the starting of a tree-nail or plank, and the faint, indefinable whispers of our ships to stress. Overhead the sun shone serenely, occasional fleecy clouds drifted before the subtly breeze, and the light glinted and sparkled on the million facets of the new pressure ridges. The day passed slowly. At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure developed, with twisting strains that racked the ship for an aft. The butts of planking were opened four and five inches on the starboard side, and at the same time we could see from the bridge, that the ship was bending like a bow under titanic pressure. Almost like a living creature, she resisted the forces that would crush her, but it was a one-sided battle. Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon the little ship, that had dared the challenge of the Antarctic. The endurance was now leaking badly, and at 9 p.m. I gave the order to lower boats, gear, provisions, and sledges to the flow, and move them to the flat ice a little away from the ship. The working of the ice closed the leak slightly at midnight, but all hands were pumping all night. A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor penguins from a crack a hundred yards away, at the moment when the pressure upon the ship was at its climax. They walked a little away towards us, halted, and after a few ordinary calls, proceeded to utter wild cries that sounded like a dirge for the ship. None of us had ever before heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries, and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling. Recording by Lizzie Driver South The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914–1917 by Sir Ernest Shackleton Chapter 4 Part 2 The Loss of the Endurance Then came a fateful day, Wednesday, October 27th. The position was latitude 69 degrees, five minutes south, longitude 51 degrees, 30 minutes west. The temperature was minus 8.5 degrees Fahrenheit, a gentle southerly breeze was blowing, and the sun shone in a clear sky. After long months of ceaseless anxiety and strain, after times when hope beat high, and times when the outlook was black indeed, the end of the endurance has come. But though we have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that lies before us. The task is to reach land with all the members of the expedition. It is hard to write what I feel. To assailer, his ship is more than a floating home. And in the endurance I had centered ambitions, hopes and desires. Now, straining and groaning, her timbers creaking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient life at the very outset of her career. She has crushed and abandoned after drifting more than 570 miles in a northwesterly direction during the 281 days since she became locked in the ice. The distance, from the point where she became beset, to the place where she now rests, mortally hurt in the grip of the flow, is 573 miles. But the total drift, through all the observed positions, has been 1186 miles. And probably we actually covered more than 1500 miles. We are now 346 miles from Paulette Island, the nearest point where there is any possibility of finding food and shelter. A small hut, built there by the Swedish expedition in 1902, is filled with stores left by the Argentine relief ship. I know all about those stores, for I purchased them in London on behalf of the Argentine Government, when they asked me to equip the relief expedition. The distance to the nearest barrier west of us is about 180 miles. But a party going there would still be about 360 miles from Paulette Island, and there would be no means of sustaining life on the barrier. We could not take from here food enough for the whole journey. The weight would be too great. This morning, at last on the ship, the weather was clear, with the gentle south-southeastly to south-southwesterly breeze. From the crow's nest there was no sign of land of any sort. The pressure was increasing steadily, and the passing hours brought no relief or respite to the ship. The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4pm. The ship was hoved stern up by the pressure, and the driving flow, moving laterally across the stern, split the rudder and tore out the rudder post and stern post. Then, while we watched, the ice loosened and the endurance sank a little. The decks were breaking upwards, and the water was pouring in below. Again the pressure began, and at 5pm I ordered all hands on to the ice. The twisting, grinding flows were working their will at last on the ship. It was a sickening sensation to feel the decks breaking up under one's feet. The great beams bending and then snapping with a noise like heavy gunfire. The water was overmastering the pumps, and, to void an explosion when it reached the boilers, I had to give orders for the fires to be drawn and the steam let down. The plans for abandoning the ship in case of emergency had been made well in advance, and men and dogs descended to the flow, and made their way to the comparative safety of an unbroken portion of the flow without a hitch. Just before leaving I looked down the engine room skylight as I stood on the quivering deck, and saw the engines dropping sideways as the stays into bed plates gave way. I cannot describe the impression of relentless destruction that was forced upon me as I looked down and around. The flows, with the force of millions of tons of moving ice behind them, were simply annihilating the ship. Essential supplies had been placed on the flow about a hundred yards from the ship, and there we set about making a camp for the night. But about seven p.m. after the tents were up, the icy water occupying became involved in the pressure, and started to split and smash beneath our feet. I heard the camp move to a bigger flow about two hundred yards away, just beyond the bow of the ship. Boats, stores, and camber equipment had to be conveyed across a working pressure ridge. The movement of the ice was so slow that it did not interfere much with our short trek. But the weight of the ridge had caused the flows to sink on either side, and there were pools of water there. A pioneer party with picks and shovels had to build a snow causeway before we could get all our possessions across. By eight p.m. the camp had been pitched again. We had two pole tents and three hoop tents. I took charge of the small pole tent, number one, with Hudson, Hurley, and James' companions, while I had the small hoop tent, number two, with Wordy, McNeish, and McIlroy. These hoop tents were very easily shifted and set up. The eight forward hands had the large hoop tent, number three. Crane had charred of number four hoop tent, with Hussie, Marston, and Cheetham, and Wasley had the other pole tent, number five, with Green Street, Lees, Clark, Kerr, Rickinson, Macklin, and Blackborough. The last name being the youngest of the forward hands. Tonight the temperature has dropped to minus sixteen degrees Fahrenheit, and most of the men are cold and uncomfortable. After the tenth had been pitched, I mustered all hands and explained the position to them briefly, and I hope clearly. I have told them the distance to the barrier, and the distance to Paulette Island, and have stated that I propose to try to march with equipment across the ice in the direction of Paulette Island. I thanked the men for the steadiness and good morale they have shown in these trying circumstances, and told them I had no doubt that, provided they continue to work their utmost, and, trust me, we will all reach safety in the end. Then we had supper, which the cook had repaired at the big blubberstove, and after a watch had been set, all hands, except the watch, turned in. For myself I could not sleep. The destruction and abandonment of the ship was no sudden shock. The disaster had been looming ahead for many months, and I had studied my plans for all contingencies a hundred times. But the thoughts that came to me as I walked up and down in the darkness were not particularly cheerful. The task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend my energies in mental power, and apply every bit of knowledge that experience of the Antarctic had given me. The task was likely to be long and strenuous, and an ordered mind and a clear programme were essential if we were to come through without loss of life. A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground. At midnight I was pacing the ice, listening to the grinding flow, and to the groans and crashes that told of the death agony of the endurance. When I noticed a sudden crack running across our flow right through the camp, the alarm whistle brought all hands tumbling out, and removed the tents and stores lying on what was now the smaller portion of the flow to the larger portion. Nothing more could be done at that moment, and the men turned in again, but there was little sleep. Each time I came to the end of my beat on the flow I could just see in the darkness the unpeering piles of pressure ice, which toppled over a narrowed still further the little floating island we occupied. I did not notice at the time that my tent, which had been on the wrong side of the crack, had not been erected again. Hudson and James had managed to squeeze themselves into other tents, and Hurley had wrapped himself in the canvas of number one tent. I discovered this about five a.m. All night long the electric light gleamed from the stern of the dying endurance. Hussey had left this light switched on when he took a last observation, and, like a lamp in a cottage window, it braved the night until, in the early morning, the endurance received a particularly violent squeeze. There was a sound of rending beams, and the light disappeared. The connection had been cut. Morning came in, chill and cheerless. All hands were stiff and weary after their first disturbed night on the flow. Just at daybreak I went over to the endurance with wild and hurly, in order to retrieve some tins of petrol that could be used to boil up milk for the rest of the men. The ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck. The jib, boon, and bow spirited snapped off during the night, and now lay at right angles to the ship. With the chains, Martingale and Bob Stray dragging them as the vessel quivered and moved in the grinding pack. The ice had driven over the forecastle, and she was well down by the head. We secured two tins of petrol with some difficulty, and postponed the further examination of the ship until after breakfast. Jumping across cracks with the tins we soon reached camp, and built a fireplace out of the triangular watertight tanks we had ripped from the life boat. This was done in order to make more room. Then we pierced a petrol tin in half a dozen places with an ice axe and set fire to it. The petrol blazed fiercely under the five-gallon drum we used as a cooker, and the hot milk was ready in quick time. Then, we three ministering angels went round the tents with a life-giving drink, and were surprised, and a trifle chagrined at the matter-of-fact manner in which some of the men accepted this contribution to their comfort. They did not quite understand what work we had done for them in the early dawn, and I heard Wilde say, if any of you gentlemen would like your boots cleaned, just put them outside. This was his gentle way of reminding them that a little thanks will go a long way on such occasions. The cook prepared breakfast, which consisted of biscuit and hooch at eight a.m., and I then went over to the endurance again, and made a follow-examination of the wreck. Only six of the cabins had not been pierced by flows and blocks of ice. Every one of the starboard cabins had been crushed. The whole of the after-part of the ship had been crushed concertina fashion. The forecastle and the ritz were submerged, and the wardroom was three-quarters full of ice. The starboard side of the wardroom had come away. The motor-engine forward had been driven through the galley. Petrol cases that had been stacked on the foredeck had been driven by the flow through the wall into the wardroom, and had carried before them a large picture. Curiously enough, the glass of this picture had not been cracked. Whereas in the immediate neighbourhood I saw heavy iron dabbits that had been twisted and bent like the ironwork of a wrecked train. The ship was being crushed remorselessly. Under a dull overcast sky I returned to camp and examined our situation. The flow occupied by the camp was still subject to pressure, and I thought it wise to move to a larger and apparently stronger flow about two hundred yards away of the starboard around the ship. This camp was to become known as Dump Camp, owing to the amount of stuff that was thrown away there. We could not afford to carry unnecessary gear, and a drastic sorting of equipment took place. I decided to issue a complete new set of berberies and underclothing to each man, and also a supply of new socks. The camp was transferred to the larger flow quickly, and it began there to direct preparations for the long journey across the flows to Paulette Island or Snow Hill. Hurley, meanwhile, had rigged his cine-matograph camera, and was getting pictures of the endurance in her death-throws. While he was engaged thus, the ice, driving against the standing rigging and the fore-main, and mism-masts snapped the shrouds. The fore-top and top-gallant mast came down with a run, and hung a wreckage on the fore-mast, with the fore-yield vertical. The main mast followed immediately, snapping off about ten feet above the main deck. The crow's nest fell within ten feet of where Hurley stood, turning the handle of his camera, but he did not stop the machine, and so secured in a unique, though sad, picture. The issue of clothing was quickly accomplished. Sleeping bags were required also. We had eighteen fur bags, and it was necessary, therefore, to issue ten of the Jagger woollen bags in order to provide for the twenty-eight men of the party. The woollen bags were lighter and less warm than the reindeer bags, and so each man who received one of them was allowed also a reindeer skin to lie upon. It seemed fair to distribute the fur bags by lot, but some of us older hands did not join in the lottery. We thought we could do quite as well with the Jaggers as with the furs. With quick dispatch the clothing was apportioned, and then we turned one of the boats on his side, and supported it with two broken oars to make a leaf of the galley. The cook got the blubber stove going, and a little later, when I was sitting round the corner of the stove, I heard one man say, Cook, I like my tea strong. Another joined in, Cook, I like mine weak. It was pleasant to know that their minds were untroubled, but I thought the time of the tune to mention that the tea would be the same for all hands, and that we would be fortunate if two months later we had any tea at all. It occurred to me at the time that the incident had psychological interest. Here were men, their home crushed, the camp pitched on the unstable flows, and their chance of reaching safety apparently remote, calmly attending to the details of existence, and giving their attention to such trifles as the strength of a brew of tea. During the afternoon the work continued. Every now and then we heard a noise like heavy guns of distant thunder, caused by the flows grinding together. The pressure caused by the congestion in this area of the pack is producing a scene of absolute chaos. The flows grind stupendously, throw out great ridges, and shatter one another mercilessly. The ridges, or hedge-groves, marking the pressure lines that border the fast diminishing pieces of smooth-flow ice, are enormous. The ice moves majestically, irresistibly. Human effort is not futile, but man fights against the giant forces of nature in a spirit of humility. One has a sense of dependence on the higher power. Today two seals, a weddle and a crab eater, came close to the camp and were shot. Four others were chased back into the water, for their presence disturbed the dog teams, and this meant floggings and trouble with the harness. The arrangement of the tents has been complete, and the internal management settled. Each tent has a mess orderly, the duty being taken in turn, on an alphabetical rotor. The orderly takes the hush-pots off his tent to the galley, gets all the hush he is allowed, and, after the meal, cleans the vessels with snow, and stores them in sledge or boat ready for a possible move. October 29th We passed a quiet night, although the pressure was grinding around us. Our flow is a heavy one, and it withstood the blows it received. There is a light wind from the northwest to north-northwest, and the weather is fine. We are twenty-eight men with forty-nine dogs, including Sue and Sally's five grown-up pups. All hands this morning were busy preparing gear, fitting boats and sledges, and building up and strengthening the sledges to carry the boats. The main motor-sledge, with its little fitting from the carpenter, carried our largest boats admirably. For the next boat, four ordinary sledges were lashed together, but we were dubious as to the strength of this contrivance, and as a matter of fact it broke down quickly under strain. The ship is still afloat, with the spurs of the pack driven through her and holding her up. The four-castle head is under water, the docks are burst up by the pressure, the wreckage lies around and dismal confusion, but over all the blue ensign flies still. This afternoon Sally's three youngest pups, Sue, Sirius, and Mrs. Chippy, the carpenter's cat, have to be shot. We cannot undertake the maintenance of weaklings under the new conditions. Macklin, Creen, and the carpenter seem to feel the loss of their friends rather badly. We propose making a short trial journey tomorrow, starting with two of the boats and the tens sledges. The number of dog teams has been increased to seven. Green Street taking charge of the new additional team, consisting of Snapper and Sally's four oldest pups. We have ten working sledges to relay with five teams. Wilds and Hurley's teams will haul the cutter with the assistance of four men. The whaler and the other boats will follow, and the men who are hauling them will be able to help with the cutter at rough places. We cannot hope to make rapid progress, but each mile counts. Creen this afternoon has a bad attack of snow blindness. The weather, on the morning of October 30th, was overcast and misty, with occasional falls of snow. A moderate northeasterly breeze was blowing. We were still living on extra food brought from the ship when we abandoned her, and the sledging and boating rations were intact. These rations would provide for twenty-eight men for fifty-six days on full rations, but we could count on getting enough seal and penguin meat to at least double this time. We could even, if progress proved too difficult, and too injurious to the boats, which we must guard as our ultimate means of salvation. Camp on the nearest heavy flow, scour the neighbouring pack for penguins and seals, and await the outward rift of the pack to open in navigable water. This plan would avoid the grave dangers we are now incurring of getting entangled in impossible pressure ridges and possibly irretrievably damaging the boats, which are bound to suffer in rough ice. It would also minimise the peril of the ice splitting under us, as it did twice during the night of our first camp. Yet I feel sure that it is the right thing to attempt a march, since if we can make five or seven miles a day to the north-west, our chance of reaching safety in the months to come will be increased greatly. There is a psychological aspect to the question also. It would be much better for the men in general to feel that, even though progress is slow, they are on their way to land, then it will be to simply sit down and wait for the tardy north-westerly drift to take us out of this cruel waste of ice. We will make an attempt to move. The issue is beyond my power either to predict order control. That afternoon Wilde and I went out in the mist and snow to find a road to the north-east. After many devious turnings to avoid the heavier pressure ridges, we pioneered away for at least a mile and a half, and then returned by a rather better route to the camp. The pressure now was rapid in movement, and our flow was suffering from the shakes and jerks of the ice. At three p.m. after lunch we got under way, leaving dump-cap a massive debris. The order was that personal gear must not exceed two pounds per man, and this meant that nothing but bare necessaries was to be taken on the march. We cannot afford to cumber ourselves with unnecessary weight. Holes had been dug in the snow for the reception of private letters and little personal trifles, the lars and penates of the members of the expedition, and into the privacy of these white graves were consigned much of sentimental value, a knot of little intrinsic worth. I rather grudged the two pounds allowance per man, owing to my keen anxiety to keep weights at a minimum, but some personal belongings could fairly be regarded as indispensable. The journey might be a long one, and there was a possibility of a winter in impoverished quarters on an inhospitable coast at the other end. A man under such conditions needs something to occupy his thoughts, some tangible momentum of his home, and people beyond the seas. So sovereigns were thrown away, and photographs were kept. I tore the fly-leaf out of the Bible that Queen Alexandra had given to the ship, with her own writing on it, and also the wonderful page of Job containing the verse, out of whose womb comes the ice, and the horror and the horror-frost of heaven who has gendered it, the waters are hid as with the stone, and the face of the deepest frozen. Job chapter 38 verses 29 to 30. The other Bible which Queen Alexandra had given us for the use of the shore-party was down below in the lower hold in one of the cases when the ship received her death-blow. Suitcases were thrown away. These were retrieved later as material for making boots, and some of them marked solid leather, proved, to our disappointment, to contain a large percentage of cardboard. The manufacturer would have had difficulty in convincing us at the time that the deception was anything short of criminal. The pioneer sledge-party, consisting of wordy, hussy, Hudson and myself, carrying picks and shovels, started to break a road through the pressure ridges for the sledges carrying the boats. The boats, with their gear and the sledges beneath them, weighed each more than a ton. The cutter was smaller than the whaler, but weighed more, and was a much more strongly built boat. The whaler was mounted on the sledge-part of the girling tractor, forward, and two sledges amid ships and aft. These sledges were strengthened with cross-timbers, and shortened oars, fore and aft. The cutter was mounted on the aero-sledge. The sledges were the point of weakness. It appeared almost hopeless to prevent them smashing under the heavy laden lows, when travelling over rough pressure ice, which stretched ahead of us for probably three hundred miles. After the pioneer sledge had started, the seven dog teams got off. They took their sledges forward for half a mile, then went back for the other sledges. Warsley took charge of the two boats, with fifteen men hauling, and these also had to be relayed. It was heavy work for dogs and men, but there were intervals of comparative rest on the backward journey, after the first portion of the load had been taken forward. We passed over two opening cracks, through which killers were pushing their ugly snouts, and by five p.m. had covered a mile in a north-northwesterly direction. The condition of the ice ahead was chaotic, for since the morning increased pressure had developed, and the pack was moving and crashing in all directions. So I gave the order to pitch camp for the night on flat ice, which, unfortunately, proved to be young and salty. The older pack was too rough and too deeply laden with snow, to offer a suitable camping ground. Although we had gained only one mile in the direct line, the necessary deviations made the distance travelled at least two miles, and the relays brought the distance marched up to six miles. Similar dog teams had covered at least ten miles. I set the watch from six p.m. to seven a.m., one hour for each man in each tent in rotation. During the night, snow fell heavily, and the floorcloth of the tents got wet through, as the temperature had risen to plus 25 degrees Fahrenheit. One of the things we hoped for in those days was the temperature in the neighbourhood of zero. For then the snow surface would be hard, we would not be travelled by damp, and our gear would not become covered in soft snow. The killers were blowing all night, and a crack appeared about twenty foot from the camp at two a.m. The ice blowers was quite thin enough for the killers to break through, if they took a fancy to do so. But there was no other camping ground within our reach, and we had to take the risk. When morning came, the snow was falling so heavily that we could not see more than a few school yards ahead, and I decided not to strike camp. A path over the shattered flows would be hard to find, and to get the boats into a position of peril might be disastrous. Rickinson and Worsley started back for dump camp at seven a.m., to get some wood and blubber for the fire, and an hour later we had hoosh with one biscuit each. At ten a.m., Hurley and Hudson left for the old camp, in order to bring some additional dog pomecan, since there were no seals to be found near us. Then, as the weather cleared, Worsley and I made a prospect to the west, and tried to find a practicable road. A large flow offered a fairly good road for at least another mile to the northwest, and we went back prepared for another move. The weather cleared a little, and after lunch we struck camp. I took Rickinson, Kerr, Wordy and Hudson, as a breakdown gang to pioneer a path among the pressure ridges. Five dog teams followed. Wilds and Hurley's teams were hitched onto the cutter, and they started off in a splendid style. They needed to be helped only once. Indeed, fourteen dogs did as well, or even better than eighteen men. The ice was moving beneath and around us as we worked towards the big flow, and where this flow met the smaller ones, there was a mass of pressed up ice, still in motion, with water between the ridges. But it is wonderful what a dozen men can do with picks and shovels. We cut a row through Pressure Ridge about fourteen feet high in ten minutes, and leave a smooth, or a comparatively smooth, path for the sledges and teams. End of chapter four part two