During the middle watch commencing at midnight of March 5 it froze hard, but the pack was more open, and, after running north for some time, we altered course and made more to the westward, Commander Wild’s idea being to skirt the pack as far as possible. We entered the ice again in the morning. During the previous few days remarkably little animal life had greeted our eyes; there was practically nothing to break the awful, monotonous desolation; but on this day we saw a single Adelie penguin, dignifiedly in command of a solitary hummock—looking for all the world, so old-timers said, like the skipper of an old-world windjammer—one of the kind who wore a frock coat and tall hat: a gaff-topsail hat, as they used to call them—even when rounding Cape Horn in a rip-snorter—loftily conning his ship through the smother and haloed in his own enormous dignity. Desirous of disturbing this colossal equanimity—and I have seen honest Kirk elders on a Sabbath morning who looked frivolous by comparison—we made rude remarks to the bird, who treated us with lofty disdain, and beyond showing a supercilious interest—as a pretty waitress in a cafÉ might show to a chafing client—took no further notice of us, until Captain Worsley, who is rather clever at mimicry, gave a loud “caa-aa,” which started Master Penguin’s hoops and lifted him from his god-like aloofness. He took to flight with all speed, casting scared glances backwards as he went, as if he thought the special Antarctic devil were after him. Still laughing at the ludicrous spectacle, we tied up to a large floe and iced ship, an operation occupying the greater part of the afternoon, and causing us much amusement by reason of Jeffrey’s agility. He offered to catch any ice that was thrown to him, and we were resolved to beat him—much, I fear, being thrown at him. Nevertheless, he held his own pretty well, spite of the thunderous fusillade with which he was assailed.

Query ventured on to the floe on this occasion and betrayed great interest in a killer whale that was swimming about near at hand. He barked himself hoarse at the monster without causing it any perturbation; but of a sudden, as if bored by his exhibition of ill-feeling, the killer rose quite close to the floe and “blew” for all the world like a Bowery tough spitting disdain, whereupon Query tucked tail between his quarters and bolted like a scared rabbit.

The following day was marked by an increase in the cold and a tightening of the ice. I spent the day in proper sailorizing work, under the excellent tutelage of old Mac; helping him to repair the mizen tack and secure the gaff. He was a very capable instructor, and from him I learnt how to perform most intricate tricks of seamanship—he was always patient and ready to answer questions, and I look on him to this day as my sea-daddy. He had a way of imparting information that left a definite impression in the mind, and many a University professor might have benefited by adopting his plan. Coming to very heavy pack we had to interrupt our westward course and once more to head away to the nor’ard, where we passed large bergs.

Sunrise of extraordinary beauty heralded yet another day. Beautiful though the dawning was we considered it pessimistically, for a fair dawn down in these latitudes so often portends a foul day: our prognostications were fulfilled, for by eight o’clock it was blowing and snowing to beat the band. The day grew dull and ominous by contrast with the early brightness; and away on the horizon, owing to the unnatural refraction, strange black shapes appeared like towering mountains and frowning coast-line. It required much mental concentration to avoid giving a false alarm of land, so vivid was the impression conveyed by this Antarctic mirage. Darkness closing in on top of the flurry made it dangerous to proceed, and the Quest was accordingly hove-to for the night.

I was called to keep the middle watch, and as I had evidently convinced the after-guard that I was beginning to understand my job, charge of the ship was given to me during this watch; I was left alone on the lookout. Orders were left with me by Mr. Wilkins to call Mr. Jeffrey at once if the ship drifted too near the ice. The ship was hove-to in a large pool and it was still blowing with considerable violence from the south-west. There was not a soul to talk to or to borrow confidence from, and all around and about me was that vast cold wilderness of ice. The loneliness was a sort of wall that seemed to shut me off from all my kind. A salutary lesson in man’s minuteness as compared with gigantic natural forces!

We drifted slowly across the pool, and I, feeling that we might come to harm by hitting heavy ice, called Mr. Jeffrey at a quarter to one. He promptly came on the bridge—his presence sent a warm glow clean through me, and my sighs of relief must have ascended to highest heaven. But there was really no cause for alarm, for at one o’clock we came slowly alongside the ice, as if we had been warped into dock, and lay snugly alongside as though in a peaceful harbour. But at 2 a.m. I called Dell and got below—where even sleeping berth-mates seemed genial companions.

Way was got on the ship again during the morning watch, and we proceeded through fairly heavy pack which was open in places and dotted with big bergs. The temperature fell considerably at midday, and when on lookout at the masthead, the cut of the wind was bitingly fierce. In the afternoon the floes were larger still and hummocky, and small groups of penguins mounted solemn guard on many of them. The sun shone at intervals through a very hazy sky, and the refraction was even more pronounced than ever, the most astonishingly fantastic shapes appearing on the horizon and sparkling with a silvery light in the sun. Once again we hove-to for the night.

Followed a strenuous day with Dr. Macklin and Naisbitt, tallying and restowing stores, which was not a bad job for cold weather. Outboard the outlook was not inviting: the floes being large and heavy—old Weddell Sea ice, they said it was—and the intervening water frozen over thinly with young ice, which naturally delayed our by no means considerable speed still more. The temperature had dropped to 9 F. At 10 a.m. a noisy commotion on deck fetched us up into the open like corks popping out of a bottle, curiosity overcoming our sense of duty. We found several of the more active-minded of the crew chasing penguins round and round a big floe. The game was a pure farce, the birds stolidly refusing to leave their harbourage, and showing a clever readiness in dodging their pursuers, twisting this way and that like professional footballers, until Argles started playing footer, too. He hurled himself full-stretch at one penguin, tackled it low in approved Rugby style, and fetched it down, squawking and vociferous as a fishwife. The catch was brought aboard alive, and Query displayed canine curiosity in its quaintness, but the penguin was a match for the dog, and once again he had to retreat with his tail between his legs.

At eight p.m. the bosun and I took a sounding; it was intensely cold, and by the time we had wound in the last fathom I found myself frozen to the rail. The cold also burst the water-jacket of the paraffin engine that ran the main dynamo, so it became necessary to start the spare dynamo in the engine-room, to run which there was a small steam-engine.

Throughout the night we lay to in rapidly freezing ice, and the skipper grew concerned, for the outlook displeased him greatly. To be frozen in hard and fast would be fatal, consequently just enough way to prevent this happening was maintained on the ship; and then, at 4.30, a full head of steam was raised and an attempt made to get clear. But though we backed and rammed and stopped, and backed and rammed again, making a furious bobbery all the time, the ship, shaking fore and aft at the impact of her bows on the thickening ice and the harsh grind and rattle of the broken stuff filling the air, we made paltry progress, advancing a bare mile during the entire morning watch. To burn coal at that rate without any commensurate progress was foreign to our best interests, so we gave up the attempt and lay to alongside a convenient floe, there to await the pleasure of the elements, and whistle for a favouring breeze. That breeze coming, we drifted to the northward with the ice, which during the forenoon gradually opened. So precious was our coal becoming now that the small quantity required to run the steam-driven dynamo could not be spared, and as the paraffin-run dynamo was out of action, I busied myself in filling and trimming lamps for the ship.

When I went on watch at midnight it was still blowing very strongly from the south. The mere words convey no adequate impression of what an Antarctic gale is like; but if you imagine a northerly blizzard blowing its hardest and then magnify all the unrest and bitter discomfort and annoying insistence of the driving sleet and noisy wind by about a hundred, you may gain some idea of the real thing. We were fast frozen into the ice, which every now and then bore against our sides with an impressive and somewhat alarming squeaking sound that was very weird, underrunning the main diapason roar of the storm as it did.

The gale was not long-lived; with the flush of dawn the wind subsided, and the morning broke beautifully clear and calm. All hands turned to after breakfast to ice ship—and there was ice enough and to spare, for even the young ice that had recently formed was now thicker and whiter and older looking, and seemed to be merging into the main pack. Certain of us busied ourselves in squaring off the decks—ridding them of snow, coiling down ropes fairly and stowing away loose gear; and whilst we were so employed a big killer came up close alongside, breaking the ice as he came. These killers are particularly evil-looking brutes, and the nearer view of them you get, the nastier they seem. It must have been a killer that swallowed Jonah—this fellow seemed almost capable of swallowing the Quest.

In assisting Mr. Douglas and Mr. Jeffrey to make magnetic observations on the floe during the rest of the morning, working in the hold with Dr. Macklin after lunch and then pumping out the always filling bilges with old Mac, putting a harbour-stow on the topsail and so on, time did not hang very heavily on my hands. My leisure time I spent in heaving chunks of ice along the floe for the edification and amusement of Query, who never tired of chasing the fragments and took a keen delight in the vigorous exercise. Then, at night, a sounding was taken; but after the lead touched bottom the steam winding-engine gave out and we had to leave our cast on the sea’s bed until the necessary repairs were effected; and then, as a gigantic red moon came slowly sailing up the sky, we sat back and watched the lovely picture it made of the spectral ice that was all about.

Being now, as it were, in dock, regular watches were abandoned: all hands turned to at eight o’clock and continued working until 1 p.m., after which their time was more or less their own for purposes of recreation, with one man standing a two-hour watch during the night, like an ordinary anchor watch aboard an ordinary sea-going ship. The ice was now thickening rapidly; the temperature having dropped to 5 F., but despite this, the water rose steadily in our hold, and first thing in the forenoon Mac, Dell and myself pumped out the ship. Various duties, such as preparing the oil stoves for the boats—very necessary precautions remember, for the threat of being nipped and sunk was very real—overhauling the lamp-room and trimming the lamps occupied my day; but before dinner we younger ones climbed overside and had a rousing game of football on the ice. A lone, lorn penguin, interested in that queerly curious way these birds adopt towards happenings beyond their normal experience, slithered near and begged to be enrolled in our company. Quite unabashed, it held its own against all our tacklings and charges; and when Query took a hand in the game, it chased him incontinently all over the floe—a most comical sight. It was what the Yankees would call some football. Penguins and dogs do not usually figure in a Cup Final, nor do the players fall through the ice, as Naisbitt did, at places where floes imperfectly joined up with one another. But it was invigorating exercise enough, and after the close confinement of shipboard, very welcome to men who looked on exercise as a religious rite. We managed to pull Naisbitt out, and he was really none the worse for his adventure. Our football was composed of tied-together gunny-sacks that had held ship’s bread. Whilst we played others worked; Kerr, for instance, repaired the burst water-jacket of the dynamo engine, so that we were able to run it again and get a light that at least made darkness visible below.

I slept like a log that night, and found myself reluctant to turn out when I was called at 6 a.m., but needs must; and when I got to the bridge I saw the outlook was more promising. The ice was slacker, its nip on our sides less pronounced and the floes were beginning to come apart—a welcome sign. The run of a growing swell caused them to bend visibly, and there was much groaning and snapping, so that one might easily have thought the ice a great living monster that was trying to burst its bonds. Throughout the day, with a slightly higher temperature, the ice opened up more and more. We lost our sounding lead, though—the wire parted owing to the strain—and we had to resign ourselves to the fact with such equanimity as we could command. By evening we lay in a pool of open water, the nip was gone, and we looked forward hopefully to getting under way again on the morrow.

But our hopes proved to be nothing more than ropes of sand; the following day, although the pack was distinguishably thinning, it was still far too close for us to go ahead. A strong gale bellowed furiously from the north-west, but, being from the northerly quarter, it was actually warmer than usual—though its force was so great that the impression conveyed to the senses was that the temperature was falling. In the forenoon Dell rigged up the dredging machine and for Mr. Wilkins’s benefit let out 3,300 metres of wire, with dredge and deep-sea thermometer attached. It required the whole afternoon to get it inboard again, with the steam-winch fussing away, very certainly, no doubt, but also very slowly—so slowly, indeed, that after a while, becoming exasperated, we man-handled it and made better progress. It was pretty ticklish work, for the dredge wire was constantly being fouled by small floes, and Mr. Douglas out-Blondined Blondin by his dexterity in balancing himself on the wobbling floes and keeping the wire clear with an extended boat-hook. The result justified the exertion, for the dredge contained fifty-seven specimens of quartzite, tuffs and so on; but there was no living matter in the haul, though the rocks were plentifully threaded with worm-cells.

Next day, thanks to a falling thermometer, the ice had thickened, and the floes were compacted once more into a solid mass. Some of these floes, scattered here and there like gaunt icy islands in a sea of ice, were very big, with noticeable hummocks uprearing from the main mass. As a strong southerly wind was blowing, which was favourable to our purpose, we got busy and set topsail and staysail. Seen from outboard we must have looked much more like an ice-yacht than a sea-going ship, I fancy; but under the weight of this canvas we edged a very slow and very difficult way to the north. Our movement was actually with the ice rather than from it—we were acting as motive power to the entire ice-field. Although the ship was officially under way, there was no difficulty in slipping outboard and walking on the ice; and Commander Wild and Captain Worsley, together with Watts, did this. During their promenade they happened upon a large sea-leopard asleep, and the skipper promptly killed it, bringing its head triumphantly back to Mr. Wilkins as spoil of war.

Many of us went for walks during the forenoon, and I took several photographs of the Quest in her icebound condition. She drifted into a pool of open water during the afternoon, and the skipper and Dr. Macklin went out on the floe with a line to pull her alongside, because we desired to play football again. We found a large, convenient floe and had a hectic game, beating the other side 7-4. It is astonishing what a lot of confused exercise you can get out of football on the ice—much more than during ordinary games, even on the muddiest days. It’s a fine tonic for depression and ennui and lethargy, and the various ills shipboard life is apt to breed. You have to exert yourself terrifically to make any real headway, and the ball, weighing about a ton when thoroughly sodden, needs the driving force of a steam ram behind it to move it at all. Our side was composed of Dr. Macklin, Mr. Douglas, the skipper, Naisbitt (cook’s mate) and myself. Our opponents were the Chief, the Second, Ross and Young (stokers), Major Carr and Watts.

Turning from play to work, we set the squaresail at 6 p.m. and began to move; but almost as we started we had to lower the canvas in a hurry, to avoid what might have been a serious collision with a large floe ahead, and our progress was stopped. In the event of opportunity offering for getting under way during the night, I kept the binnacle lights trimmed and ready for immediate use.

Another day came, to show no practical alteration in the ice-conditions. The wind came away strongly from the S.S.E. and the outlook was bad, for the sky showed no vestige of a “water-sky,” and with a lowered temperature the ice was freezing more thickly than ever. Very grim conditions again; but in the Antarctic you don’t grouse about circumstances—you make the best of them, and thank your lucky stars when each succeeding day finds your ship still afloat and not crushed to flinders in the pack.

Whatever else we were doing, we were certainly making progress either with the ice or through it. We had made about ninety miles since working into our frozen dock, and that was something to be thankful for.

After breakfast I went for a walk with Dr. Macklin and Major Carr. There was a large berg in the distance which we wanted to inspect at close quarters, and this appeared to be a promising opportunity. But we could not get quite close up to it because of the scattered character of the ice in its vicinity, though from our position we could see it making its way through the pack, leaving a long lane of clear water behind as it came. The Quest bore up against the pack, throwing broken ice from the bows as a ship throws up spray; and we admired the spectacle—myself a little awestruck—never realizing that Commander Wild was feeling the gravest anxiety aboard, fearing lest the iceberg should charge the Quest and damage her badly. Fortunately the menace passed more than half a mile astern and then disappeared over the northern horizon.

These movements of icebergs in the pack are caused by strong currents under the ice which grip the vast submerged portions and urge the giant masses relentlessly onward through everything that lies in their path; and when, owing to the wind or other circumstances, the pack is moving in an opposite direction you get a wonderful illusion of uncontrolled speed and power charging blindly forward.

Getting back aboard, Dell and myself cleared the wire of the Kelvin sounding machine. After a hearty lunch we enjoyed another game of football with a more respectable ball this time—a ball composed of a canvas bag stuffed with cotton waste, which didn’t take so much out of our feet and shins. We found a perfectly flat floe whereon to play, though owing to the swell causing the ice to bend and undulate we got a new effect: it was like playing football on a rubber floor.

Throughout the night a sharp lookout was kept for bergs bearing down upon us: a menace of the Polar wastes not often taken into consideration, I fancy, by those who do not know the peculiarities of those parts. Several such bergs were in the vicinity and one crossed our bows rather too closely to be pleasant. The temperature was rising during the night, and, in anticipation of a start, the hands were turned to at 6 a.m., with instructions to ice ship. The pack was now much more open, and the engines were gingerly started at six bells—seven o’clock. Once more we were definitely under way, forging ahead with innumerable stoppages and much wheel-work, with “Hard a-port!” “Hard a-starboard!” “Midships!” flying from the watch-officer’s mouth like machine-gun fire. Tediously we wound in and out among the floes; but presently, coming to a clear lane of water, sail was set, which quickened our speed, and by eleven o’clock in the morning we were pretty nearly clear of the pack. During the day I counted fifty-six bergs, most of them large.

With an overcast sky and a strong easterly wind blowing, another dawn came. As the day continued the wind increased to a moderate gale. Commander Wild had practically proved to his own satisfaction that Ross’s “Appearance of land” was merely a flight of fancy, and he now decided to make for Elephant Island—primarily to obtain blubber for fuel. But apart from any material reason I think there is no doubt that he was inspired by a longing to see again the place where he had spent those famous four and a half months with the survivors of the ill-fated Endurance expedition. All aboard who had borne part and lot in that memorable adventure were imbued with the same desire. We headed to the westward and, with a stiff breeze to help us, bowled along at a merry six knots—for us, real clipper speed. But at 5 p.m. we came suddenly on very heavy pack and, dropping our squaresail with alacrity in order to avoid disaster, eased down for the night. With the morning we set sail again, amid extraordinary surroundings. The entire ship was sheeted in ice: upperworks, bridge and deck-house appeared to be determined to give an imitation of their environment. Ice was everywhere: bulwarks like hummocks, monstrous icicles pendant from every salient. The deck itself was overlaid with the frozen stuff; and all tackles, ropes and hamper were grotesquely distorted; whilst the rigging was simply solid. The Quest was completely transmogrified, like a fairy ship at first glance; but, owing to the freezing up, anything but a ship of dreams when it came to handling her. To go aloft meant breaking a way like pioneers—and, my! it was cold. Mac and I shovelled what seemed like half the frozen Antarctic overboard during the morning watch, and even then the other half was still aboard. Breaking off from this necessary task, we set the squaresail, which seemed scared at the changed appearance of the ship, for it took charge for several hectic minutes, slamming and banging—hammering its blocks against the bulwarks as though determined to sink the Quest out of hand. We philosophically decided that the sail was lending a hand in clearing the ice from the upperworks, and I must say the ice-splinters flew vigorously. Being under shell-fire was a small matter by comparison. As a foot or so of water was sluicing across the decks every time the ship rolled, work was not easy; but this water was nothing to worry about, it was merely the Quest’s happy little way of acting up to her usual reputation, though she did not lift big water over her rails. It was blowing hard and the cold was terrific as the wind came away from the southward; indeed, I believe that this day and the following—March 23 and 24—were about the worst we had experienced. Certain of the old-timers wondered what on earth had ever tempted them down again to the southern seas. Commander Wild said that any man who went Antarctic exploring once was mad, if he went twice he was an adjectived idiot, so that he himself—having made five voyages—was competent to inhabit an asylum all to himself. He said this with trimmings—not with flowers.

Conditions were more than a little unpleasant—quite enough to ruffle the normally placid calm of our souls. Every minute some whipping wisp of spindrift came slogging in our faces, and everything was saltily damp. The only place where it was possible to be even moderately dry was in one’s bunk; and the Quest did her best to heave a man out into the slopping water that flooded the floors below, even when he coiled down in blanket-haven. Poor Query suffered a lot. Dogs may be philosophers, but their philosophy deserts them under such conditions as those we endured when working along the edge of the pack. And although we were salted, pickled indeed, any amount of the people—even the hardiest veterans—succumbed to mal-de-mer; or, as this particular brand was even more atrocious than seasickness, let’s call it mal-de-Quest.

Wearing ship at midnight under these conditions among Antarctic combers was horrible. After a while we hove her to under a topsail, her head pointed to the east; and under these circumstances she revelled in dirtiness. Her rolls were jerky and fitful—so that, even below a fellow felt as if he’d been dropped down a bottomless pit with a long rope attached, which tautened at the unexpected moment and nearly jerked the teeth up through the skull. Whilst wondering what it was all about, another heave and lurch pitched him out of his bunk, and so on.

But even the worst of gales do not endure for ever; and after a while conditions improved. A great orgy of straightening up followed, for everything was filthy and saturated. Then we sighted land from aloft, what time the topsail was being made fast. After living in a wilderness of ice and water for so long my heart warmed to that good sight, for I had begun to wonder whether land really existed at all.

By seven o’clock on the morning of March 25, we had Elephant Island on the starboard bow and Clarence Rocks to port. The summits of the peaks were hidden by low clouds, but it was perfectly good land, and heart-warming to a degree, even though snow-flurries frequently hid it from sight. It was something stable in a whirling world of instability.

To the old-timers it was like sighting the Promised Land itself, I fancy. Those who had been with Shackleton in the Endurance expedition spent all their spare time staring through binoculars at remembered landmarks—swapping reminiscences and recollections. They shouted and pointed at Cape Valentine, where the draggled survivors of that unfortunate expedition landed after being two hard years adrift in the ice desert, and where Shackleton, who had not slept for eight days, coiled down on the shingle of the beach and slept for eighteen hours without moving an eyelid. We others worked, getting rid of the fresh accumulations of ice and taking running soundings as the ship went forward. It was necessary to hack the purchase blocks clear of their congealment before the rope would run over the sheaves. The evening favoured us with an exceptional mirage—with vast icebergs floating apparently in a sky of purest gold, and shoals of spouting whales swimming in between them, most marvellous to behold. The ensuing sunset was like something by DorÉ: both the islands in sight seemed to be blazing with fire, and the sky was a flaming crimson, awe-inspiring in its magnificence. I wished I could paint so that I could have transferred that memorable sight to enduring canvas, for my poor words entirely fail to give an adequate description of the atmospheric miracle.

By four o’clock the following morning, when I went on the bridge, we were coasting along the shore of Elephant Island, which we did not approach too closely, for obvious reasons. And now our minds were filled with the history of that desolate rock; it was the topic of general conversation. They told of how Commander Wild had cheered and brought nineteen men through four of the most difficult months in all the terrible history of Antarctic navigation. They told of how Shackleton, with Worsley and four other stalwarts, had made that amazing passage from Elephant Island to South Georgia in an open boat, and how subsequently the staunch-souled Boss had left no stone unturned till he had brought his stranded comrades back from Elephant Island to civilization. It was a narrative to warm the blood and to make one glory in the pride of race, for it was an epic, no less, told simply as it was, in curt expressions for the most part, without gestures but modestly, in the way that Britons have when narrating heroic deeds.

A high, precipitous coast met our gaze as the ship ploughed forward, with high-soaring crags and a general machicolated effect that made the whole place show as a gigantic mediÆval fort; whilst between the jutting crags showed frequent glaciers and glimpses of the towering ice-cap that tops the island. A picture of stern majesty it showed to our ice-wearied eyes. And, too, on the port beam was Cornwallis Island, whilst on the bow were five smaller islands, as though whoever threw the land down there had sprinkled a few handfuls extra for luck.

After breakfast the boatswain and myself re-marked the deep sea leadline, and made a clearance forward to have everything in readiness to let go our long-disused anchor at the appointed time. We rounded-to in a small bay, some hundred yards or so from the sheer face of a glacier end, and there dropped our hook and came to rest for a blissful while. Blissful, I mean, by comparison with recent episodes; though no doubt there are some who might count Elephant Island a curious sort of a pleasure resort. But all things go by contrast, and to our tired eyes the most romantic of South Sea Islands could hardly have appeared more desirable.

Magnificent, lofty crags held us in on two sides; the scenery indeed was so striking as to be almost overwhelming; and on the placid water the Quest floated like a swan. It was possible at last to lie down without holding on, and for that blessed boon we returned heartfelt thanks.

The party detailed to go ashore was lowering away a boat in preparation, when Query, who had almost gone mad ever since land was sighted and smelt, in his eagerness to get ashore overdid it and dived overboard. We let the boat go by the run and secured him—almost frozen, but really none the worse for his bath. Commander Wild went away in charge of the boat, and to my great delight included me in the party. Before we landed he shot a sea-leopard that showed pugnacious symptoms. They can be very terrifying in the water, these evil-avised brutes. We tied up to a big boulder right underneath the towering blue face of the glacier, and whilst walking ashore it struck me how crazy and rotten that ice-face looked. It seemed as if any minute might fetch down a few hundred tons of it on top of the boat; but we were used to ice by then, and didn’t worry.