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Into the Frozen South

<h2> CHAPTER XIII Going Doggedly On </h2> Commander Wild decided to get clear of the pack altogether and work to the westward before again attempting to make for the land, and consequently he held on the northerly course, through close but broken ice. I had the wheel at 4 a.m., after he came to this decision, and as the steering was nothing to worry about, I found myself with time on my hands to study the trifling happenings that went on around the ship; and it is the trifles that make for interest during a sojourn in solitudes. So that I found a lot of enjoyment in watching the manœuvres of a sea-leopard, who kept shoving his big ugly head up above water some little distance away. He differed from ordinary seals in the respect that he refused to come near to the ship. Every now and then it was as though his curiosity got the upper hand. He stared at the Quest with an expression that was laughably suggestive of a taxi-driver estimating the tip-giving possibilities of a fare; but discretion was his strongest feature, and after a long survey he invariably turned up his nose at us, gave a flick of his tail and dived again. The Quest was leaking badly again, by reason of the savage bumping she had endured in her struggles through the pack, and the order of the day was: Hands to the pumps! Some of us pathetically declared that we had pumped the entire Antarctic Ocean out of our bilges, and that in a little while we should be aground for sheer lack of water; but much as we pumped there was always more water trickling in; for exercise, indeed, we lacked nothing. When day came the clear sky was 146 gone, a dull grey and brooding had given place to the brilliant colouring, and the breeze was cold and biting. We thought longingly of our Polar clothing lying uselessly in store at Cape Town, whence we had been unable to retrieve it, and, biting on the bullet, made the best of it. There was plenty of variety that day. Our course alternated between steady steaming through wide-open lanes and dogged thrusting through close pack-ice, whilst during the official hours of night a lot of snow fell; and, to remind us that the Quest was a mobile entity, a moderate but growing swell began to tempt her into a fresh display of her aquatic gymnastics. For the next twenty-four hours or so we continued along similar lines. Open water in stretches, loose pack alternating, and a lot of snow falling; there you have the conditions. But the increasing predominance of water showed us that we were approaching open sea; so, too, did the growing swell. A sounding of 2,340 fathoms showed us that we were leaving the land behind us, and an increasing temperature backed the idea; but though the thermometer registered 34° F. we found the cold much more biting and penetrating, by reason of the raw-edged wind that was blowing stirring up the marrow in our bones and setting the teeth a-chatter. Killer whales and seals provided plenty of local colour, and I was much interested in watching one seal that was perched on a lonely floe far too small for it. It was like a very fat woman in a very small donkey-chaise, and I wondered what would happen when the floe capsized. After a while we ran alongside the ice and moored the ship to a big, hummocky floe. What this was for I did not immediately understand, for the seniors of the ship did not go about the decks shouting their intentions to all hands; and though I felt myself an integral part of the expedition, I was not in the leader’s confidence 147 at every moment of the day. No doubt if I’d been a hero of fiction the commander of the expedition would have left the running of the show to me, and welcomed my advice; but this being real life I kept in the background and did as I was told. Then I learnt by chance that we were about to water ship. It seemed to me that ice congealed from salt water was about the last substance in the world out of which to make fresh water; but I was told that in the process of freezing much of the salt in sea-water is precipitated, and that the upper portions of the floes at least are always quite fresh. Several of the hands went out on the ice with pickaxes and commenced to chip off the tops of the hummocks. Others carried the resultant blocks to the edge of the floe and hove them to waiting hands on deck, who stowed them in a huge heap on the poop. By stretching the imagination during this operation it was possible to conceive oneself a millionaire potentially. Ice in a tropical city was worth so much a pound. We had ice, lots of it—continents of it. If only the ice could be transported and retailed, the treasures of the Indies would have seemed like chicken-feed by comparison, and Jules Verne could quite easily have managed the trifling task of efficient transportation. However, he was not aboard. So we remained poor. Melted down, this ice-water proved quite palatable; a great improvement, indeed, on the stale water, much churned about by long rolling, in our tanks. With a sufficient store of ice aboard we cast off from the floe and proceeded, until we ran clear of the pack altogether; and then Commander Wild, realizing how rapidly our fuel was diminishing, and knowing how many hundreds of miles of icy wastes we still had to penetrate—with no coaling stations nearer than a few thousand miles—ordered the engines to be stopped and sail to be made. At 6 p.m. we were well clear of ice 148 and bowling along at a vigorous pace to the N.W., with a stiff, uncommonly chilly wind astern. At three o’clock in the morning, cold, raw and dark, all hands were roused out to wear ship. I doubt if I shall ever forget those bitter bleak mornings. To turn out of a snug, if narrow bunk, half-awake, with the dregs of sleep still clinging to sticky eyelids and parched palates, to be required to heave and haul at cold, frozen ropes, with water swishing weirdly above your knees and slapping its feathers of spray into your face—ugh! To grope for a stray coil of iron-hard rope in two feet of water, and, just as you were gripping it, to have the heel of some shipmate’s sea-boot come down on your fingers excruciatingly—ugh—ugh! To feel the raw wind biting through to the core of your dismal soul; to hear the hurl and rush of water against your oilskins; to steady to the ship’s wild plunging—who’d sell a farm and go to sea! But the job had to be done; the welfare of the ship demanded that every man should do his best and bite off his natural growls ere they were definitely enunciated, lest growl begot louder and bitterer growl; so the job was worried through. By the manœuvre of wearing, the ship—not quick in stays by reason of her propeller—was turned to face the pack-ice again, and by nine o’clock at night we were again in the stream-ice, with a heavy swell running, the ship improving on her previous liveliness and thick snow falling. Peggying was actually a welcome task, because it occupied the mind and kept one below. For a change the middle watch was entirely dark, and as we were moving amongst some really nasty lumps of ice—chunks that could have made a comprehensive mess of the ship—it was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution. The swell continued with unabated determination, and all the ship’s upperworks were thickly covered with snow. We had miniature avalanches every few 149 minutes through the wild rolling, the ship seeming determined to rid herself of her fleecy covering. Imagine a buck-jumping mustang newly harnessed into a landau, and you will get some idea of her fretful behaviour. With the coming of the grey dawn Mac and myself, lone-handed, set the squaresail; but shortly before eight bells Mr. Jeffrey gave orders to stow it again. By some mischance we let it go by the run, and, thanks to the rolling and the breeze, it promptly went overboard, to trail in the water and soak itself with icy brine. There was nothing for it save to try to retrieve the runaway canvas. The squaresail is a heavy sail, and in the ordinary way seven or eight hands are told off to handle it. We were two alone, so picture Mac’s attitude towards the matter. He made a great outcry, lifted his face to the indifferent sky and cursed—how he cursed!—the Antarctic gods who decreed that two poor men should be required to perform the work of half a score. Cursing, he worked like a plantation full of niggers; the harder he cursed, indeed, the harder he pulled, until, as though the bad language were indeed, as Marryat says, the powder behind the cannon-ball, we mastered the refractory canvas and brought it aboard, saturated, stiff and unkindly. Believe me, we bragged about our achievement afterwards. I am not sure that we did not derisively inform the other members of the expedition that they might conveniently apply for long leave, in that we two were quite capable of carrying on unaided. And the many, very many, stormy petrels that surrounded the ship in the early morning seemed to be cheering us for our display of heroic endurance. The snow continued to fall with unabated persistence, and, meeting on our sluicing decks the water Mac and the sail had lifted aboard over our rails, dissolved into hideous slush. The stoutest sea-boots in existence cannot adequately cope with the bite of such slush, and for 150 myself I lost all sensation in my feet. The afternoon brought a lessening of the snowfall—brought fine weather, indeed; and we smiled and patted ourselves on the back, and assured ourselves that we were steaming nobly in the right direction—Southward Ho! In open water, too, though that water was very unkindly in its motions, and the Quest as lively as ever. By 5.30 we ran into ice again, and after bumping and boring until ten o’clock hove-to for the coming of daylight, so that we should not waste coal in aimless wandering to and fro without any resultant progress in the right direction. Blundering about in the dark was certainly an unprofitable pastime for a ship with depleted bunkers. Let it be remembered that the atmosphere near the edge of the pack is not nearly so clear as it is well inside the ice masses, and consequently the weather is generally very dirty and the nights as black as the inside of your hat. To my regret the doctor on this day sent me to bed because of a chill I had acquired, possibly after the frantic struggle with that pernicious squaresail. On Monday, February 20, Commander Wild decided to work to the westward, towards rumoured land, reported by Ross as “an appearance of land” in 1842. We accordingly got under way once more at three in the morning, steaming a S.W. course through plenty of thick ice dotted with large bergs. At nightfall the engines were stopped through the dark hours, and I, still in my bunk, enjoyed an undisturbed sleep. It made up for the lost food, denied to me by the doctor—not that I wanted it. At the first show of daylight the Quest once again got under way, to plough a devious course through fairly thick ice. I was told that I might get up and eat a meal, though I was still kept from performing duty on deck. Just as well, maybe, for it was snowing heavily, and I found occupation enough in restowing my locker 151 and bunk and donning a change of warmer clothing—with which I was well supplied, thanks be to kindly donors. Then, in a spirit of carelessness, for the day of leisure seemed to demand some ceremonial, I opened two boxes of Scotch shortbread that I had brought with me from Aberdeen; discovered the contents beautifully crisp and fresh; sent one box forrard to the other mess, and we aft consumed the remaining box with eager appetites. As though even the weather were growing hilarious, it blew a heavy gale that night, and the ship was necessarily hove-to. Sleep was impossible by reason of the scream of the wind amongst our stripped spars and the grinding and scraping of ice along our outboard planking. Not very easeful hours for a pseudo-invalid; but I’d been told that I could turn to on the morrow, so what did it matter? During the morning watch we drifted clear of the ice, and going on deck I found open water about, snow thickly falling and the ship wreathed in sound-deadening white. The wind, vigorous and chilly, gave us a level six knots of speed with all sail set, and we bowled along in heroic fashion, until at midnight ice was sighted, and then it was a case of “all hands shorten sail!” with a vengeance, for we found that otherwise we couldn’t check our headlong career and seemed disposed to ram solid floes, which could only result in disaster. This day was Worsley’s birthday, a day to be celebrated with mirth and feasting, for the birthday boy had reached his fiftieth year and was still going strong and looking youthful. From some hidden corner of the ship beer materialized—genuine, actual beer, which was greeted with loud acclamations. After a satisfying repast of seal-meat and the like—and seal meat can be jolly good—Green entered, bearing with graceful ease, posturing like a Pavlova, a noble birthday cake that was iced to perfection and inscribed with 152 an insulting motto. Worsley himself, as being the pivot on which these celebrations turned, was instructed to cut the cake, and was furnished with a boarding-axe to do it. It resisted his efforts; for Green, in a humorous moment, had iced a 56-lb. sinker belonging to the sounding machine. However, after the gibes and lurid language had ceased, the real cake was produced and we stodged ourselves to our complete satisfaction. The occasion was a welcome break in an existence that tended to become monotonous and also somewhat wearing, for the work of grinding through the pack tends to deaden one’s senses somewhat and breed a fretting irritation against unavoidable circumstances. Shortly before midnight Mr. Wilkins, who had charge of the first watch, roused out the watch below to set the squaresail. We groaned both inwardly and outwardly. We knew what it would be—clambering on top of the forrard deck-house, fumbling about with the steel-hard, frozen canvas, with everybody growling and everybody in everybody else’s way! A lovely job, but nothing, so I was repeatedly told, to real old-fashioned windjamming. Oh, but it tests one’s temper to be turned out on a cold night, with the ship dipping her rails under water at every roll, for such a job. But mark how Nature brings its own palliative! Once the arduous task was performed—thanks to our efforts—our blood was hot and tingling, our spirits elated, and we felt more like singing than cursing—we forgot that we cordially detested our next neighbours and had sworn cold-blooded feud against those we most esteemed, and in a happy frame of mind repaired to the bridge to comfort ourselves with hot, strong coffee, shared with Mr. Jeffrey, who had the wheel. The sea was rather plentifully dotted with “growlers,” but we had little difficulty in clearing them, since the ship was proceeding under sail alone and more kindly on her helm. 153 Later in the day we passed through a very strange area of finely powdered ice—this powder lying on top of small snowball-like fragments of ice—which gave one the impression of moving through a lake of milk. From this phenomenal area we passed into a belt of newly-freezing ice, and everywhere was greyness—sky, sea and ice alike blending into one grim monotone. During the night we sailed into heavy ice, which checked our way and compelled us to head again for the north and open water, which was reached before 8 a.m., the engines going slowly. Followed a period of dodging bergs and finding the pack again, pack that grew heavier until nightfall brought the need to heave-to, by reason of the indifferent visibility, until daybreak came, when course was resumed, but always to the north and west. We tried the pack repeatedly, but instead of butting our heads against an implacable wall, whenever we found that further progress was impossible we followed the line of least resistance and edged away in search of more impressionable zones. The sound of shots startled me from a peaceful doze at 8 a.m., and with mad dreams of hectic adventure troubling me, raced on deck, where I was greeted with a truly wonderful sight. Hundreds, literally hundreds of seals were in plain view; many of the floes—not very big ones—held ten or a dozen of the brutes apiece. We made very good use of this opportunity, you may be sure, because of our yearning bunkers. A little later in the day, as I was scrubbing down below, some would-be benefactor yelled to me to get on deck as quickly as I could, to behold another great sight. A sight for the gods it was, indeed, for the ship had run into a great school of whales—more than eighty really large fellows, and in every direction these giants were blowing like geysers. The click of a cinema camera showed us that Mr. Wilkins was already busy—I 154 feel sure that if the Quest had been sinking he would have secured a realistic picture of her final plunge from the truck!—and we others could only marvel at the wondrous splendour of the sight. The whales did not remain long in view, however; they disappeared ahead on their own occasions, and we spectators discovered that work called us. We spent a watch trying to pump out the forehold, and did not entirely succeed. The other principal event of note was when Major Carr cut my hair with a very blunt machine—and I decided that scalping might have been preferable. The night came on very dark and misty, and it was necessary to exercise the greatest caution in proceeding, for the sea was thickly strewn with growlers of a dangerous size, so that it would have been folly to continue at our customary speed. Consequently we crawled, engines going dead-slow, and two men alertly on watch on the bridge to direct the helmsman whenever solid ice showed looming through the haze. Day followed day with but small variety now. The cold and the actual fatigue engendered by this ice-fighting bred a love of sleep; so that we spent our every spare moment, I think, in coiling down reserves of slumber. In one waking period it was decided to tie up alongside a big growler and renew our fresh water in a manner similar to that I have previously described, but the heavy swell caused the berg to pitch and heave very alarmingly, so we desisted; and it was just as well, for had we continued we should probably have had our side stove in, and that would have concluded my narrative before the appointed time. With wind falling light it was necessary to make fresh inroads on our very precious fuel, but we proceeded at an economical speed and entered open pack, where we continued during an entire day. Seal-meat was our staple diet, and we grew to like it, though I discovered that it lacked in “spirit.” 155 At midnight we were once more among the growlers, and it was so dark that we could only tell their presence by hearing the growling wash of the seas on them as they tilted with the high-running swell. Even with engines merely turning over the centres we hit several of these ugly fellows, and from the reluctance with which they bobbed and bowed away it was plain to understand that they were very deeply submerged. With welcome light showing at 2 a.m. it was possible to proceed with greater confidence, and in the forenoon, well assured of the safety of the ship, the two surgeons, Dell, Argles, and myself spent a strenuous watch trimming coal in the bunkers. By contrast with previous trimming in tropical waters, we found it quite a pleasant operation; and no doubt, at the South Pole itself, had we gone there, we should have counted it a pastime! Latitude means as much, perhaps, so far as work is concerned, as it does in regard to morals! During the afternoon we hard workers were also strenuously employed in ballasting ship more satisfactorily. She was carrying too much topweight, and the opinion was that this added to her dire rolling propensities; so as our depleted coal supply afforded us plenty of room, we carried below and methodically stowed an amazing assortment of oil-drums, spare spars, oars, davits, and, indeed, everything that could be spared from the upper deck. A lot of snow petrels watched and seemed to criticize our labours—we had been seeing numbers of these birds of late. Apparently as a result of high living on seal-steaks and brain sauce, the men of the skipper’s watch took a pull on the main topsail sheet and carried it away as if it were a piece of twine. To all seeming a reduced diet was indicated; but maybe it was merely zeal! The 1st of March was conspicuous by reason of its sunny brightness; a day of which to take advantage to 156 dry soaked gear. All spare sails were run into the rigging for the genial breeze to play through, and when thoroughly dried were stowed away below as an addition to the ballast. We sighted a most beautiful iceberg of towering height on this day, and I express the opinion here—expecting no profits from the same—that it is worth anyone’s while to go South if only for the sake of seeing such stupendous loveliness. Being once more in open sea the ship’s rolling recommenced, as a sign and a token that our arduous labours in ballasting her had been in vain. Not that we were hitting the floes. Thanks to the tempestuous brash and several belts of heavier ice; but officially we were out of the pack. Then once more we ran into heavier ice after breakfast on March 2nd, and it was necessary to shorten sail because of the force with which we were hitting the floes. The heavy weather continuing, I got another job of work: to clean out the chart-room. Two jam tarts had slipped free from their moorings, and the chart-room was simply a viscous horror of jam. Sir Ernest Shackleton always contended that a square inch of jam was sufficient to anoint a square mile of surface, and he was right. Several square inches of jam went to the making of those tarts, and so the chart-room was sticky! This done, I accompanied Mac aloft, where he delights to be, especially when the ship is throwing herself about, to repair the port squaresail outhaul, which had carried away when the sail was let go in the forenoon. Proceeding steadily to the westward, always in search of open leads to the south, we encountered fickle weather: one day fine and serene, the next squally and snowy, the ship placid and comfortable now, and, again, making heavy weather of it and washing herself down fore and aft with water that no pumps were needed to supply. Argles contrived to mix himself up with quite 157 a number of accidents, as a result of the big rolls we took. Argles, it should be remembered, is the stokehold’s bright light, the bunker king—being the official coal-trimmer. Emerging from his favourite den into the stokehold, the ship rolled savagely, and he, missing his hold, was thrown clean across the stokehold, bruising his side badly. No doubt thoroughly sickened of the dangers of below, he made his painful way on deck, and here found no better luck. He slipped, travelled at express speed from scupper to lee scupper, and fetched up with a thud against a chance stanchion. Now, a hurt man demands a sympathetic audience to whom his woes can be recounted. Argles discovered in me the proper recipient of his confidences concerning the Quest and her rolling, and came down to the wardroom to ease his overloaded soul. The Quest, righteously angry at the aspersions cast upon her—for she was a very model of dignity when she was not trying to dance a cake-walk, and no doubt considered herself superior to all other craft afloat—promptly gave the father and mother of a roll and chucked him clean over the table! After that he retired in a silence that was redolent with the odours of brimstone. With our waking hours amply occupied in work of varying kinds—and especially the never-ending labour of cleaning ship—time passed uneventfully enough. We saw much floating ice—bergs of vast expanse and mighty height; and as the nights were black dark between ten and two—regular graveyard blackness—it was necessary for the watch to supply extra look-outs in the narrowest part of the bows, where, from a comparatively low level, it was possible to detect the presence of big ice by its blackness against the greater blackness of the sky. By dint of these precautions we successfully negotiated quite a number of large bergs that might otherwise have brought disaster upon us. The second 158 we saw a shadow we yelled, and the ship, answering her helm cleverly, dodged. No time to waste at this job, because often enough we were almost on top of the berg before we realized it was anything beyond a fantasy of the strained brain. But after dense nights we were given one with star-spangled, luminous heavens, and got a glimpse of the eerie dancing lights of the Aurora Australis. After seeing this atmospheric phenomenon I went below and turned in, and was rudely wakened by several considerable bumps and jolts, which gave me the impression that the ship was being ruthlessly battered to pieces. Hurrying on deck, I found that we were under plain sail in amongst a veritable morass of large growlers—some big enough to deserve being called bergs, indeed; and were hitting them right and left, willy-nilly. To my uninstructed mind it appeared the ship must be suffering really serious damage; she seemed uncontrollable and determined to batter herself to splinters against the implacable bergs; but whatever her other faults, she was a stout little packet, built by men with consciences, if without imagination, and beyond a few slivers of timber torn from her and a few started planks she appeared to be but little the worse. Of course, had we been under steam, we should probably have run through this chain of bergs; but a high berg becalmed her and made her temporarily unresponsive to her helm. It was a delightful morning: bright and clear, and the sun played gay games with the whiteness and soft yellows, the browns, purples and deep blues of the pack. We reached open water again about noon—where were only a few smallish pieces of ice; and when evening fell had another of those wonders of colourful splendour presented to our attention by Nature, the master scene-painter, who seems to wield a more glorious brush down in the Antarctic than anywhere else in the world. Morning brought a flaming golden sun uplifting 159 itself from the south-east in a welter of radiant glory that suffused the entire horizon. Being once again free of ice we made sail and stopped the engines—harbouring our precious coal—and continued on a westerly course with a light northerly breeze, balmy and soothing, to urge us forward. But early appearances were deceptive; and by eight o’clock the wind had freshened considerably, whilst by noon a full gale was blowing. We were, however, under the lee of the pack, and the sea failed to rise, consequently even the Quest behaved decently. The snow, though, drove down in a blizzard, the harsh flakes striking the skin like grapeshot, and the face of the waters was blotted out in a fine powdery drift of ice particles that gave an aspect of utterly bleak desolation. The gale continued to increase in violence until 2 p.m., when it was so heavy that all hands were roused out to double-reef the foresail. Strenuous work in that breeze of wind, with the driven snow pelting us mercilessly; but we reaped the reward of our labours, for it eased the weight of the sail, making the ship pretty snug and sea-kindly. Not for long was our peace to endure, however. At eight bells—4 p.m.—heavy ice was met, and we were required to take in the foresail altogether. Some difficulty was experienced in making it fast. We struggled with might and main; and just as we congratulated ourselves that we had the lashing, cracking monster under control, the wind, with a howl of demoniacal glee, snatched it from our grasp and flung it riotously aboard on its breast, whilst we, our fingers numbed and the blood oozing from beneath our torn nails, had to set our teeth and start all over again. But, as usually happens after shortening down, the wind quickly abated, so that by midnight we were able to proceed in something approaching comfort again. 160 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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