South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
surface current, for all the heavier masses of floe, bergs, and
hummocks are being left behind. There has been some discussion in the
camp as to the advisability of making one of the bergs our home for the
time being and drifting with it to the west. The idea is not sound. I
cannot be sure that the berg would drift in the right direction. If it
did move west and carried us into the open water, what would be our
fate when we tried to launch the boats down the steep sides of the berg
in the sea-swell after the surrounding floes had left us? One must
reckon, too, the chance of the berg splitting or even overturning
during our stay. It is not possible to gauge the condition of a big
mass of ice by surface appearance. The ice may have a fault, and when
the wind, current, and swell set up strains and tensions, the line of
weakness may reveal itself suddenly and disastrously. No, I do not like
the idea of drifting on a berg. We must stay on our floe till
conditions improve and then make another attempt to advance towards the
land.”
At 6.30 p.m. a particularly heavy shock went through our floe. The
watchman and other members of the party made an immediate inspection
and found a crack right under the _James Caird_ and between the other
two boats and the main camp. Within five minutes the boats were over
the crack and close to the tents. The trouble was not caused by a blow
from another floe. We could see that the piece of ice we occupied had
slewed and now presented its long axis towards the oncoming swell. The
floe, therefore, was pitching in the manner of a ship, and it had
cracked across when the swell lifted the centre, leaving the two ends
comparatively unsupported. We were now on a triangular raft of ice, the
three sides measuring, roughly, 90, 100, and 120 yds. Night came down
dull and overcast, and before midnight the wind had freshened from the
west. We could see that the pack was opening under the influence of
wind, wave, and current, and I felt that the time for launching the
boats was near at hand. Indeed, it was obvious that even if the
conditions were unfavourable for a start during the coming day, we
could not safely stay on the floe many hours longer. The movement of
the ice in the swell was increasing, and the floe might split right
under our camp. We had made preparations for quick action if anything
of the kind occurred. Our case would be desperate if the ice broke into
small pieces not large enough to support our party and not loose enough
to permit the use of the boats.
The following day was Sunday (April 9), but it proved no day of rest
for us. Many of the important events of our Expedition occurred on
Sundays, and this particular day was to see our forced departure from
the floe on which we had lived for nearly six months, and the start of
our journeyings in the boats.
“This has been an eventful day. The morning was fine, though somewhat
overcast by stratus and cumulus clouds; moderate south-south-westerly
and south-easterly breezes. We hoped that with this wind the ice would
drift nearer to Clarence Island. At 7 a.m. lanes of water and leads
could be seen on the horizon to the west. The ice separating us from
the lanes was loose, but did not appear to be workable for the boats.
The long swell from the north-west was coming in more freely than on
the previous day and was driving the floes together in the utmost
confusion. The loose brash between the masses of ice was being churned
to mudlike consistency, and no boat could have lived in the channels
that opened and closed around us. Our own floe was suffering in the
general disturbance, and after breakfast I ordered the tents to be
struck and everything prepared for an immediate start when the boats
could be launched.”
I had decided to take the _James Caird_ myself, with Wild and eleven
men. This was the largest of our boats, and in addition to her human
complement she carried the major portion of the stores. Worsley had
charge of the _Dudley Docker_ with nine men, and Hudson and Crean were
the senior men on the _Stancomb Wills_.
Soon after breakfast the ice closed again. We were standing by, with
our preparations as complete as they could be made, when at 11 a.m. our
floe suddenly split right across under the boats. We rushed our gear on
to the larger of the two pieces and watched with strained attention for
the next development. The crack had cut through the site of my tent. I
stood on the edge of the new fracture, and, looking across the widening
channel of water, could see the spot where for many months my head and
shoulders had rested when I was in my sleeping-bag. The depression
formed by my body and legs was on our side of the crack. The ice had
sunk under my weight during the months of waiting in the tent, and I
had many times put snow under the bag to fill the hollow. The lines of
stratification showed clearly the different layers of snow. How fragile
and precarious had been our resting-place! Yet usage had dulled our
sense of danger. The floe had become our home, and during the early
months of the drift we had almost ceased to realize that it was but a
sheet of ice floating on unfathomed seas. Now our home was being
shattered under our feet, and we had a sense of loss and incompleteness
hard to describe.
The fragments of our floe came together again a little later, and we
had our lunch of seal meat, all hands eating their fill. I thought that
a good meal would be the best possible preparation for the journey that
now seemed imminent, and as we would not be able to take all our meat
with us when we finally moved, we could regard every pound eaten as a
pound rescued. The call to action came at 1 p.m. The pack opened well
and the channels became navigable. The conditions were not all one
could have desired, but it was best not to wait any longer. The _Dudley
Docker_ and the _Stancomb Wills_ were launched quickly. Stores were
thrown in, and the two boats were pulled clear of the immediate floes
towards a pool of open water three miles broad, in which floated a lone
and mighty berg. The _James Caird_ was the last boat to leave, heavily
loaded with stores and odds and ends of camp equipment. Many things
regarded by us as essentials at that time were to be discarded a little
later as the pressure of the primitive became more severe. Man can
sustain life with very scanty means. The trappings of civilization are
soon cast aside in the face of stern realities, and given the barest
opportunity of winning food and shelter, man can live and even find his
laughter ringing true.
The three boats were a mile away from our floe home at 2 p.m. We had
made our way through the channels and had entered the big pool when we
saw a rush of foam-clad water and tossing ice approaching us, like the
tidal bore of a river. The pack was being impelled to the east by a
tide-rip, and two huge masses of ice were driving down upon us on
converging courses. The _James Caird_ was leading. Starboarding the
helm and bending strongly to the oars, we managed to get clear. The two
other boats followed us, though from their position astern at first
they had not realized the immediate danger. The _Stancomb Wills_ was
the last boat and she was very nearly caught, but by great exertion she
was kept just ahead of the driving ice. It was an unusual and startling
experience. The effect of tidal action on ice is not often as marked as
it was that day. The advancing ice, accompanied by a large wave,
appeared to be travelling at about three knots; and if we had not
succeeded in pulling clear we would certainly have been swamped.
We pulled hard for an hour to windward of the berg that lay in the open
water. The swell was crashing on its perpendicular sides and throwing
spray to a height of sixty feet. Evidently there was an ice-foot at the
east end, for the swell broke before it reached the berg-face and flung
its white spray on to the blue ice-wall. We might have paused to have
admired the spectacle under other conditions; but night was coming on
apace, and we needed a camping-place. As we steered north-west, still
amid the ice-floes, the _Dudley Docker_ got jammed between two masses
while attempting to make a short cut. The old adage about a short cut
being the longest way round is often as true in the Antarctic as it is
in the peaceful countryside. The _James Caird_ got a line aboard the
_Dudley Docker_, and after some hauling the boat was brought clear of
the ice again. We hastened forward in the twilight in search of a flat,
old floe, and presently found a fairly large piece rocking in the
swell. It was not an ideal camping-place by any means, but darkness had
overtaken us. We hauled the boats up, and by 8 p.m. had the tents
pitched and the blubber-stove burning cheerily. Soon all hands were
well fed and happy in their tents, and snatches of song came to me as I
wrote up my log.
Some intangible feeling of uneasiness made me leave my tent about 11
p.m. that night and glance around the quiet camp. The stars between the
snow-flurries showed that the floe had swung round and was end on to
the swell, a position exposing it to sudden strains. I started to walk
across the floe in order to warn the watchman to look carefully for
cracks, and as I was passing the men’s tent the floe lifted on the
crest of a swell and cracked right under my feet. The men were in one
of the dome-shaped tents, and it began to stretch apart as the ice
opened. A muffled sound, suggestive of suffocation, came from beneath
the stretching tent. I rushed forward, helped some emerging men from
under the canvas, and called out, “Are you all right?”
“There are two in the water,” somebody answered. The crack had widened
to about four feet, and as I threw myself down at the edge, I saw a
whitish object floating in the water. It was a sleeping-bag with a man
inside. I was able to grasp it, and with a heave lifted man and bag on
to the floe. A few seconds later the ice-edges came together again with
tremendous force. Fortunately, there had been but one man in the water,
or the incident might have been a tragedy. The rescued bag contained
Holness, who was wet down to the waist but otherwise unscathed. The
crack was now opening again. The _James Caird_ and my tent were on one
side of the opening and the remaining two boats and the rest of the
camp on the other side. With two or three men to help me I struck my
tent; then all hands manned the painter and rushed the _James Caird_
across the opening crack. We held to the rope while, one by one, the
men left on our side of the floe jumped the channel or scrambled over
by means of the boat. Finally I was left alone. The night had swallowed
all the others and the rapid movement of the ice forced me to let go
the painter. For a moment I felt that my piece of rocking floe was the
loneliest place in the world. Peering into the darkness; I could just
see the dark figures on the other floe. I hailed Wild, ordering him to
launch the _Stancomb Wills_, but I need not have troubled. His quick
brain had anticipated the order and already the boat was being manned
and hauled to the ice-edge. Two or three minutes later she reached me,
and I was ferried across to the Camp.
We were now on a piece of flat ice about 200 ft. long and 100 ft. wide.
There was no more sleep for any of us that night. The killers were
blowing in the lanes around, and we waited for daylight and watched for
signs of another crack in the ice. The hours passed with laggard feet
as we stood huddled together or walked to and fro in the effort to keep
some warmth in our bodies. We lit the blubber-stove at 3 a.m., and with