South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
can also guard the rudder and propeller, the most vulnerable parts of a
ship in the ice. At midnight, as I was sitting in the ‘tub’ I heard a
clamorous noise down on the deck, with ringing of bells, and realized
that it was the New Year.” Worsley came down from his lofty seat and
met Wild, Hudson, and myself on the bridge, where we shook hands and
wished one another a happy and successful New Year. Since entering the
pack on December 11 we had come 480 miles, through loose and close
pack-ice. We had pushed and fought the little ship through, and she had
stood the test well, though the propeller had received some shrewd
blows against hard ice and the vessel had been driven against the floe
until she had fairly mounted up on it and slid back rolling heavily
from side to side. The rolling had been more frequently caused by the
operation of cracking through thickish young ice, where the crack had
taken a sinuous course. The ship, in attempting to follow it, struck
first one bilge and then the other, causing her to roll six or seven
degrees. Our advance through the pack had been in a S. 10° E.
direction, and I estimated that the total steaming distance had
exceeded 700 miles. The first 100 miles had been through loose pack,
but the greatest hindrances had been three moderate south-westerly
gales, two lasting for three days each and one for four and a half
days. The last 250 miles had been through close pack alternating with
fine long leads and stretches of open water.
During the weeks we spent manœuvring to the south through the tortuous
mazes of the pack it was necessary often to split floes by driving the
ship against them. This form of attack was effective against ice up to
three feet in thickness, and the process is interesting enough to be
worth describing briefly. When the way was barred by a floe of moderate
thickness we would drive the ship at half speed against it, stopping
the engines just before the impact. At the first blow the _Endurance_
would cut a V-shaped nick in the face of the floe, the slope of her
cutwater often causing her bows to rise till nearly clear of the water,
when she would slide backwards, rolling slightly. Watching carefully
that loose lumps of ice did not damage the propeller, we would reverse
the engines and back the ship off 200 to 300 yds. She would then be
driven full speed into the V, taking care to hit the centre accurately.
The operation would be repeated until a short dock was cut, into which
the ship, acting as a large wedge, was driven. At about the fourth
attempt, if it was to succeed at all, the floe would yield. A black,
sinuous line, as though pen-drawn on white paper, would appear ahead,
broadening as the eye traced it back to the ship. Presently it would be
broad enough to receive her, and we would forge ahead. Under the bows
and alongside, great slabs of ice were being turned over and slid back
on the floe, or driven down and under the ice or ship. In this way the
_Endurance_ would split a 2-ft. to 3-ft. floe a square mile in extent.
Occasionally the floe, although cracked across, would be so held by
other floes that it would refuse to open wide, and so gradually would
bring the ship to a standstill. We would then go astern for some
distance and again drive her full speed into the crack, till finally
the floe would yield to the repeated onslaughts.
CHAPTER II
NEW LAND
The first day of the New Year (January 1, 1915) was cloudy, with a
gentle northerly breeze and occasional snow-squalls. The condition of
the pack improved in the evening, and after 8 p.m. we forged ahead
rapidly through brittle young ice, easily broken by the ship. A few
hours later a moderate gale came up from the east, with continuous
snow. After 4 a.m. on the 2nd we got into thick old pack-ice, showing
signs of heavy pressure. It was much hummocked, but large areas of open
water and long leads to the south-west continued until noon. The
position then was lat. 69° 49´ S., long. 15° 42´ W., and the run for
the twenty-four hours had been 124 miles S. 3° W. This was cheering.
The heavy pack blocked the way south after midday. It would have been
almost impossible to have pushed the ship into the ice, and in any case
the gale would have made such a proceeding highly dangerous. So we
dodged along to the west and north, looking for a suitable opening
towards the south. The good run had given me hope of sighting the land
on the following day, and the delay was annoying. I was growing anxious
to reach land on account of the dogs, which had not been able to get
exercise for four weeks, and were becoming run down. We passed at least
two hundred bergs during the day, and we noticed also large masses of
hummocky bay-ice and ice-foot. One floe of bay-ice had black earth upon
it, apparently basaltic in origin, and there was a large berg with a
broad band of yellowish brown right through it. The stain may have been
volcanic dust. Many of the bergs had quaint shapes. There was one that
exactly resembled a large two-funnel liner, complete in silhouette
except for smoke. Later in the day we found an opening in the pack and
made 9 miles to the south-west, but at 2 a.m. on January 3 the lead
ended in hummocky ice, impossible to penetrate. A moderate easterly
gale had come up with snow-squalls, and we could not get a clear view
in any direction. The hummocky ice did not offer a suitable anchorage
for the ship, and we were compelled to dodge up and down for ten hours
before we were able to make fast to a small floe under the lee of a
berg 120 ft. high. The berg broke the wind and saved us drifting fast
to leeward. The position was lat. 69° 59´ S., long. 17° 31´ W. We made
a move again at 7 p.m., when we took in the ice-anchor and proceeded
south, and at 10 p.m. we passed a small berg that the ship had nearly
touched twelve hours previously. Obviously we were not making much
headway. Several of the bergs passed during this day were of solid blue
ice, indicating true glacier origin.
By midnight of the 3rd we had made 11 miles to the south, and then came
to a full stop in weather so thick with snow that we could not learn if
the leads and lanes were worth entering. The ice was hummocky, but,
fortunately, the gale was decreasing, and after we had scanned all the
leads and pools within our reach we turned back to the north-east. Two
sperm and two large blue whales were sighted, the first we had seen for
260 miles. We saw also petrels, numerous adelies, emperors,
crab-eaters, and sea-leopards. The clearer weather of the morning
showed us that the pack was solid and impassable from the south-east to
the south-west, and at 10 a.m. on the 4th we again passed within five
yards of the small berg that we had passed twice on the previous day.
We had been steaming and dodging about over an area of twenty square
miles for fifty hours, trying to find an opening to the south,
south-east, or south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or
north-west. It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were pointing
us to the backward track—the track we were determined not to follow.
Our desire was to make easting as well as southing so as to reach the
land, if possible, east of Ross’s farthest South and well east of
Coats’ Land. This was more important as the prevailing winds appeared
to be to easterly, and every mile of easting would count. In the
afternoon we went west in some open water, and by 4 p.m. we were making
west-south-west with more water opening up ahead. The sun was shining
brightly, over three degrees high at midnight, and we were able to
maintain this direction in fine weather till the following noon. The
position then was lat. 70° 28´ S., long. 20° 16´ W., and the run had
been 62 miles S. 62° W. At 8 a.m. there had been open water from north
round by west to south-west, but impenetrable pack to the south and
east. At 3 p.m. the way to the south-west and west-north-west was
absolutely blocked, and as we experienced a set to the west, I did not
feel justified in burning more of the reduced stock of coal to go west
or north. I took the ship back over our course for four miles, to a
point where some looser pack gave faint promise of a way through; but,
after battling for three hours with very heavy hummocked ice and making
four miles to the south, we were brought up by huge blocks and floes of
very old pack. Further effort seemed useless at that time, and I gave
the order to bank fires after we had moored the _Endurance_ to a solid
floe. The weather was clear, and some enthusiastic football-players had
a game on the floe until, about midnight, Worsley dropped through a
hole in rotten ice while retrieving the ball. He had to be retrieved
himself.
Solid pack still barred the way to the south on the following morning
(January 6). There was some open water north of the floe, but as the
day was calm and I did not wish to use coal in a possibly vain search
for an opening to the southward, I kept the ship moored to the floe.
This pause in good weather gave an opportunity to exercise the dogs,
which were taken on to the floe by the men in charge of them. The
excitement of the animals was intense. Several managed to get into the
water, and the muzzles they were wearing did not prevent some hot
fights. Two dogs which had contrived to slip their muzzles fought
themselves into an icy pool and were hauled out still locked in a
grapple. However, men and dogs enjoyed the exercise. A sounding gave a
depth of 2400 fathoms, with a blue mud bottom. The wind freshened from
the west early the next morning, and we started to skirt the northern
edge of the solid pack in an easterly direction under sail. We had
cleared the close pack by noon, but the outlook to the south gave small
promise of useful progress, and I was anxious now to make easting. We
went north-east under sail, and after making thirty-nine miles passed a
peculiar berg that we had been abreast of sixty hours earlier.
Killer-whales were becoming active around us, and I had to exercise
caution in allowing any one to leave the ship. These beasts have a
habit of locating a resting seal by looking over the edge of a floe and
then striking through the ice from below in search of a meal; they
would not distinguish between seal and man.
The noon position on January 8 was lat. 70° 0´ S., long. 19° 09´ W. We
had made 66 miles in a north-easterly direction during the preceding
twenty-four hours. The course during the afternoon was east-south-east
through loose pack and open water, with deep hummocky floes to the
south. Several leads to the south came in view, but we held on the
easterly course. The floes were becoming looser, and there were
indications of open water ahead. The ship passed not fewer than five
hundred bergs that day, some of them very large. A dark water-sky
extended from east to south-south-east on the following morning, and
the _Endurance_, working through loose pack at half speed, reached open
water just before noon. A rampart berg 150 ft. high and a quarter of a
mile long lay at the edge of the loose pack, and we sailed over a
projecting foot of this berg into rolling ocean, stretching to the
horizon. The sea extended from a little to the west of south, round by
east to north-north-east, and its welcome promise was supported by a
deep water-sky to the south. I laid a course south by east in an
endeavour to get south and east of Ross’s farthest south (lat. 71° 30´
S.).
We kept the open water for a hundred miles, passing many bergs but
encountering no pack. Two very large whales, probably blue whales, came
up close to the ship, and we saw spouts in all directions. Open water
inside the pack in that latitude might have the appeal of sanctuary to
the whales, which are harried by man farther north. The run southward