South (8 page)

The
Endurance
lay under the lee of the stranded berg until 7 A.M. on January 18. The gale had moderated by that time, and we proceeded under sail to the southwest through a lane that had opened along the glacier front. We skirted the glacier till 9:30 A.M., when it ended in two bays, open to the northwest but sheltered by stranded bergs to the west. The coast beyond trended south-southwest with a gentle land slope. “The pack now forces us to go west 14 miles, when we break through a long line of heavy brash mixed with large lumps and ‘growlers.’ We do this under the fore topsail only, the engines being stopped to protect the propeller. This takes us into open water, where we make S. 50° W. for 24 miles. Then we again encounter pack which forces us to the northwest for 10 miles, when we are brought up by heavy snow lumps, brash, and large, loose floes. The character of the pack shows change. The floes are very thick and are covered by deep snow. The brash between the floes is so thick and heavy that we cannot push through without a great expenditure of power, and then for a short distance only. We therefore lie to for a while to see if the pack opens at all when this northeast wind ceases.”

Our position on the morning of the 19th was lat. 76° 34’ S., long. 31° 30’ W. The weather was good, but no advance could be made. The ice had closed around the ship during the night, and no water could be seen in any direction from the deck. A few lanes were in sight from the masthead. We sounded in 312 fathoms, finding mud, sand, and pebbles. The land showed faintly to the east. We waited for the conditions to improve, and the scientists took the opportunity to dredge for biological and geological specimens. During the night a moderate northeasterly gale sprang up, and a survey of the position on the 20th showed that the ship was firmly beset. The ice was packed heavily and firmly all round the
Endurance
in every direction as far as the eye could reach from the masthead. There was nothing to be done till the conditions changed, and we waited through that day and the succeeding days with increasing anxiety. The east-northeasterly gale that had forced us to take shelter behind the stranded berg on the 16th had veered into the bight of the Weddell Sea, and the ship was now drifting south-west with the floes which had enclosed it. A slight movement of the ice round the ship caused the rudder to become dangerously jammed on the 21st, and we had to cut away the ice with ice chisels, heavy pieces of iron with 6-ft. wooden hafts. We kept steam up in readiness for a move if the opportunity offered, and the engines running full speed ahead helped to clear the rudder. Land was in sight to the east and south about sixteen miles distant on the 22nd. The land ice seemed to be faced with ice cliffs at most points, but here and there slopes ran down to sea level. Large crevassed areas in terraces parallel with the coast showed where the ice was moving down over foothills. The inland ice appeared for the most part to be undulating, smooth, and easy to march over, but many crevasses might have been concealed from us by the surface snow or by the absence of shadows. I thought that the land probably rose to a height of 5000 ft. forty or fifty miles inland. The accurate estimation of heights and distances in the Antarctic is always difficult, owing to the clear air, the confusing monotony of coloring, and the deceptive effect of mirage and refraction. The land appeared to increase in height to the southward, where we saw a line of land or barrier that must have been seventy miles, and possibly was even more distant.

Sunday, January 24, was a clear sunny day, with gentle easterly and southerly breezes. No open water could be seen from the masthead, but there was a slight water-sky to the west and northwest. “This is the first time for ten days that the wind has varied from northeast and east, and on five of these days it has risen to a gale. Evidently the ice has become firmly packed in this quarter, and we must wait patiently till a southerly gale occurs or currents open the ice. We are drifting slowly. The position today was 76° 49’ S., 33° 51’ W. Worsley and James, working on the floe with a Kew magnetometer, found the variation to be six degrees west.” Just before midnight a crack developed in the ice five yards wide and a mile long, fifty yards ahead of the ship. The crack had widened to a quarter of a mile by 10 A.M. on the 25th, and for three hours we tried to force the ship into this opening with engines at full speed ahead and all sails set. The sole effect was to wash some ice away astern and clear the rudder, and after convincing myself that the ship was firmly held I abandoned the attempt. Later in the day Crean and two other men were over the side on a stage chipping at a large piece of ice that had got under the ship and appeared to be impeding her movement. The ice broke away suddenly, shot upward and overturned, pinning Crean between the stage and the haft of the heavy 11-ft. iron pincher. He was in danger for a few moments, but we got him clear, suffering merely from a few bad bruises. The thick iron bar had been bent against him to an angle of 45 degrees.

The days that followed were uneventful. Moderate breezes from the east and southwest had no apparent effect upon the ice, and the ship remained firmly held. On the 27th, the tenth day of inactivity, I decided to let the fires out. We had been burning half a ton of coal a day to keep steam in the boilers, and as the bunkers now contained only 67 tons, representing thirty-three days’ steaming, we could not afford to continue this expenditure of fuel. Land still showed to the east and south when the horizon was clear. The biologist was securing some interesting specimens with the hand dredge at various depths. A sounding on the 26th gave 360 fathoms, and another on the 29th 449 fathoms. The drift was to the west, and an observation on the 31st (Sunday) showed that the ship had made eight miles during the week. James and Hudson rigged the wireless in the hope of hearing the monthly message from the Falkland Islands. This message would be due about 3:20 A.M. on the following morning, but James was doubtful about hearing anything with our small apparatus at a distance of 1630 miles from the dispatching station. We heard nothing, as a matter of fact, and later efforts were similarly unsuccessful. The conditions would have been difficult even for a station of high power.

We were accumulating gradually a stock of seal meat during these days of waiting. Fresh meat for the dogs was needed, and seal steaks and liver made a very welcome change from the ship’s rations aboard the
Endurance.
Four crab eaters and three Weddells, over a ton of meat for dog and man, fell to our guns on February 2, and all hands were occupied most of the day getting the carcasses back to the ship over the rough ice. We rigged three sledges for man haulage and brought the seals about two miles, the sledging parties being guided among the ridges and pools by semaphore from the crow’s nest. Two more seals were sighted on the far side of a big pool, but I did not allow them to be pursued. Some of the ice was in a treacherous condition, with thin films hiding cracks and pools, and I did not wish to risk an accident.

A crack about four miles long opened in the floe to the stern of the ship on the 3rd. The narrow lane in front was still open, but the prevailing light breezes did not seem likely to produce any useful movement in the ice. Early on the morning of the 5th a northeasterly gale sprang up, bringing overcast skies and thick snow. Soon the pack was opening and closing without much loosening effect. At noon the ship gave a sudden start and heeled over three degrees. Immediately afterwards, a crack ran from the bows to the lead ahead and another to the lead astern. I thought it might be possible to reeve the ship through one of these leads towards open water, but we could see no water through the thick snow, and before steam was raised, and while the view was still obscured, the pack closed again. The northerly gale had given place to light westerly breezes on the 6th. The pack seemed to be more solid than ever. It stretched almost unbroken to the horizon in every direction, and the situation was made worse by very low temperatures in succeeding days. The temperature was down to zero on the night of the 7th and was two degrees below zero on the 8th. This cold spell in midsummer was most unfortunate from our point of view, since it cemented the pack and tightened the grip of the ice upon the ship. The slow drift to the southwest continued, and we caught occasional glimpses of distant uplands on the eastern horizon. The position on the 7th was lat. 76° 57’ S., long. 35° 7’ W. Soundings on the 6th and 8th found glacial mud at 530 and 529 fathoms.

The
Endurance
was lying in a pool covered by young ice on the 9th. The solid floes had loosened their grip on the ship itself, but they were packed tightly all around. The weather was foggy. We felt a slight northerly swell coming through the pack, and the movement gave rise to hope that there was open water near to us. At 11 A.M. a long crack developed in the pack, running east and west as far as we could see through the fog, and I ordered steam to be raised in the hope of being able to break a way into this lead. The effort failed. We could break the young ice in the pool, but the pack defied us. The attempt was renewed on the 11th, a fine clear day with blue sky. The temperature was still low, -2° Fahr. at midnight. After breaking through some young ice the
Endurance
became jammed against soft floe. The engines running full speed astern produced no effect until all hands joined in “sallying” ship. The dog kennels amidships made it necessary for the people to gather aft, where they rushed from side to side in a mass in the confined space around the wheel. This was a ludicrous affair, the men falling over one another amid shouts of laughter without producing much effect on the ship. She remained fast, while all hands jumped at the word of command, but finally slid off when the men were stamping hard at the double. We were now in a position to take advantage of any opening that might appear. The ice was firm around us, and as there seemed small chance of making a move that day, I had the motor crawler and warper put out on the floe for a trial run. The motor worked most successfully, running at about six miles an hour over slabs and ridges of ice hidden by a foot or two of soft snow. The surface was worse than we would expect to face on land or barrier ice. The motor warped itself back on a 500-fathom steel wire and was taken aboard again. “From the masthead the mirage is continually giving us false alarms. Everything wears an aspect of unreality. Icebergs hang upside down in the sky; the land appears as layers of silvery or golden cloud. Cloud banks look like land, icebergs masquerade as islands or nunataks, and the distant barrier to the south is thrown into view, although it really is outside our range of vision. Worst of all is the deceptive appearance of open water, caused by the refraction of distant water, or by the sun shining at an angle on a field of smooth snow or the face of ice cliffs below the horizon.”

The second half of February produced no important change in our situation. Early in the morning of the 14th I ordered a good head of steam on the engines and sent all hands on to the floe with ice chisels, prickers, saws, and picks. We worked all day and throughout most of the next day in a strenuous effort to get the ship into the lead ahead. The men cut away the young ice before the bows and pulled it aside with great energy. After twenty-four hours’ labor we had got the ship a third of the way to the lead. But about 400 yds. of heavy ice, including old rafted pack, still separated the
Endurance
from the water, and reluctantly I had to admit that further effort was useless. Every opening we made froze up again quickly owing to the unseasonably low temperature. The young ice was elastic and prevented the ship delivering a strong, splitting blow to the floe, while at the same time it held the older ice against any movement. The abandonment of the attack was a great disappointment to all hands. The men had worked long hours without thought of rest, and they deserved success. But the task was beyond our powers. I had not abandoned hope of getting clear, but was counting now on the possibility of having to spend a winter in the inhospitable arms of the pack. The sun, which had been above the horizon for two months, set at midnight on the 17th, and, although it would not disappear until April, its slanting rays warned us of the approach of winter. Pools and leads appeared occasionally, but they froze over very quickly.

We continued to accumulate a supply of seal meat and blubber, and the excursions across the floes to shoot and bring in the seals provided welcome exercise for all hands. Three crab-eater cows shot on the 21st were not accompanied by a bull, and blood was to be seen about the hole from which they had crawled. We surmised that the bull had become the prey of one of the killer whales. These aggressive creatures were to be seen often in the lanes and pools, and we were always distrustful of their ability or willingness to discriminate between seal and man. A lizard-like head would show while the killer gazed along the floe with wicked eyes. Then the brute would dive, to come up a few moments later, perhaps, under some unfortunate seal reposing on the ice. Worsley examined a spot where a killer had smashed a hole 8 ft. by 12 ft. in 12½ in. of hard ice, covered by 2½ in. of snow. Big blocks of ice had been tossed on to the floe surface. Wordie, engaged in measuring the thickness of young ice, went through to his waist one day just as a killer rose to blow in the adjacent lead. His companions pulled him out hurriedly.

On the 22nd the
Endurance
reached the farthest south point of her drift, touching the 77th parallel of latitude in long. 35° W. The summer had gone; indeed the summer had scarcely been with us at all. The temperatures were low day and night, and the pack was freezing solidly around the ship. The thermometer recorded 10° below zero Fahr. at 2 A.M. on the 22nd. Some hours earlier we had watched a wonderful golden mist to the southward, where the rays of the declining sun shone through vapor rising from the ice. All normal standards of perspective vanish under such conditions, and the low ridges of the pack, with mist lying between them, gave the illusion of a wilderness of mountain peaks like the Bernese Oberland. I could not doubt now that the
Endurance
was confined for the winter. Gentle breezes from the east, south, and southwest did not disturb the hardening floes. The seals were disappearing and the birds were leaving us. The land showed still in fair weather on the distant horizon, but it was beyond our reach now, and regrets for havens that lay behind us were vain. “We must wait for the spring, which may bring us better fortune. If I had guessed a month ago that the ice would grip us here, I would have established our base at one of the landing places at the great glacier. But there seemed no reason to anticipate then that the fates would prove unkind. This calm weather with intense cold in a summer month is surely exceptional. My chief anxiety is the drift. Where will the vagrant winds and currents carry the ship during the long winter months that are ahead of us? We will go west, no doubt, but how far? And will it be possible to break out of the pack early in the spring and reach Vahsel Bay or some other suitable landing place? These are momentous questions for us.”