South! Ernest Shackleton (affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📖

bay ice and placed heavy strains on the stern moorings. The young ice, about four inches thick, went out eventually and left a lead along the shore. The ship had set in towards the shore, owing to the pressure, and the stern was now in four-and-a-half fathoms. Stenhouse tightened the moorings and ran out an extra wire to the shore anchor. The nature of the ice movements is illustrated by a few extracts from the log:

“March 27, 5 p.m.⁠—Ice broke away from shore and started to go out. 8 p.m.⁠—Light southerly airs; fine; ice setting out to northwest; heavy pressure of ice on starboard side and great strain on moorings. 10 p.m.⁠—Ice clear of ship.

“March 28.⁠—New ice forming over bay. 3 a.m.⁠—Ice which went out last watch set in towards bay. 5 a.m.⁠—Ice coming in and overriding newly formed bay-ice; heavy pressure on port side of ship; wires frozen into ice. 8 a.m.⁠—Calm and fine; new ice setting out of bay. 5 p.m.⁠—New ice formed since morning cleared from bay except area on port side of ship and stretching abeam and ahead for about 200 yds., which is held by bights of wire; new ice forming.

“March 29, 1:30 p.m.⁠—New ice going out. 2 p.m.⁠—Hands on floe on port quarter clearing wires; stern in three fathoms; hauled wires tight, bringing stern more to eastward and in four fathoms; hove in about one fathom of starboard cable, which had dragged during recent pressure.

“April 10, 1:30 p.m.⁠—Ice breaking from shore under influence of southeast wind. Two starboard quarter wires parted; all bights of stern wires frozen in ice; chain taking weight. 2 p.m.⁠—Ice opened, leaving ice in bay in line from Cape to landward of glacier. 8 p.m.⁠—Fresh wind; ship holding ice in bay; ice in Sound wind-driven to northwest.

“April 17, 1 a.m.⁠—Pressure increased and wind shifted to northwest. Ice continued to override and press into shore until 5 o’clock; during this time pressure into bay was very heavy; movement of ice in straits causing noise like heavy surf. Ship took ground gently at rudderpost during pressure; bottom under stern shallows very quickly. 10 p.m.⁠—Ice-moving out of bay to westward; heavy strain on after moorings and cables, which are cutting the floe.”

Stenhouse continued to nurse his moorings against the onslaughts of the ice during the rest of April and the early days of May. The breakaway from the shore came suddenly and unexpectedly on the evening of May 6:

“May 6, 1915.⁠—Fine morning with light breezes from east-southeast.⁠ ⁠… 3:30 p.m.⁠—Ice nearly finished. Sent hands ashore for sledge-load. 4 p.m.⁠—Wind freshening with blizzardy appearance of sky. 8 p.m.⁠—⁠ ⁠… Heavy strain on after-moorings. 9:45 p.m.⁠—The ice parted from the shore; all moorings parted. Most fascinating to listen to waves and chain breaking. In the thick haze I saw the ice astern breaking up and the shore receding. I called all hands and clapped relieving tackles (4 in. Manila luff tackles) on to the cables on the forepart of the windlass. The bos’n had rushed along with his hurricane lamp, and shouted, ‘She’s away wi’ it!’ He is a good fellow and very conscientious. I ordered steam on main engines, and the engine-room staff, with Hooke and Ninnis, turned to. Grady, fireman, was laid up with a broken rib. As the ship, in the solid floe, set to the northwest, the cables rattled and tore at the hawsepipes; luckily the anchors, lying as they were on a strip-sloping bottom, came away easily, without damage to windlass or hawsepipes. Slowly as we disappeared into Sound, the light in the hut died away. At 11:30 p.m. the ice around us started to break up, the floes playing tattoo on the ship’s sides. We were out in the Sound and catching the full force of the wind. The moon broke through the clouds after midnight and showed us the pack, stretching continuously to northward, and about one mile to the south. As the pack from the southward came up and closed in on the ship, the swell lessened and the banging of floes alongside eased a little.

“May 7, 8 a.m.⁠—Wind east-southeast. Moderate gale with thick drift. The ice around ship is packing up and forming ridges about two feet high. The ship is lying with head to the eastward, Cape Bird showing to northeast. When steam is raised I have hopes of getting back to the fast ice near the Glacier Tongue. Since we have been in winter quarters the ice has formed and, held by the islands and land at Cape Evans, has remained north of the Tongue. If we can return we should be able now to moor to the fast ice. The engineers are having great difficulty with the sea connections, which are frozen. The main bow-down cock, from which the boiler is ‘run up,’ has been tapped and a screw plug put into it to allow of a hot iron rod being inserted to thaw out the ice between the cock and the ship’s side⁠—about two feet of hard ice. 4:30 p.m.⁠—The hot iron has been successful. Donolly (second engineer) had the pleasure of stopping the first spurt of water through the pipe; he got it in the eye. Fires were lit in furnaces, and water commenced to blow in the boiler⁠—the first blow in our defence against the terrific forces of Nature in the Antarctic. 8 p.m.⁠—The gale has freshened, accompanied by thick drift.”

The Aurora drifted helplessly throughout May 7. On the morning of May 8 the weather cleared a little and the Western Mountains became indistinctly visible. Cape Bird could also be seen. The ship was moving northwards with the ice. The daylight was no more than a short twilight of about two hours’ duration. The boiler was being filled with ice, which had to be lifted aboard, broken up, passed through a small porthole to a man inside, and then carried to the manhole on top of the boiler. Stenhouse had the wireless aerial rigged during the afternoon, and at 5 p.m. was informed that