A great deal of the bay ice had broken away and drifted out of the Sound, so that by the 20th the ship was only a few hundred yards from Hurrah Beach. This day Rennick, smiling from ear to ear, came across the ice with the pianola in bits conveyed on a couple of sledges. He fixed it up with great cleverness at one end of the hut and it was quite wonderful to see how he stripped it on board, brought it through all sorts of spaces, transported it undamaged over ice and rocky beach, re-erected it, tuned it, and then played "Home, Sweet Home." What with the pianola going all out, the gramophone giving us Melba records, and the ship's company's gramophone squawking out Harry Lauder's opposition numbers, Ponting cinematographing everything of interest and worthy of pictorial record, little Anton rushing round with nosebags for the ponies, Meares and Dimitri careering with the dog teams over ice, beach, packing cases, and what not, sailors with coloured tam-o'-shanters bobbing around in piratical style, the hot sun beating down and brightening up everything, one might easily have imagined this to be the circus scene, in the great Antarctic joy-ride film. Everything ran on wheels in these days, and it was difficult to imagine that in three months there would be no sun, that this sweltering beach would be encrusted with ice, and that the cold, dark winter would be upon us.
The 21st was quite an exciting day. Captain Scott woke me at 4 a.m. to tell me that the ship was in difficulties. I got up at once, called the four seamen, and with Uncle Bill we all went out on to the floe. The ice to which the ship was fast had broken away, and so we helped her re-moor with her ice-anchors. Petty Officer Evans went adrift on the floe, but we got him back in the pram. We turned in again at 5.15 and set a watch, but at 6.30 the "Terra Nova" hoisted an ensign at the main, a pre-arranged signal, and so all hands again went out and got her ice anchors; she slipped the ends of the wire hawsers holding them and stood out into the Sound. The ice was breaking up fast, a swell rolling in causing the big floes to grind and crunch in rather alarming fashion. Fortunately, Pennell had raised steam, which was just as well for before he got clear the ship was only half a cable from Cape Evans, which lay dead to leeward—she was well out of it. We took the wire hawsers, pram and ice anchors to our winter quarters and kept them in readiness for the ship's return, then had a delightful breakfast, with appetites sharpened from the early morning exercise and chill wind. Afterwards we continued the preparations for the depot trip and got eight out of eleven sledges fitted up with the bulk of their gear and a portion of stores.
At about 3 p.m. the "Terra Nova" came in, and just as she was turning to come alongside the fast ice she struck a rock with only twelve feet of water on it. This pinnacle, as it proved to be, lay within twenty feet of a sounding of eleven fathoms. Pennell immediately sounded all round, shifted several tons weight aft, and with the engines going full speed astern, he made his crew run from side to side and roll ship. Scott sent me out in the whaler with a party to assist the ship; we sounded all round and quickly made a plan of the relative disposition of the soundings round the "Terra Nova." However, as we finished, the ship moved astern and successfully floated, the crew gave three cheers, and we cheered lustily from the whaler. Pennell, as usual, was quite equal to the occasion when the ship struck; he was absolutely master of the situation, cool, decided, and successful. I was thankful to see the ship floating again, for, unlike the "Discovery" expedition, we had no plans for a relief ship.
When I told Captain Scott that the "Terra Nova" had run ashore he took it splendidly. We ran down to the beach, and when we beheld the ship on a lee shore heeling over to the wind, a certain amount of sea and swell coming in from the northward, and with the ultimate fate of the Expedition looking black and doubtful, Scott was quite cheerful, and he immediately set about to cope with the situation as coolly as though he were talking out his plans for a sledge journey.
After the "Terra Nova" got off this intruding rock she was steamed round to the edge of the fast ice, near the glacier tongue which juts out between Cape Evans and Cape Barne. We placed her ice-anchors, and after that Wilson and I went on board and had a yarn with Pennell, whom we brought back to tea. Scott was awfully nice to him about the grounding and told him of his own experience in 1904, when the "Discovery" was bumping heavily in a gale just after freeing herself from the ice at Hut Point.
Nelson, Griffith Taylor, Meares, and Day helped me with the sledge packing until 11.30 p.m. when we rolled into our bunks tired out and immediately fell asleep.
The next day, a Sunday, was entirely devoted to preparing personal gear for the depot journey: this means fitting lamp wick straps to our fur boots or finnesko, picking from our kits a proportion of puttees and socks, sewing more lamp wick on to our fur gloves so that these could hang from our shoulders when it was necessary to uncover our hands. We also had to fit draw-strings to our wind-proof blouses and adjust our headgear according to our individual fancy, and finally, tobacco and smokers' requisites would be added to the little bundle, which all packed up neatly in a pillow-slip. This personal bag served also as a pillow.
CHAPTER VI
SETTLING DOWN TO THE POLAR LIFE
The following members were selected for the depot journey which Captain Scott elected to lead in person: Wilson, Bowers, Atkinson, Oates, Cherry-Garrard, Gran, Meares, Ford, Crean, Keohane, and myself. It was decided to take eight pony-sledges and two dog-sledges, together with about a ton of pony food, sledging rations, dog biscuit, and paraffin to a position on the Great Ice Barrier as far south as we could get before the first winter set in. This decision was arrived at by Scott after consultation with Oates and others, and, as will be seen by reference to the list of those chosen for the journey, none of the scientific staff were included except Wilson himself.