We were now about to undertake the most difficult part of our enterprise, the plans of which I have indicated in the preceding chapter.
I divided up the hands into three watches: In my own—McIlroy, Macklin and Carr; in Worsley’s—Wilkins, Douglas and Watts; in Jeffrey’s—Dell, McLeod and Marr. The Boy Scout had become a fine, handy seaman, and developed an all-round usefulness which made him a valuable member of the expedition. The engineers, Kerr and Smith, kept watch and watch about in spells of six hours. I had added, in the person of Ross, to their staff in South Georgia, where a number of Shetlanders are employed at the flensing. Young and he acted as firemen, and Argles as trimmer. Green and Naisbitt, who formed the galley staff, were, of course, exempt from watch keeping.
At first we had misty weather, and soon encountered a heavy swell in which the Quest rolled heavily. We met numerous icebergs travelling in a north-easterly direction—beautiful works of Nature passing slowly to their doom.
Hundreds of sea-birds tailed in our wake, including numbers of every species known to this part of the world: albatross, cape pigeons, whale birds and every kind of petrel, from the giant “Stinker” to the dainty, ubiquitous Mother Carey’s Chickens.
Thursday, January 19th, broke bright and clear. We were surrounded on all sides by bergs, those in sight numbering more than a hundred. Many of them were flat topped, evidently pieces which had recently calved from the Great Ice Barrier and floated out to sea. Others were more irregular in shape, with pinnacles, buttresses, and caves and tunnels through which the water rushed with a roar. The imaginative could see in them a resemblance to all sorts of things; churches with spires, castles with heavy ramparts, steamships, human profiles, and the figures of every conceivable kind of beast. Some were stained with red-coloured mineral deposits, blue bottom-mud and yellow and brown diatomaceous material. A few sloped towards the sea at such an angle as to enable penguins, all of them of the ringed variety, to clamber up. Some of the groups of penguins thus formed numbered as many as two or three hundred.
There was a high following sea, and the deeply laden Quest wallowed in it heavily, dipping both gunwales and filling the waist with water, which rushed to and fro with every roll. Smith was thrown off his feet and swept violently across the deck, fetching up with considerable force against the lee rail. He was much bruised and shaken.
During the day a number of soundings were taken with the Kelvin apparatus, but no bottom was found with 300 fathoms of wire.
In the evening Worsley altered course to look at what appeared to be a small half-submerged rock, but on approach it proved to be a heavily stained piece of ice.
January 20th was another fine day. I saw Marr come on deck wearing a fur cap, heavy sea-boots, and a belt from which hung a ferocious-looking sheath knife. The scrubby promise of a thick beard adorned his chin, and I had the greatest difficulty in associating the kilted boy who joined us in London with this tough-looking sailor man. If Hussey had been there he would have sung, “If only my mother could see me now!” Indeed, I would have liked to have had for a short while the use of a magic carpet and been able to transfer him exactly as he stood to the bosom of his family.
Jeffrey, who had been confined to his cabin since leaving Rio de Janeiro, returned to duty on this day.