Photo: Wilkins
SENTINEL OF THE ANTARCTIC
Worsley met with a slight accident on the 23rd. While passing round the front of the deck-house he was struck by the forestay-sail sheet block, and was hurled across the deck. He picked himself up, with blood running freely down his face, but the intensity of his imprecations relieved me from fear of a bad injury, and, indeed, on examination it proved to be slight. He felt a little hurt when someone asked him if he could not do it again because there were several who had missed the incident. I omit his reply.
Our daily mileage had proved disappointing up to this point, and it became clear to me that we could not hope to reach Bouvet Island and still be in time to enter the ice this year. The coal consumption also proved higher than I had anticipated. I decided, therefore, to make a more southerly course to meet and enter the ice in a position somewhere about 20° E. Long. On my westward run I intended to cross the mouth of the Weddell Sea, and attempt to examine and sound the charted position of “Ross’s Appearance of Land,” probably call at Elephant Island to obtain sand for ballast and blubber for fuel, and proceed to Deception Island for coal for the return to South Georgia.
After a long spell of bad weather, on January 25th we at last experienced a change for the better, the day breaking bright and clear, the water a deep blue and the icebergs a dazzling white. The sea was comparatively smooth, and the Quest behaved moderately well.
I seized the chance to get on with an amount of work which had been difficult during the bad weather. Worsley, Dell and Carr overhauled the Lucas sounding machine and fixed a roll of wire all ready for a running out. When this was done, I set Carr to blocking some of the scupper holes, in the hope of keeping a drier deck. Macklin, assisted by Marr and Green, spent a busy morning in squaring up the hold, and there was work for everyone in one way or another. McIlroy and I baled out our cabins and put the wet gear out to dry.[8]
The ship was found to be taking more water, Macklin reporting that it had reached the level of the kelson, and I had to institute longer spells at the pumps, each taking from one and a half to two hours to pump her dry.
I got McIlroy to cut my hair, after which I acted as barber for him, and for Kerr and Worsley also. They were no half cuts, but good convict crops! Wilkins, with a view to stimulating the laggard hairs on his crown to more active growth, shaved the top of his head, and looked like a monk. He was growing a beard, as were a number of the men. McLeod’s was the most flourishing; Dell and Macklin each showed a respectable growth, and Kerr, Smith, Young, Argles and Watts gave a promise of better things. Marr, not to be outdone, was also making the attempt, but so far could show only a stubble, which gave him rather a ferocious appearance.
In the afternoon Worsley took a sounding, with the unsought assistance of all the men on board, who crowded round with a great willingness to help, but who, like the cooks at the broth, only impeded things. Four miles of wire were reeled out without finding bottom, but, this being the first time we had used the Lucas machine on this trip, it was probably incorrect. When it came to winding up, the machine ran well, but when only about half the reel had been taken in the wire broke, and we lost the sinkers and the snapper (which is used to bring up specimens from the sea bottom). From this time forward Dell took charge of the sounding machine, and under his management it ran without a hitch. It was often a cold and tedious job, but he took the greatest interest in the work, and enabled Worsley to get some excellent results.
Whilst the sounding was in process a mass of pultaceous material floated past the ship, some of which we collected. Macklin examined a small portion of it under a microscope, and reported that it was composed of feathers in a state of decomposition. Its occurrence was hard to explain, but Wilkins thought it may have come from one of the carnivorous mammals of these seas: a sea leopard or a killer, which had swallowed a number of penguins or other birds, and afterwards vomited the indigestible portions of them, just as our sledge dogs used to vomit bones which they had eaten.