Into the Frozen South

by J. W. S. Marr

So lively was the motion that it was an impossibility to pretend to serve a meal below; the dishes and plates refused to remain on the tables, in spite of the fiddles and the devices seamen use at sea. Consequently we were supplied with meat sandwiches on deck, which we ate as best we could, and counted ourselves lucky if we found our mouths. In my pride of recovery—for seasickness was now little but an unpleasant memory—I felt sorry for Mooney. He was having the thinnest of times, but game to a degree with it all. He tried his best to overcome the complaint, but it was too much for him; during this snatch of bad weather he was incapable of stirring hand or foot. He made no outcry about it, but his face told more than many words could have done. And there was no comfort to be found for him anywhere; he simply had to stick it out and make the best of it.

We were making no headway worth speaking of all this time; the wind was foul, and the lop of the seas undid any useful work the engines might have done. On account of the slamming and pitching, something went wrong with those engines; and though, during the afternoon, the wind lessened and the sea began to smooth itself out rather agreeably, there was a curious knocking note down in the engine-room that convinced us all that things were not as they ought to be.

Later this disorder down below became so pronounced that Sir Ernest Shackleton decided to put into Lisbon for overhaul, even at the cost of wasted time.

During the night the gale decreased into nothing, and in the morning the weather was quite decent. Very decent, I called it; but that was possibly by way of contrast—you have to weather a blow before you can appreciate good times. Sunday though it was, the ordinary work of the ship had to be performed, and the grimy disorder resulting from the gale removed.

We managed to get into wireless touch with Lisbon, and asked that a tug might be dispatched to help us in our limping progress. We needed it, for though the weather was growing gloriously fine and the sea was smooth, we were hardly making headway. A tug was promised, and we began to look forward to the joys of the land.

When I went on deck at midnight to stand the middle watch, the lights of the Portuguese coast were already invitingly in sight. Sir Ernest Shackleton was in charge, peering anxiously ahead. The Portuguese coast is not a particularly friendly one, especially at night, for the Burlings are an awkward reef, on which many a good ship has come to disaster. At the wheel I was constantly busy, obeying orders to alter course as this light and that hove in sight. To me there was a fascination in this creeping through the night that is hard to describe. But by two o’clock the Boss decided that I had had enough of it, and sent me below to prepare some food, whilst Mr. Lysaght took my place at the helm. At four o’clock I answered the frantic call of my bunk and lost all interest in everything for four gorgeous hours.

Turning out again, with a thrill of expectancy, I found the ship some two miles off the coast. Because of the clearness of the atmosphere I got a very good view of Portugal, which from the sea is very beautiful and quaint. The land rose steeply out of the placid, colourful sea, and the green slopes were plentifully dotted with red-roofed, whitewashed houses. A bright sun bathed the picture radiantly, and the discomforts of the recent storm were immediately forgotten. Here was something new, something foreign to occupy attention; now it was a cluster of smiling houses, again it was a frowning castle perched high on a mighty peak. We crawled along at slow speed, envying—oh, how we envied!—the big, powerful liners that steamed vigorously past; all of which, recognizing in the little, dishevelled cockboat a ship that was to fare farther and see greater marvels than they had ever seen, signalled us greetings. An enormous P. and O. boat came charging up, ran so close alongside us that we swung and cavorted in her wash like a dinghy, and, with bright bunting slatting from her span, raced out of sight ahead. She could have carried us on her deck with the greatest ease, yet we flattered ourselves that we were proper sailormen and not merely steamboaters!

Watching the shifting panorama of the coast was not the only occupation, however. The ship, in preparation for her visit to civilization and the far from remote possibility of her again becoming a show-ship, must needs undergo her spring-cleaning; and so sougee-mougee became the order of the day. Everything washable was washed, until we shone from stem to stern; and the deck-hamper was shifted so as to present some appearance of tidiness. But at noon we got a wireless from Lisbon to say that the ordered tug found it impossible to face the short, steep seas that were then running, and consequently we crawled into Cascaes roadstead, at the mouth of the Tagus, and anchored there on the advice of the pilot who boarded us. Portuguese pilots like their comforts, I think, and cordially dislike night navigation; but this one found little to his liking on board the Quest. If the ship was uncomfortable in open water in any sort of a sea, she was doubly so at anchor, for instead of being permitted her free, even rolling, every time she started one the anchor-cable fetched her up with a short, agonizing jerk that seemed to lift a man’s spine up through his skull and threatened to throw him clean out of his bunk. So little did our gallant Portuguese pilot like this motion that he found a means to secure a tug, and at eleven o’clock we were piloted into quieter water in the river’s mouth; after which we got what was really the first decent rest since leaving the mouth of the Channel.

That was a good sleep; the only trouble was that it was far too short. At 6.30 in the morning we got up our anchor, and, escorted by the tug, moved serenely up the Tagus. A very fine panorama of Lisbon unfolded itself as we progressed. Backing the general view was the high-thrown Pena Palace, where ex-King Manoel fled to join his mother during the revolution; almost alongside it was the old Moorish castle built in days when the Antarctic was unknown to human ken.

Lisbon being built on several hills, the streets are consequently steep for the most part. Most of the buildings are white, with red roofs, showing up finely against a background of olive-green; and the general effect is one of almost Oriental quaintness. But over the city there hangs an atmosphere of forlornness and decay, as though this place, from which set sail explorers as intrepid as those contained in the Quest, in search of unknown lands, had Ichabod written largely across its clustered roofs.