Into the Frozen South

by J. W. S. Marr

For a change the middle watch was entirely dark, and as we were moving amongst some really nasty lumps of ice—chunks that could have made a comprehensive mess of the ship—it was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution. The swell continued with unabated determination, and all the ship’s upperworks were thickly covered with snow. We had miniature avalanches every few minutes through the wild rolling, the ship seeming determined to rid herself of her fleecy covering. Imagine a buck-jumping mustang newly harnessed into a landau, and you will get some idea of her fretful behaviour.

With the coming of the grey dawn Mac and myself, lone-handed, set the squaresail; but shortly before eight bells Mr. Jeffrey gave orders to stow it again. By some mischance we let it go by the run, and, thanks to the rolling and the breeze, it promptly went overboard, to trail in the water and soak itself with icy brine. There was nothing for it save to try to retrieve the runaway canvas. The squaresail is a heavy sail, and in the ordinary way seven or eight hands are told off to handle it. We were two alone, so picture Mac’s attitude towards the matter. He made a great outcry, lifted his face to the indifferent sky and cursed—how he cursed!—the Antarctic gods who decreed that two poor men should be required to perform the work of half a score. Cursing, he worked like a plantation full of niggers; the harder he cursed, indeed, the harder he pulled, until, as though the bad language were indeed, as Marryat says, the powder behind the cannon-ball, we mastered the refractory canvas and brought it aboard, saturated, stiff and unkindly. Believe me, we bragged about our achievement afterwards. I am not sure that we did not derisively inform the other members of the expedition that they might conveniently apply for long leave, in that we two were quite capable of carrying on unaided. And the many, very many, stormy petrels that surrounded the ship in the early morning seemed to be cheering us for our display of heroic endurance. The snow continued to fall with unabated persistence, and, meeting on our sluicing decks the water Mac and the sail had lifted aboard over our rails, dissolved into hideous slush. The stoutest sea-boots in existence cannot adequately cope with the bite of such slush, and for myself I lost all sensation in my feet. The afternoon brought a lessening of the snowfall—brought fine weather, indeed; and we smiled and patted ourselves on the back, and assured ourselves that we were steaming nobly in the right direction—Southward Ho! In open water, too, though that water was very unkindly in its motions, and the Quest as lively as ever.

By 5.30 we ran into ice again, and after bumping and boring until ten o’clock hove-to for the coming of daylight, so that we should not waste coal in aimless wandering to and fro without any resultant progress in the right direction. Blundering about in the dark was certainly an unprofitable pastime for a ship with depleted bunkers. Let it be remembered that the atmosphere near the edge of the pack is not nearly so clear as it is well inside the ice masses, and consequently the weather is generally very dirty and the nights as black as the inside of your hat. To my regret the doctor on this day sent me to bed because of a chill I had acquired, possibly after the frantic struggle with that pernicious squaresail.

On Monday, February 20, Commander Wild decided to work to the westward, towards rumoured land, reported by Ross as “an appearance of land” in 1842. We accordingly got under way once more at three in the morning, steaming a S.W. course through plenty of thick ice dotted with large bergs. At nightfall the engines were stopped through the dark hours, and I, still in my bunk, enjoyed an undisturbed sleep. It made up for the lost food, denied to me by the doctor—not that I wanted it.

At the first show of daylight the Quest once again got under way, to plough a devious course through fairly thick ice. I was told that I might get up and eat a meal, though I was still kept from performing duty on deck. Just as well, maybe, for it was snowing heavily, and I found occupation enough in restowing my locker and bunk and donning a change of warmer clothing—with which I was well supplied, thanks be to kindly donors. Then, in a spirit of carelessness, for the day of leisure seemed to demand some ceremonial, I opened two boxes of Scotch shortbread that I had brought with me from Aberdeen; discovered the contents beautifully crisp and fresh; sent one box forrard to the other mess, and we aft consumed the remaining box with eager appetites. As though even the weather were growing hilarious, it blew a heavy gale that night, and the ship was necessarily hove-to. Sleep was impossible by reason of the scream of the wind amongst our stripped spars and the grinding and scraping of ice along our outboard planking. Not very easeful hours for a pseudo-invalid; but I’d been told that I could turn to on the morrow, so what did it matter?

During the morning watch we drifted clear of the ice, and going on deck I found open water about, snow thickly falling and the ship wreathed in sound-deadening white. The wind, vigorous and chilly, gave us a level six knots of speed with all sail set, and we bowled along in heroic fashion, until at midnight ice was sighted, and then it was a case of “all hands shorten sail!” with a vengeance, for we found that otherwise we couldn’t check our headlong career and seemed disposed to ram solid floes, which could only result in disaster. This day was Worsley’s birthday, a day to be celebrated with mirth and feasting, for the birthday boy had reached his fiftieth year and was still going strong and looking youthful. From some hidden corner of the ship beer materialized—genuine, actual beer, which was greeted with loud acclamations. After a satisfying repast of seal-meat and the like—and seal meat can be jolly good—Green entered, bearing with graceful ease, posturing like a Pavlova, a noble birthday cake that was iced to perfection and inscribed with an insulting motto. Worsley himself, as being the pivot on which these celebrations turned, was instructed to cut the cake, and was furnished with a boarding-axe to do it. It resisted his efforts; for Green, in a humorous moment, had iced a 56-lb. sinker belonging to the sounding machine. However, after the gibes and lurid language had ceased, the real cake was produced and we stodged ourselves to our complete satisfaction. The occasion was a welcome break in an existence that tended to become monotonous and also somewhat wearing, for the work of grinding through the pack tends to deaden one’s senses somewhat and breed a fretting irritation against unavoidable circumstances.

Shortly before midnight Mr. Wilkins, who had charge of the first watch, roused out the watch below to set the squaresail. We groaned both inwardly and outwardly. We knew what it would be—clambering on top of the forrard deck-house, fumbling about with the steel-hard, frozen canvas, with everybody growling and everybody in everybody else’s way! A lovely job, but nothing, so I was repeatedly told, to real old-fashioned windjamming. Oh, but it tests one’s temper to be turned out on a cold night, with the ship dipping her rails under water at every roll, for such a job. But mark how Nature brings its own palliative! Once the arduous task was performed—thanks to our efforts—our blood was hot and tingling, our spirits elated, and we felt more like singing than cursing—we forgot that we cordially detested our next neighbours and had sworn cold-blooded feud against those we most esteemed, and in a happy frame of mind repaired to the bridge to comfort ourselves with hot, strong coffee, shared with Mr. Jeffrey, who had the wheel. The sea was rather plentifully dotted with “growlers,” but we had little difficulty in clearing them, since the ship was proceeding under sail alone and more kindly on her helm. Later in the day we passed through a very strange area of finely powdered ice—this powder lying on top of small snowball-like fragments of ice—which gave one the impression of moving through a lake of milk. From this phenomenal area we passed into a belt of newly-freezing ice, and everywhere was greyness—sky, sea and ice alike blending into one grim monotone.

During the night we sailed into heavy ice, which checked our way and compelled us to head again for the north and open water, which was reached before 8 a.m., the engines going slowly. Followed a period of dodging bergs and finding the pack again, pack that grew heavier until nightfall brought the need to heave-to, by reason of the indifferent visibility, until daybreak came, when course was resumed, but always to the north and west. We tried the pack repeatedly, but instead of butting our heads against an implacable wall, whenever we found that further progress was impossible we followed the line of least resistance and edged away in search of more impressionable zones. The sound of shots startled me from a peaceful doze at 8 a.m., and with mad dreams of hectic adventure troubling me, raced on deck, where I was greeted with a truly wonderful sight. Hundreds, literally hundreds of seals were in plain view; many of the floes—not very big ones—held ten or a dozen of the brutes apiece. We made very good use of this opportunity, you may be sure, because of our yearning bunkers.

A little later in the day, as I was scrubbing down below, some would-be benefactor yelled to me to get on deck as quickly as I could, to behold another great sight. A sight for the gods it was, indeed, for the ship had run into a great school of whales—more than eighty really large fellows, and in every direction these giants were blowing like geysers. The click of a cinema camera showed us that Mr. Wilkins was already busy—I feel sure that if the Quest had been sinking he would have secured a realistic picture of her final plunge from the truck!—and we others could only marvel at the wondrous splendour of the sight. The whales did not remain long in view, however; they disappeared ahead on their own occasions, and we spectators discovered that work called us. We spent a watch trying to pump out the forehold, and did not entirely succeed. The other principal event of note was when Major Carr cut my hair with a very blunt machine—and I decided that scalping might have been preferable.

The night came on very dark and misty, and it was necessary to exercise the greatest caution in proceeding, for the sea was thickly strewn with growlers of a dangerous size, so that it would have been folly to continue at our customary speed. Consequently we crawled, engines going dead-slow, and two men alertly on watch on the bridge to direct the helmsman whenever solid ice showed looming through the haze.