On the day following the finishing touches were put to the cairn, and a brass plate was cemented in, bearing just a simple inscription, which said more than whole volumes, maybe:
SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON,
Explorer,
Died here January 5, 1922.
Erected by his comrades.
It was evening when this work was done, and in the waning light we gazed on the completed cairn standing out dark against the snow, and felt how grand and beautiful was its setting. How fitting it was for a monument to Shackleton! The dying sun made a lovely picture on the smooth frozen waters of the bay and enhanced the exquisite beauty of the white mountains beyond. We turned away and walked slowly homewards, not speaking much, because he seemed to be very near.
We left Gritviken on May 7—a Sunday—and steamed across to Cumberland Bay. On the way we passed Sir Ernest’s cairn, and the ship’s company stood to attention facing it in salute. The skipper afterwards remarked to me on the excellence of the selected site. It promised to stand there as a perpetual landmark to all who entered the bay. Gradually was lifted the inevitable pall of sadness that had clung about the Quest after our sorrowful labours.
At Gritviken we had secured a live black and white pig, and an instant hostility arose between this porker and Query; it was very amusing to watch their antics. Commander Wild went ashore with a hunting party and presently returned with four large deer, a welcome prospect of venison. They were skinned and cleaned and lashed up in the rigging. Next day, after landing the magistrate’s dog, which had somehow been left aboard, we steamed along the coast towards Royal Bay, where the German Antarctic Expedition of 1892-3 had wintered, and here, shortly after 2 p.m., we dropped anchor quite close to a great glacier that was rotten with crevasses. Great masses of ice kept constantly tumbling down with a continual rumbling, and as they entered the water they sent out waves towards us like the wash of a giant ship proceeding at full speed. The whole bay was covered with growlers and smaller fragments of ice. The surveying party promptly went ashore, and I accompanied them. A biggish surf was running, and the shore was very steep and very stony. Youthful enthusiasm prompting me to leap ashore with the painter, a roller promptly took me off my feet, carried me under the boat, threw me up on the beach and effectively drenched me. I returned aboard, changed and went fishing, which was a more peaceful pursuit. Then the survey party was collected without mishap and taken off aboard, the boat was hoisted in and secured, for the last time our anchor was hoisted from the South Georgian bottom, and we set out on our journey to what is almost the last, loneliest sentinel of the British Empire, Tristan d’Achuna, or Tristan da Cunha; the spelling is optional, I believe. We kept a course along the moon-path, in order to avoid the growlers; and before I turned in at midnight I took a last long look at shimmering, moon-bathed peaks of the stern island that now meant so much to me.
CHAPTER XVII
A Spell on Tristan da Cunha
Our passage across to Tristan da Cunha was in the main uneventful to men who had endured the rigours and inclemencies of the more southern waters. True, there were episodes. The Quest was as dirty as ever, if not dirtier, when she met the long run of the seas; and Gubbins Alley was deeply awash with the water we took aboard over our swinging rails. Gubbins Alley, let me explain, is the name given to the port alleyway, where by some strange process of maritime luck and forces all the litter of a ship—the dirt or, as it is called, the “gubbins”—manages to accumulate. No one is to blame for this accumulation; it is merely chance that collects it, for the alleyway is religiously scrubbed out every morning; but the cook works a lot here, and the stokers empty the ashes from below on this side, so these activities may have something to do with it. But, whatever the reason, it is always just “Gubbins Alley.”
Down below was also very damp and ungenial, for despite all our defences the water insisted on penetrating into the wardroom, whilst Commander Wild’s cabin was clean swept more than once. The ship seemed determined to show what she could do. She tried to roll the surf-boat out of its davits, and almost succeeded—would have done, if Mac had not raised the alarm and called us to his aid in the nick of time. She tried with success to roll us out of our bunks just at the hour of deepest sleep, when things of that sort appear anything but humorous. Sometimes we thought she possessed the temperament of an elf, but mostly she was diabolical. She flung breakfasts, lunches and dinners off the tables into the scuppers; she shifted carefully-stowed stores; she scalded the stokers and half-buried the trimmers. A very lively packet.
Storms beset her with monotonous regularity; but one storm is so like another to the lay mind that it is not necessary to enter into intricate details. One outstanding feature of these restless days was the souring of certain of our stores. When diving into the storerooms to make preparations for the supplies for landing parties at Tristan and the adjacent islands, we discovered that several bags of flour and beans were going wrong, due, no doubt, to the constant dampness and lack of ventilation. The stench was appalling as we hoisted up the rotting stuff to open air for drying and disinfecting.