Into the Frozen South

by J. W. S. Marr

On Wednesday morning the ship was taken out to the buoys to be swung for compass adjustment. Not posing as an experienced navigator, I am unable to describe this very necessary operation in detail; but I gathered that a ship’s compass is about as uncertain an instrument as can be imagined. About the one place to which a compass needle doesn’t point is the Pole. There are so many opposing forces at work to defeat—or is it deflect?—that slip of magnetized metal that the wonder is it doesn’t give up the task in despair and point straight upwards to the spot where Paddy’s hurricane came from. Apart from the wide difference between the magnetic poles and the true poles—and that is called variation—there are the wonderful effects of the metal contained in the ship—the immovable metal of her structure—and every shroud and every barrel hoop is some sort of a magnet; the other no less wonderful effects created by the ship’s heeling and pitching, when what was previously horizontal magnetism becomes vertical magnetism; and a multitude of chancy irregularities that bewilder me when I think of them. However, the experts concerned in the matter contrived to reduce all these warring elements to something approaching order, and we left Sheerness with the conviction that whatever happened to the ship her compasses wouldn’t fail. It was after lunch when we finally got our ground tackle and slid away towards the Channel, across a sea as flat and smooth as the ice of which we were later to see so much. Under such conditions, being at sea was about as pleasurable an experience as one could hope for. It was possible to get familiar with the thousand and one details of shipboard life which at first sight seem so baffling. Already, short as had been my time aboard, I had a sneaking belief that I could pass some sort of examination in seamanship.

Here’s a chance now, with the Quest in open water, to say something about her. She was to serve as a stage for all the comedies and tragedies of the coming months, and she is worthy of as good a description as I am able to give. I said before she was no leviathan. In your mind’s eye, you who read my impressions, please don’t create a fancy ship, equipped with such gadgets as make ordinary seafaring a picnic. The Quest, originally a small Norwegian wooden barque of 125 tons, was mighty little bigger than a Thames barge. Her auxiliary steam engines developed one horse-power per ton, 125 h.p. in all. Ketch-rigged as she originally was, she was supposed to be capable of steaming seven knots per hour in smooth waters. Being originally intended for the Arctic sealing trade, she was naturally very strongly built in every respect, even at a sacrifice of room inboard. Her bow was solid oak sheathed stoutly with steel—capable of taking a very severe ice nip; her timbers were doubly reinforced by massive beams with natural bends. Give her an overall length of 111 feet from bow to taffrail, a beam of 23 feet or thereabouts, sides 24 inches in thickness, and there you have her, this twentieth-century Argosy of ours, as Shackleton bought her from her original owners.

She underwent a thorough overhauling prior to my joining her. She might have been much more thoroughly made-over but for the fact of certain strikes and restlessness amongst the dockyard workers. She might have been ridded of her steam engines and been fitted with Diesel oil engines; but this alteration was impossible. Consequently her already limited accommodation was still further limited by the creation of new bunker space—the forehold suffered here—which was estimated to give the Quest a working radius, allowing for the use of sail and economical steaming, of something like five thousand miles.

Her rigging was altered to a considerable extent. She was square-rigged forward, her mizenmast was lengthened, really in order to give the wireless aerial a chance; her ’thwartship bridge was thrown clear across the deck from rail to rail, and completely enclosed with Triplex glass windows. Her foredeck developed a curious growth in the shape of a deckhouse as big as an average dining-room, twenty feet by twelve. This house was partitioned off into four small cabins and a room for housing special scientific instruments. New running rigging was fitted, also new canvas; and as Mr. Rowett was determined that every detail of the ship must be as perfect and safe as was possible, no matter what the expense might be, nothing was left undone that would assure her being eminently seaworthy.

Within her diminutive hull, twenty hands, picked from innumerable volunteers, were bestowed in very limited space, as might be imagined. She was, indeed, so packed with gear of one kind and another that I still wonder how her timbers stood the strain. Piecing together a jig-saw puzzle was child’s play compared with the stowing of her equipment and stores; not a single inch of space was wasted anywhere.

She was fitted with two complete wireless installations; not merely receiving sets, but also transmitting gear. Moreover, she was lit throughout by electric light, at all events during the earlier stages of the voyage, but the need to economize in fuel later compelled the use of oil lamps everywhere. A great quantity of her sea stores and the equipment that would be required when in the Antarctic was sent ahead of her to Cape Town, to be kept in store, awaiting our arrival; but even so she was packed full; and the port alleyway was pretty completely blocked by the seaplane which we were carrying. Everything that human ingenuity could devise or demand was there in that little ship.

I have forgotten to mention the spirit of loyal determination of all aboard. There was enough to equip a whole armada of Dreadnoughts. What did cramped space and minor discomfort matter? We were going South with Shackleton, and that was enough for us. Everyone possessed good temper and the determination to rough it without outcry—about the most desirable qualifications for a crew on such a voyage.

Throughout the easy run to Plymouth there was nothing to disturb us; voyaging under these fine-weather conditions was glorious. We were all in high heart, adapting ourselves rapidly to the existing conditions; and the time flowed by with that curious smoothness so noticeable at sea.

By half-past nine on the morning of Wednesday, September 23, we sighted Plymouth and passed up through an almost empty Sound. Here the Quest was welcomed by the mayor and other notables, including Captain Gordon Campbell, V.C., the man who made himself such a terror to German submarines during the war. There were speeches—stirring speeches that exalted the courage and, so far as I was concerned, made me feel even more heroic than before, so that once again I thanked my lucky stars for the good fortune that had fallen my way.

Mooney and myself were given an extra special send-off on our own account, being invited ashore to a meeting of Scout officers of Plymouth, where a stirring address was given by Mr. Parr, who is chief of the Wolf Cubs in London. Then there was tea—we were the served, not servers! It was a thoroughly good blow out, and afterwards a sing-song worth thinking twice about, though all through the festivities Mooney and I were being pestered for our autographs in such a fashion as threatened to give us stiff wrists and swollen heads. Then they took us round Plymouth in taxi-cabs and showed us the place from which the Mayflower sailed on a journey that promised to be even more difficult than ours; yet Mooney and I thought scornful of Mayflowers, as Mulvaney thought scornful of elephants!