Excessive caution was necessary in handling the ship amongst these ponderous floes. Patience combined with perseverance are essential virtues inseparable to successful ice navigation, and they were constantly called into requisition in order to ensure a safe deliverance from the dangers which surrounded us.
A vigilant look-out had to be kept on the pack, and the ship was moved from time to time in order to avoid a “nip.” Frequently we would observe a heavy floe coming into contact with the large grounded masses of ice that lined the coast, forcing them over, or crumbling them into shapeless fragments, thus clearly illustrating our own fate should we be so unfortunate as to be caught between the two.
The orders “up” and “down screw and rudder” were given and executed several times during each day. As on our outward journey, preparations were now made for abandoning the ship at a moment’s notice. Tents, clothing, cooking utensils, and all necessaries for a life on shore were spread out on the upper deck in readiness to be thrown on the ice in the event of such a catastrophe.
The cool way in which we all spoke of the probable loss of our home, and the prospect of being cast adrift at a moment’s notice, was very remarkable. Perhaps the knowledge that our consort, the “Discovery,” was within some forty miles of us, and therefore within easy travelling distance, might account for the light manner in which such a calamity was regarded; but it was impossible to disguise the fact that the loss of our good ship would be a very serious, not to say uncomfortable, event.
Steam had to be kept ready at a few minutes’ notice, so as to take advantage of every little opening that might occur in the ice, even though we should only succeed in advancing a few hundred yards. On one occasion the ship was purposely forced into the pack, with which it drifted to the southward; but on the turn of the tide, when the ice began to drift in the opposite direction, it was no easy matter to free ourselves from the bondage to which we had voluntarily subjected ourselves. If it can be avoided, it is best not to allow a ship to get beset, even when the drift of the pack is favourable.
As we proceeded south, although our progress was slow, the change in the appearance and massiveness of the ice was very palpable. Occasionally we would meet small specimens of our palæocrystic friends, over which we had travelled during the preceding spring, but, as a rule, the ice was of a much lighter description. Still the floes were far heavier than those met with in Baffin Bay, and by no means to be despised.
During the time the ship was detained, waiting for the ice to open to allow her to proceed, our sportsmen were not idle, landing at all hours of the day and night in order to procure fresh food for the sick. So successful were they in their forays that the sick were supplied with a fresh meat meal daily,—geese, ducks, and hares forming the principal part of their “bags.” The slaughter amongst the former was tremendous—entire flocks numbering from fifty to seventy birds falling victims to the prowess of not more than two guns, and within the short space perhaps of half an hour! The unfortunate birds being in the act of moulting were, of course, unable to escape the unerring aim of our marksmen.
In addition to crops of mustard and cress that we succeeded in raising on board, we were able to obtain small quantities of sorrel, which the convalescents were sent on shore to gather from the valleys and sides of the hills, often returning with sufficient to enable a limited allowance to be served out periodically. Sometimes the sick men were sent on shore themselves to browse on this excellent antiscorbutic.
On the morning of the 5th of August, being within twenty miles of the “Discovery,” Egerton, accompanied by one of the men, was sent to give them information of our position. Our own ship was then, and had been for the past forty-eight hours, effectually jammed by the ice and unable to move. In the mean time we on board the “Alert” were endeavouring to get our vessel clean, and into something like order and ship-shape. On the following morning we sustained a slight “nip,” caused by the ice setting rapidly in towards us. Our rudder head was badly wrenched before the rudder could be unshipped, and the iron tiller was bent and crippled. We only succeeded in easing the pressure by exploding some charges under the ice. In the forenoon Rawson, with two of the men belonging to the “Discovery,” walked on board. We were, of course, delighted to see them and to hear news of our consort.
From them we learnt that poor Egerton had lost his way, and did not arrive on board their ship until after he had been wandering about for eighteen hours! The news from the “Discovery” was what we feared. Notwithstanding the large amount of musk-ox flesh procured by them during the autumn and following summer, scurvy had attacked her crew in almost the same virulent manner as it had ours. The return journeys of some of their sledge parties were simply a repetition of our own. Beaumont’s division—the one exploring the north-western coast of Greenland—had suffered very severely, and we heard with extreme regret that two of his small party had succumbed to this terrible disease.