"Leaving them collecting, I climbed the pitted wave-worn ice, brittle and badly cracked on the higher part. The highest point was fifty feet above the level of the top of the shelf-ice. There was no sign of open water to the north, but a few seals were observed sleeping under the cliffs."
Next morning the weather thickened and the wind arose, so a start was made for the Base. All that day the party groped along in the comparative shelter of the cliff-face until forced to camp. It was not till the next afternoon in moderate drift that a pair of skis which had been left at the foot of 'The Steps' were located and the hut reached once again.
After lunch on August 11, while we were excavating some buried kerosene, Jones sighted a group of seven Emperor penguins two miles away over the western floe. Taking a sledge and camera we made after them. A mile off, they saw us and advanced with their usual stately bows. It seemed an awful shame to kill them, but we were sorely in need of fresh meat. The four we secured averaged seventy pounds in weight and were a heavy load up the steep rise to the glacier; but our reward came at dinner-time.
With several fine days to give us confidence, everything was made ready for the sledge journey on August 20. The party was to consist of six men and three dogs, the object of the journey being to lay out a food-depot to the east in view of the long summer journey we were to make in that direction. Hoadley and Kennedy were to remain at the Base, the former to finish the geological shaft and the latter for magnetic work. There remained also a good deal to do preparing stores for later sledge journeys.
The load was to be one thousand four hundred and forty pounds distributed over three sledges; two hundred pounds heavier than on the March Journey, but as the dogs pulled one sledge, the actual weight per man was less.
The rations were almost precisely the same as those used by Shackleton during his Expedition, and the daily allowance was exactly the same—thirty-four ounces per man per day. For his one ounce of oatmeal, the same weighs of ground biscuit was substituted; the food value being the same. On the second depot journey and the main summer journeys, a three-ounce glaxo biscuit was used in place of four and a half ounces of plasmon biscuit. Instead of taking cheese and chocolate as the luncheon ration, I took chocolate alone, as on Shackleton's southern journey it was found more satisfactory than the cheese, though the food value was practically the same.
The sledging equipment and clothing were identical with that used by Shackleton. Jaeger fleece combination suits were included in the outfit but, though excellent garments for work at the Base, they were much too heavy for sledging. We therefore wore Jaeger underclothing and burberry wind clothing as overalls.
The weather was not propitious for a start until Thursday, August 22. We turned out at 5.30 A.M., had breakfast, packed up and left the Hut at seven o'clock.
After two good days' work under a magnificently clear sky, with the temperature often as low as -34 degrees F., we sighted two small nunataks among a cluster of pressure-ridges, eight miles to the south. It was the first land, in the sense of rocks, seen for more than seven months. We hoped to visit the outcrops—Gillies Nunataks—on our return.
The course next day was due east and parallel to the mainland, then ten miles distant. To the north was Masson Island, while at about the same distance and ahead was a smaller island, entirely ice-covered like the former—Henderson Island.