There the party succeeded in securing a large number of skuas' eggs, but the anticipated feast was not enjoyed, for, to quote the words of one of the expedition, only about a dozen of the eggs were "good enough for eating." The other eggs were thrown on the snow near the tent, with the result that there was an invasion of skuas, the birds not only eating the eggs but also making themselves a nuisance by pulling about the sledge-harness and the stores. Geological specimens this party secured in valuable abundance, and, as was the case with the other sledging expeditions that were out at the time, a special feast was provided for Christmas Day.
That Priestley enjoyed this feast is shown by his diary, in which he wrote, "The plum pudding was 'top-hole.' Must remember to give one of the pot-holed sandstones to Wild for the New Zealand girl who gave him the plum pudding."
This party were on the look-out for the men who had gone north in search of the Magnetic Pole, but failing to find any sign of them, they went back to their depot on January 14 and pitched camp to wait for the Northern Party until the 25th, when they were either to make their way back to winter quarters or to signal for the ship by means of the heliograph.
On the 24th, however, this party had the narrowest escape from never seeing either winter quarters or the Nimrod again. They were camped on the sea-ice at the foot of Butter Point, in a position which to all appearances was one of safety. Armytage indeed had examined the tide-crack along the shore and had found no signs of more than ordinary movement, and the ice all round seemed to be quite fast.
The Bluff Depot. (See page 179)
But early in the morning of the 24th, Priestley, who was first out of the tent, abruptly dispelled any feelings of security that his companions possessed. At once he discovered that the ice they were on had broken away and was drifting north to the open sea, and, returning to tell the others, they immediately turned out, to find that this statement was only too true. Two miles of open water already intervened between the floe and the shore, and they were to all appearances moving steadily out.
"When," Armytage wrote in his report, "we found that the ice had gone out, we loaded up the sledge and started to see whether we could get off the floe to the north. The position seemed to be rather serious, for we could not hope to cross any stretch of open water, there was no reasonable chance of assistance from the ship, and most of our food was at Butter Point. We had not gone very far to the north when we came to an impassable lane of open water, and we decided to return to our original position. We went into camp and had breakfast at 11 A.M."
After that the three men waited for some time on the off-chance of the ship coming along one of the lanes and picking them up, or of the current changing and the ice once more touching the shore, but at the end of four anxious hours there was no improvement in their position. Killer-whales were spouting in the channels, and occasionally bumping the ice under the floe.
Unable to wait any longer, the party marched right round the floe but met with open water in every direction, and at 10 P.M. they were back in their old position, only encouraged by the fact that they had apparently stopped moving north, and were possibly getting a little nearer to fast ice again.