Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Frank Wild Memoirs, 1937?, from Frank Wild - Papers, ca. 1921-1937
MLMSS 2198

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Frank Wild Papers
Volume 1
Memoirs
1937?

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As far back as I can remember at the age of four, I wished to be sailor, & at the when eight, years old read a book on Arctic adventure, & ever since have had a keen desire for Polar travel. Even now after five Antarctic Expeditions & one to the Arctic, that longing is not extinguished.

There may be something in heredity, Captain James Cook was my great great grandfather and he was the first navigator to penetrate the Antarctic proper.
My first sea voyage was on the “Sobraon", perhaps the best known & most popular sailing ship of her time.

She had accommodation for 200 passengers & made a regular yearly trip to Melbourne for about 30 years, & was finally sold to the New South Wales Government for a training ship. That was in 1891 & she is still afloat in Sydney Harbour.
[Margin note: (1) A]

After serving five years in ships of the same company the Macquarie Harbinger & Rodney I then got my second

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I served five years in ships of the same company, the “Macquarie", “Harbinger" & “Rodney". & several incidents which occurred during that time cling to my memory.

Whilst on the “Macquarie" in Sydney, another youth & I were walking along the beach near Miller’s Point, & I noticed a number of children from eight to twelve years of age in the water. Suddenly they all rushed screaming out & we gathered that one of their number had been taken by a shark. As we stood watching we saw the child’s face appear in a blood tinged patch of water; we rushed in; & brought the remains of the body out but he was bitten clean in two. That was the second person I had seen killed by sharks. The other was also in Sydney Harbour at Cockatoo Island; in this case a full grown man. The shark came up underneath him & took the whole of his intestines. From that time I have had an absolute horror & dread of sharks, & never feel really comfortable when swimming, even in a swimming bath.

Outward bound on the “Macquarie", when

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about midway between the Cape & Australia we were running before a heavy gale with a tremendous following sea. I was on the poop coiling down the main braces when a sea came over the quarter & washed me overboard. Luckily the coils of rope went with me, & I was so tangled up in them that I could not have got free had I tried. The mate, a pocket Hercules, saw me go & hauled me aboard single handed; except for being winded & having a bit of skin taken off my face whilst being pulled up the ship’s side I was unhurt.

We were doing about fifteen knots at the time & there was far too heavy a sea running to allow a boat to be lowered.

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Scarcely were we clear of the harbour on Dec 2nd when a heavy South West gale sprang up & Captain Davis gave the order to heave to. To a 20,000 ton liner the mountainous sea that was running would not have been considered dangerous, but to us on the little “Aurora" of 500 tons, very much over laden it was a really anxious time. Many tons of water were constantly coming aboard, & the deck cargo had to be frequently relashed at great risk to life & limb. The petrol was our greatest worry as there was always the dread that a sea might stove in some of the tins, when a fire would have been almost certain.

During the gale the bilge pumps became choked & the hand pumps on deck had to be manned by the scientific staff, who all received many cold baths. Somehow the sea water found its way into one of our fresh water tanks & in consequence we were on short rations for a week or so. On the third day of the gale the starboard side of the bridge was washed away, several people narrowly escaping serious injury. The motor launch was stove in & a great deal of damage was done to the deck cargo. After six days of this buffeting, the weather moderated sufficiently to allow a course to be set for Macquarie Island, which was sighted on December 11th.

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Soon after my arrival in Sydney I met Bernard Day who was in charge of the motor tractors on Captain Scott’s Expedition & he gave me many details & particulars: Amongst other things he told me that an insufficient supply of paraffin had not been left at the depots upon which Scott had to rely on his return from the South Pole. This shortage is mentioned in Scott’s diary & no doubt was one of the causes of their breakdown.

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I then got my second mate’s certificate & made a voyage as third mate on a real lime juicer, a term for a ship that was run on the cheapest lines possible, where the crew were expected to do the maximum of work on the minimum of food & wages. My salary was £ 3-10-0 per month & able seamen were receiving £ 3. We sailed from Cardiff to Callao with a cargo of coal, from there in ballast to Caleta Bueno where we loaded salt petre, returning to Antwerp to pay off. We carried a very mixed, quarrelsome & naturally discontented crew. The captain & three officers were British, but the others were American, German, French, Scandinavian, Finnish, Russian, Italian & Chilian. The one American stood six feet four in his socks & was a tremendously powerful man; he was the only man aboard who never had a fight, but always did the refereeing, standing by with a belaying pin ready to knock out any man who used a knife or committed some outrageous foul. He saved me from being seriously hurt in my one & only scrap.

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The Prince was XXX most charming in his manner towards the crew. Within a few hours he knew all our names, & when years afterwards I was presented to him, at an official amongst many others to receive medals etc., he, sitting on his throne clad in royal robes, made me the proudest man on earth by grasping me by the hand & saying “Oh Mr Wild & I are old friends"
After...

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On the outward voyage we had a particularly rough time rounding Cape Horn. It was in the latter part of June & July. A whole gale was blowing for six weeks; we were under lower topsails & reefed foresail, ice thick on the deck & all lower rigging, & some frozen spray as high as the cross trees.
Every time we wore ship (forgive these tecknicalities) we had to beat the ice off the braces, & thaw the blocks out with boiling water. In the middle of all this the cargo (Welsh coal) shifted, giving the ship a dangerous list to starboard. For several days we were forced to remain on the starboard tack, which meant we were travelling farther & farther south; sighting numbers of ice bergs. One watch was under hatches all the time, day & night, trimming the coal back & building a bulk head amidships to prevent the coal sliding back. We were really working in the dark, as our only lights were slush lamps which could not penetrate the dense dust of the Welsh coal. Two of my watch (A German & a Finn) had a fight with shovels, resulting in a broken collar bone on one & a large portion of the

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other’s scalp being removed. When the latter eventually healed there was no hair & the bare part was tattooed a deep blue by the coal dust.

What a contrast was my next ship, Lord Brassey’s “Sunbeam".

We were present that year, 1895, at the opening of the Kiel Canal, a most imposing ceremony carried out by His Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm. Later that summer I was lent with five others to assist in sailing the “Brittannia". There I had the honour & pleasure of first meeting King Edward the VIIth then Prince of Wales. This honour was repeated several times in later years.

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After the yachting season was over the “Sunbeam" sailed for Melbourne with Lord & Lady Brassey on board, he having been appointed Governor of Victoria. We called at Madeira, St Vincent, St Helena, St Pauls de Loando, Cape Town, & thence to Melbourne.

[Margin note: St Vincent Fish poisoning]
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We did extensive cruising from port to port in Australia & after spending six months in that country I returned to England on the “Rodney".

Followed a few years of uneventful voyages

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(St Vincent),
Where all hands got a severe dose of fish poisoning.

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It is well known that a chinaman will not attempt to save another man’s life, even at no risk to his own, the reason being I believe that the rescuer can be called upon to keep the rescued for the rest of his life.

Steaming through the Formosa Channel on a P. & O. boat we had the misfortune to sink one of a fleet of Chinese fishing boats.

We lowered boats & picked up several of the crew, but a number were drowned, although other fishing boats were within a few yards of the wrecked boat, their crews making no attempt to save the drowning men.

One afternoon in Shanghai three of us were walking along the river front & found one of our ship’s quartermasters very drunk & liable to be robbed. We called a sampan & I got into it to ease the drunken man down whilst the others lowered him, when he suddenly lashed out with his feet & knocked me overboard. There is a very swift current & few people who fall into the river are ever seen again. I knew this & although a good swimmer, was feeling far

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from comfortable. I came up under the sampan, & it was probably half a minute before I could get clear of the flat bottom, & by the time I got out & hold of the gunwales, I had swallowed a lot of dirty water & was unable to speak. My pals were anxiously watching for me to come up some distance down the river, & the chinaman in charge of the boat sat unmoved & unwinkingly staring me in the face. I was too far gone to pull myself up, & it seemed to me a very long time before I had was able to shout. When my friends did at last hear me & haul me aboard, they had considerable difficulty in preventing me from punching the chinaman’s head. I had a perfectly new suit of clothes on.

One of my Shanghai friends was a Police official, & through him four of us received permission to attend the execution of twenty political criminals at Woosung.

The prisoners knelt in a row beside an open trench, dug by themselves I was told; the executioner went along the row, & lifting the pigtail, (now not worn) with his left

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hand, swung a heavy curved sword with his right & off came the head, the late wearer falling into the ditch. So little concerned were the prisoners that they were actually talking to each other until speech was cut off by the sword. One of our party took photographs, but before we departed, the officer in charge of the guard very politely took the camera & the owner’s name & address, & a few days later the camera was delivered but with all the plates black.

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Falling overboard in Shanghai
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to India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc.
4A then came the Boer War.

It will be remembered that relations between Germany & England were somewhat strained at that time & hundreds of men of whom I was one joined the Royal Navy from the Merchant Service, expecting to have a smack at the German Navy.

In 1901, Captain Scott, who had been for a long time preparing for the British Antarctic Expedition, asked for volunteers from the Navy.

I was most keen to go, but was diffident about putting in my name, as I thought Scott would choose all big hefty men.

However, one of my class mates in the torpedo course on the “Vernon" persuaded me, so our names went in with some three or four thousand others, & to my surprise & delight I was one of those chosen. I was sorry my big pal was left behind, but a few years later he tumbled into a very fine position in the West Indies which he would have missed had he joined the “Discovery".

The voyage of the “Discovery" has been often described written & little that I can write is new.

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Another, rather alarming incident concerning Buckridge recurs to me. Dur We used paraffin lamps without chimneys, the requisite draught being supplied by a clockwork fan.

During the winter I was one day sitting reading or writing when Buckridge brought along the clockwork part of a lamp & said to me “I can’t get this thing to work, what should I do with it?" Without thought I replied “Boil it in paraffin." An hour later the alarm “Fire" went through the ship, & the galley was found to be in flames.

It was not long before the fire was put out, but quite a lot of damage was done.

Apart from a perfectly good dinner being spoilt a lot of clothes which were hanging up to dry were ruined & paintwork & timber charred & blackened. When the cause of the fire was enquired into, Buckridge confessed that he had followed my advice & had boiled the clockwork in paraffin in an old meat tin. I naturally received a well deserved rub down from Captain Scott, although I never dreamt my advice would be taken seriously.

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Before leaving England, King Edward & Queen Alexandra visited the ship.

Whilst the King was being escorted round by Captain Scott, the Queen & one of her Ladies in waiting were making investigations on their own. They found their way into the biologist’s laboratory, where the biologist was bottling some spiders. He did not recognise his visitors & after giving them a fairly full descrip dissertation on the domestic & other habits of the spider, he said “Now I’m going to play about with some acids, so you women had better get out or you may get your frocks spoilt."

The Queen was delighted & immediately sought out the King who also thoroughly enjoyed the joke. Later the Queen was immensely tickled when one of the sailors explaining some of the equipment, addressed her as “Miss".

The voyage of the “Discovery" was of much greater interest than that of an ordinary ship. We frequently stopped to take water temperatures & bring up samples of water from different depths, & to dredge & trawl at depths varying from a

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At this time the sun appeared for a few hours daily, but it rose so little above the horizon that its heat could barely be felt. One day several of us were sitting resting on the sledge talking about the tropics, & we all solemnly vowed that wherever fortune took us in the future, we would never grumble at the sun again.

Since then I have travelled & tramped in many tropical places, & once in Nyasaland, 125 ° in the shade, I almost forgot my vow, but suddenly recollecting many paralysing polar experiences, I looked up & said “Go ahead old sport, do your best".

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few hundred to 3,000 fathoms & carry out all kinds of oceanographical & other scientific work with the details of which I do not intend to bother the reader.

We called at Madeira where all hands were given the opportunity of a run ashore, where we did the usual things a sailor does there; travelled up the funicular railway, came down on sledges & failed in our attempt to get the attendants to go all out & have a race down, thus probably saving our necks, more than tasting the delicious wine & then aboard.

Speaking of the wine; on the “Challenger" Expedition in 1870, Sir James Buchanan bought several casks of the best wine Madeira can produce, carried them on the voyage & then bottled them down. In 1911 he gave me the last half dozen bottles to take on Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australian Antarctic Expedition. On very special occasions we drank & enjoyed this wine, & on one bottle my party engraved our names & a picture of our ship & presented it to Sir James Buchanan. On another we engraved our names only &

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/// A very sad accident occurred when hauling stores out of the ship’s hold. A cask was being hoisted out & just as it was being landed on deck the can hooks slipped off the chines & one struck Macintosh who was receiving the hoists as they came up.

One of his eyes was completely destroyed & was removed by Dr Marshall.

McIntosh was very popular & we were all sorry he had to return, but our disappointment was nothing to his own.
The ...

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threw it into the sea. Years afterwards it caused considerable interest when it was picked up on the beach near Sydney N.S.W.

The Discovery’s next call of interest was Trinidad Island, off the Brazilian coast.

In bygone years it was a penal settlement, but some deleterious matter in the water caused blindness & the island was abandoned.

Rumour has it that pirates used it as a treasure deposit, & several expeditions have spent time & money trying to find it, but never with any success.

At the time we landed the only inhabitants were birds & land crabs. The birds were of great variety & quite tame having been in undisturbed possession for many years. To collect their eggs, we had to push the birds off the nests & some of them, gannets & robber gulls especially, fought very fiecely.

I climbed to the top, about 1700 feet, & ate my lunch alongside a spring & under the shade of a palm. After eating I stretched out for a nap. My eyes were closed when I heard a very faint movement near me & on opening my eyes saw a large land crab within

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Blizzards were frequent & fierce during the winter, & often the hut shook & shivered most ominously. Without the securing cable it is certain that it would have been picked up & blown away like a leaf.

Provision & other cases, both empty & full, were often torn away from the stack outside & their contents scattered miles away.

A friend of Shackletons had given him a specially fine pair of Russian boots. These were lying on the top of an opened case when one of these sudden hurricanes came on. After the storm one of these boots was found jambed amongst the cases & the other had vanished. I found it two months later nearly two miles away.

One day when out for a walk alone, I heard a terrific noise as of thunder & walking towards the sound, I found it came from what was known as Black Sand Beach. This was on the northern side of Ross Island. The Ross Sea was frozen over to a thickness of three to four feet, hundreds of square miles of it, & a north wind had set this mass into slow motion. The ice was being pressed onto the land & as it was checked, masses of it were forced into the air.
Some of the sheets reached a height of sixty

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two feet, his claws outstretched & his protruding eyes looking into mine; I don’t know which of us moved the faster.

When we landed a light swell was running & we had not much trouble in jumping on to the rocks, but when the time came to re embark a heavy swell made the proceeding really dangerous. The boats had to be anchored some distance from the rocks, the cable slacked away until the boat was as close as possible without being smashed up, & then the members of the landing party jumped from the rocks into the boats as they hove madly up & down in the swell.

All hands were soaked & many sorely bruised, but the only serious accident was the loss of a valuable camera belonging to Captain Scott. Petty Officer Evans volunteered to dive for it, but apart from the danger of damage from the rough sea, there were numbers of sharks about & Scott would not allow the attempt to be made.

The scientists were delighted with the collections made by the landing party & also by the people left on board, who has carried out trawling & dredging operations, & had a most

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successful day’s fishing.

Upon arrival at Cape Town the Discovery was put into dry dock, as a leak had been giving a lot of extra work, & some of the stores were damaged.

A most enjoyable time was spent in Cape Town & Simon’s Town before the voyage was resumed. An interesting day was spent on the Agulhas Bank where we caught a number of beautiful cod on hand lines.

We travelled much farther south than the is usual for the ordinary ship bound to New Zealand & gave the Discovery her ice baptism in pack which was almost as heavy as any she battled with later on.

Many people ask, “Is there any practical or commercial value in these Expeditions apart from the scientific knowledge gained?"

Ships sailing to Australia & New Zealand often experience weeks of overcast & cloudy weather, & have no opportunity for checking their position by the sun or stars, bu & so are entirely dependent upon the compass & knowledge of currents. There are numerous islands on or near the route followed to New Zealand, Prince Edward & Marion Islands,

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Crozet, Amsterdam, St Pauls, Kerguelen & Auckland Islands, & many ships have been wrecked on them. On the “Discovery" & later on Shackleton’s “Nimrod", numerous magnetic observations were taken. & it was found that the charted curves of variation were in many cases wrong, sometimes more than 10 °. It will readily be seen that a ship steering by compass only, would be a long way off her course in a few days.

Since the results of the aforesaid observations were made known & the charts altered, not one ship has been lost on those islands.

The leak which had given trouble before Cape Town was not cured by the dry docking there, & upon arrival at Lyttleton the ship was emptied of all stores & again thoroughly overhauled in dry dock.

Several most happy weeks were spent with the hospitable New Zealanders, & when we sailed we had a wildly enthusiastic send off. Our own high spirits however, received a sad check. One of the sailors All hands who could be spared from the actual working of the ship had taken up advantageous positions in the rigging, & on the yards to

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return the cheers & see the last of our late hosts, & one sailor was sitting on the main truck holding on to the weather vane.

As he started to descend the rod of the vane broke & he fell clear to the deck, being killed instantaneously. We put into Dunedin where he was buried with full naval honours, a gun carriage & firing party being lent by H. M. S. “Ringarooma".

The voyage south of the “Discovery" has been fully described by Scott himself in his “Voyage of the Discovery" so I shall not dwell upon it. I shall never forget the first experience of forcing a passage through heavy pack ice & the view of colossal icebergs at close range. There is a wonderful fascination about ice & snow & I know of nothing else that can assume such fantastic shapes & take such marvellous variety of colour.

Landings were made at Robertson’s Bay, Granite Harbour & Cape Crozier. At the last named dispatches were left according to arrangement, giving directions to the relief ship which was coming down the following year as to where to find the

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“Discovery". Captain Scott’s intention was to sail along the Ross barrier to east, & to try to find a wintering place. New land, which Scott named King Edward the VIIth Land, was discovered, but no suitable harbour, so we returned to McMurdo Sound, which is a strait between Ross Island on which stand those magnificent volcanos Erebus & Terror & the mainland. On Ross Island are those magnificent landmarks Mt Erebus & Mt Terror, the former & an active & the latter an extinct volcano.

During the first year of the voyage, naval routine was carried out, regardless of the climate. & except when the decks were awash in heavy weather, they were washed down every morning & upper deck paint work cleaned on Saturday. Many a time when running along the Ross Barrier, the water froze almost instantly after leaving the hose. & had to be shovelled off, & when washing paintwork the cloths would freeze hard to bulwarks etc.

An excellent wintering place was found below the slopes of Mt Erebus & named “Winter Harbour", clear of ice & protected from heavy seas by a Cape to the north named Hut Point,

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, the Ice Barrier to the south, Ross Island to the east, & the mainland to the West; the latter twenty miles away, but we never had any heavy wind from that direction. The “Discovery" was securely moored about 200 yds from land, & a hut built ashore in the case of anything happening to the ship.

Shortly after deciding upon winter quarters, a sledging party was sent off to alter the despatches at Cape Crozier. The expedition party was composed of twelve men and a number of dogs, & although unsuccessful in its object, the experience gained was of great value. Many alterations were later made in our clothing & other equipment & a number of “don’ts" were added to our sledging hints.

For instance, one man opened a tin of jam with his sheath knife, temperature about -30 °, took some out on his knife & put it into his mouth. The knife immediately froze fast to his lips & tongue, & he had to keep it there until it warmed sufficiently for him to remove it without tearing a lot of skin away. As it was his mouth was badly blistered.

We also learned to do many things without removing our gloves, touching cold metal with

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bare fingers being as painful & dangerous as touching hot metal.

We found that dogs cannot be harnessed to the same load with men; their pulling pace is a trot, & at a man’s walking pace they are useless. Our food supplies were wrong, many unnecessary varieties were later cast out, & the method of packing entirely altered.

After a few days travelling on the barrier our progress was so slow that Royds who was in charge decided to turn nine of the party back under Barnes’ charge, & he with two others carried on on ski & with one light sledge. Where we were sinking in soft snow from ankle to knee deep, we watched them swinging away on the surface.

Before getting back to the ship we had to cross a range of hills, – roughly a thousand feet high, – & just as we reached the summit about 10 a. m. a blizzard struck us. This was our first experience of a real Polar blizzard. The only thing to do when sledging & caught in a blizzard is to get the tents up as quickly as possible, get into sleeping bags & wait until it blows itself out, as attempting to travel invariably results in getting lost. The majority of the Antarctic

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blizzards last about forty eight hours, but I have been held up six days, (nine days on two occasions), & some of my party on Mawson’s Australian expedition were confined in their tents seventeen days. I have known a man to be completely lost, when venturing out of a tent, in less than ten feet. Ninety miles an hour of wind is common, & almost immediately the face is covered with a mask of snow, one is knocked down & all sense of direction completely lost.

I have measured seen recorded 150 miles an hour, on an anemometer, & have been picked up off my hands & knees & thrown more than twenty yards without touching anything. If a man was made to face a wind of 100 miles an hour, he would be dead as quickly as though held under water, the force being so great that he would not be able to expel his breath.

To return to our first experience; not knowing the danger we carried on for some time, & then finding some of the party were getting frost-bitten, Barnes gave the order to pitch tents.

This was done with great difficulty in the storm, & thinking it was only a sudden storm & would blow over in a few hours, we did not take our sleeping gear into the tents.

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Late in the afternoon the wind having abated so much that it was possible to see 10 to 15 yards, Barnes ordered a start. We were only about three miles form the ship, & being miserably cold & hungry we were all eager to obey.

Ordered to keep together we followed our leader as closely as possible but very soon one man, Hare, was found to be missing. We were walking along a slope & it was thought that he had slipped & gone down. Barnes ordering us to remain where we were & shout every few seconds started down the slope. The drift was not quite so thick now & we saw him for fifteen yards or so, then he stepped on a patch of ice & shot out of sight. As he did not reappear, Petty Officer Evans went down, & he too lost his footing & disappeared.

We waited a few minutes & then Petty officer Quartly tried it. The same fate befell him. After perhaps twenty minutes I went down & managed to keep my footing but after descending far past where the others had disappeared & finding nothing but a continuation of the slope decided to return to where I had left the remaining four of the party. Orders are orders in

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the Navy & we had been ordered to remain where we were. Although we were all chilled to the bone & one man badly frost bitten, & staying there would inevitably be the death of us all in a few hours, it was a long time before I could persuade the others to move on & try to find the ship. We were still on a slope, & Vince, the frost bitten man required a lot of help. Suddenly in one of his falls we were all knocked down off our feet & went sliding helplessly down. We shot down what seemed miles, but later we found to be about 1200 feet; Vince was holding on to me, but became exhausted & let go, & as I checked myself in some soft snow, I saw him disappear so suddenly that I knew he had dropped. The other three had followed in the same course & I was able to stop them as they came down. When we had recovered our breath we crawled to where Vince had disappeared & found a straight drop of 300 ft into the sea.

The climb back up that slope was a horrible nightmare, every slip brought our hearts into our mouths, & I for one dreamt about it for some time afterwards. The sight of the sea

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had given me our position & an hour later we were aboard the “Discovery". Captain Scott relates how I guided a search party back to where we had left the tents, on the way finding Barnes Evans & Quartly in a dazed condition, (Barnes never fully recovered from frost bitten fingers, & Evans was lucky not to lose an ear.) & how Hare returned to the ship alone after being buried under snow for 36 hours.

I do not intend to rewrite the story of the Discovery, or to describe the numerous sledging journeys that were made, & shall only touch on those I personally accompanied.

The season was now too far advanced for further sledging & the ship was made as snug as possible for the winter, a heavy awning being spread over the greater part of the deck.

This however did not prevent driving snow during storms from heaping masses of snow up under the awning & giving a lot of healthy exercise in clearing it up.

In South Africa one can see immense distances & the distance is often most deceptive, at sea the same, but there is no place on earth where the air is so clear & distances so deceiving

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as in the Polar Regions. I have seen Mt Erebus 180 miles away. South of our winter quarters were two Islands, “Black & White Islands".

One Sunday shortly after our arrival two men decided to walk over to White Island which looked not more than three or four miles distant. After walking three hours & the island looking no closer, they returned weary & wiser.
We found later on that White Island was twenty-two miles away.

In calm weather sound travels immense distances. I have heard a man singing at five miles away, & a conversation can easily be carried on between people a mile apart.

When leaders of Expeditions write up their books, they usually give the impression that their partied were composed of archangels & that rows & differences never occurred.

In all of my six expeditions quarrels & squabbles have taken place, & men’s tempers most naturally become frayed when herded together in close quarters under the trying conditions of a polar winter.

I was once asked to act as second to one of two men who were going to fight

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a duel with pistols. Fortunately one cried off & apologised.

During the first winter on the “Discovery" one man’s mind gave way. One evening during bad weather he was missed. A search party was organised by one man going straight out from the ship with a rope; before he got out of sight in the drift, another took hold of the line & so on until some three two hundred yards of rope was paid out, then the party commenced a sweeping movement round the ship.

The missing man was found a short distance ahead of the ship with a crowbar in his hand. When asked what he was doing there he said “Well, I knew a search party would be sent out for me, & I hoped – (here he named a man with whom he had quarrelled) would find me, & I was going to brain him with this bar".

During the four & a half months absence of the sun, we were not entirely confined to the ship, but much of the outside work had to be done by the aid of lanterns. Fairly long walks could be taken when the moon was up & at full moon we even played football. The

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moon casts a very black shadow on the snow, & frequently a man would kick at the shadow instead of the ball, & anyone who has kicked hard & missed will know what a shock it is.

To the majority of us the much talked of monotony of a Polar night was entirely absent as we were kept as there was always work to be done. Apart from keeping the ship clean, bringing in ice for fresh water from a nearby glacier, fishing through holes made in the ice, killing & skinning occasional seals that managed to get onto the ice near us & taking regular meteorological observations, etc., there was a lot of work to be done in altering our sledging equipment, which has proved unsatisfactory on our early journeys. Hundreds of food bags were made, sledge fittings altered & in fact everything so revolutionised that on subsequent journeys it would have been hard to find room for improvement.

I was acting assistant meteorologist, & apart from the usual instruments, had to attend to thermometers buried, at various depths on land, a snow guage & an ice measure, the latter gave the daily growth of the sea ice

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which showed a depth of 12 feet the first winter. This gadget was about a quarter of a mile from the ship, round Hut Point & near the foot of a very steep snow covered hill about 700 ft high. One day as I was about to read this instrument I saw an object detach itself from the summit of this hill & come shooting down at a terrific rate. I first thought it was a large stone, then detecting some independant movement of the object, guessed it to be a dog, but as it shot over some rocks at the bottom & landed on the sea ice some twenty yards from me I saw it was a man. I ran towards him expecting to find him dead or seriously injured, when the man got to his feet & I heard “I’d have done it all right if the d– d box lid hadn’t broken." He had attempted to toboggan down kneeling on a piece of three ply wood about three feet long, holding up the front end to make a curved bow.

This man Buckridge had a most interesting career. He had travelled extensively on the
[X in margin]
Australian Continent, pearling in the north, sheep shearing, gold digging, etc, in other parts, & came over to S. Africa with the

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Australian troops during the Boer War. He joined the “Discovery" at Cape Town. After leaving the expedition he stayed for some time in New Zealand &, amongst other adventures there, he tried to sound one of the hot lakes, the one he chose being a particularly dangerous geyser, which erupted at irregular times without warning, & very shortly after Buckridge got back to land, it blew up & killed several people on the banks.

Soon afterwards he set off on a voyage round the world in a very small boat with one companion. A few weeks later the companion was picked up, & he stated that Buckridge had fallen from the mast & killed himself, & that he had kept the body on board until compelled to commit it to the deep.

On Buckridge’s first sledging journey he fell down a crevasse & expressed disappointment when he was hauled up by his harness; he said “You can’t believe how beautiful it is down there; such marvellous colouring & the wonderful stalactites & ice crystals!"
[Margin note: 5A]

Naval routine was carried out to a great extent through the winter. Morning prayers were read on the mess deck either by Captain

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Scott or a senior officer, the remainder of the officers & scientists presumably said their own prayers in their cabins. The usual evening rounds were done, & on Sundays Captain’s inspection. The Boatswain piped all hands off the messdeck & whilst the lower mess deck inspection was going on, all lower deck members of the crew waited in the dark on the upper deck. Then, “Fall in", & they fell in in two ranks, the Captain formalliny inspecting them by the aid of a lantern held up by the Boatswain. Somewhat unnecessary under under in the circumstances, but as one of the sailors remarked, “Oh well, it pleases Him & it don’t hurt us."

Sledging journeys began as soon as possible which was early in September which corresponds with March in the Arctic. Conditions south are however much more severe than north. Spring temperatures down to 70° below zero & terribly persistent & violent winds make early sledging trips things to remember.

Never before or since has so much exploration been done by sledging parties as was carried out under Scott, but I am writing only of those in which I took part,

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The first About By the middle of September several sledging journeys parties were out, & I was with a party of six under Lieut. Royds on a reconnaisance trip to the south west. A few days after leaving the ship my fingers were severely frost bitten whilst repairing a sledge. The weather was fine but cold, the temperature varying from 40° to 65° below zero. On the eighth day out we had pitched our tents for the midday meal, not a cloud in the sky & not a breath of wind so we did not bother to fasten the tent very securely. Just as the pot was boiling for tea we heard a sudden rushing sound & down came our tent. Scrambling out we found sun, sky, land & everything blotted out by driving snow & the wind so fierce we could hardly keep on our feet. Fortunately the three in the other tent had been more cautious & their tent remained standing. After firmly securing it, they assisted us in re-erecting ours, but the drift was so blinding & the wind so strong, the six of us took two hours to make the tent safe.

Our sleeping equipment consisted of three single reindeer sleeping bags & one three man

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bag. When getting the gear into the tents it was found that one of the single bags had disappeared, so the owner had to squeeze in with us in the three man bag. This made for warmth, but by this time my fingers had blistered very badly & looked as though I were holding a double handful of black plums.

Every touch was extremely painful & for many nights I had no sleep. Luckily it was not a long blizzard, only two days, & after one more day outward bound, our object being achieved, we commenced the return trip.

Following almost in the tracks of our outward bound tracks, you can imagine our delight to find the missing sleeping bag jammed amongst some moranic boulders.

It had been blown more than six miles but was quite undamaged.

When we reached the ship a few days later, the doctor lanced my blistered fingers & the relief was so great that for the first time in my life I fainted. He The doctor gave me some brandy & I turned in & slept eighteen hours without a move.
[Margin note: 6A]

It was a custom to keep a sharp lookout for the return of all sledging parties, & when

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seen, to meet them as soon as possible & relieve them of their load for the last few miles.

My next experience was again under Royds, this time to C. Crozier to alter the despatches, the first attempt when Vince was lost, having failed. This time we succeeded in reaching the objective, & had an uneventful outward journey. The day that we started our return we were caught in a very severe blizzard & for six days were unable to move. Our tents were buried to within six inches of the top & the weight of snow pressed them in until our quarters were terribly cramped. We were a party of six, three in a tent & we in my tent had fortunately left our cooking gear close to the door. Without much trouble we were able to get it inside, & had regular meals whilst we were confined, but the occupants of the other tent had replaced their gear on the sledge & for the whole of the six days had no food. When the storm subsided we dug ourselves out & then had to release the others who were in a very weak state. This was another lesson, & ever after the room was found inside the tent for food bag & cooker.

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The next journey in which I took part was under Armitage, over the mountains to the west & onto the continental icecap.

Being an absolutely pioneer trip over these mountains it was only natural that many days were lost in retracing our steps when we found ourselves confronted by impossible cliffs or country so broken up by crevasses that nothing without wings could hope to cross it. On one occasion we hauled our sledges one at a time up 1000 ft of steep snow slope, then thick weather kept us in our tents for two days.

When the drift ceased we found in front of us an awe inspiring sight of broken glacier & yawning crevasses. We tobogganed back down that thousand feet in a few minutes, & our leader unfortunately heard some of us singing
“Oh the mighty Duke of York
“He had ten thousand men
“He took them up to the top of a hill
“Then he took them down again."
He was a most popular man & we would not have hurt his feelings for anything, but we forgot how sound travels in that air.

We had another exhilarating slide down 2,000 feet of slope so steep that we were

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two days hauling the sledges up with tackles on our return.

This journey was undertaken in the middle of summer & we had mostly fine weather, the temperature little below freezing point except when we were at an altitude of 7000 ft when it hovered around the zero mark, & altogether an interesting & enjoyable outing. Armitage discovered a better route than the one taken by us, & the following summer, profiting by this knowledge, Scott was able to save much time & penetrate much farther inland.

The most of the journey was on a glacier named by Scott the Ferrar Glacier, easy to haul sledges on but rough on the runners.

One man suffered from mountain sickness & had to be placed on a sledge for 120 miles. A few, including myself had attacks of snow blindness, which is usually one’s own fault & is excrutiatingly painful. It is inflammation of the arteries in the eye caused by the glare & if not attended to at once may cause permanent blindness.

The feeling is that one’s eyes are full of sharp sand & the eyes become tightly shut so that to see one has to pull the lids apart with

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one’s fingers, tears streaming down all the time. One experience was enough for me, & always afterwards I donned goggles at the first hint of discomfort.

When descending from the plateau, Armitage had a narrow escape from death. When putting on his harness one morning he found his hauling rope was chafed, & wishing not to delay the start, instead of splicing in a new piece he made fast each end of a thirty foot length of Alpine rope & carried the coil at his waist. During the forenoon march he fell through the bridge of a crevasse, this chafed rope broke, & down he went to the full length of the alpine rope, about 30 ft. He was a heavy man, about 200 lbs, & had the drop been a straight one he would most certainly have been killed; but fortunately the crevasse ran down in a slanting direction, & although he was badly bruised the rope held & we hauled him out, winded but whole.

Hauling a sledge over soft snow or uphill is the hardest work I know, & if anyone asks “What do you know?" well, amongst other tough jobs, I have shovelled forty five tons of coal into baskets in one day, & that is

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not anything like so tiring as pulling a 200 lb load in knee deep snow.

After even the easiest of sledging trips it is gorgeous to get back to the base & eat decent food, & sleep in a decent bed, & best of all to be able to walk about without the tug of that everlasting weight behind.

Scott has written full accounts of all the other sledging journeys, including his own. When accompanied by Shackleton & Wilson they travelled more than 200 miles farther south than man had ever been before.

Before Scott returned to the “Discovery" the S.S. “Morning" was sighted. This was near the end of January & the whole of McMurdo Sound was still frozen over, so that all our mail, gifts from friends, & relief stores had to be man hauled across the intervening ice. At first this was over twenty miles, but the ice gradually broke away to the north until the “Morning" got within eight miles of our winter quarters, where she remained until it became imperative for her to return or become frozen in.

The second winter passed away in similar fashion to the first, & much time was again

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spent in preparing for further exploring.

With the return of the sun, sledging parties again set out, the main party under Scott going west up the Ferrar Glacier & penetrating the int a considerable distance into the interior of the continent at an altitude of 7000 to 8000 feet.

As the summer advanced & the ice showed no sign of breaking up, all hands not on sledging journeys proceeded ten miles to the north, where a camp was set up, & with 12 foot ice saws attempted to cut a passage. The experiment was a failure, the ice was 6 to 8 feet thick & in a fortnight we had only cut 150 yards, which of course was useless & the only thing to do was to wait for nature to take a hand.

The reports the “Morning" had taken home about our position caused such perturbation in England, that the Admiralty took the matter of relief in hand, & not only again sent the “Morning" but also a powerful whaling ship the “Terra Nova" with orders that to the effect that if the “Discovery" could not be set free she was to be abandoned & the crew brought home. When Scott read these orders to the

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party I think every man was as deeply shocked as Scott himself, the idea of having to abandon our home was insupportable.

The scientific collections & other valuables were transported to the relief ships, which at the same time were endeavouring to ram a way through the ice. Wasted effort & fuel, they might as well have tried to ram through the Rock of Gibraltar, whilst we used tons of gun cotton in blasting.

When at last it appeared that the time had come to leave, Providence took a hand & sent down a northerly swell which in a few hours broke away all the ice & the “Discovery" left her two years bed.

Immediately after steam was up we weighed anchor & proceeded north, when a strong southerly gale drove us onto a reef off Hut Point. There we stuck & bumped in the swell, bits of keel came floating up & things looked serious indeed, until the rising tide floated us off.

The only effect this strenuous shaking had on the “Discovery" was to stop the leak which had given trouble the whole of the voyage, & to strain the rudder. Because of

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this latter damage we had to put into Robertson Bay & ship a new rudder.

Before returning to New Zealand more exploration was carried out North & West of Robertson Bay. New land was discovered, & much land that had been reported & charted previously was found to be non existant.

On the way north we stopped for some time at a wonderful anchorage in the Auckland Islands, the bay is named “Sarah’s Bosom".

We took in fresh water from a stream there, the ship being moored to a tree, & hove so close to shore, that a hose could be carried to the stream.
This was the first & only time that I have seen a ship tied up to a tree. Here we had a very thorough clean up, scrubbing & painting until to the superficial eye all the scars received by the ship in her ice battles were hidden.

Our reception at Port Lyttleton was much too enthusiastic to be described.

One of the books in the “Discovery’s" library was one written by Dr Cook describing the voyage of the “Belgica’ in the Antarctic in 1895. Amongst other doubtful statements he says that when the men landed in Valparaiso they could easily be picked out by their sliding gliding motion

[

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owing to having travelled so much on ski. Also he says “The men had been so long away from civilisation that when they first heard the frow-frow of a woman’s skirts they all chased her." These men had been away about twelve months. We in the Discovery had been away two & a quarter years & the majority of us had travelled at least ten times further on ski than any of the “Belgica" party, but I am sure none of us could be recognised by our walk, nor did I see any of us chase skirts, not publicly.

After some wonderful weeks of hospitality & entertainment, sightseeing over the country, (we were given free railway passes.) the “Discovery" sailed for England. Oceanographical work was carried on, & a line of soundings taken between New Zealand & Cape Horn. Our track was further south than the regular one & again we encountered a lot of ice; we also found that an island on the charts named “Dogherty Island" does not exist, as we sailed over its supposed position & found a depth of 2,000 fathoms.

Probably the most interesting part of the homeward voyage was the run through the Straits of Magellan.

Upon arrival in England, long leave was

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granted & we all received the Polar Medal from King Edward & the Royal Geographical Societies silver medal.

Followed two & a half years of Naval service, during which time I served on the battleship “Ocean" & from her to the Sheerness Gunnery School. During the time I served on the battleship “Ocean" & from her to the Sheerness Gunnery School. During the time one the “Ocean" we were told off to tow an obsolete sloop, the “Landrail", into deep water off Weymouth & moor her there for a target for a portion of the Channel Fleet. This we carried out & lay a short distance away to watch the effect of the firing.

After The firing was from five ships steaming at a distance of 8,000 yards & about fifty direct hits were registered in a very short time.

A party of 15 were then sent from the “Ocean" to slip the moorings & with the aid of a tug which was standing by take the wreck into Weymouth. She sank in the Portland race, a small boat from the tug took off about half the party & the remainder had to swim. I was the last to leave, & the Landrail then was almost gone, her stern sticking perpendicularly out of the water. As I climbed out onto the stern I noticed the first L of her name (the name was in detachable brass letters) was loose,

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& I wrenched it off to use as a paper weight.

A few seconds after I dived the ship sank & we had about twenty minutes in the water before being picked up. The water was cold & choppy, & in the confusion no-one noticed that one of our party was in difficulties until he had disappeared. Several of us dived where he was last seen but with no success.

Early in 1907 Shackleton asked me to join accompany him on the “Nimrod" his Antarctic Expedition & being granted leave by the Admiralty I joined up with him in New Zealand. His ship, the “Nimrod" was very much smaller & less powerful than the “Discovery", & we had great difficulty in stowing all the essential stores aboard.

We left Lyttleton on New Year’s Day 1908 & no vessel could possibly have had a more inspiriting send off. Being a holiday thousands of people had come to the port from Christchurch & the surrounding districts & for miles along the shore were cheering crowds. The finest full throated cheer I ever heard in my life came from the crew of H.M.S. Powerful.

To save our coal, arrangements had been made with the Union Line for one of their ships the “Koonya" to tow us as far as possible.

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Before we got clear of the land we ran into bad weather, & for a fortnight our lot was sad indeed. In addition to a deck load of coal We were much too deeply laden for safety, & the weight of our tow, 150 fathoms of chain cable & 150 fathoms of heavy wire, prevented our bows rising as rapidly as would have been the case without it.

We had on deck a large quantity of coal & also a deck-house containing ten ponies.

Portions of the bulwarks were washed away & for many days & nights together the decks were never free of rushing water, the ship rolling constantly from 40° to 50° each way.

The seas were so enormous that frequently the “Koonya" was completely out of sight.

All hands suffered acutely, but the position of the ponies was much more heart-rending.

They were constantly soaked & although their stalls were padded as efficiently as possible, they all became badly chafed by the incessant rolling.

Two went down and had to be destroyed.

What a relief it was to get amongst ice & into comparatively smooth water. The “Koonya" being an ordinary steel built ship, dare not risk contact with ice so when we entered the outskirts

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of the pack, the tow was cast off, & after transhipping to us a quantity of stores, including about twenty carcases of sheep, she bade us farewell. The “Koonya" also took back with her Colonel Buckley an old friend of Shackleton. Buckley boarded the Nimrod at little more than a minute’s notice at Shackleton’s invitation, & I don’t think he carried any luggage, not even a tooth brush.

He has been a keen yachtsman all his life, & I honestly believe that had it not been for the sufferings of the ponies he would have enjoyed every minute of that ghastly fortnight. With the ponies his assistance was invaluable & had he not been aboard I feel sure we would have lost more.
Shackleton had told Scott that he would endeavour to find winter quarters east of McMurdo Sound perhaps in the “Bay of Whales" the eastern extremity of the Ross Barrier. When we arrived there however, a landing was impossible owing to the bay ice being in a state of disintegration, & we were compelled to beat a hasty retreat from an enormous field of exceptionally heavy pack ice which was advancing upon

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us from the North East & threatening to crush us against the Barrier. Shackleton was loth to return to McMurdo Sound & talked seriously of wintering on the Barrier itself. I strenuously objected to this, having seen miles of Barrier floating away in the form of icebergs, & when my arguments were backed up by the discovery that in places the edge of the Barrier was eight miles farther south than when we steamed along it on the “Discovery", Shackleton reluctantly consented to return to McMurdo Sound.

I have great satisfaction in recording this as Shackleton was severely criticized & unfairly accused of taking advantage of Scott’s work.

The landing of stores & equipment, building material, fuel, etc., on the Antarctic shores is a different matter from doing the same thing alongside a wharf with cranes & all other facilities at hand. In this case the greater part of our equipment was put overboard onto sea ice & then sledged ashore, the difficulty being increased by the constant breaking up caused by a slight swell from the north. The ponies were landed as soon as possible & one fell into a crack which opened up between him

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& the shore. He was hauled out unhurt, given a good rub down & half a bottle of brandy, well rugged & suffered no after effects.

Whilst the unloading was going on, one party was busy building the hut for our winter quarters. Shackleton having arranged that the “Nimrod" should not remain south, but return to New Zealand before there was danger of her being frozen in & come down again the following summer to pick us up. Before we had been able to choose a wintering place & finished the unloading, the short Antarctic summer was drawing to a close. There was no thought of an eight hour day, or watch on & watch off, every man worked as long as he could keep his eyes open & stand on his feet. Twenty four hours without a spell was not thought extraordinary, meals being snatched as possible. One party I was with were hauling stores over a steep cliff by means of a derrick without a rest for thirty six hours & our food during that time consisted of Garibaldi Biscuits, we called them squashed flies.

[Note in margin] [indecipherable] A --> ///

Immediately The task of landing stores was interrupted several times by heavy gales & on one occasion the “Nimrod" was driven so far north she took several days to steam back, & when to

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our great relief she did reappear she looked like a Christmas card picture. Rigging covered thickly with ice & many tons of ice on her decks.

Immediately the last bag of coal was landed the Nimrod set off on her return to New Zealand, much to the relief of her crew.

By this time the hut building was sufficiently advanced to afford shelter. It was built on piles, holes being dug in the volcanic sand & rock & the supports cemented in by the simple & effective method of pouring water in. After the roof was finished a wire hawser was passed several times over it & this wire also secured & set up taut to timbers buried & cemented into the ground. Although the hut was built in a hollow & partially sheltered, there is little doubt that without the wire it would have been blown away during some of our winter hurricanes.

A full account of this expedition was written by Shackleton in his “Heart of the Antarctic". & much of this is unavoidably repetition.

We were fifteen in number & the hut was divided up into cubicles. The entrance was in the centre of one end, an outer & inner door seperated by a small porch, where one could beat the snow off one’s garments before entering the

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hut proper. On one side of this porch was Shackleton’s room & a dark room & laboratory on the other side. The next cubicle to Shackleton was occupied by Dr Marshall M.D. & Lieut Adams, meteorologist. Then came Day, engineer & in charge of the Arrol. Johnston motor, & Marston artist. Then Captain Armitage, in charge of ponies, & Sir Philip Brocklehurst, handyman. The remainder of that side of the hut was taken up by the pantry, with the stove next to it. On the other side of the stove dwelt the autocrat of the kitchen Roberts, & with him Dr Mackay. Next were Murray biologist, & Priestley geologist.

Joyce, in charge of dogs & sledges, shared the next cubicle with me, & then Mawson physicist, & last that very noble & courteous gentleman, Professor David F.R.S.

Of this company, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Sir Edgeworth David, Mackay, Murray, Armytage & Roberts are dead. Priestley is now Vice Chancellor of the Sydney University & I am sorry to say I have lost touch with the others.

Murray & Mackay were lost on an expedition in the Arctic under Steffensen.

Professor David was particularly keen on making the ascent of Mt Erebus, and as the

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sledging programme for the following summer was already practically arranged & was a very full one, this had to be carried out before the winter darkness made it impossible.

Professor David wanted to include Joyce & myself in his party we being the only old campaigners excepting Shackleton, but out leader would not permit it as there was an enormous amount of settling in to be done.

Stuffed full of advice & instructions the party, consisting of Prof David, Marshall Adams Mackay Mawson & Brocklehurst made the ascent successfully, & actually stood on the crater edge & saw the molton lava below them.

Mt Erebus is 13,375 ft high, the crater is about half a mile in width & the lava only some 900 feet from the top.

[Note in margin] 12-15 [indecipherable]

// The party had a most stirring tale of adventure to give & were all very pleased with themselves except Brocklehurst, whose feet were badly frost-bitten. He was laid up for three months & was fortunate to lose only one big toe. Their equipment & clothing were sadly battered & torn, & some articles missing but no-one damped their high spirits by reproachful comment.

The only case in my experience of anyone

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contracting a cold in the Antarctic occurred when we were opening some cases of clothing to fit out the members of this party.

Germs must have been carried amongst the clothing, as the whole party caught colds.

With those of us who where working outside it only lasted a day, but the cook was sniffing for several days, until Shackleton ordered him out for a long walk.

The building of a sanatorium for consumptives on the slopes of Mt Erebus was seriously considered in Australia & new Zealand some years ago & I am sure it would be successful though of course very costly.

When Dr. Wilson went south with Scott he was a very sick man with T.B., but when he returned was absolutely cured & was so fit that later he was one of those chosen by Scott to accompany him on his last journey to the South Pole.

Many of our stores were landed on some rocks not more than thirty yards from the sea, & the same gale which blew the “Nimrod" away to the north, drove heavy masses of spray over the cases, these being buried under one to three feet of ice. This gave us months of

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hard labour, & some cases never were recovered, including one containing the results of the Challenger Expedition, & one of bottled stout. Many volunteer search parties dug for these, but I think I could name the case which gave the greatest incentive.

Early in the winter Shackleton received a sever shock & the expedition a serious set back.

The eight Manchurian ponies were tethered in a valley near the hut on volcanic sand. This sand contained a certain amount of salt which was deposited upon it when heavy gales drove spray immense distances inland. The ponies somehow discovered the salt & licked up large quantities of sand to obtain it.

The sand was very sharp & had a lot of felspar crystals mixed with it. All the ponies became very ill & four died, the survivors requiring a lot of careful nursing before they fully recovered. This loss occasioned considerable alteration in Shackleton’s sledging programme.

The deadly monotony of a Polar night or winter is much overdrawn. Any well organised party have quite enough work to keep them fairly well occupied & health, though I admit the sight of the returning sun is a most

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gladsome one & has a tremendous exhilarating effect not only on men, but on ponies & dogs also. All through the expedition meteorological records were kept, each member of the party with the exception of the cook taking his turn as night watchmen. The night watchman’s duties included two hourly meteorological observations, keeping the fire going, (this was of great importance as the hut was never made completely wind proof, & in windy weather the inside temperature was well below freezing point even within a few feet of the stove), & keeping a watch on the ponies. These animals were housed in a stable built onto one side of the hut, & frequently one of them would eat through his halter & leave his stall. The dogs also slept in the stables & they invariably gave tongue when a pony broke loose, thus warning the watchman who would then have to don his outdoor clothes & with usually some unparliamentary remarks take a lantern & go out to recapture the offender. There was never any difficulty in locating the truant, as all the dogs would follow him & run barking around him until he was caught. In addition to his other duties the watchman made his night the

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occasion for a bath, & washed his socks & under clothing. In the small hours he would cook himself a more or less dainty meal, & should the culinary effort prove above the average, the tempting odour would bring him visitors. Another duty taken in turn by all except the Boss was cook’s assistant & mess man & was cordially hated. The mess man commenced his duties at 7.30 a.m. by lowering the table, which was hoisted up to the ceiling between meals, laying it for breakfast & calling all hands. After the meal he washed up, swept the hut, brought in ice for the cook, & by then it would be time to prepare lunch. For this meal the table was not lowered, the dishes being placed on a small table & each man helped himself. The evening meal was the most elaborate, & the washing up would keep the mess man going long after the rest of the party had settled down to their books or cards or work. In fine weather the mess man’s task was much lighter than during a blizzard when every trip outside for ice or to empty slops meant getting into full kit & much extra sweeping up had to be done on

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account of snow being brought in on peoples clothing & boots. A popular messman always received a lot of assistance in washing up & sweeping etc., but the individual who had had the misfortune to put other’s backs up, was left alone.

I wrote earlier about the great distance that sound travels in the Polar regions. This was the cause of some embarrassment to me.

Before the daylight had entirely left us early in the winter, I found a cave full of beautiful stalactites & ran back to the hut for my camera. I could not find it, & remembered having lent it to Professor David the day before. Going outside I say Joyce a few yards away harnessing some dogs, & called to him in quite an ordinary tone, “Have you seen that – Professor anywhere" & was answered by the Professor himself from a distance of well over half a mile, “What do you want, Wild!" I told him & later apologised for my language & he smiled & said in his super charming manner, “That is quite all right Wild, I have been called many worse things than that in my time."

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When opening a case of provisions one day, I found a piece of brick & thought I would pull the Professor’s leg. I truthfully told him I had found this geological specimen near the hut & asked him if it was of any interest. After getting a magnifying glass on it he said, “One of the best specimens of conglomerate I have seen Wild."

During the winter a lot of work was done in the hut, fitting sledges, altering sleeping bags making food bags & many other preparations for coming sledging journeys.

Whilst we were thus occupied, Professor David entertained us by reading aloud from Dickens & other works. He was the only man I have ever enjoyed listening to.

The geologists spent a good deal of time during the dark months in digging shafts into fresh water lakes for the purpose of examining & analysing the ice at different depths. From one lake about one & half miles from the hut the ice at a depth of twenty feet was found to contain living microscopic animals, rotifers & water bears which commenced feeding & fighting immediately they were thawed out. Murray experimented with them, warming them up almost

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to boiling point, exposing them outside to 50° below zero then warming them up again & they still lived. The general opinion amongst the scientists was that these creatures had been frozen up for many thousands of years.

[Note in margin] 8A -->

The ponies were taken out for exercise every day that the weather permitted. Shackleton had decided that the Polar party would consist of Shackleton himself, Adams, Marshall & myself, & so that we & the ponies should get to know each other as much as possible, we four always exercised them. ponies. Shackleton’s pony, Quan, was the largest & strongest & the most artful, Chinaman was a quiet plodder, he was Adam’s charge, Marshall looked after Grisi, which was the youngest & very nervous, if approached at all suddenly he would lash out all round, but he was not really wicked. Mine was named Socks as he had four white stockings nearly to the knees, the rest of him being grey. He was a beautifully proportioned beast & full of spirit.

For some time we exercised them on slow, being careful to avoid all crevasses, but after a while we found their hoofs were growing too long. None of our party had sufficient farriers experience to pare them down so we walked

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feet before they collapsed with a crash as loud as heavy gunfire. This was going on along several miles of coastline & was a most awe-inspiring sight & sound. Unfortunately there was not sufficient light for a photograph.

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them over the rocks for a few days. Nearly all the bare rock in the vicinity of the hut was lava, & full of felspar crystals. These were so sharp that one day’s walk would ruin a pair of ordinary boots & in a very short time the ponies hooves were trimmed down. When daylight returned we commenced training them to pull a load & they took to it very well.

During the winter the M.O. told Shackleton that a pint of beer per day would be of value to the party. We were not strictly teetotal, the allowance of alcohol being one drink per man on Saturday night when we toasted “Sweethearts & Wives". Besides this we had no intoxicants except on each members birthday.

I was in charge of stores, & brought a barrel of beer into the hut, one of three given to us by the “Victoria Brewery" New Zealand. After it had stood thawing for three days it was tapped & ran black, & we thought the wrong marks had been put on the cask. Little more than half a pint was served to each man, but the effect was astonishing. The following day the ration was very pale wishy washy stuff. & we then found that in freezing all the body & alcohol had been driven to the centre of the

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cask & remained liquid, our first drink being concentrated beer & very nice too.

Joyce & I more than filled in our spare time during the winter months by printing a book. Before leaving London we spent some time at Sir Joseph Causton’s printing works, & he kindly lent us a printing press & type which we set up in our little cubicle, & many an hour we spent setting up & distributing type, & printing it off one sheet at a time whilst many of our companions were enjoying an afternoon nap. One hundred copies were made & long before they were finished we cursed the day it was thought of. I mentioned earlier that the hut was never made really weather proof, & often it was so cold that we had to burn a paraffin stove under the type rack to make the type warm enough to handle, & always a candle had to be burning under the ink plate when printing to make it liquid enough to run. The covers of the books were made by Bernard Day from three ply wood obtained from empty provision cases & the markings were left on so some are marked “Mutton cutlets", “Roast Turkey", “Apple Jelly" etc.. The illustrations were etchings & engravings beautifully done

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by Marston, & nearly all the members of the party contributed an article.

Having had experience of the horrors of early spring & late summer sledging, Shackleton had made his arrangements so that no sledging journeys would commence until the beginning of November. The loss of six ponies, two on the outward voyage & four after landing, made an alteration imperative, & as soon as there was sufficient daylight preparations were made for depot laying. A number of trips were made by small parties to Hut Point, “Scott’s Discovery" quarters, & a substantial amount of food stuffs stored there. The motor car had been tried out by Day & had proved disappointing. On very hard snow or bare ice it pulled well, but on soft snow the wheels simply buried themselves. For a distance of six miles to the south the ice was almost bare, & on this surface the car could pull three loaded sledges as fast as it was safe for them to travel, so that all parties had a good send off, & if seen on their return, were met by the car & had an easy run home.

Scott’s old hut was still standing & at a short distance looked as good as new, but we

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found many of the boards had warped & let in the snow, so that we had several hours work with pick & shovel before we made a portion of it habitable.

I was in charge of one of these small parties when we were caught on our return journey by a blizzard. As we were on bare sea ice it was impossible to put the tent up, but my sense of direction is above the ordinary & after three miles blind travelling we arrived at the Glacier Tongue eight miles north of Hut Point, & under the lee of the glacier we had shelter from the storm & plenty of snow on which to pitch & secure the tent. In low temperatures the steam from the cooker & the moisture from the breath freezes on the inside of the tent & forms a rime. Every shake of the tent brings down a miniature snowfall. On this particular night Priestly changed his singlet. He was not of course very long over it, but long enough to get several of these snowfalls on his bare skin.

Before he had reclothed himself, Day & I had got into the three man sleeping bag. The rule is “Last man in fastens the bag". The bag is fastened right over the occupants heads with wooden toggles & loops, but it cannot

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be done with gloves on. Before Priestley had succeeded in fastening up, his fingers became frost bitten several times & his language would certainly surprise the Sydney University students. Priestley is now Vice Chancellor there.

I know of no greater agony than that caused by frost bitten fingers. Whilst actually frozen there is of course no feeling, but when thawing again & the blood is forcing its way through the contracted arteries, the feeling is the same as that caused by having one’s fingers heavily stamped upon or getting them jambed in a door. I have seen strong men with tears streaming down their faces whilst undergoing this experience.

[Note in margin] 39

In September a larger party set out to lay a food depot to assist the main South Pole party. This party was led by Shackleton, the others being Adams Marshall Marston Joyce & myself. The ponies could not be risked, as the low temperatures would have made them unfit for the later journey, & might have proved fatal to them. We were pulling a weight of 200 lbs per man, the most of this being fodder for the ponies. All the experiences of sledging in cold weather were repeated, our lowest temperature was 68° below zero & except when

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a blizzard was raging it was never higher than 40° below. One day whilst we were on the march, Joyce reported that one of his feet was frozen. A halt was called at once, a tent erected & several of us took turns to nurse the foot inside our clothes & next the stomach. It was like nursing a snowball, & none of us could stand it for more than a few minutes & then we ran about to warm ourselves up until our turns came round again. This went on for two & a half hours before the foot was out of danger, & Joyce suffered no after ill effects.

On these very cold journeys it is impossible to sleep with one’s head outside the sleeping bag, & in consequence all moisture from the breath condenses inside the bag. During the daytime this freezes hard, & after a few days the bag seems to be all hard lumps & corners which have to be thawed out by the heat of one’s body before it is possible to sleep. I have known a one man bag to increase in weight from 10 lbs when dry to 30 lbs in a fortnight, & a three man bag from 30 to 70 lbs in the same time.

Another difficulty is foot gear. On the

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march the socks get damp. It is absolutely necessary to have dry socks on at night, or frozen feet would certainly result, & the only way to partially dry the day socks or at least keep them soft enough to put on in the morning, is to put them inside one’s clothes next to the skin. In the summer months the sun is hot enough to dry things, & as it then shines at night as well as day, the tents are kept quite warm & one can sleep with the face exposed & with bare feet & hands, but at -60° to -70° it is a constant battle to keep warm enough to sleep at all, & one spends the most of the night shivering & praying for the morning.

The food depot was successfully laid out about 120 miles along the route to be taken by the southern party, & it was with a feeling of great relief we commenced our return.

Our loads being so much lighter we made much more rapid progress, but delays were frequent through blizzards, & forced marches were imperative to enable us to get back to Hut Point before our food gave out. As it was the last meal was eaten when we were yet twelve miles away & we were a most ravenous & weary party on

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our arrival.

When we left our own base at Cape Royds, two pups about three months old followed us. After repeated attempts to drive them back we allowed them to come with us to Hut Point. Before leaving there we shut the pups up in the hut leaving them a plentiful supply of biscuits, & there was sufficient snow to give them all the drink required. Inside the hut there was also a heap of small coal.

Upon our return we were greeted by barks & yelps of welcome as soon as we were heard, & as we opened the door out burst two black pups instead of the white ones we had left. They had evidently fond the coal warmer than snow to sleep on.

A very busy time followed our return to the base making preparations the summer sledging journeys. Apart from the misnamed “Dash to the Pole" several other parties had to be arranged.

Professor David with Dr Mawson & Dr Mackay were to attempt to locate the Magnetic Pole, a journey which entailed climbing the mountains of Victoria Land & travelling many

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miles on the interior plateau.

Priestley Armitage & Brocklehurst were to lay depots for the Professor’s party & Priestley to make a geological survey of the Victoria Land coast. Several other smaller journeys were arranged for, including another ascent of Mt. Erebus.

Shackleton had intended to start south late in October, but several irritating delays were experienced & it was not until early November that a final departure was made.

One of the causes of delay

A part of the equipment was a long rope for tethering the ponies at night. It was necessary for this to be long enough to keep the animals apart as they had a habit of biting each others rugs & tails. When they were tethered out at Hut Point, Quan, always mischievous, ate through the rope & tore open several bags of crushed mealies. Shackleton returned to the base & was back the next day with a wire rope.

I would like to say here that the ponies were fully fed up to the time of their death, & were always well treated. They were fed at the base principally on hay & clover with a

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little crushed mealies. On the sledging journey they received eight pounds of crushed mealies & two pounds of Maujee ration, the latter mixed with hot water into a mash.

Maujee ration was invented by a Colonel of that name & is a mixture of carrots & other vegetables, sugar & plasmon & was highly appreciated by the animals. I have eaten it with enjoyment myself.

A final start was made early in November, a supporting party accompanying us for about sixty miles. A blizzard then prevented travelling for two days. When this blew itself out the supporting party bade us farewell & returned to the base.
That day we found ourselves in a badly crevassed area south-east of White Island; several times the ponies put their feet through the snow bridges, & during the afternoon we nearly lost Chinaman.

The ponies were pulling about 700 lbs each when the journey commenced; we were consuming nearly 50 lbs per day so that at the end of three weeks we were able to dispense with the services of one pony. Chinaman was the least fit, & it was decided that he

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should be shot. The question then arose, “Who is to do the shooting". Shackleton was like Scott in that they both hated the sight of blood, & either of them would have gone a long time hungry if they had to kill their own food. I suggested each man kill his own as the time came, but Adams said he would rather have a tooth out. I thought Marshall, being a surgeon, would have had no qualms, but he also strongly objected, so I had to do it. I am certain it hurt me as much as it would any of them.

A portion of the flesh was carried on for food, & the remainder left to be picked up on our return.

By this time we had passed Scott’s farthest south & were travelling where man had never trod before. My pony, Socks, was the fastest puller, & he had a strong objection to following the others. This resulted in my having to lead & break trail. When the surface was hard this did not matter, but for many days we were sinking ankle to knee deep in soft snow & at times the ponies’ bellies were touching, & frequent halts were necessary.

I well remember a certain three days of

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overcast weather, when nothing was visible but the snow surface in our immediate vicinity. It was like walking into a white blanket, & I had a weird feeling that any minute I should come to the edge & fall off.

When the sky again cleared & the sun shone once more, it was quite exciting to see new mountain ranges showing up, but our pleasure was somewhat spoiled as we found this new land was running more & more in an easterly direction & cutting us off from a direct march to the Pole.

Previous to this it had been thought that this frozen ocean over which we were journeying, an extension of the Ross Barrier & only a few hundred feet above sea level, would carry on into the heart of the continent, & that the South Pole would be found at or near sea level, & to Shackleton is due the credit of pioneering the way onto that enormous King Edward VIIth Plateau, where the S Pole is situated 10,000 feet above sea level.

On the 3rd December we were within a few miles of the land & no possible road was to be seen through the mountains. The surface was terribly broken up & crevasses, & Socks,

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the one remaining pony, had many narrow escapes from death.

Leaving the pony & standing camp, we four men tramped the four miles to the foothills & climbed a 3,000 feet mountain, & to every man’s joy from the summit we saw a passage leading through onto an immense glacier which apparantly made a good road all the way onto the plateau.

Shackleton named the mountain up which we climbed “Mt Hope", the entrance to the glacier the “Southern Gateway" & the glacier itself, which proved to be 170 miles long & in places 60 miles wide, the largest in the world, the “Beardmore Glacier", after one of his friends & principal supporters.

The following day the march was resumed, Shackleton Adams & Marshall pulling one sledge & I leading the pony with the other. I followed their track so that if they broke into a crevasse I would avoid it, but the pony being so much heavier than a man frequently broke through bridges that safely carried the first party & Socks & I had many narrow & hair raising escapes.

On the 5th December we were through the

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“Gateway" & on the glacier proper. That night we laid a depot at the foot of a rock that ran up vertically to a height of 5000 feet.

About here much of the surface was bare blue ice, rippled like a lake in a light breeze, over which it was impossible for Socks, unshod, to pull. He had to be slowly led over these places & the sledges relayed.

On the 7th we were on a snow surface again & going well but we still encountered many crevasses. Steel bits could not be used on the ponies, as the metal would burn their mouths, but they soon became accustomed to being led by a halter only.

I was about a hundred yards behind the leading sledge when Socks suddenly plunged through the snow bridging a crevasse six or seven feet wide. His shoulder struck me as he fell & knocked me so far forward that I was able to grab the far side & hold on.

The rein was round my right hand & gave me a nasty jerk, but the glove was loose & slipped off. As I fell I yelled & the hauling party slipped out of their harness & ran to my help, but I had hauled myself out before they reached me. We looked

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down the crevasse but nothing was to be seen but a black hole. Fortunately the harness had broken leaving the sledge on the surface. Our sleeping bags & greater part of our food was on it, & had it been lost we should certainly all have died.

Almost my first thought was “Thank God I won’t have to shoot Socks".

We were now left with 1,000 lbs weight to drag, & progress was so slow owing to relay work having to be frequently resorted to, that a further reduction of food was necessary. The first reduction was made when it became evident that the mountains would have to be crossed, thus lengthening our journey.

The day after Socks was lost we were in such a horrible maze of crevasses he would certainly have had to be shot. When it came to camping time that night there was great difficulty in finding an unbroken patch large enough to erect a tent.

[Note in margin] 45

Shackleton has given a full description of the journey up this glacier in the “Heart of the Antarctic". Sometimes we were able to pull both sledges & were able to do as much as 16 miles in a day, but there were

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many days of relay work when 5 miles was considered good work. Scarcely an hour passed in some of the bad places without one or more falling into crevasses, & we kept a keen eye on our harness to be sure there were no weak spots.

The first few falls are decidedly upsetting to the nerves & heart. To find oneself suddenly standing on nothing, then to be brought up with a painful jerk & looking down into a pitch black nothing is distinctly disturbing, & there is the additional fear that the rope may break. After a few dozen falls, (I have had hundreds,) the nervous shock lessens until the majority of men look upon the experience as lightly as an ordinary stumble, but a few never overcome the horror, (Adams was one of these), & it impairs their efficiency as a working unit.

The scenery was magnificent, new mountains appearing on either side & ahead, never before seen by man. Even the surface of the glacier itself was wondrously beautiful. In many places it had the appearance of waterfalls glistening in the sun, & miles & miles of it looked exactly like a storm tossed sea.

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As we had to cut steps up those waterfalls, & haul the sledges up one at a time by means of a tackle, & also haul them over that storm tossed sea, the crest of every wave being an edge as sharp as a knife, taking shavings & chunks off our sledge runners, ourselves suffering frequent and painful falls, under fed & indescribably weary at the end of each day, appreciation of the wonders around us was not so keen as it might have been in better circumstances.

The end of one day’s work, when we had been hauling up one of the afore mentioned falls & had 760 yards to show for our labour, found us close to a feed glacier coming down between some mountains named by Shackleton after his friend Buckley. After our evening meal I asked Shackleton for permission to climb the feed glacier & from the top see what lay ahead of us.

I found the climb not without its hazards, & had to jump numbers of crevasses, & make many detours to avoid those too wide to jump.

I was rewarded by finding that these mountains were the last, & beyond was what appeared to be an easy slope onto the inland

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plateau. Later this slope was found to be far from an easy one.

Anyone who has done climbing knows that coming down is generally the most difficult. I did not like the idea of negotiating those crevasses again & seeing bare rock half a mile to the north, decided to descend there. It was very steep & I dislodged many tons of weathered rock but got down safely.

On the way down I noticed five very dark seams varying in thickness from 5 inches to five feet. With my ice axe I dug out some samples & took them to camp where I found Shackleton just about to set out to look for me, the other two were asleep. Shackleton at once pronounced my find as coal. When we later showed the samples to Professor David, the world’s greatest authority on coal, he confirmed our opinion & was wildly enthusiastic over this the first discovery of coal on the Antarctic Continent.

This was approximately 6,000 ft above sea level.

On Xmas day we were at an altitude of 8,000 feet & still steadily rising. That evening we had our only full meal in three months. In addition to our ordinary

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allowance we had some Maujee pony ration, Socks having met his end before his food was finished, & I had secreted amongst my kit some small plum puddings, given to me by Mrs. James of Christchurch. To finish up we had a tablespoonful each of Curaçoa which Marshall had saved for the occasion.

Whilst we were still happily full of food, another reduction was decided upon, & it was two months later when we had our next full meal.

The last 200 miles of our outward journey was on an undulating wind swept snow surface, & on sea level would have been considered good travelling; we were weakened with hunger & the long continued struggle up the Beardmore Glacier, & now the altitude over 10,000 ft. was putting a severe strain on our hearts; & halts had to be called every few hundred yards.

Although mid summer, the temperature was seldom higher than 20° below zero, & for several days we were confined to our tents by a blizzard with the temperature at -40°, & all the time whilst we were on the plateau we had to contend with a strong head wind which froze our breath into masses of ice around our mouths, & our

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faces were so frequently frostbitten they were covered with blackened skin & blisters.

For some days before it was finally decided to return, we knew we had no hope of reaching the Pole & getting back alive. We could have got to the Pole but our records would all have been lost with us.

On the 9th January Shackleton decided that any further advance would be suicidal.

Queen Alexandra had given Shackleton a Union Jack which she asked him to plant at his farthest south point. I was the custodian of the flag, a heavy silk one, & for many nights on that bitter plateau I slept with it wrapped round me.

At 9 a. m. on the 9th January 1909, this flag was hoisted, 97 miles from the South Pole.

I am perfectly certain that had Shackleton only himself to consider he would have gone on & planted the flag at the Pole itself.

There were several reasons for our failure, if such an achievement could be so called. The first was the mistake in using ponies instead of dogs. Then came the loss of four ponies through eating sand. The next was the choice of the party. Neither Adams

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or Marshall were good pullers, & if their places had been taken by Joyce & Marston the British flag would have flown at the South Pole, & Scott & his gallant companions would not have perished.

All through this journey Shackleton strained every muscle & nerve to the limit, as he always did during the twenty years I knew him when strenuous action was called for.

I am convinced that was the reason for his breakdown when with Scott & Wilson, & I firmly believe that if he had exercised half the consideration for himself as he did for others, he would be alive today.

I have served with Scott Shackleton & Mawson. & have met Nansen Amundsen Peary Cook & other explorers, & in my considered opinion, for all the best points of leadership, coolness in the face of danger, resource under difficulties, quickness in decisions, never failing optimism & the faculty of instilling the same into others, remarkable genius for organisation, consideration for those under him, & obliteration of self, the palm must be given to Shackleton, a hero & a gentleman in very truth.

It was a great relief to turn our backs to

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that biting southerly wind & with it to help us our progress was much more rapid.

Just before arriving at the badly broken ice of the Beardmore Glacier, we marched 26, 26, & 29 ½ miles on three successive days.

At this time Shackleton was snow blind, & as we came to crevasses I had to tell him when to jump to clear them. He had many falls but never grumbled.

Well for us that we were assisted by the wind, (the tent floor cloth made a good sail,) as we had reckoned on returning much faster than when outward bound, & had laid food depots accordingly, but we had not made allowance for loss of strength, & all the way back it was just touch & go whether we should reach the next depot in time or not.

The perpendicular rock near the bottom of the glacier, at the foot of which we had left a depot was visible more than sixty miles away. When twenty miles distant our last morsel of food had been consumed, & we were pitiably weak. Several times I fell into crevasses, as did everyone, & whilst hanging in the harness I prayed that the rope would break so that I should have a nice long rest.

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However we stumbled & struggled on, Adams fell unconscious & it was a long time before we brought him round, but at last we pitched camp about a mile from the depot & whilst Shackleton & I were securing the tents & getting hot water ready etc., Marshall walked to the depot & brought back a sufficiency of food for the night.

Words cannot express our feelings when we said goodbye to that awful glacier & got once more onto snow free of those frightful crevasses.

Here another calamity befell us. The last pony to be killed, Grisi, was in a state of exhaustion when his end came, & his flesh, almost our only food for some days was in consequence poisonous & gave us all violent diarhoea. For twenty four hours we were too weak to strike camp, & I believe we all thought the end had come. I remember that night Shackleton asked me to sing
“Lead Kindly Light," but one verse was all I could do.

Apart from the flesh of the pony we had nothing for several days except one biscuit which I served out this morning.

I had been the first to go down with this sickness & the first to recover. One morning

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Shackleton & I were packing sledges ready for a start, when he suddenly stuck his one & only biscuit in my pocket. My expostulations were in vain; he said “Your need is greater than mine" & threatened if I did not keep it he would bury it in the snow. All the money that was ever minted would not have bought that biscuit, & the remembrance of that sacrifice will never leave me.

On our outward journey we had built a mound of snow six to eight ft. high at each halt, midday & night, noting course & distance between each, hoping they would be of assistance on our return.

They proved most successful & we missed only one. (It was not practicable to do this mound building on the glacier.) This saved the necessity of taking observations, & when we were obliged through weakness to throw away everything not essential to the preservation of our lives, the theodolite & sextant were sacrificed. We carried only sufficient clothing, food, & the geological specimens. The weight we were thus pulling was roughly 60 lbs per man but in our weakened condition it felt heavier than the 250 lbs we had once been able to haul.

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We were incredibly hungry, all our thoughts dreams & conversations seemed to be of food. One night I dreamt I was dining with the King of Sweden, why he, I don’t know as I never met him; I had a most delicious steak in front of me & how I longed to get at it. Etiquette forbade me to commence before the King & I woke up.

Providentially the winds were all from the south giving us considerable assistance otherwise we would have surely died. Before arrival at each of our food depots our food was entirely finished. Two hours after reaching one depot a blizzard struck us & held us up for two days; we missed death by just that two hours.

Where Chinaman had been killed, his blood ran down into the snow & this mixture of frozen blood & snow was dug up & made a beautiful soup.

Shackleton had arranged that a food supply should be laid out for us on certain bearings south of Black Island. Several days before reaching this spot we came across sledge tracks & studying the spoor we could see that dogs had been pulling & from the length of the men’s steps, going rapidly.

Later on we learnt that these tracks were

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made by the depot party; after laying the depot they went farther south to look for us, & if they had gone on one more day would have met us. We were, however, so much overdue that they had no thought of finding us alive.

At one place where this party had halted for lunch, we found three small pieces of chocolate, the size of a bean & a piece of dog biscuit the same size. We drew lots for them & Shackleton drew the biscuit, which had much the least value.

This depot party had made a thoroughly good job. They built a solid mound at least twelve feet high & placed the food on the top with a flag on a staff another twelve feet.

To me was given the honour of first sighting it, & after taking a bearing of it we sat down & demolished all our remaining food, four biscuits each. As I have mentioned earlier, distances are very deceptive in that clear air, & it took us four & a half hours to reach the depot, nine miles instead of the three we had reckoned on.

Beside the ordinary sledging rations, these good people had deposited a variety of delicacies,

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rich fruit cake, plum pudding crystallized fruits, cooked chops in a basin, nuts & other things,

[Note in margin] altogether more than sufficient for more than three weeks.

Shackleton & I had previous experience of overeating after starvation & warned the others, but we all disgustingly gorged ourselves & lay gasping for breath in our sleeping bags for hours before we could sleep. In spite of this lesson, the following day Marshall the doctor ate quantities of the rich fruit cake, & this brought on a serious attack of diarrhoea. He was much too weak to pull & we three were not strong enough to drag him along on the sledge.

Shackleton had left orders that the ship should not wait for us after the 28th February. If we were not back by that date we were to be considered dead, & waiting later meant a great risk of the “Nimrod" being frozen up for another year. We struggled on for three days to the south-east corner of White Island, & then Shackleton decided to leave Marshall, with Adams to look after him, & he & I were to make a dash for Hut Point where we expected to find a party looking out for us &, if the ice was out, the “Nimrod" also waiting.

Only sufficient food was packed for one

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meal,

[Note in margin] (this was all wrong, three meals at least should have been taken, but the packing of the food bag was left to Adams)

sleeping bags, tent & cooker & we set off on our thirty three mile tramp at a very good pace. After we had covered a mile, Shackleton stopped & grasping my hand said “Frank old man, it’s the old dog for the hard road every time." He & I were then 35 years of age & the two we had left behind were under thirty.

In all my experience I have found the man of 30 to 40 a better stayer than the younger man. In a short strenuous spurt, as in a football or boxing match the young man wins, but when it comes to days, weeks, & months of solid toil & hardships the older man invariably beats the youngster.

Instructions had been left that a party should keep a constant look out from Observation Hill, close to Hut Point, & we kept our sail set, even when there was no wind, so that we might be more easily seen. By the time we had done twenty miles we were exceedingly hungry & began to look anxiously ahead for a relief party. When about eight miles away, we saw five men almost ahead of us coming toward us. With joy we altered our course & our bitter disappointment may be imagined

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when we found they were penguins.

Our progress by this time had become a ghastly struggle, & within three miles of Hut Point we found ourselves cut off by open water it seemed really the last straw.

To get round the open water it was necessary to make a detour to the east & climb over the mountains near where Vince was lost on Scott’s expedition,

[Note in margin] & as it was impossible to drag the sledge it was left with our sleeping bags & tent etc. on the barrier ice.

Weary footsore & famished, those hills seemed to be miles high instead of the actual 1,000 feet, & when finally we came into sight of the hut & saw no signs of life we were past speech.

On the boarded up window of the hut was a note from Professor David to say that the “Nimrod" would be lying at Glacier Tongue, eight miles north, until the 26th February & would then sail. This date was already past.

To give way to despair was not possible for Shackleton. It was now nearly midnight & dark & we set about making a distress signal.

Amongst the wreck of the magnetic hut were some tins of carbide & with this & the hut timbers we quickly made a huge flare. This was kept going until we were too exhausted to do more. Luckily a primus with paraffin

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still in it was found in the hut but also some tea & biscuits. After a meal sleep was necessary but with no sleeping bags & a temperature 30° below zero this was difficult. The hut contained a dark room for photography about five feet square, & we sat in there with the primus between our knees until the atmosphere became too vitiated to live in. The primus was then extinguished until the air freshened we were almost paralysed with cold, then relit & so on until daylight, when stiff & unrefreshed we staggered out to make a smoke signal.

McMurdo Sound was clear of ice, but frost smoke, caused by the air being much colder than the water, hid the Glacier Tongue & all the land to the north. Before the fire had got going properly the masts of the “Nimrod" suddenly appeared through the haze, no happier sight ever met the eyes of man, & about an hour later we were being greeted by our comrades, the most optimistic of whom had given us up as dead. We then learnt that McIntosh had the night before become obsessed by a feeling that we were returning & at midnight climbed to the masthead & from there saw our flare.

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Presuming upon Shackleton’s death, many of his instructions had been disregarded, including the installing of a look out on Observation Hill, which would have saved us many hours of mental & physical agony. However, Shackleton forgave those responsible & never made mention of it, so I will let it go at that.

Shackleton’s first instructions to Captain Evans were to prepare a sledge & equipment & choose three of the fittest men on board to go back with him & bring in Marshall & Adams. Shackleton asked me if I would like to go, & I said “Yes, if you stay aboard as there is no need for two of us." He replied “I must go." In three hours the party set off & as I stood on the bridge watching them away, Captain Evans remarked, “Shackleton is a good goer, eh?" I replied somewhat forcibly in the affirmative; he said then “Ah well, he has a party there that will see him out." I said wait until they get back.

The party Evans had chosen were Mawson, McKay, & an athletic stoker he considered would wear them all down & remain fresh.

Forty eight hours later all hands were astonished to see the party including Adams

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& Marshall waving for a boat from Hut Point. In a few minutes they were aboard, McKay fell into the wardroom crying out to the ship’s doctor, “Into thy hands Oh Doc, I deliver my body & my spirit!" He and Mawson went to bed for two days, & Shackleton went to bed for two days, the all round athletic stoker went to bed for five days, & Shackleton went on the bridge & conned the ship out of the bay. What I said to Captain Evans may not be recorded.

Worn down to a degree almost unbelievable by a march of 1740 miles, pulling a sledge 1,400 of those miles, on short the scantiest of rations for thee months, Shackleton finished up by doing 99 miles in three days. The story of that last march has never before been told.

This rescue party left the ship at 3 p.m. & marched until 10 p.m. The tent was then erected & the three fresh men got into their sleeping bags. Shackleton cooked a meal & fed them. At midnight he gave the order to march & at 8 a.m. a halt was made for a meal which was again prepared by Shackleton. At 2 p.m. they arrived at Marshall & Adam’s camp. Two hours only was spent here, the “Boss" again doing the cooking.

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Marshall was still unable to pull, but walked nearly all the way. On the return two halts were made for food but no time taken off for sleeping. Is there any wonder I have such a great admiration for this wonderful leader?

Until the party which had been left at Cape Royds & stores & dogs were taken aboard, there was little time to relate our different experiences. During this operation a nasty sea was running & one boat was smashed up against the ice foot. There were several men & dogs in the boat, & the last man was hauled up the ice wall just as it was finally crushed & sank.

Later we learnt how Professor David, Mawson & McKay had actually reached the Magnetic Pole, a very fine performance, entailing a march of 1,200 miles, several hundred miles of this being at an altitude of 7,000 to 8,000 feet. Professor David was then 51 years of age.

I have previously spoken of the Professor’s exceeding courtesy & the following is an illustration. The party was camped on a glacier near the sea; McKay had gone down to the

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sea ice to hunt for seals or penguins, Mawson was in the last tent & inside his sleeping bag, using this as a dark room for changing plates in his camera, & the Professor was fossicking about the morainic deposits on the glacier.
Presently the Professor’s voice was heard calling “Mawson", who replied gruffly “Hallo". “Are you very busy Mawson", “Yes I’m in the sleeping bag changing plates." A long pause, then still very politely, “If you are not too busy Mawson, I wish you would come out to give me a hand, the fact of the matter is, I am down a crevasse & can’t hold on much longer." Needless to say Mawson dashed out & rescued the Professor who was hanging over a hole hundreds of feet deep, & the bridge to which he was clinging was so rotten & crumbly that he dare not struggle.

Another party, Armytage, Priestly & Brocklehurst, doing geological work on the Victoria Land coast, & laying a food depot for Professor David’s party, camped one night on what they believed to be land ice, & were horrified to find in the morning that they were at sea & drifting rapidly north.

For many hours they drifted helplessly

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along, with killer whales continuously bumping underneath in the hope of breaking the ice & making a meal of them. Some freakish twist of current or wind then took them back inshore & one side of their little floating island just touched the land ice. They had barely time to rush their sledge across when the floe moved off again, & they watched it until it was out of sight, getting further from the land all the time.

Another party had a narrow escape from being blown to eternity by a blizzard on the upper slopes of Mt. Erebus, details of which may be found in Shackleton’s “Heart of the Antarctic."

On the South Pole journey it was a custom to change tent mates every week. There were two tents. One tent only was pitched for the midday halt, & two at night. We all fed together, but slept two in each.

On the return journey while sharing a tent with Shackleton, he asked me if I would join him on another attempt at the Pole. One of my diary entries reads like this. “This trip has completely cured me of any desire for

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further Polar exploration, nothing will ever tempt me to face that awful glacier & terrible plateau again." However, so great was my regard for the “Boss" that without any hesitation I replied “Yes!" We then went on to discuss details. Shackleton was sure that he could raise sufficient funds in Australia, & under his organisation it would have been possible to return that same year, 1909.

One of the first items of news given us when we boarded the “Nimrod" was that Scott was preparing for another Antarctic expedition, & as soon as we were alone Shackleton said, “That knocks us out Frank, we must give Scott his chance first." Such were his high principles.

I have never known or heard of anyone putting on weight so rapidly as we four did when we returned to full & plenty. We were all in excellent health, (Marshall was quite recovered,) only fined down through lack of food, & practically all we // ate made good. In the first three days I put on 14 lbs, & in 21 days I gained 37 lbs weight. The others, all bigger men, gained much more than I did. I was pleased to lose most of this again, as I found it difficult to fasten my boots.

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The return voyage to New Zealand was almost without incident. Before going on to Lyttleton we put in at Stuart Island where Shackleton landed to cable home his report, he having a contract with the Daily Mail that they should be first to receive news.

Our reception & the hospitality of the people in Lyttleton & Christchurch was too wonderful for description & we all spent several happy weeks amongst old & new friends.

My own pleasure was spoilt by the receipt of a cable to say that my mother had died a few days before our return. Two days before her death she said to my sister, “Don’t worry about Frank, he & all the party are well & on their way home."

Five of us, Priestley Marston Joyce Day & myself, returned to England on the “Paparoa".

One of the young lady passengers captured Priestley’s heart, & before the termination of the voyage they became engaged, & later she became Mrs Priestley. There was a rival for the lady’s hand on board & Priestley was a bit handicapped through being on the sports committee. Numbers of times a steward came to me & told me that Mr Priestley

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wished to speak to me. I would find him sitting beside his lady love & he would say, “Look here old man, I have to attend a committee meeting keep my seat until I come back." I found it no hardship.

Upon our return to England we were feted & feasted & made very much of. We were all presented to King Edward to receive medals, Shackleton Joyce & I receiving clasps as we were already in possession of the Polar Medal. The King spoke to me at great length so that I almost forgot to back away from his presence. One unfortunate did turn round & was ignominiously turned back by one of the magnificent “Gentlemen in Waiting".

I was granted six months leave by the Admiralty & during that time lectured all through Great Britain & Ireland. I was then offered a lucrative post in Canada, & retired from the Navy. Early in 1910 I met Dr. Mawson again & he asked me to go with him as second in command on an expedition he was organising. I promised to do so, & when shortly afterwards I met Captain Scott at Newcastle on Tyne

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I had to refuse his invitation to join him on his last Antarctic Expedition.

During the winter of 1910 & 1911 I made another extensive lecturing tour of the British Islands & Holland, & although it was quite successful financially, It became monotonous telling the same tale over & over again.

In April that year, three of my brothers accompanied me on a yachting trip. Our yacht was one of the “Nimrods’ boats, an open whale boat 18’ 6’ in length. We sailed from Liverpool with the intention of going up the west coast as far as Oban. Bad weather kept us riding at anchor for two days in the mouth of the Mersey & we were all horribly sea sick, & I think I was the worst of all. The wind moderated & we got well away into the Irish Sea, when a sudden N.W. gale drove us into Millom. A crowd of excited people watched us run over the bar before a terrific sea & they were as greatly surprised as I when we arrived safely in the harbour after twice touching bottom on the bar.

The weather held us up for four days & we decided then to run south as the wind was more favourable, & we were not particular

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where we went. But luck was still with us, & on the second day out we were caught in the heaviest gale that had been known in the Irish Sea for twelve years.
For three days & nights we lay to a sea anchor, our boat tossed about like a cork, & we all drenched with sleet & spray. My three land lubber brothers stuck it out like heroes, & somehow managed to make fairly regular hot meals. The worst hardship was lack of sleep, the bitter cold & violent motion made that impossible, & the sight of a small coasting steamer approaching us very welcome.

With some difficulty we were taken aboard & our boat into tow, & twelve hours later found us in Ramsay. In our dilapidated state we felt a hotel out of the question, & were directed to a quiet boarding house. We had all decided we had done enough yachting for a while, but had to stay three days in Ramsay, as there was no passenger boat to Liverpool earlier.

I knew there would be some report of our adventures in the Ramsay paper, & in case it got into the London news, I sent a wire home.

When we boarded the boat for Liverpool at Douglas, a steward approached me & asked “Excuse me, are you not Mr Wild?" I answered “Yes"

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“Then" he said, “These three gentlemen will be your brothers?" I said “Yes, but how do you know?’ He then produced a “Daily Mirror" with my photograph & a long garbled account of our trip, with a huge headline, “Four Brothers Rescued From the Sea." It appeared that our conversation had been overheard in the Ramsay boarding house by a reporter.

I went back to Ramsay in June with Marston (artist on the “Nimrod"). I had left the boat in care of a boat builder & Marston & I half decked her, fitted a false keel & an awning to cover all the open part. We then sailed up the west of Scotland, generally putting into a small vessel port for the night. That summer was one of the finest for thirty years & we had a wonderful holiday, meeting everywhere true hospitality & kindness. The only rain we had was two days in Loch Ness. We went through the Caledonian Canal with its 27 lochs & spent King George Vth’s Coronation Day at Inverness.

It had been my intention to sail the boat to London, but in Newcastle I received a wire from Mawson asking me to join him

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as quickly as possible as he was almost ready to sail, so the boat was put aboard a London Steamer, & a few days later saw it hoisted to the davits of the “Aurora"

When the “Aurora" left England, only two of the proposed landing party were aboard, Three others were taken from England, Lieut Ninnis & Dr Mertz, in charge of dogs. The latter was a Swiss doctor of law, & was an expert on ski, at one time holding the record amateur jump 140 feet. When he joined the expedition he knew very little English but picked it up rapidly. He heard the word ‘bloody" frequently used on board, & naturally concluded it was a proper superlative. When the Aurora was coaling in Cardiff he went ashore with Gray the second officer. (Percy Gray was later on officer of the S.A.T.S. “Botha"). Gray introduced Mertz to some lady friends. & he swept off his hat with a beautiful continental flourish & said “how do? bloody fine day isn’t it? Gray has fortunately a keen sense of humour & his burst of laughter eased the situation.

As the “Aurora was approaching Cape Town, Mertz, who by then had more than a working

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knowledge of English, approached Gillies, the chief engineer & asked “Oh Gillies, is it perhaps possible you can tell me what time will the pilot come on board?" Gillies, a great leg puller said “I don’t know, you had better ask the Captain but for goodness sake don’t say the Pilot, that is only a vulgar sailor’s term, the proper name is the Harlot."

Captain John King Davis was one of the best navigators afloat & I have not met his equal at ice navigation, but his bump of humour was not highly developed & at sea he kept up an almost unapproachable dignity.

He came on deck just as Gillies spoke, & Mertz went up to him, saluted, & said “Oh Captain, is it perhaps possible you can tell me what time will ze harlot come on board?" The skipper gave him one withering glance & with a “What the hell are you talking about?" swung away onto the bridge. Poor Mertz scratched his head in puzzlement & then seeing Gillies grinning from the engine room skylight he tumbled to the joke, chased & caught Gillies and gave him a good rubbing down with a piece of dirty oily waste.

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Dr Mawson was at that time attached to the Adelaide University, & made that city his headquarters for the organisation of the Australian Antarctic Expedition, the full account of which will be found in Mawson’s “Home of the Blizzard." The actual port of departure was Hobart, where the “Aurora" received a final overhaul & took on board all stores etc.

I did not sail from England with the “Aurora" but went to Adelaide on the P & O “Macedonia" taking out with me a number of chronometers & scientific instruments. This ship also carried an aeroplane which Mawson intended to be the first to fly over the Antarctic Continent. I was met at Adelaide by Watkins, pilot for the aeroplane & Bickerton, mechanic, & as soon as possible the plane was landed & conveyed to the Cheltenham race course, about twelve miles from the city, & there assembled.

Like almost all British explorers, Mawson had found a great difficulty in raising the necessary funds for his expedition (the American government & people are much more liberable in these matters), & he had planned to use the aeroplane to assist in this. For this purpose a huge marquee was erected on the race course, thousands of invitations sent out,

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& a sufficiency of refreshments of every kind provided for the guests.

The Governor of South Australia promised to attend with his family, & to open the proceedings my taking the first of a series of short flights which would be given during the day at a charge of £ 5 a trip.

Previous to the great day the aeroplane was thoroughly tuned up & several trial flights made until the pilot was satisfied that everything was in perfect order. At 6 a.m. on the gala day, a final test was decided upon & I went up with Watkins. The passenger seat was in front.

The plane took off all right & had climbed to 500 ft, when in making a turn it suddenly side slipped. We were almost down before Watkins got the plane straightened out, & the sensation was far from pleasant. We climbed again to about 150 feet when the plane put its nose down & dived. We were then over the centre of the race course & as the earth rushed at us, all my past life did not panorama before me. I felt no fear, just had time to think “Frank old boy your days of exploration are done", when we struck & the plane fell over on its back on top of us. A heavy weight was on my chest & I could hardly breathe but was fully conscious. One leg was

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touching a hot cylinder & I was drenched with oil & petrol & in horrible dread that the machine would burst into flames.

I lay it seemed a very long time when I heard Watkins grunt & then gasp out “Poor old bus, she’s jiggered up!" Although breathing was difficult, this made me laugh, then Watkins said, “Hallo Wild you’re alive?" I said, “Yes but I can’t get out, how are you?" he replied, "I’m alright but can’t move." It felt to me at least an hour later it was really only three minutes that I heard Bickerton’s voice & felt the weight on my chest ease up, & then the whole plane was lifted & with little assistance I scrambled out. Watkins was again unconscious but I was able to walk to the jockey’s hospital. An ambulance very soon arrived & we were taken away to a nursing home, but, whilst waiting I had to do a lot of telephoning to cancel everything that had been arranged for the day.

I had ten days in hospital, no bones broken but sorely bruised. Watkin’s sternum was crushed in & he also had internal injuries & was invalided home. The plane was a wreck & never flew again, but the engine & body were repaired & it did a little work in the

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Antarctic as an aero tractor.

Shortly after leaving hospital I proceeded to Hobart where the “Aurora" was now lying ready to embark equipment & stores. I have frequently offended Sydney people by expressing the opinion that their harbour is not so beautiful as that of Hobart. I know of no finer view than that which meets the eye as one steams into the harbour & approaches the wharf. The town nestles on the slopes of Mt Wellington & when the latter is capped with snow the effect is one to remain in the memory for ever.

Many good friends were made in Hobart & in spite of the strenuous work of preparation, we found time to see quite a lot of the country. I had a car placed at my disposal by Mr Jones of XL fame & had several delightful excursions to various beauty spots.

Mawson’s programme was an extensive one, & houses stores fuel etc had to be carried for three parties. The first to be landed was a party of six with all material for a wireless station on Macquarie Island. The main party of eighteen under Mawson, and a party of eight under my command. It was found to be impossible to store everything on.

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the “Aurora" & a small steamer The S S Toroa was chartered to take part of it as far as Macquarie Island. With the exception of Ninnis, Mertz, Bickerton & myself the landing parties were Australians. They were nearly all from the Universities & with a few exceptions young men from 21 to 27 years of age, full of life & enthusiasm.

Macquarie Island lies about 900 miles S.S.E. of Hobart & belongs to New Zealand. Stormy weather can be expected in those seas ten months out of the twelve & the “Aurora" had a rough passage. She carried a very heavy deck load of timber for the houses, & petrol for the air tractor & amongst other top hamper was a large motor boat & the huge case containing the aeroplane.

[Margin note] Insert B1

All the new chums & some of the old hands were seasick & relieved to reach Macquarie Island. There are no good harbours, & during the time we stayed there the ship had to steam from one side to the other several times as the wind changed. The island is a great breeding place for penguins & many other sea birds. Every beach has its rookery & I have found penguins nesting high up the hills near the coast. One rookery was on a small level patch of ground nearly a thousand feet above sea level. There would be at least 100,000 birds, Victoria penguins.

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A small stream ran through the rookery down to the sea & the birds used the water course as their road. It was most interesting to watch the wonderful traffic control. There were many thousands going up & down all the time & every bird kept to the right. Occasionally one would stumble & get on his wrong side, when he would receive a few pecks & buffets until he scrambled back. I walked up with them & was taken no notice of, but when out of curiosity I tried going against the traffic, I was instantly attacked & glad to get back to the correct side.

King penguins breed there in their millions, & at one time they were killed by the hundreds of thousands for their fat, which makes a valuable oil. The work was done in a frightfully cruel manner. Huge boilers were erected & broad ramps built from the ground to the top of the boilers, & the birds were driven up these ramps & boiled alive. I did not see this in practice, but did see the boilers & ramps & enormous piles of bones. I know that Captain Scott protested against it to the New Zealand Government & it was stopped.

In addition to the millions upon millions of

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King, Victoria, Royal, Jackass, Rock Hopper, Gentou & Ringed penguins, are numerous Albatross, Giant petrels, Skua gulls, Gannets & other sea birds, also seals, sea lions, sea leopards & sea elephants. Collecting blubber from the sea elephants has been carried on for many years, & when we landed from the “Aurora" we found a party of men there who were marooned owing to their ship having been driven ashore & totally wrecked. We took several salted sea elephants tongues from them, & Mawson arranged passages for them on the steamer which brought stores for us from Hobart. This ship S.S. Toroa also took the barrels of oil these men had collected. All this slaughter has been stopped & Macquarie island is now a sanctuary for birds & beasts.

I have read many tales about the ferocity of the sea elephant & what a dangerous calling their hunters have. All bosh! A fully grown bull is often over twenty feet in length & will weigh more than four tons, & when one approaches closely to one of these monsters he will rear up & roar & certainly looks somewhat alarming, but they never attack. The only time they put up a fight is against other bulls in the mating season. I have seen some get on their backs, & all they do

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is to scramble as fast as possible to the sea.

The island is covered with tussock grass & Kerguelan cabbage, & sheep and cattle have been tried there, but the climate is too wet.

Having no really sheltered harbour, the landing of stores was difficult & often risky. One heavy case of machinery fell into 12 feet of water. After trying in vain for two hours to fish it up, Madigan stripped & after a few attempts succeeded in getting a chain sling round it; a very fine performance as the temperature of the water was 35° F. The masts for the wireless were the heaviest weights but gave the least trouble as they were floated ashore. The site chosen for the wireless station was near the North end of the island & on a hill 410 feet high, with several acres of level land on the top, but precipitous sides. A flying fox was rigged consisting of two wire ropes made fast to buried timbers on the top of the hill & set up taut with tackles to a convenient rock at the bottom. The material was hauled up on one wire, & the weight of the hoist lessened by sacks of earth going down on the other. The heavier hoists were too much for one wire & had to be slung on both & manhauled to the top.

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I was in charge of this job, & as bad weather often made it difficult to go backwards & forwards to the ship, a camp was made ashore which saved a lot of time & the change from ship life & routine was greatly appreciated by my party. There were a number of land rails amongst the tussock grass & we found we could entice them almost within hand reach by tapping two stones together, the noise thus produced being a fair imitation of their own call.

The boatswain & a number of sailors were landed to erect the wireless masts on “Wireless Hill" & this & the landing of stores being completed on December 23rd we said goodbye to the five men of the island party & made for Caroline Cove at the South West point of Macquarie, to take in a supply of fresh water. No accurate survey of this island had been made up to that time & many outlying rocks not on the chart made navigation a risky business. On an earlier call at Caroline Cove the “Aurora" struck a submerged rock which caused her to keel over at an alarming angle, but fortunately did no damage. On that occasion the second officer, Gray, made himself temporarily unpopular with an austere Captain by calling out in joke “Save the women & children! Save the women & children!"

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Caroline Cove is beautifully sheltered, but being only about eighty yards wide, there is not room for a ship to swing at her anchor, so we had to run a kedge out astern. Watering ship was a long & tedious job, two large barrels were taken ashore filled by buckets from a stream nearly a hundred yards away, towed back to the ship & then the performance repeated until 11 p.m.

During the night a northerly breeze sprang up, causing the ship to drag the stern anchor & swing on to the rocks to the danger of the propeller & rudder. The only thing to do was to weigh & get out, slipping the kedge as there was not time to haul it aboard. The watering was not completed but it was decided to carry on with what we had, & a course was set for the next objective which was to land a party of eighteen men, Mawson in command, to explore the unknown sector of the Antarctic Continent west of C. Adair.

This was Xmas Day & beautiful weather which continued with us until we had entered the pack ice. The usual equipment for oceanographical work was carried & a series of soundings was made, dredging operations carried out, etc., all of which is of great interest to science, but becomes tedious to the performers, particularly in

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high latitudes & low temperatures when the instruments & wire are coated with ice & more than painful to handle. The first ice was sighted on the 29th December, & that evening we entered the pack & commenced another strenuous fight. The killer whales & rorquals were seen in large numbers; the former is the most formidable mammal in the Antarctic waters & accounts for large numbers of seals & penguins.* The sea leopard is the only other dangerous beast & he contents himself with fish & penguins.* The killer is from twenty five to thirty feet in length & has a large mouth with formidable teeth, & I have seen one take a seal of at least 500 lbs weight in one mouthful. They generally are able to catch a sufficiency of food in the water, but frequently they can be seen to poke up their heads & look over the floe ice & if they see penguins seals or men, they dive under & come up underneath with a terrific bump, So powerful are they that they have been known to break ice more than two feet thick actually measured by myself.

*The water we had taken aboard at Caroline Cove had become a bit muddy in the tanks, & we took the opportunity when held up by heavy pack ice to replenish the supply. A party of

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men armed with picks jumped onto the ice & breaking off sizable chunks threw them aboard. When the sea first freezes the ice contains too much salt to be of any use, but after a few months all the salt precipitates & the ice becomes perfectly fresh.

On the 6th January land was sighted & we steamed along the coast for some miles trying to find a landing place. The depth of water varied alarmingly & progress was necessarily slow. Soundings taken every few minutes showed from ten to two hundred fathoms, & there were many exposed rocks & grounded icebergs. One of these bergs looked exactly like a battered battleship.

This land was first seen by D’Urville in 1840 & named Adelie Land. We could see no possible landing place & continued our course to the west & about fifty miles further on. I sighted a rocky exposure in a bay about fifteen miles away. Steaming in this turned out to be an archipelago of tiny islands afterwards named Mackellar Islets. A boat was lowered & Mawson & I went ashore to explore. As we advanced towards the mainland we saw a small bay which turned out to be a beautifully sheltered boat harbour. To the south of the rocky area which was about a mile & a

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half by half a mile, the inland ice rose in a fairly regular slope, giving promise of a good road inland & Mawson decided to make his base here at what he named Cape Denison Commonwealth Bay.

Although it was 8 p.m. when we returned to the “Aurora" a start was at once made to land stores. The motor launch was lowered & it & the whale boat landed & taken ashore whilst Davis sought for an anchorage under the lee of the land. The weather had been fine all day, but as the boats approached the harbour a strong breeze off the land sprang up with fine snow drift & several of the party were frost bitten. The load was landed as quickly as possible but before we reached the ship again a strong gale was blowing. Captain Davis was having considerable difficulty in finding a suitable anchorage the depth of water varying from six to forty fathoms in half a cables length. Finally the anchor was dropped about five hundred yards from the face of the cliff that formed the coast line just west of the landing place.

The boats had been hanging astern & as they were being brought forward for hoisting the motor boat broke adrift & was carried rapidly out to

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sea. Luckily Bickerton had remained in the boat with two others & just as it appeared the launch was about to be dashed to pieces on one of the small islets, he managed to get the spray soaked engine started & brought her safely alongside. For two days it was impossible to land, then with the return of fine weather the material was rushed ashore as rapidly could be. The motorboat would take two whale boats in tow & frequently a raft composed of hut timbers & wireless masts. I rigged a derrick ashore to facilitate the handling of the heavy lifts & if the weather had been kind, three days would have seen everything ashore. Frequent gales interfered however, & the last load was not landed until the 19th January, & our farewells over, the “Aurora" steamed away through uncharted seas to the West to find if possible another landing place for my party, Mawson’s instructions being that this must not be less than four hundred miles from the main base.

For a few hours only we were able to keep within five miles of the land, & then the ship was forced to the north by impenetrable pack for three days, when we were able to make south again. We sailed over the charted positions of

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Cote Clarie & Cape Carr & soon afterwards sighted new land but were unable to get within twelve miles. Several days of southerly gales drove us again to the north, & driving snow rendered everything invisible. Collisions with icebergs were frequently averted with only a few yards to spare. When the weather cleared again our observations placed us on Sabrina Land so that also was wiped off the charts.

Battling on to the west we passed within a few miles of Totton High Land, also charted by Wilkes, but saw nothing of it. I have never seen so many icebergs in sight at the same time as we encountered on this trip. From the “Aurora’s" masthead one morning I counted one hundred & twenty seven & many others must have been hidden by high ones in the foreground. One thing about these icebergs we appreciated thoroughly was the shelter they afford in bad weather. A ship can ride out a gale under the lee of a large berg as comfortably as though in harbour. The largest iceberg I have ever seen was forty miles long & fifteen wide with an average height of two hundred feet, which would mean sixteen hundred feet under water.

On the 14th February we found ourselves in

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a fairly open sea bounded on the east by a huge ice shelf & on the south by new land. Unfortunately twenty five miles of solid unbroken floe anything from ten to forty feet thick prevented us reaching the land. By this time the coal supply on the Aurora was getting very low & it was necessary to make a landing somewhere or return to Hobart with the “Aurora". The latter could not be thought of & I asked Captain Davis to take the ship as near the iceshelf as possible, so that I might make an examination of it with a view to making our base upon it. The edge of the shelf was a wall of sixty to one hundred feet in height & later was found to extend one hundred & eighty miles to the north & at least two hundred to the east. It was Shackleton’s birthday when we landed on it & at Davis’ suggestion was named the Shackleton Ice Shelf. With ice axes & alpine rope we had not much difficulty in climbing the cliff. I took Hoadley & Harrison with me. I found that for two hundred yards the ice was considerably crevassed & pressed up & showed every sign of movement, but beyond that was quite sound enough to satisfy me.

The whole sheet was undoubtedly moving, but

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I was confident that only a few yards broke away yearly, & the work of landing stores was at once commenced. This was done in the same way as at Macquarie Island. A flying fox over sheer legs on top of the cliff & sit up taut to an anchor on the floe. We of the landing party worked on the top & the ship’s company broke the stuff out & sledged it along to the foot of the cliff. In this manner about forty tons of material & stores was hoisted in four days.

Before the ship left us I spoke to each of my party separately, giving them the chance to return on the “Aurora", but each said in almost the same words “If it is good enough for you it is for me." I did this because Captain Davis had expressed anxiety about the safety of the position, & it had also been the subject for discussion amongst the crew. Later some of the ship’s company gave their opinions to the Australian press, & at least one paper stated that “Wild’s party is camped on moving ice & there is little probability that they will ever be seen again." It certainly was most unfortunate that just as the ship was leaving many tons of ice broke away from the shelf, sending up a

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huge wave which not only caused the Aurora to roll heavily, but also broke up a lot of the floe ice where we had been landing stores.

At 7 a.m. 21st February 1912 my party waved & cheered as the “Aurora" left us on the sea ice. Mawson had more or less left the choice of my party to me & later on I had the satisfaction of congratulating myself on having made no mistake. The party was made up as follows,:- G. Dovers Cartographer 21 years of age, C.T. Harrison Biologist, 43 years of age, C.A. Hoadley geologist 24, S.E. Jones, Medical Officer 24. A L Kennedy, Magnetician, 22. M.H.Moyes, Meteorologist, 25. A.D. Watson, Geologist 24 & F Wild, Leader, 38.

Our first care was to haul up all the stores & gear to the top of the cliff, pitch tents for temporary accommodation & then commence hut building. It was also only prudent to move the stores further back from the badly broken edge of the ice shelf.

Harrison Hoadley Kennedy & Jones were told off as house builders & Dovers, Moyes, Watson & I sledged along supplies. The site for the hut was about six hundred yards from the store heap, but owing to crevasses

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& pressure ridges the distance covered on each trip was nearer eight hundred. We had nine dogs but they were untrained & in poor condition after the voyage. The weather was kind to us & the house was habitable with stove set up in a week & at last we could have a decently cooked meal in comfort. The building operations were only stopped one day by a moderate blizzard & the temperature hovered between 25° F -12°.

Whilst working on the roof Harrison saw what appeared to be land to the east & later this proved to be an island, entirely ice covered, a little over thirty miles distant, twenty miles in length & fifteen wide. It was named Masson Island. Sunday March 3rd was a beautiful calm day & as we were now safely housed I made a holiday of it. Instead of 6 a.m. we turned out at 8.30 & after breakfast Divine Service was held. After lunch we unpacked our ski & all went for a run east towards Masson Island. The surface was excellent for sledging but I found a number of crevasses up to twenty five feet in width, all well bridged & safe for men on ski, but dangerous for an unroped man on foot.

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This fine day was followed by a two day blizzard & outdoor work was impossible, but there was a sufficiency of indoor work to keep us fully occupied, as preparations for a sledging trip to be made before the winter set in were in progress. Several hundred small food bags were needed & the sewing machine intended for my base had been landed by mistake at the Main Base so it all had to be done by hand, slow & tedious work to unaccustomed fingers.

This blizzard blew itself out on the 6th & we found twelve foot snowdrifts collected all round the hut & a shaft had to be dug & a ladder made for exit & entrance & then all stores rescued. This was barely done when another fierce blizzard struck us & lasted with only one short lull until the 12th. During this lull we fed the dogs & Jones, Dovers & Hoadley brought in a load of ice from a pressure ridge a short distance from the hut & had great difficulty in finding their way back as the wind freshened again.

This bad weather had its compensations, the temperature always rose during a blow & instead of being well below zero remained

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somewhere about 30° F. The snow piled up around the hut so that only the peak of the roof was visible, & even with gusts of over a hundred miles an hour there was not more than a very slight tremor to be felt. During our confinement the interior of the hut was put in order much earlier than it would otherwise have been, & although the delay in our sledging was disappointing we realised we were more comfortable than we would have been camped on the glacier.

The 13th was calm & after an early breakfast all hands turned to erecting two masts for our wireless receiving instrument. Whilst this work was going on we felt the glacier give a slight quake & then we saw many thousands of tons of ice calve off into the sea. An enormous wave was set up which smashed all the floe for miles & also carried away all snow ramps leaving perpendicular cliffs one hundred feet high. This left us with no chance of getting seals or penguins for fresh meat for ourselves or the dogs, a rather serious matter.

The sledges were packed & all ready for a start at 1 p.m. The load weighed just

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over two hundred pounds per man. Watson & Kennedy were to remain behind to keep observations going at the hut. It was my intention to travel inland
& lay a depot or depots to assist the next summer sledging.

The mainland was visible seventeen miles to the south running almost due East
& West rising rapidly to about three thousand feet & then more gradually to the great inland plateau of the Antarctic continent. No bare land was visible & the lower slopes appeared to be badly broken up by ice falls but also showed a number of possible roads between.

The most accessible spot appeared to be South East & a course was laid accordingly, over a good surface almost free of crevasses, Jones falling to the waist in the only one see that day. All hands being a bit soft I halted for the night at 5 p.m., having done seven & a half miles. As it became dark soon after 6 p.m. the marching hours were from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to enable us to get breakfast & dinner in daylight. When we commenced our second days march the temperature was -8° F but pulling over what we called a pie-crust surface soon warmed us up. This

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pie-crust was a hard frozen surface not quite strong enough to bear a man’s weight & let us through from six to eight inches into soft snow underneath & is very tiring.

As we approached the land the surface of the glacier became undulating similar to a long swell at sea the distance between the crests being about three quarters of a mile & a drop between of thirty feet. Many more crevasses were encountered & we all had falls, Hoadley dropping with his head below the surface into one five feet wide. Narrow crevasses from two to eight feet in width are much more dangerous than those thirty to a hundred feet, as the snow bridges over the latter are usually much more substantial.

As we neared the land the crevasses increased in width so the harness was lengthened to prevent more than two men being on the bridge at the same time.
We crossed one at least sixty feet wide with a badly broken bridge & a black bottomless pit showing through all the holes. This one looked so dangerous that we went over one by one on an alpine rope & hauled the sledges over after crossing ourselves. It was impossible to tell exactly when we actually got on the land but camping soon

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after crossing the crevasse mentioned we found we had risen two hundred feet. On either hand were to be seen splendid ice falls but the road ahead seemed clear. This was March 15th.

A gale & heavy drift confined us to camp all the next day & until 11.30 a.m. on the 18th. The tents & sledges were buried in snow giving us two hours hard work digging them out before we could get going again. The surface was now neve and heavy sastrugi & the slope becoming steeper we were compelled to relay. We camped that night at an altitude of one thousand four hundred feet. The next three days was difficult travelling over waves or ridges of sastrugi from three to four feet in height & the sledges had many capsizes. On one of these days Hoadley, who was taking meteorological observations every two hours during the day found his book had fallen off the sledge. To save his fingers at the 8 a.m. readings he slipped the book under the strap which secured the instrument box, instead of unstrapping & putting it into the box itself. The book might be only a few yards away or it might be miles as we had travelled at least three miles in the two hours. As we were making a track very easy to follow & there was no

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sign of wind, I sent Hoadley back to find it & we carried on with the sledges until the noon halt for lunch. This meal usually took only half to three quarters of an hour but this time we sat waiting till after 1p.m. & still nothing to be seen of Hoadley There were no crevasses on the route, but he might have slipped & hurt himself & I was just on the point of taking a party to look for him when he appeared over a ridge a few hundred yards away. He had found the book two miles back so had walked an extra four miles. That had not worried him, but the utter loneliness of that three hours had quite unnerved him. Needless to say his book went into the box after subsequent observations.

On the 21st we were two thousand three hundred feet above sea level & as we camped that evening a heavy blizzard struck us. The drift was blinding & masks of snow over our faces made the erection of the tents a painful & slow process. This lasted seven days & later on we found that it corresponded in time to the blizzard in which Captain Scott and his party perished at a distance of seventeen hundred miles from our position.

Owing to changes in the direction of the wind.

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large quantities of snow came through the tent ventilators, & the warmth of our bodies thawed this & made our sleeping bags very wet. When it is understood that for no purpose whatever is it possible to leave the tent during a blizzard, & that a section of the floor snow must be used for drinking & cooking, it may be partially realised how irksome these storms are.

At noon on the 28th the wind eased off & we at once dug ourselves out. Nothing could be seen except the very tops of the tents which meant that there was a deposit of nearly six feet of snow. This was so soft that we sank thigh deep at every step & sometimes to the waist.

We were all weakened through our long confinement & it was nearly 5 p.m. before we had rescued the sledges & all gear. The temperature was
-20°F & Dovers got a frost bitten nose. This was his first experience of frost bite & he was terribly afraid he would be disfigured & possibly lose the affection of a certain girl in N.S.W.

Although a fresh wind blew all night the surface was as soft as ever the following morning & as it was impossible to drag the whole load the only thing to do was to leave the food depot on the nearest ridge & return to the Base.

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It took us well over an hour to drag one sledge half a mile up a rise of one hundred feet with a load of only eighty pounds a man. As we got on the ridge Moyes found he had a frost bitten foot & as there was too much wind to attend to it in the open he had to return to camp. Sufficient paraffin & food to last three men for six weeks & a minimum thermometer was left at this depot.

We commenced the return journey next day, & we & the sledges were sinking so deeply into the snow that forty yards was as much as we could do without rest & only nine hundred yards was covered before lunch & this was downhill. When we made our evening camp after one of the hardest days I have ever experienced the sledgemeter showed one mile & a quarter. We were pulling pairs, Hoadley & I leading, sinking thigh to waist deep, & at one time tried going on our hands and knees, but found our faces went under. After one of our forty yard struggles I thought I might be halting too frequently, & I asked Hoadley if he thought so, he replied “My God, sir if you go another yard I’ll die!"

A two day blizzard held us up again &

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slightly hardened the surface & on April 2nd we did five miles six hundred & ten yards.

As we left the hills behind the surface improved & on the 4th we had done seventeen & a half miles by camping time, & as there was only six miles to go & the party all fresh I decided to carry on by moonlight. After supper we marched on for two and a half hours by which time we had had enough & I was beginning to think we had passed the hut. The next day was Good Friday but far from good for us. A heavy gale sprang up & it was impossible to move. During the afternoon Hoadley & I had to go out to secure our tent, the snow having partly blown off the skirt, allowing the tent to flap considerably & a lot of drift was coming in. The other tent was only five yards away but we could not see it. At noon Hoadley went out again to attend to the tent, & became absolutely lost within six feet of it. I heard him yelling & guessed what was the matter at once, & Dovers & I yelled our best in reply, & Hoadley groped his way in with a mask of snow over his face. He told us that the wind, which was a good eighty miles an hour knocked him down immediately he got outside

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& when he got to his feet again he could see nothing & had no idea where the tent was.

The weight of snow had bulged in the weather side of the tent to such an extent that we did not light the primus & had frozen pemmican for our evening meal. About 11 a.m. the following day the wind suddenly died away to half a gale & we turned out & had a good hot meal We then looked out to see how the others were getting on & saw their tent had collapsed. Getting into our burberrys we rushed out & then saw one man in his sleeping bag outside. It was Harrison & to our relief he said he was alright. We carried him into our tent when he climbed out all well but very hungry. We then rescued Jones & Moyes who were under the fallen tent. They told us the tent had fallen down the day before at ten o’clock, which was when Hoadley & I were out securing our own.

After the three hungry unfortunates had eaten a meal they declared themselves fit to travel, & shortly after the march commenced Dovers saw the wireless mass & a little later we were safely in the hut much to the surprise of Kennedy & Watson who did not expect that we would be travelling in such bad weather.

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The sledge meter showed that the last camp was only two miles one hundred yards from the hut, & had we been able to see anything we could easily have got in on the night of the 4th. The total distance covered on this trip was one hundred & twenty five miles & the highest altitude reached was two thousand six hundred feet. Of the twenty five days we were away, travelling was only possible on twelve. No one was any worse for the hardships except for a few blistered fingers from frost bite. All the party had worked splendidly & were always cheerful, although conditions had been exceptionally trying. I was also most pleased with the amount of work done by Kennedy & Watson during out absence. In addition to the observations they had trained five dogs & all stores were transported from the landing place to the hut. This in spite of the weather which had been as bad at the base as with us. We were amused to find one end of our long table full of dirty crockery, the two stay at homes having decided it was more trouble to wash up after each meal than to have, one big wash up a week.

The next day Easter Sunday April 7th we were perforce resting as a particularly heavy blizzard

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was raging. I dared not allow anyone go out to feed the dogs on that day or the next, but these animals can go for a week without food, & for drink they have the snow.

Winter routine was now established; Harrison was put in charge of lamps & paraffin, Hoadley in charge of foodstuffs, Jones & Kennedy looked after the acetylene plant, the former showing himself to be a very useful plumber & between them the hut saw well lighted. Moyes was out all hours with his meteorological work. Watson looked after the dogs & Dovers relieved other members of their duties when they were cooks. Each man except myself took a week in turn as cook, & night watch was kept by each one in turn. Work commenced at 10 a.m. during the winter, & finished at 1 p.m. unless anything special had to be done. Divine Service was held every Sunday at which Moyes & I officiated in turn.

Drift snow had accumulated to a depth of twelve feet all round the hut, & a tunnel was driven from the door a distance of forty feet & a trap door built over the tunnel & raised well above the outer surface to prevent it being drifted over. A ladder to this door

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was our communication with the outer world. The tunnel was continued on an incline until it came out & the entrance left open so that sledge loads of ice or stores could be run in, but each blizzard closed this up, giving two men a day’s work to clear it again. On each side of this tunnel roomy caves were dug out to accommodate stores & ice & by the end of April all stores were housed.

Bamboos had been stuck in to mark the position of the different piles of stores, but the drift snow in some cases over the top of the bamboos & shafts had to be dug ten or twelve feet deep until they were located. We were two days searching for the carbide. With everything housed we were self contained & could afford to laugh at our frequent blizzards. Our house then received the title of “The Grottoes".

Late in April Kennedy Harrison & Jones built an igloo to be used as a magnetic observatory, & on the afternoon of the 30th all hands were invited by the magnetician to a tea party to celebrate the opening. He had tastefully decorated the place with flags & after the reception & formal inspections of the instruments tea was served. The outside temperature was
-33° F & as it was

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not much higher inside our visit was not prolonged. Previous to this Kennedy had been carrying out his observations in the open much to the detriment of his fingers temper & language.

On the 1st of May Harrisson Hoadley & Watson went away south towards the land at the head of the bay taking four dogs & the load being only three hundred & forty two pounds the dogs pulled it easily. These four were all the dogs left at the time; Nansen & Grippen had died, Sweep had disappeared, two bitches Tiger & Tich had refused to do any work so had to be shot, as food for the dogs was scarce. This left Sandow the leader, Amundsen Switzerland & Zip. I took the rest of the party for a day’s run to the north hoping to find some place on the glacier low enough to enable us to get down to the sea ice. We found several places not more than forty to fifty feet high but no snow ramps on which to descend. A flat sheet of unbroken frozen sea stretched away to the north for at least thirty miles & no penguins or seals were in sight.

The next three days a moderate blizzard kept us indoors. Saturday was clean ship day when the hut & darkroom were scrubbed, the verandah

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tunnel & caves tidied & the windows cleaned. The window cleaning was taken in turns & was thoroughly detested. The windows were in the roof & each week collected ice from an inch to two inches thick. To chip & scrape this off one had to sit on the rafters with the fragments of ice falling on to one’s face.

On Sunday Harrisson Hoadley & Watson returned. Although less than twenty miles away they had missed the strong winds blowing at the Base. They had discovered some old icebergs containing geological specimens & which were good subjects for Harrisson’s sketches, but they had seen no bare rock. Watson had a badly cut nose through a fall on rough ice.

Apart from daily routine we were now kept occupied for several days overhauling tent poles & sleeping bags. The bags had all shrunk through getting wet & drying again & required enlarging.

May 15th was a beautiful day & with Dovers, Watson, Hoadley & Harrisson, I went two miles south to Icy Cape to try to find a road down to the sea ice & were fortunate at last. By climbing down a partially filled up crevasse which opened up into a magnificent cave at sea level we walked straight out to the level

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sea ice. There was not a seal or even a blow hole to be found.

Another howling blizzard with wind up to a hundred miles an hour kept us in doors from the 22nd to 24th May. It was impossible to take observations at the meteorological screen or to feed the dogs. Moyes & I went out on a rope attached to the trap door on the 24th & succeeded in finding the dogs & gave them biscuits.

We spliced the main brace that night in commemoration of Empire Day. The most bigoted teetotaller could not call us intemperate. On each Saturday night one drink per man was served out when we drank to “Sweethearts & Wives". The only other occasions when any intoxicants were issued were on each members birthday, King’s Birthday, Midwinter’s Day & on the return of a sledging party.

This blizzard caused a lot of damage. The dogs’ shelter was entirely carried away, a short mast which was used as a holdfast for sledges was snapped off & the sledges buried, & worst of all Kennedy’s igloo had lost its roof & the delicate instruments inside were all buried in snow. The dogs had not suffered though under a deep snow blanket. As usual the temperature

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had risen during the blizzard from -37°F to 30°F.

Fine weather continued until June 2nd. During this time we were occupied in digging a road from the glacier down to the sea ice in the forenoons, & hunting for seals or amusing ourselves in the afternoons. Kennedy & Harrisson rebuilt the magnetic igloo. At this time daylight lasted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. & we had magnificent sunrise & sunset effects & too frequently the sun was surrounded by a marvellously brilliant halo & mock suns. I say too frequently because a blizzard invariably followed these displays, & if one appeared when we were on a sledging trip, we took extra precautions in securing the tents.

Blizzards never meant idleness, there was always sufficient indoor work to keep us in employment. On this day June 2nd, Watson & I were making a ladder of rope with wooden rungs to assist us in getting down & up the cliff,*

[Note in margin] *and also to be used by Watson & Hoadley who were about to dig a shaft in the glacier to examine the ice structure,

Jones was making a harpoon for seals, Hoadley opening cases & storing food on the verandah, Dovers cleaning tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph, Harrison cooking & Kennedy sleeping after a night watch.

From June 4th to the 22nd was a remarkably

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fine spell. An igloo was built as a shelter for the geological shaft, & every day parties went out seal hunting. One day Dovers & Watson found a Weddell Seal two & a half miles to the west on the sea ice. They killed it but did not cut it up as it had sores on its skin. Jones went over with them & pronounced the sores to be wounds received from some other animal, so fifty pounds of meat was brought in & was a very pleasant change after tinned meat.

The frequent snowstorms had by this time built up huge drifts under the lee of the cliffs up to fifty feet in height & almost to the top of the glacier & we had great fun in skiing down these ramps. Falls were frequent but before long the whole party became quite expert. The only serious accident happened to Kennedy who twisted his knee & was laid up for a week.

I was frequently called during the night by the watchman to have a look at Aurora displays only to find them very ordinary, but on the night of June 18th, Kennedy, who was taking magnetic observations called me to see the most magnificent I have ever seen either in the Arctic or Antarctic. A double curtain of

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yellow light 30° wide came up from the eastern horizon to the zenith where it spread out into a Prince of Wales feathers & became brilliantly coloured, waves of light shimmering along it so rapidly that they travelled the whole length in two seconds. Although the temperature was about – 30° we all stayed out to watch until danger of frost bite drove us back to bed. Kennedy’s instrument’s showed a great magnetic disturbance during this display.

Hoadley & Watson set up a line of bamboos a quarter of a mile apart & three miles long, on the 20th & from then onwards took measurements for snowfall every fortnight. Final results showed that the surface of the glacier retained an average accumulation of thirteen inches per year out of an estimated snowfall of thirty feet, the remainder being blown away.

[Note in margin] 22/11

On Midwinter’s Day the temperature ranged from -38° F to –25° F & we had daylight from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. &. A general holiday was proclaimed throughout “Queen Mary Land" which was the name I gave to this new land.

There was a special dinner in honour of the occasion followed by speeches toasts & a gramophone concert.

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Now commenced serious preparations for spring sledging which I hoped to start about the middle of August. Jones made a valuable addition to our rations. After a number of experiments with glaxo he succeeded in making a biscuit consisting of butter & glaxo compressed by means of a steel die & a heavy hammer. One of these three ounce biscuits was equal in food value to four & a half ounces of plasmon biscuits & pleasant to the palate.

The first two days of July were quiet & we were able to get out for work & exercise. On the 2nd the sun, which at this time was barely clear of the horizon at noon, had on either side & above a red mock sun connected by a rainbow tinted halo. This display was as usual followed by a blizzard, & on the 5th & 6th a terrific hurricane was raging. Had we not known that nothing short of an earthquake could move the hut, we should have been very uneasy. In addition to the work of sledging preparations we had other & lighter means of passing away the time, such as chess, cards & dominoes, & a competition was started for each member to write a short article connected with the expedition humorous or otherwise. These were read by the authors after dinner one night,

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& gave considerable amusement. A nine hole golf course was laid out, but every blizzard blotted it out & made it necessary to lay it out afresh.

Sandow the leader of the dogs & Zip disappeared about the middle of the month, after two days Zip returned but we never saw Sandow again. All along the cliff edge were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of tons. These were constantly breaking away with a thunderous sound that could be heard for miles.
On July 31st Watson & Harrisson had a narrow escape. They went down to the floe ice over one of these hanging cornices which almost reached a sloping ramp below. A few seconds only after they got clear the cornice collapsed, the huge mass of hard snow crashing down & cracking up the sea ice which was four feet thick for more than a hundred yards. Doubtless, Sandow had been caught by one of these falls.

July had been an inclement month with only three really fine days & the early half of August was little better. On Sunday the 11th Dovers & I went out in the wind to feed the dogs & to clear the chimney & on our return found the hut in confusion. Jones had been charging the

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acetylene generators when one of them caught fire. There was grave danger of an explosion as the gas tank was floating in kerosene. Throwing water over it would have made matters worse, so blankets were used to smother the flames. As this failed to extinguish them the whole plant was pulled down & carried into the tunnel where the fire was put out. The damage amounted to two blankets burnt & dirtied, Jones face singed & scorched & Kennedy had one finger jambed. It was a fortunate escape from disastrous calamity.

A large iceberg frozen in the floe eleven miles north had been of interest for some time as it had capsized & exposed its base. On the14th Harrison Dovers Hoadley & Watson took food & equipment & went off to examine it. They found the berg on its side & an interesting collection of stones & pebbles was made from what had been the bottom. During the absence of this party Jones sighted seven Emperor penguins two miles to the west. Taking a sledge we at once made after them. When a mile off they saw us & came to meet us with their usual stately bows. It hurt us to kill them, but we were sorely in need of fresh meat. The four we secured averaged seventy pounds in weight &

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were a heavy pull up the glacier.

Everything was now ready for sledging, the object of the first journey being to lay out a food depot to the east to assist the long summer journey to be made in that direction. The party to consist of six men & the three dogs. Hoadley & Kennedy to remain at the base, the former to complete the geological shaft & the latter to carry on magnetic work. There was also plenty to keep them occupied in preparing stores for later sledge journeys.

Bad weather delayed the start until Thursday the 22nd. After an early breakfast we packed up & left the hut at 7 a.m. For four days we were blessed with fine clear weather, a good travelling surface & temperature from - 30° F to - 35°. On the second day we sighted two small nunataks eight miles to the south the first bare land seen for more than seven months. Our course was almost due east parallel to the coast & to the north was Masson Island. As we went on another smaller ice covered island opened up, Henderson Island, then a three day blizzard held us up. As usual the temperature rose with the wind & Jones Moyes & I having a three man squad were very warm but thoroughly tired of

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lying down so long. The 31st was again fine & bright & passing Henderson Island we saw a bay seventeen miles wide running back in the mainland. This was named the Bay of Winds as we encountered a blow every time we crossed it. In the centre of the bay was a nunatak which from its shape was named the Alligator, & ahead apparently fifteen miles distant another nunatak the Hippo & four definite outcrops could be seen on the mainland. This bucked us up as we had begun to think all the land was ice covered.

We found the Hippo to be twenty two miles away & the surface being heavy sastrugi we were a day & a half before coming up to it. It was surrounded by huge ridges of pressure ice which prevented us getting the sledges near it. We climbed to the top four hundred & twenty feet & found it to be four hundred yards long & two hundred yards wide & composed of gneiss & schists. Dovers took a round of angles, Watson collected geological specimens & Harrisson sketched until his fingers were frost bitten. Moss & lichens were found & a dead young snow petrel showed that the birds breed there.

At each end of the nunatak were wide gaping

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crevasses, to the south the glacier shelf appeared to be very little broken, but to the north it was terribly torn up. Twenty miles east was another bare rocky island. That night the temperature was -47°F.

We had felt a few gusts of wind during the night, but were surprised to find when we got away from the shelter of the rock, that a strong gale was blowing. The surface was very hard slipperyneve& neither man nor dogs could keep their feet & the sledges were blown sideways. We were eighty four miles east of the Base; I had hoped to do a hundred miles, but our sleeping bags were getting very wet, & none of the party getting sufficient sleep, so I decided to leave the depot here & make up by starting the summer journey earlier.

One sledge was left with six weeks allowance of food for three men. The sledge was placed on end in a hole three feet deep & a mound six feet high built around it, & a bamboo & flag lashed to the top. On September 4th we were homeward bound, heading first to the mainland to examine some rock outcrops, & that night the tents were pitched in a most beautiful spot. A wall of solid rock rose sheer for

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more than four hundred feet crowned by an ice cap of two hundred feet & magnificent ice falls came down on either side. The site of the camp was in what appeared to be a sheltered hollow a quarter of a mile from the “Avalanche Rocks". One tent was up & the other in process of erection, when the wind suddenly veered from west to east & a strong gust flattened out both tents. Later while preparing for bed a tremendous avalanche came down, the noise was awful & seemed so close we all turned to the door & started out. The cliff was completely hidden in a cloud of snow & we stood ready to run, Dovers thoughtfully grabbing a food bag. None of the blocks came within a hundred yards, & as it was now blowing hard all hands elected to remain where we were. Several more avalanches came down in the night but none so heavy or alarming as the first one.

A strong breeze was blowing in the morning but not too bad for travelling, so I called the party. Moyes & I Iashed up the sleeping bag passed it out & strapped it on the sledge, Jones starting the cooker. Suddenly a terrific squall struck our tent splitting it from top to bottom & Moyes & I were knocked down. When we got to our

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feet again we went to help the other men whose tent was still standing. The squalls were now frequent & fiercer & the only thing to do was to pull the poles away & allow the tent to collapse. Looking round for a lee we found the only shelter to be on the sunken bridge of a crevasse three hundred yards to windward, but the wind was so strong that it was impossible to convey the gear there. All hands were repeatedly knocked over & blown along the surface thirty or forty yards even with an ice axe stuck hard in the snow. The only thing was to dig ourselves in.

We dug a hole three feet deep twelve feet long & six wide. The snow was so hard this occupied three hours. We would have gone deeper but came to solid ice at three feet. Everything movable was stowed in the hole, the sledges and tent poles placed across the top, the good tent laid over all & weighted down with snow & ice blocks. It was a slow & difficult task as many of the gusts must have been well over a hundred miles an hour; one of these lifted Harrisson clean over my head & dropped him twenty feet away. At noon we had everything snug, made a meal

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& climbed into our sleeping bags.

We remained in this hole for five days, the wind at hurricane force the whole time & horrible avalanches crashing down at frequent intervals, everyone giving me pains in the stomach; I could not get over the dread of being flattened out like a squashed beetle. Had we been able to sit upright we would have been much more comfortable. After a while the heat of our bodies & the cooking raised the temperature of the dug out above freezing point & the sleeping bags & our clothes became very wet; in fact we were lying in water, so we took the most of our meals cold sucked ice for drink.

We took it in turn to look out for a change in the weather & on the morning of the 10th the lookout reported a clear sky & bright sun & though the wind was still strong & gusty we immediately got out & packed up. Our wet clothes at once stiffened, the temperature being -25°F. For several miles we travelled on bare rippled ice & the strong following wind caused the sledges to turn sideways & frequently capsize, & the runners were badly torn. Later the surface changed to snow & that night we camped with

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twenty miles one hundred yards to our credit.

We all had lacerated & bleeding legs, caused through our frozen clothes bending in sharp angles & chafing the backs of our knees at every step. That night another blizzard sprang up & contrary to custom the temperature remained low -30°F, & we had a bad time in our wet bags. For two days we travelled by compass the sky being over cast & drift snow hiding the land. On the 14th an extra early start was made, we were all anxious to reach the hut that night, distant about thirty one miles. We had had very little sleep & plenty of shivering for the last four nights.

Unfortunately we marched on a magnetic bearing from Masson Island of 149° instead of 139°. Instead of marching home at 5 p.m. as expected we travelled on until 8 p.m., the last two hours in the dark amongst a lot of pressure ridges & crevasses none of us could recognise & at one time found ourselves within a few yards of the cliff edge of the glacier so were compelled to camp. The low temperature -35° gave us a chilly time in our wet bags. Next morning we arrived at the Base & and found the last camp had been four & a half miles to the north. Before having a meal we all weighed ourselves & found the average loss to

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be eight pounds. In the evening Moyes & I weighed again, he had gained seven & I five & three quarter pounds.

Hoadley & Kennedy had experienced similar weather at the Base to that meted out to us.

Plans were now made for the summer sledging. There was to be a Western Coast Party under the leadership of Jones & an Eastern Coast Party led by myself. The earlier idea of an inland journey was abandoned in favour of the greater importance of the coastal work.

Before commencing the main journeys, it was decided to lay out a depot to the west to assist Jones & to bring in the food left on the mountains in March. Ten days of continuous wind & drift delayed the departure of Jones party until Sept 26th. His party included Harrisson Hoadly Dovers & Moyes & the three dogs. Watson Kennedy & I assisted the others down to the sea ice & saw them off with a good start.

Watson was slightly lame at this time & we did not get started until the 29th. & then found a soft surface & very heavy pulling. The first day we did nine miles but during the next six days the snow became deeper & only nineteen miles were covered. Crevasses were nearly all

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invisible & falls were frequent. A head wind & drift made the climb more
laborious & finally at two thousand feet Kennedy severely strained his Achilles tendon & I decided to return to “The Grottoes". At 2 p.m. October 8th
the mast

[Margin note:] 22/11/31]

was sighted & soon afterwards we climbed down into the hut finding it cold dark & empty. The sun had been very powerful that day & both Watson & Kennedy had a touch of snow blindness.

A blizzard raged for thirteen days after our return, so that Kennedy’s injury had really saved our lives. We travelled light depending on the food at the depot for our return journey & had we gone on the blizzard would have caught us before we got there with practically an empty food bag. Our sympathies went out to the Western Party lying in wet bags waiting for a break in the driving wall of snow. On October 23rd they had been away four weeks for which time they took provisions & I had no doubt they would be short on rations.

On the 24th I went to the mast head with the field glasses but saw nothing of them. That day we weighed out provisions & prepared to go in search of them. I intended to go on

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on the outward track for a week, & left instructions to Jones to hoist a flag at the masthead & burn flares at 10 p.m. each night if he should return whilst I was away.

More wind & drift prevented us starting until the 26th. A sledge was packed with fourteen days provisions for eight men & we started off on the search expedition at 10 a.m. We camped at 5.30 p.m. after a march of nine miles. Before turning in for the night I had a last look round & was delighted to see Jones & party about a mile away. It was now getting dark & we were within two hundred yards before they saw us. They were anxious to get to the Hut as they only had one serviceable tent. Kennedy & I offered to change with any of them (Watson had started the cooker as soon as the party was sighted) but they were all too eager for blankets & good beds, & decided to slog on arriving at the Base at midnight.

Jones reported that they had been stopped on their march on the sea ice after doing forty five miles by a badly broken glacier on the far side of which there was open sea. The only thing to do was to find a way onto the mainland, & in order to accomplish this had come a long way back eastwards towards the Base.

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They had bad weather very rough travelling & when finally they succeeded in making an ascent were stopped by a blizzard which lasted seventeen days. One tent collapsed and the occupants, Jones, Dovers & Hoadly had to dig a hole in the snow & lower the torn tent into it. This was one thousand feet above sea level & only twenty eight miles from the Hut.

When the blizzard at last held up they at once made down to the sea ice & headed for home & when they met us had done nineteen miles. They were all stiff & sore the next day & no wonder, a march of twenty eight miles after seventeen days in wet sleeping bags is a very strenuous day’s work.

Final arrangements were now made for the summer journeys, Jones Dovers & Hoadley the Western Party were to attempt to link up Queen Mary Land with Kaiser Wilhelm II Land at Ganeberg. Kennedy & Watson to accompany me to the east. I had arranged that Harrisson & Moyes were to remain at the Hut to do biological work & to carry on the meteorological observations. Later Harrisson begged me to allow him to accompany me with the dogs as far as the Hippo Depot. As on the return he would have to travel nearly a hundred miles alone I did not like the idea, but he demonstrated that

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he could erect a tent by himself so I agreed that he should come.

Each party was taking provisions for fourteen weeks & I had a further supply for four weeks for Harrisson & the dogs making a total load of nine hundred & seventy pounds.

[Margin note:] 29/11.

We started on the Eastern Journey on October 30th & arrived at the Hippo Nunatak on the 6th November. Here we received a nasty shock. The sledge we had left on end buried two feet deep in hard snow, & with a mound of snow six feet high built around it, & stays attached to two heavy food bags had completely disappeared, both stays being broken. This was serious as the total load to be carried amounted to well over a thousand pounds much too great a weight for one sledge. The only thing to do was to take Harrisson on, so that we could use his sledge, although that would leave Moyes alone under the belief that Harrisson had perished.

An extensive search was made for the missing sledge the next day, prospecting with a spade in possible snow drifts & crevasse lids & then we walked out fanwise for several miles in the direction of the prevailing wind with no result. I decided then to take Harrisson on; I was extremely

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sorry for Moyes, but I knew he was a level headed man & it could not be helped.

Hippo Nunatak was left behind the next day & the march into the unknown resumed. November 12th was an interesting day although travelling was difficult over rippled ice, with many pressure hummocks and crevasses. The coast line was two miles on our right & was most beautiful with blue cascades and icefalls & numbers of out crops of dark rocks. Fifteen miles ahead was an island twenty miles long, later named David Island. On the 14th a depot was laid & Kennedy took a round of angles to make sure of its position.

On the next two days our course lay amongst pressure ridges & crevasses so numerous that the dogs could not be used & the sledges had to be lightened & several journey made backwards & forwards over the most dangerous areas. One large lid fell in just as the sledge cleared it leaving a hole twelve feet wide & hundreds of feet deep. Our direct course east was now stopped by a glacier (Denman Glacier) twelve miles wide rolling down in magnificent cascades from a height of at least three thousand feet, breaking up the ice shelf on which we were travelling to such an extent that nothing without wings

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could cross it. Our object was to map in the coast line as much as possible & I had to decide whether to go north or south. From our position the north looked as though it smoothed out about ten miles away while to get around the head of the glacier appeared to be at least a thirty mile climb inland, so north we went.

There was half a mile of exceptionally bad travelling that afternoon, & Kennedy said he felt like a fly walking on wire netting. The camp was pitched amongst pressure with crevasses within a few yards on every side. On that night as on many others in this disturbed area, sounds of movement were often heard. Sharp reports & dull booms & moans & groans went on all the time.

November 18th was bright & fine & we covered more than five miles to the north before lunch. Then I went with Watson to mark out a road through some difficult broken country & came suddenly to the most wonderful sight I have ever seen. The Denman Glacier moves much more rapidly than the Shackleton Shelf & in tearing through the latter breaks it up & also shatters its own sides. At the actual point of contact is an enormous cavern over a thousand feet wide

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& four hundred feet deep with crevasses at the bottom which appear to have no bottom. The sides splintered & gashed with caves of every blue from the palest blue to black & the whole thing glittering in the sun. Enormous blocks of solid ice forced high up into the air beyond. The whole was the wildest maddest & yet the grandest thing imaginable.

The next two days we had falling snow & bad light, nothing could be seen but a white blanket

[Margin note:] 24/11

above, below & /around so with sudden death waiting for us in the bottomless crevasses in every direction we remained in camp. This was followed by a blizzard which kept us confined for two more days. We had all been suffering from sore lips, through sun & wind & these four days gave them a chance to heal. Through the combined direct glare of the sun & reflected glare from the snow, one becomes far more sunburnt in the Polar Regions than in the Tropics.

When the weather cleared we climbed to the top of David Island, nine hundred feet, & from there we could see that for twelve miles to the north the road to the east was impassable but beyond it appeared to become smoother & we decided to cross in that direction. On the 24th we marched

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over pressure ridges & crevasses & camped near an especially bad patch. Watson had the worst fall that day, dropping vertically ten feet before his harness stopped him. I am now going to give a few extracts from my diary.

“Monday November 25th. A beautiful day so far as the weather & scenery are concerned, but a very hard one. We have been amongst “Pressure" with a capital P all day, hauling up and lowering the sledges with an alpine rope, & twisting & turning in all directions, with waves & hills, monuments, statues & fairy palaces in all directions, from a few feet to over three hundred feet in height. It is impossible to see more than a few hundred yards ahead at any time, so we go on for a bit, then climb a peak or mound, choose a route then struggle on for another short stage."

“Tuesday November 26th
Another very hard day’s work. The first half mile took three hours to cover; in several places we had to cut out roads with ice axes & shovels, & also to build a bridge across a water lead. I never saw or dreamt of anything so gloriously beautiful as some of the stuff we came through this morning. After lunch the country changed entirely. In place of the confused jumble & crush we have had, we

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got on to neve slopes; huge billows half a mile to a mile from crest to crest meshed with crevasses. We all had falls into these during the day, Harrisson dropping fifteen feet. I received rather a nasty squeeze through falling into a hole while going downhill, the sledge running onto me before I could get clear. So far as we can see the same kind of country continues, & one cannot help thinking about having to return through this infernal mess. The day’s distance only one thousand & fifty yards."

“Wednesday November 27th. When I wrote last night about coming back, I little thought it would be so soon. We turn back tomorrow for the simple reason we cannot go on any further. In the morning for nearly a mile along a valley running south east the travelling was almost good, then our troubles began again.

Several times we had to resort to hand hauling through acres of pitfalls. The bridges of those that were covered were generally very rotten, except the very wide ones. Just before lunch we had a very stiff uphill pull & then a drop into a large basin, three quarters of a mile in diameter. The afternoon was spent in a vain search for a road. On every side are huge waves split in

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all directions by crevasses up to two hundred feet in width. The general trend of the main crevasses is north & south. I have therefore decided to go back & if possible follow the road we came by, then proceed south onto the inland ice-cap & find out the source of the chaos. If we are able to get round it & proceed east so much the better; at any rate we shall be doing something & getting somewhere. We could push on further east from here but it would be by lowering the gear piecemeal into chasms fifty to a hundred feet deep, & hauling it up on the other side; each crevasse taking at least two hours to negotiate. For such slow progress I don’t feel justified in risking the lives of the party."

Snow fell for four days & it was useless to stir in our precarious position. The dogs food had run out & we fed them our own as I was anxious to keep them alive until we were out of the pressure. When at last we commenced the return, we found eighteen inches of soft snow obliterated our former tracks, & the bridged crevasses were entirely hidden & we had frequent falls through weak lids.

At 9 a.m. Harrison, Watson & I roped up to mark a course over a particularly bad place. We had only gone two hundred yards when I got

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a very heavy jerk on the rope & looking round found Watson had disappeared. He weighs two hundred pounds in his clothes & the crevasse into which he had fallen was fifteen feet wide. He had broken through on the far side & the rope cutting through the bridge stopped in the middle so that he could not reach the sides to help himself in any way. Kennedy brought another rope & threw it down to him & we were then able to haul him up, but it was twenty minutes before he was out. He came up smiling & no worse except for a bruised shin & the loss of a glove.

At 2.30 p.m. we were all dead beat & camped with less than a mile on the meter. The course was a series of Z’s & S’s and hairpin turns, the longest straight stretch a hundred & fifty yards, knee deep in soft snow, & the sledge sinking to the cross bars.

The next day was a repetition, a terribly hard two & a half miles with many painful falls into crevasses, one snowbridge ten feet wide fell in as the meter was going over it. On the 5th we had to remain in camp, falling snow & drift making it impossible to travel.

From the diary again.
“Friday December 6th Still bad light & a little snow fall but we were off at ten oclock. I

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was leading & fell into at least a dozen crevasses. At 1.30 we arrived at the open lead we had crossed on the outward journey & found the same place. There had been much movement & we had to make a bridge, cutting away projections & filling up the water channels with snow & ice. Then Harrisson crossed with the aid of two bamboo poles, & hauled me over on a sledge. Harrisson & I on one side & Kennedy & Watson on the other then hauled the sledges backwards & forwards, lightly loaded one way & empty the other until all were across. The glacier at this place was undoubtedly afloat. We camped tonight at the same place as on the evening of November 25th so with luck we ought to be out of this mess tomorrow. Switzerland had to be killed as I cannot afford any more biscuit. Amundsen ate his flesh without hesitation, but Zip refused it."

Two days later we were again close to David Island. As we were camping a skua gull flew down, & I snared him with a line using dog flesh for bait. We had stewed skua for dinner. While I was cooking the others climbed up the rocks & brought back eight snow petrels & five eggs. After supper we secured sixty eggs & fifty eight birds. It seemed a fearful crime to kill these beautiful

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pure white creatures, but it meant fourteen days life for the dogs & longer marches for us. The snow petrel eggs are almost as large as hen’s eggs. Many of them were partly hatched, but although they did not look so nice they tasted as good as the fresh ones. I was very glad to get this fresh food, as owing to difficulty in obtaining seals & penguins, we had lived on tinned meats most of the year & there was always danger of scurvey.

The light was too bad to make a start until the evening of December 11th when we dodged through four & a half miles of tumbled ice & camped on the mainland for a midnight meal. There were advantages in travelling at night; the surface was firmer, our eyes relieved from the intense glare, & our blistered lips and faces healed up.

On the 14th while still on the lower slopes of the mainland we came to two nunataks jutting out of the ice. At the first, “Possession Nunataks", we made a depot of spare gear & sufficient food to take us back to the Hippo. Our course was set on a sharp peak inland which was hidden as we ascended by the contour of the intervening ridges, & it was not until we had reached an altitude of three thousand feet that we saw it again. At this time we were again pulling in daylight.

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The surface then became abominably soft, & hauling became a steady dogged strain. On the 15th we only did a little over four miles & on the 19th the sledge was burying itself to the cross bars & pushing a mound of powdery snow in front of it. The peak now close ahead was named Mount Barr-Smith. It was fronted by a steep rise which we decided to climb next day, but had to put it off for twenty four hours as a blizzard came up.

The next day we set off to scale the mountain. Fifteen miles to the south was another & higher mountain, later called Mount Strathcona & the source of the Denman Glacier was between these two mountains, the immense weight of the inland ice squeezing it through a steep valley.

Our tramp to the mountain from our camp was through eighteen inches to two feet of soft snow. A struggle to walk through, we knew from experience what it was like for sledging. There was only sufficient food for another week & and the surface was so heavy that in that time without allowance for blizzards it would have been impossible to travel as far as we could see from the summit. Also, by turning back at that point we stood a chance of saving the two

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remaining dogs who had worked so well they really deserved to live, so I decided to return.

The altitude of Mount Barr-Smith was four thousand three hundred & twenty feet. The latitude 67° 10.4’ S., & the distance from the Hut in a bee line one hundred & twenty miles.//

[Margin note:] 24/11

The return journey commenced on December 23, the snow was very sticky & frequent halts were made to scrape the sledge runners.

Xmas dinner was celebrated at the depot at the Possession Nunataks. After dinner the Union Jack & Australian Ensign were hoisted & I formally took possession of the land in the name of the Expedition for the Empire.

These rocks were garnetiferous gneiss & many of the garnets were as large as pigeons eggs but all badly fractured. The surface becoming again very soft night travelling was again resumed.

At 6 a.m. on the 28th we camped under the lee of David Island. Fifty six snow petrels were caught & these with the eggs which all contained chicks were fed to the dogs.

Next day we arrived at the Hippo & found the depoted food in good condition, & continued on to the Avalanche rocks, camping about a mile away. While we were erecting our tents

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several avalanches came down, & after supper Watson Kennedy & I walked towards the rocks to try to get a photo of one falling but they refused to oblige us. We found the site of the hole where we had spent five wretched days on the depot journey, & saw that one or more of the avalanches had thrown blocks of ice weighing at least twenty tons each, two hundred yards past & over the hole. They had thus travelled six hundred yards from the cliff.

On January 2nd we explored the Alligator Nunatak. It was half a mile long four hundred feet high & composed of gneiss like most of the rock we had seen. On the 4th we made the best day’s run for the trip, twenty two miles, & the next day assisted by a strong following wind we carried on until 9 p.m. hoping to reach the hut, but the wind increased to a heavy gale & we were forced to camp with thirty five miles on the meter. After an hour’s march next morning we saw the wireless mast & soon afterwards the Hut. Just before reaching home we struck up a song & in a few seconds Moyes came running out. When he saw there were four of us, he stood on his head for joy, & was so overcome with emotion it was some time before he

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could talk to us.

As we expected, Moyes had never thought of Harrisson coming on with us, & had quite given him up for dead. When the time had elapsed for which Harrisson had food, Moyes packed a sledge & went out for six days, then realizing the hopelessness of searching for anyone in that white waste of nothingness he returned. He looked well after his nine weeks of loneliness, but said it was the worst time he had ever had in his life.

My orders were to be ready to embark on the Aurora on the 30th January & preparations were commenced at once. Geological & biological collections were packed & the cases as well as boxes containing personal gear were sledged to the glacier edge.

Harrisson made a winch which was mounted on a small sledge for sounding & fishing; through a crack in the sea ice a quarter of a mile from the cliff he found the bottom at two hundred & sixty fathoms, & also succeeded in trapping fish, a squid & other specimens from the bottom.

On the 21st we sighted Jones’s party coming in from the south & all went out to meet them very soon shaking them by the hand & listening

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to their story.

They left the Grottoes on November 7th heading for the depot left in the spring, which owing to strong winds & a difficult surface was not reached until 5.30 p.m. on the 10th. The food picked up at the depot & the extra sledge brought their load up to twelve hundred pounds which of course meant relay work.

The lower slopes were much too badly broken up to travel over & they were forced far inland & thus frequent gales & snowstorms made their progress painfully slow. A few extracts from Jones’s diary follow.

[Margin note: 26/11]

“November 17 The night’s camp was situated approximately at the eastern edge of the Helen Glacier. The portion of the ice cap which contributes to the glacier below is marked off from the general icy surface on either side by a series of falls & cascades. These appeared impassable near sea level but we hoped to find a smooth passage at an altitude of one thousand feet.

November 18. A start was made at 7 a.m., the surface consisted of ice &neve& was badly broken by pressure mounds, ten to twenty feet high, & by numerous crevasses old & recent, many with sunken or fallen bridges. While crossing a

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narrow crevasse, about forty feet of the bridge collapsed lengthwise under the leading man, letting him fall to the full extent of his harness rope. Hoadley & myself had passed over the same spot, unsuspecting & unroped, a few minutes previously while looking for a safe track. - - - - - - - by evening had done four miles."

“The next day was gloriously bright with a breeze just strong enough to make hauling pleasant, erecting a sail we made an attempt to haul both sledges but found them too heavy. At 4 p.m. we arrived at what at first appeared to be an impasse.

At this point three great crevassed ridges united to form the ice falls on the western side of the glacier. The point of confluence was the only place that appeared to offer any hope of a passage, & as we did not want to retrace our steps, we decided to attempt it. The whole surface was a net work of huge crevasses, some open, the majority from fifty to one hundred feet or more in width. After many devious turns- - - - - - - - - it was found that by travelling along a narrow, knife edge ridge of ice & névé, with an open crevasse on each side, a good surface could be reached within a mile. The ridge had a gradient of one in ten & unfortunately also sloped down towards one of the open crevasses.

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“During the next four days a heavy blizzard raged. There was a tremendous snow fall & after the second day the snow was piled four feet high around the tent & by its pressure greatly reducing the space inside. By midday on the 23rd the weather had improved sufficiently to allow us to move. The sledges & tent were excavated, the new level of the snow’s surface being four to five feet higher than that on which the camp had been made four days earlier. While crossing the ridge of ice, one man hauled the sledges while the other two prevented them sliding sideways downhill into the open crevasse."

Over the type of surface described these three men hauled their sledges to Gausberg, a distance of two hundred & fifteen miles from the Base, but with relay work they covered over three hundred miles.

At one time on the outward journey they got down to sea level, where they found an enormous rookery of Emperor penguins covering several acres of floe ice. Jones said the sound of their cries reminded him of a sports ground during a well contested game. Here they also found Adelie penguins, Silver grey, Wilson & Antarctic petrels & Skua gulls, the eggs giving them a most welcome change of diet. The nesting place of the

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Antarctic petrel had not previously been found. Numbers of islands & rock outcrops were discovered & examined & on Xmas Day they were on & examining Gausberg, discovered by Drygalski in 1902. Gausberg is an extinct volcano about twelve hundred feet high & stands right on the margin of the continent the northern slopes descending into the sea.

The return journey was commenced on December 26th & the party arrived at the Hut on the afternoon of January 21st. The full story of this journey is in Mawson’s “Home of the Blizzard" & was an achievement of which Jones, Dovers & Hoadly have a right to be proud.

It gave me great pleasure to hear of the success of this party & between us we had charted about four hundred miles of new land.

We were now looking forward to the return of the Aurora, but in view of the possibility of her not being able to reach us, large numbers of seals were killed, & two holes dug in the glacier near the hut the blubber for fuel in one & the flesh in the other. The nearest crack in the sea ice where seals came up was two & a half miles away a long & tedious pull with a heavy sledge.

In January the weather was mostly fine, &

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we often worked at our sledging & butchering in singlets & sometimes with the upper parts of our bodies bare. The highest shade temperature recorded was 37°F, & several times 33°F.

February was a bad month & there was not one fine day until the 20th & by this time we were all beginning to think seriously of being left here another year. At two places I had erected direction boards close to the cliff edge, one at two miles & the other five miles north of the Hut, & also fitted a lamp & reflector at the mast head which was lighted every night & would be visible at least eight miles.

On Saturday February 22nd an eighty mile blizzard kept us inside & we carried out the usual scrubbing & cleaning up. On Sunday the wind dropped to a light breeze & looking out with the glasses after breakfast I saw the sea ice broken out to within a mile & a half of the Hut. Harrisson’s sounding sledge was within a few yards of the open water & Jones & I went out to bring it in. We had gone less than half a mile when we saw what at first appeared to be a penguin standing on some heavy pack ice in the distance, but which we soon made out to be the masthead of the

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“Aurora". It was evident that she could not be alongside for some time, so Jones went back to tell the others to bring down a load of gear, & I went on to meet the ship. Before the Aurora reached the fast ice, all the party were down with two sledge loads, having covered the mile & a half in record time.

As the ship came along side we gave three hearty cheers for Captain Davis & were surprised at the subdued nature of the return cheers from the ship & an atmosphere of gloom over the whole ship’s company & then we received the sad account of the death of Ninnis & Mertz. There was little time to exchange news for some time, as Captain Davis was naturally extremely anxious to start on the homeward journey. There was a hazardous journey of two thousand miles to be made & only a small amount of coal remained in the bunkers. It took but a few hours to rush our gear down, take in a supply of ice & then head away for home.

Before going on with the story I would like to pay a tribute to the good fellowship, industry & loyalty of my comrades. During the whole of the expedition, under the most trying conditions, all duties were most cheerfully performed.

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At the earliest opportunity Captain Davis & I “swapped yarns". After leaving us on the Shackleton Ice Shelf the previous year Davis had a few anxious days before clearing the ice & then a fairly good run to Hobart & from there to Sydney where the “Aurora" was refitted. There was no loafing in pleasant harbours however. Two extensive cruises were made in the seas south of New Zealand & Tasmania & all kinds of oceanographical work carried out & calls made at Macquarie & Auckland Islands, returning to Hobart about the middle of December where preparations were made for the relief of Mawson’s & my parties.

The “Aurora" left Hobart on December 24th & again ran into very heavy weather immediately after leaving harbour. Although heavily laden Davis got her through with very little damage & after the usual bumping & grinding through the pack ice arrived & dropped anchor at the Main Base, on January 13th.

Davis was handed a letter from Mawson to the effect that he had planned for all sledging parties to be back not later than January 15th & in the event of he himself not returning Davis was to take charge.

By the 18th all parties had returned except

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Mawson Ninnis & Mertz. Davis decided to wait until the 30th if necessary. Later than that would seriously endanger the relief of my party. In the meantime it was arranged that if Mawson did not return a party should remain to search, & stores were landed for this party for another year. Madigan was to be in charge with Bage, McLean, Hodgeman, Bickerton & Jeffrys.

Bad weather ruled the whole of the time, making boat work difficult & dangerous. On two occasions the cable parted, & the engines were being driven at extra full speed for a whole week at one time to keep the “Aurora" near the land. The ship was coated thickly with ice up to the mast heads & at least one hundred tons was covering the decks. Davis was on the bridge the whole of this time.

The morning of the 31st arrived & Captain Davis decided to pick up those of the shore party who were returning & make for the Western Base. However, the wind came away again & communication with the shore was impossible until the 8th February. Davis said he had never experienced such severe squalls before & he was expecting the masts & funnel to go overboard any minute. At 11.30 am on the 8th the party were taken on board & the Aurora headed away West. & at 8.30 p.m. a

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wireless message was received to say that Mawson had arrived at the Base.

Davis at once altered course & returned to Commonwealth Bay but was met by another heavy gale which rendered it impossible to lower a boat.

On an earlier page I mentioned that Davis had not been at all satisfied about the safety of my position on what was undoubtedly moving ice, & the season was now so advanced that was there not only a doubt of being unable to reach us but the ice conditions in that fifteen hundred miles were so appalling that there was the grave danger of losing the ship. Knowing that the Main Base Party were well supplied for another year, Davis decided to delay no longer, & headed away west on the evening of the 9th February.

Mawson’s book contains a full account of the dangers & difficulties & many narrow escapes the Aurora encountered before her arrival at my Base. Captain Davis looked an old man, & had been on his feet on the bridge for so long, that he had to bandage his legs to strengthen them.

It was some time before full details of the sad end of Ninnis & Mertz was received. & of Mawson’s marvellous lone return journey to the Hut, not in fact until we arrived in Hobart. Previous to

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this we had all been shocked to hear of the tragic end of Captain Scott & his party.

The account of that sledging journey on which Mawson lost his two companions as written by him, is the most wonderful & amazing story of Polar travel, of suffering, endurance & perseverance ever known.

At a point two thousand four hundred feet above sea level, three hundred & fifteen miles from the Base, Ninnis with a team of dogs & a sledge went to eternity down a crevasse.

The lost sledge carried nearly all the men’s food, all the dog’s food, the tent & greater part of the general equipment. All that was left was ten day’s man food, a sledge, cooker & tent cover, & six dogs in poor condition. No depots had been left as the intention was to return on another route. I cannot attempt to give a full account of the appalling sufferings to which these men were subjected, but will give a few short extracts from Mawson’s own story.

George, one of the dogs, was killed to provide food for the other dogs & to eke out their own supply, but it was very stringy & lacked nourishment. Then followed day after day of hard work & hunger, dog after dog being sacrificed as they became too weak to travel

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& on Xmas day only one Ginger, was still alive. At this time the total weight of food consumed per day was fourteen ounces consisting mainly of dog meat, an ounce or two of chocolate or raisins three or four ounces of pemmican & biscuit mixed & very dilute cocoa to drink. The usual sledging ration is over two pounds of concentrated rich food.

On the 28th December Ginger could walk no longer & was dispatched. Mawson writes “As we worked on a system which aimed at using up the bony parts of the carcase first, it happened that Ginger’s skull figured as the dish for the next meal. As there was no instrument capable of dividing it, the skull was boiled whole & a line drawn around it marking it into right & left halves. These were drawn for, after which, passing the skull from one to the other, we took turns in eating our respective shares. The brain was certainly the most appreciated & nutritious section, Mertz, I remember well remarking specially upon it. Before retiring to the sleeping bag I spent another four hours cracking & boiling down bones with the object of extracting the nutriment for future use & at the same time ridding the load of a lot of useless waste in the form of inert bone." //

Follows three days of plodding along over varying surfaces & then Mawson discovered that Mertz

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was failing rapidly, & talking things over they decided to leave the dog meat alone for a time & go solely upon the ordinary food of which they had some days supply still in hand. Mawson says, “I will always remember the wonderful taste the food had in those days. Acute hunger enhances the taste & smell of food beyond all ordinary conception. The flavour of food under such conditions is a miracle altogether unsuspected by the millions of mortals who eat their fill." The struggle continued in wind & drift both men weakening rapidly & on January 3rd Mertz developed dysentery & for the first time his fingers were badly frost bitten. He had always been so resistant to cold he could not believe it until he bit a considerable piece off one of them.

On the 4th & 5th a blizzard kept them in their wet sleeping bags under the miserable makeshift tent. On the 6th there was a following wind & the grade was downhill, but the surface was slippery & falls were frequent, which told severely upon Mertz who at last was persuaded by Mawson to ride on the sledge. After two & a half miles he became so chilled that they had to camp. From Mawson’s account again. “Starvation combined with superficial frost bite, alternating with damp conditions in the sleeping bags, had by this time resulted in a wholesale peeling

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of the skin all over their bodies; in its place only a very poor unnourished substitute appeared, which readily rubbed raw in many places. As a result of this, the chafing of the march had already developed large raw patches in just those places where they were most troublesome. As we never took off our clothes, the peelings of hair & skin from our bodies worked down into our underclothing & socks & regular clearances were made from the latter-------- the night of the 6th was long & wearisome as I tossed about sleeplessly ------ I was aching to get on but there could be no question of abandoning my companion whose condition now set the pace."

The next day was moderately fine but Mertz was too weak to be moved & was unable to assimilate the food which Mawson prepared for him, & shortly after midnight went to sleep.

The Hut was still a hundred miles away, a stiff proposition over very broken & crevassed country, & the task of pitching & breaking camp alone in high winds was most difficult. Mawson piled a mound of snow over the body of Mertz & erected a rough cross.
The nights of 9th & 10th were blizzard days & Mawson was not able to move until the 11th. He says “From the start my feet felt curiously lumpy & sore. They had become so painful after a mile of walking that I decided to

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examine them on the spot, sitting in the lee of the sledge in brilliant sunshine. I had not had my socks off for some days for, while lying in the camp it had not seemed necessary. On taking off the third and inner pair of socks the sight of my feet gave me quite a shock, for the thickened skin of the soles had separated in each case as a complete layer, & abundant watery fluid had escaped saturating the sock. The new skin beneath was very much abraded & raw. Several of my toes had commenced to blacken & fester near the tips & the nails were puffed & loose.-------------- I smeared the new skin with lanoline of which there was fortunately a good store, & then with the aid of bandages bound the old skin casts back in place for these were comfortable & soft in contact with the abraded surface. Over the bandages were slipped six pairs of thick woollen socks, fur boots & finally crampon overshoes. The latter having large stiff soles, spread the weight nicely & saved my feet from the jagged ice encountered shortly afterwards."

And so this nightmare of a march went on. Hours each day Mawson spent in doctoring his feet & other raw patches, festering fingers nails & inflamed frost bitten nose. On several days blizzards

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made marching impossible, & on the 17th he had a miraculous escape from death in a crevasse. How Mawson managed to struggle out, & his subsequent superhuman exertions & incredible sufferings make such a breathtaking story as has never before or since been written.

On 29th January another miracle happened. Mawson says, “I was travelling along on an even down grade & was wondering how long the two pounds of food which remained would last, when something dark loomed up through the haze of the drift a short distance away to the right. All sorts of possibilities raced through my mind as I headed the sledge for it. The unexpected had happened – in thick weather I had run fairly into a cairn of snow blocks erected by McLean, Hodgeman & Hurley, who had been out searching for my party. On the top of the mound, outlined in black bunting, was a bag of food, left on the chance it might be picked up by us.----- On reading the enclosed note carefully I found I had just missed the party by six hours."

On February 1st Mawson reached what was named “Aladdin’s Cave" a comfortable dugout on the mountain side five & a half miles from the Hut, & there he was kept prisoner for a whole week by a fierce blizzard. On

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the 8th February the weather cleared & he was able to descend the slope, being met by the party before his arrival at the Hut. Mawson says, "My heart was deeply touched by the devotion of these men who thus faced a second year of the rigours & extreme discomfort of the Adelie Land blizzard. For myself that wonderful occasion was robbed of complete joy by the absence of my two gallant companions, & as we descended to the Hut there were moist eyes amongst the little party as they learnt of the fate of Ninnis & Mertz."

How Captain Davis received the news of Mawson’s return & failed in his attempt to pick up the party, has already been told.

Whilst exchanging our experiences on the voyage to Hobart, it almost appeared that we of the Western Base had had a year’s picnic as far as the weather was concerned, compared with that experience at the Main Base. For a whole year their average wind velocity was fifty miles an hour; compare this with Europe’s average of 10.3. Their highest monthly average was sixty three, highest daily ninety eight; highest hourly one hundred and sixteen, & a puffometer showed gusts of two hundred miles an hour.
Although we could not compete with them in this respect, we held the record for the longest blizzard,

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seventeen days, the one which caught Jones & his depot-laying party.

On my Eastern sledging journey I managed to bring back two dogs alive. This could not have been done had we not fortunately found nesting Snow Petrels on David island. For the last one hundred miles of the journey they were allowed to run free. When we returned to the Base, these two dogs, Amundsen & Zip, were woefully thin & weak, all their ribs showing & backbones sticking up like sharp wedges. At the Base there was an abundance of food for them & they gorged day & night, putting on weight at a surprising rate. When we arrived at Hobart they were as fat as butter.

I gave Amundsen to a friend in Hobart. There happened to be a heat wave on at the time we arrived & the dogs suffered terribly. My friend MacDonald packed ice all around Amundsen’s kennel, but the combination of atmospheric heat & his own fat was too much & he died of heat apoplexy. Zip was taken on to Sydney & given to a lady who kept him for several years. Zip has long been gathered to his fathers but his children down to many generations are still living in & around Sydney. * B2

I spent a very happy holiday in Sydney, making

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making new friends & renewing acquaintance with old ones, amongst the latter was Professor David. The Professor arranged for me to give a lecture to the Royal Society, to which the elite of Sydney were invited. I was the guest of the parents of Harrisson, the Expedition’s wireless expert, & two days before the lecture, the whole family & I went down with ptomaine poisoning. On the day of the lecture I was so ill that I would certainly have remained in bed had it not been for letting Professor David down. I was still deeply tanned from the effects of the Antarctic sun, & nearly all the people to whom I was introduced remarked “My word, you do look well, the Antarctic has not done you any harm." Anyone familiar with ptomaine knows the frightful sudden spasms of intense pain in the stomach. Whilst giving my address I had several of these seizures & had to hang on to the desk on the platform & for some seconds was unable to speak. As I was speaking without notes I have no doubt the audience thought I was at a loss for words. The thing that hurt me the most was having to say “No thank you" to all the delicious refreshments which were provided after the lecture.

It was with great regret that I said “Goodbye" to my comrades & all Australian friends & embarked on the “S.S. Macedonia", the same ship on which I

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had made the outward journey to join the Expedition, & was more than pleased to be warmly greeted by many of the same ship’s company.

In the foregoing pages I have said nothing of the trials & tribulations of Mawson & his party during their second year in the “Home of the Blizzard" nor of the work done by the several sledging parties at the Main Base. Neither have I mentioned anything of the strenuous times experienced by Ainsworth & his party during their two years on Macquarie Island. Full accounts of all this may be found in Mawson’s own book.

The voyage to England on the “Macedonia" was very ordinary, the on thing I can remember worth recording was passing through miles upon miles of dead locusts in the Red Sea; they were so thick that although there was a fresh breeze, the sea was as smooth as though covered by a heavy oil.

Returning from India many years ago on the illfated “Egypt" I had a remarkable experience in the Suez Canal. The tables were all laid for dinner & being in the Canal they were specially laid with all the best glass & other tableware & floral decorations. Just as the bugler was sounding “The Roast Beef of Old England" the ship suddenly gave a tremendous roll to port & everything shot off the

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tables with a terrific crash. I believe hundreds of pounds of damage was done, several passengers & members of the ships company received bruises & one fireman was killed. It appeared that owing to bad steering or a wrong order by the pilot had resulted in the ship running on the bank of the canal. It was several hours before she was hauled off.

For some time after my arrival home I was kept busy writing the story of my experiences on Queen Mary Land to be included in Mawson’s “Home of the Blizzard".

When I named the new land discovered by me & my party “Queen Mary Land" I was ignorant of the fact that I ought first to have obtained permission from Their Majesties to do so. In 1914 I received a message asking me to go to the Royal Geographical Society’s headquarters. Arriving there I was met by three gentlemen, two knights & a commoner, who informed me that I had committed a very grave breach of etiquette in neglecting this most important formality. Some time later I had the honour of an audience with His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Vth. Amongst other questions King George asked was “Where were you when Scott died?" I replied “On Queen Mary Land

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Sir, and I believe I owe you & Her Majesty an apology for so naming it without your permission." The King said “Oh did you think that necessary?" I said “I did not Sir, but I was told it was a gross breach of etiquette not to do so." The King asked sharply “Who told you so?" I gave the names & His Majesty said “You may tell them from me that I was pleased & the Queen was pleased & they know nothing whatever about it." Needless to say I lost no time in conveying the King’s message to the three gentlemen concerned.

During the winter of 1913-1914 I made another extensive lecturing tour. The bugbear of all lectures is the prosy longwinded chairman. Usually the more ignorant the man is the longer he speaks, often making ridiculous false statements that have to be contradicted by the lecturer. When lecturing to a Literary Society in Paisley I was asked would I mind doing without a chairman, & I said I would be delighted. - - I was then told that it been the custom for the members of the Committee to take it in turn to act as chairman. Sir Robert Ball was giving a lecture on the Moon & the man whose turn it was to be chairman swotted up the

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Moon, & spoke for three quarters of an hour, then asked Sir Robert Ball to carry on. Sir Robert rose & said “Mr Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen, I came here tonight with the intention of giving a lecture on the Moon, but as your chairman has already given the lecture nothing remains for me to say but “Goodnight", & walked off the platform.

I have given many hundreds of lectures & have only once been late. This was at a place about twenty miles from Edinburgh & I motored there with friends from Edinburgh. We lost our way & arrived at the lecture hall over an hour late. – To my surprise the audience was still there, & after apologising for my late appearance, I remarked upon this extraordinary patience & was told, “You don’t seem to realise you are in Scotland, these people have paid for their tickets & they want their value."

About the same time that I returned to England after Mawson’s Expedition, Sir Ernest Shackleton commenced preparations for another Antarctic Expedition & asked me to accompany him as his Second in Command. His main object was to cross the Antarctic Continent starting from the Weddell Sea, crossing the Pole & continuing on to the Ross Sea. His intention was to land a party of

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[Margin note] *(who it will be remembered lost an eye on Shackleton’s “Nimrod" Expedition)

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fourteen men in the Weddell Sea area, six to make the Transcontinental journey, three to go westward, three eastward & two to remain at the base. Two ships were necessary to carry out Shackleton’s programme. The “Endurance", a new ship built in Norway specially constructed for Polar work, was to carry the Weddell Sea party, & the “Aurora", bought from Dr Mawson, was to proceed to McMurdo Sound under the command of Aeneas Mackintosh,*

[Note on margin] *(who it will be remembered lost an eye on Shackleton’s “Nimrod" Expedition)

& a party to be landed there two run out food depots as far as the Beardmore Glacier, so that the transcontinental party would be safe as regards food for the last four hundred miles. All details of this Expedition will be found in Shackletons book “South".

Although Shackleton commenced his preparations in the middle of 1913, there was no public announcement until January 1914. Immediately applications to join the expedition came pouring in & amounted in all to nearly 5,000. For a long time I had the task of replying to these. The majority were from totally unsuitable people & I had cards printed “Sir Ernest Shackleton regrets, etc." If any letter appealed to me I showed it to Shackleton, & if he also thought well of it an appointment was made. – Fourteen of these applications were from women, & one was a joint one from two young women &

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was so well written that I made an appointment instead of sending the usual card. Unfortunately Shackleton came to my desk that afternoon & whilst talking was idly turning over the letters & noting this particular one asked “Friend of yours?" I have never been able to tell a lie on the spur of the moment & replied “No; an applicant." Said he “Card I suppose" – I truthfully replied that I had made an appointment, & he said “No you don’t old man, I’m married," so a card had to be sent, & I never saw the fair writers.

Amongst the equipment were two tractors for hauling sledges one driven by an aero propeller & the other a caterpillar. Shackleton had also devised a new type of tent & made considerable alterations in the foodstuffs for sledging parties. These were all taken to Finse in the mountainous part of Norway between Bergen & Oslo. Here a party of us spent a very interesting time testing the tractors, tents & food. For the tent & food test I was put in charge of six men to camp out & make sledge journeys daily over the mountains in the vicinity, the conditions being similar to what we could expect in summer in the Antarctic. We left the hotel after lunch one day & camped about five miles away. The following morning Sir Harry Britten, a volunteer member, deserted & went back to the hotel saying “Your beds are too hard". At the end

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of three days the party was reduced to two, Dobbs & myself, & we stuck it out until recalled by Shackleton. Both the sledge tractors proved satisfactory in their trial runs on a frozen lake near the hotel & altogether the trip was both successful & enjoyable. We returned to England on the S.S. “Eskimo" & one London newspaper said “Sir Ernest Shackleton has returned from Norway bringing with him an Eskimo dog driver."

Shackleton purchased seventy dogs from the Hudson Bay Company & engaged an experienced driver to bring them to England & to accompany the Expedition. Shortly after this man’s arrival he was asking me all about conditions in the Antarctic. When he learnt there were no trees, no moss, no grass, he asked in a surprised tone, “What do the moose live on?" & when I told him there were no moose or any other animals he said “Hell! I’m off back North", & he went.

Shortly before the “Endurance" left London, we were honoured by a visit & inspection by Queen Alexandra, accompanied by Lady Knollys, Lord Fisher & several other distinguished people. Shackleton very kindly allotted to me the duty of guide to the Queen. - After the inspection Her Majesty told Lady Knollys to take a photograph. Everybody fell in on either side & behind the Queen, Shackleton on Her right & Lord Fisher on her left, when just as the picture was

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about to be taken Her Majesty called out “Where is Mr Wild?" I was at the back & replied, & the Queen said “Come here beside me" & pushing Lord Fisher away she took my arm & then commanded the photo to be taken. I felt seven feet tall.

Everything was ready at the end of July & it was arranged for the “Endurance" to proceed to Cowes where His Majesty King George would pay a visit of inspection. These arrangements were upset by the imminence of war. The ship left London on August 1st & put in at Margate. There Sir Ernest heard of the order for general mobilisation. He mustered all hands & said that he proposed to send a wire to the Admiralty offering the ship, stores & our own services. This message was sent & within an hour a reply from the Admiralty arrived with the one word, “Proceed". A little later Mr Winston Churchill wired thanking Shackleton for his offer & saying that the authorities desired the Expedition to go on.

The “Endurance" then sailed to Plymouth & the King sent for Shackleton & gave him a Union Jack to carry on the Expedition, & on Saturday August the 8th the “Endurance" left Plymouth obeying the direct orders of the Admiralty & the King’s Command.

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To save the dogs a long sea voyage in cramped quarters on the “Endurance", Shackleton arranged that they should go to Buenos Ayres on the “La Negra" a 12,000 ton cargo ship carrying a few passengers. - - I travelled in charge, having with me as assistants Sir Daniel Gooch, an old friend of Shackletons, Wordie geologist, & James physicist of the Expedition, & one of the staff from the Hackbridge Dogs Home, where the dogs had been lodged during their stay in England. We all signed on as A.B.s*

[Margin note] *at a shilling a month,

but our duties on board were confined to looking after the dogs & our accommodation was the best on the ship. When we arrived at Buenos Ayres Sir Daniel Gooch insisted on receiving his discharge & shilling, both of which he had framed.

These dogs, huskies, are of great variety, both in appearance & character. They are a mixture of wolf & almost any kind of big dog, Collie, Mastiff, Great Dane, Bloodhound, Newfoundland, Retriever, Airedale, Boarhound, etc. Very few of them are dangerous to man if properly handled, but fight fiercely amongst themselves. When they were embarked in Liverpool the stevedores would not go near them, & Gooch & the dog man (I forget his name) & I had to take them all out of their crates to their kennels on the after well deck of the “La Negra".

The care of the dogs was almost a whole time job;

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at 6 a.m. the stewards served us with tea & at 6.10 I gave the order to turn to. The sailors objected to washing down the dog deck, so that was our first duty, then the dogs were fed & watered, by which time our own breakfast time had arrived. On the second morning after leaving port, the two scientists did not make an appearance, & at 6.30 I went to their cabin to enquire the reason. One of them said “We have not had our tea yet". This being strictly against discipline I put the hose through their port & washed them out & had no subsequent trouble.

After breakfast sick dogs were attended to & each day a few were combed & brushed, then a few at a time were allowed an exercise run. This usually ended in having to separate a mound of fighting dogs. I remember one day all the passengers, about fifteen, were assembled at the rail overlooking the after well deck when a particularly bad fight occurred, in which at least a dozen dogs were involved. The scientists were no good in a fight, & Sir Daniel, the dogman & I were struggling desperately for more than half an hour before we got them all separated & kennelled up. Gasping for breath I happened to look up & saw no passengers. The chief engineer was standing there grinning & I asked “Where are all the passengers?" He replied “If

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you could have heard your own & Sir Daniel’s language you wouldn’t ask."

At 11 a.m. I gave the order “Pipe down" & no more work was done until 6 p.m. when the dogs were watered & fed. Occasionally one or more dogs got loose, when a fight inevitably started. If only one dog was loose, the dogman attended to it, his cabin being conveniently situated, but if more than one he blew his whistle & Gooch & I would go & give a hand. The sailors & firemen prudently gave them a wide berth. *

Arriving at Beunos Ayres we found the “Endurance" already there. The only incidence of importance that had happened on her voyage out appeared to be a clash two of the sailors had with the police in Madeira, the sailors being rather badly mauled.

Shackleton was detained in England for some time after the departure of the “Endurance", & arrived in Buenos Ayres a few days after the “La Negra", & shortly afterwards, October 26th we sailed for South Georgia.

[Margin note] Insert above* There was never a better disciplined A.B. afloat than Sir Daniel Gooch, either in the Royal Navy or the Merchant Service. When I called “Turn to" in the morning he always replied “Aye aye sir", & was the first on duty. He obeyed all orders promptly

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& cheerfully, & some of our work was too filthy to write about. When dogs escaped at night he generally heard the dog man’s whistle, & was on the spot wrestling with the snarling fighting demons before I was. He was possessed of a keen sense of humour & was a delightful companion. When I gave the 11 a.m. order “Pipe down" he usually came to me & saluting ask “Are we off duty now sir?" I would reply in the affirmative when he would bang me on the shoulder & shout “Right you old blighter come & have a spot." As we were generally very dirty at that time the spot was taken in the Chief Engineer’s cabin, he almost without fail having one waiting on the ice./

[Margin note] 9/12/37

Sir Daniel made his final voyage over the Styx some eight years ago, & Moore the Chief Engineer was on the “Belgian Prince" during the Great War when she was torpedoed by an enemy submarine. As the ship was sinking & all hands had taken to the boats, the submarine came up & ordered everybody to come aboard. The boats were then stove in, the life belts taken away, the submarines crew went below & then they submerged. The third engineer happened to be a very powerful swimmer & was picked up many hours after, or the fate of the “Belgian Prince" would never have been known.

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There is a large, fairly wealthy & very friendly British community in Buenos Ayres & during the short time we stayed there we received considerable entertainment. Our officers & scientists played a cricket match against the Hurlingham Sports Club & beat them by one run, but I have always suspected the score was faked in our favour.

The voyage to South Georgia was very pleasant, good weather all the way. We anchored near the wharf of the whaling station in Cumberland Bay, & made quite a long stay there, Shackleton having important structural alterations made to the main deck accommodation which greatly added to our comfort. The dogs were landed & tethered on the side of a hill to along wire hawser which was stretched in lines up & down the hill. Each dog was given room enough to allow him a good run, but not long enough to enable him to fight with his neighbours; the seventy dogs therefore covered a large area. There were numbers of rats on the island & these gave the dogs much sport & excitement but alas! we later found the rats had communicated to the dogs a horrible intestinal worm, which proved fatal to several of them. It was essential for some of us to be near the dogs all the time in case any got loose, & six of us were allowed the use of the station

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hospital which was fairly close to the dog lines, & was at that time empty. Two men were on watch day & night, using a small shelter built in the lines, but the whole party worked together at feeding time. The dogs were fed principally on whale meat & enjoyed it exceedingly. The flesh of the whale forms a large proportion of the diet of the men at these whaling stations. In appearance it is like beef but has a slightly coarser grain & is much more tender. The Norwegians use a lot of it, & I have often wondered why other nations do not follow their example.

The island of South Georgia is mountainous, many peaks rising four to five thousand feet; it is always heavily snow clad & glaciated, the lower slopes only becoming free of snow in the summer months, & these are covered with tussock grass. A stream of thaw water ran past the hospital, & Dr Macklin took a bath in it each morning. I took the temperature of the water which was just below 32°F. What hardy people these Scots are!

Sir Daniel Gooch returned to England from here, & we were all exceedingly sorry to lose him.

When the “Endurance" sailed from South Georgia on December 5th she was heavily laden & had a deck cargo of coal & several tons of whale meat

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hanging in the rigging for dog food. The weather favoured us & on the 7th we met our first pack ice close to the Sandwich Islands. This ice was particularly heavy & gave the ship some bumps. Clearing this we had two days good travelling before again encountering ice. Loose pack kept the officer of the watch on the alert & the man at the wheel busy & on the 14th we ran into heavy pack again, & a heavy gale sprang up & made the ship unmanageable so we hove to under the lee of a very large floe.

All members of the landing party took part in the general working of the ship & some of them made really good sailors. When I was on watch I always liked to have Marston or Macklin at the wheel.

I have not yet introduced the party & I will do so now.
Sir Ernest Shackleton Leader.
(F Wild Second in Command
(Crean In charge of all sledging gear.
(Crean was on both of Scott’s Expeditions & is spoken of very highly by (Scott. On the last of these expeditions he & Lashley saved the life of (Commander Evans (Now Admiral.)
(Clark Biologist
(Hussey Meteorologist
(Hurley Photographer. Was on Mawson’s Expedition
(Wordie Geologist

[Margin note]] Landing Party

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[Margin note] Landing Party
(James Physicist
(Lees In charge of motors & stores.
(Macklin Doctor & bacteriologist
(Marston Artist
(McIlroy Surgeon

[Margin note] Ship’s Crew
Worsley Captain
Hudson Navigator
Greenstreet First Officer
Cheetham Second Officer
Rickinson Chief Engineer
Kerr Second Engineer
Mc Neish Carpenter
Green Cook

There were also eight sailors & firemen, Blackborrow, the youngest man aboard being a stowaway.

We found the Weddell Sea to be much more difficult for navigation than the Ross Sea. A great deal of the pack ice through which we had to force our way, was many years old & from twenty to sixty feet thick. On Xmas Day we were held up by a gale & impenetrable pack, but Green put up a very fine dinner & in the evening we had a concert. On New Year’s Day we had penetrated into the Weddell Sea & had worked through nearly five hundred miles of pack ice.

On the 19th January Coats Land, discovered by Dr

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in 1904 on the “Scotia" Expedition, was sighted & a possible landing place was seen, but this was only 72° 18’ S. latitude & Shackleton was desirous to make a base in Luitpold Land discovered by Filchner in 1912 & nearly three hundred miles further south. New Land was seen & named by Shackleton Caird Coast. Blizzards & exceedingly heavy pack ice made our progress very slow & on several days when we were hopelessly jambed up we took the opportunity of exercising the dogs, taking in ice for fresh water & a number of the party had a game of football on a level floe. Seals & penguins were often seen & a number were killed for food for man & dogs. At this time many of the dogs were ailing & one had to be shot.

There was no summer that year in the Weddell Sea, even in January when temperatures up to & above freezing point may be expected, the thermometer was frequently below zero our lowest being -17°F. On the 20th January we were so closely inclosed by the pack, that no movement was possible, & from the mast head not a sign of open water could be seen. We could see the land we were making for about forty miles away, but so far as effecting a landing was concerned it might as well have been four thousand. Shackleton was of course bitterly disappointed at this

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check to his plans, but for several weeks he was optimistic about being able to get free & I encouraged this feeling as much as possible. Worsley was not always as tactful as might be, & one day early in February Shackleton, Worsley & I were walking around near the ship & coming to a large level floe several hundred yards square Worsley stopped & said “Oh boys, what a jolly fine football ground this will make" Shackleton said “Well Wriggles I have about given up hope of getting out this year but you needn’t rub it in so cheerfully".

As we could do nothing to help ourselves fires were drawn to save coal, & on the 24th February the ordinary ship routine ceased & the Endurance became a winter station. For the past month whenever seals or penguins were seen parties had been sent out to despatch them & bring them in, Worsley usually guiding the parties by signals from the masthead, the ice hummocks being too high to see any distance on the surface. The dogs were put on the ice, their kennels being built in a circle a few yards away from the ship so that they might easily be found in bad weather. They were divided into six teams which were handled by Crean, Masklin, McIloy, Marston, Hurley & myself. By this time we had lost

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fifteen dogs, & post mortems showed that the cause of death was in most cases the worms with which they had been infected from the rats on South Georgia.

The cabins under the poop which were occupied by the officers & scientists were too cold to live in, so all stores were taken from the ‘tween decks, which was made into a living & dining room. The stove which had been intended for the landing party was erected, cubicles built on each side & the place made quite snug. All meals were taken thereafter in the “Ritz" instead of the wardroom, this being fitted up into four cubicles & occupied by myself, Worsley, Crean & Marston. Shackleton alone retained his cabin right aft.

Time was found for recreation as well as work, & many a good game of hockey & football was contested before the sun left us & a few games of football were played by moonlight. During the winter we had chess, draughts, cards, dominoes etc., & it was a rule to hold concerts on Saturday nights & this rule was very seldom broken.

Observations were taken for position as regularly as possible which showed our drift to be North West. Many icebergs were in sight at all times & some of these were a frequent source of anxiety. The pack ice drifts with the wind, but an iceberg two hundred

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& fifty feet high, which is quite common, goes down to a depth of two thousand feet. With all this bulk under water the berg is more affected by currents than by the wind, & often travels in a totally different direction from that taken by the pack ice & tears its way through the latter at a great rate, at times throwing up a churning wave of ice sixty feet high & creating a disturbance for miles. If a ship happened to be in track of one of these monsters she would of course be crushed like an eggshell. Several of them came within a few miles of the Endurance whilst she was frozen in, so close that we could here the thunderous roar of the crushing pack ice & sometimes feel a tremor.

After the dogs were trained trips were made to icebergs that were within easy distance, for the sake of the geologist & photographer. The training of a team of dogs requires much patience. I was nearly three months training my own team, but at the end of that time I could sit on the sledge & drive in any direction by word of mouth & for days at a time had no occasion to use the whip. My leader was a bloodhound & wolf cross, named Soldier because of his red coat, & he could follow a month old track with a foot of snow over it. Numbers of times I have taken the team out seven or eight miles,

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then given the order “Home Soldier" & have actually gone to sleep on the sledge & wakened up to find myself along side the ship. The dogs loved these trips & when they saw their drivers approaching with the harness they would jump around & yelp & tremble with excitement.

On May 1st the sun left us & at that time Shackleton wrote in his diary; “One feels our helplessness as the long winter night closes on us. By this time, if fortune had smiled on the Expedition, we would have been comfortably & securely established in a shore base, with depots laid to the south, & plans made for the long march in the spring & summer. Where will we make a landing now? Time alone will tell. I do not think any member of the Expedition is disheartened by our disappointment. All hands are cheery & busy, & will do their best when the time for action comes."

On the 15th May we held the “Antarctic Derby" in which all dog teams took part. The course was under half a mile & was run against time, as it was impossible to find a course free enough of pressure & hummocks for the teams to run abreast. Mine was the lightest team but was the favourite & the bookies had a bad day, as my time two minutes nineteen seconds was ten seconds

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better than any other. Hurley had a heavy team & challenged me to another race with seven dogs & a load of 910 lbs or 130 lbs a dog this to include a passenger. Again I was the favourite & this time my time was two minutes nine seconds against Hurleys two minutes thirty seconds, but I was disqualified as my passenger, Shackleton, fell off ten yards from the winning post. He was most disgusted with himself & insisted on paying all bets.

During the winter we were frequently visited by blizzards which kept us aboard, the worst one lasting from the 13th to 16th July with a low temperature -21° to -35°F. During this blow we had our first serious alarm from pressure. Many time in the past we had heard the roar of distant pressure, & had seen ridges formed of huge blocks ten to thirty feet thick thrown up to a height of fifty or sixty feet, but none nearer than a mile until now, when a huge ridge formed three hundred yards away & the ship was severely shaken.

The breakup of the actual floe in which we were embedded came exactly a year after the Endurance left London, August 1st. Shackleton ordered all dogs & sledges to be brought on board, as the ice was cracking close to the ship & masses were being

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driven under the keel, giving the ship a heavy list to starboard. The turmoil continued all day, the ship lifting several feet at times & listing over one way after the other. The sight of this ice battle around us was most impressive; huge blocks as big as houses squeezed slowly into the air & sometimes giving a jump like an orange pip or cherry stone squeezed between thumb & finger. We knew that if we actually got in the line of pressure nothing could save us. A heavy gale was blowing from the south & on the 3rd August an observation showed that we had made a good drift to the north. By this time the pressure had quietened down & we were able to see that the rudder was seriously damaged.

During the month of August we drifted close past charted position of Morell Land but saw no sign of it, & soundings showed a fairly uniform depth of nearly two thousand fathoms. The sun had now returned & as we had no pressure alarms for some time, the training & exercising of the dogs was resumed. September was almost gone before another serious upheaval, though towards the end of the month we could see & hear approaching pressure, & on the 30th we found ourselves badly caught. The

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The ship shuddered bent & groaned like a living thing, & just when it seemed she must be crushed she lifted & for some hours rode on the top of the ice until the pressure eased & allowed her to settle back into the water.

All through October these attacks were frequent & on one occasion the Endurance was lifted 12 feet & thrown onto her side on the top of the ice, all within five seconds. She remained high & dry at an angle of about 40° for eight hours. Dinner was amusing, the diners sitting on deck with their feet against the bulkheads. At 8 p.m. the ice opened & the ship settled back into the water, having suffered no damage. On the 24th the ship was again very roughly handled & it was evident that the end was not far distant, a bad leak had started & was barely kept under by the bilge pumps, steam had been raised that morning.

Shackleton writes “I scarcely dared to hope any longer that the “Endurance" would live, & during that anxious day I reviewed all my plans for the sledging journey which we would have to make if we had to take to the ice. Stores, dogs, sledges & equipment were ready to be moved from the ship at a moment’s notice. The morning of the 26th

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was bright & clear, but the roar of the pressure continued. At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure developed, with twisting strains which racked the ship fore & aft. The planking was opened four to five inches on the starboard side, & at the same time we could see the ship bending like a bow under titanic pressure. Almost like a living creature she resisted the forces that would crush her: but it was a one sided battle. Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon her. She was now leaking badly & at 9 p.m. I gave the order to lower boats, gear provisions & sledges to the floe, & move them to the flat ice a little way from the ship."

“The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4 p.m. on the 27th. The ship was hove up by the pressure, & the driving floe, moving laterally across the stern, split the rudder & tore out the rudder post & stern post. Then, while we watched the ice loosened & the Endurance sank a little. The decks were breaking upwards & the water was pouring in below & I ordered all hands on to the ice. At last the twisting grinding floes were working their will on the ship. It was a sickening sensation to feel the decks breaking up under one’s feet, the great beams bending & snapping with a noise of heavy gunfire."

The Endurance sank until her upper deck was two

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feet under water & then the ice pierced her sides & held her from sinking further. Masses of ice then rode over the decks carrying away the bulwarks & rigging & down came the masts. By this time all the stores had been taken to flat ice about one hundred yards from the ship, & as we started to pitch a camp the ice commenced to split & crush under us & all gear had to be rushed across heaving ice to a bigger floe a quarter of a mile away. Here the tents were erected, but at midnight had to be hurriedly taken down & everything moved again, as the ice had broken under us. At daybreak, about 2 a.m. Shackleton, who had been pacing up & down all night, called Hurley & myself & we went over to the wreck & secured a tin of petrol, which we used to make a hot drink for all hands; this was passed into the various tents. It is to be supposed the men were all cold & miserable & perhaps might be excused, but the fact remains that no one said “Thank you" so I called “Now if any of you gentlemen would like your boots cleaned, pass them outside".

Our position at this time was 69° 5’ S. latitude & 51° 30’ West Longitude. We were nearly six hundred miles from where we first became frozen in, but had drifted probably nearer fifteen hundred miles. Paulet Island was the nearest point where we could

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find food & shelter, a small hut having been left there by a Swedish Expedition in 1902.*

[Margin note:] *This was three hundred & forty six miles from the position of the Endurance when she was crushed.

Shackleton mustered all hands & explained the position, & stated that he intended to march to Paulet Island, & then gave orders to move the camp to a larger & stronger floe where all preparations for the long trek were made. Shackleton & I went out to pioneer a road & at 3 p.m. on the 30th October a start was made. One small party had to go ahead with picks & shovels to break a road through the pressure ridges, & less frequently fill in cracks or small leads. The boats were the main trouble, each one with its gear & sledge weighing over a ton. The sledges were the point of weakness & they had to be very carefully handled to prevent them smashing up over the rough ice. On their account much more road making had to be done than would have been necessary for ordinary sledge loads.

With three boats & ten sledge loads of provision & stores it was impossible to take every thing on at once, & relay work was the only thing possible. Hurley & I harnessed our two teams of dogs to the heaviest boat & with the assistance of four men to steer the sledge & prevent capsizing we got on

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better than the eighteen men who were hauling the other boats. Our fourteen dogs worked splendidly. Worsley was in charge of the party hauling the second & third boat, bringing them along a few hundred yards one at a time. The other dog teams relayed the ordinary sledges.

Our nett gain on that first day’s march was one mile, but the necessary deviations made the distance travelled nearly two miles, & relay work brought this up to six miles. The ice on which we camped that night was not more than two feet thick, but was the only smooth unbroken patch to be found. Killer whales were blowing in the cracks all around, but fortunately did not attempt to attack us.

The next day again we only made one mile to the good. The snow was very soft & at times we sank to the hips. The pressure ridges were more frequent & at 5 p.m. all hands & the dogs were played out, & Shackleton decided to find a solid floe & camp there until conditions were more favourable. A suitable heavy floe was found the following day & all our gear was moved on to it.

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This floe was from twenty to thirty feet in thickness, & nearly a mile square when we pitched camp upon it, but during the two months we stayed there it split up into a much smaller area. This camp received the name of “Ocean Camp".

When this sledging started we were only carrying valuable sledging rations & Shackleton decided to save these for the boat journey that would inevitably have to be made, & live as much as possible on seals & penguins. He also sent me with a party to the ship to endeavour to retrieve more food from her.

I found the Endurance in the same position, with the upper deck two feet under water. A fireman’s slice, a heavy iron bar with a flat end three inches broad, had luckily been left in the poop which was above water. The flat end was sharpened & we rigged a small derrick over that part of the deck which covered the store room & then drove the weighty chisel up & down until a hole was made through the deck large enough for food cases to be extracted. As we were striking blind through two feet of ice & water this took many hours, & after a whole day’s work we only retrieved

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about half a dozen cases. Light cases such as biscuits & flour floated up, the first to appear being Callard & Bowser’s butter scotch.

Day after day I returned to the ship & altogether salved over two tons of food stuff. Those cases that were too heavy to float were brought up by stabbing them with a boathook, & as nearly all the contents were in tins inside the wooden box, only a small portion of the contents were damaged by the salt water.

When abandoning ship & selecting stores I asked the doctors if it was necessary to take any alcohol for medicinal purposes; they assured me that they had drugs in the medicine chest for all purposes & consulting with Shackleton it was thought advisable to leave it behind. I knew that McIlroy’s birthday was on the 3rd October, so I smuggled one bottle of whisky amongst my kit, & on that night arranged for a select party in my tent & triumphantly produced the prize.

Many other useful loads of material were taken over to Ocean Camp, amongst these was an ash shoot which Hurley converted into a blubber stove, & all food was cooked on this during the whole of our stay on the ice. The wheel house was taken away almost intact, & made an

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excellent shelter for the cook. A quantity of timber & spars were used to build a look out platform about twenty five feet high, & this proved most useful for spotting seals & penguins.

As the amount of food saved from the wreck would only last about three months even on very short rations, every seal or penguin that was sighted was killed. Worsley had wonderful eyesight & spent many hours on the lookout. Whenever he reported a seal or seals, one or more sledges were immediately sent out. If the seals were Crab-eaters I shot them as they are very lively, but if Weddell seals they were clubbed, this kind being very tame & sluggish. The Crab-eaters average about eight feet six inches in length & weigh about five hundred pounds, & the Weddell from nine to eleven feet & from six to eight hundred pounds. On these hunting trips the sledges were usually man hauled as there were many open cracks & unsafe places for dogs.

Shackleton personally supervised the issuing of food & was remarkably clever in devising varieties in these days. Later on, when there was nothing but flesh to eat, little variation was possible. The serving of food to the different messes was done by the cook for some time, but there were

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complaints made that he was not impartial, so Shackleton gave me that duty. There were five tents, No 1, Shackleton Hudson Hurley & James, No 2 Wild, Wordie, McNeish & McIlroy, No 3, the eight forward hands, No 4 Crean, Hussey, Marston & Cheetham, No 5 Worsley, Greenstreet, Lees, Clark, Rickenson, Kerr, Macklin & Blackborrow, the last named being the stowaway & the youngest man of the party. Every man, Shackleton included, took his turn as messman for the day, his duty being to keep the tent swept, bring in food & wash up the one pot which was used for carrying in the food. No water being available the pots were scoured out with snow. Each man had an aluminium mug, spoon & sheath knife, but no plates had been saved. These were improvised from empty tins or pieces of venesta wood.

Hunting parties went out every day except when blizzards were blowing. When confined to our tents we occupied ourselves in mending clothes or boots & playing cards. Cards were only popular when the temperature was fairly high, as it is almost impossible to deal & handle them with gloves on. A few books had been saved including a portion of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica". Hussey had managed to save his

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banjo upon which he was a very good performer, & on Saturday nights we continued to hold the usual concert, unaccompanied now by liquid refreshment.

On every clear day Worsley took observations for position, & it was soon conclusively proved that the drift of the ice was due almost entirely to the wind. For this reason strong southerly winds were welcomed although they frequently brought snow & low temperatures. The first few days at Ocean Camp were cold & miserable & on November 6th no one left the shelter of the tents unless compelled to do so. The drift was so thick that it was difficult to find one’s way from the tents to the cook house. Green, the cook proved himself a real hero, & never failed to have a meal ready on time. When this blow was over, Worsley informed us that we had travelled twenty two miles north in three days, this announcement was greeted with loud cheers.

All hands were soon aware of the fact that our drift was dependent upon the wind, & Hussey, the meteorologist was constantly pestered for a weather forecast.

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On November 21st Shackleton was on the look out platform & everybody else in the tents, when we heard him shout “She’s going boys!" Running out we were just in time to see the stem of the “Endurance" rise & then a quick dive & all was over. Shackleton told me later it was the saddest moment of his life, but none of that showed in his demeanour, & to all appearances he was his usual cheery self. I felt as though I had lost an old friend, & I think all hands had a similar feeling.

The end of November & nearly the whole of December were bad days. The temperature was so high, frequently only just below freezing point, that our sleeping bags were soaked, & the snow surface was so soft that walking was difficult, every step being knee deep & frequently thigh deep. Many of the party showed signs of depression, & Shackleton increased the food ration, which had a good effect. He also asked me what I thought of another attempt at sledging & I agreed with him that a spell of hard work would do everybody good.

Accordingly on December 20th Shackleton

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announced that he meant to try another march to the west to reduce the distance from Paulet Island. This caused quite a lot of excitement, everybody being anxious to move. The next day Shackleton, Crean, Hurley & I, with dog teams, went out to survey a road. We found it difficult but possible, & marking out the easiest route for seven miles we returned to camp.

The 22nd December was kept as Christmas Day, & all nonessential foodstuffs were apportioned out by lot to the different tents. I well remember that amongst other things our tent received a bottle of Heinz’s pearl onions. We had a real solid blow out, little dreaming that out next really good meal was eight months distant.

There is no darkness in those latitudes at this time of the year, & a start was made the next day at 3 a.m. & afterwards we travelled at night instead of in the daytime, as the sun being lower at night the surface was harder. Each morning after all hands had turned in, Shackleton & I went ahead for two miles to reconnoitre the best route.

On Christmas day we wished each other a Merry Christmas as we ate our dinner of

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sealmeat & blubber & some stale thin damper made of flour & water & fried in blubber
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After seven days of the hardest imaginable labour, nearly always sinking knee deep in the soft snow, cutting away hummocks & ridges to make it possible to get the boats & sledges along, we found were stopped by ice so terribly broken & pressed up that it was impossible to proceed any further. The total result of this killing work was an advance in a straight line of seven & a half miles, & as the nearest land was over 300 hundred miles distant, & Worsley’s observations showed that the drift had carried us further away than when we started, it was no use continuing the struggle. A strong old floe was chosen & a camp made which was named Patience Camp, an appropriate name it proved, as we had to remain there for three & a half months.

During one march, Crean fell into a crack that was snow covered & was totally immersed. There was a keen wind & 10° of frost & the water temperature was about 30° Fahr. (Salt water freezes at 28.3°F.) He stripped under the lee of a boat, a very poor shelter & we hastily

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unpacked some of our kit bags & fitted him out as quickly as possibly from various member’s spares, but he was almost paralysed before he was reclothed, & was some time before he recovered from the shock.

By this time our supply of food was very short, & our meals had to consist mainly of seals & penguins, & except when the weather prevented it, parties were sent out daily. There were many blank days & our rations were cut down until just sufficient to keep us alive, & very much against his feelings, Shackleton ordered the dogs to be shot. This duty fell upon me, & was the worst job I ever had in my life; I have known many men I would rather shoot than the worst of the dogs. I knew everyone of them well, & though some were much more loveable characters than others I had a great affection for every one. These dogs vary in disposition as much as men do. A few had to be whipped to work, & some must not be whipped or they would lie down & cry. Some would make the most delightful pets, but petting is taboo, as if one is made any fuss of, the remainder become jealous, & will kill him at the first opportunity. When a fight starts they must be separated

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as they always fight to a finish, & the loser is killed & torn to pieces. They seldom attack men, but if they do they must be hit hard & quickly, as many of them weigh well over a hundred pounds; our heaviest was one hundred & thirty eight, & a fight with a dog of that size is a very serious matter. Dr Macklin was bitten in the arm by one of his team, but his was the only serious injury.

The shortage of seals & penguins meant not only an insufficiency of food, but as the only fuel was blubber & penguin skins, there were many days when we were unable to afford more than one hot drink a day. Some of the dogs were eaten, & though far from fastidious, I think their flesh was the nastiest I have ever tasted & the toughest.

One day I heard Lees yelling for help & running out from the tent, saw he was being chased by a huge sea leopard, & seizing the rifle I shot it. When it was cut up, there were twenty two undigested fish inside it which gave us the only fish dinner we had for many months.

When open leads occurred near Patience Camp sea leopards were sometimes seen swimming about & I got three on different occasions

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by pretending to be a penguin. I stooped down near the water waving my arms up & down like flippers, & the sea leopard came charging at a terrific rate through the water & shot out onto the ice. I ran back a few yards so that if the first shot was not fatal I would have time for another before the beast could escape, but on each occasion the first shot was successful. One of these was sixteen feet in length & had the remains of thirteen Adelie penguins inside him. These penguins weigh about twelve pounds, which will give some idea of the enormous appetite of a sea leopard.

On the 18th January a heavy blizzard came up from the south west & lasted six days. We were horribly uncomfortable in our wet sleeping bags & flimsy tents, but none grumbled, as everyone knew the wind was driving us rapidly north. When the next observations were taken, we found this storm had carried us eighty four miles. The great drawback of the frequent blizzards & thick weather, was the impossibility of hunting & our food rations were woefully inadequate.

One morning Crean called me to say he

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had seen a seal only about 150 yards away, & I rushed out with the rifle ordering some of the others to bring a sledge. Visibility was bad, at most fifty yards, but presently Crean pointed out the seal, partially hidden behind some ice hummocks & not more than thirty yards distant. I levelled the rifle, a 44 Winchester with carrying a flat nosed soft bullet, & was actually pressing the trigger when the seal rose upright & to our horror proved to be one of the scientists who, being of a modest nature, had chosen this spot instead of our usual retiring shelter.

By February 22nd we were eighty miles from Paulet Island, & praying that the ice would carry us there as we knew that a hut & provisions had been placed there in 1904 by a party in search of the Nordenskjold Expedition. Strangely enough Shackleton had fitted out this expedition. However the fates willed otherwise & by the middle of March we were level with the island, but sixty miles east, & for all the chance we had of reaching it over that tumbled sea of ice, it might as well have been 1000 miles away.

Practically the whole of March was stormy

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& miserable. For days at a time it was impossible to move from our tents, & our floe, which had been nearly a mile square when we first made our camp on it, had gradually chr cracked up until only about 200 yds across. Several times we had to scramble out when a crack appeared through the camp, & in the darkness shift tents & haul boats over the crack in order to keep everything together. It was a remarkable thing that these alarms always occurred at night. There is no meteorological, scientific or other reason for this, it was just sheer cussedness.

During this period Shackleton had a severe attack of sciatica, & for several days could not leave his sleeping bag without assistance. This was the only time whilst we were on the floe that he failed to visit each tent, even during blizzards, to make enquiries as to every man’s health & comfort.

After our disappointment in passing so far from Paulet Island we began to look out for Clarence or Elephant Islands about 100 miles north, & on April 7th the former came into view. By this time a distinct swell was running through the pack ice

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& our camping site was becoming rapidly smaller & on April 8th Sunday the end came. I had a much greater knowledge of the ways & vagaries of pack ice than any other member of the party, & for months I had been actually dreading the time coming when we would have to take to the boats, but I did not of course communicate my fears to anyone else. Almost every time I had entered or left pack ice, the outer edge was in the utmost confusion, masses of ice weighing hundreds to thousands of tons heaving up & down & churning against each other with a continuous thundering roar, making it exceedingly dangerous to enter or leave even with a well built wooden ship specially constructed for the purpose. How much more hazardous then to escape with three frail boats, the largest of which was only 21 ft long the other two being 18ft 6".

However, as it turned out my fears were groundless. At one o’clock that day our floe cracked across again right through our camp, & then slowly opened up leaving us sufficient room to launch the boats & row through lanes to a pool of open water about a mile distant. By this time darkness was setting in, & we set about

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looking for a camping place, & soon found a large flat piece, probably twenty feet thick & roughly fifty yards square. The boats were hauled up & tents pitched, & soon the blubber stove was going. After our meal watches were set & the remainder of the party turned in.

Shackleton was unable to sleep, &, after an hour or so in his sleeping bag, he went out to have a look around, & as he was approaching the men’s tent an extra heavy swell split the floe under the tent. Before the tent was down & all the men clear the crack had widened to four feet & it was then found that one man was in the water. Being fastened up in his sleeping bag he was helpless. Shackleton threw himself down at the ice edge, & was able to grasp the bag & hauled bag & man on to the floe just as the crack closed again. As the man, Holmes, was being helped out of his bag he was asked was he alright? he replied “Yes, but I lost a ---- tin of tobacco. When told he ought to be thankful to be alive he said “So I am but that doesn’t bring the tobacco back." The crack again opened dividing the camp, & when all tents & boats had been hauled over on/to one piece it was found that Shackleton had been left

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on the wrong side of the crack, which was now so wide that he was out of sight. I at once ordered the lightest boat to be launched & in a few minutes rescued Shackleton & brought him back. He said afterwards he had never felt so lonely in his life. Further sleep was out of the question & immediately there was sufficient daylight the boats were launched & we pulled away to the north through the leads to open water.

The boats were named after some of the principal supporters of the expedition. In the “James Caird" which was the largest, were Shackleton, myself & nine others. Worsley was in charge of the “Dudley Docker" with eight others & the “Stancombe Wills" carried the remaining eight, Hudson & Crean in charge.

When we left the shelter of the pack, we found a strong breeze blowing & heavy spray came aboard. The spray froze as it fell, & in a very short time men & gear were covered with a thick coating of ice. Baling was impossible & the ice had to be chipped off with knives & ice axes. It was plain that in a few hours we should founder, so Shackleton gave the order to return to the pack. Soon after arriving in comparatively smooth water a

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a small iceberg was seen with a slope running down on one side to sea level. The age of an iceberg can be calculated by the stratification. This one was evidently several hundreds of years old so Shackleton decide, as all hands were cold, tired & sorely in need of sleep, to haul up the boats & camp. He said to me, “It would be too unkind if that thing chose this particular night to break up". It did not break up, but during the night the swell increased & the berg began to rock like a cradle, & the fear that it might capsize drove away all thought of sleep. When daylight came it was seen that the pack had closed around us, huge pieces dashing & grinding against the berg, making it quite impossible to launch the boats. Late in the afternoon an opening occurred & the boats were rushed into the water. There were several narrow escapes from being crushed before we finally emerged into more open water, by which time darkness had again fallen, heavy snow squalls limiting our vision to a few yards.

This was a bad night, we could not find a suitable floe to on to which we might safely haul the boats & as we were afraid we might lose each other in the darkness

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the boats were made fast to each other by the painters, & drifted all night about twenty yards apart. Every few minutes lumps of ice had to be poled off, & killer whales were blowing all around. These beasts were the cause of great anxiety, as they might have come up under one of the boats, or have give gone over one of the painters, in the latter case their twenty to thirty tons weight would have pulled two boats under water; so one man in each boat was standing by all night with an axe ready to cut the painter.

At dawn the wind dropped & we commenced rowing to the westward, our object at this time being Deception Island, where there was a food depot. There was also a church built of wood, which we thought might be used to build a more seaworthy craft than our tiny boats. There was also a chance that one or whales might still be there. At 8 a.m. the boats were made fast to a solid flat floe & the cook & cooker put on it. In a short time a meal was prepared. In the meantime all hands were able to run round & ease their cramped limbs, with the exception of one in each boat to prevent them bumping against the floe or each other.

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It was amazing how this hot meal improved the condition of all. Several of the party had to be helped out of the boats, but the hot soup & seal meat soon put new life into them.

The sun was now up & partially dried our outer garments & melted the ice from our beards. After breakfast all sails were set & the westerly course resumed. For three days now the wind had been easterly & the general opinion was that at least fifty miles of westing had been made.

At noon Worsley got a sight & Shackleton told me to take our boat over to him. The result was most disappointing. Instead of making west, the observations showed that we were thirty miles east of our position on the 9th when we first launched the boats; Shackleton did not announce this bad news to the party but simply said we had not made such good progress as expected.

The nearest land now was Hope Bay at the northern end of Graham Land eighty miles distant, & as the wind was foul for Elephant Island it was decide to try for Hope Bay.

At dusk the boats were made fast to a floe but a nasty choppy sea was running & it was

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impossible to effect a landing with the blubber stove, & a makeshift meal was made in each boat over the primus lamps. During the night a sudden shift of wind forced us to cast off, & until dawn the boats were kept together by means of the painters, some of the men in each boat rowing to keep head on to the sea. The temperature was 36° below freezing point & every few minutes the oars had to be hauled in to chip of the accumulation of ice which made them too heavy to handle. Our outer clothing was like a heavy suit of armour with no joints.

The sky was clear at dawn on the 13th April & it was evident that the pack was too heavy to penetrate in the direction of Hope Bay. The wind had shifted & was now fair for Elephant Island, which was about 100 miles distant, & Worsley & I agreed with Shackleton that this was our best hope, the majority of the party looking seriously exhausted & several becoming light headed.

The sea was too rough for a hot breakfast to be prepared, but Shackleton gave permission for all hands to eat as much as possible,

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Many of the party were unable to take advantage of this owing to seasickness.

With a fair wind we made good progress through the pack, & at noon we suddenly found ourselves in the open sea, but by no means more comfortable, the sea rapidly becoming more rough as the shelter of the ice was left behind & more & more water coming aboard. I had early discovered that I had no one in my boat except Shackleton who could be trusted at the tiller, & as he was fully occupied by the general supervision of the fleet, I was at the tiller the whole time we were moving.

That night a sea anchor was made with oars & a sail & the boats were kept together by the painters, & a dreadful night it was. At least half of the party were insane, fortunately not violent, simply helpless & hopeless. Again Shackleton’s marvellous powers of fortitude, unselfishness & consideration for others were shown. From this time until our landing he looked after those helpless men, just as though they were babes in arms, & all mothers will understand what I mean.

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Our worst privation was the lack of water; we had left the ice unexpectedly suddenly & had neglected to take a stock on board, & without ice we could have no hot food or drink. We tried eating raw frozen seal meat but this was so salt that it increased our thirst.

When daylight came we saw Elephant Island on the bearings worked out by Worsley but still a long forty miles distant. McIlroy reported from the “Stancombe Wills" that Blackborrow’s feet were badly frostbitten. All that day we battled on through a heavy sea, & my boat made much worse weather of it as the
“Stancombe Wills" was so slow that she had to be taken in tow. For two nights & two days I sat at the tiller & I cannot help quoting from Shackleton’s book where he says, “Always, while I attended to the other boats, signalling & ordering, Wild sat at the tiller of the “James Caird." He seemed unmoved by fatigue & unshaken by privation."

The night of the 14th was the worst I have ever known. A heavy sea was running, & spray after spray flew over the boats, driven by the gale with cutting force. In addition to

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the spray, there was almost constant snow which hid the land for which we were making, &, as I could not see the compass, steering had to be done by the wind. As hour after hour passed I began to fear the wind had changed & we were sailing in the wrong direction.

About 3 a.m. Shackleton was attending to one of the semi-conscious men & asked me some question. Peering ahead through my sore & bloodshot eyes I had just at that moment caught a glimpse of a moonlit glacier on Elephant Island, & instead of replying to the question I said as plainly as I was able with swollen & aching tongue & throat, “I can see it! I can see it!" By the time Shackleton turned, the island was obscured again, & he afterwards told me he had a momentary dread that “poor old Wild’s gone off his head."

Shortly after this I told the carpenter, who was attending to the sheet, to take the tiller for a while so that I could rest my eyes. We changed places but in less than two minutes the boat breached to & a heavy sea came aboard, the ice cold water giving another shock to our already soaked & shivering bodies, &

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I had to resume my place at the tiller. The boat towing astern also had suffered, but the shouts of alarm from her were really a relief to me, as they proved that at least some of her crew were still alive. Nothing had been seen for many hours of the “Dudley Docker" & we could only hope she was still afloat.

At 7 a.m. just as the first sign of dawn appeared, I felt the sea become much less heavy, & I guessed we had got under the lee of the land or an iceberg, when suddenly the snow cleared, & right ahead apparently only a few hundred yards distant, appeared an enormous cliff, thousands of feet high, the top invisible in the clouds. I immediately altered course to starboard, let go the painter of the “Stancombe Wills" & yelled to them to take to the oars & follow us. It was soon obvious that the cliffs were at least a mile distant, & the boats were headed closer to try to find a landing place. Shackleton’s tongue & throat were so swollen that he could only whisper & his orders were passed on either by Hurley or myself, when, joy of joys, the boats ran into a field of ice fragments which had

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fallen from a glacier. Millions of pieces from the size of marbles to footballs. All the sick men came to life, & eager hands were thrust over the side. I don’t remember ever tasting anything more delicious than the first piece of ice.

For twelve miles the coast proved to be impossible for landing, cliffs & glacier faces rising perpendicularly from the sea for many hundreds of feet. At 9 a.m. at the north east end of the island a narrow beach was sighted at the foot of the cliffs, partially sheltered from the sea by an outlying fringe of rocks. Not an ideal landing place, but it was land, &, as another twelve hours at sea would most certainly have killed at least half the party, the boats were headed in.

Shackleton called the “Stancombe Wills" alongside & boarded her as she was the lightest boat, & ran her on the rocky beach; & just then the “Dudley Docker" was sighted, which was a great relief to our leader. With extreme difficulty, largely owing to the extreme weakness of the men, the boats were hauled above high water mark, oars being used as rollers.

When I was satisfied the tide was ebbing

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& the boats were safe, I went to join Shackleton & found him standing looking at a most pathetic sight. Many of the men were reeling about exactly as though under the influence of alcohol, roaring with laughter, filling their pockets with stones, & some of them rolling amongst the shingle, burying their faces in it & pouring handfuls over themselves. Here I feel I must quote from Shackleton’s account: “I remember that Wild came ashore as I was looking at the men, & stood beside me as easy & unconcerned as if he had stepped out of his car for a stroll in the park."

The first thing to be landed was the blubber stove; an unfortunate seal was lying near, & in a very short time a hot drink was ready. The effect was wonderful. When we landed not more than six of the twenty-eight were able to do much in the way of work, but after the drink & a meal of seal meat all except two were fit to take part in landing stores, hauling up boats & erecting tents, etc.

It was not until 3 p.m. that all this was done & the men able to turn in & all this

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time good old Green was kept busy at the stove. Before we turned in Shackleton, Worsley, Hurley & I inspected the beach, & found that at spring tides & in heavy gales the whole place would be under water. However, a sleep was imperative, & it was decided to spend at least the one night here. This was the 15th April, & since the break of the ice on the 8th Shackleton had not attempted to close his eyes. I had a few minutes doze on the night of the 9th before the floe split up on which we were camped & Worsley admitted to a few hours sleep during that nightmare of a week.

The next day broke bright & clear & all hands were soon busy spreading sleeping bags & clothing to dry. Shackleton ordered me to pick a boat’s crew to explore to the west in the hope of finding a safer camping ground. I chose Marston, Crean, Vincent & McCarthy & we got away in the “Stancombe Wills" at 11 a.m. The coast line was indented by many fairly deep bays & as it was necessary to examine all of them our progress was slow. No possible abiding place was seen until we were seven miles to the west, when we

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found a spit of land running out from the cliffs. It was something like Chisel Beach at Portland on a smaller scale. Two hundred yards long & seventy wide & at the outer end a piece of land a hundred feet high. This had steep cliffs except in one spot, where a well worn path led to the top. There was probably half an acre of moderately level stony ground, used by the Gentoo penguins as a rookery, several hundred birds were still there although so late in the season. In comparison with our present site this looked a paradise, especially as a few seals & young sea elephants were basking on the beach, & after a hasty meal we started on the return journey. The tide was evidently against us & it was 8 p.m. when we sighted a blubber flare which Shackleton had ordered to be lit for our guidance.

The breaking up of the camp, restowing & launching the boats the following morning took a long time, & some of the men were inclined to grumble at leaving the safety of solid land to face the horrors of another boat journey; it was near noon when a

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start was made. Almost immediately a strong gale blew up & I am certain no man of the party will forget that trip. Although we kept as near inshore as possible all hands were quickly soaked to the skin by the flying spray & even the men at the oars felt the cold severely. The “Dudley Docker was pulling only three oars, as we had unfortunately broken several when using them as rollers to haul up & launch the boats, & she was driven out to sea.

It was getting dark when the beach we were making for suddenly loomed ahead out of the driving spume, & a few minutes later my boat & the “Stamcombe Wills" were driven up onto the beach. It was not possible to haul them high enough until they were unloaded. & to do this we had to stand from thigh to waist deep in the surf, the temperature of the water being well below freezing point for fresh water. Rickinson, the chief engineer, fainted before this work was finished & others were almost too exhausted to stand. Just as the last boat had been hauled clear of high water mark the “Dudley Docker" struggled in. Worsley had been fortunate enough to

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gain the shelter of an outlying rock, where the crew rested until their aching arms had recovered sufficiently to make another attempt. Without this temporary relief that boat’s crew would assuredly have been lost.

In this raging storm & darkness this spit of land (afterwards named Cape Wild) did not look half so hospitable as when I had seen it in bright sunshine the day before. However, we succeeded in getting the blubber stove lit, partially sheltered behind some large rocks, & after a hot meal decided it was not such a bad place after all.

In the “Sailing Directions", a book carried by all mariners, Elephant Island was described as “An island thirty miles by twelve rising precipitously to a height of 8,000 feet, but with many low lying beaches covered with tussock grass & swarming with seals, sea elephants, penguins & sea birds." No one had ever landed on it before us, & we had found the beaches & tussock grass conspicuous by their absence, & before we were rescued we were to go very hungry for many weeks on account of the scarcity of seals, sea elephants

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or any other form of life.

The gale increased that night to hurricane force, & the tents which we had hurriedly erected in the darkness, were all flattened out, the pole of Shackleton’s tent striking Hudson a heavy blow on the hip. Though he said little about it at the time, this was the cause of much suffering to him later on. Hudson was the navigating officer & was familiarly called “Buddha", as he had served in the B.I. boats & spent a lot of time in India. Another catastrophe that night was the complete destruction of the eight-man tent, & when daylight appeared it was found that two bags of spare clothing had been left too near the sea & an extra large wave had carried them away; a most serious loss.

The gale continued with thick driving snow, & some shelter had to be found for the men who had lost their tent. It was too badly ripped up for repair, so the “Dudley Docker" was turned upside down & lashed to rocks to prevent it being blown away. One side propped up on boulders, & then the opening closed with rocks & snow until only a hole large enough for ingress & egress remained.

This day, April 18th, was my birthday & though

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I have spent many tough ones in my life, this was without doubt the worst ever. Almost the whole day was spent under our flattened tents, in soaking clothing & sleeping bags. Shackleton got the cook out, & the two of them with great difficulty made a rough shelter for the blubber stove, cooked a hot stew & passed it around to each tent. This was entirely unexpected, but all the more appreciated, & this time the recipients did not neglect to say “Thank you."

Although the gale continued the following day much necessary work had to be done. Some sort of shelter had to be made for the cook, Green, who cannot be praised too highly. A circle of rocks was built as much under the lee of the cliff as possible & a sail secured over the top. This did not prevent swirling eddies of snow finding the way in. Then the boats had to hauled farther up the beach, & the tents re-erected, oars & masts being used for this purpose, & sorry enough habitations they were. Whilst these tasks were being accomplished, several men were knocked down by the wind, & some were cut & bruised by flying lumps of hard snow & small stones.

Blackborrow could not stand on his swollen

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frostbitten feet, & was in dreadful pain. Hudson was lame through the blow on the hip. & Rickinson too weak to be of any service. Some of the party, not many I am pleased to say, had become despondent, & were in a “What’s the use" sort of mood & had to be driven to work, none too gently either.

On this day Shackleton took Worsley & me apart from the others to discuss plans for the future. We knew that no search party would ever dream of looking for us on Elephant Island & also that no whalers or sealer would approach near enough to sight us, as the island is surrounded by submerged reefs & half tide rocks, usually also by heavy pack ice & grounded bergs, making navigation exceedingly dangerous.

The nearest point of civilization was Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands 540 miles distant but the prevailing winds made a boat trip in that direction impossible. South Georgia, on the other hand, was in the right direction for the wind, but 800 miles distant, & there is no place in the world where such a heavy sea runs.

We all agreed that an attempt to take the whole party would certainly mean the loss of all hands, & Shackleton decided to take the “James Caird" &

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Concluded TYPED pages (unnumbered)

(Original writing p. 341)
to p.250 written at Klerksdorp.

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with five others try to bring assistance. Worsley & I at once volunteered to go with him, but he said “Sorry Wild, you must stay to look after the party here." We then returned to the party & Shackleton announced his decision & asked for volunteers. Quite a number asked to be taken but many of the poor fellows wished never to see a boat again as long as they lived & kept mum. Worsley was a certainty; I think I have mentioned earlier that he was the quickest & most reliable navigator I have ever sailed with. For the others, Crean, McNeish, McCarthy & Vincent were chosen. The two doctors, McIlroy & Macklin volunteered, but Shackleton said they must remain to look after the sick men, much to my relief as I did not wish to lose either of them. I also asked for Crean, but he begged so hard to go that I said no more about it. McNeish was the carpenter, McCarthy & Vincent very capable & willing sailors & Crean had been on both Scott’s expeditions. It will be remembered that Crean & Lashly saved the life of Admiral Evans, then Commander, on Scott’s last expedition.

On the 20th the weather was too bad to allow of any outdoor work, & the tents began to show signs of disintegration through the constant buffeting.

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On this day the cook’s duties proved too much for him & he had to be relieved, one of the grumblers being told off for the job.

The weather improved the next day & a start was made to make the “James Caird" as seaworthy as possible for the hazardous journey. Shackleton and I went through our small supply of stores & a month’s supply of provisions for six men was apportioned out. The temporary cook was kept busy for several days frying seal steak, & Greenstreet & Cheetham were kept occupied in thawing out a bolt of frozen canvas & sewing it into the shape of a deck cover for the boat. This was to fit over a deck framework which was made by the carpenter from sledge runners & box lids. When completed it had rather a Heath Robinson appearance, but as it turned out, it undoubtedly saved the lives of the party, as without it the boat could not have lived through the terrific seas which were encountered.

A strong back was also made from the mast of the “Dudley Docker" & fitted to the keel. Then ice had to be melted to fill the two 18 gallon water beakers; this alone meant many hours work for the cook & night watchman. Little could be done on the 22nd as another blizzard was raging,

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& Shackleton was getting worried because during lulls in the storm heavy masses of pack ice were seen about two miles to the north.

In the hope of finding better shelter, some of the men were employed in digging a hole in a steep snow slope at the landward end of the spit, but this had soon to be abandoned, as every snow squall filled the hole up again.

The 23rd broke fine & clear & all preparations being completed before the end of the day, Shackleton decided to make a start the following morning. The launching the next day was a difficult & to many a painful operation. The “James Caird" could not be launched with her load aboard, so she was pushed off empty with Vincent & McNeish to hold her off in deep water. As she floated a wave caught her broadside on & she rolled so heavily the two men were thrown into the water. The “Stancombe Wills" had already been launched & her crew rescued the men & towed the larger boat out & anchored her clear of the breakers.

Besides stores & equipment it was necessary to carry ballast, & half a ton of round boulders

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were placed in the bottom of the “James Caird", the “Stancombe Wills" being used a ferry. All of us who were engaged in the task of loading up were soaked to the waist, & it was to be several weeks before we experienced the comfort of dry clothes.

After the last load had been taken off, Shackleton came ashore to say goodbye to the party. His only order to me was that I should make an attempt to reach Deception Island the following spring in the event of his failure to return. He was then ferried on board, the sails were set & the momentous voyage begun. We gave them three hearty cheers & watched the boat getting smaller & smaller in the distance, then seeing some of the party in tears I immediately set them all to work. My own heart was very full. I heard one of the few pessimists remark, “That’s the last of them" & almost knocked him down with a rock, but satisfied myself with addressing a few remarks to him in real lower deck language.

At 4 p.m. I climbed the rocks & through the binoculars caught a last glimpse of the boat just as she disappeared amongst pack ice to the North East. Shackleton afterwards said we looked a most pathetic group on the beach,

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little realising how much more pathetic his tiny craft looked as it slowly dwindled from our sight.

My first consideration was the matter of adequate shelter. All hands were in bad condition & suffering from exhaustion due to long exposure to the wet & cold. Many had salt water boils & three were confined to their sleeping bags; Hudson was lame through the blow on the hip from the tent pole, Rickinson had collapsed from heart trouble, & Blackborrow could not stand on his frost bitten feet. Blackborrow was a stowaway & the youngest member of the party. He had come aboard in Buenos Ayres on our outward journey. Three days after leaving Buenos Ayres one of the sailors came rushing along to Shackleton’s cabin in a state of great excitement. It was rather bad weather & a lot of water was coming aboard, & it appeared that this man had gone to the locker in the fo’c’sle where sea boots & oilskins were kept, & when he took hold of one of the boots, he found a man’s leg in it & Blackborrow stepped out of the locker, scaring the sailor stiff.

Shackleton asked, “What kind of man is he? “Oh a great big ugly fellow sir, bigger then any man aboard & looks real dangerous sir!" Shackleton said “Come on Frank lets have a look at him."

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When we got down into the fo’c’sle there was a very harmless looking lad who tried to stand to attention when Shackleton spoke to him. He was evidently weak fro seasickness & hunger, & Shackleton ordered him to sit down, & asked “Why are you here." “I want to go with you sir." “You will now have to work & you will be sent back from South Georgia." The lad said “I want to work, but please don’t send me back. Shackleton said “Do you know that on these expeditions we often get very hungry, & if there is a stowaway available he is the first to be eaten?" Shackleton was not fat but fairly heavily built, & the boy looked him over & said “They’d get a lot more meat off you sir!"

The boss turned away to hide a grin & told me to turn the lad over to the bo’sun, but added, “Introduce him to the cook first." Blackborrow turned out to be a good sailor & all round handy man & was duly signed on in South Georgia as a member of the crew. He almost worshipped Shackleton & kept his cabin in such a polished condition as to put the rest of the ship to shame.

All the tents were badly torn by the heavy wind which was again sweeping the beach & I tried once more to dig a cave into the snow slope. After penetrating some eight or ten feet we came

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to solid ice, & we quickly found that as a dwelling it would be impossible, streams of water were running down on all sides. I then gave orders to the party to collect quantities of flat stones, & with these two walls were built 16 feet apart & 4 feet high; the two boats were then turned upside down alongside each other on top of the walls, the few pieces of wood we had were nailed across from keel to keel & one of the sails fastened over them to form a roof. The side walls were made by Marston from the torn tents.

The site was chosen where some protection was given by two large rocks to which the boats were lashed to prevent the wind blowing them away. Although far from weather proof that night was the most comfortable we had experienced for a long time. When we got up in the morning our sleeping bags were covered by several inches of snow which had found its way through numerous holes. These were later plugged up with rocks, snow & cast off clothing.

All this took a long time, carrying the rocks for the walls proving most exhausting, & it was noticeable that the big men suffered more than the little ones. I have found this to be the case in all my expeditions. It is naturally impossible to apportion food in ratio with the size of a man; the small

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man is expected to do as much work as the big man, & usually does so.

The size of our new abode was 16ft by 10 feet & the height from ground to thwarts 4 ½ feet. Accommodation was made for six men to sleep on the thwarts by using the stern & bow gratings as a platform. Marston fashioned a hammock which he slung under the thwarts & had decidedly the most comfortable bed. The rest slept on the ground, taking their places under my directions. The space was small for fifteen men & they had to be carefully arranged. Almost every night during the four & a half months of our stay there, disputes would arise, “Hi so & so you’ve pinched six inches of my space", “I haven’t, I was here last night," & I had to go along & tell one or other to move over, & could not turn in myself until all the naughty children were nicely tucked up.

The floor was shingle, the stones varying in size from pigeons eggs to cricket balls, & mixed up with ice & penguin droppings. In the next few days the upper surface was removed, & fresh clean stones brought in. At first the stench of melting guano was appalling, & even after the new floor was laid it was still very strong. Later it either got better or we became used to it.

For some time the interior was pitch dark & blubber lamps were contrived from old tins, the wicks being made from used surgical dressings.

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The wicks required frequent snuffing or the lamps would go out, & our supply of matches was very short. So long as we had tobacco all pipes & cigarettes were lit at the lamps, but alas, the tobacco all gave out long before we were rescued, & many weird substitutes were experimented with. On previous expeditions I have found dried tea leaves quite a good smoke, but on Elephant Island we had no tea. Seaweed was tried, but could not be kept alight. Our sleeping bags were moulting, & the reindeer hair was put into the pipes, also senna grass which had been in our boots for months, but the most hardened smokers soon gave them up, & & the non smokers complained bitterly against the noxious fumes.

In the middle of winter I was walking round the camp by moonlight & found Bakewell, one of the sailors digging a tunnel in a huge snow drift which had formed at the base of the high cliffs near our hut. I asked what he was doing & he replied “When we landed here sir, I threw a coat down at the foot of these rocks & it had half a plug of tobacco in the pocket." He had to tunnel 30 ft before he got to the rock face, & then twelve feet to one side where he was lucky enough to find the coat. No one offered to help him & Bakewell shovelled many tons of snow in the four days he was working. The tunnel was so long, the snow had to be shifted three times.

After the prize was secured it was found to be so

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wet that it took three days to dry by the stove whilst meals were being cooked. Bakewell then cut a portion into very fine shreds & made a cigarette, giving me the first puff of it. I was standing up outside & that one whiff made me so giddy I had to sit down or I would have fallen. Although I expostulated with Bakewell & pointed out that no one had helped him with his digging, he insisted on sharing all around. Very few pipes were owned pipes at this time, so cigarettes were made, using pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I had a pipe given to me by Rudyard Kipling on which he himself carved “F.W. from R.K." I lost it amongst the stones on the hut floor & although I spent many hours searching for it I never found it.

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F.’s typed page 117: - (Re telling King about Queen Mary Land).

[Notes:
[Harrison is spelt variously as Harrisson and Harrison]
‘Neve’ is usually spelt with the acutes as névé but has been transcribed as ‘neve’.
‘Depôt’ is occasionally spelt with the circumflex but usually ‘depot’ and has been transcribed ‘depot’]

[Transcribed by Andy Netting for the State Library of New South Wales]