South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917 Part 23

wrote the anxious master. "Here we are with a suggestion only of open water-sky, and the s.h.i.+p rolling her scuppers under and sitting down bodily on the floes." The ice opened when the wind moderated, and on the afternoon of the 6th the 'Aurora' moved northward again. "Without a rudder (no jury-rudder can yet be used amongst these swirling, rolling floes) the s.h.i.+p requires a lot of attention. Her head must be pointed between floes by means of ice-anchors and warps, or by mooring to a floe and steaming round it. We kept a fairly good course between two bergs to our northward and made about five miles northing till, darkness coming on, the men could no longer venture on the floes with safety to fix the anchors."

The next three days were full of anxiety. The 'Aurora' was held by the ice, and subjected to severe buffeting, while two bergs approached from the north. On the morning of the 10th the nearest berg was within three cables of the s.h.i.+p. But the pack had opened and by 9.30 a.m. the s.h.i.+p was out of the danger zone and headed north-north-east. The pack continued to open during the afternoon, and the 'Aurora' pa.s.sed through wide stretches of small loose floes and brash. Progress was good until darkness made a stop necessary. The next morning the pack was denser.

Stenhouse s.h.i.+pped a preventer jury-rudder (the weighted spanker gaff), but could not get steerage way. Broad leads were sighted to the north- west in the afternoon, and the s.h.i.+p got within a quarter of a mile of the nearest lead before being held up by heavy pack. She again b.u.mped severely during the night, and the watch stood by with fenders to ease the more dangerous blows.

Early next morning Stenhouse lowered a jury-rudder, with steering pennants to drag through the water, and moved north to north-west through heavy pack. He made sixteen miles that day on an erratic course, and then spent an anxious night with the s.h.i.+p setting back into the pack and being pounded heavily. Attempts to work forward to an open lead on the morning of the 13th were unsuccessful. Early in the afternoon a little progress was made, with all hands standing by to fend off high ice, and at 4.50 p.m. the 'Aurora' cleared the main pack.

An hour was spent s.h.i.+pping the jury-rudder under the counter, and then the s.h.i.+p moved slowly northward. There was pack still ahead, and the bergs and growlers were a constant menace in the hours of darkness.

Some anxious work remained to be done, since bergs and scattered ice extended in all directions, but at 2 p.m. on March 14 the 'Aurora'

cleared the last belt of pack in lat. 62 27.5' S., long. 157 32' E.

"We 'spliced the main brace,'" says Stenhouse, "and blew three blasts of farewell to the pack with the whistle."

The 'Aurora' was not at the end of her troubles, but the voyage up to New Zealand need not be described in detail. Any attempt to reach McMurdo Sound was now out of the question. Stenhouse had a battered, rudderless s.h.i.+p, with only a few tons of coal left in the bunkers, and he struggled northward in heavy weather against persistent adverse winds and head seas. The jury-rudder needed constant nursing, and the shortage of coal made it impossible to get the best service from the engines. There were times when the s.h.i.+p could make no progress and fell about helplessly in a confused swell or lay hove to amid mountainous seas. She was short-handed, and one or two of the men were creating additional difficulties. But Stenhouse displayed throughout fine seamans.h.i.+p and dogged perseverance. He accomplished successfully one of the most difficult voyages on record, in an ocean area notoriously stormy and treacherous. On March 23 he established wireless communication with Bluff Station, New Zealand, and the next day was in touch with Wellington and Hobart. The naval officer in New Zealand waters offered a.s.sistance, and eventually it was arranged that the Otago Harbour Board's tug Plucky should meet the 'Aurora' outside Port Chalmers. There were still bad days to be endured. The jury- rudder partially carried away and had to be uns.h.i.+pped in a heavy sea.

Stenhouse carried on, and in the early morning of April 2 the 'Aurora'

picked up the tug and was taken in tow. She reached Port Chalmers the following morning, and was welcomed with the warm hospitality that New Zealand has always shown towards Antarctic explorers.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST RELIEF

When I reached New Zealand at the beginning of December 1916, I found that the arrangements for the relief were complete. The New Zealand Government had taken the task in hand earlier in the year, before I had got into touch with the outside world. The British and Australian Governments were giving financial a.s.sistance. The 'Aurora' had been repaired and refitted at Port Chalmers during the year at considerable cost, and had been provisioned and coaled for the voyage to McMurdo Sound. My old friend Captain John K. Davis, who was a member of my first Antarctic Expedition in 1907-1909, and who subsequently commanded Dr. Mawson's s.h.i.+p in the Australian Antarctic Expedition, had been placed in command of the 'Aurora' by the Governments, and he had engaged officers, engineers, and crew. Captain Davis came to Wellington to see me on my arrival there, and I heard his account of the position.

I had interviews also with the Minister for Marine, the late Dr. Robert McNab, a kindly and sympathetic Scotsman who took a deep personal interest in the Expedition. Stenhouse also was in Wellington, and I may say again here that his account of his voyage and drift in the 'Aurora' filled me with admiration for his pluck, seamans.h.i.+p, and resourcefulness.

After discussing the situation fully with Dr. McNab, I agreed that the arrangements already made for the relief expedition should stand. Time was important and there were difficulties about making any change of plans or control at the last moment. After Captain Davis had been at work for some months the Government agreed to hand the 'Aurora' over to me free of liability on her return to New Zealand. It was decided, therefore, that Captain Davis should take the s.h.i.+p down to McMurdo Sound, and that I should go with him to take charge of any sh.o.r.e operations that might be necessary. I "signed on" at a salary of 1s. a month, and we sailed from Port Chalmers on December 20, 1916. A week later we sighted ice again. The 'Aurora' made a fairly quick pa.s.sage through the pack and entered the open water of the Ross Sea on January 7, 1917.

Captain Davis brought the 'Aurora' alongside the ice edge off Cape Royds on the morning of January 10, and I went ash.o.r.e with a party to look for some record in the hut erected there by my Expedition in 1907.

I found a letter stating that the Ross Sea party was housed at Cape Evans, and was on my way back to the s.h.i.+p when six men, with dogs and sledge, were sighted coming from the direction of Cape Evans. At 1 p.m. this party arrived on board, and we learned that of the ten members of the Expedition left behind when the 'Aurora' broke away on May 6, 1915, seven had survived, namely, A. Stevens, E. Joyce, H. E.

Wild, J. L. Cope, R. W. Richards, A. K. Jack, I. O. Gaze. These seven men were all well, though they showed traces of the ordeal through which they had pa.s.sed. They told us of the deaths of Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith, and Hayward, and of their own anxious wait for relief.

All that remained to be done was to make a final search for the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward. There was no possibility of either man being alive. They had been without equipment when the blizzard broke the ice they were crossing. It would have been impossible for them to have survived more than a few days, and eight months had now elapsed without news of them. Joyce had already searched south of Glacier Tongue. I considered that further search should be made in two directions, the area north of Glacier Tongue, and the old depot off Butler Point, and I made a report to Captain Davis to this effect.

On January 12 the s.h.i.+p reached a point five and a half miles east of Butler Point. I took a party across rubbly and waterlogged ice to within thirty yards of the piedmont ice, but owing to high cliffs and loose slushy ice could not make a landing. The land-ice had broken away at the point cut by the cross-bearings of the depot, but was visible in the form of two large bergs grounded to the north of Cape Bernacchi. There was no sign of the depot or of any person having visited the vicinity. We returned to the s.h.i.+p and proceeded across the Sound to Cape Bernacchi.

The next day I took a party ash.o.r.e with the object of searching the area north of Glacier Tongue, including Razorback Island, for traces of the two missing men. We reached the Cape Evans Hut at 1.30 p.m., and Joyce and I left at 3 p.m. for the Razorbacks. We conducted a search round both islands, returning to the hut at 7 p.m. The search had been fruitless. On the 14th I started with Joyce to search the north side of Glacier Tongue, but the surface drift, with wind from south-east, decided me not to continue, as the ice was moving rapidly at the end of Cape Evans, and the pool between the hut and Inaccessible Island was growing larger. The wind increased in the afternoon. The next day a south-east blizzard was blowing, with drift half up the islands. I considered it unsafe to sledge that day, especially as the ice was breaking away from the south side of Cape Evans into the pool. We spent the day putting the hut in order.

We got up at 3 a.m. on the 16th. The weather was fine and calm. I started at 4.20 with Joyce to the south at the greatest possible speed.

We reached Glacier Tongue about one and a half miles from the seaward end. Wherever there were not precipitous cliffs there was an even snow- slope to the top. From the top we searched with gla.s.ses; there was nothing to be seen but blue ice, creva.s.sed, showing no protuberances.

We came down and, half running, half walking, worked about three miles towards the root of the glacier; but I could see there was not the slightest chance of finding any remains owing to the enormous snowdrifts wherever the cliffs were accessible. The base of the steep cliffs had drifts ten to fifteen feet high. We arrived back at the hut at 9.40, and left almost immediately for the s.h.i.+p. I considered that all places likely to hold the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward had now been searched. There was no doubt to my mind that they met their deaths on the breaking of the thin ice when the blizzard arose on May 8, 1916. During my absence from the hut Wild and Jack had erected a cross to the memory of the three men who had lost their lives in the service of the Expedition.

Captain Davis took the s.h.i.+p northward on January 17. The ice conditions were unfavourable and pack barred the way. We stood over to the western coast towards Dunlop Island and followed it to Granite Harbour. No mark or depot of any kind was seen. The 'Aurora' reached the main pack, about sixty miles from Cape Adare, on January 22. The ice was closed ahead, and Davis went south in open water to wait for better conditions. A north-west gale on January 28 enabled the s.h.i.+p to pa.s.s between the pack and the land off Cape Adare, and we crossed the Antarctic Circle on the last day of the month. On February 4 Davis sent a formal report to the New Zealand Government by wireless, and on February 9 the 'Aurora' was berthed at Wellington. We were welcomed like returned brothers by the New Zealand people.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FINAL PHASE

The foregoing chapters of this book represent the general narrative of our Expedition. That we failed in accomplis.h.i.+ng the object we set out for was due, I venture to a.s.sert, not to any neglect or lack of organization, but to the overwhelming natural obstacles, especially the unprecedentedly severe summer conditions on the Weddell Sea side. But though the Expedition was a failure in one respect, I think it was successful in many others. A large amount of important scientific work was carried out. The meteorological observations in particular have an economic bearing. The hydrographical work in the Weddell Sea has done much to clear up the mystery of this, the least known of all the seas.

I have appended a short scientific memorandum to this volume, but the more detailed scientific results must wait until a more suitable time arrives, when more stable conditions prevail. Then results will be worked out.

To the credit side of the Expedition one can safely say that the comrades.h.i.+p and resource of the members of the Expedition was worthy of the highest traditions of Polar service; and it was a privilege to me to have had under my command men who, through dark days and the stress and strain of continuous danger, kept up their spirits and carried out their work regardless of themselves and heedless of the limelight. The same energy and endurance that they showed in the Antarctic they brought to the greater war in the Old World. And having followed our fortunes in the South you may be interested to know that practically every member of the Expedition was employed in one or other branches of the active fighting forces during the war. Several are still abroad, and for this very reason it has been impossible for me to obtain certain details for this book.

Of the fifty-three men who returned out of the fifty-six who left for the South, three have since been killed and five wounded. Four decorations have been won, and several members of the Expedition have been mentioned in dispatches. McCarthy, the best and most efficient of the sailors, always cheerful under the most trying circ.u.mstances, and who for these very reasons I chose to accompany me on the boat journey to South Georgia, was killed at his gun in the Channel. Cheetham, the veteran of the Antarctic, who had been more often south of the Antarctic circle than any man, was drowned when the vessel he was serving in was torpedoed, a few weeks before the Armistice. Ernest Wild, Frank Wild's brother, was killed while minesweeping in the Mediterranean. Mauger, the carpenter on the 'Aurora', was badly wounded while serving with the New Zealand Infantry, so that he is unable to follow his trade again. He is now employed by the New Zealand Government. The two surgeons, Macklin and McIlroy, served in France and Italy, McIlroy being badly wounded at Ypres. Frank Wild, in view of his unique experience of ice and ice conditions, was at once sent to the North Russian front, where his zeal and ability won him the highest praise.

Macklin served first with the Yorks and later transferred as medical officer to the Tanks, where he did much good work. Going to the Italian front with his battalion, he won the Military Cross for bravery in tending wounded under fire.

James joined the Royal Engineers, Sound Ranging Section, and after much front-line work was given charge of a Sound Ranging School to teach other officers this latest and most scientific addition to the art of war.

Wordie went to France with the Royal Field Artillery and was badly wounded at Armentieres.

Hussey was in France for eighteen months with the Royal Garrison Artillery, serving in every big battle from Dixmude to Saint-Quentin.

Worsley, known to his intimates as Depth-Charge Bill, owing to his success with that particular method of destroying German submarines, has the Distinguished Service Order and three submarines to his credit.

Stenhouse, who commanded the 'Aurora' after Mackintosh landed, was with Worsley as his second in command when one of the German submarines was rammed and sunk, and received the D.S.C. for his share in the fight. He was afterwards given command of a Mystery s.h.i.+p, and fought several actions with enemy submarines.

Clark served on a mine-sweeper. Greenstreet was employed with the barges on the Tigris. Rickenson was commissioned as Engineer- Lieutenant, R.N. Kerr returned to the Merchant Service as an engineer.

Most of the crew of the 'Endurance' served on minesweepers.

Of the Ross Sea Party, Mackintosh, Hayward, and Spencer-Smith died for their country as surely as any who gave up their lives on the fields of France and Flanders. Hooke, the wireless operator, now navigates an airs.h.i.+p.

Nearly all of the crew of the 'Aurora' joined the New Zealand Field Forces and saw active service in one or other of the many theatres of war. Several have been wounded, but it has been impossible to obtain details.

On my return, after the rescue of the survivors of the Ross Sea Party, I offered my services to the Government, and was sent on a mission to South America. When this was concluded I was commissioned as Major and went to North Russia in charge of Arctic Equipment and Transport, having with me Worsley, Stenhouse, Hussey, Macklin, and Brocklehurst, who was to have come South with us, but who, as a regular officer, rejoined his unit on the outbreak of war. He has been wounded three times and was in the retreat from Mons. Worsley was sent across to the Archangel front, where he did excellent work, and the others served with me on the Murmansk front. The mobile columns there had exactly the same clothing, equipment, and sledging food as we had on the Expedition. No expense was spared to obtain the best of everything for them, and as a result not a single case of avoidable frost-bite was reported.

Taking the Expedition as a unit, out of fifty-six men three died in the Antarctic, three were killed in action, and five have been wounded, so that our casualties have been fairly high.

Though some have gone there are enough left to rally round and form a nucleus for the next Expedition, when troublous times are over and scientific exploration can once more be legitimately undertaken.

APPENDIX I

SCIENTIFIC WORK By J. M. WORDIE, M.A. (Cantab.), Lieut. R.F.A.

The research undertaken by the Expedition was originally planned for a sh.o.r.e party working from a fixed base on land, but it was only in South Georgia that this condition of affairs was fully realized. On this island, where a full month was spent, the geologist made very extensive collections, and began the mapping of the country; the magnetician had some of his instruments in working order for a short while; and the meteorologist was able to co-operate with the Argentine observer stationed at Grytviken. It had been realized how important the meteorological observations were going to be to the Argentine Government, and they accordingly did all in their power to help, both before and at the end of the Expedition. The biologist devoted most of his time, meanwhile, to the whaling industry, there being no less than seven stations on the island; he also made collections of the neritic fauna, and, accompanied by the photographer, studied the bird life and the habits of the sea-elephants along the east coast.

By the time the actual southern voyage commenced, each individual had his own particular line of work which he was prepared to follow out.

The biologist at first confined himself to collecting the plankton, and a start was made in securing water samples for temperature and salinity. In this, from the beginning, he had the help of the geologist, who also gave instructions for the taking of a line of soundings under the charge of the s.h.i.+p's officers. This period of the southward voyage was a very busy time so far as the scientists were concerned, for, besides their own particular work, they took the full share of looking after the dogs and working the s.h.i.+p watch by watch.

At the same time, moreover, the biologist had to try and avoid being too lavish with his preserving material at the expense of the sh.o.r.e station collections which were yet to make.

When it was finally known that the s.h.i.+p had no longer any chance of getting free of the ice in the 1914-1915 season, a radical change was made in the arrangements. The scientists were freed, as far as possible, from s.h.i.+p's duties, and were thus able to devote themselves almost entirely to their own particular spheres. The meteorological investigations took on a more definite shape; the instruments intended for the land base were set up on board s.h.i.+p, including self-recording barographs, thermometers, and a Dines anemometer, with which very satisfactory results were got. The physicist set up his quadrant electrometer after a good deal of trouble, but throughout the winter had to struggle constantly with rime forming on the parts of his apparatus exposed to the outer air. Good runs were being thus continually spoilt. The determination of the magnetic constants also took up a good part of his time.

Besides collecting plankton the biologist was now able to put down one or other of his dredges at more frequent intervals, always taking care, however, not to exhaust his store of preserving material, which was limited. The taking of water samples was established on a better system, so that the series should be about equally s.p.a.ced out over the s.h.i.+p's course. The geologist suppressed all thought of rocks, though occasionally they were met with in bottom samples; his work became almost entirely oceanographical, and included a study of the sea-ice, of the physiography of the sea floor as shown by daily soundings, and of the bottom deposits; besides this he helped the biologist in the temperature and salinity observations.