South! - Ernest Shackleton (best short novels TXT) 📗

The monotony and worry of our helpless position is deadly. I suppose Shackleton and his party will have started depot-laying now and will be full of hopes for the future. I wonder whether the Endurance wintered in the ice or went north. I cannot help thinking that if she wintered in the Weddell Sea she will be worse off than the Aurora. What a lot we have to look for in the next six months⁠—news of Shackleton and the Endurance, the party at Cape Evans, and the war.

“September 22.⁠—Lat. 69° 12′ S.; long. 165° 00′ E. Sturge Island (Balleny Group) is bearing north (true) ninety miles distant. Light northwest airs with clear, fine weather. Sighted Sturge Island in the morning, bearing due north of us and appearing like a faint low shadow on the horizon. It is good to get a good landmark for fixing positions again, and it is good to see that we are making northerly progress, however small. Since breaking away from Cape Evans we have drifted roughly seven hundred and five miles around islands and past formidable obstacles, a wonderful drift! It is good to think that it has not been in vain, and that the knowledge of the set and drill of the pack will be a valuable addition to the sum of human knowledge. The distance from Cape Evans to our present position is seven hundred and five miles (geographical).

“September 27.⁠—The temperature in my room last night was round about zero, rather chilly, but warm enough under the blankets. Hooke has dismantled his wireless gear. He feels rather sick about not getting communication, although he does not show it.

“September 30.⁠—Ninnis has been busy now for the week on the construction of a new tractor. He is building the body and will assemble the motor in the fore ’tween decks, where it can be lashed securely when we are released from the ice. I can see leads of open water from the masthead, but we are still held firmly. How long?

“October 7.⁠—As time wears on the possibility of getting back to the Barrier to land a party deserves consideration; if we do not get clear until late in the season we will have to turn south first, although we have no anchors and little moorings, no rudder and a short supply of coal. To leave a party on the Barrier would make us very short-handed; still, it can be done, and anything is preferable to the delay in assisting the people at Cape Evans. At 5 a.m. a beautiful parhelion formed around the sun. The sight so impressed the bos’n that he roused me out to see it.”

During the month of October the Aurora drifted uneventfully. Stenhouse mentions that there was often an appearance of open water on the northern and eastern horizon. But anxious eyes were strained in vain for indications that the day of the ship’s release was near at hand. Hooke had the wireless plant running again and was trying daily to get into touch with Macquarie Island, now about eight hundred and fifty miles distant. The request for a relief ship was to be renewed if communication could be established, for by this time, if all had gone well with the Endurance, the overland party from the Weddell Sea would have been starting. There was considerable movement of the ice towards the end of the month, lanes opening and closing, but the floe, some acres in area, into which the Aurora was frozen, remained firm until the early days of November. The cracks appeared close to the ship, due apparently to heavy drift causing the floe to sink. The temperatures were higher now, under the influence of the sun, and the ice was softer. Thawing was causing discomfort in the quarters aboard. The position on November 12 was reckoned to be lat. 66° 49′ S., long. 155° 17′ 45″ E. Stenhouse made a sounding on November 17, in lat. 66° 40′ S., long. 154° 45′ E., and found bottom at 194 fathoms. The bottom sample was mud and a few small stones. The sounding-line showed a fairly strong undercurrent to the northwest. “We panned out some of the mud,” says Stenhouse, “and in the remaining grit found several specks of gold.” Two days later the trend of the current was southeasterly. There was a pronounced thaw on the 22nd. The cabins were in a dripping state, and recently fallen snow was running off the ship in little streams. All hands were delighted, for the present discomfort offered promise of an early breakup of the pack.

“November 23.⁠—At 3 a.m. Young Island, Balleny Group, was seen bearing north 54° east (true). The island, which showed up clearly on the horizon, under a heavy stratus-covered sky, appeared to be very far distant. By latitude at noon we are in 66° 26′ S. As this is the charted latitude of Peak Foreman, Young Island, the bearing does not agree. Land was seen at 8 a.m. bearing south 60° west (true). This, which would appear to be Cape Hudson, loomed up through the mists in the form of a high, bold headland, with low undulating land stretching away to the south-southeast and to the westward of it. The appearance of this headland has been foretold for the last two days, by masses of black fog, but it seems strange that land so high should not have been seen before, as there is little change in the atmospheric conditions.

“November 24.⁠—Overcast and hazy during forenoon. Cloudy, clear, and fine in afternoon and evening. Not a vestige of land can be seen, so Cape Hudson is really ‘Cape Flyaway.’ This is most weird. All hands saw the headland to the southwest, and some of us sketched it. Now (afternoon), although the sky is beautifully clear to the southwest,