South (47 page)

 

In September Richards was forced to lay up at the hut owing to a strained heart, due presumably to stress of work on the sledging journeys. Early in October a party consisting of Joyce, Gaze, and Wild spent several days at Cape Royds, where they skinned specimens. They sledged stores back to Cape Evans in case it should be found necessary to remain there over another winter. In September, Joyce, Gaze, and Wild went out to Spencer-Smith’s grave with a wooden cross, which they erected firmly. Relief arrived on January 10, 1917, but it is necessary now to turn back to the events of May 1915, when the
Aurora
was driven from her moorings off Cape Evans.

CHAPTER XVI

THE
AURORA
’S DRIFT

After Mackintosh left the
Aurora
on January 25, 1915, Stenhouse kept the ship with difficulty off Tent Island. The ice anchors would not hold, owing to the continual breaking away of the pack, and he found it necessary much of the time to steam slow ahead against the floes. The third sledging party, under Cope, left the ship on the afternoon of the 31st, with the motor tractor towing two sledges, and disappeared towards Hut Point. Cope’s party returned to the ship on February 2 and left again on February 5, after a delay caused by the loose condition of the ice. Two days later, after more trouble with drifting floes, Stenhouse proceeded to Cape Evans, where he took a line of soundings for the winter quarters. During the next month the
Aurora
occupied various positions in the neighborhood of Cape Evans. No secure moorings were available. The ship had to keep clear of threatening floes, dodge “growlers” and drifting bergs, and find shelter from the blizzards. A sudden shift of wind on February 24, when the ship was sheltering in the lee of Glacier Tongue, caused her to be jammed hard against the low ice off the glacier, but no damage was done. Early in March Stenhouse sent moorings ashore at Cape Evans, and on March 11 he proceeded to Hut Point, where he dropped anchor in Discovery Bay. Here he landed stores, amounting to about two months’ full rations for twelve men, and embarked Spencer-Smith, Stevens, Hook, Richards, Ninnis, and Gaze, with two dogs. He returned to Cape Evans that evening.

“We had a bad time when we were ‘sculling’ about the Sound, first endeavoring to make Hut Point to land provisions, and then looking for winter quarters in the neighborhood of Glacier Tongue,” wrote Stenhouse afterwards. “The ice kept breaking away in small floes, and we were apparently no nearer to anywhere than when the sledges left; we were frustrated in every move. The ship broke away from the fast ice in blizzards, and then we went dodging about the Sound from the Ross Island side to the western pack, avoiding and clearing floes and growlers in heavy drift when we could see nothing, our compasses unreliable and the ship short-handed. In that homeless time I kept watch and watch with the second officer, and was hard pressed to know what to do. Was ever ship in such predicament? To the northward of Cape Royds was taboo, as also was the coast south of Glacier Tongue. In a small stretch of icebound coast we had to find winter quarters. The ice lingered on, and all this time we could find nowhere to drop anchor, but had to keep steam handy for emergencies. Once I tried the North Bay of Cape Evans, as it apparently was the only ice-free spot. I called all hands, and making up a boat’s crew with one of the firemen sent the whaler away with the second officer in charge to sound. No sooner had the boat left ship than the wind freshened from the northward, and large bergs and growlers, setting into the bay, made the place untenable. The anchorage I eventually selected seemed the best available—and here we are drifting, with all plans upset, when we ought to be lying in winter quarters.”

A heavy gale came up on March 12, and the
Aurora,
then moored off Cape Evans, dragged her anchor and drifted out of the bay. She went northward past Cape Barne and Cape Royds in a driving mist, with a heavy storm sea running. This gale was a particularly heavy one. The ship and gear were covered with ice, owing to the freezing of spray, and Stenhouse had anxious hours amid the heavy, ice-encumbered waters before the gale moderated. The young ice, which was continually forming in the very low temperature, helped to reduce the sea as soon as the gale moderated, and the
Aurora
got back to Cape Evans on the evening of the 13th. Ice was forming in the bay, and on the morning of the 14th Stenhouse took the ship into position for winter moorings. He got three steel hawsers out and made fast to the shore anchors. These hawsers were hove tight, and the
Aurora
rested then, with her stern to the shore, in seven fathoms. Two more wires were taken ashore the next day. Young ice was forming around the ship, and under the influence of wind and tide this ice began early to put severe strains upon the moorings. Stenhouse had the fires drawn and the boiler blown down on the 20th, and the engineer reported at that time that the bunkers contained still 118 tons of coal.

The ice broke away between Cape Evans and Cape Barne on the 23rd, and pressure around the ship shattered the bay ice and placed heavy strains on the stern moorings. The young ice, about four inches thick, went out eventually and left a lead along the shore. The ship had set in towards the shore, owing to the pressure, and the stern was now in four-and-a-half fathoms. Stenhouse tightened the moorings and ran out an extra wire to the shore anchor. The nature of the ice movements is illustrated by a few extracts from the log:

“
March
27, 5 P.M.—Ice broke away from shore and started to go out. 8 P.M.—Light southerly airs; fine; ice setting out to northwest; heavy pressure of ice on starboard side and great strain on moorings. 10 P.M.—Ice clear of ship.

“
March
28.—New ice forming over bay. 3 A.M.—Ice which went out last watch set in towards bay. 5 A.M.—Ice coming in and overriding newly formed bay ice; heavy pressure on port side of ship; wires frozen into ice. 8 A.M.—Calm and fine; new ice setting out of bay. 5 P.M.—New ice formed since morning cleared from bay except area on port side of ship and stretching abeam and ahead for about 200 yds., which is held by bights of wire; new ice forming.

“
March
29, 1:30 P.M.—New ice going out. 2 P.M.—Hands on floe on port quarter clearing wires; stern in three fathoms; hauled wires tight, bring stern more to eastward and in four fathoms; hove in about one fathom of starboard cable, which had dragged during recent pressure.

“
April
10, 1:30 P.M.—Ice breaking from shore under influence of southeast wind. Two starboard quarter wires parted; all bights of stern wires frozen in ice; chain taking weight. 2 P.M.—Ice opened, leaving ice in bay in line from Cape to landward of glacier. 8 P.M.—Fresh wind; ship holding ice in bay; ice in Sound wind-driven to northwest.

“
April
17, 1 A.M.—Pressure increased and wind shifted to northwest. Ice continued to override and press into shore until 5 o’clock; during this time pressure into bay was very heavy; movement of ice in straits causing noise like heavy surf. Ship took ground gently at rudder post during pressure; bottom under stern shallows very quickly. 10 P.M.—Ice moving out of bay to westward; heavy strain on after-moorings and cables, which are cutting the floe.”

Stenhouse continued to nurse his moorings against the onslaughts of the ice during the rest of April and the early days of May. The break away from the shore came suddenly and unexpectedly on the evening of May 6:

“
May
6, 1915.—Fine morning with light breezes from east-southeast. . . . 3:30 P.M.—Ice nearly finished. Sent hands ashore for sledge-load. 4 P.M.—Wind freshening with blizzardly appearance of sky. 8 P.M.—. . . Heavy strain on after-moorings. 9:45 P.M.—The ice parted from the shore; all moorings parted. Most fascinating to listen to waves and chain breaking. In the thick haze I saw the ice astern breaking up and the shore receding. I called all hands and clapped relieving tackles (4-in. Manila luff tackles) on to the cables on the fore part of the windlass. The bos’n had rushed along with his hurricane lamp, and shouted, ‘She’s away wi’ it!’ He is a good fellow and very conscientious. I ordered steam on main engines, and the engine room staff, with Hooke and Ninnis, turned to. Grady, fireman, was laid up with a broken rib. As the ship, in the solid floe, set to the northwest, the cables rattled and tore at the hawse-pipes; luckily the anchors, lying as they were on a strip-sloping bottom, came away easily, without damage to windlass or hawse-pipes. Slowly as we disappeared into Sound, the light in the hut died away. At 11:30 P.M. the ice around us started to break up, the floes playing tattoo on the ship’s sides. We were out in the Sound and catching the full force of the wind. The moon broke through the clouds after midnight and showed us the pack, stretching continuously to northward, and about one mile to the south. As the pack from the southward came up and closed in on the ship, the swell lessened and the banging of floes alongside eased a little.

“
May
7, 8 A.M.—Wind east-southeast. Moderate gale with thick drift. The ice around ship is packing up and forming ridges about two feet high. The ship is lying with head to the eastward, Cape Bird showing to northeast. When steam is raised I have hopes of getting back to the fast ice near the Glacier Tongue. Since we have been in winter quarters the ice has formed and, held by the islands and land at Cape Evans, has remained north of the Tongue. If we can return we should be able now to moor to the fast ice. The engineers are having great difficulty with the sea connections, which are frozen. The main bow-down cock, from which the boiler is ‘run up,’ has been tapped and a screw plug put into it to allow of a hot iron rod being inserted to thaw out the ice between the cock and the ship’s side—about two feet of hard ice. 4:30 P.M.—The hot iron has been successful. Donolly (second engineer) had the pleasure of stopping the first spurt of water through the pipe; he got it in the eye. Fires were lit in furnaces, and water commenced to blow in the boiler—the first blow in our defense against the terrific forces of Nature in the Antarctic. 8 P.M.—The gale has freshened, accompanied by thick drift.”

The
Aurora
drifted helplessly throughout May 7. On the morning of May 8 the weather cleared a little and the Western Mountains became indistinctly visible. Cape Bird could also be seen. The ship was moving northwards with the ice. The daylight was no more than a short twilight of about two hours’ duration. The boiler was being filled with ice, which had to be lifted aboard, broken up, passed through a small porthole to a man inside, and then carried to the manhole on top of the boiler. Stenhouse had the wireless aerial rigged during the afternoon, and at 5 P.M. was informed that the watering of the boiler was complete. The wind freshened to a moderate southerly gale, with thick drift, in the night, and this gale continued during the following day, the 9th. The engineer reported at noon that he had 40 lb. pressure in the boiler and was commencing the thawing of the auxiliary sea connection pump by means of a steam pipe.

“Cape Bird is the only land visible, bearing northeast true about eight miles distant,” wrote Stenhouse on the afternoon of the 9th. “So this is the end of our attempt to winter in McMurdo Sound. Hard luck after four months’ buffeting, for the last seven weeks of which we nursed our moorings. Our present situation calls for increasing vigilance. It is five weeks to the middle of winter. There is no sun, the light is little and uncertain, and we may expect many blizzards. We have no immediate water supply, as only a small quantity of fresh ice was aboard when we broke drift.

“The
Aurora
is fast in the pack and drifting God knows where. Well, there are prospects of a most interesting winter drift. We are all in good health, except Grady, whose rib is mending rapidly; we have good spirits and we will get through. But what of the poor beggars at Cape Evans, and the Southern Party? It is a dismal prospect for them. There are sufficient provisions at Cape Evans, Hut Point, and, I suppose, Cape Royds, but we have the remaining Burberrys, clothing, etc., for next year’s sledging still on board. I see little prospect of getting back to Cape Evans or anywhere in the Sound. We are short of coal and held firmly in the ice. I hope she drifts quickly to the northeast. Then we can endeavor to push through the pack and make for New Zealand, coal and return to the Barrier eastward of Cape Crozier. This could be done, I think, in the early spring, September. We must get back to aid the depot-laying next season.”

A violent blizzard raged on May 10 and 11. “I never remember such wind force,” said Stenhouse. “It was difficult to get along the deck.” The weather moderated on the 12th, and a survey of the ship’s position was possible. “We are lying in a field of ice with our anchors and seventy-five fathoms of cable on each hanging at the bows. The after-moorings were frozen into the ice astern of us at Cape Evans. Previous to the date of our leaving our winter berth four small wires had parted. When we broke away the chain two of the heavy (4-in.) wires parted close to shore; the other wire went at the butts. The chain and two wires are still fast in the ice and will have to be dug out. This morning we cleared the ice around the cables, but had to abandon the heaving-in, as the steam froze in the return pipes from the windlass exhaust, and the joints had to be broken and the pipe thawed out. Hooke was ‘listening in’ from 8:30 P.M. to 12:30 A.M. for the Macquarie Island wireless station (1340 miles away) or the Bluff (New Zealand) station (180 miles away), but had no luck.”

The anchors were hove in by dint of much effort on the 13th and 14th, ice forming on the cable as it was hoisted through a hole cut in the floe. Both anchors had broken, so the
Aurora
had now one small kedge anchor left aboard. The ship’s position on May 14 was approximately forty-five miles north, thirty-four west of Cape Evans. “In one week we have drifted forty-five miles (geographical). Most of this distance was covered during the first two days of the drift. We appear to be nearly stationary. What movement there is in the ice seems to be to the northwest towards the icebound coast. Hands who were after penguins yesterday reported much noise in the ice about one mile from the ship. I hope the floe around the ship is large enough to take its own pressure. We cannot expect much pressure from the south, as McMurdo Sound should soon be frozen over and the ice holding. Northeast winds would drive the pack in from the Ross Sea. I hope for the best. Plans for future development are ready, but probably will be checkmated again. . . . I took the anchors aboard. They are of no further use as separate anchors, but they ornament the forecastle head, so we put them in their places. . . . The supply of fresh water is a problem. The engineer turned steam from the boiler into the main water tank (starboard) through a pipe leading from the main winch pipe to the tank top. The steam condenses before reaching the tank. I hope freezing does not burst the tank. A large tabular iceberg, calved from the Barrier, is silhouetted against the twilight glow in the sky about ten miles away. The sight of millions of tons of fresh ice is most tantalizing. It would be a week’s journey to the berg and back over pack and pressure, and probably we could bring enough ice to last two days.”