THE VOYAGE BACK 419 



little room between the capstan bars and the rails, and I got 

 jammed, and received a nasty bruise on the leg. Awful stiff 

 on one's hands, and on the calf muscles — like pushing for 

 hours in a football scrum ! Pawls (or stops) prevented the 

 capstan from releasing the chain. Clink . . . clank, clink . . . 

 clank ; these pawls would sound every minute or so, and then 

 we had to rest. Each clink meant only an inch or two of 

 cable, and we had to haul in three hundred feet ! When the 

 ship twisted, and the cable lay along the side of the vessel, it 

 was impossible to raise the anchor an inch. Finally the 

 anchor caught a firm hold on the third attempt, about 7 p.m., 

 and we lay steady with ninety fathoms out. The gale 

 increased, and we all turned in to try and get some rest, and 

 be ready to land if it lulled. At 1 1 p.m. Pennell roused us, 

 and I got into the whaleboat. Bruce was in charge, and 1 

 rowed three. We were less than half a mile from the shore, 

 and found the lee of the cape quite calm. So I reached the 

 hut, after five months' absence. It was eleven days since we 

 had been picked up, all but a few hours, and this was the first 

 opportunity of communicating with our headquarters. 



I stumbled up the shore, nearly waist-deep in snow, where 

 in the preceding March there was hardly any ! We found 

 them all asleep, and by no means ready to come off. Simpson 

 and Day were soon dressed. I had, luckily, left all my gear 

 packed in November, and I hauled my boxes down to the ice- 

 foot. Simpson, Day, Anton, and I returned, and after some 

 bumping against the ice-ridged quarter of the Terra Nova we 

 got safely aboard. 



The gale began again, and all access to the shore was 

 blocked. Simpson and I yarned till 5 a.m. He told me 

 that Hooper and Day had reached the Hut on December 21st 

 from the Barrier. They had found their four-man sledge too 

 heavy, and having no suitable tool had burnt it in half with 

 the Primus lamp ! They had been caught in a blizzard, and 

 had marched blindly north in the ensuing thick weather. 

 Later, they saw their tracks led right between two parallel 

 crevasses, either of which would have engulfed them ! 



" Next day we could not bring off Meares, Clissold, and 

 Forde. Archer had gone ashore, so that the ship was now 

 without a cook ! The wind was fairly shrieking, and at 

 10 a.m. the anchor dragged. 



