: 
54 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD) © 
would have meant less than 10 minutes to float, had we © 
uncovered a hatch. 
‘The Chief Engineer (Williams) and carpenter (Davies), 
after we had all put our heads together, started cutting a 
hole in the engine room bulkhead, to enable us to get 
into the pump-well from the engine room; it was iron 
and, therefore, at least a 12 hours job. Captain Scott was 
simply splendid, he might have been at Cowes, and to do 
him and Teddy Evans credit, at our worst strait none of our 
landsmen who were working so hard knew how serious 
things were. Capt. Scott said to me quietly—‘I am afraid 
it’s a bad business for us—What do you think?’ I said 
we were by no means dead yet, though at that moment, 
Oates, at peril of his life, got aft to report another horse ~ 
dead; and more down. And then an awful sea swept away 
our lee bulwarks clean, between the fore and main riggings, 
—only our chain lashings saved the lee motor sledge then, 
and I was soon diving after petrol cases. Captain Scott 
calmly told me that they ‘did not matter’—This was our 
great project for getting to the Pole—the much advertised 
motors that ‘did not matter’; our dogs looked finished, 
and horses were finishing, and I went to bale with a strenu- 
ous prayer in my heart, and ‘ Yip-i-addy’ on my lips, and 
so we pulled through that day. We sang and re-sang every 
silly song we ever knew, and then everybody in the ship 
later on was put on 2-hour reliefs to bale, as it was impos- 
sible for flesh to keep heart with no food or rest. Even the 
fresh-water pump had gone wrong so we drank neat lime 
juice, or anything that came along, and sat in our saturated 
state awaiting our next spell. My dressing gown was my 
great comfort as it was not very wet, and it is a lovely 
warm thing. 
“To make a long yarn short, we found later in the day 
that the storm was easing a bit and that though there was 
a terrible lot of water in the ship, which, try as we could, 
we could not reduce, it certainly had ceased to rise to any 
great extent. We had reason to hope then that we might 
keep her afloat till the pump wells could be cleared. Had 
the storm lasted another day, God knows what our state — 
