56 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
This had happened. The watch had been badly kept. 
At half-past six ice had been reported, coming up. The 
engine had only half pressure (25 Ibs.) on. The ice 
came up with extraordinary rapidity right in the face of 
the wind. Nearer and nearer it had come until it was 
close up to the vessel’s screw. Mercifully the steam 
was just up—but only at that moment—and we had 
slipped out of the dragon’s mouth. It had been a 
narrow squeak—too narrow to be pleasant by a very 
long way. I must confess I was glad I hadn’t been on 
deck a moment before. If a block of that ice had 
touched our screw ten chances to one we should have 
paid dearly for it. Had I been on deck an hour ago 
we should then have been tacking away. Vain questions 
do no good. We didn’t ask the skipper why he hadn’t 
tried the sails. All the men were very grave and silent. 
They had all had an object-lesson which they would 
not soon forget. 
We had now, however, a little notion of what this ice 
really was. It was, as the skipper put it, ‘real, solid, 
polar ice—same as we had in Smith’s Sound.’ Rough, 
jagged, tumbled, hummocky, it had come, setting south- 
westward, from the Novaya Zemblya seas. 
As long as I live I shall regret this day because of a 
fatal mistake. We should have landed at Kriva for good 
and all; and we didn’t. We could have done it, but we 
lost the chance, and it never came again. 
Reluctantly, slowly, we moved up in front of the ice. 
