"THE CAVALRY CLUB" 



difficulty we managed to do this. The ship was pitching 

 and rolling, flinging the cables from one side of the deck 

 to the other, and with our forty-year-old windlass it was 

 no light task to handle the heavy chains. Then I felt 

 one of the first real pinches of the stringent economy that 

 had to be practised from the inception of the expedition. 

 How I wished for the splendid modern gear of the 

 Discovery, the large specially built vessel that we had on 

 the previous expedition. During the afternoon the wind 

 and sea increased greatly, and the Nimrod pitched about, 

 shifting everything that could be moved on deck. The 

 seas began to break over her, and we were soon wet 

 through, not to be properly dry again for the next fort- 

 night. The decks were flooded with heavy seas, which 

 poured, white-capped, over the side, and even the topsail 

 yards were drenched with the spray of breaking waves. 

 Life-lines were stretched along the deck, and it was a 

 risky thing to go forward without holding on. 



Our chief anxiety was the care of the ponies, and look- 

 ing back now to those days, it remains a matter of wonder 

 to me how they survived the hardships that fell to their 

 lot. That night I arranged for a two-hour watch, con- 

 sisting of two members of the shore staff, to be always in 

 attendance on the ponies. The pony shelter had five stalls 

 on the port side and five on the starboard side of 

 the deck, with the fore hatch between them. The watch 

 keepers named this place " The Cavalry Club," and here 

 in the bleak and bitter stormy nights, swept off their feet 

 every now and then by the seas washing over the fore- 

 hatch, the members of the shore party passed many a 

 bad quarter of an hour. They bore all the buff eting and 

 discomfort cheerfully, even as those men of old, who 

 " ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the 

 sunshine." Night in the pony-stables was a weird 

 experience, with inky blackness all round, save only where 



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