SOUTH 
Endurance we knew to be stout and true ; but no ship ever 
built by man could live if taken fairly in the grip of the floes 
and prevented from rising to the surface of the grinding ice. 
These were anxious days. In the early morning of September 2 
the ship jumped and shook to the accompaniment of cracks 
and groans, and some of the men who had been in the berths 
hurried on deck. The pressure eased a little later in the day, 
when the ice on the port side broke away from the ship to 
just abaft the main rigging. The Endurance was still held aft 
and at the rudder, and a large mass of ice could be seen adhering 
to the port bow, rising to within three feet of the surface. I 
wondered if this ice had got its grip by piercing the sheathing. 
62 
