ESCAPE FROM THE ICE 
realize that it was but a sheet of ice floating on unfathomed 
seas. Now our home was being shattered under our feet, and 
we had a sense of loss and incompleteness hard to describe. 
The fragments of our floe came together again a little later, 
and we had our lunch of seal meat, all hands eating their fiU. 
I thought that a good meal would be the best possible prepara- 
tion for the journey that now seemed imminent, and as we 
would not be able to take all our meat with us when we finally 
moved, we could regard every pound eaten as a pound rescued. 
The call to action came at 1 p.m. The pack opened well and 
the channels became navigable. The conditions were not all 
one could have desired, but it was best not to wait any longer. 
The Dudley Docker and the Stancomh Wills were launched 
quickly. Stores were thrown in, and the two boats were 
pulled clear of the immediate floes towards a pool of open 
water three miles broad, in which floated a lone and mighty 
berg. The James Caird was the last boat to leave, heavily 
loaded with stores and odds and ends of camp equipment. 
Many things regarded by us as essentials at that time were 
to be discarded a little later as the pressure of the primitive 
became more severe. Man can sustain life with very scanty 
means. The trappings of civilization are soon cast aside in 
the face of stern reahties, and given the barest opportunity of 
winnmg food and shelter, man can live and even find his 
laughter ringing true. 
The three boats were a mile away from our floe home at 
I 2 p.m. We had made our way through the channels and had 
entered the big pool when we saw a rush of foam-clad water 
and tossing ice approaching us, like the tidal bore of a river. 
The pack was being impefled to the east by a tide-rip, and two 
huge masses of ice were driving down upon us on converging 
courses. The James Caird was leading. Starboarding the helm 
and bending strongly to the oars, we managed to get clear. The 
two other boats foflowed us, though from their position astern 
at first they had not reahzed the immediate danger. The Stan- 
comh Wills was the last boat and she was very nearly caught, 
but by great exertion she was kept just ahead of the driving ice. 
It was an unusual and startling experience. The effect of tidal 
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