ESCAPE FROM THE ICE 
had now had one hundred and eight hours of toil, tumbling, 
freezing, and soaking, with little or no sleep. I think Sir Ernest, 
Wild, Greenstreet, and I could say that we had no sleep 
at all. Although it was sixteen months since we had been in 
a rough sea, only four men were actually sea-sick, but several 
others were off colour. 
" The temperature was 20° below freezing-point ; fortu- 
nately, we were spared the bitterly low temperature of the 
previous night. Greenstreet's right foot got badly frost-bitten, 
but Lees restored it by holding it in his sweater against liis 
stomach. Other men had minor frost-bites, due principally 
to the fact that their clothes were soaked through with salt 
water. . . . "We were close to the land as the morning approached, 
but could see nothing of it through the snow and spindrift. 
My eyes began to fail me. Constant peering to windward, 
watching for seas to strike us, appeared to have given me a 
cold in the eyes. I could not see or judge distance properly, 
and found myself falling asleep momentarily at the tiller. At 
3 a.m. Greenstreet relieved me there. I was so cramped from 
long hours, cold, and wet, in the constrained position one was 
forced to assume on top of the gear and stores at the tiller, 
that the other men had to pull me amidships and straighten 
me out like a jack-knife, first rubbing my thighs, groin, and 
stomach. 
At daylight we found ouivselves close alongside the land, 
but the weather was so thick that we could not see where to 
make for a landing. Having taken the tiller again after an 
hour's rest under the shelter (save the mark !) of the dripping 
tent, I ran the Dudley Docker off before the gale, following the 
coast around to the north. This course for the first hour was 
fairly risky, the heavy sea before which we were running 
threatening to swamp the boat, but by 8 a.m. we had obtained 
a slight lee from the land. Then I w^as able to keep her very 
close in, along a glacier front, with the object of picking up 
lumps of fresh-water ice as we sailed through them. Our 
thirst was intense. We soon had some ice aboard, and for the 
next hour and a half we sucked and chewed fragments of ice 
with greedy relish. 
141 
