ESCAPE FROM THE ICE 
oar gear and stores aboard A mishap befell us when we were 
launching the boats. We were using oars as rollers, and three 
of these were broken, leaving us short for the journey that had 
still to be undertaken. The preparations took longer than I 
had expected ; indeed, there seemed to be some reluctance on 
the part of several men to leave the barren safety of the little 
beach and venture once more on the ocean. But the move 
was imperative, and by 11 a.m. we were away, the James Caird 
leading. Just as we rounded the small island occupied by 
the ringed penguins the " willywaw " swooped down from the 
2000-ft. cliffs behind us, a herald of the southerly gale that was 
to spring up within half an hour. 
Soon we were straining at the oars with the gale on oiir 
bows. Never had we found a more severe task. The wind 
shifted from the south to the south-west, and the shortage of 
oars became a serious matter. The James Caird, being the 
heaviest boat, had to keep a full complement of rowers, while 
the Dudley Docker and the Stancomh Wills went short and 
took turns using the odd oar. A big swell was thundering 
against the cHfis and at times we were almost driven on to 
the rocks by swirhng green waters. We had to keep close 
inshore in order to avoid being embroiled in the raging sea, 
which was lashed snow-white and quickened by the fiuious 
squalls into a living mass of sprays. After two hours of 
strenuous labour we were almost exhausted, but we were 
fortunate enough to find comparative shelter behind a point 
of rock. Overhead towered the sheer cliffs for hundreds of 
feet, the sea-birds that fluttered from the crannies of the rock 
dwarfed by the height. The boats rose and fell in the big 
swell, but the sea was not breaking in om' little haven, and 
we rested there while we ate our cold ration. Some of the men 
had to stand by the oars in order to pole the boats off the 
cliff-face. 
After half an hour's pause I gave the order to start again. 
The Dudley Docker was pulling with three oars, as the Stancomh 
Wills had the odd one, and she fell away to leeward in a 
particularly heavy squall. I anxiously watched her battling 
up against ^s-ind and sea. It would have been useless to take 
149 
