ESCAPE FROM THE ICE 
and who will attempt more than they are physically able to 
accomplish. Rickenson was one of these eager souls. He was 
suffering, like many other members of the Expedition, from 
bad salt-water boils. Our wrists, arms, and legs were attacked. 
Apparently this infliction was due to constant soaking with 
sea-water, the chafing of wet clothes, and exposure. 
I was very anxious about the Dudley Docker, and my eyes 
as well as my thoughts were turned eastward as we carried the 
stores ashore ; but within half an hour the missing boat ap- 
peared, labouring through the spume-white sea, and presently 
she reached the comparative calm of the bay. We watched her 
coming with that sense of relief that the mariner feels when he 
crosses the harbour-bar. The tide was going out rapidly, and 
Worsley lightened the Dudley DocJcer by placing some cases on 
an outer rock, where they were retrieved subsequently. Then 
he beached his boat, and with many hands at work we soon 
had our belongings ashore and om* three craft above high-water 
mark. The spit was by no means an ideal camping-ground ; 
it was rough, bleak, and inliospitable — just an acre or two of 
rock and shingle, with the sea foaming around it except where 
the snow-slope, ruiming up to a glacier, formed the landward 
boundary. But some of the larger rocks provided a measure 
of shelter from the wuid, and as we clustered round the blubber- 
stove, with the acrid smoke blowing into our faces, we were 
quite a cheerful company. After all, another stage of the 
homeward journey had been accomplished and we could afford 
to forget for an hour the problems of the future. Life was not 
so bad. We ate om- evening meal while the snow drifted down 
from the surface of the glacier, and our chiUed bodies grew 
warm. Then we dried a little tobacco at the stove and enjoyed 
our pipes before we crawled into our tents. The snow had 
made it impossible for us to find the tide-line and we were 
uncertain how far the sea was going to encroach upon our 
beach. I pitched my tent on the seaward side of the camp 
so that I might have early warning of danger, and, sure enough, 
about 2 a.m. a little wave forced its way under the tent-cloth. 
This was a practical demonstration that we had not gone far 
enough back from the sea, but in the semi-darkness it was 
151 
