SOUTH 
when tlie Primus was being lit. We had no lamp for the compass 
and during the early days of the voyage we would strike a 
match when the steersman wanted to sec the course at night ; 
but later the necessity for strict economy impressed itself upon 
us, and the practice of striking matches at night was stopped. 
We had one water-tight tin of matches. I had stowed away in 
a pocket, in readiness for a sunny day, a lens from one of the 
telescopes, but this was of no use dming the voyage. The sun 
seldom shone upon us. The glass of the compass got broken 
one night, and we contrived to mend it with adhesive tape 
from the medicine-chest. One of the memories that comes to 
me from those days is of Crean singing at the tiller. He always 
sang wliile helwas steering, and nobody ever discovered what 
the song was. It was devoid of time and as monotonous as 
the chanting of a Buddhist monk at his prayers ; yet somehow 
it was cheerful. In moments of inspiration Crean would 
attempt The Wearing of the Green." 
On the tenth night Worsley could not straighten his body 
after his spell at the tiller. He was thoroughly cramped, and 
we had to drag him beneath the decking and massage him 
before he could unbend himself and get into a sleeping-bag. 
A hard north-westerly gale came up on the eleventh day (May 5) 
and shifted to the south-west in the late afternoon. The sky 
was overcast and occasional snow-squalls added to the dis- 
comfort produced by a tremendous cross-sea — ^the worst, I 
thought, that we had experienced. At midnight I was at the 
tiller and suddenly noticed a hne of clear sky between the 
south and south-west. I called to the other men that the sky 
was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I 
had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an 
enormous wave. During twenty-six years' experience of the 
ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. 
It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart 
from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless 
enemies for many days. I shouted, " For God's sake, hold on ! 
It's got us ! " Then came a moment of suspense that seemed 
drawn out into hours. White surged the foam of the breaking 
sea around us. We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like 
174 
