ACROSS SOUTH GEORGIA 
lie was one of the whalers. When one of them asked why 
no member of the party had come round with the relief, Worsley 
said, What do you mean ? " We thought the Boss or one 
of the others would come round," they explained. " What's 
the matter with you ? " said Worsley. Then it suddenly 
dawned upon them that they were talking to the man who 
had been their close companion for a year and a half. Within 
a few minutes the whalers had moved our bits of gear into 
their boat. They towed off the James Caird and hoisted her to 
the deck of their ship. Then they started on the return voyage. 
Just at dusk on Monday afternoon they entered Stromness 
Bay, where the men of the whaling-station mustered on the 
beach to receive the rescued party and to examine with profes- 
sional interest the boat we had navigated across 800 miles 
of the stormy ocean they knew so well. 
When I look back at those days I have no doubt that 
Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but 
across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island 
from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during 
that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the 
unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed 
to me often that w^e were four, not three. I said nothing to 
my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to 
me, " Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there 
was another person with us." Crean confessed to the same 
idea. One feels the dearth of human words, the roughness 
of mortal speech " in trying to describe things intangible, but 
a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference 
to a subject very near to our hearts. 
o 
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