Where None Had Gone Before

Next morning was our first fine day—a west wind ruffled the sparkling water outside the cove, starring it with white caps. At eight we gave the dismantled James Caird, the 22-foot lifeboat which carried us from Elephant Island, a flying start down the steep beach and launched her. We pulled clear of the hospitable cove, then hoisted our sail to a fine, fair breeze, before which we ran at about seven knots up King Haakon Sound. The saddle we saw from the boat the first day now showed up clearly, the only track to the interior. We ran up toward a group of rocky islets at the head of the Sound, but noticing a bold little bluff that rose island-like from flats on the left, we made for that. Running round two rocky little points, we came to a long, sloping shingle beach. We lowered the sail, pulled in through a small surf and beached the boat. Next we unloaded, carrying everything above high-water mark.

Just east of us was a marvellous pile of driftwood, covering half an acre, and piled from four to eight feet high in places. This was a graveyard of ships—woeful flotsam and jetsam—sport of the sea: lower masts, topmasts, a great main-yard, ships' timbers, bones of brave ships and bones of brave men. Most of it had drifted a thousand miles from Cape Horn, some of it 2,000 miles or more. Piled in utter confusion lay beautifully carved figureheads, well-turned teak stanchions with brass caps, cabin doors, broken skylights, teak scuttles, binnacle stands, boats' skids, gratings, head boards, barricoes and oars. The mighty roaring Southern Ocean, tiring of its sport, had cast them up contemptuously to rot, remnants of proud tall ships with lofty spars, of swift clippers, barques and barquentines. "Some day, Skipper," said Shackleton, "you and I will come and dig here for old treasure, or perhaps sleep quietly with the other old seamen."

We selected the best rollers we could find and, placing them under the boat, soon worked her up on to the land. Five or six hours of strenuous toil and we had got the boat upside down on shingle against a turf-covered rocky bank projecting through the snow. With boulders, tussocks torn up by the roots and turf, we closed the bows, stern and bankside and covered the remaining opening away from the bank with mainsail secured with stones. We placed oars and boards from the wreckage on the thwarts till we formed a beautiful dry upper story to our bijou cottage, and thoroughly tired out, slept all night the sleep of the conscienceless sailor, lulled by the soft murmurous tones of the sea on the beach.

Next day, a sou'west gale blowing with snow squalls, we completed what I called Peggotty House by planting tussocks and moss over it till it looked like an Irish turfed hut. Sir Ernest and I then prospected over the flat at the back of the camp to a huge glacier that, ploughing down, pushed a moraine over the flats. Skirting east along the glacier front and behind the "graveyard," we came to huge "snouts" of ice projecting over 200 yards of the beach. Then we climbed cautiously up on the treacherous surface of the glacier for a quarter of a mile, traversing to the east, and prospected two miles farther on for a route to the saddle, from which we intended to attack the crossing of South Georgia.

When we returned we found the others had completed a rough little sled to drag on our journey and Crean had got the gear generally ready. After hoosh, feeling cold under the boat, we lit a fire and turned in. We got up a comfortable warmth, but were nearly suffocated, and got sootier than ever before it went out.

When we turned out it was stormy as usual, the wind from nor'-nor'west with misty rain squalls and comparative warmth, causing the great glacier at the SE corner of the Sound to "calve" frequently with a noise like thunder.

It had been 10 days since we landed and not one of them fine enough to essay a start for the crossing. Now our anxiety was great, as the moon was full, and without fine weather and a full moon together it would be impossible to cross.

King Haakon Sound is on the uninhabited west coast. The whaling stations were all on the east coast. With winter on us, the ever-present fear was that our shipmates on Elephant Island might starve before even Shackleton's feverish anxiety could save them, so we dared not wait for spring and the whalers. As we could not with two enfeebled men take our boat around South Georgia, there was nothing for it but the crossing.

The aspects of the situation and the conditions we should face in the tramp across were as follows:

South Georgia, under the British flag, lies 110 miles WNW and ESE with a very irregular breadth up to 20 miles. The backbone of the island is the great Allardyce Range, averaging 5,000 feet in height and culminating in Mt. Paget, 9,600 feet. Several peaks rise to over 6,000 feet. Huge lateral ranges strike off at about right angles. The interior is a sheet of ice and snow some hundreds of feet thick except where rocky cliffs and peaks break through.