Where None Had Gone Before

Sir Ernest asked me for the time. It was 6:55. He said, "We'll listen for the whaling station's whistle." Sure enough at 7 through the still morning air came the welcome sound of the turn-to whistles of the whaling station—the first sound of civilization we had heard for 18 months.

As Sir Ernest said, "Never did music sound so sweet to our ears as that whistle."

For the second time on the journey we shook hands, and I could not refrain from yelling, "Yoicks! Tally-Ho!"

The oil in the Primus was finished. We threw it away—a slight lightening of our load. Everything we could get rid of was a help by freeing our arms and hands for difficult ascents and descents or saving something dangling round one's neck or shoulders.

Bearing to the right we made our way for half a mile downward and across a fairly sharp slope which steepened gradually to a dangerous angle. I said it appeared as though we would have to turn back and find a better way down. Shackleton said, "No, we'll try it." I think he felt we were drawing near the end of our tether, and it was now or never.

Keeping the rope taut between us he cut steps with the adze diagonally across the ice-slope. For 100 yards it was touch-and-go—every lump of ice that started down gave one bump on the slope and then flew off into space. A single slip from one of us would have meant the end of all three.

Past the danger point was a steep slope, down which steps had to be cut for a short distance. Crean at the back and I in the middle "anchored" at each step until Shackleton had cut the next. Presently we found ourselves on a slope that was faced with an inch or less of ice. The slope seemed too steep to hold snow, but it had probably been plastered and packed against the mountain face by heavy gales. The surface had then been melted by the summer sun and frozen at night till it all held together.

Sir Ernest, lying flat on his back on the slope, eased himself down till he sat on one heel. Raising the other in the air at full length, he crashed it down through the inch of ice, forming a heel rest. Then, lowering himself onto that heel, he repeated the performance with the other, while we did the same and kept the rope taut. The second or third man's heel crashing into the same hole made it so large that it was easy for the rear man—Crean, a big, strong fellow—to hold the party safely. Now we made rapid and fairly easy progress down, not having to cut steps. We were walking downhill, lying flat on our backs. So steep was it that we felt an unreasonable fear, whenever we lifted our heads off the snow, that we would fall outwards and down.

For about 1,000 feet we came down so, till the slope eased, and we reached rocky gradients and ravines among the snow. Then we crossed low hills, all rocks, pot-holes and ravines covered with snow. At last we got clear of this and onto the shore—15 minutes' splendid tramping over a level beach. From here we could look up and see a faint thin line, zigzagging in places—our tracks on the incredible face we had descended.

We passed several inquisitive gentoo penguins, like little Charlie Chaplins, and many sea elephants, until we came to the front of the great glacier which, fortunately, did not quite reach the sea.