Where None Had Gone Before

Hoosh. What a joyous sound that word had for us. It was composed of lard, oatmeal, beef protein, vegetable protein, salt and sugar. The result was heating, nourishing and anti-scorbutic, and it was invaluable. Made up in half-pound bricks for one man's meal, it had the consistency of a new cheese and a yellow-brown colour, but looked, when boiled with water, like thick pea soup.

Any one of us would cheerfully have murdered a Chinaman for a pound of it. With a gill of Johnnie Walker it would have made a noble libation to Bacchus.

Hoosh this night was cooked over a real fire, made from the topsides of the boat and a few scraps of driftwood. How we revelled in the unaccustomed blaze! How luxurious we were as we steamed our soaked extremities, rested our wearied bodies on sleeping bags and tussock grass, stuffed ourselves with hot glorious hoosh and smoked salt-sodden tobacco!

Exercise and a certain amount of drying were restoring the circulation and feeling to our feet, with the result that they began to burn painfully. We snuggled into our sleeping bags, pressed close against each other, feet to the fire. The surf 10 feet away made a soothing sound, punctuated at intervals by the dull boom of a glacier "calving" into King Haakon Sound. Then sleep at last. It was perfect and untroubled for four or five hours, when I awoke with my feet burning to such an extent that I thought my bag must be on fire and, lifting my feet, asked Crean for an inspection. He reported all well, but not feeling content I asked Macarty the same question with the same result. I dozed off, but waking in a few minutes asked Vincent if I was on fire. The reply again was no. By this time I had grown thoroughly unpopular and was reminded that other people had burning feet, so subsided into a tired-out sleep till daylight. When I turned out I found a hole about 10 inches in diameter burnt in my sleeping bag and the heels of my socks burnt off! Strange to say, my feet were uninjured—it seems that wet hide does not burn well.

Next day Shackleton , Crean, Macarty and I explored inland, Vincent and Chips McNeish being still unfit to travel after our hazardous sea journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia whence we came seeking help for our 22 shipwrecked comrades. We found a plateau with baby albatross on the nest. These nests are of turf and tussock, built up year after year till they are sometimes four feet high. They are quite in the open, and the parents sitting on the nests resemble from a distance a flock of scattered sheep on the hillside. They lay one and sometimes two eggs, 6 to 7 inches long, on which cock and hen take turns at sitting. The chick develops into a beautiful white ball of down, like a huge powder-puff, with a head at one end ornamented with beautiful large appealing eyes and a soft beak, which it snaps impotently in imitation of its parents. These chicks give 12 or 14 pounds of delicious food and were a godsend to our weakened men. The first time I killed one I felt like a murderer, the second time a little less bad, and after that I just thought what a fine meal they would make and what a glorious feed the first had been. Skinned and cut up into pieces with half a pound of hoosh and a little water we simmered the meat over the tiny driftwood fire. When the dish was cooked we revelled in unwonted gluttony—the delicious, white, well-flavoured and rich flesh was rendered even more piquant by the addition of the hoosh and a little salt, which we had managed to save in a sealed tin. How we stuffed! For once there was no stint. We ate even the bones, as they were soft and juicy. After the feast, reclining luxuriously on the tussock and sleeping bags and contentedly puffing foul-smelling cigarettes, the Boss and I discussed making enough money to start another expedition by taking some hundreds of baby albatross and selling them to the epicures, gourmets, gourmands, gluttons and whatnots of Europe and New York at �50 apiece, quite ignoring the fact that there is a regulation forbidding the killing of these chicks, which we were then transgressing under the sterner law of necessity. We were then a law unto ourselves, and looked it.

As we smoked we felt a great content. The hardest part of our task was completed, we were living in luxury and our only anxiety was about our shipmates on Elephant Island.

After lunch the next day Shackleton and I set out to prospect for a possible route to the easy saddle we had seen at the head of the Sound. We traversed about five miles of very rough, hilly country, covered with close-packed tussock, snow and swamp. Then we worked east along the boulder beach on the south side of the Sound, passing a few herds and single sea elephants. Getting round one or two rocky points, we crossed two steep scree slopes until we were brought up by an impassable glacier. From here we made a mental survey of the Sound and counted 12 glaciers falling into it. Sir Ernest named some of them, the first after myself. I am not sure that I remember which one now but, in any case, there were enough to go round.

On our way back we came across some spars and pieces of driftwood which, if we got held here for the winter, meant firewood for us. These spars told tales of the loss of some gallant ships and men, probably off Cape Horn , drifted here before the nor'west gales. Sir Ernest picked up a pathetic little toy—a child's ship, one foot long. It may have told of tragedy, but at the least it was the minor tragedy of some child's lost treasure. Two miles from the cove we came across a 7-foot sea elephant. Not having a stick, I stunned him by hurling a small boulder on to his nose, then, turning butcher, took heart, liver, some flesh and blubber for food and fuel. All now knew that supplies would be assured for winter if necessary.

Next day the cove was filled with ice, but the boat was as ready as we could make her to proceed to the head of the Sound, it being impossible to strike inland from the cove.

It blew a gale all day—snow and sleet squalls, great clouds wreathing around and over the mountains, and the wind whipping white the surface of the Sound.