HOW WE REACHED THE FROZEN LAND.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10738, 1 September 1913, Page 6

HOW WE REACHED THE FROZEN LAND.

THE OPENING OF SCOTT’S OWN STORY.

The September issue of the Australian magazine, Life, is a notable one. In it begins Captain Scott’s actual story, and the opening chapters are given of a strong new. serial story by Jack London, entitied“The Valley of the Moon” These two features alone make September Life a fine sixpeunyworth, but the 160 well-illustrated pages of the magazine are rounded out with many other articles, short stories, and departments that make the issue doubly attractive, “Captain Scott’s Own Story” runs through 23 pages, including eighteen pictures of rare interest, such as the inte-ior of a cave in an

iceberg, the members of the expedition at dinner on the “Terra Nova, ” a fine picture of Captain Oates with the ponies, and Scott himself on snow shose and in his cabin. Jin actual photograph is give of a page of Scott’s Diary, found beside him, and written when he knew death was inevitable. The first section of the diary—entitled “How We Reached the Frozen Land” —must be read in Life, but by arrangements with the publisher we print the following story told by Captain Scott himself:

NEARLY WRECKED IN A GALE

Xt four p.m., on December lafc the storm came on. “Soon,” writes Scott, ‘‘we were plunging heavily and taking much water over the lee rail. Cases of petrol? etc, began to break loose on the upper deck. The principal trouble was caused by the loose coal-bags, which were bodily lifted fay the seas and swung cgaiust the lashed cases; they acted like battering rams. It was hard work moving these bags to places of better security. “The night wore on, the sea and wind ever rising, and the ship ever plunging more distractedly. We shortened sail to maintopsail and staysail, stopping engines, and hove to, but to little purpose. Tales of ponies down came frequently from forward, where Oates and Atkinson laboured through the entire night. Worse was to follow —much worse ; a report from the engine-room that the pumps had . choked and the water risen over the gratings. From this moment, about four a m., the engine room became the centre of interest; the water gained in spite of every effort. Lashley, to bis neck in rushing water, stuck grimly to the work of clearing suctions. For a time, with donkey-engine and bilge-pump sucking, it looked as though the water would be got under, but the hope was short lived; live minutes of pumping invariably led to the same result —a general choking of the uumps, THS PUMPS FAIL. “The outlook appeared grim;the hand-pump produced only a dribble, and its suction could not be got at; as the water crept higher it got In contact with the boiler and grew warmer—so hob at last that no one could work at the suctions. What was to be done? appeared higher than ever; it came over the rail and poop, a rush of green water; the ship wallowed in it. A great piece of the bulwarks carried clean away “The bilge-pump is dependent on the main engine. To use this pump it was necessary to go ahead It was at such times that the heaviest seas swept in over the lee rail; over and over the rail from the forerigging to the main was covered by a solid sheet of curling water, which swept aft and high on the poop. On one occasion I was waist deep when standing on the rail of the poop. “The afterguard (i.e. the twentyfour officers) was organised in two parties by Lieutenant Evans to work buckets, the men were kept steadily going on the clicked hand-pump. . What a measure to count as the sole safeguard of the ship from sinking—practically an attempt to bale her out! Yet, strange as it may seem, the effort has not been wholly fruitless ; the string of buckets, which lias now been kept going for fear hours, together with the dribble from the pump, has kept the water under —if anything, there is a small decrease. PLUCKY LIEUTENANT EVANS. • “Meanwhile, we have been thinking of a way to get at the suction of the pump, A hole is being made in the engine-room bulkhead; the coal between this and the pump shaft will be removed, and a hole made in the shaft. With so much water coming aboard it is impossible to open the hatch over the shaft. “We are not cut of the wood, but hope dawns, as indeed it should, for me when I find myself wonderfully served. Officers and men aresinging chanties over their arduous work; Williams is working in sweltering heat behind the boiler to get the door made in the bulkhead ; not a single one has lost his good spirits.” Slowly the gale abated, and though the sea was still mountaiuously high, the ship laboured less heavily, and took In Igst water. Baling continued in two-hour shifts. By ten p. m the hole in the engine room bulkhead was completed, “and Lieutenant Evans, wriggling over coal, found his way to the camp shaft and down it. He soon cleared, the suction and to the joy of all a good stream of water came from the pump for the first time. ”

Though the pump choked again several times, doubt had ended; and with no second gale to follow immediately, the ship went on her way with the loss of two ponies, one dog, sixty five gallons of petrol and a case of the biologist’s alcohol. Thence it was a matter of “fighting her way south” through heavy seas and another gale till the ice was sighted on December 9th, and the pack entered on December 10th.

The story of the early days in the Frozen Laud, as told in September Life, covers such incidents as Laying Depots, Adventures with Killer Whales, The Dogs Drop in a Chasm, Adrift bn Sea Ice, etc. Any reader who cannot secure Life locally may subscribe.for a year by sending a postal note for 6s, or a cheque for 6a 6d, to-T. Shaw Fitchett, 876 Swsuston Street, Melbourne. As a receipt, the publisher will send the subscriber two really fine piclures of Gap tuns Scott and Oates, 15 s 20 inches each, printed on art paper, and worth framing.'*