At midnight I was pacing the ice, listening to the grinding floe and
to the groans and crashes that told of the death-agony of the
'Endurance', when I noticed suddenly a crack running across our floe
right through the camp. The alarm-whistle brought all hands tumbling
out, and we moved the tents and stores lying on what was now the
smaller portion of the floe to the larger portion. Nothing more could
be done at that moment, and the men turned in again; but there was
little sleep. Each time I came to the end of my beat on the floe I
could just see in the darkness the uprearing piles of pressure-ice,
which toppled over and narrowed still further the little floating
island we occupied. I did not notice at the time that my tent, which
had been on the wrong side of the crack, had not been erected again.
Hudson and James had managed to squeeze themselves into other tents,
and Hurley had wrapped himself in the canvas of No. 1 tent. I
discovered this about 5 a.m. All night long the electric light gleamed
from the stern of the dying 'Endurance'. Hussey had left this light
switched on when he took a last observation, and, like a lamp in a
cottage window, it braved the night until in the early morning the
'Endurance' received a particularly violent squeeze. There was a sound
of rending beams and the light disappeared.
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