The connexion had been cut.
Morning came in chill and cheerless. All hands were stiff and weary
after their first disturbed night on the floe. Just at daybreak I went
over to the 'Endurance' with Wild and Hurley, in order to retrieve some
tins of petrol that could be used to boil up milk for the rest of the
men. The ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck. The
jib-boom and bowsprit had snapped off during the night and now lay at
right angles to the ship, with the chains, martingale, and bob-stay
dragging them as the vessel quivered and moved in the grinding pack.
The ice had driven over the forecastle and she was well down by the
head. We secured two tins of petrol with some difficulty, and
postponed the further examination of the ship until after breakfast.
Jumping across cracks with the tins, we soon reached camp, and built a
fireplace out of the triangular water-tight tanks we had ripped from
the lifeboat. This we had done in order to make more room. Then we
pierced a petrol-tin in half a dozen places with an ice-axe and set
fire to it. The petrol blazed fiercely under the five-gallon drum we
used as a cooker, and the hot milk was ready in quick time. Then we
three ministering angels went round the tents with the life-giving
drink, and were surprised and a trifle chagrined at the matter-of-fact
manner in which some of the men accepted this contribution to their
comfort.
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