Apparently this infliction was due to constant soaking with
sea-water, the chafing of wet clothes, and exposure.
I was very anxious about the 'Dudley Docker', and my eyes as well as
my thoughts were turned eastward as we carried the stores ashore; but
within half an hour the missing boat appeared, labouring through the
spume-white sea, and presently she reached the comparative calm of the
bay. We watched her coming with that sense of relief that the mariner
feels when he crosses the harbour-bar. The tide was going out rapidly,
and Worsley lightened the 'Dudley Docker' by placing some cases on an
outer rock, where they were retrieved subsequently. Then he beached
his boat, and with many hands at work we soon had our belongings ashore
and our three craft above high-water mark. The spit was by no means an
ideal camping-ground; it was rough, bleak, and inhospitable--just an
acre or two of rock and shingle, with the sea foaming around it except
where the snow-slope, running up to a glacier, formed the landward
boundary. But some of the larger rocks provided a measure of shelter
from the wind, and as we clustered round the blubber-stove, with the
acrid smoke blowing into our faces, we were quite a cheerful company.
After all, another stage of the homeward journey had been accomplished
and we could afford to forget for an hour the problems of the future.
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