There was hope in their hearts and they
trusted us to bring the help that they needed.
I had all sails set, and the 'James Caird' quickly dipped the beach
and its line of dark figures. The westerly wind took us rapidly to the
line of pack, and as we entered it I stood up with my arm around the
mast, directing the steering, so as to avoid the great lumps of ice
that were flung about in the heave of the sea. The pack thickened and
we were forced to turn almost due east, running before the wind towards
a gap I had seen in the morning from the high ground. I could not see
the gap now, but we had come out on its bearing and I was prepared to
find that it had been influenced by the easterly drift. At four
o'clock in the afternoon we found the channel, much narrower than it
had seemed in the morning but still navigable. Dropping sail, we rowed
through without touching the ice anywhere, and by 5.30 p.m. we were
clear of the pack with open water before us. We passed one more piece
of ice in the darkness an hour later, but the pack lay behind, and with
a fair wind swelling the sails we steered our little craft through the
night, our hopes centred on our distant goal. The swell was very heavy
now, and when the time came for our first evening meal we found great
difficulty in keeping the Primus lamp alight and preventing the hoosh
splashing out of the pot.
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