Worsley
was to come with me. We hurried northwards via Panama, steamship and
train companies giving us everywhere the most cordial and generous
assistance, and caught at San Francisco a steamer that would get us to
New Zealand at the end of November. I had been informed that the New
Zealand Government was making arrangements for the relief of the Ross
Sea party, but my information was incomplete, and I was very anxious to
be on the spot myself as quickly as possible.
CHAPTER XII
ELEPHANT ISLAND
The twenty-two men who had been left behind on Elephant Island were
under the command of Wild, in whom I had absolute confidence, and the
account of their experiences during the long four and a half months'
wait while I was trying to get help to them, I have secured from their
various diaries, supplemented by details which I obtained in
conversation on the voyage back to civilization.
The first consideration, which was even more important than that of
food, was to provide shelter. The semi-starvation during the drift on
the ice-floe, added to the exposure in the boats, and the inclemencies
of the weather encountered after our landing on Elephant Island, had
left its mark on a good many of them. Rickenson, who bore up gamely to
the last, collapsed from heart-failure. Blackborrow and Hudson could
not move.
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