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Updated: May 26, 2025
Evidently she had managed, somehow or other, to get up into that crow's-nest. Charlotte had got ahead of me on this occasion. It was necessary, no doubt, that grownup people should dress themselves up and go forth to pay calls. I don't mean that we saw any sense in the practice. It would have been so much more reasonable to stay at home in your old clothes and play.
We could no longer continue our course, hour after hour without intermission, as before, the officers relieving each other in the crow's-nest, and one watch following the other through one long-protracted day.
I went up to the crow's-nest in order to work the ship to the best advantage, and spent eleven hours on end there, but the excitement of getting the "Terra Nova" round Cape Bird and into McMurdo Sound made the time fly. Occasionally the ship crashed heavily as she charged her way through the ice masses which skirted the shore.
The mastheads were crowded by the officers and men during the whole afternoon; and an unconcerned observer, if any could have been unconcerned on such an occasion, would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various reports from the crow's-nest were received; all, however, hitherto favourable to our most sanguine hopes.
We had just comfortably finished our meal, and Captain Perry had completed his final dispositions, when the look-out who had temporarily taken Mr Purchase's place in the crow's-nest came down with the intelligence that the sea-breeze was setting in, and might be expected to reach the becalmed craft within the next ten minutes; whereupon the first lieutenant and I returned to our post of observation to watch the progress of the approaching slavers, and report upon it from time to time.
They were not far off the main pack, and as far as the eye could see was one vast field of snow-covered ice. Their eyes were dazzled in looking at it. They were not in the crow's-nest, but close beside it, and Pete made them look through the spy-glass.
Besides, we have left them a plentiful supply of needfuls, and our trading with them has been fair and generous. The "Crow's-Nest" has been rigged upon the mainmast, and this morning, after breakfast, Mr. Whitney, three Esquimos, and myself started in Mr. Whitney's motor-boat to hunt walrus. The motor gave out very shortly after the start, and the oars had to be used.
"This morning, our last on the ship, the weather was clear, with a gentle south-south-easterly to south-south-westerly breeze. From the crow's-nest there was no sign of land of any sort. The pressure was increasing steadily, and the passing hours brought no relief or respite for the ship. The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4 p.m.
By the time one bell had sounded, with its repetition from the crow's-nest, followed by a long-drawn cry "all's well" from the lookouts, the last of the two thousand passengers had retired, leaving the spacious cabins and steerage in possession of the watchmen; while, sound asleep in his cabin abaft the chart-room was the captain, the commander who never commanded unless the ship was in danger; for the pilot had charge, making and leaving port, and the officers, at sea.
"It's so awkward not to be able to see you when I want to." Captain Bowers ventured a sympathetic wink. "It's awkward not to be able to see anybody when you want to," he said, softly. Two days later Miss Drewitt, peeping cautiously from her bedroom window, saw Mr. Tredgold perched up in the crow's-nest with the telescope.
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