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Chapter III. Setting Sail

Lieutenant Evans was in command of the ship when she sailed on 15 June, 1910. The other members of the ship’s company were Lieutenant Campbell, RN Chief Officer (Later leader of the party landed at Cape Adare) Lieutenant Pennell, Navigating Officer – lost in HMS Queen Mary at the Battle of Jutland, 1916. – Lieutenant Rennick, RN, Second Officer, and hydrographic Surveyor – also lost during the first world war in HMS Hogue when she was torpedoed by a German submarine, U29, 1914; Lieutenant Bowers RIM, Third officer, and Sailing Master – perished with Captain Scott; Captain Oates, Inniskilling Dragoons, who later had charge of the ponies who also perished on the return journey from the Pole; Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Murray Levick RN, ship’s doctor – landed with Cape Adare party. Surgeon Lieutenant Atkinson RN, an Engineer Officer RN, who did not get further than Melbourne, outward bound; Lieutenant Gran of the Royal Norwegian Navy, ski Expert, Doctor Wilson, Chief of Scientific Staff perished with Captain Scott; Doctor Simpson and Mr Wright, physicists, Doctor Nelson and Doctor Lillie, biologists and Mr Cherry Gerrard, zoologist made up the Afterguard.

Amongst the crew under the foc’le were a Bos’n RN who left the ship at Lyttleton, outward bound. Alf Cheetham, merchant Navy, Bos’n of the ship; Billy Williams CERA, RN, Second Engineer; Bill Lashley, Chief Stoker RN, Third Engineer; Taff Evans and Mick Crean, Petty Officers RN, in charge of Port and Starboard watches respectively; Bill Heald and Tom Williamson – served in Discovery; Patsy Keohane, Joe Ford, Fred Parsons, Arthur Browning – Harry Dickason, all Petty Officers in the Royal Navy; Hugh Mather, Petty Officer, RNVR, Walter Archer, Chief Steward and Chef; Tom Clissold, assistant Chef; Lofty Hooper and Bill Neald, Stewards; Bob Brissenden , Stoker Petty Officer RN – drowned during a survey of the French Pass, New Zealand,1912 – Tom Mckensie, Billy Burton, firemen also Stoker Petty Officers RN, Bill Smythe, Sailmaker, and myself, Carpenter. There were a few seamen in addition to those mentioned by name but these mostly faded out before the ship left Lyttleton, on her first voyage South.

We had two dogs on board presented by Peary, first to reach the North Pole, called ‘Peary’ and ‘Cook’ by the ship’s company. Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole before Peary the same year, but was later discredited. The name Cook was officially changed to ‘Yank’ for obvious reasons.

In spite of the fact that it was generally acknowledged this was the best equipped expedition that had ever left the shores of this country, or any other country for that matter for Polar exploration, most of the ship’s fittings were antiquated and we were minus radio. Maybe it will not be out of place to describe some of these ancient appliances which were more or less my special ‘babies’ and took an awful lot of nursing.

Pride of place must, I think, be given to the windless. This piece of ‘Armstrong’s patent’ (hand) machinery ‘lived’ just under the break of the foc’le and was of course used for heaving up the anchor and operated by the Capstan on the foc’le which was hove round by means of wooden bars (capstan bars). The motive power being supplied by every man jack of the crew who could be clapped on the bars to the tune of a favourite shanty, generally ‘Rio Grande’. When it first came under my notice it looked almost like a solid billet of rusted iron though the working parts could hardly be described as delicate. I should think somebody had at one time had a brain wave and fitted a gypsy (endless chain) between the fore winch and the windless, so that it could be operated by steam instead of by hand.

Terra Nova

In order to connect the winch and the windless the gypsy had to be passed through the galley, which had two small shutters fitted, one on the fore end and one on the after end for this purpose.

To prepare for heaving up the anchor, the gypsy – the links of which fitted in snugs on the sprocket wheels on the winch and windless – was passed over the two sprockets and the two ends brought together and connected by riveting two half links to form an endless chain. All was then ready for heaving in the cable. I took my place at the windless ready to tend the brake and an engineer stood by the steam valve to work the winch. From my position I could neither see the officer giving orders, or the engineer, nor could the engineer see the officer. At the order ‘heave in’, I eased the brake and the engineer turned on the steam. With a jig and jerk the strain came on the gypsy and slowly the cable started to come in. In a few seconds the gypsy would have stretched to such an extent it flapped up and down in the galley, sending the cooking utensils flying in every direction to the accompaniment of two beautiful flows of nautical language from the chef and his mate.

There was such an awful din it was impossible to hear any orders passed, these were conveyed in a sort of ‘tic-tac’ code by seamen posted at strategic points. Often it would be necessary to stop and shorten the gypsy by cutting off two or three links and reconnecting with half links. Heath Robinson had nothing on this, but all hands thought it a wonderful idea as it saved them hours of ‘roundey-come-roundey’ on the capstan.

The next in order of seniority and perhaps most important of all, was the hand pump. This functioned on deck between the main rigging. It was a heavy cast iron affair and had four vertical plungers and was really two independent pumps for there were two separate suction pipes from the bilges. The water was discharged on deck through the wide mouth of the Old Man of the Sea, whose head adorned the sunny side of the pump.

Under good conditions it was a most efficient type of pump, but with dirty bilges such as these were it was another story. It gave me endless trouble when the weather was bad. I almost had to sleep beside it. Unfortunately the bilges under the ceiling (inner bottom planking) were not get-at-able for cleaning and the muck from them found its way under the leather seated valves, putting the pump completely out of action.

This happened very often during bad weather, making it necessary to completely strip the pump in order to clean the valves which meant removing the plungers to get at the foot valves. These were portable and fitted on heavy tapered metal plugs, wrapped round with ordinary lamp wick to pack them tightly in their places. On top of each plug was a large eye for lifting them out. If these were driven tightly I had difficulty in getting them out, if they were not tight enough they worked loose on their own and put the pump out of action.

The steering gear was the least troublesome of my ‘babes’. It was right aft on the poop and from here the helmsman steered the ship. There was no shelter for him in any shape or form, and in bad weather and particularly on dark nights with a roaring, towering, following sea which threatened to engulf the ship every few seconds, it was really frightening. The only spot of comfort was the dim light from the binnacle lamp of the steering compass, no human being nearer than the bridge. It was of the most simple design, just a chain, one end of which was attached to the tiller and the other end rove through a block on the deck at the ship’s side, then three or four turns over the barrel of the wheel through another block on the opposite side of the ship and finally secured to the tiller.

The steering wheel was nearly six feet in diameter. There were, two wheels, one at the fore end and one at the after end of the barrel. It had one great advantage, the helm could be put over quickly, but unlike screw steering gear it was not self holding and had to be held against the sea constantly by the helmsman, who received every shock from the heavy seas when they struck the rudder. It was not unknown for the helmsman to be thrown right over the wheel when the rudder was hit by a particularly heavy sea.

To take a certain amount of the strain, two rope lanyards were fitted one on either side of the wheel attached to heavy ringbolts in the deck. With one of these the helmsman took a turn round the wheel and held it in hand so that it could be released instantly if necessary. At times there was an additional helmsman, a lee helmsman, particularly when it was necessary to use the rudder a lot for instance when working through pack-ice, when a two hour trick at the wheel was no job for a weakling. The Officer of the watch always kept half an eye on the helmsman, whose face was visible even on the darkest night, in the dim light of the binnacle as he watched the compass.

The crew were always very considerate to one another and never forgot to take along a steaming hot cup of cocoa at least once during the trick. How much one appreciates the simple and commonplace things of life under conditions of great emotional strain.

Blueprints of Terra Nova