they continued to work their utmost and to trust me, we will all reach
safety in the end. Then we had supper, which the cook had prepared at
the big blubber-stove, and after a watch had been set all hands except
the watch turned in." For myself, I could not sleep. The destruction
and abandonment of the ship was no sudden shock. The disaster had been
looming ahead for many months, and I had studied my plans for all
contingencies a hundred times. But the thoughts that came to me as I
walked up and down in the darkness were not particularly cheerful. The
task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend
my energies and mental power and apply every bit of knowledge that
experience of the Antarctic had given me. The task was likely to be
long and strenuous, and an ordered mind and a clear programme were
essential if we were to come through without loss of life. A man must
shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.

At midnight I was pacing the ice, listening to the grinding floe and
to the groans and crashes that told of the death-agony of the
'Endurance', when I noticed suddenly a crack running across our floe
right through the camp. The alarm-whistle brought all hands tumbling
out, and we moved the tents and stores lying on what was now the
smaller portion of the floe to the larger portion. Nothing more could
be done at that moment, and the men turned in again; but there was
little sleep. Each time I came to the end of my beat on the floe I
could just see in the darkness the uprearing piles of pressure-ice,
which toppled over and narrowed still further the little floating
island we occupied. I did not notice at the time that my tent, which
had been on the wrong side of the crack, had not been erected again.
Hudson and James had managed to squeeze themselves into other tents,
and Hurley had wrapped himself in the canvas of No. 1 tent. I
discovered this about 5 a.m. All night long the electric light gleamed