put them in the bunkers for fuel. The day was overcast, with occasional
snowfalls, the temperature +12° Fahr. The ice in our neighbourhood was
quiet, but in the distance pressure was at work. The wind freshened in
the evening, and we ran a wire-mooring astern. The barometer at 11
p.m. stood at 28.96, the lowest since the gales of July. An uproar
among the dogs attracted attention late in the afternoon, and we found
a 25-ft. whale cruising up and down in our pool. It pushed its head up
once in characteristic killer fashion, but we judged from its small
curved dorsal fin that it was a specimen of Balaenoptera acutorostrata,
not Orca gladiator.

A strong south-westerly wind was blowing on October 20 and the pack
was working. The 'Endurance' was imprisoned securely in the pool, but
our chance might come at any time. Watches were set so as to be ready
for working ship. Wild and Hudson, Greenstreet and Cheetham, Worsley
and Crean, took the deck watches, and the Chief Engineer and Second
Engineer kept watch and watch with three of the A.B.'s for stokers.
The staff and the forward hands, with the exception of the cook, the
carpenter and his mate, were on "watch and watch"--that is, four hours
on deck and four hours below, or off duty. The carpenter was busy
making a light punt, which might prove useful in the navigation of
lanes and channels. At 11 a.m. we gave the engines a gentle trial turn
astern. Everything worked well after eight months of frozen
inactivity, except that the bilge-pump and the discharge proved to be
frozen up; they were cleared with some little difficulty. The engineer
reported that to get steam he had used one ton of coal, with wood-ashes
and blubber. The fires required to keep the boiler warm consumed one
and a quarter to one and a half hundred-weight of coal per day. We had
about fifty tons of coal remaining in the bunkers.