We made our way through the lanes till at noon we were suddenly spewed out of the pack into the open ocean.  Dark blue and sapphire green ran the seas.  Our sails were soon up, and with a fair wind we moved over the waves like three Viking ships on the quest of a lost Atlantis.  With the sheet well out and the sun shining bright above, we enjoyed for a few hours a sense of the freedom and magic of the sea, compensating us for pain and trouble in the days that had passed.  At last we were free from the ice, in water that our boats could navigate.  Thoughts of home, stifled by the deadening weight of anxious days and nights, came to birth once more, and the difficulties that had still to be overcome dwindled in fancy almost to nothing.

During the afternoon we had to take a second reef in the sails, for the wind freshened and the deeply laden boats were shipping much water and steering badly in the rising sea.  I had laid the course for Elephant Island and we were making good progress.  The ‘Dudley Docker’ ran down to me at dusk and Worsley suggested that we should stand on all night; but already the ‘Stancomb Wills’ was barely discernible among the rollers in the gathering dusk, and I decided that it would be safer to heave to and wait for the daylight.  It would never have done for the boats to have become separated from one another during the night.  The party must be kept together, and, moreover, I thought it possible that we might overrun our goal in the darkness and not be able to return.  So we made a sea-anchor of oars and hove to, the ’Dudley Docker’ in the lead, since she had the longest painter.  The ’James Caird’ swung astern of the ‘Dudley Docker’ and the ‘Stancomb Wills’ again had the third place.  We ate a cold meal and did what little we could to make things comfortable for the hours of darkness.  Rest was not for us.  During the greater part of the night the sprays broke over the boats and froze in masses of ice, especially at the stern and bows.  This ice had to be broken away in order to prevent the boats growing too heavy.  The temperature was below zero and the wind penetrated our clothes and chilled us almost unbearably.  I doubted if all the men would survive that night.  One of our troubles was lack of water.  We had emerged so suddenly from the pack into the open sea that we had not had time to take aboard ice for melting in the cookers, and without ice we could not have hot food.  The ‘Dudley Docker’ had one lump of ice weighing about ten pounds, and this was shared out among all hands.  We sucked small pieces and got a little relief from thirst engendered by the salt spray, but at the same time we reduced our bodily heat.  The condition of most of the men was pitiable.  All of us had swollen mouths and we could hardly touch the food.  I longed intensely for the dawn.  I called out to the other boats at intervals during the night, asking how things were with them.  The men always managed to reply cheerfully.