One of the people on the ‘Stancomb Wills’ shouted, “We are doing all right, but I would like some dry mitts.”  The jest brought a smile to cracked lips.  He might as well have asked for the moon.  The only dry things aboard the boats were swollen mouths and burning tongues.  Thirst is one of the troubles that confront the traveller in polar regions.  Ice may be plentiful on every hand, but it does not become drinkable until it is melted, and the amount that may be dissolved in the mouth is limited.  We had been thirsty during the days of heavy pulling in the pack, and our condition was aggravated quickly by the salt spray.  Our sleeping-bags would have given us some warmth, but they were not within our reach.  They were packed under the tents in the bows, where a mail-like coating of ice enclosed them, and we were so cramped that we could not pull them out.

At last daylight came, and with the dawn the weather cleared and the wind fell to a gentle south-westerly breeze.  A magnificent sunrise heralded in what we hoped would be our last day in the boats.  Rose-pink in the growing light, the lofty peak of Clarence Island told of the coming glory of the sun.  The sky grew blue above us and the crests of the waves sparkled cheerfully.  As soon as it was light enough we chipped and scraped the ice off the bows and sterns.  The rudders had been unshipped during the night in order to avoid the painters catching them.  We cast off our ice-anchor and pulled the oars aboard.  They had grown during the night to the thickness of telegraph-poles while rising and falling in the freezing seas, and had to be chipped clear before they could be brought inboard.

We were dreadfully thirsty now.  We found that we could get momentary relief by chewing pieces of raw seal meat and swallowing the blood, but thirst came back with redoubled force owing to the saltness of the flesh.  I gave orders, therefore, that meat was to be served out only at stated intervals during the day or when thirst seemed to threaten the reason of any particular individual.  In the full daylight Elephant Island showed cold and severe to the north-north-west.  The island was on the bearings that Worsley had laid down, and I congratulated him on the accuracy of his navigation under difficult circumstances, with two days dead reckoning while following a devious course through the pack-ice and after drifting during two nights at the mercy of wind and waves.  The ‘Stancomb Wills’ came up and McIlroy reported that Blackborrow’s feet were very badly frost-bitten.  This was unfortunate, but nothing could be done.  Most of the people were frost-bitten to some extent, and it was interesting to notice that the “oldtimers,” Wild, Crean, Hurley, and I, were all right.  Apparently we were acclimatized to ordinary Antarctic temperature, though we learned later that we were not immune.