During the run up to Punta Arenas I heard Wild’s story, and blessed again the cheerfulness and resource that had served the party so well during four and a half months of privation.  The twenty-two men on Elephant Island were just at the end of their resources when the ‘Yelcho’ reached them.  Wild had husbanded the scanty stock of food as far as possible and had fought off the devils of despondency and despair on that little sand-spit, where the party had a precarious foothold between the grim ice-fields and the treacherous, ice-strewn sea.  The pack had opened occasionally, but much of the time the way to the north had been barred.  The ‘Yelcho’ had arrived at the right moment.  Two days earlier she could not have reached the island, and a few hours later the pack may have been impenetrable again.  Wild had reckoned that help would come in August, and every morning he had packed his kit, in cheerful anticipation that proved infectious, as I have no doubt it was meant to be.  One of the party to whom I had said “Well, you all were packed up ready,” replied, “You see, boss, Wild never gave up hope, and whenever the sea was at all clear of ice he rolled up his sleeping-bag and said to all hands, ’Roll up your sleeping-bags, boys; the boss may come to-day.’” And so it came to pass that we suddenly came out of the fog, and, from a black outlook, in an hour all were in safety homeward bound.  The food was eked out with seal and penguin meat, limpets, and seaweed.  Seals had been scarce, but the supply of penguins had held out fairly well during the first three months.  The men were down to the last Bovril ration, the only form of hot drink they had, and had scarcely four days’ food in hand at the time of the rescue.  The camp was in constant danger of being buried by the snow, which drifted heavily from the heights behind, and the men moved the accumulations with what implements they could provide.  There was danger that the camp would become completely invisible from the sea, so that a rescue party might look for it in vain.

“It had been arranged that a gun should be fired from the relief ship when she got near the island,” said Wild.  “Many times when the glaciers were ‘calving,’ and chunks fell off with a report like a gun, we thought that it was the real thing, and after a time we got to distrust these signals.  As a matter of fact, we saw the ‘Yelcho’ before we heard any gun.  It was an occasion one will not easily forget.  We were just assembling for lunch to the call of ‘Lunch O!’ and I was serving out the soup, which was particularly good that day, consisting of boiled seal’s backbone, limpets, and seaweed, when there was another hail from Marston of ‘Ship O!’ Some of the men thought it was ‘Lunch O!’ over again, but when there was another yell from Marston lunch had no further attractions.  The ship was about a mile and a half away and steaming past us.  A smoke-signal was the agreed sign from the shore, and, catching up somebody’s coat that was lying about, I struck a pick into a tin of kerosene kept for the purpose, poured it over the coat, and set it alight.  It flared instead of smoking; but that didn’t matter, for you had already recognized the spot where you had left us and the ‘Yelcho’ was turning in.”