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.

October 21 and 22 were days of low temperature, which caused the open leads to freeze over.  The pack was working, and ever and anon the roar of pressure came to our ears.  We waited for the next move of the gigantic forces arrayed against us.  The 23rd brought a strong north-westerly wind, and the movement of the floes and pressure-ridges became more formidable.  Then on Sunday, October 24, there came what for the ‘Endurance’ was the beginning of the end.  The position was lat. 69° 11´ S., long. 51° 5´ W. We had now twenty-two and a half hours of daylight, and throughout the day we watched the threatening advance of the floes.  At 6.45 p.m. the ship sustained heavy pressure in a dangerous position.  The attack of the ice is illustrated roughly in the appended diagram.  The shaded portions represent the pool, covered with new ice that afforded no support to the ship, and the arrows indicate the direction of the pressure exercised by the thick floes and pressure-ridges.  The onslaught was all but irresistible.  The ‘Endurance’ groaned and quivered as her starboard quarter was forced against the floe, twisting the sternpost and starting the heads and ends of planking.  The ice had lateral as well as forward movement, and the ship was twisted and actually bent by the stresses.  She began to leak dangerously at once.

I had the pumps rigged, got up steam, and started the bilge-pumps at 8 p.m.  The pressure by that time had relaxed.  The ship was making water rapidly aft, and the carpenter set to work to make a coffer-dam astern of the engines.  All hands worked, watch and watch, throughout the night, pumping ship and helping the carpenter.  By morning the leak was being kept in check.  The carpenter