ty, and before the night came our deck cargo had begun
to work loose. "You know how carefully everything had been lashed, but no
lashings could have withstood the onslaught of these coal sacks for
long. There was nothing for it but to grapple with the evil, and nearly
all hands were labouring for hours in the waist of the ship, heaving coal
sacks overboard and re-lashing the petrol cases, etc., in the best manner
possible under such difficult and dangerous circumstances. The seas were
continually breaking over these people and now and again they would be
completely submerged. At such times they had to cling for dear life to
some fixture to prevent themselves being washed overboard, and with coal
bags and loose cases washing about, there was every risk of such hold
being torn away.

"No sooner was some semblance of order restored than some exceptionally
heavy wave would tear away the lashing, and the work had to be done all
over again."[45]

The conditions became much worse during the night and things were
complicated for some of us by sea-sickness. I have lively recollections
of being aloft for two hours in the morning watch on Friday and being
sick at intervals all the time. For sheer downright misery give me a
hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a
bout of sea-sickness.

It must have been about this time that orders were given to clew up the
jib and then to furl it. Bowers and four others went out on the bowsprit,
being buried deep in the enormous seas every time the ship plunged her
nose into them with great force. It was an education to see him lead
those men out into that roaring inferno. He has left his own vivid
impression of this gale in a letter home. His tendency was always to
underestimate difficulties, whether the force of wind in a blizzard, or
the troubles of a polar traveller. This should be remembered when reading
the vivid accounts which his mother has so kindly given me permission to
use:

"We got through the forties with splendid speed and were just over the
fifties when one of those tremendous gales got us. Our Lat. was about 52 deg.
S., a part of the world absolutely unfrequented by shipping of any sort,
and as we had already been blown off Campbell Island we had nothing but
a clear sweep to Cape Horn to leeward. One realized then how in the
Nimrod--in spite of the weather--they always had the security of a big
steamer to look to if things came to the worst. We wer