Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

word because they told me that it slopped from side to side and halfway up the
walls, repeatedly wetting almost everything. Barrels were careering about and on the
factory deck heavy iron harpoons (l60 lbs) were hurled about. Fortunately, the only
casualty was one man who had his foot crushed.
Water swamped the bridge 14m (45 ft) above the waterline and a wave broke into
the Chief Officer's cabin on the deck below – breaking through the armour plate glass
in the porthole it swamped him - then cascaded down the stairs to the saloon. The
forward facing windows imploded and splinters of glass were embedded in the
wooden furniture. Oh! It was a storm! The waves buckled the foredeck - of heavy
steel plates – and this caused some apprentices who were near the bows to be
trapped below when the doors jammed, and they were very panicky and shouting
out until released. Of course no work was possible; it was a matter of sitting it out
and surviving. One of the lifeboats was carried away and an 80 ton whale (very
dead!) was careering around the fore plan wrapping itself around the deck fittings, as
a gang of seamen chased after, trying to get ropes attached it to tie it down.
Eventually it was swept overboard, carrying a stretch of bulwarks with it.
When the storm struck seven whale carcasses had been hauled up into the
slipway, but these were lost as well as the others being towed astern. Harry said it
was far away the worst storm he'd experienced in 17 years at sea, seven of them in
the Southern Ocean. Henry Buckle also said that, and he had been at sea for 45 years
- l5 of them in the Antarctic. So you see I haven't been exaggerating above about the
position on Setter 9 during the storm! As if to atone for the trouble it had caused the
sea was now flat calm and the sun shining. I spent a whole day trying to clear up the
remaining mess. Bransfield was to depart on the night of 10 March and I wrote some
more letters as it was probably the last chance for some time.
The Antarctic whaling season ended on 18 March that year and we finished
working up the last whales the following day. It was such a relief, because life had
become so monotonous, especially after the excitement of the catcher trip. Getting up
at 5.30 in the morning every day, with large bloody whales on deck and everything
rather dirty, was dispiriting. We had a very unfortunate accident - on the very last
day of the season. One of the catcher mates was disarming the harpoon gun on his
boat for the last time when it went off and decapitated him. It was very tragic and
more so coming at the very end of the season. We had a burial at sea from the foreplan
deck. However, to know that at last we were heading north again and that every
hour brought me nearer to Maureen was a great raiser of my spirits. One
disadvantage of the end of the season, though, was that more people came on board
from the catchers and consequently there was less cabin accommodation, but I
arranged for Hugh to move in and share with me.
My work had been crowned with success – though so far mainly negative I
feared. I had revised the Discovery Investigations' theory about the formation and
accumulation of whale corpora albicantia (bodies in the ovaries recording previous
ovulations, which threw light on the reproductive history). It was of some 25 years
standing, but I considered that my data and other analyses were pretty convincing
and was feeling rather excited. (Later I was to incorporate these ideas in two large,
28 page and l60 page, monographs that were published in the "Discovery" Reports
series in l958 and l961; see chapter 17).
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