with Bowers at his request, for this undaunted little seaman would never
give up his charge while a gleam of hope remained.

For a whole day these two were afloat on a floe about 150 ft. square, all
the ice around was broken up into similar floes, which were rising and
falling at least a foot to the heavy swell. A moderate breeze was blowing
from the eastward, and nothing was visible above the haze and frost smoke
except the tops of two islands named White and Black Islands, and the
hills around Hut Point. Whilst Crean was clambering over bits of ice and
jumping by means of connecting pieces from one big floe to another, his
progress was watched by Bowers through the telescope of a theodolite. One
can gather how delighted Bowers must have been to see Crean eventually
high up on the Barrier in the distance, for it meant that he would
communicate with Captain Scott, whose intelligent, quick grasp, in
emergency would surely result in Gran being despatched on ski over to
Cape Evans, for he alone could do this. Once there, a boat could have
been launched and the floe party rescued. Bowers's satisfaction was
short-lived, however, since Killer whales were noticed cruising amongst
the loose ice, and these soon became numerous, some of them actually
inspecting the floe by poking their noses up and taking an almost
perpendicular position in the water, when their heads would be raised
right above the floe edge. The situation looked dangerous, for the whales
were evidently after the ponies. The wind fell light as the day
progressed and the swell decreased and vanished altogether. This
fortunately resulted in the floes closing near to the Barrier, and the
open water spaces decreased then to such a degree that the party were
able to bridge the cracks by using their sledges until they worked the
whole of their equipment up to the Barrier face, where Bowers and
Cherry-Garrard were rescued by Scott, Oates, Gran, and Crean. After a
further piece of manoeuvring a pony and all the sledges were recovered,