ere Hooper and
Neale, the stewards, mere boys, supplied them with steaming cocoa. How on
earth the cooks kept the galley fires going I could never understand:
they not only did this, but fed us all at frequent intervals.

By 10 p.m. on the 2nd December the hole in the engine room bulkhead was
cut completely. I climbed through it, followed by Bowers, the carpenter,
and Teddy Nelson, and when we got into the hold there was just enough
room to wriggle along to the pump-well over the coal. We tore down a
couple of planks to get access to the shaft and then I went down to the
bottom to find out how matters stood. Bowers came next with an electric
torch, which he shone downwards whilst I got into the water, hanging on
to the bottom rungs of the ladder leading to the bilge. Sitting on the
keel the water came up to my neck and, except for my head, I was under
water till after midnight passing up coal balls, the cause of all the
trouble. Though, of course, we had washed out the bilges in New Zealand,
the constant stream of water which leaked in from the topsides had
carried much coal-dust into them. This, mixed with the lubricating oil
washed down from the engines, had cemented into buns and balls which
found their way down and choked both hand and engine pump suctions. I
sent up twenty bucketfuls of this filthy stuff, which meant frequently
going head under the unspeakably dirty water, but having cleared the
lower ends of the suction pipe the watch manning the hand pump got the
water down six inches, and it was obvious by 4 o'clock in the morning
that the pump was gaining. We therefore knocked the afterguard off
bailing, and the seamen worked steadily at the pump until 9 a.m. and got
the water right down to nine inches, so we were able to light fires again
and once more raise steam. We made a serviceable wire grating to put
round the hand pump suction to keep the bigger stuff from choking the
pipes in future. It was days before some of us could get our hair clean
from that filthy coal-oil mixture.

One more pony died during the gale, but when the weather moderated early
on the 3rd, the remaining seventeen animals bucked up and, when not
eating their food, nonchalantly gnawed great gaps in the stout planks
forming the head parts of their stalls. At last the sun came out and
helped to dry the dogs. Campbell and his seamen cleared up the decks and
re-secured the top hamper in the forenoon, we reset sail, and after tea
Scott, Oate