Orde-Lees Journal, October 17, 1915
Having as I often do, written up several pages of this diary in advance owing to the recent lack of incident it so happens that some of the most eventful occurrences of our humdrum existence have taken place during the last few days.
On the 14th we may be said to have officially "broken out" today. The old crack from the rudder suddenly reopened & gradually widened during the night into a navigable lead. The strong West wind blowing forced us stern first along the lead for about two hundred yards to a place where the lead turned sharp at right angles. Into this place the stern slipped, fortunately without further damage to the already strained rudder, and in such a manner that the bows swing round and as the lead continued to open the ship's head cleared & pointed up in the new direction. The mizzen spanker was hoisted & we sailed along another two or three hundred yards until we jammed in a narrow part & thereafter were subjected to some pressure.
Pressure has been going on intermittently almost ever since the 14th inst., tilting the ship slightly first to one side then to the other until this afternoon it reached a climax by giving the ship such a tremendous nip that her stern was raised nine feet out of the water and the propellor was actually above the surface.
In order to relieve the pressure we were all out on the floe with picks & shovels digging a trench in the ice round the ship, but we got very wet owing to the trench becoming inundated & I doubt whether we did much good as the ship's side was pressed in five or six inches for about eighteen feet all along the outer wall of the port bunker. Contrary to our expectations she stood it; thank God.
Yesterday Sir Ernest decided to get up steam so we spent all the morning pumping sea water into the boiler by hand. No sooner was it full than a leak was discovered at the bottom & we had to pump it all out again. Meanwhile the water ran along the bilges & flooded my storeroom. I have been all day shifting the cases out of the water quite fifty of them. It was a disgusting job. The stinking bilge-water was eighteen inches deep at one end. I fell into it & got very wet & smelly.
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