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On Saturday, September 17, precisely at one o’clock, Sir Ernest Shackleton gave the word to cast off, and the Quest started from St. Katharine’s Dock, Tower Bridge, on her journey across the foamy leagues. Enthusiastically she endeavoured to celebrate the occasion by a stentorian blast on her whistle; but no matter how diligently the lanyard was tugged, nothing beyond a hoarse moan resulted. The watching crowd, realizing the intention, cheered resoundingly; and as if put on its mettle by this tribute of farewell, the whistle made another and more successful effort; a fairly creditable note resulted as the Quest was towed and warped out through the dock-heads into the open river. With the great Tower Bridge opened for us, as if we were a liner of repute instead of one of the stormy petrels of the sea, we passed up to London Bridge, where we swung about and then dropped down-stream under our own power.

We had a wonderful send-off. To me, unaccustomed to crowds, it was as though all London had conspired together to bid us a heartening farewell. Crowds and bigger crowds massed on the quays and the banks of the Thames. Both the Tower Bridge and London Bridge were packed with cheering people who clustered like flies. The bigger shipping in the river roared welcome and farewell to the little Quest; every siren was bellowing at its fullest blast, and our ineffective whistle was hard-set to make even a decent showing in reply, since the custom of the sea ordains that every signal given shall be scrupulously answered. Naturally the Press was strongly represented, writers and photographers alike; and since, in a way, we were public property, the whole ship’s company posed for the pointing lenses, whilst Shackleton, desirous that those at home should hold a pleasant final record of us, kept us laughing broadly at his swift shafts of wit.