19 December, 1910

Keeping the Captain's Log is a lonely business. I am required to make note of our position and the various particulars of our maneuvers and major events, and so forth -- but what a merely technical account reveals is really nothing like the reality of sailing in these conditions. It cannot portray, for example, how desperately nervous I am about our prospects.

Have made copious notes about the kind of pack ice we are in, describing the bergs. Have Asked Pennell to make a map of the pack. We know so little about it, where it comes from, how it travels, under what conditions it forms and breaks up.

This evening felt a little smug at the thought of being proved right in insisting we push on despite Evans suggesting twice that we stop. If indeed we break through, I will have won a major victory in the confidence of the men.

Saw first Emperor penguin today, and sea leopards. Also saw one of Wilson's new whales with a sabre dorsal fin I estimated to be 4 feet high.

Listed the officer's nicknames in the journal today. Men confined in close quarters always develop nicknames. Here it is:

Evans: Teddy

Wilson: Uncle Bill

Simpson: Sunny Jim

Ponting: Ponco

Campbell: The Mate

Pennell: Penelope

Rennick: Parnie

Bowers: Birdie

Taylor: Griff and Keir Hardy

Nelson: Marie and Bronte

Cherry-Garrard: Cherry

Wright: Silas

Priestly: Raymond

Debenham: Deb

Drake: Francis

Atkinson: Jane

Oates: Titus, Soldier, "Farmer Hayseed"

Levick: Toffarino, Old Sport

Lillie: Hercules

Mears, Day, Gran and Bruce don't appear to have nicknames.

I am known as "The Owner." At least it's not a girl's name.

2nd October, 1910

Set all sail today to catch some wind, but not much luck. Am impatient to get on. 

Feeling a little better today; this morning, someone set up the piano, so the ship was filled with a kind of jangly music as the ship leaned and listed, throwing the rolls off. It's one of those pianos fitted with an automatic player. For a while there it reminded one of being at a London music hall while drunk. 

The men have been establishing nicknames. 

There's "Birdie" Bowers, for example. Obviously on account of his enormous beak of a nose. He doesn't seem to mind it. 

We have "No surrender Oates," too. Apparently he refused to give up despite being wounded in the leg in battle. Quite the hero. He's an army man, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons. Hates women. Should be good with the ponies though. Had the nerve to ask me what my nickname is! He must have forgotten his place, which is as a member of my crew aboard this ship, and not a bloody aristocrat, like he is back home. 

So I told him: Con. It's short for Falcon, my middle name. Only Kathleen and my family call me by this name. It makes me feel like a child. I can't avoid it. 

You can't choose what people call you. I'd love to be known by a name that had a sense of grandeur about it, one day. I suppose a photograph of myself planting the Union Jack in the South Pole will do it. Can't fail this time; I'd be a laughing stock.