Throughout the story Jesse Collins was referred to as the "Indomitable Jesse Collins". On the first night that the men of the Newfoundland were stuck on the ice the men were tired and hungry from their march from the Newfoundland to the Stephano, all the men wanted to do was to get something to eat and lay down to sleep. Jesse knew that if they stopped moving and slept that they would most likely never get back up again, so instead he motivated the men. He wouldn't let them sleep or even sit down for any amount of time. Jesse kept the men moving by walking in a circle and patting the back of the fellow in front of them to try to also warm up their shoulders. When the men's eyelids would become frozen shut by the ice they would stumble around blind until Jesse Collins came to each of them, on by one he would bit off the ice chunks from the eyebrows and eyelids so they could see once again. In turn of him biting off the pieces of ice he froze he lips. Since Jesse was so determined to keep the men on his pan alive, that he lost only a couple of men during the night in contrast to Dawson's pan which was referred to as a morgue.
Cecil Mouland was a seventeen year old at the time of the time of the disaster, it was his first time going onto the ice. Cecil had to walk to Doting Cove with his cousin Ralph Mouland and a few friends. Cecil was determined from the time they realized that they were stuck on the ice