The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

by Caroline Alexander

  South Georgia Island

  “The outlook was disappointing. I looked down a sheer precipice to a chaos of crumpled ice 1,500 feet below.” ( Shackleton, South)

  The Voyage of the James Caird

  Tues 25th Fine WSW breeze running all day sky overcast.

  Wed 26th W.SW gale squally & cloudy run 105 mile

  Thurs 27th Northerly gale overcast & heavy squalls hove too.

  Friday 28th Light N.W to W winds misty high NW swell

  Sat 29th Fresh W to SW breeze sqaly running high seas

  Sunday 30th hove too at 8 AM & put out sea anchor at 3 PM heavy sprays breaking over the boat & freezing solid.

  Mon May lst SSW gale laying to sea anchor & mizzen

  Tues May 2nd—

  —HENRY MCNISH, diary

  “The tale of the next sixteen days is one of supreme strife amid heaving waters,” wrote Shackleton. The crew of the Caird had departed on a day of rare sunshine that made the water sparkle and dance, and the peaks and glacial slopes of Elephant Island glittered with deceptive beauty as they slowly fell away behind the boat. An hour and a half after taking leave of the line of dark figures on the lonely beach, the Caird 's crew ran into their old enemy, the pack. Once again, they entered the eerie landscape of fantastically shaped ancient, wrecked bergs. A channel they had spotted before departure from the beach led them through the heaving, strangely rustling pack to open water by nightfall. Even on this first, relatively easy day the Caird shipped water, soaked by spray and soused by breaking waves. The crew wore woolen underwear under ordinary cloth trousers, Jaeger sweaters, woolen socks, mitts, and balaclavas. Over these, each man had his Burberry overalls and helmet.

  “These, although windproof, were unfortunately not waterproof,” Worsley observed.

  Shackleton hoped to run north for a few days, away from the ice and towards warmer weather, before bearing east and setting a course for South Georgia Island. This was not the nearest landfall—Cape Horn was closer—but the prevailing west erly gales made it the only one feasible.

  The men took their first meal under the low canvas deck in a heavy swell, fighting to steady the little Primus stove on which hot food depended. Unable to sit upright, they ate with great difficulty, their chests almost pressed against their stomachs. The staple of their diet was “hoosh,” a brick of beef protein, lard, oatmeal, sugar, and salt originally intended as sledging rations for the transcontinental trek that now lay on the fringe of memory. Mixed with water, hoosh made a thick stew over which the coveted Nut Food could be crumbled. All but Worsley and McCarthy were seasick. After the meal, McNish, Crean, McCarthy, and Vincent crawled into their wet bags and lay down on the hard, shifting ballast of stones, while Worsley and Shackleton shared the first watch. With the Southern Cross shining from the clear, cold sky overhead, they sailed north by the stars.

  “Do you know I know nothing about boat-sailing?” Worsley reports Shackleton as saying with a laugh, on this first night watch. He continues: “‘Alright, Boss,' I replied, ‘I do, this is my third boat-journey.' “

  Worsley's report of the conversation was intended as a tribute to Shackleton's courage in undertaking such a dangerous voyage as a land explorer whose seafaring days were behind him. But in fact, it is striking how many of the British polar explorers were experienced sailors. Not only had Shackleton served twenty years in the Merchant Service, but each member of the James Caird 's small crew had so many years of experience at sea that expertise was taken for granted. Each man had the assurance that when he went “below deck” to crawl into his bag, his companions above who worked the sails and tiller knew, even under the unprecedented conditions, exactly what they were doing.

  By dawn, when Crean emerged to light the Primus, the Caird had made forty-five miles from Elephant Island. Breakfast was prepared below deck, with the sea breaking over the canvas covering and running down the men's necks. In the afternoon, the wind rose to a gale from the west-southwest, with a dangerous high cross sea that racked the heavily ballasted boat with a hard, jerky motion. Shackleton divided the crew into two watches, with himself, Crean, and McNish taking one, and Worsley, McCarthy, and Vincent the other, rotating four-hour shifts.

  “The routine,” wrote Worsley, “was, three men in bags deluding themselves that they were sleeping, and three men ‘on deck'; that is one man steering for an hour, while the other two when not pumping, baling or handling sails were sitting in our ‘saloon' (the biggest part of the boat, where we generally had grub).” Going “below” was a dreaded ordeal: The space amid the increasingly waterlogged ballast was only five by seven feet. The men had to line up one behind the other and crawl, in heavy, wet clothes, over the stones and under a low thwart to reach their bags. With the boat rolling and shipping water, entrapment in this narrow space held all the horror of being buried alive, and many times men who had nodded off awoke to the sickening sensation that they were drowning.

  “Real rest we had none,” wrote Shackleton. The worn-out reindeer-skin bags were shedding badly, and their bristly hairs appeared everywhere—in the men's clothes, in their food, in their mouths. There was nothing to relieve the long hours of darkness, from six at night until seven in the morning; the boat carried only a makeshift oil lamp and two candles, which provided meager, carefully hoarded light. On the first night out, the cries of penguins coming from the dark sea reminded the men of lost souls.

  On the third day, despite snowy, stormy weather, Worsley snatched the journey's first observation of the sun between patches of racing cloud. Kneeling on a thwart while Vincent and McCarthy strained to brace him in the pitching boat, Worsley managed to fix his sextant and take his “snap.” The precious almanac and logarithm charts, against which the observations were calculated, had become dangerously pulpy, the pages sticking together and the numbers blurred. Nonetheless, Worsley's calculations revealed that they had come 128 miles from Elephant Island.

  They were, however, widely off the position he had previously reckoned. Worsley wrote,

  Navigation is an art, but words fail to give my efforts a correct name. Dead reckoning or DR— the seaman's calculation of courses and distance — had become a merry jest of guesswork.… The procedure was: I peered out from our burrow — precious sextant cuddled under my chest to prevent seas falling on it. Sir Ernest stood by under the canvas with chronometer pencil and book. I shouted “Stand by,” and knelt on the thwart — two men holding me up on either side. I brought the sun down to where the horizon ought to be and as the boat leaped frantically upward on the crest of a wave, snapped a good guess at the altitude and yelled, “Stop,” Sir Ernest took the time, and I worked out the result. … My navigation books had to be half opened page by page till the right one was reached, then opened carefully to prevent utter destruction.

  Steering at night was especially difficult. Under dense skies that allowed no light from moon or stars, the boat charged headlong into the darkness, the men steering by the “feel” of the wind, or the direction of a small pennant attached to the mast. Once or twice each night, the wind direction was verified by compass, lit by a single precious match. And yet navigation was every bit as critical as keeping the boat upright; the men knew that even a mile off course could result in a missed landfall, and the Caird would be swept into 3,000 miles of ocean.

  In the afternoon of the third day, the gale backed to the north, and then blew continuously the next twenty-four hours. The heaving waves were gray, the sky and lowering clouds were gray, and all was obscured with mist. Heavy seas poured over the Caird's port quarter. The canvas decking, sagging under the weight of so much water, threatened to pull loose the short nails McNish had extracted from packing cases. As if to underscore their own vulnerability, a flotsam of ship wreckage drove past them.

  “We were getting soaked on an average every three or four minutes,” wrote Worsley. “This went on day and night. The cold was intense.” Particularly hateful was the task of working the pump, which one man had to hold hard again
st the bottom of the boat with bare hands—a position that could not be endured beyond five or six minutes at a time.

  In the afternoon of April 28, the fifth day, the wind died and the seas settled into the towering swells characteristic of the latitude; “The highest, broadest and longest swells in the world,” as Worsley wrote. So high were the waves that the Caird 's sails slackened in the artificial calm between wave crests; then the little craft was lifted onto the next hill of water, and hurled down an ever-steepening slope. On the following day, a west-southwest gale pitched and rolled the Caird in a high lumpy sea, but gave an excellent run of ninety-two miles on the desired northeast course. They had now come 238 miles from Elephant Island, “but not in a straight line,” as Worsley observed ruefully.

  On April 30, the gale strengthened and shifted from the south, blowing off the ice fields behind them, as they knew by the increasing cold. Shackleton wanted to run before the wind, but realizing that the Caird was in danger of being swung broadside to the surging waves, or driven headlong into the sea, he reluctantly gave the order to head into the wind and stand by.

  “We put out a sea anchor to keep the James Caird 's head up into the sea,” Shackle-ton wrote. “This anchor consisted of a triangular canvas bag fastened to the end of the painter and allowed to stream out from the bows.” The drag of the sea anchor counteracted the boat's drift to the lee, and held her head into the wind so that she met the sea head-on. Up until now, however much the Caird was battered, however much icy water she shipped, she had moved forward, slowly, perceptibly closing the distance that lay between them and South Georgia. Now, soaked by bitter spray, the men waited anxiously in the pitching darkness and knew their suffering brought little progress.

  “Looking out abeam,” wrote Shackleton, “we would see a hollow like a tunnel formed as the crest of a big wave toppled over on to the swelling body of water.” The spray that broke upon the reeling boat froze almost on impact, and towards the end of the eighth day, the Caird 's motion had changed alarmingly. No longer rising with the swell of the sea, she hung leaden in the water. Every soaking inch of wood, canvas, and line had frozen solid. Encased in icy armor fifteen inches thick, she was sinking like a dead weight.

  Immediate action had to be taken. While the wind howled and the sea shattered over them, the men took turns crawling across the precariously glassy deck to chip away the ice. Worsley tried to evoke the unimaginable “difficulty and the peril of that climb in the darkness up that fragile slippery bit of decking.… Once, as the boat gave a tremendous lurch, I saw Vincent slide right across the icy sheathing of the canvas.… Fortunately he managed to grasp the mast just as he was going over board.”

  Three times the boat had to be chipped clear. Whether using an axe or a knife, the task required strength, but also delicacy as the canvas decking had to be protected from damage at all cost. Flimsy though it was, it was their only shelter, and without it they could not survive. Two of the hated sleeping bags were now discarded; they had frozen solid in the night and had previously begun to putrefy — Shackleton esti mated that they weighed as much as forty pounds apiece. By these painstaking efforts, the Caird rose incrementally in the water and began to rise and fall again with the movement of the swell.

  The next morning, the Caird gave a sudden, sickening roll leeward; the painter car rying the sea anchor had been severed by a block of ice that had formed on it, out of reach. Beating the ice off the canvas, the men scrambled to unfurl the frozen sails, and once they succeeded in raising them, headed the Caird into the wind. It was on this day, May 2, that McNish abruptly gave up any attempt to keep a diary.

  “We held the boat up to the gale during that day, enduring as best we could dis comforts that amounted to pain,” wrote Shackleton, in an uncharacteristically direct reference to their physical suffering. The men were soaked to the bone and frost bitten. They were badly chafed by wet clothes that had not been removed for seven months, and afflicted with saltwater boils. Their wet feet and legs were a sickly white color and swollen. Their hands were black — with grime, blubber, burns from the Primus and frostbite. The least movement was excruciating.

  “We sat as still as possible,” wrote Worsley. “[I]f we moved a quarter of an inch one way or the other we felt cold, wet garments on our flanks and sides. Sitting very still for a while, life was worth living.” Hot meals afforded the only relief. Shackleton ensured that the men had hot food every four hours during the day and scalding powdered milk every four hours of the long night watches.

  “Two of the party at least were very close to death,” Worsley wrote. “Indeed, it might be said that [Shackleton] kept a finger on each man's pulse. Whenever he noticed that a man seemed extra cold and shivered, he would immediately order another hot drink of milk to be prepared and served to all. He never let the man know that it was on his account, lest he became nervous about himself.” To stave off cold, they also drank the blubber oil that had been intended to calm the troubled seas. As Worsley noted, the oil would have sufficed for only one gale; there were ten days of gales on the journey.

  Their ordeal had already taken a heavy toll on Vincent, who from late April, to use Shackleton's enigmatic words, had “ceased to be an active member of the crew.” Worsley attributed the trouble to rheumatism, but the collapse appears to have been mental as much as physical, for later in the journey he does not appear to have been entirely incapacitated. Physically, he had been the strongest member of the entire Endurance company.

  McCarthy shamed them all.

  “[He] is the most irrepressable optimist I've ever met,” Worsley wrote in his navigating book. “When I relieve him at the helm, boat iced & seas pourg: down yr neck, he informs me with a happy grin ‘It's a grand day, sir.' “

  Between Shackleton and Crean was a special rapport. As Worsley wrote,

  Tom Crean had been so long and done so much with Sir E that he had become a priviledged retainer. As they turned in, a kind of wordless rumbling, mutter ing, growling noise could be heard issuing from the dark & gloomy lair in the bows sometimes directed at one another, sometimes at things in general, & sometimes at nothing at all. At times they were so full of quaint conceits & Crean's remarks were so Irish that I ran risk of explosion by suppressed laughter. “Go to sleep Crean & don't be clucking like an old hen.” “Boss I can't eat those reindeer hairs. I'll have an inside on me like a billygoats neck. Let's give 'em to the Skipper & McCarthy. They never know what they're eating” & so on.

  Worsley, despite the rank discomfort, was in his element. He was conscious of being in the midst of a great adventure—which had been his life's ambition. The fact that he was able to continue taking bemused stock of his shipmates is proof that he retained his sense of humor. Of McNish, there is little record. Shackleton stated only, “The carpenter was suffering particularly, but he showed grit and spirit.” McNish appears to have endured each day's developments with his customary dour, matter-of-fact forbearance; he had not been born to a life that had promised things to be easy. Shackleton himself was in extreme discomfort; on top of everything else, his sciatica had returned.

  At midnight on May 2, Shackleton relieved Worsley at the helm just as he was being struck full in the face by a torrent of water. The gale had been gaining strength for eight hours, and a heavy cross sea was running under snow squalls. Alone at the helm, Shackleton noticed a line of clear sky behind them, and called out to the men below that it was at last clearing.

  “Then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave,” wrote Shackleton. “During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigan tic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for so many days. I shouted, ‘For God's sake, hold on! It's got us!'”

  After an unnatural lull, a torrent of thundering foam broke over them. Staggering under the flood, the boat nonetheless ros
e, emerging, to use Shackleton's words, “half-full of water, sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow.” The men bailed with all their energy until they felt the Caird float true beneath them. Then it took a full hour of bailing to clear her.

  On the morning of May 3, after blowing for forty-eight hours at its height, this fierce, bitter gale at last subsided, and the sun appeared amid great, clean cumulus clouds. The sails were unreefed, and the wet sleeping bags and clothing were hung from the mast and the deck, as they set course for South Georgia Island. It was still clear and bright at noon, enabling Worsley to take a sighting for their latitude; they had been six days without taking an observation. His calculations revealed that despite the monstrous difficulties, they had covered 444 miles since leaving Elephant Island — more than half the required distance. Suddenly, success seemed possible.

  The good weather held, affording them “a day's grace,” as Worsley said. On May 5, the twelfth day at sea, the Caird made an excellent run of ninety-six miles — the best of the journey — in lumpy swell that raked the boat. Willis Island, off the western tip of South Georgia, was 155 miles away. On May 6, a return of heavy seas and a northwest gale caused them to lay to again, with a reefed jib sail. The next day, the gale moderated, and they set course once more.

  Worsley was now increasingly worried about getting his observational sights for their position. Since leaving Elephant Island fourteen days earlier, he had been able to sight the sun only four times. “Two of these,” he noted, were “mere snaps or guesses through slight rifts in the clouds.” He continued:

  It was misty, the boat was jumping like a flea, shipping seas fore and aft and there was no “limb” to the sun so I had to observe the centre by guesswork. Astronomically, the limb is the edge of sun or moon. If blurred by cloud or fog it cannot be accurately “brought down” to the horizon. The centre is the spot required, so when the limb is too blurred you bring the centre of the bright spot behind the clouds down to the horizon. By practice and taking a series of “sights” you can obtain an average that has no bigger error than one minute of arc.