Shackleton's Heroes

by Wilson McOrist

  He was the only married man of the Mount Hope Party, having married Gladys Campbell at Holy Trinity Church in Bedford, England. His best man was Dr Eric Marshall, one of the doctors who operated on his eye in the Antarctic. The Mackintoshes’ first daughter, Pamela, was born in 1912 and Gladys, their second, in 1914.16

  We have Mackintosh’s personal diary from late 1914 to January 1915 and his 1915 sledging diary, up to September 1915. Every day he writes up an accurate recording of events and on many days he pens 300 to 400 words. He includes meticulous notes on a myriad of issues with odd comments interspersed within his daily log. Examples of his ‘unusual comments’ include one on the health hazard of carbon fumes emanating from seal blubber burning in a stove and another, on more than one occasion, of the number of days since he last washed. He writes often on the unpleasant aspects of sledging and the difficulties of living, cooking and sleeping in a tent on the Great Ice Barrier in freezing conditions. It is an enlightening document.

  ERNEST EDWARD MILLS JOYCE

  Joyce was the oldest member of the Mount Hope Party, and the man with the most experience in Antarctica. He was a short, stocky man, only 5 ft 7½ in. in height, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, a tattoo on his left forearm and a scar on his right cheek.

  His naval records show that he was born at Feltham, Sussex in southern England in 1875, making him four years older than Mackintosh. Joyce’s father was a former naval rating and after his father’s death, Joyce was sent to the Greenwich Royal Hospital School in London, founded in 1712 to educate boys for service in the Royal Navy. (Unlike the Merchant Navy, in which Mackintosh was employed, the Royal Navy is a branch of the British armed forces.)

  His naval records also disclose that, as a twelve-year-old, he joined the navy as a Boy 2nd Class Seaman, on the ship St Vincent, in 1891. From 1891 to 1901 Joyce progressed through the ranks as an Ordinary Seaman to Able Seaman, gaining a character rating of ‘Very Good’ on many of his reports.17

  In 1901 Joyce was serving on HMS Gibraltar at Simon’s Town, Cape Town in South Africa when Scott’s expedition ship Discovery stopped there on the way to the Antarctic. He was chosen to join the Discovery Expedition and on this trip Joyce was allocated tasks that were to stand him in good stead for his work as a member of the Mount Hope Party. He assisted in the laying of the supply depots, gaining experience in sledging, dog-driving and Antarctic conditions, but he suffered severely from frostbite. In September of 1903 the mercury in the thermometer sank to below -67° F when Joyce was out on the Barrier. He found one of his feet white to the ankle and it took over an hour before his tent-mates could get any sign of life in his foot, by taking it in turns ‘to nurse the frozen member in their breasts’.18 Joyce was promoted to Petty Officer 1st Class on 10 September 1904 in recognition of his service in the Discovery Expedition.19

  In 1907 he was discharged from the Royal Navy to form one of the crew of the Nimrod on Shackleton’s 1907 expedition to Antarctica. On this expedition we learn from Shackleton of Joyce’s fondness for dogs. He tells us Joyce enjoyed running them when on-shore, giving them steaming hot feeds and working at training them to pull a sledge.20 To the other men on the Nimrod Expedition Joyce ‘had charge of them, fed them, and taught them sledging’.21 We will see from Joyce’s Mount Hope diary records that he realises the value of dogs. Joyce was not chosen to be on Shackleton’s main southbound party – he had suffered badly from frostbite and the doctor (Marshall) diagnosed a damaged liver due to excess drinking, and a weak heart.22 However, he was a member of a support party that initially accompanied the southern team and he led a team to lay supplies at Minna Bluff for the return of the southern party. In late February 1909, Shackleton’s party was struggling back north towards this Minna Bluff depot, after turning back less than 100 miles from the South Pole. Shackleton tells us that they were at the end of their supplies, except for some scraps of meat scraped off the bones of one of their horses that died on the trek south. Shackleton had faith in Joyce and had no doubt that the Bluff depot would have been laid correctly because, in his words, ‘Joyce knows his work well’.23

  Joyce did not return to the Royal Navy after the Nimrod Expedition but worked in Australia, at one time managing a lodging house in Kent Street, Sydney.24 He gained some notoriety in 1911 when he was charged with assaulting a policeman but a testimonial from Shackleton was read to the court which, a newspaper claimed, stated that Joyce bore an excellent character.25

  Joyce’s written notes on the Mount Hope Party are in three documents. There is his original blubber-oil-stained field diary where he recorded what happened during and at the end of each day. He rarely misses a daily entry from January 1915 until May 1916 and this field diary forms the bulk of Joyce’s words that are included here. He writes short cryptic notes and he is very straightforward with his opinion of people, particularly in naming those who, in his eyes, are malingering or not contributing. We see the picture as it was for Joyce, warts and all. He clearly did not expect this field diary to be used by others because he created a second set of notes, a transcript of his field diary that he made with Richards’s help, when recuperating at Cape Evans at the end of the expedition. Many of the harsher criticisms of the other men are not carried forward into the transcripts and only a handful of transcript notes are reproduced here. Finally we have Joyce’s book, The South Polar Trail. The book is excellent from the point of providing us with a day-by-day account of the expedition, but it differs in too many ways from his actual field diary to be of more than a limited value. His field diary notes reproduced here are as they appear in his diary, even though there are many sentences with no structure and sometimes only a few words are used to explain an event. His grammar is often non-existent and there are spelling mistakes. He uses words like ‘weigh’ and ‘shew’ which, until the 1920s, were not considered as incorrect spelling. He uses symbols, such as ‘S’ for Mackintosh (the Skipper) and abbreviations like ‘Provi’ for ‘Providence’. This is understandable, however, when one considers Joyce’s education and the situation he was in. Like all the men, he was usually writing up his diary in miserable circumstances; sometimes in the dark, in his sleeping bag, in a tent, in freezing conditions and after a day’s work hauling a sledge.

  His portrait, taken from a photograph after Joyce had returned from Antarctica, shows a rugged weather-beaten face, a shock of hair, and beard. He appears to have an almost quizzical look in his eye, or possibly a disdain for someone in higher authority; a character trait that surfaces many times in his diary concerning his relationship with Mackintosh.

  HARRY ERNEST WILD

  Harry Ernest Wild was a navy man, serving an uninterrupted twenty years on ships before joining Shackleton’s expedition in 1914. He was born in 1879 at Nettleton, Lincolnshire in England, the third son of Mary and Benjamin Wild and one of thirteen children.26 27 In 1885 the Wild family moved to Eversholt in Bedfordshire, a tiny village which even today consists of little more than a small number of homes, a cricket green, the St John the Baptist church and a pub, The Green Man. As a boy, Ernest was in the church choir. Later he reputedly developed a good tenor voice and became known as a person who could sing a comic song heartily.28 From diary records of the Mount Hope Party it appears that Ernest Wild’s singing helped maintain the good spirits of his tent-mates at crucial times.

  His brother was Frank Wild, who had been on the Discovery and the Nimrod expeditions and he was Shackleton’s second in command on the Endurance Expedition.

  In 1894, at fifteen years of age, Wild entered the Royal Navy and his naval records show he was barely 5 ft tall at that time, and that he only grew another 3 inches. He started as a Boy 2nd Class in HMS Boscawen, a boys’ training ship at Portland. He served with a number of ships, advancing to Able Seaman on 1 May 1898, still aged only eighteen. Like Joyce, Wild was stationed in South Africa in 1901 when Scott’s HMS Discovery called at Simon’s Town. In 1905 Wild was promoted to Petty Officer 1st Class.29 His naval service record shows that he was awa
rded a Good Conduct badge in 1904, which was taken from him a year later, but restored in 1906. This process was repeated in 1909, then again in 1911, showing a character trait that personnel at the Naval Historical Branch have described as ‘Wild by name, wild by nature’.30

  Wild’s diary entries vary considerably in length. At times he obviously felt predisposed to write and he pens paragraph after paragraph describing what had gone on over the previous few days, or weeks. At other times he would hardly make a diary entry for a month, apart from a very brief note with no more than a sentence or two to mention one feature of his day. He was the only man of the Mount Hope Party to write with any humour. Others mention occasional events that make them laugh or that they found amusing, but Wild seemed to have the ability to look at the lighter side of life when writing up his diary notes. This was even after struggling all day hauling a heavy sledge, lying in the tent eking out diminishing food rations, or when he had severe frostbite in his toes – even when he was in a life-threatening situation. Wild was very direct in what he wrote and was not afraid to say what he thought, particularly in regard to Mackintosh’s behaviour. He was a navy man of many years but Wild did not swear in his diary at all, the closest being when he would write ‘h__l’ and ‘d___d’ for ‘hell’ and ‘damned’.

  His nickname was ‘Tubby’, which had come about because he was short and looked heavy. He became the most popular man of the Mount Hope Party team, seen by Richards and the others as ‘an uncomplicated soul, always cheery and willing to help at all times’.31

  The portrait of Wild is from a photo taken after his rescue, on the Aurora returning to New Zealand. Knowing through his diary how much Wild misses his ‘bacco’ on the Mount Hope journey, one can almost feel the happiness and contentment emanating from his face as he smokes his pipe.

  ARNOLD PATRICK SPENCER-SMITH

  Arnold Patrick (called A. P., ‘Smithy’ or ‘Padre’ by the other men) Spencer-Smith was born at Streatham, London on 17 March 1883. He was one of seven children.32 When he was thirteen his father Charles applied for Arnold to be admitted to a boys’ boarding school, Woodbridge Grammar School in Suffolk. Arnold studied classics at Woodbridge for six years, and the school magazine shows that he was also much involved in sport, excelling in cricket, football, fives and gymnastics. His later interest in travelling to Antarctica may have been kindled at an 1899 school lecture given by a W. W. Mumford on ‘Arctic Travel and Adventure’. The lecture touched on the travels of explorers in the Arctic regions, some who perished in their attempts to reach the North Pole and others who lost their lives searching for the North-West Passage. Spencer-Smith wrote a report of the lecture for his school magazine.33

  He passed First Class London University Matriculation Examinations and then attended King’s College, London and Queen’s College, Cambridge where he read history. In 1907 Spencer-Smith was appointed Master at Merchiston Castle Preparatory School, Edinburgh, a boys’ boarding school, where he taught French and mathematics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1913 and ordained as an Anglican priest five days before he left London for Antarctica.34

  Spencer-Smith’s character and occupation as a priest come out in his diary. He clearly enjoys friendly discussions and arguments, singing hymns at times of celebration (Mid-Winter’s Day, for example) and reading. There are many Latin quotes, references to sermons and almost daily quotes from the Bible. He tells us of the hard graft of man-hauling, of running low on food and of his faltering health, but there is no trace of bitterness, no complaint and no person is blamed. He writes up his diary almost every day, often musing on his dreams or events of his past. When facing the possibility of dying, he remains positive and is confident that all will be well at the end – his strength appears to come from his faith in God. He writes a wonderfully eloquent diary.

  In all group photographs of the Mount Hope men Spencer-Smith stands out. He was the tallest man in the party; around 6 ft 4 in. in height, and, unlike the other men, he was of slim build. When he was a student at Queen’s College in Cambridge, an article described him as ‘slight but bony’. Another article gives us a clearer picture of the man: ‘His lithe and lengthy form, studious stoop, pallid brow, neatly-groomed head, mediaeval raiment, decadent pumps, and inevitable Woodbine,* are familiar in the courts (of the College). It has been said that he has charming manners.’35

  VICTOR GEORGE HAYWARD

  Victor (‘Vic’) Hayward was born at Harlesden, London in 1887 into a very large family, having five brothers and eight sisters.36 There are few records to be found of his early schooling or his childhood. Like Spencer-Smith, Hayward’s desire to visit the polar regions may also have been with him since he was a boy. At Christ Church Sunday School in Willesden, London, when he was ten years old, he chose as a prize Ballantyne’s book The World of Ice.37 It is easy to imagine a young boy being entranced by Ballantyne’s tale of men in the Arctic, such as when he describes two teams of men, with their dogs and sledges, setting out – with the romance of the ‘sharp, dry, crunching sound’ of the men as they walked along in the snow.38

  Hayward was educated at St Mark’s College, Chelsea, before gaining employment with a large firm of stockbrokers in the City of London.39 He was attracted to a life with some adventure, however, because at the age of twenty he left London to experience life in colder climates – working in the northern regions of Canada. He was employed on a ranch, gaining experience working with dogs and there he learnt to be a good dog driver before returning to England in November of 1907.40 His parents only married in 1908, after the birth of the last of their thirteen children, and by 1914 his father had retired. At that time Victor was living at home and employed as a produce clerk in London.41

  A Londoner in his mid-twenties, Victor Hayward was the ‘romantic’ man of the Mount Hope Party. In August of 1914 he had become engaged to a Miss Ethel Bridson, whose family also lived in the inner north-west suburbs of London. Apart from Mackintosh, who made occasional diary references to his wife, Hayward is the only other member of the Mount Hope team who mentions a lady friend in his diary. The two navy men, Joyce and Wild, are twelve and eight years older than Hayward, but they make no reference to a sweetheart or loved one in any of their diary notes.

  Hayward’s diary is fascinating because he writes most of the time for his fiancée. He pens over 24,000 words in a day-by-day record of his stay in Antarctica, in exquisite detail at times, and in a style that is quite unique. Where the other five men of the Mount Hope Party appear to be recording their diaries for anyone to read, Hayward’s diary is very personal. Not only does his love for his fiancée come through, but he exposes his innermost thoughts, especially in the early stages of his time in Antarctica. He tells her of what happens almost every day, on the march, in the tent and in the hut, so we have a wonderful picture from his diary of what he and the others experienced. His diary pages are also brightened by occasional sketches. Some are of his fiancée, and others of the scenery, the Aurora and penguins. There are even images unrelated to Antarctica: horses, a Canadian Mountie on horseback, a man with a monocle in his left eye, looking resplendent in a top hat and formal attire, and other men with different hats. His education and upbringing shows through in some of the phrases and words he uses. He describes his life at times as a ‘ducky life’, calls a short sleep ‘forty winks’, uses the term ‘by jingo’ to express his surprise at something, calls an argument a ‘roar’ and often describes something as ‘jolly nice’. He uses the phrase ‘the bally thing didn’t budge’ when trying to move a sledge, whereas Wild would write ‘d___d hard work’ and Joyce in his untutored grammar would make a note: ‘We struggled on + on’. Hayward’s diary even contains a thirty-line poem that he and his tent-mates made up. He includes quotes from the book Lorna Doone and a full menu of two ‘champagne suppers’ he plans to have with his fiancée when he returns. However, as Hayward weakens with scurvy, his 400 and 500-word daily diary entries in his first sledging season dry up. In 1916,
as he struggles back to Hut Point, his diary note each day is often nothing more than a few numbers; of the distance covered in the day, and the number of miles remaining to reach Hut Point.

  He was 5 ft 8 or 9 in. in height, a heavy, solid man.

  RICHARD ‘DICK’ WALTER RICHARDS

  The only Australian in the Mount Hope Party, Dick Richards, was interviewed on more than one occasion on his memories of Antarctica. From these interviews we glean some details of his early life, his education and his work prior to joining Shackleton’s 1914 expedition.

  Richards was born in 1893 at Long Gully, a small country town near Bendigo in Victoria, Australia. He had two brothers and two sisters. His friends and family called him ‘Wally’ but to the men of the Mount Hope Party he was ‘Dick’ or ‘Richy’.42 Richards makes the point in one of his interviews that as a youth he walked to school every day, about 3 miles, and he was glad he did as he felt it stood him in good stead for his time in Antarctica. He said that his knees and legs were the strongest part of his body, and believed this helped delay the onset of scurvy when returning from Mount Hope.43 At the age of sixteen he went to Melbourne University, where he completed work in natural philosophy (physics and mathematics). He then spent a number of years teaching in rural Victoria.