But they could not just wait helplessly in the tent, so on 13 January they moved into the thick, blank haze. With Shackleton navigating by watching the shadows of the others on the sastrugi (wind-blown ridges in the snow), they struggled forward. In three exhausting hours they gained two miles before stopping to lunch on short rations. Then, suddenly, the sun flashed into their tent, and Scott tumbled out of his sleeping bag to take a meridian altitude. Afterwards, he casually lowered the instrument, and there, in his sights, was Depot B two miles away. Within five minutes the party was on the move, and several hours later they reached their stores. They had made it - or had they?
The next morning was overcast, but they had a fine view of the road ahead. Northward rolled the Barrier, ever on and on, past countless unmarked crevasses and broken, irregular ice forced by pressure into rough mounds or hummocks. Finally it disappeared in a haze perhaps thirty miles away, perhaps fifty, perhaps more. They had long since realised it was impossible to tell distances on the high-latitude ice, but somewhere out there, more than a hundred miles away, was their next cache.
The arrival at Depot B would have left the explorers in much improved spirits had it not been for a medical examination carried out by Wilson. All three had signs of serious scurvy, with Scott noting problems with his right ankle and foot. But it was Shackleton who was the worst off. Ever since the start of the blizzard he had been short of breath and had had a persistent cough, occasionally spitting blood. He also seemed the most fatigued, had developed dark, swollen gums and loosened teeth, and usually coughed throughout the night. His condition was, Wilson noted, 'of no small consequence a hundred and sixty miles from the ship, and full loads to pull all the way.'
With their deteriorating health in mind, they spent the morning restocking their stores, rearranging their equipment, and discarding everything they did not absolutely need. Among the casualties of the overhaul were the skis and poles, except for one emergency set. After another day, they further lightened the load by discarding twenty-five pounds of dog food, an act made possible when the last two dogs, Nigger and Jim, were killed by Wilson, who described them as 'utterly useless'.
In an effort to defeat the scurvy, the explorers changed their diet, eliminating the bacon that they feared might be contaminated, and doubling their allowance of seal meat. Although Scott and Wilson soon felt their symptoms slightly improving, that same night Shackleton had a desperate time, gasping for air and suffering violent coughing attacks. The next day he was forbidden to pull and walked along in his harness, while the others hauled the sledges.
For much of the following week the story was the same: the party making slow progress, while Shackleton trudged on his own during the day and struggled for breath at night. Unquestionably the weakest of the three, sheer will never the less drove him on. 'Am much better today & hope to be in full swing of work tomorrow,' he wrote optimistically on 17 January. His improvement was slow, however, and it was not until 20 January that he was allowed to cook while Scott and Wilson worked outside.
Although the three men did not know it at the time, the morning of 21 January was one of those junctures that, looking back, can be seen to have a profound influence on the future. After several days of relatively light breeze, a force four wind was blowing. Shackleton had improved enough to be back in harness, but soon the sail propelled the sledges so fast that the three could not keep up. In an attempt to slow the unwieldy train, Scott ordered Shackleton to sit on the aft sledge and break its pace with the ski pole. This proved less effective than hoped, however, and after an hour or two Scott adopted a new tactic: he controlled the port side of the front sledge to keep it running straight, while Wilson was tied to the starboard of the rear sledge to serve as a rudder. Both also served as brakes on what the wind insisted on making an express service. Shackleton, meanwhile, walked at his own pace. In the afternoon, he donned the skis, ending their period of inactivity. Although this switch certainly made travel easier - and an advance of twelve miles marked the day as one of their most successful - Shackleton still saw a dark lining in the silver cloud. 'Splendid day but for my trouble,' he wrote that night, 'which weighs on my mind for I would like to be doing more than just going along.' He was not the only one disquieted by his condition, and it would be an issue that would haunt him for years to come.
The next morning, a wind hammered in from the southwest, and Shackleton spent the whole day on skis, while Scott and Wilson handled the sledges. For the three following days, according to Wilson, Shackleton went ahead to guide the party by use of a compass. Scott less charitably wrote that the younger man was 'having a cruel time', adding that the work he and Wilson were doing 'would finish Shackleton in no time'. Perhaps disturbed by what he interpreted as Scott's insensitive attitude, the doctor 'had it out with Scott' while Shackleton was out of hearing. It is not certain that Shackleton was the cause of the confrontation, but Wilson reportedly gave Scott a volley of 'home truths', resulting in a clearing of the air between them. In the following days, Scott and Wilson had a series of wide-ranging conversations that, although they did not ultimately bring any great understanding between Shackleton and Scott, forged a bond of friendship between Scott and Wilson that would last until their deaths a decade later.
Meanwhile, Shackleton continued to battle ahead, although Wilson forbade him to do any pulling, as 'the least exertion makes him breathless'. Then the clouds disappeared and the sun burst forth gloriously clear. The men's pleasure was short-lived, however, as they were soon seriously burned despite wearing wide-brimmed hats, while concurrently finding that 'the cold in the shade under [the hats] was such that our moustaches and whiskers all became frosted and covered with ice, making one's lips and nostrils sting and tingle very painfully.'
By 28 January, they had seen familiar, and comforting, landmarks, including the twin peaks of Ross Island - Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. That morning, with the sun burning down brightly and the prospect of reaching Depot A before the day was through, they had a large celebratory breakfast. As if in need of a final reminder of the true power of nature, however, when they came out of their tent they found that a bitterly cold gale had blown in from the south, obscuring what they had thought would be an unencumbered run to the depot.
Fortunately, the weather, which can turn remarkably quickly in the far south, did just that, and conditions improved by late morning. Shortly after lunch, Shackleton spotted the depot. They tore out the supplies with childish glee: letters indicating that all was well at the base at Hut Point, enough oil to allow them unrestrained use of it, and a vast quantity of food, including varieties that they had not seen for months. At last they seemed truly safe.
But that night they found that their trials were not yet over, and to Wilson, whose evangelical faith was unwavering, the continuing battles must have represented a Job-like series of calamities. They started on the less serious side after both Wilson and Scott had wolfed down large quantities of food, a dangerous action after long periods of privation. It was not long before each was in agony, which persisted late into the night and caused them to sleep fitfully. But worse was when they woke to find that a howling blizzard, perhaps the heaviest of the season, had blown in and that the air was 'chock a block with snow drift'.
The grimmest problem, however, was that Shackleton had suffered a serious setback. As before, he became worse in conditions of blizzard, and he again gasped desperately between his spells of heavy, persistent coughing. Previously, he had managed to struggle along, but now he could hardly move in his sleeping bag, and Scott and Wilson decided to remain there until the blizzard dropped. But Shackleton only seemed worse as the day continued.
That night he reached a crisis. 'His breathing has become more stertorous and laboured,' wrote Scott, 'his face looks pinched and worn, his strength is very much reduced, and for the first time he has lost his spirit and grown despondent.' As the blizzard roared outside and Shackleton lay panting, perhaps passing in and out of consciousness or deliriu
m, he heard Wilson quietly tell Scott that he did not expect the sick man to last the night. Later in his life, Shackleton would say that that comment made him determined to pull through. And somehow he did.
Wilson had told Scott that although Shackleton was in no condition to be moved, his only chance was for them to struggle through the blizzard to the ship. Scott, in response, noted that he was uncertain if Shackleton's health would even allow him to be hauled on the sledge. But by morning, although weak and speechless, Shackleton was ready to travel. By good fortune the weather had cleared, and, although he became dizzy just kneeling to get out of the tent and took twenty minutes to struggle outside and on to his skis, he moved off, leading the way north.
Shackleton was constantly breathless during the next several days but, with the weather clear and the surface good for skiing, he kept up with his companions. Scott and Wilson had a much harder time. Moreover, despite an increase in food, scurvy now showed more strongly in Scott and Wilson, the latter attributing his lameness to the illness. Whether it was by comparison to his own deteriorating condition or an actual improvement in Shackleton is uncertain, but on i February, Scott noted that 'our invalid . . . certainly has great recuperative powers'.
Meanwhile, local landmarks and tracks in the snow indicated that they were very near the ship, and on 3 February they were met by two members of the expedition, Reginald Skelton and Louis Bernacchi. 'They appeared to be very worn & tired & Shackleton seemed very ill indeed,' wrote Bernacchi, who effortlessly helped Skelton pull the sledge that had been so difficult for Scott and Wilson.
Upon their arrival, the entire crew came out to greet the weary threesome, but Shackleton did not attend the celebration. 'I turned in at once when I got on board, not being up to the mark,' he wrote, demonstrating either a mastery of understatement or a total lack of comprehension of his health, 'after having had a bath, - that is the first for ninety-four days. It is very nice to be back again; but it was a good time.'
Shackleton, Scott and Wilson were all back alive, if none of them healthy, and it would take them a lengthy period to complete their convalescence and return to their accustomed vigour. But before that, Shackleton was to receive another damaging blow, and it was to help set the course of his entire future.
2
A PRODUCT OF EMPIRE
The world into which Scott, Wilson and Shackleton were born and spent their formative years was very different from that in which they achieved lasting fame. It was a world that for more than half a century had been dominated by Britain - economically, technologically, morally and militarily. It was a time and place in which to be British meant belonging to a people destined to be paramount. The Briton demonstrated the qualities of faith, patriotism, superiority and duty, and in this time before two world wars, he had a mindset not pervaded by the doubts of future generations.
There are basic certainties - key assumptions and deeply held convictions - that are inculcated at an early age and by which most people are guided throughout their lives. As the three future explorers progressed through childhood, part of the underlying mentality that had a profound influence on each was the pre-eminence of the British people and their Empire. 'I contend that we are the finest race in the world,' that most unfailing of imperialists, Cecil Rhodes, once said, adding that Britons had the highest ideals of decency and justice, 'and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race.'
No one will ever fully understand late Victorian Britain who does not appreciate the significance of that elitism and the Empire it helped drive, not just to Rhodes or other arch-imperialists, or even to successive governments, but through every level of society. From the working class to Queen Victoria herself, British pre-eminence was a source of unfettered pride, ultimately gaining the support of all classes and all major political parties. David Livingstone, then considered the greatest exemplar of self-help, spoke of the peoples of British stock as members of a 'superior race' with a divine mission 'to elevate the more degraded portions of the human family'. At the far end of the social spectrum was the patrician Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, whose Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, crystallised the view of British transcendence: 'In the first place I believe in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest of governing races that the world has ever seen.'
Victoria's Empire was certainly the largest, in both territory and population, that had ever existed. Her domain covered a fifth of the land surface of the Earth and included more than 400 million subjects. It is not surprising that possessing such a vast empire affected the mentality of the British populace. Yet, strangely, many historians have tended to ignore the obvious - that imperial ideas and enthusiasms penetrated deeply into the British consciousness. British society was, however, saturated with nationalist and imperialist concepts, the influence of which was highly pervasive not only in the political arena but in education and entertainment. Whereas the public might not have had a sophisticated concept of empire, or have been interested in specific imperial policies, individuals at every level believed without doubt in the superiority of their culture, race and Empire.
What is sometimes called the 'informal empire' - that based on a dominance of British trade and a system of influence rather than on actual rule - had long been an economic reality. But the triumph of imperialism as a social current underlying British culture and thought occurred later, at a time, coincidentally, concurrent with the births of the three men who struggled back to Hut Point in 1903.
If one were to select a specific time for the birth of the popular imperial spirit, it could well be a conjunction of events in the first half of 1868, the year in which Scott was born. The previous year had seen the Second Reform Bill extend the franchise in Britain by 89 per cent, in the process giving political leaders grave concerns about burgeoning social disorder. In February 1868 Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister and, according to many historians, immediately turned to foreign adventurism and imperial expansion in order to side-step potential internal social unrest. As the Liberal theorist and statesman John Morley wrote, 'the idea of a whole people, possessing a certain number of common convictions, susceptible of certain large common impulses, marching onwards for the execution of certain common national purposes' led Disraeli to emphasise foreign interventionism as a means of getting all of the classes of Britain to follow the same banner.
Disraeli was fortunate that a punitive mission against Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia was already underway, and within two months of becoming Prime Minister, his strategy had proven successful, as had the Abyssinian campaign under Sir Robert Napier. The reports of the conflict not only catapulted the reporter Henry Morton Stanley to his first fame, but led to new heights of chauvinism in Britain and demonstrated that Disraeli had found the best way to bring into line the newly enfranchised working class. Despite shortly thereafter losing power, the Conservative Party had found imperialism could be a key platform.
Four years later, in June 1872 - a month before the birth of Edward Wilson - Disraeli embraced these principles even tighter with his masterful call at Crystal Palace for a future of greatness through imperial power. The English, he said, had a right to rule over the lesser peoples of the world, and it was time to determine whether they would do so. Would England remain small, comfortable, insular, and ordinary, or become 'a great country, an Imperial country, a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world'? It was a challenge to every Englishman to take up the cause of the Empire. But among the issues that it did not address was just what comprised that Empire.
Perhaps Britain's most problematic imperial burden in the late nineteenth century was the one closest to home - Ireland. The parliamentary integration brought about by the Act of Union of 1801 had not been accompanied by a carefully considered administrative or economic amalgamation, an
d as a result there were continuing and widely varying interpretations about Ireland's status. Was Ireland - like Scotland - an integral part of the United Kingdom? Was it a culturally separate entity that was little more than a backward province? Or was it a unique colony in the Empire? Those believing in continued political union, Home Rule, or full Irish independence had different answers to these questions.
What is certain is that the administration of Ireland remained distinctly colonial in both form and function. The compelling cultural necessity for Ireland to be considered subordinate to England regularly overrode the possibilities either of converting her into an integrated component of a unified Britain or of giving the Irish Home Rule. It also did not allow for the individual Irishman to be considered part of a greater British society. Many Britons, including politicians, administrators, absentee landlords, occupying soldiers, and sections of the general populace, viewed the Irish as an inferior, half-savage race imbued with inherent barbarism, not far removed from the peoples of Asia or Africa. Even the socialist reformers Sidney and Beatrice Webb found it difficult to extend their social consciousness to the Irish. While honeymooning in Dublin in 1892, the couple wrote that 'the people are charming but we detest them, as we should the Hottentots'.
From the opposite end of the political spectrum, Lord Salisbury showed equal disdain for the Irish, whose emigration, he wrote, was cause for 'unmixed congratulation' and 'the sooner they are gone the better'. However, despite a helping hand from the potato famine of the 1840s, which had been followed by the emigration of millions of Irish, Salisbury's hope that the Irishman would disappear and 'leave a place behind him to be filled up by a Scotchman or Englishman' had not been fulfilled.
That all attempts to Anglicise the Irish peasantry had failed only made the English despise them more. To the English way of thinking, they remained a strangely foreign people, whose literacy rate was no higher than that in Burma, and who continued to speak their alien tongue, worship their false Catholic god, and be, as Disraeli wrote, 'wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious'.
Shackleton’s Forgotten Expedition Page 3
