Shackleton’s Forgotten Expedition

by Beau Riffenburgh

  The ship proceeded south, examining the coastline. Then for more than a week they sailed slowly along the seaward wall of the Great Ice Barrier, surpassing Ross' most easterly point before, on 30 January, they spied a previously undiscovered peninsula, which they named King Edward VII Land. Here, Shackleton was finally caught by the excitement of geographical discovery: 'It is a unique sort of feeling to look on lands that have never been seen by human eye before.' Shortly thereafter, concerned by ice that threatened to trap the ship, Scott turned back towards McMurdo Sound, where the entire company would winter with the ship.

  On 3 February, along the Barrier, they 'docked' at a natural quay that sloped down to the water's edge, a place they called 'Balloon Bight'. Armitage and Bernacchi led a small party man-hauling to the south, while others made efforts to learn how to use skis. A month previously, many of them, including Shackleton, had donned the unfamiliar equipment for the first time. That endeavour had not been an overwhelming success, and, although Scott, Skelton and Shackleton now made an investigatory journey to the south, there was still room for much improvement, Scott noting, 'skiing did not prove such good sport as was expected'.

  The next day they brought into use an even more unusual mode of transportation: the balloon, which had been named 'Eva'. Much of the morning was spent inflating Eva with nineteen cylinders of gas, after which Scott claimed the honour of being 'the first aeronaut to make an ascent in the Antarctic regions'. He rose to about 550 feet, and, after rather hurriedly and nervously descending, was replaced in the basket by Shackleton. The third officer then rose to 650 feet and took the first aerial photographs in the Antarctic. Upon Shackleton's return, others made ascents, although Wilson firmly refused to participate in what he described as 'perfect madness'.

  Discovery now steamed down McMurdo Sound, at its southern end reaching a long cape near to where Ross Island abutted the Barrier. Just north of the tip of Cape Armitage, as they named it, was a protected embayment, where Scott decided the ship could winter. While a hut was built, the downhill ski training continued, although Scott noted that skis would 'be of little use for men dragging'. This expectation and a lack of practical experience in the cross-country technique explained why, when a short while later the first party was sent south on a reconnaissance, they were man-hauling.

  On 19 February, Shackleton, Wilson and Hartley Ferrar, the geologist, left the base at Hut Point and headed south towards a small island that had been spied from Observation Hill, near where Discovery was moored. In the grand old tradition so beloved of Clements Markham, the sledge they hauled was decorated with each man's 'sledging flag'. That Shackleton was part of the effort was as much luck as anything: Scott had allowed Shackleton and Barne to toss a coin for the privilege, and the third officer had won. Wilson determined that their destination was no more than five or ten miles away, and that they would easily reach it during the day. It was only one of many errors that they and their colleagues would make while learning about this unknown environment.

  All day long, with only a brief break for lunch, the threesome hauled a back-breaking load comprising the sledge, tent, camping and cooking materials, two weeks' food supply and a 'pram', a small lifeboat taken in case they should come to open water or the sea ice break up. For most of the afternoon they churned through heavy snow blown in their faces by the first Antarctic blizzard they had ever experienced. Despite facing whiteout conditions - which made it difficult to know where they were going - they continued to slog ahead at a mile and a half per hour until, shortly before midnight, 'simply done', they camped.

  Only someone who has tried to put up a tent in a heavy wind - or, worse yet, in the midst of wind-blown snow - can appreciate what the three novices now went through, as they erected their primitive tent in the continuing gale. Once inside the tiny enclosure, they made dinner with the primus stove none of them had ever used before, and tried to warm their painfully cold toes, fingers and faces. Then came the least pleasant part of the experience: struggling into wolfskin sleeping suits that had been brought rather than sleeping bags. 'They dressed me first, as I was constantly getting cramp in my thighs,' Wilson recorded, 'and having dressed me, they put me on the floor and sat on me while they dressed each other . . . We lay on our jaeger blouses, but the cold of the ice floor crept through and the points of contact got pretty chilly.'

  After a miserable, and short, night, they rose at 3.30 a.m. to find the sky clear but White Island - as it would soon be named - still a long way off. Four hours later, their progress was stopped by crevasses, but after a sleep they left their gear behind and proceeded. Virtually every step was exceedingly dangerous, and it took them seven hours to cross the two miles to the island and then ascend to the top. The resulting view was worth the pain, however. The 2,500-foot summit gave a grand and unexpected sight, about which Wilson wrote:

  As far south as the eye could see was a level ice plain, the true Great Barrier surface, and no Antarctic continent at all. On our west was the coast line running west in a series of promontories as far as we could make out, promontories formed by splendid ranges of ice and snow covered mountains.

  This was the first extended vision of the Barrier and the initial one of the farther reaches of the magnificent Transantarctic Mountains. The door to the road south had been opened.

  The following day, the three men explored the southwest end of the island. Helped by fine weather the day after that, they marched north for eleven hours, arriving at Hut Point in time for a late bath and a dinner of sardines and cocoa. Then, wrote Wilson, 'we slept the sleep of the just'.

  Well, perhaps he did. Shackleton, on the other hand, was, according to Royds, 'full of talk as was expected'. Indeed, one can imagine the glee with which he returned, having achieved the first major geographical success of the expedition. As Skelton recorded, he 'immediately started in with tremendous accounts, - & hardly stopped talking until everybody had turned in'.

  Although the inexperience of Shackleton, Wilson and Ferrar had been highlighted when they continued to travel in whiteout conditions, they had suffered no ill consequences. One of the members of another early sledging trip was not so lucky.

  In early March two sledging parties, led by Royds and Skelton, headed toward Cape Crozier on the eastern corner of Ross Island. Several days later, due to bad weather, Royds and Skelton continued, but sent one party back to the ship under Barne. As the exhausted men neared base, recklessly trying to reach the ship in the midst of a gale, they were split up in a swirling snow and three disappeared, including Barne. A short while later, while trying to make a descent, seaman George Vince was unable to stop on the slick surface and shot over the edge of a cliff into the sea. As the officer-less group waited, uncertain what to do, a short, wiry seaman named Frank Wild quietly but firmly took charge. Wild carefully led his messmates back to Discovery, reported the events and then guided a rescue party under Armitage to where the tragedy had occurred, in the process finding Barne and his companions. Although Vince's body was never discovered, a total disaster had been averted due to the leadership, bravery and cool judgement of Wild.

  The son of a clergyman, Wild had been born in North Yorkshire in April 1873, a n a< like Shackleton was the second child and eldest son in a large family. Also like Shackleton, he was broad-shouldered, powerfully chested, and had gone to sea in the merchant navy at sixteen. In 1900, after almost a dozen years on merchant ships, he had joined the Royal Navy as an able seaman, and the next year he had applied for a position on the British National Antarctic Expedition. He had not expected to be selected because he was trim in figure and slightly less than five feet, five inches tall. 'There were over 3000 applications from the Navy alone,' he later wrote, 'and greatly to my surprise I was chosen when hundreds of fine six footers were left behind.' But Wild was no ordinary AB: he not only had remarkable physical strength and endurance, he was comparatively well-educated, was a serious thinker, and wanted to learn and improve himself. And that is where Shackleton came i
n.

  As the winter drew on, day-to-day life was increasingly confined to a small area near Discovery, on which the ship's entire company lived throughout the expedition. The scientists and officers had regular duties relating to taking observations and making measurements. But the crew was not slack either, as Wild noted:

  Apart from keeping the ship clean, bringing in ice for water from a nearby glacier, fishing through holes made in the ice, killing and skinning occasional seals that managed to get on to the ice near us and taking regular meteorological observations etc. there was a lot of work to be done in altering our sledging equipment, which had proved unsatisfactory on our early journeys.

  But Wild still found time to study navigation.

  'It was certainly not at Scott's suggestion that any help was given to Wild,' Clarence Hare, the wardroom assistant, later recalled. 'Naval routine was rather strictly observed . . . there should be no fraternising between officers & men of the lower deck. Shackleton was RNR and did not abide by this unwritten law.' One result was that Shackleton was the most popular officer among the crew, and another that he developed a particularly good friendship with Wild, to whom he gave guidance in his navigational studies.

  Shackleton also proved his worth in other ways through the autumn and winter. He was in charge of all stores, including food supplies, and it was his duty to arrange, weigh and pack all sledging rations for the coming season. He was also the editor of The South Polar Times, a monthly periodical that was to be, according to Armitage, 'something like a London magazine'. In reality, it was more a cross between O.H.M.S. and a public-school magazine, but that did not matter either to its audience or to the two key figures in its production, Shackleton and Wilson. Both were naturals, Wilson with his unlimited artistic ability and Shackleton with his 'aptitude for satire, for bantering his companions . . . always done without malice'.

  Once selected editor, Shackleton threw himself into the project, writing articles and poetry, soliciting other pieces - humorous, scholarly and satirical - accepting and editing the hopeful submissions, and generally bestowing it with creativity, enthusiasm and vitality. He cleared out one of the stores in the hold and made it an office, where he and Wilson would spend hours working, Shackleton's wit and vision matched by Wilson's talent with pen and paints. The first issue came out on Wednesday 23 April, when 'the sun disappeared from our view for 121 days and the long Antarctic night has commenced'.

  Throughout that interminable period of shadow fading into darkness, Shackleton and Wilson were as thick as thieves. Not only did they spend large amounts of time on The South Polar Times (four more came out that winter), but their diaries show regular trips to their own informal meteorological station. 'Went with Shackle to the top of Crater Hill' became a frequent refrain in Wilson's diary.

  The junior doctor did not restrict himself to a friendship with Shackleton, however. He also had a great admiration for Scott, who, in turn, found in Wilson a man in whom he could confide and whose opinions he could trust and respect - a significant discovery for one placed in the lonely position of leadership. Although Shackleton 'is still my best friend,' Wilson wrote to his wife, 'The Captain and I understand one another better than anyone else on the ship, I think. He has adopted every one of my suggestions. It's a great help to have one's ideas appreciated by a man who is always trying new and knacky things on his own.'

  So, in retrospect, it is not surprising that, on 12 June - in the midst of winter and, had they known it, only two weeks after the war in South Africa had finally ended - Scott asked Wilson if he would accompany him on the paramount journey of the expedition, the trek south the next summer. There were a good number of sledging trips planned, but Scott had decided to lead the southern one, taking either one or two men and all the dogs. Regardless of whether anyone else came, Scott wanted Wilson. The request caught Wilson off-guard, as he, like the rest of the ship's company, had been kept in the dark about Scott's plans. 'My surprise can be guessed,' he wrote. 'It was rather too good a thing to be true it seemed to me. Of course I reminded him that I hadn't got a clean bill of health and that if either of two broke down on a three months' sledge journey it would mean that neither would get back . . . I then argued for three men rather than two.'

  The argument was sound, and Scott agreed that the party should consist of three men. He asked Wilson who the third should be, but the surgeon felt it wasn't his place to suggest anyone. Then, according to Wilson, Scott said that 'he need hardly have asked me because he knew who I would say, and added that as a matter of fact he was the man he would have chosen himself. So then I knew it was Shackleton, and I told him it was Shackleton's one ambition to go on the southern journey. So it was settled and we three are to go.'

  Scott never publicly recorded his reasons for selecting Shackleton as the third member of the party, but certainly Wilson's friendship with him was one. Another would have been that the former merchant officer had shown himself to be resolute, energetic and resourceful. He also exuded overwhelming confidence and appeared to have all of the physical attributes necessary for the onerous task of man-hauling.

  Strangely, the only doubter was Wilson. 'I feel more equal to it than I feel for Shackleton,' he wrote to his wife. 'For some reason I don't think he is fitted for the job. The Captain is strong and hard as a bull-dog, but Shackleton hasn't the legs that the job wants; he is so keen to go, however, that he will carry it through.'

  Wilson kept his reservations to himself, because he would not interfere with his friend's selection. Besides they would need to focus on the goal, which, as Wilson recorded, 'is to get as far south in a straight line on the Barrier ice as we can, reach the Pole if possible, or find some new land'.

  The Pole if possible! One can imagine Shackleton's elation the next day when Scott asked him, in confidence, to be the third member of the southern party. Undoubtedly the only negative was that he could not yet tell his comrades. But he would have time for that. In the meanwhile, he knew he was heading south: south to glory, south to his future, south to the Pole.

  7

  THE SOUTHERN JOURNEY

  'A calm morning, but overcast,' Edward Wilson wrote on Friday 22 August 1902. 'At 12 went up harbour hill with Shackleton where we saw the sun, the whole sun, and nothing but the sun for a bit, for it was a great joy to see it again quite clear of the horizon and quite free of clouds.'

  It was still too dark - and certainly too cold - for extensive travel, but the sun had announced the coming of spring in a glory only matched by the radiant relief of those who had not seen it for months. The occupants of the ship poured outdoors with a burst of energy meant to finalise all the little details of the sledging operations to come. Unfortunately, although efforts had been made throughout the winter to overcome problems that the autumn journeys had uncovered, certain difficulties now encountered were brought about because various major issues had not been properly resolved.

  The previous month, as light began to extend across the sky for a portion of the day, Scott had put Shackleton in charge of the dogs for the southern journey. Although a necessary selection due to the limited size of the southern party, it was an unfortunate choice. Shackleton knew absolutely nothing about dog-driving and, although he approached the task with confidence, he lacked the basic patience required for any slow training process. He probably adhered to the adage that the British sailor could accomplish anything through improvisation, and it must have been frustrating when he found that dogs had minds of their own. In fact, nothing he tried - cajoling or crooning, blaspheming or beating - made them behave as he wished.

  The truth is that Shackleton was no more unprepared than his colleagues, none of whom had any idea of how to drive dogs properly, an ability that takes years to develop. The underlying problem extended all the way back to London, and to the prejudices of Clements Markham against dogs and in favour of man-hauling, as had been done in the Arctic half a century before.

  While preparing for the expedition, Scott had travell
ed to Christiania (now Oslo) to consult the Norwegian explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen. Nansen was the most accomplished and respected of polar explorers, as well as the most innovative and intellectual, and asking for his advice was part of the preliminary work for virtually all polar expeditions, north and south.

  Nansen had given Scott recommendations about sledges, cookers, tents, clothing for sleeping and travelling, skis and dogs. Scott accepted most of Nansen's advice, but, unfortunately, Markham's wheedling about the dogs - in conjunction with Scott's sentimentality toward creatures he saw as pets rather than draught animals - had won out over Nansen's experience. That, and Markham's meddling, had meant that not only were too few dogs taken (twenty-four as opposed to three times that many by Borchgrevink) and that they were the wrong kind (western Siberian rather than the preferable eastern Siberian ones), but that they had not been considered a key part of the sledging plans.

  This self-fulfilling prophecy was confirmed in April 1902 when Scott took the dogs on a short depot-laying exercise. With no experience in driving them, he was disappointed in their unwillingness to pull heavy loads, their unruly behaviour and their fighting among themselves. Scott and Shackleton were not the only members of the party with little comprehension of dogs. Petty Officer Edgar Evans, writing under the pseudonym Rhossilly, confessed to The South Polar Times that: 'I was under the impression from books . . . that a sledge journey was quite a sporting affair, and all one had to do was to walk alongside the sledges, and the dogs done the pulling part of the business, but I was quickly undeceived.'