by Tod Olson
The Endurance had to make its way with a mix of finesse and brute force. Sometimes she nosed her way through open waterways. Sometimes she made her own openings by ramming the ice head on until it split down the middle.
In January 1915, both strategies had failed. The pack froze around them, and the Endurance had nowhere to go. It was now October, and the ice still held her prisoner.
The Boss knew how close they had come to their goal. Vahsel Bay had been a day’s sail away when the ice grabbed them for good. If only the current and the wind had opened a clear lane 60 miles farther. Shackleton and five companions would right now be trekking across Antarctica—an epic journey to the bottom of the world.
Instead, he was stuck in the ice with nothing to do but hope. If the ship held out long enough, the pack would break up. They could sail into open water. They might even be able to resupply in South America and make another run at Vahsel Bay before the sea froze solid again.
Standing on the deck with the Endurance groaning under his feet, Shackleton looked calm; Hurley thought so, anyway. Every now and then the Boss yelled an order at the men below. Mostly, he monitored the ship’s battle for survival. Right now, some combination of current and wind was squeezing the pack together, and the Endurance was caught in the middle.
Where the pressure built to a breaking point, the ice buckled into giant ridges. Slabs 5 feet thick and 20 feet tall sprouted into long, jagged tents. To Shackleton it seemed like a mighty giant, buried under the ice, was writhing to break free. He’d been watching all day while a ridge on the starboard side slowly rumbled closer to the ship.
At around 6 p.m., the pressure began to close a crack that had opened behind the Endurance. Two giant sheets, or floes, of ice ground together. They lifted the stern and jerked the entire ship forward in a series of shocks—one, then another, then another. The force wedged her bow into a floe five feet thick, squeezing her from end to end.
The deck under Shackleton’s feet twisted and bent. Gaps inches wide opened between the planks. He could actually see the sidewalls bend like an archer’s bow. If the front end of the Endurance didn’t slip above the floe that held it fast, the ship wouldn’t last the night.
Shackleton gave the order to lower the lifeboats to the ice. The three 20-foot boats could soon be the only seaworthy vessels they had.
Then, sometime after 8 p.m., the pressure suddenly gave up its hold on the ship. The aching timbers settled back into place. The terrible creaks and groans faded. There was only the steady clickety-clack of the pumps, laboring to stay ahead of the leaks. The crew would have to man the pumps in shifts all through the night. But maybe—just maybe—the worst of the damage had been done.
When Frank Hurley went below for the night, he took out his diary and wrote, “All hope is not given up yet for saving the ship.”
But for many of the men, a strange memory lingered as they lay in their bunks. In the evening, just as the pressure reached its height, eight emperor penguins had hopped up from a crack in the ice. They waddled in their stiff, strangely human way toward the ship. The birds lined up in formation as if to give a formal address to the intruder in their land. For a few seconds, they chattered the way they often did—a range of calls between a pigeon’s coo and a crow’s shrill caw. Then they threw back their heads and let out an eerie, wailing fugue.
The men had seen plenty of penguins during the last ten months, but they had never heard a sound like this. To the ship’s captain, Frank Worsley, it seemed the creatures were singing a funeral dirge for the Endurance.
Thomas McLeod, one of the older seamen, watched the ghostly concert from the deck. He turned to the man next to him. “Do you hear that?” he said in his Scottish brogue. “We’ll none of us get back to our homes again.”
TOD OLSON is the author of the historical fiction series How to Get Rich and the first two books in this series, Lost in the Pacific, 1942 and Lost in Outer Space. He works as an editor, holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in Vermont with his family, his mountain bike, and his electric reclining chair.
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Photos ©: 3: Alcides Lechuga/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 7: Bettmann/Getty Images; 10-11: johannlourens/iStockphoto; 13: Diario El Comercio, Peru; 15: Cartarium/Shutterstock; 17: Bettmann/Getty Images; 18: Headless men and women, illustration from Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of Guyana, published in Nuremberg, 1599 (litho) (b/w photo), German School, (16th century)/Private Collection/Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Images; 21: Photo 12/Alamy Images; 24: Roger-Viollet/The Image Works; 27: Stock Connection Blue/Alamy Images; 30: Michael Doolittle/Alamy Images; 34: Dr Morley Read/Science Source; 37: Elke Werner/Coleman-Rayner; 42: Diario El Comercio, Peru; 45: Anton_Ivanov/Shutterstock; 46: OSTILL/iStockphoto; 48: The Natural History Museum/Alamy Images; 51: All Canada Photos/Alamy Images; 55: Humberto Artadi/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 58: John Warburton-Lee Photography/Alamy Images; 59: SSPL/The Image Works; 60: Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works; 63: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Images; 66: Humberto Artadi/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 69: Elke Werner/Coleman-Rayner; 71: David Aubrey/Science Source; 73: Danté Fenolio/Science Source; 78: Gregory G. Dimijian, M.D./Science Source; 81: AFP/Getty Images; 84: Danita Delimont/Getty Images; 88: Kevin Gale via courtesy of Yossi Ghinsberg; 90: Danté Fenolio/Science Source; 97: Diario El Comercio, Peru; 103 top: Courtesy of the Lyon family; 103 bottom: Courtesy of Rebecca Hedges Lyon; 108: Elke Werner/Coleman-Rayner; 113: Humberto Artadi/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 115 top: Humberto Artadi/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 115 bottom: Humberto Artadi/Diario El Comercio, Peru; 119: Diario El Comercio, Peru; 123: Elke Werner/Coleman-Rayner; 126: Elke Werner/Coleman-Rayner; 128: milehightraveler/iStockphoto; 133: Omar Lucas/Diario El Comercio, Peru.
Illustrations by: cover and throughout: Shane Rebenschied; 104 map: Jim McMahon.
Copyright © 2018 by Tod Olson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, February 2018
Book design by Baily Crawford
Cover art by Shane Rebenschied
e-ISBN 978-0-545-92829-8
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