There were only five tents to accommodate the 28 men gathered together on the drifting ice floe as they sought shelter and comfort only 200 yards (182 m) from the doomed Endurance. Also there were only eighteen reindeer-fur sleeping bags and the unlucky ones had to sleep in woollen bags, which held the damp and offered less protection against the freezing temperatures. The unfortunate ten were wisely chosen by lot to avoid any unnecessary friction or claims of favouritism.
But Shackleton ensured that each tent had its own natural leader, aware that maintaining discipline and morale would be essential in the struggle ahead. A decline in morale could spread like wildfire and lead to anarchy. He chose leaders carefully and placed Crean in charge of Number Four, a small hoop tent which also contained two polar veterans, Marston and Cheetham, and the cheerful, banjo-playing meteorologist, Hussey.
Over the next few days, the men made repeated trips to rescue precious supplies and equipment from Endurance before she met her inevitable end. These were melancholic little excursions for the men who understandably saw the ship as their last link with civilisation. Psychologically the loss of the ship meant severing the umbilical cord and on one trek a party of men respectfully hoisted the Union Jack. At least the ship would go down with colours flying.
The men were ordered to prepare themselves for the coming journey across the ice and hopefully to the edge of the open sea, where they would launch the little boats. Crean had already arranged the packing of the sledges with as many rations as he could reasonably stow and along with others, he was also deployed on frequent trips to hunt for seals.
With a tough journey ahead, the men were issued with a completely new set of underwear, socks and Burberrys and asked to limit their personal possessions to a modest 2 lb (0.9 kg) in weight. It meant many heartbreaking choices as the men considered what to keep and what to throw away in the snow.
Shackleton emphasised that nothing was of value if it worked against their survival. As he spoke, he took out his own gold watch, gold cigarette case and a few gold sovereigns and theatrically tossed them into the snow. He then opened the Bible which Queen Alexandra had given the ship a little over a year earlier and tore out the flyleaf containing her personal message. He also ripped out a single page containing verse a from the Book of Job, which reads:
‘Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoary frost of Heaven, who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone.
And the face of the deep is frozen.’
There were exceptions. Hussey, for example, was ordered to keep his banjo even though it weighed about 12 lb (5.4 kg) because, as Shackleton explained, it was ‘vital mental medicine’. The surgeons’ medical instruments were kept for obvious reasons and those who kept diaries were allowed to hang onto them.
But all around them on the ice were scattered forlorn reminders of home and the ordinary trappings of a normal life – personal keepsakes, books, clothes, plus more practical reminders of their original purpose, like scientific instruments, telescopes and carpenter’s tools. Tom Crean kept the scapular around his neck.
Before they prepared to leave, Crean was called upon to administer a particularly grim chore. There was no room on the trek for those who could not pull their weight so three of Crean’s carefully nurtured pups and Chips McNeish’s popular cat, Mrs Chippy, were shot. It was Crean, who was so fond of animals, who executed the animals. Even a tough polar hand like Crean was affected by the unhappy, but necessary task and Worsley recalled:
‘Macklin, Crean and Chips seem to feel the loss of their friends rather badly.’1
It was decided to take only two of the three boats and the bulk of the gear was carefully loaded. Each boat, loaded with the vital food and supplies, was placed on specially prepared sledges and weighed nearly one ton (over 1,000 kg). With some trepidation, the party set out on Saturday 30 October.
It was obvious from the start that it would require prodigious effort to haul the boats across the tortured, broken landscape of ice hummocks which surrounded them on the drifting ice floe. A team of four man-haulers went ahead with picks and shovels, trying to smooth out the undulating surface and ease the path of the boat-pullers. There followed the dog teams pulling seven sledges, who went back and forth in a monotonous routine of relaying their dreadfully heavy loads. Behind them came fifteen men, yoked to the largest boat in a long sledging harness. After moving on a short distance, they regrouped and began the same process of hauling the smaller boat, which offered the prospect of only slightly lighter pulling.
The long procession of men, dogs, sledges and boats stretched for half a mile across the disturbed commotion of ice. They calculated that, at best, the most distance they could manage would be 5 miles (8 km) a day, which implied many weeks and possibly months of strenuous exertion to reach the safety of land or open seas. The cost in human effort would be enormous and another very real fear was that at any moment, the ice could open up and swallow them or separate them from the relative safety of their camp. Any realists in the party must have doubted their chances of survival.
The men received a painful reminder of their slim chances after the first back-breaking day in the wet, soft snow which made the going appalling. Occasionally the men sank to their waists in the soggy, slushy conditions. Each step was terribly heavy labour and after the most colossal effort, they were near to exhaustion when they stopped for the day.
To their utter dismay they discovered that they had covered barely one mile. They made the same distance on 31 October, arriving physically worn out after a day when they flogged themselves to the point of collapse. The next morning, the march was abandoned.
The 28 men were now camped on a sizeable, solid-looking floe about one mile across which offered some degree of stability in comparison with their ordeal during the slow death of Endurance. But they were still inside the Antarctic Circle, drifting slowly northwards on a chunk of ice which at any time might split apart. Shackleton appropriately named it ‘Ocean Camp’.
The aim was to remain as comfortable as possible at Ocean Camp and let the floe travel gently northwards towards open seas before setting out in the boats to row for the safety of Paulet or Snow Hill Island off to the west. Since they had abandoned the march only 2 miles away from the broken hulk of Endurance, the men made repeated journeys back to retrieve supplies and equipment which might help sustain them through the coming months.
Two important decisions were taken at this time. First it was decided to return to the vicinity of the ship and recover the third small boat. Second, to bring back more lengths of timber and nails from the mother ship which would be used to build up the sides of the three small boats for the proposed journey across the ocean to dry land.
Wild also managed to bring back Endurance’s wheelhouse which was modified to make a useful galley and storehouse on the ice. From the patchwork roof they defiantly flew the Union Jack which King George had given to Shackleton on the eve of departure from London.
It was also decided to rescue some of Hurley’s precious and memorable photographs, mostly glass plates which had been stored in metal cases on Endurance, now over 3 ft (1 m) under the mushy ice. It was not possible to keep all 600 plates and camera equipment so Hurley sat on the ice and calmly assessed the merit of each picture. As a negative was rejected, he summarily smashed the plate, thus ensuring that there would be no second thoughts. However, he retained one small pocket camera and about 120 plates which contain some of the most outstanding Polar pictures ever taken and are a fine memorial to a truly great photographer.
Crean, meanwhile, ensured that the sledges were kept loaded and ready for instant departure in case of any break in the ice and others were sent on a daily search for penguins, seals or anything else that might be eaten. Fortunately, there were sufficient supplies in the vicinity, although Shackleton was anxious not to stockpile too much food. He reckoned that storing large supplies of seal and penguin meat would send out the wrong signals to
the men, suggesting that they were preparing to endure the unthinkable – another winter on the ice.
Above all, he wanted to keep up morale and hope. To counter any developing fears or loss of heart, Shackleton talked frequently about going home and the future expeditions on which they would all sail. He also moved Ocean Camp a little way onto firmer, more comfortable snow, which also helped make life a little more bearable.
The men filled their time with a mixture of duties like searching for food and maintaining the equipment, or alternatively with games of cards or a browse through the handful of books – like Encyclopaedia Britannica – which had been salvaged from Endurance. At night the twang of Hussey’s banjo – the ‘mental medicine’ – could be heard drifting across the eerie landscape.
In early November, temperatures began to revive which was a mixed blessing. It was warmer but it also meant that the area around Ocean Camp became a slushy, waterlogged mess, with men’s feet frequently sinking deep into the morass. Everything was wet through.
There was almost a sense of relief when, on 21 November, Endurance finally succumbed to the Antarctic. At around 5 p.m., Shackleton suddenly called out, ‘she’s going, boys’ and everyone scrambled to snatch a final farewell to their ship. She went down, bows first, her stern raised in the air before the ice swallowed the broken vessel.
The loss of Endurance was the moment when the 28 finally cut their ties with civilisation. They were, officially, castaways at 68° 38′ south, 52° 28′ west, adrift in one million square miles of ocean and 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the nearest human settlement.
It was also the moment when the morale of the men would be severely tested and Shackleton was coming to realise the full value of men like Crean and Wild who, in the face of the growing adversity, were becoming the mainstays of the party. Both men gave invaluable support to Shackleton at a time when the spirits of the party were under enormous strain from the loss of the ship and dreadful living conditions on the drifting ice floe.
Shackleton had already been forced to handle a minor mutiny from the carpenter, Chips McNeish, and there was simmering discontent from others as anxiety over their position began to take hold. Shackleton had threatened to shoot McNeish if he failed to obey orders and the mental condition of several others was deteriorating under the pressure of their isolation.
Shackleton’s biographer, Huntford, concluded that, at this point, Crean and Wild were ‘the only men he could absolutely trust’.2
An inventory of stores confirmed that the men had about three months’ full rations, not counting the concentrated sledging rations which were originally earmarked for the expedition across the Continent. These were now on standby for emergencies such as a long boat journey or, at worst, another winter on the drifting ice. But with summer approaching, it was felt there would soon be ample supplies of seals and penguins to feed the men.
At one point, Crean performed an impromptu little act to help build up their larder. The Irishman was out with Worsley and three others searching for meat when they spotted an Emperor penguin. Without hesitation Crean sank onto all fours and began making noises like a fish and Worsley recounted:
‘This brings the Emperor up in a hurry and a quarter of an hour later he is cut up for man meat.’3
The biggest concern was the direction of the drift. If it continued on its present northwesterly course, it would take them close to the northerly tip of the Graham Land peninsula and the relative safety of nearby Paulet or Snow Hill Island. The fear was that the drift would change direction towards the northeast which would send the slowly melting ice floe out into the vast open expanses of the South Atlantic between the land masses of South America and South Africa. It was vital to take to the boats before that happened.
Work on the three small boats was virtually complete and it was decided to give them names. Shackleton wanted to remember his key benefactors and called the whaler James Caird. The two smaller boats, both cutters, were called the Dudley Docker and the Stancomb Wills. McNeish, working with the minimum of tools and equipment, had performed a minor miracle raising the gunwales in the hopes of keeping out the waters of the Southern Ocean, skilfully using nails extracted from the sides of the Endurance.
With the work finished, Shackleton began final preparations for departure from the ice floe and on 19 December he recorded in his diary:
‘Am thinking of starting off for the west.’4
Next day he took three of his most reliable and trusted colleagues – Crean, Wild and Hurley – on a short trip to survey the ice conditions to the immediate west. Taking dogs, the four men travelled for about 7 miles and were reasonably encouraged.
Spirits lifted and Shackleton, a great man-manager, decided to lift morale further by bringing forward Christmas Day celebrations to 22 December, just before they set out westwards. Large quantities of food would be left behind because it could not be carried. With great enthusiasm the men tucked into their remaining luxuries, scoffing ham, jugged hare, anchovies, baked beans, biscuits, pickles and jam and washing it down with ample mugs of tea and coffee.
The next day, 23 December, the men set off again in a replay of the back-breaking hauling of the boats across the hummocks of contorted ice. The procession was, as before, led by trailblazers and dog teams ferrying supplies at what seemed breakneck speed in stark contrast to the laborious plod of the struggling boat-hauling teams.
It was a tortuous process. The boats were now pulled in a relay by eighteen men at the rate of 60 yards (55 m) at a time, which meant the men walked 180 yards (165 m) for every 60 yards gained. The pulling was extremely heavy and even the toughened seamen in the harness could pull for only 200 or 300 yards (182–274 m) at a time before sinking to their knees exhausted and gasping for breath. They hauled the Caird a few hundred yards, then returned to pick up the Docker and hoped that her sledge runners had not frozen firmly to the ice in the low temperatures. When they did, it required three or four violent jerks of the harness to get the leaden weight moving across the ice, even before they began the terrible strain of pulling.
But, by general consent, it was better to be on the move, regardless of the heavy pulling in dreadful conditions. Anything was better than sitting in the cold, wet slushy snow passing the time. Also they all knew they were pulling for their lives.
There was concern among some that only two boats – the James Caird and the Dudley Docker – were to be taken on the new bid for freedom. The Stancomb Wills, the smallest vessel, would remain at Ocean Camp. Inside the little boat the expedition left a message for posterity, detailing the date and their position. Rather optimistically, it concluded: ‘All well.’
The reality was that the men were fighting a losing battle and despite immense effort, once again they were moving at barely one mile a day. At the current rate of progress, they would take 300 days – about ten months – to reach land in the west. But there was no question of their strength holding out for ten months.
On 29 December a quick reconnaissance of the immediate surroundings demolished all hopes of continuing with the march. For at least 2 miles ahead the terrain, in Shackleton’s words, was ‘quite unnegotiable’ with a jumbled mess of broken ice and hummocks. More worryingly, the ice ahead appeared to be very thin and there were some narrow leads of open water which were not enough to take a boat but unstable enough to cause the ice to collapse under their weight. There was no prospect of hauling heavily laden boats across this surface.
It meant a retreat to firmer ice and another humiliation for the bitterly disappointed men. But they had no choice. Once again, they camped and waited for what the drift had in store for them. They were at the mercy of the drift and Shackleton called it ‘Patience Camp’.
The failure of the escape march was a blow to the men’s already strained morale. In general, spirits had been fairly high throughout the long drift on Endurance and despite some isolated difficulties, the mood overall had been reasonably optimistic. Shackleton still leant heavily on the supp
ort of men like Crean and Wild and somehow succeeded in conveying the belief that they would escape.
The new year, 1916, arrived with the more optimistic development that the drift was picking up speed, carrying them faster and faster on the journey towards open water. On 21 January they crossed the Antarctic Circle (66° 33’) and the men climbed the tallest nearby fragment of ice in an attempt to pick out a faint glimpse of far-off land, which was the tip of Graham Land. Hope was briefly restored.
But food was becoming a problem. Seals were far less abundant and Shackleton was anxious to avoid breaking into the sledging rations until absolutely necessary. The alternative was to cut back on their food consumption and so, reluctantly, the decision was taken to shoot most of the remaining 50 dogs. Crean, who had devoted so much time to the animals in the past year, had the cheerless task of helping to lead the dogs away from the camp area where they were summarily despatched by Wild.
An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor Page 23
