Shackleton's Heroes
Page 4
Richards was in Antarctica from January 1915 until January 1917 but he made a diary entry on only forty days. Most of these entries were made in the early months of 1916 when he and the others were held up by a blizzard for days and it looked like they might not even survive. Like Joyce, Richards wrote a book (The Ross Sea Shore Party), but he was different to all the other men of the Mount Hope Party in that he was interviewed a number of times in later years. At these interviews he was able to elaborate on events even further. He also responded to any letters with detailed and blunt replies. These letters were written and these interviews conducted fifty and sixty years after, but Richards’s memory seems crystal clear. His thoughts and words do not vary from one interview to another, or in his letters and, together with his diary, give us a deep insight into what happened to the Mount Hope Party – and why.
He was the youngest man in the Mount Hope Party, being twenty-two years old when he left Australia. His portrait, from a photograph taken soon after he was picked up from Cape Evans at the end of his time in Antarctica, shows a handsome, rugged young man. He was 5 ft 9 in. tall and weighed almost 12 stone.44 He looks older than a man in his early twenties, and we will see as the Mount Hope story unfolds that Richards acts far beyond his age.45
Notes
1. R. W. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party 1914–17 (Cambridge: Scott Polar Research Institute, 1962)
2. R. F. Scott, The Voyage of the Discovery (London: Smith Elder, 1905)
3. New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust booklet, Antarctic Historic Huts
4. Richards, interview with P. Lathlean, 1976
5. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
6. E. H. Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic, Vol. 1 (London: Heinemann, 1909)
7. Ibid.
8. Shackleton, South
9. Spencer-Smith letter to his parents, 8 November 1914
10. A. Phillips, granddaughter of Aeneas Mackintosh. Private papers
11. Ibid., interview, 5 July 2011, Twickenham, UK
12. The Eagle, Bedford Modern School (BMS) journal of 1917
13. National Maritime Museum. P&O Officers Register, Ref 75/8, p. 119
14. Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December 1907
15. P&O Officers Register
16. Anne Phillips, granddaughter of Aeneas Mackintosh. Private papers
17. National Archives. Naval Service Record of Ernest Edward Mills Joyce, No: 160823
18. Scott, Voyage
19. Naval Service Record of Ernest Edward Mills Joyce, No: 160823
20. Shackleton, Heart
21. G. Marston & J. Murray, Antarctic Days: Sketches of the Homely Side of Polar Life by Two of Shackleton’s Men (London: Andrew Melrose, 1913).
22. L. Mills, Frank Wild (Whitby: Caedmon of Whitby, 1999)
23. Shackleton, Heart
24. The West Australian newspaper, Perth, WA, 13 July 1914
25. The Mercury newspaper, Hobart, Tasmania, 12 December 1911
26. Naval Service Record of Harry Ernest Wild, No: 181904
27. Mills, Frank Wild.
28. A. G. E. Jones, ‘Tubby’, SPRI, Polar Record, Vol. 18, No. 112, 1976, pp. 43–5
29. Naval Service Record of Harry Ernest Wild, No: 181904
30. Ibid. Comment by Iain MacKenzie, Curatorial Officer, Admiralty Library, Naval Historical Branch (Naval Staff), Ministry of Defence, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth
31. ‘Tubby’, Polar Record, Vol. 18, pp. 43–5
32. Debby Horsman, great-niece of A. P. Spencer-Smith. Private papers
33. Old Woodbridgian school magazine, Woodbridge School, Suffolk, UK
34. A. J. T. Fraser, ‘Antarctic Padre’, unpublished
35. The Dial, Queens College Magazine, Queens College, Cambridge, UK, 1907
36. J. J. Hayward, grand-nephew of Victor Hayward. Private papers
37. Willesden Chronicle, Willesden Green, UK, 16 February 1917
38. R. Ballantyne, The World of Ice (London: Thomas Nelson, 1860)
39. P. J. Hayward, grand-nephew of Victor Hayward. Private papers
40. Willesden Chronicle, 16 February 1917, and from the private papers of P. J. Hayward, grand-nephew of Victor Hayward
41. P. J. Hayward, grand-nephew of Victor Hayward. Private papers
42. Richards papers at the Art & Historical Collection, Federation University (formerly University of Ballarat)
43. Richards, interview with P. Lathlean, 1976
44. Richards telegram to Mackintosh, 2 December 1914
45. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
* Woodbine was a brand of cigarettes.
Chapter 2
‘BUT SURELY, SIR ERNEST, THIS ISN’T GOING TO FIZZLE OUT INTO A PICNIC’
The Englishmen join Shackleton’s Expedition
SHACKLETON STARTED PREPARATIONS for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in the middle of 1913, but no public announcement was made until January 1914. For the last six months of 1913 he was engaged in the necessary preliminaries; ‘solid mule work’ were his words. It was an extensive expedition that had to have his ship, the Endurance, on one side of the Antarctic continent and the support ship, the Aurora, on the other, with a land journey of 1,800 miles to be made. In January 1914 he received nearly 5,000 applications to join his expedition, from what he described as all classes of the community.1
His first appointment for his support party was Mackintosh, as its leader. At the time, Mackintosh was working for the Imperial Merchant Service Guild in Liverpool and he had written to a colleague from his Nimrod days that he was dissatisfied with safe, routine work. His Nimrod Expedition had left him unfulfilled. He told his colleague he was ‘only existing at this job, stuck in a dirty office. I always feel I never completed my first initiation – so would like to have one final wallow, for good or bad!’2
Shackleton knew Mackintosh from their time together on the Nimrod Expedition, so he clearly had some understanding of Mackintosh’s abilities and leadership skills. Mackintosh had gained sledging experience as a member of a party that laid support depots for Shackleton on that expedition. Shackleton placed Mackintosh in command of his support party despite knowing that Mackintosh had been involved in two ill-planned and risky actions in 1909. On one of these Mackintosh made a decision to camp on sea-ice, and he and a colleague almost lost their lives. The other involved Mackintosh and the colleague becoming lost and it was the latter, a non-commissioned sailor, who took over the leadership role.3 Shackleton may have appointed him to lead because of Mackintosh’s eye loss on the Nimrod Expedition. Richards believed this to be the case, writing later that Shackleton promised Mackintosh that if he could ever do anything for him he would, and Mackintosh held him to his promise in 1914.4
Shackleton issued written instructions to Mackintosh. He was to use his own discretion as to who went on the Mount Hope depot-laying party and if he went himself he must have full reliance on his Chief Officer.5 Joseph Stenhouse was later appointed Chief Officer. He would be captain of the ship when Mackintosh was on shore.
In early 1914 Ernest Joyce was working for the Sydney Harbour Trust in Australia and Shackleton sent him a cablegram confirming his appointment. Joyce tells us in his book The South Polar Trail that Shackleton placed him in charge of the dogs, stores and sledging equipment and that Mackintosh would be in command of the ship.6 However, Joyce’s actual invitation of appointment from Shackleton stated that an officer would be in command of the shore party, not Joyce.7 Why Joyce misrepresented the facts when he wrote his book, over ten years after the events, is unclear. Joyce may have wanted to give the impression to his readers that he was leading the shore party, a supposition that is supported by the fact that there is no reference in his book to Mackintosh being in charge. However, through the diaries of Richards, Spencer-Smith and Hayward it is very clear that Mackintosh was the leader of the shore party, until he fell ill with scurvy in 1916.8 9 10
Joyce’s invitation from Shackleton was written up in the Australian newspapers
and the article also stated that Joyce ‘knows perhaps more of the transport and stores side of a polar expedition than anybody else’, which we could assume are Joyce’s words to the journalist writing the article. The article gave some additional information on the dogs to be used:
They are to be secured by the Hudson Bay Company, and are expected to weigh between 70 and 80 pounds each. They are really the most efficient mode of traction for such expeditions, as each one draws a load of over 100 pounds, and eats only 1lb of food a day. This is in the form of biscuits,* with cod-liver oil forming a big part. They are fed once a day after halting at night.11
Three other men of the Mount Hope Party were also recruited by Shackleton in England: A. P. Spencer-Smith, Ernest Wild and Victor Hayward.
Spencer-Smith submitted a successful application to join as the chaplain and photographer. At the time he was teaching at Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh. A reference from the headmaster described him as a ‘man of culture, of good practical sense and of pleasing personality’.12 There is no record of why he was accepted but he was a photographer and Shackleton knew the value in visual images for later publicity and promotional purposes – he had the Australian photographer Frank Hurley in his own party travelling to the Weddell Sea. Unfortunately, very few quality outdoor photographs by Spencer-Smith have survived.
Wild was thirty-five years old and serving on the Pembroke in 1914 when the Navy approved for him to be lent for service with the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.13 His brother Frank had served with Shackleton in two expeditions to Antarctica and he may have influenced him to apply. Being Frank’s brother would have almost certainly placed him at the top of the list of suitable applicants in Shackleton’s eyes.
Hayward was working as a clerk in London when he applied and he received a letter of confirmation from Shackleton dated 28 August 1914.14 Hayward’s experience with dogs and sledge work in Canada would have been a significant contributing factor in him being accepted. His appointment was even reported in his local newspaper, the Willesden Chronicle, with the note: ‘We feel sure that Mr. Hayward’s many local friends will wish him good luck and a safe return.’15
In September 1914 Hayward and his parents met Shackleton before departing and Shackleton remarked to Mrs Hayward: ‘I’m not going to give your son much hard work to do.’ To which Hayward replied: ‘But surely, Sir Ernest, this isn’t going to fizzle out into a picnic – I could get that at home.’16
Others taken on in England who would be involved with the men of the Mount Hope Party were: Joseph Stenhouse, the Chief Officer of the Aurora; Alexander Stevens, a geologist and the chief scientist; John Cope, a biologist, who was also the party’s medical officer; and Aubrey Ninnis, a motor engineer responsible for a motor tractor taken.
In spite of thousands of applicants, not all positions were filled from England. It appears that Shackleton did not have the time, leaving it to Mackintosh to recruit additional men in Australia. Shackleton admitted he was ‘rather tired’, having managed in only eight months to get his expedition ready, but he felt he had the ‘complement of the Aurora practically complete’ and he was sure it would eventually be right.17
The men recruited in England arrived in Sydney in November 1914 after Wild, Ninnis and the dogs had been dropped off in Hobart, for the dogs to be quarantined.18 Mackintosh had not travelled to Australia with the other men. He went to Hobart earlier to arrange for the Aurora to be taken to Sydney, the ship having been idle since Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911–14.
The Aurora in Sydney
The Aurora had been built in Dundee in 1876 and designed for navigation in northern seas. The hulls were wood, for greater elasticity when pressed by ice, with hardwood sheathing to minimise abrasion when in contact with jagged ice floes.19 The ship had been bought from Mawson by Shackleton for £3,200 and was similar in all respects to the Terra Nova, of Scott’s last expedition. She was registered with the Royal Yacht Squadron, which meant she could evade all loading restrictions when she left port – essential for the Aurora given her decks were covered with cargo when she left Australia.20
The Australian newspapers proudly reported the arrival of the Aurora in Sydney, adding that Mackintosh hoped to take several young Australian scientists as well. He had room for a physicist and a surgeon, and one or two others.21 Hayward had an interview with Mackintosh and he was appointed as the secretary to the expedition, on account of his office experience.22
The Aurora underwent an overhaul at Cockatoo Dock in Sydney and Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith, Joyce, Hayward and others stayed at the Australia Hotel there. Hayward sent a card to his family and Spencer-Smith sent letters to his parents and a menu card from the hotel, signed by Mackintosh, and others.23 24 In one letter Spencer-Smith tells his parents: ‘In the hut I shall probably sleep in my dark room, like Ponting did.’† He also makes reference to a visit from Irvine Gaze, his cousin: ‘Googs has turned up from Melbourne looking very handsome and fit. He will possibly come with us.’
Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith appear to have developed a close and friendly relationship from the outset, with Spencer-Smith including in the letter to his parents:
Captain M met us on the quay & I got a snap of him exchanging compliments with Stenhouse. He’s an absolute ‘dear’ – such a neat wee chap, with a gold eyeglass in his one remaining eye, and an ‘Oxford’ voice: a glutton for work and very cheery. We are all, staff & man, absolutely in love with him!
In Sydney, Mackintosh asked the padre to say grace at meals, much to Spencer-Smith’s delight.25 This bond of respect and friendship between these two men continued throughout their time in the Antarctic.
The Australian Dick Richards joins the expedition
In late 1914 Richards saw an advertisement in the Australian papers for a physicist who was wanted for an Antarctic expedition. Why he applied he was not sure, although he saw himself as a ‘sort of restless chap’ and he was ‘pretty fed up’ with teaching at that time.26
He wrote to Mackintosh saying that he had completed two years’ work in natural philosophy, pure mathematics and applied mathematics at Melbourne University. He gave his age as twenty-two, told him he was engaged as a teacher at the Junior Technical School in Ballarat and that he was ‘anxious not to lose chance’ to be on the expedition.27 28 29
In his book Richards tells how he went to Sydney, where he met Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Stevens. He must have impressed the three men because at the end of the interview he was told to get his gear together and rejoin the ship in Hobart. Richards could not remember any salary being offered, and he did not expect any.30 He tells us they simply said: ‘Alright we will take you, meet us in Hobart; make your own way there.’31
At that time Richards signed the standard agreement, which all members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition were required to do. The agreement was between Shackleton and Richards and it stated a salary, £52 per annum, and included normal conditions for such an enterprise, particularly that he must obey all commands and not publish anything without consent.32 (When Richards was in Antarctica, Mackintosh made him sign another agreement, with very similar content.)
In Sydney Mackintosh recruited three other Australians who were to be involved with the Mount Hope Party. They were Irvine Gaze (Spencer-Smith’s cousin), who was listed as a Commissariat Officer (general assistant), scientist Keith Jack, and Lionel Hooke as the wireless operator.
The Aurora left Sydney on 14 December 1914 with Hobart her first port of call, and Richards joined the expedition there. In his book he tells us that the ship was overladen, with a heavy deck cargo of coal and cases of petrol stacked on the top of the cook’s galley and on deck.33
The Aurora leaves Australia
The Hobart newspaper The Mercury reported that the Ross Sea members of Shackleton’s expedition made their departure from Hobart in ‘the auxiliary barquentine Aurora’ at 6.30 a.m. on Thursday 24 December 1914. Spencer-Smith sent home a brief cablegram: ‘Ble
ssed Xmas. Strictly Private.’34 The ship took on Ernest Wild (and Ninnis) and eighteen dogs at the Quarantine Station. Then, after clearing land, Spencer-Smith held a Christmas service and that night they celebrated the start of their voyage south, obviously with a number of drinks as Richards thought they ‘dined perhaps less wisely than well’.35
The six men who would form the Mount Hope Party were now on board, and together for the first time: the ship’s captain and expedition leader, 36-year-old Lieutenant Mackintosh; forty-year-old Antarctic veteran Ernest Joyce; fellow Petty Officer Ernest Wild, who was the same age as Mackintosh; thirty-year-old Reverend A. P. Spencer-Smith; Vic Hayward at twenty-eight years of age; and Dick Richards, the Australian and youngest member, at only twenty-two years old. The Aurora would take more than two weeks to reach Antarctica, a voyage of 2,500 miles, from Hobart at latitude of 42° 88´S to McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea at latitude of 77° 84´S.
On the voyage south Mackintosh worked on the sledging arrangements for his Mount Hope Party and the other five men helped with various deckhand duties. These duties included being a lookout, helping with the setting and taking in of the canvas sails, meteorological readings, shifting coal on deck and emptying ashes from the boiler room.36 37
When the men assisted with hauling on the canvas sails, Richards tells us that he was fascinated by the sailors singing sea shanties for pulling in time on the sail ropes. He explained that the sailors would know on which shanty beat to start pulling, ‘O Shenandoah! I LONG to hear you, O Shenandoah, I LOVE your daughter’, and they would all pull on those words. He realised that a 1-2-3 call would be nowhere near as effective as a shanty.38 In Antarctica the men would often sing shanties, both in celebratory times (Mid-Winter’s Day for example) and to keep their spirits up in difficult times.