Shackleton's Heroes
Page 35
20. Richards, ‘Report of the Proceedings of the “Aurora” Relief Expedition 1916–1917’
21. The Eagle, Bedford Modern School journal, 1917, Mackintosh, Nimrod diary, 5 January 1909
22. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
23. Wild diary, 24 May 1915
24. Mackintosh diary, 30 July 1915
25. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Mackintosh diary, 31 March 1915
29. Ibid., 27 March 1915
Chapter 19
‘ARE MACKINTOSH AND HAYWARD HERE?’
July 1916
IT WAS 15 July before Joyce, Richards and Wild (with their four dogs) crossed the sea-ice to Cape Evans. Richards tells us that the first thing they asked Cope, Stevens, Jack and Gaze was: ‘Are Mackintosh and Hayward here?’ They were told no and Richards says that they were not surprised but he adds that Cope, Stevens, Jack and Gaze were shocked to hear that Mackintosh and Hayward had attempted to cross earlier.1
All the men were absolutely convinced that Mackintosh and Hayward were lost and dead. They could not have lived for more than a few hours in the blizzard because they had no equipment of any sort. There was the barest chance that after the return of the sun they might find their bodies so during the spring and summer (August 1916 to January 1917), searches were carried out.
Mackintosh and Hayward were never seen again. No trace of their bodies was found. It was a tragic death for these two men, and heartbreaking for Joyce, Richards and Wild, who had heroically brought them back to the safety of Hut Point. Richards later named it as the final fatal tragedy of the expedition.2
Joyce, Richards and Wild, with Cope, Stevens, Jack and Gaze, then lived on at Cape Evans in reasonable comfort. As well as seal meat, penguin meat and penguin eggs they had stores that Scott had left (tinned vegetables, jams, sugar, flour and biscuits), beds to sleep on, an insulated hut with lighting and a few books and papers to read. They never washed or shaved and slept in their clothes inside their sleeping bags and under Jaeger blankets.3
There the dog Con was killed by the other three dogs – as a result of a long-standing feud between the huskies and him. Richards wrote later that Con was a general favourite of all the men who returned from Mount Hope and his death saddened them.4
Richards fell ill soon after they reached Cape Evans. In his book, The South Polar Trail, Joyce tells us that one day Richards suddenly collapsed. He simply threw up his arms, gave a cry, and fainted. Cope, who had become something of a recluse at Cape Evans, rallied and nursed Richards back to health. Joyce believed that the long journey had strained Richards’s heart.
In August 1916 Richards scribbled a message on the wall next to his bunk, with an incorrect spelling of Spencer-Smith’s name. The message is still faintly visible after almost 100 years: ‘R. W. Richards, 14 August 1916, Losses to date, Hayward, Mack, Smyth, ship?’
In his book Richards tells us that all they could do was wait at Cape Evans for the following January and February and see what came in the way of relief. They were not optimistic as they thought the Aurora had been lost but they all looked forward to seeing what the new year would bring. They scrounged some ‘luxury items’ like matches and soap, from a visit to a third hut at Cape Royds which was a few miles to the north of Cape Evans. Their stores at Cape Evans would last them for another 12 months, plus what they could obtain from seals and penguins. Killing seals for meat and fuel took up most of their time.5
10 January 1917
They were rescued on 10 January 1917 when the Aurora arrived at McMurdo Sound, with Shackleton on board. Richards tells us he was looking out for seals that morning and he saw what he termed ‘some sort of shape’ about 7 miles out to sea, which he thought might have been an iceberg. Then he saw a plume of smoke from the ship’s stack so he called to the others that ‘the ship’s here’. He tells us that the others did not believe him, calling him a ‘bloody fool’. But someone did get up and look and Richards remembered that man said: ‘By Jove, there is something there’. He explains that there was then a ‘terrific scurrying around’ for a couple of hours to load up the sledges with the things that had to be taken back. They then set off to travel across the 7 miles of sea-ice to the ship. After a couple of hours walking they saw three tiny dots, which turned out to be three men, coming across the ice from the ship and Richards tells us that Joyce recognised one as Shackleton.6
In his book The Ross Sea Shore Party Richards wrote that Shackleton immediately asked how many men had been lost and on being told three, the three men lay down on the ice, which was a signal back to the ship indicating the number of lives lost.7
For Richards it was the first time he had met Shackleton. After being told of the loss of the Endurance, before even landing Shackleton on the Weddell Sea side of the continent, Richards remembered that it did not even register with them that all their labours and suffering had been for nothing. He said later: ‘I don’t look on our struggle as being futile. It was something that the human spirit accomplished.’8
The Aurora was under command of Captain John King Davis and he wrote later that he was astonished at what a profound effect such a long period of isolation had on the Mount Hope Party men. He says they were ‘about the wildest looking gang’ that he had ever seen. He described them as men with smoke-bleared eyes looking out from grey haggard faces with beards and uncut matted hair impregnated with soot and grease. He saw that their eyes had a strained and harassed look and he was not surprised given what they had endured. They had lost their ship eighteen months before; there was the toll of two seasons sledging, the loss of three companions, a lack of suitable clothing and proper food and the almost incessant storms and blizzards. To Davis what would have been worst of all were the weary months waiting for a rescue that might be delayed for another year. All these factors combined to change the men into individuals unlike any he had ever met. He went on to state that the mark of their physical and mental hardships went far deeper than their appearance. He said: ‘Their speech was jerky, semi-hysterical and at times almost unintelligible.’9
Joyce gave a report to Shackleton on the steps he and the others had taken to try and discover the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward. Then Shackleton, Joyce and Wild searched again, unsuccessfully. Davis conducted an inquiry with Joyce, Richards and Wild and their statements are included in his ‘Report of the Proceedings of the ‘Aurora’ Relief Expedition 1916–17’ notes. Davis’s conclusion was that because Mackintosh and Hayward had only been on their journey to Cape Evans for two hours before the blizzard overtook them, it appeared unlikely that they would have had the time to reach land. The thinness of the ice suggested that it would have broken up quickly into detached floes. In Davis’s opinion this would have lessened their chances of being carried more than a very short distance before they would have lost all support.10
A memorial cross was erected on the hill behind Cape Evans. There was no inscription put on the cross but a sheet of paper was left at the Cape Evans hut with these words, in Shackleton’s handwriting.
I. T. A. E.
1914–1917
Sacred to the Memory
Of Lieut. Aeneas Lionel A. Mackintosh, RNR,
V. G. Hayward
And
The Rev. A. P. Spencer-Smith, BA,
Who perished in the service of the Expedition.
‘Things done for gain are nought
But great things done endure.’
‘I was ever a fighter so one fight more
The best and the last
I should hate that death bandaged
my eyes and bid me creep past.
Let me pay in a minute Life’s glad
arrears of pain darkness & cold’.*
The three Mount Hope survivors leave Antarctica
On 17 January Joyce, Wild and Richards left McMurdo Sound on the Aurora.
Shackleton presented Richards (and Joyce) with a prismatic co
mpass, and on the back of Richards’s he engraved an inscription, using his diamond ring:
‘To R. W. Richards
From E. H. Shackleton.’
Richards said later that the compass was ‘the greatest keepsake I have from those days in the Ross Sea’. It had emotional associations for him, particularly in the difficult six days of the blizzard in February 1916 when they searched for the Bluff depot and then turned south again to try and locate Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild. Richards said: ‘Our lives definitely depended on it.’11
Ernest Wild died in March 1918. The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper of 16 March 1918 reported that he had been killed on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean. However, Wild’s naval records show that he died on 10 March 1918 of ‘Enteric Fever’ – typhoid.12
In 1923 Joyce, Richards, Wild and Hayward were each awarded the Albert Medal in bronze, for saving life on land. Richards wrote to a colleague in 1956 stating that he could never quite figure out why they were awarded the medal as they were only saving their own lives, and they could scarcely do that and leave the others behind.13 In 1971 the Albert Medal ceased and living recipients were invited to exchange their Albert Medal for the George Cross.
Joyce’s book, The South Polar Trail, was published in 1929.
In 1940 Ernest Joyce died aged sixty-five.
Richards’s book The Ross Sea Shore Party was published in 1962. He said it was ‘an attempt to set down my personal story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the Ross Sea Party of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition after the lapse of 40 years’.14
Richards was interviewed a number of times late in his life and at one interview he was asked what was the biggest moment; what registered most in his mind some sixty years later? Richards replied that it was finding the tent with Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild. For Richards it was ‘probably the most emotional moment and reached deeper into me than anything else’.15
In 1985 Dick Richards died aged ninety-one.
Notes
1. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
2. Richards letter to A. J. T. Fraser, 9 July 1961
3. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
4. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 27 January 1962
5. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
6. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
7. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
8. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
9. Davis, as quoted by L. Bickel in Richards interview 1976
10. ‘Report of the Proceedings of the “Aurora” Relief Expedition 1916–1917’
11. Richards, Australasian Post, Wellington, New Zealand newspaper, 25 February 1982
12. Naval Service Record of Harry Ernest Wild
13. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 6 January 1956
14. Richards, The Ross Sea Shore Party
15. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976
* The poem is ‘Prospice’ by Robert Browning, a favourite poet of Shackleton and many men of that era.
Chapter 20
‘THE GREATEST QUALITIES OF ENDURANCE, SELF-SACRIFICE, AND PATIENCE’
The Mount Hope Party
THE EARLY 1900S is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and if we look at the British expeditions at this time we see many facets of heroism. The first was Scott’s Discovery Expedition of 1901–04. In late 1902, Scott, Wilson and Shackleton set out, bravely and without fear, across the unknown of the Great Ice Barrier. On some days they managed to cover 15 miles, but on others only 5. Occasionally blizzards held them stationary for one or two days. They reached 82° 15´S and then turned back, but their return journey was grim as they were showing signs of scurvy and they struggled to reach each food depot that they had put down on their trip south. Scott and Wilson were left to haul the sledge as Shackleton weakened. An ill Shackleton returned home a year before Scott and was hailed as a hero, as were Scott and his men when they returned. Scott, Wilson and Shackleton had walked where no man had walked before, out across the unwelcoming Great Ice Barrier, and their exploits entranced the British public.
The second British expedition in the Heroic Age was Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition of 1907–09. Up on the polar plateau Shackleton and his men had reached a point 88° 23´S before they turned back. Their return trek to Hut Point had been left dangerously late and they encountered blizzards and near escapes searching for food depots before two of the four men reached their hut. Two men had been left out on the Barrier, but were rescued a few days later. On his return to England in 1909 the newspapers hailed Shackleton with headlines such as: ‘The Hero of the Farthest South Expedition Reaches England’ and ‘The Return of the Heroic Explorer Who Went Furthest South’.1 Shackleton was knighted, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him a Gold Medal and all men of his shore party received silver Polar Medals.
Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–12 was the third expedition of the time and Scott is remembered not so much for his achievements but for his heroic death. To the British nation Scott was the symbol of heroism and courage. ‘Captain Scott’s Four Heroic Comrades Who Died on Their Way Back from the Pole’, and ‘Heroes at the South Pole, The Terra Nova Returns to New Zealand with the Tragic News’, ran the 1913 newspaper headlines.2
The final expedition of the Heroic Age was Shackleton’s 1914–17 expedition. It is incontestable that the actions of Shackleton and his small party of men were heroic. They risked their own lives by sailing across 800 miles of the Southern Ocean, and then walking across South Georgia, so their colleagues on Elephant Island could be saved.
A number of aspects of heroism are evident in these earlier expeditions. First of all, the men were not only courageous and strong willed, but they worked under extreme physical conditions, in a hostile environment. It was precisely the same for the men of the Mount Hope Party, who travelled not simply the 360 miles out to Mount Hope and back but another seven or eight hundred miles as they placed provisions at various depot points and then returned to base for more.
A second feature of the men of earlier expeditions, which also gave rise to their heroic status, is that they apparently knew no fear, as did the men of the Mount Hope Party. Mackintosh and his men had no one to turn to if a catastrophe struck or if insurmountable difficulties arose. There were four men at Cape Evans but they were in no position to help. The six men of the Mount Hope Party, with four dogs, were completely alone on the Great Ice Barrier. In their diaries there is nothing written about trepidation or panic as they encounter crevasses, whiteout conditions, severe food shortages and a seemingly never-ending blizzard. Even when circumstances demanded that men be left behind, firstly Spencer-Smith alone, then Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild, and then Mackintosh alone, there is only angst and concern for their well-being.
The return journey of the Mount Hope Party had remarkable similarities to that of Scott’s fateful final days. However, when they were stopped by a prolonged blizzard they refused to give in and wait in their tents for death to take hold. Close to starvation, three of the men, with the dogs, gallantly went out in the blizzard to search for a food depot.
Another feature that is evident in both Scott’s and Shackleton’s earlier expeditions was the camaraderie of the men. Similarly, the six men of the Mount Hope Party could not have achieved what they did, and performed so heroically, if they had not worked well together. And it is easy to imagine there could be disharmony in the group given that they were men of such different characters and backgrounds. However, through their diaries, we see that for the majority of the time, they thought positively of each other. Mackintosh often praised the men, adding special notes on Wild and Spencer-Smith, the two men usually in his three-man sledging team. Richards echoed Mackintosh’s praise of Wild, particularly in relation to Wild’s untiring efforts when looking after an incapacitated Spencer-Smith.3 All the Mount Hope men had kind words to say about Spencer-Smith, particularly his fortitude and cheerfuln
ess. He was known affectionately as ‘Smith’ or ‘Smithy’ and to Richards those names were as useful an appreciation of his character as he could give. They saw him as a ‘good’ man in the best sense of the word. His Christianity was not obtrusive but it was there all the time and he was always ready to help anyone in difficulty.4 There is little comment on Hayward through their diaries but Richards tells us he got on well with people although seldom advanced any opinions of his own. He was even-tempered but not an unduly intellectual type, in Richards’s opinion.5 In his book Joyce mentioned his friendship with Richards, when Richards collapsed at Cape Evans in late 1916. Joyce wrote: ‘He had been my constant companion for ten months, and a better pal amidst toil and trouble never existed.’6 Richards in later years also gave his opinion on Joyce. He tells us he was bombastic, a bit of a swashbuckler and a rather flamboyant character.7 8 However, there was a strong bond between them. They shared a tent for six months and Richards stressed that ‘you learn a man inside out in that period’.9 He admitted to having a very soft spot in his heart for the man he called ‘old Joycey’.10
Heroically, they channelled their energies into ensuring they carried out their goal. Differences in experience, age, upbringing and education all seem to have been put aside for the common good. In all their time of sledging and being confined to a hut over the dark months of winter, there are few diary entries of the Mount Hope Party that mention any serious disagreements or conflict. Even at Hut Point at the end of their trek back from Mount Hope Joyce noted that everything was going along harmoniously.11 In later years Richards remembered that the spirits of the whole party were quite normal and personal relationships were usually very good. He believed that the long polar nights had not affected their spirits or created any particular psychological problems among the men.12 All the men had empathy with each other’s injuries and ailments and particularly with Spencer-Smith, Mackintosh and Hayward as they succumbed to scurvy. Even Joyce’s hard-nosed attitude towards Mackintosh appeared to soften when Mackintosh’s health was failing. Joyce and Richards were critical of Mackintosh’s logistical decisions but the only significant negative diary comments on anyone’s personal behaviour are in Wild’s diary where he made notes on Mackintosh being selfish.13 14 Only in later correspondence and interviews was Richards critical of Mackintosh as the leader. At one interview he stated that in his opinion Mackintosh was a weak character, with no personality and no judgement. He was brave, ‘as game as Ned Kelly’, but not the man to lead.15 These criticisms were not published in Richards’s book The Ross Sea Shore Party.