Endurance, Deluxe Ed: The Greatest Adventure Story Ever Told by Alfred Lansing

by Alfred Lansing

  Frank Worsley, now universally called `Wuzzles,' had those sharp eyes. He became the chief game spotter because his remarkable vision enabled him to pick out seals at distances up to three and a half miles from the crow's nest. To help him at his task, he accumulated a collection of equipment which he hung around his perch aloft - telescopes, binoculars, a megaphone, and a large flag for use in signaling the direction of the quarry or to warn the hunting parties if there were killer whales near them. Little Frank Wild was usually the executioner. Following Worsley's directions, he walked or skied out to where the seal was lying and shot it in the head.

  The hardest part of the operation was getting the seal back to the ship, since many of them weighed 400 pounds and more. But there was always a struggle to get the job done as quickly as possible so that the seal wouldn't cool off before it arrived. While the flesh was warm, the men who skinned and butchered the carcass didn't get their hands frostbitten.

  A morning in the Ritz', midwinter 19 i i

  During this period the physical condition of the dogs caused considerable anxiety. One after another of them fell sick and wasted away. On April 6, a dog named Bristol had to be shot, bringing to fifteen the total number of dogs lost since they sailed from South Georgia. Of the original sixty-nine, only fifty-four remained, and several of these were in a bad way.

  The two doctors - young Macklin and Mcllroy, the senior surgeon - performed post mortems on each dog and discovered that the majority of them suffered from huge red worms, often a foot or more long, in their intestines. Furthermore, there was nothing that could be done to cure the sick animals. One of the few items the expedition had failed to bring from England was worm powder.

  Tom Crean and puppies

  OPPOSITE The dogs are taken out for exercise

  The loss of the fifteen dogs had been partly made up, in numbers if not in pulling power, by the arrival of two litters of puppies. Eight of the newcomers survived, and it soon became apparent that they were as nondescript as their parents - though considerably more good-natured.

  The older dogs were vicious - toward each other, toward their drivers, and especially toward any seals or penguins they might meet on a training run. They were not pure-bred huskies in the present-day sense. Rather they were a rag-tag collection of short-haired, long-haired, snubby-nosed, pointednosed beasts. Born in the remoter wilds of Canada, they had a basic sledging instinct and a resistance to cold weather, but little else.

  In dealing with them, the only technique that seemed to work was a demonstration of physical superiority. On several occasions one dog might have killed another if somebody hadn't stepped in and stopped the fight by a simple show of strength. Macklin, though a gentle individual by nature, developed a technique that was more effective than almost any amount of effort with a whip. He simply struck the aggressor dog a thudding uppercut under the jaw with his mittened fist. No harm was done, and the animal invariably was stunned into letting go its hold.

  Early in April, Shackleton decided that permanent dog drivers should be assigned with full responsibility for their teams. These posts were allotted to Macklin, Wild, Mcllroy, Crean, Marston, and Hurley.

  Once the teams had been parceled out and were training regularly, the whole crew developed a great interest in the dogs. There was keen competition each day for the positions of assistants to the sledge drivers. These training sessions were also put to the practical purpose of sledging seal carcasses back to the ship on the infrequent occasions when seals were killed. But these occasions, unfortunately, were becoming very infrequent indeed.

  Nevertheless, by April i o, the party had accumulated 5,000 pounds of meat and blubber. Shackleton calculated that this would last ninety days, and would eliminate the need to dip into their supply of tinned and dried provisions until the middle of the Antarctic night, which was approaching very rapidly. At below-zero temperatures, they had no worries about food spoilage; fresh meat was automatically frozen.

  oppoSITE The floes covered in Ice flowers

  Throughout April, the sun sank lower each day, gradually shortening the hours of light. Though the pack remained generally quiet, their observations showed that the entire mass was on the move as a unit. It began slowly. During February, when they were newly beset, the pack had crept almost imperceptibly westward, parallel with the coast. Early in March, it gradually turned to the WNW and gained speed. In April, it swung due northwest and moved at an average speed for the month of 2,'/ miles a day. On May their position showed a total northwest drift since the end of February of 130 miles. The Eiidiiia,icc was one microcosmic speck, 144 feet long and ?S feet wide, embedded in nearly one million square miles of ice that was slowly being rotated by the irresistible clockwise sweep of the winds and currents of the Weddell Sea.

  Early in May the sun appeared over the horizon for the last time, then slowly dropped from sight - and the Antarctic night began. It did not happen all at once; the gradually diminishing dusk grew shorter and less intense each day.

  For a time a hazy, deceiving half-light remained, and the stark outline of the ship could be seen against the horizon. But it was difficult to perceive distances. Even the ice underfoot grew strangely indistinct so that walking became hazardous. A man could drop into an unseen hollow or collide with a hummock thinking it was still a dozen yards away.

  But before long even the half-light disappeared - and they were left in darkness.

  Chapter Five

  In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age - no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.

  By coincidence, the man who had once been a partner in the E,uliirarice, M. le Baron de Gerlache, had himself been beset in the Weddell Sea aboard a vessel called the Bcl~ica in 1899. With the coming of the night, the I C ( ] crew became infected with a strange melancholy. As the weeks went by this slowly deepened into depression and then despair. In time they found it almost impossible to concentrate or even to eat. In order to offset the terrifying symptoms of insanity they saw in themselves, they took to walking in a circle around the ship. The route came to be known as `madhouse promenade:

  The night'vatch- men huddle by the stove in the Ritz'

  Midwinter dinner in 'the Ritz'

  One man died of a heart ailment brought on partly by his unreasoning terror of the darkness. Another was seized with the idea that the rest of the crew intended to kill him, and whenever he slept he squeezed himself into a tiny recess of the ship. Still another gave way to hysteria which left him temporarily deaf and dumb.

  But there was very little depression on board the E,dii?artcc. The coming of the polar night somehow drew the men closer together.

  When the Eiithira ncc sailed from England, there could hardly have been a more heterogeneous collection of individuals. They varied from Cambridge University dons to Yorkshire fishermen. But after nine months of being together almost constantly and living and working in the same close quarters, the men had built up a backlog of shared experiences that offset the vast differences between them. During these nine months, the men on board the Eiidiiraiicc had come to know one another very well indeed. And with few exceptions, they had come to like one another, too.

  Nobody much thought of Blackboro as a stowaway any more.The stocky darkhaired young Welshman was a regular member of the crew now. Blackboro was an extremely quiet individual but nonetheless quick-witted and well liked, a cheerful, willing shipmate, who helped Green in the galley.

  Tom Crean

  They all knew Bobbie Clark, the biologist, to be a dour, hard-working, almost humorless Scot. But they knew also that he could be counted on to do his share and more whenever all hands were called to duty. He got excited only when the dredge he lowered through the ice each day fetched up a new species of creature
for his collection of bottled specimens. The crew once tricked him into great excitement by placing some pieces of cooked spaghetti in one of his jars of formaldehyde. Clark kept his own counsel, and never mentioned to a single man anything about his personal life.

  Tom Crean - tall, almost gaunt - was exactly what he appeared to be - a heavy-handed sailorman, forthright and tactless, who spoke with a sailorman's rough vocabulary. He was certainly not a very warns personality, but he knew the sea and he knew his job, and the others respected hint for it. Shackleton was personally quite fond of Crean. He liked the big Irishman's willingness. Shackleton also put a high value on discipline, and Crean, after years in the Royal Navy, regarded an order as something to be obeyed without question. Nor was Crean above giving Shackleton a bit o' the blarney occasionally.

  When it came to Charlie Green, the cook, there was a widespread feeling that he was a little `crackers,' or daft, because of his disorganized and seemingly scatterbrained mannerisms. They called him Chef or Cookie - or sometimes Doughballs because of his high, squeaky voice and because he had in fact lost a testicle in an accident. They poked fun at him on the surface, but underneath there was a fundamental respect, and a fondness, too. Few men were snore conscientious. While the others worked only three hours a day, Green was busy in the galley from early morning until long after supper at night.

  Green was occasionally the victim of the almost merciless ribbing that all ships' cooks everywhere are subjected to, but he had his jokes, too. Two or three times, when some crewman's birthday was to be celebrated, he produced a cake for the occasion. One proved to be a blown-up toy balloon which he had carefully frosted, and another was a block of wood, daintily covered with icing.

  Hudson, the navigator, was a peculiar sort. He meant well, all right, but he was just a little dull. He owed his nickname - Buddha - to a practical joke he had fallen for once while the ship was at South Georgia. The men had convinced him that there was to be a costume party ashore ... and any nian who had seen South Georgia with his own eyes - its glaciers and rugged mountains, the stink of whale entrails rotting in the harbor - and who could believe it to be the scene of a costume party ... but Hudson did. They got him to remove most of his clothing and they dressed him in a bedsheet. Then they tied the lid of a teapot on his head with pieces of ribbon running under his chin. Thus attired, he was rowed to shore, shivering in the icy blasts that howled down off the mountains. A party was held at the home of the whaling factory manager. But when Hudson walked in, he was most assuredly the only one in costume.

  Hubert Hudson with young emperor penguin chicks

  In any practical joke such as this, the men knew that the one to look for was Leonard Hussey, the meteorologist. A slightly built little fellow in his early twenties, Hussey was universally liked for his unfailing good humor. He had a sharp, satiric tongue, but he could take a joke against himself without losing his good spirits. It was not always easy to get the best of Hussey in an exchange of wits, though. They liked him, too, because he played the zither banjo and was willing to strike up a tune whenever anybody wanted to sing. Hussey's name was corrupted into a variety of nicknames - Hussbert, Hussbird, and just plain Huss.

  A great many of the men looked on Mcllroy, one of the surgeons, as a man of the world. He was a handsome, aristocratic-looking individual, slightly older than most of the others, and they immensely enjoyed listening to his tales of past conquests. Mcllroy could be bitingly sarcastic, but the others admired him for it. It seemed to go along with his cosmopolitan nature, and there was never any malice in what he said. They called hint Mick.

  George Marston, the expedition's artist, was a moody fellow, up one day and down the next. He was unique among them in that he worried outwardly about the future, whereas almost everybody else was confident that everything was going to be all right. But Marston, whenever he was feeling downcast, would brood over his wife and children at home. His attitude was not improved by Shackleton's obvious and increasing dislike for him. It was one of those inexplicable things. Perhaps Marston's uneasiness itself was at fault. Shackleton seemed to fear that this attitude would spread to other men. But, apart from his changeable nature and the fact that he was not overly eager to turn out for work, Marston was well liked by most.

  Among the forecastle hands, the seamen and firemen, the only outstanding individual was John Vincent, a young, ambitious bully. He was quite short, but ruggedly built and much stronger than any of the other seamen. And he sought to use his superior strength to dominate his shipmates by intimidation. He insisted on being served first at mealtimes so that he could pick the best portion, and when grog was issued, he always managed to get more than his share.The other seamen not only disliked hint personally, they had very little respect for his abilities aboard ship. Vincent had been in the Navy, but most of his experience at sea had been aboard trawlers in the North Sea. Unlike How, Bakewell, and McLeod, who had served for years aboard square riggers, Vincent had had no previous experience in sail. Nevertheless, he had his eye on the vacant post of boatswain, and he felt that the best way to get it was to demonstrate a capacity for tyranny. After a time the forecastle hands got fed up, and How, a soft-spoken, agreeable, and extremely competent little chap, went to Shackleton and complained. Shackleton immediately sent for Vincent. Though it is not known what Shackleton told him, Vincent's attitude was considerably less domineering after that.

  It was remarkable that there were not more cases of friction among the men, especially after the Antarctic night set in. The gathering darkness and the unpredictable weather limited their activities to an ever-constricting area around the ship. There was very little to occupy them, and they were in closer contact with one another than ever. But instead of getting on each other's nerves, the entire party seemed to become more close-knit.

  Early in the winter, George Marston and Frank Wild decided to give each other haircuts. Before they were through, they had shaved off all their hair with the ship's barber clippers. The next evening the fever had spread throughout the crew. Everyone, including Shackleton, had his hair trimmed down to the scalp.

  The haircutting tournament

  After that, there were many pranks. The following evening, Wild appeared for supper with his face buried in the neck of his jersey, revealing only the top of his shaved head, on which Marston had painted what Greenstreet described as an `imbecilic looking Johnny.'

  And the next night `Wuzzles' Worsley was put on trial for `robbing a Presbyterian church of a trouser button out of the offertory bag and having turned the same to base and ignoble use' The proceedings were long and disorderly. Wild was the judge, James the prosecuting attorney, and OrdeLees the defense attorney. Greenstreet and Mcllroy gave testimony against the defendant, but when Worsley promised to buy the judge a drink after the trial,Wild charged the jury to find the defendant innocent. Nevertheless, Worsley was found guilty on the first ballot.

  Besides these spontaneous affairs, there was a regular series of social occasions. Each Saturday night before the men turned in a ration of grog was issued to all hands, followed by the toast, `To our sweethearts and wives.' Invariably a chorus of voices added, `May they never meet.'

  On Sunday evenings the men listened to music from the hand-crank phonograph for an hour or two as they lay in their bunks or wrote up their diaries. But the playing of the phonograph was limited because of a shortage of needles. Five thousand had been ordered in England, but Wild, in sending off the requisition, had failed to specify the word `gramophone.' Only long after the ship had sailed did Orde-Lees, the storekeeper, discover they had five thousand extra sewing needles, and only a small package of the phonograph variety.

  Then once each month all hands gathered in the Ritz and Frank Hurley, the photographer, delivered a 'lantern chat' - a slide-illustrated lecture on the places he had visited: Australia, New Zealand, the Mawson expedition. The favorite was one called `Peeps in Java,' which featured waving palm trees and native maidens.

  The Ritz on
nights like these was a cozy place. It had been a cargo area just below the main deck and aft of the crew's quarters in the forecastle. Then the stores and Wien traded places. The supplies were moved to the wardroom area in the deckhouse, and the men took over the hold. The area was about 35 feet long and 25 feet wide, and McNeish had erected partitions to form individual sleeping cubicles for the officers and scientists. In the center was a long table with a paraffin-burning lamp overhead. Here they ate their meals, wrote their diaries, played cards, and read. In one corner was a coal-burning stove which kept the temperature inside quite comfortable. The E?idiirance's thick sides were excellent insulation.

  LIFT The Saturday evening toast, to `Sweethearts and wives'

  RI(;H F Frank Hurley gives a `lantern chat'

  Outside, however, the weather was getting steadily worse. Late in May the temperature dropped below zero, and stayed there. During the first half of June, the average reading was -17 degrees. But the scene from the deck of the Eiidtiranicc was often fantastically beautiful. In clear weather, if the moon was out, it swept in bold, high circles through the starlit skies for days on end, casting a soft, pale light over the floes. At other times, there were breathtaking displays of the aurora aiistralis, the Antarctic equivalent of the northern lights. Incredible sunbursts of green and blue and silver shot tip from the horizon into the blue-black sky, shimmering, iridescent colors that glinted off the rock-hard ice below. But apart from the increasing cold, the weather remained remarkably stable and free from gales.

  Toward the middle of June, at the blackest part of the winter, a chance boast by Frank Hurley that he had the fastest team resulted in a dog derby. Even at high noon when the race was run, it was so dark out that the spectators at this `Antarctic Sweepstakes' couldn't see the far end of the race course. Wild's team won, but Hurley claimed that he was carrying more weight than Wild, and demanded a rematch. He later won when Shackleton, who was riding as passenger on Wild's sledge, slipped off going around a turn, and Wild was disqualified.