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

by Alfred Lansing

  During the day, there were more and more signs of an imminent opening. Cape pigeons and terns could be seen overhead, and Worsley sighted a magnificent giant petrel, snow white except for two bands of black across its wings - a definite sign of open water. Clark spied a jellyfish in the crack between two floes, and stated flatly that such creatures were found only in the vicinity of ice-free seas. These, plus a black water sky to the northwest, the presence of the swell, and a high temperature of 34 degrees, led Worsley to remark: `It certainly looks promising.' But then he added: `Hope tells a flattering tale.'

  Toward 3 p.m., the weather turned showery, and by eight o'clock when Wild's watch took over, it was raining steadily. Wild and Mcllroy moved into No. S tent for the period of the watch, and in spite of the miserably crowded, wet conditions, there was a cozy atmosphere. Everyone delighted in listening to some new stories instead of the oft-repeated tales from the same wearisome tentmates.

  Soon after the arrival of the newcomers, the men were permitted the luxury of a match. `Are you ready?'Wild asked as the smokers waited with their pipes and cigarettes. Then the precious match was struck, casting its glare on the circle of bearded faces. Individual tapers of tarry rope yarn were lighted from the match; then everyone settled back, puffing contentedly.

  Wild launched into a series of stories about his past escapades involving ladies, and Mcllroy lived up to his reputation as the most cosmopolitan member of the expedition by explaining to an attentive audience his recipe for mixing several cocktails, including one guaranteed aphrodisiac called `The Bosom Caresser.' Otherwise the night passed uneventfully. By dawn the rain had ceased and the wind had shifted to the south, blowing cold and dry. The swell gradually subsided.

  In spite of all the encouraging signs, the pack showed little change throughout the day and into the next morning. In the afternoon a very dark water sky appeared from the southwest, stretching all the way around to the northeast, but in view of the southerly wind, a sudden opening seemed unlikely, so Shackleton deemed it safe to cancel the sea watches. But oneman patrols were continued, day and night.

  That evening, just at eight o'clock as Macklin was relieving Orde-Lees on watch outside, the floe unexpectedly rose to a swell and cracked, hardly feet from Wild's tent. Macklin and Orde-Lees both spread the alarm.

  But everybody had turned in, confident that there would be no breakup, and the emergency caught them almost totally unprepared. There was a great scramble to get dressed in the pitch-black tents, with everyone trying to find the right clothes and attempting to get into boots that had frozen in the 2o-degree cold. Even after the men were out of their tents, there was confusion about exactly what was the trouble and where the danger was. They groped their way around in the dark, bumping into one another and stumbling into unseen holes in the ice. But order was finally restored. The boats were moved closer to the tents, and the stock of meat, which again had been cut off by a crack, was pitched across in the darkness.

  Shackleton ordered sea watches resumed, and that the off-duty men turn in `all standing' - fully dressed, including mittens and helmets.

  It was hard to sleep. Throughout the night the floe lifted very noticeably to the heavy swell, perhaps a foot or more, and the repeated shocks as it bumped against other floes were disconcerting. They all knew that the floe was now so small that should it crack again, something - or somebody - would almost inevitably fall through and probably be crushed.

  But when morning came the southerly wind dropped, and during the forenoon the swell disappeared. At noon, for the first time in six days, Worsley obtained a sight. It put their position at 62'33' South, 5337' West. They had drifted an astonishing 28 miles north in six days, and this in spite of five days of adverse northerly winds. The pack was obviously under the influence of a northerly current.

  It was April 3, McLeod's forty-ninth birthday. The party had just toasted his health at lunch when a sea leopard's head appeared at the edge of the floe. McLeod, who was a small but stocky man, went over and stood flapping his arms to imitate a penguin. The sea leopard apparently was convinced, for he sprang out of the water at McLeod, who turned and dashed for safety. The sea leopard humped forward once or twice, then stopped, apparently to take stock of the other strange creatures on the floe. The delay was fatal. Wild had reached into his tent for his rifle. He took deliberate aim and fired, and another thousand pounds of pleat was added to the larder.

  Thus, the store of provisions was growing steadily. As it did, and their rations were increased, the morale of the whole party improved accordingly. The gloomy, morose grumblings of a few days before, when they had faced the prospects of eating putrid seal meat raw, vanished, and occasionally their attention even turned to matters outside the sphere of simple survival. The afternoon of McLeod's birthday, Worsley and Rickinson launched into a long, noisy argument on the seemingly remote subject of the relative cleanliness of New Zealand versus English dairy farms.

  Though everyone was fully aware that their situation was becoming more critical by the hour, it was much easier to face danger on a reasonably full stomach.

  Their floe, which had once measured a mile in diameter, was now less than Zoo yards across. Most of the time it was surrounded by open water, and it was constantly menaced by swells and collisions with other floes. Clarence Island lay 68 miles due north of them, and though they appeared to be making toward it, they were concerned with the gradual westerly set of their drift which threatened to increase. If it did, they would be swept out to sea through Loper Channel, the 8o-mile-wide gulf between Elephant Island and King George Island.

  `It would be hard,' wrote McNeish, `after drifting into those straits & then be blown out to sea.' And James noted: `A great air of expectancy everywhere. We are on the verge of something, there is no doubt. If all goes well we may be on land very soon. Our chief need is an opening in the ice. Our chief danger being carried beyond these islands in close pack. Our mark, Clarence and Elephant Islands ...'

  It was impossible to obtain a sight the following day, which was damp and misty with an unpleasantly heavy swell running. However, on April 5, Worsley obtained a position - and it showed that they were headed straight for the open sea.

  Chapter Six

  Somehow, in two days, their drift had veered to the west and carried them the incredible distance of 21 miles in forty-eight hours, in spite of headwinds.

  The whole party was stunned by the news. In the space of a minute, the entire pattern of their thinking had to be changed. The goal had been Clarence Island or Elephant Island - but no more. These were now out of the question. `This proves the existence of a strong current to the west,' Hurley said, `and places Elephant Is. beyond a hope of landing.'

  Abruptly, their attention was refocused on King George Island to the west. `We now hope for E. or N.E. winds to take us well west before we get too far north,' wrote James. `It is most remarkable how the outlook can change from a very favourable to a most unfavourable one in a couple of days .... Conversation now either entirely fails or is purely concerned with winds and drifts.'

  There were many who doubted that even strong easterly winds would drive the pack far enough to the west before they drifted out to sea, where the ice would unquestionably be dissipated, leaving them at best adrift in the boats, exposed to the fury of the storms in the Drake Passage. `God forbid we should get that,' wrote Greenstreet, `for I doubt if we would survive.'

  That night as they lay in their sleeping bags they knew the pack was on the move by the ominous sounds of pressure all around. The next day was overcast so that they were unable to obtain a position. But during the night of April 6, the sky cleared, and it was still fairly bright at daybreak. Away in the distance, almost due north, an enormous berg was sighted. But as the sun rose higher, they saw that the upper limits of the berg were shrouded in clouds. No berg was that high - it was an island. But which island?

  From their estimated drift to the northwest, many men thought it was Elephant Island; others
argued that it had to be Clarence. What puzzled their most was that they could see one and not the other, since the two should have been almost equidistant.The Clarence Island faction finally won out on the grounds that the 5,6oo-foot peaks there were fully 2,000 feet higher than any on Elephant Island, and would therefore be visible from a much greater distance.

  By breakfast time the clouds had thickened, obscuring the land from sight. But at noon Worsley obtained a sight which removed all doubt that what they had sighted was Clarence Island, 52 miles away. Even more important, the position showed that the westerly set of their drift had been arrested, and that they had gone 8 miles very nearly due north in the past two days. An enormous wave of relief passed through the party.

  `... the upshot,' wrote James, `is that Elephant and Clarence Group is still the objective and as our present wind is S.W. prospects are a little brighter for the time. The ice got a little closer during the night and the pack is simply swarming with life. We hear and see whales blowing all around absolutely continuously at times. A particularly ugly killer poked his head up and had a look around by our floe. Penguins are croaking . . . and occasionally a shoal of them swim through a pool with a peculiar leaping movement like great fleas hopping along the water surface, and looking fine in the brilliant sunlight. About twenty seals were visible ... this morning at one time. Crowds of snow petrels are on the wing, with occasional giant petrels and skua gulls.'

  Still, the damnable pack would not open. `Pray God we may find a landing here,' wrote Macklin, `and so be off this drifting uncontrollable pack, taking us we know not where, and in spite of any efforts we may attempt to make ... But we are in the hands of a Higher Power, and puny mortals that we are, can do nothing to help ourselves against these colossal forces of nature. If we fail to make a landing, and it is quite likely, I think it might be a good plan to make an effort to get on a berg. Indeed many of us have talked and wished for this for many weeks now, but of course there are other more weighty opinions.'

  Those opinions belonged to Ernest Shackleton. He was dead set against moving onto a berg unless it became unavoidable. He knew that bergs, though they looked substantial, could become off balance because of one portion melting faster than another and might suddenly and unpredictably upend.

  Throughout the night, the hoarse croaking of the penguins, punctuated by the explosive sound of schools of whales blowing, created almost a din. When dawn finally came the weather was clear and bright, with a moderate westerly wind blowing. Once again the men could see Clarence Island, and to the left of it, very faintly, the chain of peaks on Elephant Island. Worsley counted ten of them.

  But the bearing of Clarence Island had altered considerably since the previous evening. It was now almost due north, indicating that they had gone to the east.Worsley's sight at noon confirmed the fact. During the past twenty-four hours they had scarcely gone north at all - 2 miles at most. Instead they had covered 16 miles to the east.

  It was almost unbelievable. The pack had done a complete about-face. Two days before they had been shocked to learn that they were drifting west; now they were confronted with the fact that they were traveling rapidly to the east - away from all land. `If the wind doesn't change round to the east,' Greenstreet said, `we shall miss the island altogether.'

  There was also a dangerously heavy swell running from the northwest, rolling through the pack like low, moving hills of water which lifted their floe almost 3 feet at times. Orde-Lees actually became seasick.

  The easterly movement of the pack could be seen against the slower moving bergs. The ice now had been reduced to such small pieces that it flowed around any obstacle in its path like syrup.

  That evening about 6:45, McNeish was writing his diary. `There has been a large swell since yesterday,' he recorded. `But it is doing us no harm now [since] our floe is broken up so small. It rises and falls with .. ' He never finished the sentence.

  There was a heavy thump, and the floe split under theJam es Caird.Worsley was on watch, and he shouted for help. All hands dashed from their tents and seized the Jaiiies Caird just as the crack began to widen.The other two boats, which were on the separated portion of the floe, were hurried across. When it was over, the floe was a triangle of ice whose sides measured roughly 100 by 12o by go yards.

  Not long after midnight, the wind shifted from the west to the southeast and dropped considerably. Almost at once pools of open water appeared as the floes drew apart. But it didn't last. By daybreak the ice had closed again, though the sky to the north grew black as ink. The swell increased and the men had to brace themselves slightly as they made their way about.

  Then, at breakfast time, the ice mysteriously moved apart again. Small floes became isolated patches of white floating on the dark, cold surface of the water. But even as the entire party anxiously watched, the pack closed once more. The swell rose higher on all sides and their floe began to take a serious pounding. Toward mid morning, for the third time, lanes and pools of open water unaccountably spread through the pack and widened.

  At ten-thirty, Shackleton's booming brogue rang out: `Strike the tents and clear the boats!'

  The men jumped to their tasks. In minutes the tents were struck, and the sleeping bags gathered and stowed in the bows of the boats. Then one at a time the boats were pushed on their sledges to the edge of the floe.

  Crack!

  Again the floe had split in two, this time exactly through the spot where Shackleton's tent had stood some minutes before. The two halves drew rapidly apart, separating the Staiicoinb Wills and a large amount of provisions from the rest of the party. Almost everyone leaped over the widening breach and shoved the cutter and the stores across.

  Then they waited ... torn between the overpowering desire to launch the boats regardless of the risk, and the certain knowledge that once they did so, there could be no turning back. Small as it was, theirs was the only decent floe in sight. If they abandoned it, and the pack closed up before they reached another campsite, there would be no escape.

  Throughout the activity, Green had gone methodically about his duties. Now he was ready with some oily seal soup and a serving of hot powdered milk. Each man took his portion and ate it standing up, intently watching the pack all the while. It was twelve-thirty, and the pools of water were very slightly larger. The men looked at Shackleton.

  For the moment the pack was open - but how long would it remain open? And yet, how long could they stay where they were? The immense floe that had once been Patience Camp was now an irregular rectangle of ice hardly So yards across. How long would it be before it was broken and ground to bits beneath their feet?

  At twelve-forty, Shackleton gave the order in a quiet voice.

  `Launch the boats:

  The floe came alive with activity. Green ran to his stove and put out the fire. Other men took pieces of canvas and tied up small piles of meat and blubber. The rest of the party hurried to the boats.

  The Dudley Docker was removed from its sledge and eased into the water. Then, with all hands passing stores, she was loaded with cases of rations, a bag of meat, the blubber stove, and No. S's rattly old hoop tent. An empty sledge was lowered into the water and tied onto her stern. Next the Staiicoiiib Wills was rapidly launched and loaded, and finally the James Caird.

  It was one-thirty in the afternoon when the crews scrambled on board each boat; they put out every available oar and pulled with all their strength for the open water.

  Even as they drew away from Patience Camp, the ice began to close.

  Chapter One

  The first few minutes were crucial - and they were maddening. The oarsmen did their best to pull together, but they were clumsy and out of practice, and hampered by their own anxiety. The encircling ice fouled the oars, and collisions were unavoidable. Men crouched in the bow of each boat and tried to pole off the bigger pieces of ice, but a great many outweighed the boats themselves.

  The raised sides of the Jairles Cairo and the Dudley Docker were an added
hindrance. They made the seats too low for proper rowing, and though cases of stores were placed under the four oarsmen in each boat, it was still an awkward business.

  The sledge astern of the Dudley Docker continually got hung up on bits of ice, and after a few minutes Worsley angrily cut it loose.

  And yet, to their surprise and almost in spite of themselves and the jealous hands that tried to hold them back, they were making headway. With each boat-length the ice seemed looser. It was difficult to tell whether the pack was opening or whether they were escaping from the ice surrounding Patience Camp. In either case, for the moment, luck was on their side.

  The overcast sky seemed almost alive with birds - Cape pigeons, terns, fulmars, and Antarctic, silver-gray and snow petrels by the thousands. The birds were so thick their droppings spattered on the boats and forced the rowers to keep their heads lowered. Whales, too, seemed everywhere. They surfaced on all sides, sometimes frighteningly close - especially the killers.

  The Jai,ies Caird was in the lead with Shackleton at the tiller. So far as the ice permitted he set a course for the northwest. Next came Worsley steering the Dudley Docker, then Hudson in the Staricomb Wills.The sound of their voices chanting, `stroke ... stroke ... stroke ... ' mingled with the cries of the birds overhead and the surge of the swell through the pack.With each stroke, the oarsmen fell more into the rhythm of their task.

  In fifteen minutes, Patience Camp was lost in the confusion of ice astern. But Patience Camp no longer mattered.That soot-blackened floe which had been their prison for nearly four months - whose every feature they knew so well, as convicts know each crevice of their cells; which they had come to despise, but whose preservation they had prayed for so often - belonged now to the past. They were in the boats ... actually in the boats, and that was all that mattered. They thought neither of Patience Camp nor of an hour hence. There was only the present, and that meant row ... get away ... escape.