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

by Alfred Lansing

  They were almost one-third of the way.

  Chapter Three

  One-third of the sentence had been served.

  Throughout the day and into the night, the southwesterly wind continued, growing ever stronger. By the time the bleak gray sky grew light on the morning of April 30, the surface of the sea was torn into foam, and the frenzied screech of the gale through the rigging rose and fell hysterically as the Caird was lifted to each successive swell. The temperature had dropped very close to zero, and the bitterness of the wind suggested that it was blowing straight off pack ice that was not very far away.

  As the morning hours passed, it became more and more of a struggle to steer the boat. The 6o-knot gale drove her head down into the seas, and the huge waves that rolled up astern constantly threatened to slew her around broadside. By midmorning she was wallowing more than sailing, running off to one side and then the other, and taking seas on board with almost every wave. The pump was not adequate to handle the water, and extra hands had to be called to bail. Toward noon the boat began to ice up.

  The decision was inevitable, but Shackleton put it off as long as he dared. They pumped and bailed and beat the ice off her - all the while fighting to hold her stern up into the wind. Noon ... one o'clock ... two o'clock. But it was no use. The sea was more than she could take. Shackleton reluctantly gave the order to come about. The sails were dropped, and the sea anchor, a cone-shaped piece of canvas about 4 feet long, was put over on the end of a long bowline. It dragged through the water and thus brought the Caird's bow up into the wind.

  Almost at once conditions improved. At least less water came on board. The boat, however, behaved like a thing possessed. She staggered drunkenly upward over each new wave, then plunged sideways only to have her bow jerked violently around as she seized up on the sea anchor. There was never a moment - not even an instant of repose. The only thing to do was to hang on, and endure.

  It was not long before the furled sails started to collect ice, and with each burst of spray their load grew heavier. Within an hour, they were frozen into a solid mass, and the action of the boat was growing sluggish as she began to get top heavy. The sails had to be removed, so Crean and McCarthy were sent forward, and after knocking off the ice, they brought the sails below and stuffed them into the already cramped space under the decking.

  But then a heavy coating began to accumulate on the oars. There were four of them lashed against the shrouds. As the ice built up, they became like miniature bulwarks which prevented the water from spilling overboard before it froze. Shackleton watched anxiously, hoping that the load of ice on deck might not grow too heavy. But in the failing light of dusk he saw that it would be dangerous to let it go until morning. He ordered Worsley, Crean, and McCarthy to go with him up onto the pitching deck.

  With great effort they clubbed the ice off the oars, then pitched two of them over the side. The remaining pair was lashed to the shrouds about i 8 inches above the deck so that the water would run off.

  It took more than twenty minutes, and by the time they were finished it was dark and they were utterly drenched. They crept back into the cockpit - and the night began.

  Each of the watches shivered through their four hideous hours, cringing beneath the decking, sodden and half frozen, trying to remain upright against the wild lurching of the boat while perched on the despised rocks in the bottom.

  For seven painful days the rocks had made eating difficult; they had interfered with bailing; they had vastly complicated the simple act of getting about, and they had made sleeping all but impossible. But it was moving them that was worst of all. Periodically they had to be shifted in order to ballast the boat properly, which meant lifting them while crouched over and kneeling, often painfully, on other rocks. By now, every sharp corner and every slippery surface was intimately known and utterly detested.

  Then, too, there were the reindeer hairs. They moulted from the insides of the sleeping bags, and at first they had been only a petty annoyance. But no matter how much hair was shed, the supply seemed inexhaustible. And they were everywhere ... the sides of the boat, the seats, the ballast. They clung in wet clumps to faces and hands. The men breathed them as they slept, and occasionally woke up choking on them. The hairs ran down into the bottom and clogged the pump, and little clusters of them were turning up more and more frequently in the food.

  Gradually, as the long hours of the night crept by, a subtle change could be detected in the boat. For one thing, the trickles of water through the decking became smaller, then finally ceased altogether. At the same time her behavior was growing noticeably less violent, and instead of pitching wildly, she rose to the seas with increasing restraint.

  The first light of dawn told why. The entire boat above the waterline was encased in ice, half a foot thick in places, and the rope to the sea anchor had grown to the size of a man's thigh. Under the weight of it, she was riding at least 4 inches deeper, like a waterlogged derelict rather than a boat.

  Worsley was on watch and he immediately sent McCarthy to awaken Shackleton, who hurried aft. When he saw the situation, he excitedly ordered all hands called. Then he himself took a small axe and cautiously crawled forward.

  With extreme care so as not to puncture the decking, he began to knock the ice away with the back side of the axe. Periodically a wave burst against the boat and swept over him, but he kept at it for nearly ten minutes while the others anxiously looked on. By then he was so stiff with cold that lie could no longer trust his grip or balance. He crawled back into the cockpit with the water dripping from his clothes and his beard frozen half stiff. He was shivering noticeably as he handed the axe to Worsley to continue the job, cautioning him to use extreme care while he was on the decking.

  And so each of them took his turn at chipping for as long as he could endure it, which was rarely more than five minutes. First they had to knock off enough ice to get a handhold and a place to put their knees. To stand up on that glassy, rolling deck would have been to commit suicide, for had a man fallen overboard, the others could never have got in the sea anchor and hoisted sail in time to rescue him.

  Below, Shackleton discovered that ice was forming even inside the cockpit. Long icicles hung from under the decking, and the water in the bottom was very nearly frozen.

  He called for Crean, and together they managed to get the Primus stove alight in the hope that it would give off enough heat to warns the cockpit above the freezing point. Unless the water in the bottom could be thawed enough so it could be pumped out, there was danger that it would simply sink the boat under them.

  It took an hour of agonizing work on deck before they felt the Caird begin to regain her buoyancy. But they kept at it until they had succeeded in getting rid of most of the ice except a large chunk on the sea-anchor line which they simply could not risk attempting to reach.

  Shackleton then called them below to have some milk. They gathered around the stove, almost sick with cold. It seemed inconceivable that their numbed bodies could have given off any warmth, but apparently they did, for after a while the icicles under the decking began to melt and drip down onto them. Not long afterward the water in the bottom had thawed enough so they could pump it out.

  Shackleton still had Crean keep the Primus stove alight, but toward noon the acrid fumes it gave off had made the air almost unbreathable and it had to be extinguished. It took several minutes for the atmosphere to clear, and then they became aware of a new smell - a fetid, sweet-sour sort of odor, like spoiled meat. McNeish discovered it came from the sleeping bags, which in fact had begun to rot. A closer examination disclosed that two of them actually were slimy inside.

  Throughout the afternoon the coating of ice steadily built up again. And late in the day Shackleton decided there was too much at stake to gamble on the chance that the Caird would survive until morning. Once more, he ordered that the boat be cleared. It took more than an hour, but finally it was done, and after a ration of hot milk they settled down to wait
for morning.

  The southwesterly gale screamed on, showing not the slightest sign of fatigue. The watches of that night were like a tally sheet of infinity. Every individual minute had to be noted, then lived through and finally checked off. There was not even a crisis to relieve the tortured monotony. When at last, about six o'clock, the sky to the east began to brighten they could see that once again the boat was carrying a dangerously heavy burden of ice. As soon as the light permitted she had to be chipped clear for the third time.

  It was May 2, and the beginning of the third day of the gale. The weather throughout had been overcast so that no position could be obtained. Now the anxiety of not really knowing where they were was added to everything else.

  Some time after nine o'clock, the wind eased ever so slightly, though nowhere near enough to get under way. A few minutes later the Caird rose to a particularly high sea, and just then she was struck by a breaking wave. The smallest quiver - a gentle shock - passed through her, and the wave rolled on. But this time she didn't swing back up into the wind. The sea anchor was gone.

  Chapter Four

  There was a moment of confusion, then they felt her roll sickeningly to starboard as she fell off into the trough of the sea and they knew instinctively what had happened.

  Both Shackleton and Worsley scrambled to their feet and looked forward. The frayed end of the bowline was dragging through the water. The lump of ice was gone - and the sea anchor with it.

  Shackleton thrust his head below and shouted for the others to get the jib. They hauled it out, frozen into a rumpled mass. Crean and McCarthy crept forward over the heavily rolling deck, dragging the sail with them.The rigging, too, was frozen and had to be beaten into compliance. But after a long minute or two they got enough ice off the halyards to hoist the jib to the mainmast as a storm trysail.

  Slowly, grudgingly, the Caird's bow once more swung around into the wind, and all of them felt the tension go out of their muscles.

  The job of the helmsman now was to hold her as close to the wind as she would go, swinging from one tack to the other. It required constant vigilance, and it could hardly have been more unpleasant, facing into the breaking seas and the piercing wind.

  Fortunately the gale continued to diminish, and by eleven o'clock Shackleton decided to risk hoisting sail.The jib was removed from the mainmast, and the reefed lugsail and mizzen were run up. Then, for the first time in forty-four hours, the Caird was under way again toward the northeast, and the journey was resumed. But it was a slovenly course, with the boat running before the enormous following sea, her bow half buried by the force of the wind astern.

  Shortly after noon, as if from nowhere, a magnificent wandering albatross appeared overhead. In contrast to the Cairn, it soared with an ease and grace that was poetic, riding the gale on wings that never moved, sometimes dropping to within 1 o feet of the boat, then rising almost vertically on the wind, 100, 200 feet, only to plunge downward again in a beautifully effortless sweep.

  It was perhaps. one of nature's ironies. Here was her largest and most incomparable creature capable of flight, whose wingspread exceeded i i feet from tip to tip, and to whom the most violent storm was meaningless, sent to accompany the Caird, as if in mockery of her painful struggles.

  Hour after hour the albatross circled overhead, and there was an elegance of motion to the bird's flight that was very nearly hypnotic. The men could hardly avoid a feeling of envy. Worsley remarked that the albatross could probably have covered the distance to South Georgia in fifteen hours or less.

  As if to emphasize their wretchedness, Worsley recorded: Reindeer bags in such a hopeless sloppy slimy mess, smelling badly & weighing so heavily that we throw two of the worst overboard.' Each of them weighed about 40 pounds.

  Later he wrote: `Macty [McCarthy] is the most irrepressable optimist I've ever met. When I relieve him at the helm, boat iced & seas pourg: down yr neck he informs me with a happy grin "It's a grand day sir" I was feeling a bit sour just before ...'

  Throughout the afternoon and evening the weather gradually grew less violent; and by dawn on May 3, the wind had fallen off to a moderate southwesterly breeze. As noon approached, the clouds started to thin out. Before long patches of blue sky appeared, and soon the sun was shining down.

  Worsley took out his sextant, and it was no task at all to get a sight. When he had worked it out, the fix put their position at 56°13' South, 45°38' West - 403 miles from Elephant Island.

  They were just more than halfway to South Georgia.

  Thus, in the space of only an hour, or maybe a little more, the outlook on board the Cairn was completely altered. The battle was half won, and a warm sun was overhead. The off-duty watch no longer huddled in the dismal confines of the forecastle. Instead the sleeping bags were hauled out and run up the mast to dry. The men peeled off various articles of clothing, and boots, socks, and sweaters were tied onto the shrouds and backstay.

  The sight that the Caird presented was one of the most incongruous imaginable. Here was a patched and battered 22-foot boat, daring to sail alone across the world's most tempestuous sea, her rigging festooned with a threadbare collection of clothing and half-rotten sleeping bags. Her crew consisted of six men whose faces were black with caked soot and half-hid den by platted beards, whose bodies were dead white from constant soaking in salt water. In addition, their faces, and particularly their fingers, were marked with ugly round patches of missing skin where frostbites had eaten into their flesh. Their legs from the knees down were chafed and raw from the countless punishing trips crawling across the rocks in the bottom. And all of them were afflicted with salt-water boils on their wrists, ankles, and buttocks. But had someone unexpectedly come upon this bizarre scene, undoubtedly the most striking thing would have been the attitude of the men ... relaxed, even faintly jovial - almost as if they were on an outing of some sort.

  Worsley took out his log and wrote:

  `Moderate sea, Southerly swell Blue sky; passing clouds. Fine. Clear weather. Able to reduce some parts of our clothing from wet to damp. To Leith Harb. 347m. [miles]'

  By evening the sun had done a wonderful job of drying, and when they crawled into their sleeping bags that night the sensation was distinctly pleasant - at least by comparison.

  The good weather held throughout the night and into the following day, May 4; and again the gear was distributed among the rigging. The wind was out of the southeast at no more than 15 knots. Only an occasional sea splashed on board so that they had to pump only twice during the day.

  Worsley's sight at noon put the position at 5 5'3 i' South, 44°43 ' West, a run of 52 miles in twenty-four hours.

  Two days of good weather had worked their magic, and among the entire crew there was a growing feeling of confidence, subtle but unmistakable. In the beginning, South Georgia had existed only as a name - infinitely distant and lacking in reality.

  But no more.They were even at this moment less than 25o miles from the nearest point on South Georgia. And having already covered 450 miles, the distance that remained was at least conceivable. Three days more, or maybe four at the most, should see them there, and then it would all be over. And so that peculiar brand of anxiety, born of an impossible goal that somehow comes within reach, began to infect them. Nothing overt, really, just a sort of added awareness, a little more caution and more care to insure that nothing preventable should go wrong now.

  The wind remained steady out of the southeast during the night, though it grew considerably stronger, with occasional squalls to almost 4o knots. With the coming of light on May S the weather had returned to its old familiar pattern - overcast sky with a nasty, lumpy sea running. The wind was on the starboard beam so that the spray broke over almost at will. By nine o'clock, everything was as wet as it had ever been.

  Otherwise, it was a notably uneventful day, distinguished only by the fact that toward evening the wind shifted slowly to the north and then the northwest. It increased in velocity, too, and by dark wa
s blowing a gale.

  Steering was difficult that night. The sky was overcast, and the pennant on the mainmast by which the course had once been kept had blown away, bit by bit, in successive gales. Now they had to steer by the feel of the boat and by watching the shadowy white line of a breaking sea ahead.

  At midnight, after a drink of hot milk, Shackleton's watch took over, and Shackleton himself assumed the helm while Crean and McNeish stayed below to pump. His eyes were just growing accustomed to the dark when he turned and saw a rift of brightness in the sky astern. He called to the others to tell them the good news that the weather was clearing to the southwest.

  A moment later he heard a hiss, accompanied by a low, muddled roar, and he turned to look again.The rift in the clouds, actually the crest of an enormous wave, was advancing rapidly toward them. He spun around and instinctively pulled his head down.

  `For God's sake, hold on!' he shouted. `It's got us!'

  For a long instant nothing happened. The Caird simply rose higher and higher, and the dull thunder of this enormous breaking wave filled the air.

  And then it hit - and she was caught in a mountain of seething water and catapulted bodily forward and sideways at the same time. She seemed actually to be thrown into the air, and Shackleton was nearly torn from his seat by the deluge of water that swept over him. The lines to the rudder went slack, then suddenly seized up again as the boat was viciously swung around like some contemptible plaything.

  For an instant, nothing existed but water. They couldn't even tell whether she was upright. But then the instant was over; the wave had rolled on, and the Caird, though stunned and half dead under a load of water that rose nearly to the seats, was miraculously still afloat. Crean and McNeish seized the first implements that came to hand and began to bail furiously. A moment later, Worsley's watch fought their way out of the sleeping bags and joined the struggle, throwing water over the side with a wild urgency, knowing that the next wave would surely be the finish unless they could lighten her before it struck.