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

by Alfred Lansing

  Worsley took out the chart and the others gathered around him in the moonlight. They had descended to what must be Fortuna Bay, one of the many coastal indentations on South Georgia lying to the west of Stromness Bay. It meant that once more they had to retrace their steps. Bitterly disappointed, they turned and began to plod uphill again.

  For two miserable hours they kept at it, skirting the edge of Fortuna Bay and struggling to regain the ground they had lost. By five o'clock they had recovered most of it, and they came to another line of ridges similar to the ones that had blocked their way the previous afternoon. Only this time there appeared to be a small pass.

  But they were tired now to the point of exhaustion. They found a little sheltered spot behind a rock and sat down, huddled together with their arms around one another for warmth. Almost at once Worsley and Crean fell asleep, and Shackleton, too, caught himself nodding. Suddenly he jerked his head upright. All the years of Antarctic experience told him that this was the danger sign - the fatal sleep that trails off into freezing death. He fought to stay awake for five long minutes, then he woke the others, telling them that they had slept for half an hour.

  Even after so brief a rest, their legs had stiffened so that it was actually painful to straighten them, and they were awkward when they moved off again. The gap through the ridges lay perhaps a thousand feet above them, and they trudged toward it, silent with apprehension of what they would find on the other side.

  It was just six o'clock when they passed through, and the first light of dawn showed that no cliff, no precipice barred the way - only a comfortable grade so far as they could see. Beyond the valley, the high hills to the west of Stromness stood away in the distance.

  `It looks too good to be true,' Worsley said.

  They started down. When they had descended to a height of about 2,500 feet they paused to prepare breakfast. Worsley and Crean dug a hole for the Primus stove while Shackleton went to see if he could learn what lay ahead. He climbed a small ridge by cutting steps in it. The view from the top was not altogether encouraging. The slope appeared to end in another precipice, though it was hard to tell for sure.

  He started down - and just then a sound reached him. It was faint and uncertain, but it could have been a steam whistle. Shackleton knew it was about 6:3o a.m. ... the time when the men at whaling stations usually were awakened.

  He hurried down from the ridge to tell Worsley and Crean the exciting news. Breakfast was gulped down, then Worsley took the chronometer from around his neck and the three of them crowded around, staring fixedly at its hands. If Shackleton had heard the steam whistle at Stromness, it should blow again to call the men to work at seven o'clock.

  It was 6:50 ... then 6: s s .They hardly even breathed for fear of making a sound. 6:58 ... 6:59 ... Exactly to the second, the hoot of the whistle carried through the thin morning air.

  They looked at one another and smiled. Then they shook hands without speaking.

  A peculiar thing to stir a man - the sound of a factory whistle heard on a mountainside. But for them it was the first sound from the outside world that they had heard since December, 1914 - seventeen unbelievable months before. In that instant, they felt an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition's original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do.

  Shackleton now seemed possessed with urgency to get down, and though there was an obviously safer but longer route off to the left, he elected to press forward and risk the chance of a steep grade. They gathered up their gear, except for the Primus stove which was now empty and useless. Each of them carried one last sledging ration and a single biscuit. And so they hurried forward, floundering through the deep snow.

  But Soo feet down they discovered that Shackleton had indeed seen a precipice at the end of the slope. And it was terrifyingly steep, too, almost like a church steeple. But they were in no humor to turn back now. Shackleton was lowered over the edge, and he cut steps in the icy face of the cliff. When he had reached the so-foot limit of the rope, the other two descended to where he stood and the cycle was repeated over again. It was progress, but slow and dangerous.

  It took them three full hours to make the descent, but finally, about ten o'clock, they reached the bottom. From here there was only an easy grade down into the valley, then up the other side.

  It was a long climb, however, nearly 3,000 feet in all, and they were very, very tired. But with only one more ridge to go, they drove their weary bodies upward. At noon they were halfway there, and at twelve-thirty they reached a small plateau. Then at last, just at one-thirty, they gained the final ridge and stood looking down.

  Spread out beneath them, 2,500 feet below, was Stromness Whaling Station. A sailing ship was tied up to one of the wharfs and a small whale catcher was entering the bay. They saw the tiny figures of men moving around the docks and sheds.

  For a very long moment they stared without speaking. There didn't really seem to be much to say, or at least anything that needed to be said.

  `Let's go down,' Shackleton said quietly.

  Having got so close, his old familiar caution returned, and he was determined that nothing was to go wrong now. The terrain below demanded caution. It was a severe, ice-covered grade, like the sides of a bowl, sloping in all directions down toward the harbor. If a man lost his footing, he might plunge the entire distance, for there was almost nothing to get hold of.

  They worked along the top of the ridge until they found a small ravine which appeared to offer a footing, and they started down. After about an hour the sides of the ravine were getting steeper and a small stream flowed down the center. As they made their way along, the stream increased in depth until they were wading through knee-deep water that was frigidly cold from the snowy uplands that fed it.

  About three o'clock they looked ahead and saw that the stream ended abruptly - in a waterfall.

  They reached the edge and leaned over. There was a drop of about 25 feet. But it was the only way. The ravine here had grown to the size of a gorge, and its sides were perpendicular and offered no way of getting down.

  There was nothing to do but to go over the edge. With some trouble they found a boulder large enough to hold their weight, and they made one end of the rope fast to it. All three of them pulled off their Burberrys, in which they wrapped the adz, the cook pot and Worsley's diary, then pitched them over the side.

  Crean was the first to go down. Shackleton and Worsley lowered him, and he reached the bottom gasping and choking. Then Shackleton lowered himself down through the water. Worsley was last.

  It was an icy ducking, but they were at the bottom, and from here the ground was almost level. The rope could not be recovered, but they picked up the three articles that remained and started off for the station, now only a mile or so away.

  Almost simultaneously, all three of them remembered their appearance. Their hair hung down almost to their shoulders, and their beards were matted with salt and blubber oil. Their clothes were filthy, and threadbare, and torn.

  Worsley reached under his sweater and carefully took out four rusty safety pins that he had hoarded for almost two years. With them he did his best to pin up the major rents in his trousers.

  Chapter Three

  Mathias Andersen was the station foreman at Stromness. He had never met Shackleton, but along with everyone else at South Georgia he knew that the End tii'a,icc had sailed from there in 1914 ... and had undoubtedly been lost with all hands in the Weddell Sea.

  Just then, however, his thoughts were a long way from Shackleton and the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He had put in a long work day, beginning at 7 a.m., and it was now after four o'clock in the afternoon and he was tired. He was standing on the dock, supervising a group of his men who were unloading supplies from a boat.

  Just then he heard an outcry and looked up. Two small boys about eleven years old were ru
nning, not in play but in terror. Behind them Andersen saw the figures of three men walking slowly and with great weariness in his direction.

  He was puzzled. They were strangers, certainly. But that was not so unusual as the fact that they were coming - not from the docks where a ship might come in - but from the direction of the mountains, the interior of the island.

  As they drew closer he saw that they were heavily bearded, and their faces were almost black except for their eyes. Their hair was as long as a woman's and hung down almost to their shoulders. For some reason it looked stringy and stiff. Their clothing was peculiar, too. It was not the sweaters and boots worn by seamen. Instead, the three men appeared to have on parkas, though it was hard to tell because their garments were in such a ragged state.

  By then the workmen had stopped what they were doing to stare at the three strangers approaching. The foreman stepped forward to meet them. The nian in the center spoke in English.

  `Would you please take us to Anton Andersen,' he said softly.

  The foreman shook his head. Anton Andersen was not at Stromness any longer, he explained. He had been replaced by the regular factory manager, Thoralf Sorlle.

  The Englishman seemed pleased. `Good,' he said. `I know Sorlle well.'

  The foreman led the way to Sorlle's house, about a hundred yards off to the right. Almost all the workmen on the pier had left their jobs to come to see the three strangers who had appeared at the dock. Now they lined the route, looking curiously at the foreman and his three companions.

  Andersen knocked at the manager's door, and after a moment Sorlle himself opened it. He was in his shirtsleeves and he still sported his big handlebar mustache.

  When he saw the three men he stepped back and a look of disbelief came over his face. For a long moment he stood shocked and silent before he spoke.

  `Who the hell are you?' he said at last.

  The man in the center stepped forward.

  `My name is Shackleton,' he replied in a quiet voice.

  Again there was silence. Some said that Sorlle turned away and wept.

  Epilogue

  The crossing of South Georgia has been accomplished only by one other party. That was almost forty years later, in 195 S, by a British survey team under the able leadership of Duncan Carse. That party was made up of expert climbers and was well equipped with everything needed for the journey. Even so, they found it treacherous going.

  Writing from the scene in October, 1955, Carse explained that to make the crossing, two routes were available - the `high road' and the `low road.'

  `In distance,' Carse wrote, `they are nowhere more than i o miles apart; in difficulty, they are hardly comparable.

  `We to-day are travelling easily and unhurriedly. We are fit men, with our sledges and tents and ample food and time. We break new ground but with the leisure and opportunity to probe ahead. We pick and choose our hazards, accepting only the calculated risk. No lives depend upon our success - except our own. We take the high road.

  `They - Shackleton, Worsley and Crean ... took the low road.

  `I do not know how they did it, except that they had to - three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with So feet of rope between them - and a carpenter's adze.'

  Every comfort the whaling station could provide was placed at the disposal of Shackleton,Worsley, and Crean. They first enjoyed the glorious luxury of a long bath, followed by a shave. Then new clothes were given them from the station's storehouse.

  That night after a hearty dinner,Worsley went on board the whale-catcher Saiiisotl for the trip around South Georgia to Peggotty Camp where McNeish, McCarthy, and Vincent were waiting. The Samsoii arrived the following morning at King Haakon Bay. Very little is known about the meeting except that the three castaways at first failed to recognize Worsley because his appearance was so drastically altered now that he was shaved and had on fresh clothes. McNeish, McCarthy, and Vincent were taken on board the whale-catcher, and the Caird, too, was loaded. The Saniso?i arrived back at Stromness the following day, May 22.

  Shackleton, meanwhile, had arranged for the use of a large wooden whaler, the So«t12erii Sky, in which to return to Elephant Island for the relief of the party there.

  That evening a sort of crude reception was held in what Worsley described as a `large room, full of captains and mates and sailors, and hazy with tobacco smoke.' Four white-haired, veteran Norwegian skippers came forward. Their spokesman, speaking in Norse with Sorlle translating, said that they had sailed the Antarctic seas for forty years, and that they wanted to shake the hands of the men who could bring an open 22-foot boat from Elephant Island through the Drake Passage to South Georgia.

  Then every man in that room stood up, and the four old skippers took Shackleton and Worsley and Crean by the hand and congratulated them on what they had done.

  Many of the whalermen were bearded and dressed in heavy sweaters and sea boots. There was no formality, no speeches. They had no medals or decorations to bestow - only their heart-felt admiration for an accomplishment which perhaps only they would ever fully appreciate. And their sincerity lent to the scene a simple but profoundly moving solemnity. Of the honors that followed - and there were many - possibly none ever exceeded that night of May 22, 1916, when, in a dingy warehouse shack on South Georgia, with the smell of rotting whale carcasses in the air, the whalermen of the southern ocean stepped forward one by one and silently shook hands with Shackleton,Worsley, and Crean.

  The following morning, less than seventy-two hours after arriving at Stromness from across the mountains, Shackleton and his two companions set out for Elephant Island.

  It was the beginning of a maddeningly frustrating series of rescue attempts lasting more than three months, during which the pack ice surrounding Elephant Island seemed resolutely determined that no rescue ship would get through to relieve the castaways.

  The Southern Sky encountered ice only three days out from South Georgia, and less than a week later she was forced to return to port. Within ten days, however, Shackleton had obtained from the Uruguayan government the loan of a small survey vessel, the Instituto de Pesca No. 1, for a second attempt to rescue his men. She limped home six days later, severely damaged by the ice through which Shackleton had tried to push her.

  A third attempt was made in a balky wooden schooner, the Emma, which Shackleton chartered. She was at sea for nearly three weeks, during which it was a struggle merely to keep her afloat - much less to effect a rescue. The Emma never approached Elephant Island closer than zoo miles.

  It was now August 3, nearly three and a half months since the Caird had sailed for South Georgia. Throughout each failure of the subsequent rescue attempts, Shackleton's anxiety had risen to the extent that Worsley said he had never seen him so on edge. He had consistently appealed to the government back in England to send a proper ice-vessel to get through the pack. Now word came that the Discovery, which had originally carried Scott to the Antarctic in 19o1, was finally on her way from England. But it would take weeks for her to arrive, and Shackleton was in no mood to sit idly by and wait.

  Instead he appealed to the Chilean government for the use of an ancient sea-going tug, the Yelcho. He promised not to take her into any ice, for she was steel-hulled and her ability to weather the sea - much less any pack - was doubtful. The request was granted, and the Yelclio sailed on August 25. This time the fates were willing.

  Five days later, on August 3o,Worsley logged: `5.25 am Full speed ... i 1.10 [a.mj ... base of land faintly visible. Threadg: our way between lumps ice, reefs, & grounded bergs. 1.1 o pm Sight the Camp to SW... '

  For the twenty-two castaways on Elephant Island, August 3o began like almost any other day. At sunrise the weather was clear and cold, giving promise of a fine day. But before long heavy clouds rolled in and the scene once more became, as Orde-Lees recorded, `the prevailing gloom to which we are now so inured.'

  As always, almost everyone tramped individually to the top of the lookout bluff to sa
tisfy himself once more that there was no ship to be seen. By now they did so more out of habit than of hope. It was simply a ritual to which they had become accustomed, and they climbed the bluff without anticipation and returned to the hut without disappointment. It had been four months and six days since the Caird had left, and there was not a man among them who still believed seriously that she had survived the journey to South Georgia. It was now only a matter of time until a party was sent in the Wills on the perilous journey to Deception Island.

  After breakfast, all hands got busy digging snow from around the hut. But later in the morning the tide was low and they decided to postpone their digging in order to gather limpets, a small crustacean which had been found in some numbers in the water off the spit. Wally How was acting as cook and he was preparing a lunch of boiled seal's backbone, a dish of which everyone had become extremely fond.

  The hoosh was ready about 12:45, and they all gathered in the hut except Marston, who had gone to the lookout bluff to make some thumbnail sketches.

  A few minutes later they heard his footsteps running along the path, but nobody paid much attention. He was simply late for lunch. Then he put his head inside and spoke to Wild in a tone so breathless that some of the men thought he sounded casual.

  `Hadn't we better send up some smoke signals?' he asked.

  For a moment there was silence, and then, as one man, they grasped what Marston was saying.

  `Before there was time for a reply,' Orde-Lees recorded, `there was a rush of members tumbling over one another, all mixed up with mugs of seal hoosh, making a simultaneous dive for the door-hole which was immediately torn to shreds so that those members who could not pass through it, on account of the crush, made their exits through the "wall," or what remained of it.'

  The crew being rescued after 22 months

  Some put their boots on - others didn't bother. James put his on the wrong feet.