Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys

by Neil Oliver

  Sure enough, they encountered pack-ice almost at once and by Christmas 1914 they were making no more than a mile an hour on a typical day. At the other end of the world, Allied and German soldiers were putting down their weapons and walking tentatively into no man’s land to wish one another a Merry Christmas. It was the last time they would extend such a courtesy to their fellow men. They made time to perform proper funerals for their dead and men from both sides came together, beside at least one grave, to recite, in their own tongues, verses of the 23rd Psalm. What would the men of the Endurance, so very far away, have felt if they could have heard the words?

  The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul…Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…

  Men in danger have a tendency to look beyond what they can see all around them, to reach out for an unseen hand. Those men aboard the Endurance were from Edwardian Britain—and relied upon their Christian faith to an extent that is hard for many people living today to imagine, far less empathize with. There is no denying that their belief in a merciful God was a comfort to them.

  On January 19, 1915, the men awoke to find they were no longer aboard a ship at sea, but in a no man’s land of their own. During the night the pack-ice had completely closed around them; still waters indeed. Despite Herculean efforts in the days and weeks that followed—attacking the ice with picks and saws in an attempt to cut a channel toward open water—they finally had to accept they were stuck fast, prisoners of the floe. There was nothing for it but to wait out the Antarctic winter aboard their stranded vessel.

  While the men settled into the routine of monotonous days lived out in darkness, Shackleton remained optimistic. This was only a delay, he told himself and anyone who would listen. The ice floe of which they were now a fixed part was drifting slowly northwards with the currents and prevailing winds. Eventually they would be so far north they would be released from their prison and able to make the journey back to South Georgia. Then, when conditions were right a few months later, they would return to Antarctica and make their crossing of the continent as planned.

  Nature had other ideas, however. Deeper into the southern winter, the weather steadily deteriorated, with temperatures dipping to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Gale-force winds drove the ice, twisting and tormenting it so that the separate floes ground and squealed against one another, making all manner of unearthly sounds. Aboard the Endurance the men could only listen while massive forces were brought to bear upon her timbers. The ice screamed and growled and in her agony the ship screamed back.

  In mid-October there was a brief respite when she drifted free of the ice. But toward the end of the month, and without making any headway, they became trapped once more. This time the forces became too much for the ship to bear. By the 27th the hull had been pushed, pulled and twisted too far and great torrents of freezing water began to gush through gaping holes in her planking. The men had been manning the pumps off and on for weeks, fighting steadily rising water levels as leaks sprang here and there, but now there was no hope of holding back the deep. The Endurance was doomed and three small boats—all that stood now between the men and the imminent wrath of the Southern Ocean—were manhandled off her deck and on to the ice. This was no longer an expedition, a voyage of discovery; from now on the men would be engaged in a simple fight to stay alive.

  Priority was given to salvaging as much as possible of the food and other supplies still aboard. The 28 men were now crowded into small tents pitched on the ice itself. The sled dogs had been installed in “dogloos” erected months before and now had the best of the living arrangements. But all the while the men worked, a grim realization was dawning in their minds: they could not stay where they were indefinitely. If they wanted to remain alive, they would have to find their way to open water. If they could take to the boats they would have some control over their destinies once more—and could perhaps attempt to reach one of the several small islands dotted around the fringes of the Weddell Sea.

  On November 21 the Endurance finally exhaled her death rattle, slid beneath the ice and sank, bow first, to the bottom of the ocean. A few days before, some of the men had gone aboard one last time and raised a Union Jack (the British flag) on her mast—and so it was with her colors flying that she went to her grave. Her final departure was nonetheless a terrifying reminder to the men of what was really beneath their feet and added a renewed urgency to plans to take matters into their own hands.

  Shackleton, knowing what the loss of the ship might do to the men’s morale, sought at once to make them see that their situation was actually quite straightforward.

  “So,” he said cheerfully, “now we’ll go home.”

  In the short term, all they could do was wait in their tents while the Boss, as they called him, decided quite how that neat trick was to be pulled off. And all the while they waited, the pack-ice was drifting north toward the open ocean. Eventually, Shackleton knew, there would come a day when the solid mass would break up. By that time they might be far beyond islands like Joinville, Paulet, Elephant or Clarence, where they might find sanctuary from the sea. Then they would be adrift on a million square miles of ocean, a thousand miles from civilization. The time was approaching when they would have to get into the boats and make for land, any land.

  Over the next three months, the men embarked upon two attempts to haul their three small crafts to open water. The effort was enough to break backs and hearts—the boats were simply too heavy and unwieldy–and both times the men had to give up after covering almost no distance at all. As the food rations began to dwindle, the dogs were slaughtered and eaten one by one. Conditions on the floe were worsening steadily—the ice was breaking up and becoming soft and slushy underfoot—and Shackleton and his officers scanned the horizon desperately for glimpses of navigable water.

  The three boats—named the James Caird, the Dudley Docker and the Stancomb Wills, after three of the expedition’s original benefactors—had been readied for the voyage by ship’s carpenter Harry “Chips” McNeish. Using timber and nails scavenged from the Endurance, he had raised the height of the gunwales on the James Caird and the Dudley Docker to provide greater protection from the expected swells. Supplies of food and other equipment were stowed inside and all that was needed now was the opportunity to put them to the test.

  On March 23 the men glimpsed Joinville Island—60 miles away toward the west at the northern end of Graham Land, a thin finger of terra firma that stretches out from Antarctica toward the rest of the world. But the hellish soup of icebergs and slushy sea separating them from the lonely rock made a crossing impossible, and the three boats remained on the ever-shrinking floe. Now the only viable targets were toward the northeast—Elephant Island or Clarence Island, both around 60 miles away and, 800 miles beyond them, South Georgia itself.

  And all the time, the floe they were camped upon was shrinking and breaking apart. Once about a mile across, by the end of March 1916 it was no bigger than a football field. From time to time the ice would split—occasionally beneath the men’s camp itself. On more than one occasion luckless individuals had been pitched from their tents into the freezing water and only rescued from certain death by the lightning reactions of their colleagues. So getting the boats into the water was no longer a problem: uncertainty now concerned when to leave, and where to make for once they took the decision to put to sea.

  On April 9, with the peaks of the mountains on tiny Clarence Island clearly visible, the three boats were finally dragged into the sea and the men climbed aboard. Shackleton believed now was their last chance to make for a realistic destination before the vastness of the ocean swallowed them up. Even so, it was an awful thought to leave behind their camp and head off into the most dangerous water on Earth. Shackleton was asking his men to bid farewell to a devil they knew, and to strike out toward a devil they did not.

>   Their food rations were severely depleted after months of waiting on the ice, and they carried with them only the most essential personal belongings. As long ago as October 1915 they had cast aside almost all of their private possessions. Shackleton himself had made clear the need to be ruthless by throwing away his gold watch and cigarette case along with almost everything else he had brought with him. Scattered behind them or already lost to the ocean were the men’s books, letters from loved ones, photographs, clothing and scientific instruments intended for the original expedition. Now carrying little more than their diaries and the smallest of trinkets to remind them of home, they embarked upon the most dangerous stage of their adventure so far.

  As well as struggling to man the oars and pull the boats away from their erstwhile home, the men had to take turns fending off looming icebergs that threatened to smash their tiny vessels to pieces. Conditions aboard were appalling by any standards. Even the James Caird, the largest of the three boats, was only 22-and-a-half-feet long. The Dudley Docker was just 22 feet and the Stancomb Wills, little more than a rowing boat to our eyes, less than 21.

  Despite McNeish’s best efforts to raise the gunwales of the larger two boats, waves regularly came close to swamping them and certainly ensured regular drenchings. The wool and cotton clothes they were wearing were best suited to dry, cold conditions—and had none of the waterproof qualities you would want for sitting in an open boat in the open sea. The men aboard the Stancomb Wills—an unmodified cutter—were easily the most vulnerable. But the constant wetness and numbing cold took an inevitable toll on every one of the 28 men. Percy Blackborrow, the stowaway, suffered most and developed frostbite in both feet, but most of the men were quickly mired in physical miseries of one kind or another. Meals had to be eaten cold or hurriedly heated on primus stoves during breaks when they could tie up against some of the more stable ice floes that still crossed their paths. Diarrhea was commonplace, and the men had to relieve themselves by hanging their bared backsides over the sides of the boats—risking frostbite in the most alarming locations imaginable.

  After five days afloat they made it clear of the pack-ice and into open sea. For the first time since the Endurance had become entombed, they were able to raise sails and make proper headway. Even so, many of the men were approaching breaking point. The currents had taken them scores of miles off course and they were soon further from Elephant and Clarence Islands than when they had set out. Months of imprisonment had severely weakened them all and they were in no condition for prolonged exposure to the Southern Ocean in open boats.

  Shackleton was skipper of the James Caird, and with him aboard was skilled navigator Frank Worsley. It was thanks to Worsley’s genius that they were able to make up the lost miles and get back within reach of dry land. On April 15, seven days after setting out from the pack-ice, all three boats and 28 men made landfall on a rocky beach on Elephant Island. They were the first human beings ever to set foot on that barren, comfortless place—and for the first minutes ashore it must have seemed to them like the promised land.

  Any affection for the place was soon swept away. Stable land it may have been, but it was anything but dry. The beach they had landed upon was shallow and could give no real protection from the waves at high tide. Shackleton let the men bed down for a desperately needed rest, but he was already making plans to move them on again as soon as possible. A scouting party identified a second beach some miles away in a slightly less exposed position, and in the early hours of the morning the men piled back into their boats. The journey was short but perilous, and all their remaining strength was required to get themselves and their vessels out of the water and on to “dry” land a second time.

  A relentless gale pummeled them, knocking them off their feet, and they had to upturn the two smaller boats and crawl beneath them to try to find some respite. Worse than the cold, the wind and the exhaustion, though, was the elephant in the room on Elephant Island. The fact they had to face up to was that no one in the world had any idea where they were. Family and friends back home could only assume the men were somewhere on the continent of Antarctica—more than 1,000 miles away from their present location—and any relief ship that might eventually come looking for them would make for the Weddell Sea. Since no one would have any idea that they had had to abandon the Endurance and make for Elephant Island—an uncharted, uninhabited rock many miles from any shipping lanes—no one would ever look for them there. Any rescue attempt would have to be mounted by the men themselves.

  Shackleton knew all too well that most of them were too weakened, both mentally and physically, to take to the boats once more. In any case, their next destination would have to be South Georgia, some 800 miles away across the fearsome waters of the Drake Passage, and such a lengthy journey was simply too much to ask of so many near-broken souls. He decided that just he and the five strongest men would take the James Caird on the final and greatest leg of the journey back to the world. From South Georgia it would be relatively easy to organize the rescue of the rest of the team.

  The final choice of crew was Tom Crean, Frank Worsley, Tim McCarthy, Chips McNeish and Jack Vincent. It went without saying that Shackleton would skipper the boat on this most perilous stage of the entire odyssey. After difficult and emotional farewells on the beach, around lunchtime on April 24, 1916, the James Caird pushed off into the swell. It’s impossible to say whose hearts would have been heaviest—those facing 800 miles of savage Southern Ocean in a 22-and-a-half-foot whaler, or the 22 desperate men left behind. If fate overtook the six, then nothing but a lingering death from exposure awaited their comrades on the rock of Elephant Island.

  In truth, the greater part of the burden of the journey to South Georgia fell upon the shoulders of Worsley. He had already demonstrated his skills as a navigator by getting them across open sea to Elephant Island. Now he had to pinpoint another relatively tiny target, and if he missed it, the currents and prevailing winds would sweep them out into the vastness of open sea separating Antarctica from the continents of South America, Australasia and Africa. If Worsley were to overshoot South Georgia, the men aboard the James Caird would be doomed, unable to fight their way back against the tides for a second chance.

  Conditions aboard were as bad as before. The weather was deteriorating and the men’s only protection from the wind and waves was a canvas shelter improvised by McNeish in the days before their departure from Elephant Island. The men split into two teams of three, and while one manned the vessel and tended the sails, the members of the other took what rest they could, huddled in their soaked sleeping bags beneath the canvas. Day after day they fought the sea, pumping and bailing the flooded interior, and cooking meals of seal stew washed down with boiling hot milk.

  It was a relentless routine, but enlivened by all the dangers of the Southern Ocean. On May 5 Shackleton saw a bright line on the horizon that he briefly took to be sunlight on the water. Then to his horror he realized it was a towering wave bearing down on the little boat. Most likely caused by the “calving” of a great iceberg many miles away, it was the tallest wall of water any of the men had ever seen in all their many combined years at sea. It surged toward the James Caird, hitting it and picking it up like so much flotsam and driving it forward on a terrifying run. Miraculously, the little boat stayed upright and all six men remained inside it. As quickly as it had appeared, the great wave was gone and the men were safe to continue with their journey.

  On May 8, after 15 days of sailing, the men sighted land for the first time. Against all the odds, Worsley had done it. With sheer skill and perseverance he had hit his target dead center, and delivered the men out of the emptiness of the ocean. Two days later, after more close calls with mountainous seas that seemed intent on dashing the men’s hopes on the very doorstep of salvation, the James Caird sailed into the relatively sheltered water of King Haakon Bay.

  Although they had performed the miracle of reaching inhabited land, still their ordeal was not over. King Haa
kon Bay was on the southern coastline of the island and all the inhabited whaling stations were around Grytviken Bay in the north. One last journey, this time overland through the never before explored territory of South Georgia’s interior, would be required of the men if they were finally to re-establish contact with humankind.

  It was clear, however, that they wouldn’t all be making the last leg of the trip. McNeish and Vincent had reached the ends of their tethers, both physical and mental, and would have to stay behind and await rescue. A relatively comfortable base was established on King Haakon Bay—beneath the upturned hull of the James Caird—and it was agreed that McCarthy would stay behind to look after the other two. Shackleton, Crean and Worsley allowed themselves a few days’ rest—and some welcome meals of fresh meat, caught and cooked on the island—before setting out yet again in the early hours of May 19. Three tattered vagabonds, ill-clad and with long hair and beards matted by months of neglect, they shook hands with their comrades and headed north. Once again the fate of the many would depend upon the fortitude of the few.

  The weather at least was kind to them, remaining relatively calm, but a fog descended so thickly that for a time the trio could hardly see their hands in front of their faces. A close shave, which saw all three come within inches of stumbling into a huge crevasse, persuaded them to rope themselves together. It was in this manner, depending on one another for the safety of every step, that they picked their way toward the mountains separating them from their goal. Time and again they climbed to heights of 4,000 feet or more only to find their way blocked by sheer drops or impassable crevasses. They were driving themselves onward mercilessly, stopping only to cook hurried meals of seal stew before plodding on again. Hours went by and still they could see no end to their troubles. Finally, after more than 30 hours without sleep, they crested a rise and looked down upon the distant but unmistakable shapes of the buildings of the whaling station at Stromness. More miraculous than the man-made structures, though, was the sight of tiny figures going about their everyday business. Apart from their comrades, these were the first human beings the three men had laid eyes upon in a year and a half.