‘These blue water hills in a very heavy gale move as fast as 27 statute miles an hour but striking the banks probably attain a speed of 60 miles. The impact of hundreds of tons of solid water at this speed can only be imagined.’4
Astonishingly, the men retained their sense of humour, particularly Crean and Shackleton. Worsley reported a ‘quaint sort of mimic bickering’ between the two Irishmen which intrigued the others. Worsley explained:
‘It was partly chaff & partly a comic revolt against the conditions. Tom Crean had been so long and done so much with Sir E that he had become a privileged retainer. As these two watchmates turned in, a kind of wordless rumbling, muttering, growling noise could be heard issuing from the dark & gloomy lair in the bows, sometimes at things in general, & sometimes at nothing at all. At times they were so full of quaint conceits & Crean’s remarks were so Irish that I ran the risk of explosion by suppressed laughter. “Go to sleep Crean & don’t be clucking like an old hen.” “Boss, I can’t eat those old reindeer hairs. I’ll have an inside on me like a billygoats neck. Let’s give ’em to the Skipper [Worsley] & McCarthy. They never know what they’re eating”. & so on.’5
On another occasion, Worsley provided a none too flattering critique of Crean’s singing talent, a habit he often practised at the most testing moments. He recorded:
‘[Crean] was making noises at the helm that we found by a Sherlock Holmes system of deduction represented “The Wearin’ O’ the Green”. Another series of sounds, however, completely baffled us.’6
Initially, they headed due north to get as clear as possible from the pack ice and pick up the westerly winds which, it was hoped, would carry them to South Georgia. Despite everything, they made remarkable progress. By noon on 26 April – two days after leaving Elephant Island – the James Caird had carried them 128 miles (206 km) away from captivity. But, as if to remind them of the constant threat from the vicious seas, they also caught sight of two small pieces of wreckage from an unknown and presumably unfortunate vessel. Shackleton now reckoned they were far enough north to be away from the pack and he turned the vessel to the northeast. South Georgia lay ahead.
Determining their precise position by ‘shooting the sun’ – using a sextant to line up the sun and horizon – was a difficult task in the turbulent seas and required a four-man effort. Worsley, the navigator, could barely stand still and upright in the swell to catch a steady glimpse of the sun, so Vincent and McCarthy had to hold him firmly round the waist. Crouched under the canvas, Shackleton struggled with the chronometer, pencil and paper, desperately trying to keep everything dry as readings were yelled out.
Worsley had served a long apprenticeship for this moment, having been at sea for almost three decades. His first command was a three-masted sailing ship which ploughed the more inviting waters around the South Sea Islands and his varied career had taken him through the merchant service to the Royal Naval Reserve. Even as a young second mate, Worsley had been spotted as a ‘careful and exact navigator’.
While accuracy was crucial, the observations were inevitably haphazard, particularly in the first few days as the little craft dodged the ice. At night, Worsley steered by the feel of the wind and by observing the angle at which the little pennant at the masthead blew. The compass was also affected by the iron plunger of the pump which worked up and down a few inches away.
But, in spite of everything, Worsley became increasingly adept and surprised himself with the accuracy of his sightings. Even a small margin of error would mean sailing past South Georgia and out into the yawning expanses of the South Atlantic, with no realistic possibility of fighting back to land against the prevailing winds. There was little, if any, room for error.
Until this point, the boat was assisted by the strength of the southwesterlies which on 29 April propelled them along at good speed. They covered 92 miles (148 km) in a single day and although it was still a long way to South Georgia, they had covered a good slice of the distance.
But the gathering Antarctic winter was tightening its grip and temperatures sank by the day. At one point during a gale, Crean and McCarthy bravely clambered forward on the fragile deck covering to take down the sails which threatened to freeze solid in the low temperatures. Worsley laconically described the seas as ‘very big’ or ‘heavy, lumpy’.
The constant wash and spray from the freezing sea was coating the little vessel with ice and posing a new threat. They woke on 1 May to discover to their horror that the ice covering was about 6 inches (15 cms) thick and the boat was in grave danger of toppling over. They took it in turns to creep forward on their knees, chipping away at the layers of ice with an axe. Standing up on the pitching, rolling boat would have been suicidal and none of the men could tolerate the ordeal for more than a few minutes before crawling back under the canvas to recover. Vincent came perilously close to sliding over the edge when the boat lurched violently and he almost lost his grip on the slippery surface.
No sooner had they finished than the ice began to form again, the sea spray freezing as it washed onto the Caird’s makeshift decks. For a second time, they had to crawl out on the decking and chip away at the accumulations of ice.
Throughout the night, a gale raged and McNeish uncovered a new and unexpected twist in their battle to survive. After investigating a peculiar, fetid smell on the boat, he realised that the reindeer sleeping bags had begun to rot.
The men, too, displayed signs of the strain. They were exhausted from exposure to the penetrating cold and the constant battle against the freezing water which poured in with every wave. Worsley recalled that as a result of the thorough soakings their legs began to swell, turn white and lose much of their feeling. Shackleton called it ‘superficial frostbite’.
Worsley also recalled that their hands were ‘awful objects’ to look on and wrote:
‘I remember Crean’s and mine in addition to being almost black with grime, blubber and soot were ornamented with recent frostbites and burns from the primus. Each successive frostbite on a finger was marked by a ring where the skin had peeled off, so that we could count our frostbites by the rings of skin – something after the woodman telling the age of a tree by counting the concentric rings.’7
Helped by a gale from the southwest, the little boat continued to make progress and by 3 May a sighting showed them to be 403 (nautical) miles from Elephant Island, or more than halfway to South Georgia. They had another good day on 4 May but were not prepared for what happened on 5 May.
At around midnight, Shackleton caught sight of a line of clear sky between the south and southwest, which he thought was a rift in the clouds. He called Crean and McNeish to tell them the sky was brightening. Suddenly he realised that the line of clear sky was advancing menacingly towards them. It was, in fact, a gigantic wave.
Shackleton shouted for the men to hold on as the wave swept down on the small boat. The vessel, caught by the impact of the enormous wave, was catapulted forward and almost lifted out of the sea. The boat, said Shackleton, was lifted and flung forward ‘like a cork in a breaking surf’ and they found themselves in a ‘seething chaos of tortured water’. For an instant no one was sure whether they were still upright. The boat shuddered but almost as quickly as it had appeared, the wave was gone. They had survived, somehow.
The vessel was half-full of water and Crean and McNeish grabbed anything that would carry water and began bailing for their lives. Worsley’s team quickly scrambled from their dungeon and joined in, knowing that another big wave would undoubtedly sink the dangerously overladen boat.
Shackleton said that never in 26 years’ experience of the sea had he encountered a wave so large. It was, he said, a ‘mighty upheaval of the ocean’ and Worsley guessed it had been caused by the ‘calving’ of some vast unseen iceberg many miles away.
The next day’s sight confirmed them less than 100 miles (160 km) from South Georgia, but the strain was beginning to tell on the weary men. Vincent was close to breaking down and McNeish, the eldest
man in the party, was also suffering badly. But Crean remained unmoved and indomitable. Shackleton’s diary recorded:
‘One of the memories that comes to me from those days is of Crean singing at the tiller and nobody ever discovered what the song was. It was devoid of tune and as monotonous as the chanting of a Buddhist monk at his prayers; yet somehow it was cheerful. In moments of inspiration Crean would attempt “The Wearin’ O’ the Green”.’8
By now the pressure was also getting to Shackleton, who at one point exchanged a sharp word with Crean over the water. As Crean was preparing an evening meal, he tasted the water from the second cask and found it salty. He called Shackleton, gave him a sip and asked what he should do. Shackleton snapped back that there was nothing they could do so the Irishman should go ahead and make the hoosh. But when cooked it was almost unpalatably salty.
The damage to the second water cask was the latest in a long line of setbacks which had bedevilled the expedition from the outset. While they had about two weeks’ food, their only supply of water was now brackish and barely drinkable. The six men had barely managed to cope with the heavy seas and cruel weather, but they would not be able to survive without fresh water. The need to find South Georgia was now critical.
The original plan was to head for Willis and Bird Islands at the western end of South Georgia, then swing eastwards to the whaling station at Leith Harbour on the north side of the island where they would find men and ships. But now it did not matter too much where they landed – so long as they landed as quickly as possible and slaked their growing thirsts. To underline their plight, Shackleton ordered the daily allowance should be cut to half a pint per man on 6 May. ‘Thirst took possession of us,’ he wrote.
Dawn broke on 8 May in stormy, squally conditions with the men feeling the thirst acutely. Their lips were cracked, tongues swollen and mouths dry, an incongruous predicament when surrounded by endless amounts of water.
But, by Worsley’s reckoning, they were nearing South Georgia and suddenly their hopes soared at the sight of small birds flying overhead, a clear indication that land was not far away. The men peered into the distance through their heavily salt-rimmed eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of land through the hazy squall and billowing clouds which obscured their vision.
Shortly after midday, McCarthy let out a mighty yell – ‘Land!’ As the clouds and mist broke, right ahead lay the rugged black mountains of South Georgia. One glimpse, though, and it was gone as the clouds and mist closed in again and shut out the wondrous sight.
Worsley’s navigation had been impeccable and he remembered:
‘We looked at one another with cheerful foolish grins of joy. The feelings uppermost were “We’ve done it”.’9
Shackleton said:
‘It was a glad moment. Thirst-ridden, chilled and weak as we were, happiness irradiated us. The job was nearly done.’10
However, they had reached the southern coast of the island, not the western end which offered the easiest route to Leith or any of the other harbours of safety on the northern side. Nor was the weather prepared to release them from their torment. As they neared land, winds raced to about 60 mph and drove them dangerously close to the rocks. Worsley saw hazardous blind rolling waves, indicating shoals and reefs that would smash the James Caird to little pieces. It was far too risky to attempt a landing in the howling storm and the boat was taken back out to sea to stand off until the winds died down. It was so near, yet so far.
Daylight faded in the short winter’s day and the winds rose in intensity. Throughout the miserable storm-tossed night, the men had to bail and pump the water which flooded into the Caird. At one stage the little boat was caught on a cross sea, battered one way and then the other. The men were painfully thirsty and that night’s hoosh was badly tainted by the brackish water near the bottom of the damaged casket.
Shackleton privately doubted whether they would survive. It was the longest night of the journey and for the men probably the longest night of their lives.
Dawn on 9 May broke with winds screeching to hurricane force (over 73 mph on the Beaufort Scale) in the violent cross seas which threw up waves 40 ft high. Worsley said no one had seen anything like it before and added that the conditions ‘seemed to have been loosed from the infernal regions’.
By noon the wind had grown even stronger, racing to over 80 mph in a last desperate bid to prevent them from making their landfall. Some miles away in the same storm, an Argentinian vessel, Argos, sank off the coast of South Georgia with the loss of all hands.
Cooking was by now out of the question and the men gnawed on cold sledging rations, though they could hardly generate enough saliva to swallow. The water supply had dwindled to about a pint of murky liquid which had to be strained repeatedly through a fragment of gauze to remove the hairs.
The storm raged unbroken for ten hours but through one break in the clouds the men could pick out more rock formations as land neared. It was perhaps only 1 mile (1.6 km) away but again the boat was being dragged onto the shoals and reefs – so again they had to turn away.
The weather was appalling and Worsley’s log was short, sharp and straight to the point in a matter-of-fact way. He recorded:
‘Mountainous westerly gale and swell. Wind rose to hurricane force.’11
At the height of the crisis, Crean and Worsley were forced to crawl on their stomachs out onto the decking and hoist the sail to allow the little vessel a chance to get away from the dangerous rocks. It took several minutes before they were able to drag themselves to their feet, clinging onto the mainsail in the roaring storm and finally fixing the sail. They then had to repeat their hazardous trip, crawling on their stomachs in the pitching, rolling seas. It was another act of calm bravery and it almost certainly saved the Caird from destruction.
At around 4 p.m. the clouds lifted enough for them to catch sight of Annekov Island, a black 2,000-ft mountain which emerges from the sea about 5 miles (8 km) off the coast of South Georgia. The risk of running aground on reefs loomed again but, miraculously, the little boat cleared the danger and men faced up to the dreadful prospect of spending another night in the open sea. Worsley reported a ‘very heavy swell’ as they laboured to avoid the rocks.
Daylight broke on 10 May to find that the storm had abated and the wind was blowing gently. They were now free to make a run for dry land, but there was another shock for the men as Crean crawled out from the bows. As he emerged, his large frame struck the thwart and the pin which held the mast clamp in place was dislodged. The pin had worked loose in the hurricane and Worsley observed that, had it dropped out during the storm, the mast would have ‘snapped like a carrot and no power on earth could have saved us’. Luck had been with them, after all.
By noon they were close to Cape Demidov, the entrance to King Haakon Bay on the south of the island of South Georgia. But shortly afterwards, the winds began to blow in their faces, driving the boat away from land. They had no option but to lower sails and take to the oars. Two at a time, the men pulled and pulled, but after the privations and exhaustion of the past weeks, they were in no fit state. It was a hopeless task and the prospect of another night on board the boat looked likely.
They had already spent seventeen days in the open boat and were near the end of their tether. Another winter’s night in the Southern Ocean without water or hot food might have been the last for some.
By late afternoon, with the light fading, they could just see a narrow passage, too narrow for sail. It required another supreme effort to row up to the channel. They pulled and then as they neared the gap, the oars were withdrawn and the boat passed through the small entrance like threading a needle.
Almost immediately, the little craft was carried on the incoming waves and ground to a halt in a small cove. Shackleton leapt onto the shore and held the boat fast. The others clambered ashore and to their relief immediately found a welcome stream of fresh water, probably from a glacier. In an instant, they all fell to the knees and drank.
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br /> The little cove, about 360 ft (110 m) long and 180 ft (55 m) wide, was surrounded by imposing black cliffs rising to over 100 ft (30 m) and topped off with a layer of snow. At the head of the cove was a rocky beach and the sharp eyes of Crean soon spotted a small cave which he believed would provide them with shelter for the night.
It was late evening on 10 May 1916, and 522 days since they had last set foot on South Georgia.
21
Crossing South Georgia
There was little rejoicing as they hauled themselves slowly onto the beach at the end of their remarkable boat journey. Never before had men accomplished such a feat in the Southern Ocean but it was hardly a thought that occupied them as they struggled up the stony beach, drained of energy and suffering badly from exposure and thirst.
The six men were a pitiful sight. They had paid a heavy price for their seventeen days in the open boat and were shocked to find that they could barely walk up the beach. Worsley said they had almost lost the use of their limbs through the continual wetting and cramped conditions which for much of the time prevented them from even the basic task of standing up straight.
An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor Page 27