The first consideration was to get the remaining food and equipment out of the boat, but it was soon apparent they were too weak to lift the boat to safety beyond the grasp of the sea. To lighten the load the rocks and bags of ballast were dumped, though this hardly helped. Normally six men would have managed to manhandle a small boat with some ease, but their strength had been sapped by the trials of the past seventeen days and they could barely move the boat, let alone drag it up the beach. Further struggle was useless so a rope was hastily tied around a nearby rock to hold it steady while the men refuelled themselves with a much-needed hot meal and rest.
The modest 12 ft (3.6 m) cave at the top of the beach was, in fact, little more than a hollow in the cliff-face. The entrance was blocked by a curtain of huge icicles, each about 15 ft (4.5 m) long, which might have deterred some from entering. But after seventeen days in the Southern Ocean it offered all the comfort of a five-star hotel.
Crean, resuming his duties as cook, prepared a meal, their first hot food in days. Shortly afterwards they collapsed into their sleeping bags, with Shackleton somehow finding the resolve and energy to take the first watch and keep an eye on the James Caird. They could ill-afford to lose the craft now with the journey around the island to Leith Harbour still ahead. But disaster was never far away.
Crean happened to be on watch at about 2 a.m. when the boat was suddenly caught by a heavy swell and broke loose from her makeshift mooring. Without thinking about his own safety, Crean plunged into the cold black water to catch the rope before it was carried out to sea. At one stage the Irishman was up to his neck in the foaming seas, clinging onto the boat before the others could scramble to his aid.
But, as before, the men were still too weak to drag the boat high up the beach and beyond the grasp of the rolling waves. It meant that the desperately tired men had to sit up for the remainder of the night to ensure that the precious boat was not lost to the ocean. The hostile environment denied the men even the simple pleasure of a few hours’ much-needed sleep.
In the morning, they decided to lighten the boat further by cutting down the top-sides and decking which McNeish had so carefully built three weeks earlier. Even then, it still took the tired little group much of the day to drag the James Caird inch by inch slowly up the beach beyond the high-water mark.
Towards the end of the day Crean and Shackleton went scouting for fresh meat and managed to find an albatross and a chick, which provided the hungry men with an excellent evening meal and badly needed inner warmth. McNeish pronounced it ‘a treat’ and for the first time in many weeks, the men could relax a little. With the Caird safe, they all crawled into their bags and indulged themselves in the sheer luxury of twelve glorious hours of unbroken sleep on firm ground. For the moment, their humble refuge was all they required.
The little beach, called Cape Rosa by Shackleton, was clearly not intended to be their final destination. It was merely the first suitable landfall before making their way around the island to Leith Harbour or any of the cluster of whaling stations to be found on the north side.
Vincent and McNeish, in particular, had suffered badly during the fraught boat journey and were probably incapable of completing another sea journey. However, any lingering hopes of sailing around South Georgia to the north side were quickly dispelled when they awoke after their long sleep. In the previous night’s incident, the boat’s rudder had been lost. The vessel, which had crossed 800 miles (1,300 km) of the worst seas on the globe, was now reduced to little more than a humble rowing boat.
It meant a hurried revision of their options. Leith Harbour, the intended destination, was about 130 miles (210 km) away by sea, although there was some doubt that the whaling station was manned in the depths of winter. The alternatives were Stromness and Husvik, about 150 miles (240 km) away, which were known to be operational all year round.
By land the distance was estimated to be about 30 miles (48 km) as the crow flies. No one, however, had ever attempted to cross South Georgia before and the interior was largely unmapped and unknown. Shackleton knew there was little choice. They would have to travel where no one had been before. It hardly seemed to matter that they did not have adequate equipment, food and clothing or that the already exhausted men would have to rely on willpower alone.
South Georgia is a hostile wilderness, unremittingly bleak and forbidding. Its spine of mountain peaks, the Allardyce Range, runs through the centre of the island at an average height of over 5,000 ft (1,500 m) and stretches up to the 9,000 ft (2,750 m) Mount Paget. The rugged interior is a jumble of rocky cliffs, snow fields, treacherous crevasses and steep icy slopes. Glaciers cover over half the crescent-shaped island, which is little more than 100 miles (160 km) long and less than 25 miles (40 km) across at its widest point.
Without hesitation Shackleton selected Tom Crean and Frank Worsley to make the challenging journey with him. McCarthy, the fittest of the others, would stay behind to look after the ailing McNeish and Vincent.
Worsley, as an outstanding navigator, picked himself for a journey into the unknown. His achievement in taking the James Caird across the Southern Ocean is one of the greatest feats of seamanship ever recorded and without his skills the trek would have been impossible. In addition, he had picked up some valuable experience of Alpine mountain climbing and had undoubtedly coped well with the fatigue and deprivations of the past few weeks.
There was inevitability about the choice of Crean, even if his experience of climbing had been limited to strolling the rolling hills of County Kerry, Ireland. But no one was more experienced at travelling across the ice.
Now approaching his thirty-ninth birthday, Crean had spent almost half of the past fifteen years exploring in the South and was better equipped than most to cope with the trials and tribulations of the coming journey. Crean’s astonishing endurance and fortitude had been demonstrated before and Shackleton also knew Crean would not break down. Crean had repeatedly shown that he was both mentally and physically tough and that, equally important, he was demonstrably a man for a tight spot.
First, though, the men badly needed proper rest and warm food to recover from the past few weeks. Hot meals were prepared and sledging rations, initially intended for the crossing of Antarctica, were assembled.
The men, though physically drained from the boat journey, soon settled into a routine. Some found tussock grass for the floor of the cave and driftwood for the fire, others hunted for birds or anything else which could be eaten and McNeish and McCarthy worked at cutting down the sides of the James Caird. McNeish wrote in his diary:
‘We have not been as comfortable for the last five weeks.’1
South Georgia was largely unexplored when Shackleton, Worsley and Tom Crean marched across the mountainous, glacier-strewn island in 1916. The map shows the path taken by the James Caird approaching the island and the route across the island.
However, it was clear that a more suitable camp was needed to accommodate the weakest pair, McNeish and Vincent. The spot chosen was about 6 miles away across King Haakon Bay where their rudimentary charts indicated that the terrain was slightly friendlier. It was decided to move as quickly as possible.
As they prepared the boat, Crean suddenly leapt up and began to wade out into the water to investigate an object he saw bobbing about in the waves. To their astonishment he returned clutching the missing rudder. It had been lost in the ebbing and flowing tide for six days and yet, with the enormous area of the Southern Ocean at its disposal, the rudder had miraculously chosen to land back at their feet.
The weather, too, was kind as they skipped through the little passage guarding Cape Rosa and headed westwards in a comfortable breeze to cross King Haakon Bay. Shortly after noon they came across a gently inclined beach of sand and small stones. As they neared the beach, they caught sight of many sea-elephants, which it was reckoned would provide enough food and blubber for as long as they wanted. It was exactly what they were looking for and Shackleton called it Peggoty Camp after
the matronly figure in Dickens’ David Copperfield who lived in a house made from a boat.
With considerable effort, the boat was hauled up the beach and turned over to provide an improvised shelter against the winds. McCarthy shored up the boat with some large stones and the few remaining bags and equipment were stored inside. When finished, it was almost the lap of luxury after their experiences of the past months on the ice floes and in the open boat.
There was no time to indulge. Shackleton, Worsley and Crean were anxious to start their overland journey, fully aware that it had been over three weeks since they had left their comrades on the beach 800 miles (1,300 km) away at Elephant Island. But on 16 May the weather was appalling and the six men huddled underneath the boat for most of the day. There was little let-up until late on 18 May and Shackleton decided to start the next day.
At 2 a.m. on Friday morning, 19 May 1916, they ate a large meal of steaming-hot hoosh and prepared to set off in their attempt to cross South Georgia. The moon shone brightly, a good omen.
Initially, they intended to take a sledge which McNeish had made from scraps of wood. It was to be packed with five days’ food and sleeping bags and abandoned halfway across the island. However, the sledge proved to be ‘heavy and cumbrous’ and was not suitable for the snow plains, glaciers and peaks which they had to cross.
After a brief conference, they decided to travel light, making the trip as quick as possible. They took three days’ rations and to save weight they decided to leave behind their sleeping bags. It was a huge risk. The men did not possess a tent and without shelter they would be highly vulnerable in a blizzard. The fact that it was approaching midwinter only increased the risks of getting caught by the severe weather in the region.
Each man carried his own ration of three days’ food in a sock and there was a primus stove with enough fuel for six meals. They had two compasses, a pair of binoculars, 50 ft (15 m) of rope, a half-full box of matches and a carpenter’s adze which would double as an ice-axe. McNeish, in one final inspired piece of improvisation, yanked numerous brass screws from the James Caird and fixed eight into the sole of each of their snow boots to give a better grip on the slippery ice fields. The one ‘luxury’ was Worsley’s log of the Endurance.
Their clothing was sparse and badly worn after five months’ constant wear. What had been heavy-duty Jaeger underwear, for example, was now little more than a light covering of fabric more suitable for warmer climates. Over this they wore a pair of ordinary trousers and a Jaeger wool sweater. The outer clothing was a set of windproof Burberrys, a blouse and trousers securely fastened around the neck, waist, wrists and ankles to prevent cold air getting in. They protected their heads with a wool balaclava helmet and wore two pairs of mitts. The footgear was two pairs of heavy wool socks in felt-lined boots.
Finally, the three had sown an 8-inch (20-cm) piece of blanket into their badly-worn Jaeger wool sweaters to make a rough pocket for little personal items, such as a spoon, tobacco and papers and some biscuit. For men who had nothing these were treasures. Around his neck, Crean wore his little treasure, the scapular.
Shackleton left a note in McNeish’s diary saying that he was heading for Husvik and recommending that, if he did not return, the three men should sail round to the northern coast of the island in a few months after the winter had passed. He concluded:
‘I trust to have returned in a few days.’2
They all shook hands, then took their first steps into the unknown. McNeish walked with the three men for the first 200 yards (180 m), shook hands a second time and watched as the three men began the climb up the steep snowy slopes towards the ominous black, snow-topped mountains. It was shortly after 3 a.m. and the moon provided a welcome splash of light to guide their steps.
Fortunately, the weather remained fine and clear as they began their first ascent, reaching a height of around 2,500 ft (760 m) after about two hours of steady climbing in the eerie moonlight. The track ahead was formidable. In their pathway, Shackleton recalled, stood a collection of five high peaks, impassable cliffs, steep snow-slopes and sharply descending glaciers. The interior, he concluded, was ‘tremendously broken’ and peaks resembled the knuckles on a clenched fist.
As dawn neared a fog swept down and they encountered their first brush with disaster as they stumbled close to the edge of a massive crevasse in semi-darkness. In the half-light they could not see each other clearly and each feared that one of the party might have plunged unseen to his death. Suddenly they felt highly exposed and Worsley recalled the moment of sheer relief when they found all were safe:
‘The relief of hearing Shackleton’s voice, and then that of Crean, who was cursing softly, was indescribable. Never have I felt so puny, nor realised so clearly the helplessness of Man against Nature. For a brief moment I felt that curious weakness about the knees that comes upon one when one has just gone through some fearsome ordeal.’3
It was a stark lesson and the men quickly roped themselves together as insurance against one of them crashing through thin ice or toppling over a concealed precipice. In the same way that Evans, Lashly and Crean had bonded together on the last returning journey from the Polar Plateau in 1912, the fate of the three now rested with each other.
Shackleton took the lead, striding into the wall of fog with Crean in the middle and Worsley at the rear of the little column. It was essential to steer a direct course for Husvik or Stromness and Shackleton was guided from behind by the sharp tongues of Crean or Worsley who kept him on the straight and narrow with suitably robust instructions of ‘port’, ‘starboard’ and ‘steady’.
A little later the fog began to lift and the men saw an enormous snow-covered inland lake slightly off to the left which offered the cheering prospect of a smoother surface and easier travel. Anxious to make haste while the weather was in their favour, they descended onto the frozen lake and, as expected, found the going much easier. But they had been fooled.
The ‘lake’ stretched as far as the eye could see and it soon dawned on them that they were gazing out at the open sea. It was Possession Bay on the northern coast of South Georgia, which meant they had crossed the island at its narrowest point in a south-to-north direction. But there was no shoreline and no inhabitants.
They had no choice but to retrace their steps, climb back up the heights where they could gain a clearer view of the terrain and resume their path to the knot of manned whaling stations in the east. It was a bad mistake, but the weary men could be forgiven for trying to find the quickest, simplest route. Nevertheless, it was precious time they could ill-afford to lose.
By 9 a.m., after an unbroken march of about six hours, they stopped for the first hot meal. A 3-ft (0.9-m) hole was dug in the soft snow and Crean and Worsley took turns to spread-eagle themselves over the primus to prevent the sharp winds blowing it out. When the meal was cooked, they each dipped their spoons into the scalding cauldron of steaming hoosh and gulped it down as hot as possible. The effects of the warm food swept through their bodies, reinvigorating them.
Despite their precarious position on the edge of the unknown, the three men somehow managed to keep up their spirits with gentle banter which showed that, whatever the elements threw at them, they had managed to retain their humour. Worsley remembered one incident as they gulped down their welcome first hot meal. He said:
‘At our first meal Shackleton, who was always fond of a leg-pull, said: “Crean, you’ve got a bigger spoon than we have.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the imperturbable Crean, “The Skipper [Worsley] has a bigger mouth”.’4
The men wasted little time and within 30 minutes had resumed their march, conscious that they had to progress as quickly as possible before the notoriously changeable weather of South Georgia deteriorated.
Ahead lay the imposing barrier of five mountain peaks, which looked like the knuckles of a clenched fist. They chose the easiest-looking pass, climbing a steep face with the aid of McNeish’s adze. But fresh disappointment wa
ited the men as they reached the 1,500-ft (450-m) peak after three hours’ steady uphill climbing.
At the crest they discovered that the slope broke away sharply in precipices and ice cliffs that were impossible to negotiate. Going ahead was too dangerous to contemplate and for the second time that morning, the three disappointed men were forced to retrace their steps. It was another bitter moment and for those who did not have time to spare, it was more valuable time lost.
The weather, so far, had been remarkably calm and stable. But it was the depths of winter in South Georgia and they knew that a sudden change could hit them at any moment.
At the bottom of the slope they warmed themselves with another helping of hot hoosh which helped take their minds off a frustrating and disappointing morning. Soon they were back on the march and ascending another steep pass in hopes of better luck at the next crest.
The climb was steeper than the first and the snow was soft, which made the going terribly heavy as they sank up to their knees with every step. It was also apparent how weak they had become. While the rest and fresh food at Cape Rosa and Peggoty Camp had been welcome, it was far too little recuperation for the seriously weakened trio who now moved ever more slowly. As they climbed higher in the increasingly rarefied air it became necessary to halt every twenty minutes and lay flat out in the snow gasping for breath.
An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor Page 28