South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
shuddered and jumped, beams arched, and stanchions buckled and shook. I
ordered all hands to stand by in readiness for whatever emergency might
arise. Even the dogs seemed to feel the tense anxiety of the moment.
But the ship resisted valiantly, and just when it appeared that the
limit of her strength was being reached the huge floe that was pressing
down upon us cracked across and so gave relief.
“The behaviour of our ship in the ice has been magnificent,” wrote
Worsley. “Since we have been beset her staunchness and endurance have
been almost past belief again and again. She has been nipped with a
million-ton pressure and risen nobly, falling clear of the water out on
the ice. She has been thrown to and fro like a shuttlecock a dozen
times. She has been strained, her beams arched upwards, by the fearful
pressure; her very sides opened and closed again as she was actually
bent and curved along her length, groaning like a living thing. It will
be sad if such a brave little craft should be finally crushed in the
remorseless, slowly strangling grip of the Weddell pack after ten
months of the bravest and most gallant fight ever put up by a ship.”
The _Endurance_ deserved all that could be said in praise of her.
Shipwrights had never done sounder or better work; but how long could
she continue the fight under such conditions? We were drifting into the
congested area of the western Weddell Sea, the worst portion of the
worst sea in the world, where the pack, forced on irresistibly by wind
and current, impinges on the western shore and is driven up in huge
corrugated ridges and chaotic fields of pressure. The vital question
for us was whether or not the ice would open sufficiently to release
us, or at least give us a chance of release, before the drift carried
us into the most dangerous area. There was no answer to be got from the
silent bergs and the grinding floes, and we faced the month of October
with anxious hearts.
The leads in the pack appeared to have opened out a little on October
1, but not sufficiently to be workable even if we had been able to
release the _Endurance_ from the floe. The day was calm, cloudy and
misty in the forenoon and clearer in the afternoon, when we observed
well-defined parhelia. The ship was subjected to slight pressure at
intervals. Two bull crab-eaters climbed on to the floe close to the
ship and were shot by Wild. They were both big animals in prime
condition, and I felt that there was no more need for anxiety as to the
supply of fresh meat for the dogs. Seal-liver made a welcome change in
our own menu. The two bulls were marked, like many of their kind, with
long parallel scars about three inches apart, evidently the work of the
killers. A bull we killed on the following day had four parallel scars,
sixteen inches long, on each side of its body; they were fairly deep
and one flipper had been nearly torn away. The creature must have
escaped from the jaws of a killer by a very small margin. Evidently
life beneath the pack is not always monotonous. We noticed that several
of the bergs in the neighbourhood of the ship were changing their
relative positions more than they had done for months past. The floes
were moving.
Our position on Sunday, October 3, was lat. 69° 14´ S., long. 51° 8´ W.
During the night the floe holding the ship aft cracked in several
places, and this appeared to have eased the strain on the rudder. The
forenoon was misty, with falls of snow, but the weather cleared later
in the day and we could see that the pack was breaking. New leads had
appeared, while several old leads had closed. Pressure-ridges had risen
along some of the cracks. The thickness of the season’s ice, now about
230 days old, was 4 ft. 5 in. under 7 or 8 in. of snow. This ice had
been slightly thicker in the early part of September, and I assumed
that some melting had begun below. Clark had recorded plus temperatures
at depths of 150 and 200 fathoms in the concluding days of September.
The ice obviously had attained its maximum thickness by direct
freezing, and the heavier older floes had been created by the
consolidation of pressure-ice and the overlapping of floes under
strain. The air temperatures were still low, –24.5° Fahr. being
recorded on October 4.
The movement of the ice was increasing. Frost-smoke from opening cracks
was showing in all directions during October 6. It had the appearance
in one place of a great prairie fire, rising from the surface and
getting higher as it drifted off before the wind in heavy, dark,
rolling masses. At another point there was the appearance of a train
running before the wind, the smoke rising from the locomotive straight
upwards; and the smoke columns elsewhere gave the effect of warships
steaming in line ahead. During the following day the leads and cracks
opened to such an extent that if the _Endurance_ could have been forced
forward for thirty yards we could have proceeded for two or three
miles; but the effort did not promise any really useful result. The
conditions did not change materially during the rest of that week. The
position on Sunday, October 10, was lat. 69° 21´ S., long. 50° 34´ W. A
thaw made things uncomfortable for us that day. The temperature had
risen from –10° Fahr. to +29.8° Fahr., the highest we had experienced
since January, and the ship got dripping wet between decks. The upper
deck was clear of ice and snow and the cabins became unpleasantly
messy. The dogs, who hated wet, had a most unhappy air. Undoubtedly one
grows to like familiar conditions. We had lived long in temperatures
that would have seemed distressingly low in civilized life, and now we
were made uncomfortable by a degree of warmth that would have left the
unaccustomed human being still shivering. The thaw was an indication
that winter was over, and we began preparations for reoccupying the
cabins on the main deck. I had the shelter-house round the stern pulled
down on the 11th and made other preparations for working the ship as
soon as she got clear. The carpenter had built a wheel-house over the
wheel aft as shelter in cold and heavy weather. The ice was still
loosening and no land was visible for twenty miles.
The temperature remained relatively high for several days. All hands
moved to their summer quarters in the upper cabins on the 12th, to the
accompaniment of much noise and laughter. Spring was in the air, and if
there were no green growing things to gladden our eyes, there were at
least many seals, penguins, and even whales disporting themselves in
the leads. The time for renewed action was coming, and though our
situation was grave enough, we were facing the future hopefully. The
dogs were kept in a state of uproar by the sight of so much game. They
became almost frenzied when a solemn-looking emperor penguin inspected
them gravely from some point of vantage on the floe and gave utterance
to an apparently derisive “Knark!” At 7 p.m. on the 13th the ship broke
free of the floe on which she had rested to starboard sufficiently to
come upright. The rudder freed itself, but the propeller was found to
be athwartship, having been forced into that position by the floe some
time after August 1. The water was very clear and we could see the
rudder, which appeared to have suffered only a slight twist to port at
the water-line. It moved quite freely. The propeller, as far as we
could see, was intact, but it could not be moved by the hand-gear,
probably owing to a film of ice in the stern gland and sleeve. I did
not think it advisable to attempt to deal with it at that stage. The
ship had not been pumped for eight months, but there was no water and
not much ice in the bilges. Meals were served again in the wardroom
that day.
The south-westerly breeze freshened to a gale on the 14th, and the
temperature fell from +31° Fahr. to –1° Fahr. At midnight the ship came
free from the floe and drifted rapidly astern. Her head fell off before
the wind until she lay nearly at right-angles across the narrow lead.
This was a dangerous position for rudder and propeller. The spanker was
set, but the weight of the wind on the ship gradually forced the floes
open until the _Endurance_ swung right round and drove 100 yds. along
the lead. Then the ice closed and at 3 a.m. we were fast again. The
wind died down during the day and the pack opened for five or six miles
to the north. It was still loose on the following morning, and I had
the boiler pumped up with the intention of attempting to clear the
propeller; but one of the manholes developed a leak, the packing being
perished by cold or loosened by contraction, and the boiler had to be
emptied out again.
The pack was rather closer on Sunday the 17th. Top-sails and head-sails
were set in the afternoon, and with a moderate north-easterly breeze we
tried to force the ship ahead out of the lead; but she was held fast.
Later that day heavy pressure developed. The two floes between which
the _Endurance_ was lying began to close and the ship was subjected to
a series of tremendously heavy strains. In the engine-room, the weakest
point, loud groans, crashes, and hammering sounds were heard. The iron
plates on the floor buckled up and overrode with loud clangs. Meanwhile
the floes were grinding off each other’s projecting points and throwing
up pressure-ridges. The ship stood the strain well for nearly an hour
and then, to my great relief, began to rise with heavy jerks and jars.
She lifted ten inches forward and three feet four inches aft, at the
same time heeling six degrees to port. The ice was getting below us and
the immediate danger had passed. The position was lat. 69° 19´ S.,
long. 50° 40´ W.
The next attack of the ice came on the afternoon of October 18th. The
two floes began to move laterally, exerting great pressure on the ship.
Suddenly the floe on the port side cracked and huge pieces of ice shot
up from under the port bilge. Within a few seconds the ship heeled over
until she had a list of thirty degrees to port, being held under the
starboard bilge by the opposing floe. The lee boats were now almost
resting on the floe. The midship dog-kennels broke away and crashed
down on to the lee kennels, and the howls and barks of the frightened
dogs assisted to create a perfect pandemonium. Everything movable on
deck and below fell to the lee side, and for a few minutes it looked as
if the _Endurance_ would be thrown upon her beam ends. Order was soon
restored. I had all fires put out and battens nailed on the deck to
give the dogs a foothold and enable people to get about. Then the crew
lashed all the movable gear. If the ship had heeled any farther it
would have been necessary to release the lee boats and pull them clear,
and Worsley was watching to give the alarm. Hurley meanwhile descended
to the floe and took some photographs of the ship in her unusual
position. Dinner in the wardroom that evening was a curious affair.
Most of the diners had to sit on the deck, their feet against battens
and their plates on their knees. At 8 p.m. the floes opened, and within
a few minutes the _Endurance_ was nearly upright again. Orders were
given for the ice to be chipped clear of the rudder. The men poled the
blocks out of the way when they had been detached from the floe with
the long ice-chisels, and we were able to haul the ship’s stern into a
clear berth. Then the boiler was pumped up. This work was completed
early in the morning of October 19, and during that day the engineer
lit fires and got up steam very slowly, in order to economize fuel and
avoid any strain on the chilled boilers by unequal heating. The crew
cut up all loose lumber, boxes, etc., and put them in the bunkers for