South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
Essential supplies had been placed on the floe about 100 yds. from the
ship, and there we set about making a camp for the night. But about 7
p.m., after the tents were up, the ice we were occupying became
involved in the pressure and started to split and smash beneath our
feet. I had the camp moved to a bigger floe about 200 yds. away, just
beyond the bow of the ship. Boats, stores, and camp equipment had to be
conveyed across a working pressure-ridge. The movement of the ice was
so slow that it did not interfere much with our short trek, but the
weight of the ridge had caused the floes to sink on either side and
there were pools of water there. A pioneer party with picks and shovels
had to build a snow-causeway before we could get all our possessions
across. By 8 p.m. the camp had been pitched again. We had two
pole-tents and three hoop-tents. I took charge of the small pole-tent,
No. 1, with Hudson, Hurley, and James as companions; Wild had the small
hoop-tent, No. 2, with Wordie, McNeish, and McIlroy. These hoop-tents
are very easily shifted and set up. The eight forward hands had the
large hoop-tent, No. 3; Crean had charge of No. 4 hoop-tent with
Hussey, Marston, and Cheetham; and Worsley had the other pole-tent, No.
5, with Greenstreet, Lees, Clark, Kerr, Rickenson, Macklin, and
Blackborrow, the last named being the youngest of the forward hands.
“To-night the temperature has dropped to –16° Fahr., and most of the
men are cold and uncomfortable. After the tents had been pitched I
mustered all hands and explained the position to them briefly and, I
hope, clearly. I have told them the distance to the Barrier and the
distance to Paulet Island, and have stated that I propose to try to
march with equipment across the ice in the direction of Paulet Island.
I thanked the men for the steadiness and good morale they have shown in
these trying circumstances, and told them I had no doubt that, provided
they continued to work their utmost and to trust me, we will all reach
safety in the end. Then we had supper, which the cook had prepared at
the big blubber-stove, and after a watch had been set all hands except
the watch turned in.” For myself, I could not sleep. The destruction
and abandonment of the ship was no sudden shock. The disaster had been
looming ahead for many months, and I had studied my plans for all
contingencies a hundred times. But the thoughts that came to me as I
walked up and down in the darkness were not particularly cheerful. The
task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend
my energies and mental power and apply every bit of knowledge that
experience of the Antarctic had given me. The task was likely to be
long and strenuous, and an ordered mind and a clear programme were
essential if we were to come through without loss of life. A man must
shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.
At midnight I was pacing the ice, listening to the grinding floe and to
the groans and crashes that told of the death-agony of the _Endurance_,
when I noticed suddenly a crack running across our floe right through
the camp. The alarm-whistle brought all hands tumbling out, and we
moved the tents and stores lying on what was now the smaller portion of
the floe to the larger portion. Nothing more could be done at that
moment, and the men turned in again; but there was little sleep. Each
time I came to the end of my beat on the floe I could just see in the
darkness the uprearing piles of pressure-ice, which toppled over and
narrowed still further the little floating island we occupied. I did
not notice at the time that my tent, which had been on the wrong side
of the crack, had not been erected again. Hudson and James had managed
to squeeze themselves into other tents, and Hurley had wrapped himself
in the canvas of No. 1 tent. I discovered this about 5 a.m. All night
long the electric light gleamed from the stern of the dying
_Endurance_. Hussey had left this light switched on when he took a last
observation, and, like a lamp in a cottage window, it braved the night
until in the early morning the _Endurance_ received a particularly
violent squeeze. There was a sound of rending beams and the light
disappeared. The connexion had been cut.
Morning came in chill and cheerless. All hands were stiff and weary
after their first disturbed night on the floe. Just at daybreak I went
over to the _Endurance_ with Wild and Hurley, in order to retrieve some
tins of petrol that could be used to boil up milk for the rest of the
men. The ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck. The
jib-boom and bowsprit had snapped off during the night and now lay at
right angles to the ship, with the chains, martingale, and bob-stay
dragging them as the vessel quivered and moved in the grinding pack.
The ice had driven over the forecastle and she was well down by the
head. We secured two tins of petrol with some difficulty, and postponed
the further examination of the ship until after breakfast. Jumping
across cracks with the tins, we soon reached camp, and built a
fireplace out of the triangular water-tight tanks we had ripped from
the lifeboat. This we had done in order to make more room. Then we
pierced a petrol-tin in half a dozen places with an ice-axe and set
fire to it. The petrol blazed fiercely under the five-gallon drum we
used as a cooker, and the hot milk was ready in quick time. Then we
three ministering angels went round the tents with the life-giving
drink, and were surprised and a trifle chagrined at the matter-of-fact
manner in which some of the men accepted this contribution to their
comfort. They did not quite understand what work we had done for them
in the early dawn, and I heard Wild say, “If any of you gentlemen would
like your boots cleaned just put them outside.” This was his gentle way
of reminding them that a little thanks will go a long way on such
occasions.
The cook prepared breakfast, which consisted of biscuit and hoosh, at 8
a.m., and I then went over to the _Endurance_ again and made a fuller
examination of the wreck. Only six of the cabins had not been pierced
by floes and blocks of ice. Every one of the starboard cabins had been
crushed. The whole of the after part of the ship had been crushed
concertina fashion. The forecastle and the Ritz were submerged, and the
wardroom was three-quarters full of ice. The starboard side of the
wardroom had come away. The motor-engine forward had been driven
through the galley. Petrol-cases that had been stacked on the fore-deck
had been driven by the floe through the wall into the wardroom and had
carried before them a large picture. Curiously enough, the glass of
this picture had not been cracked, whereas in the immediate
neighbourhood I saw heavy iron davits that had been twisted and bent
like the ironwork of a wrecked train. The ship was being crushed
remorselessly.
Under a dull, overcast sky I returned to camp and examined our
situation. The floe occupied by the camp was still subject to pressure,
and I thought it wise to move to a larger and apparently stronger floe
about 200 yds. away, off the starboard bow of the ship. This camp was
to become known as Dump Camp, owing to the amount of stuff that was
thrown away there. We could not afford to carry unnecessary gear, and a
drastic sorting of equipment took place. I decided to issue a complete
new set of Burberrys and underclothing to each man, and also a supply
of new socks. The camp was transferred to the larger floe quickly, and
I began there to direct the preparations for the long journey across
the floes to Paulet Island or Snow Hill.
Hurley meanwhile had rigged his kinematograph-camera and was getting
pictures of the _Endurance_ in her death-throes. While he was engaged
thus, the ice, driving against the standing rigging and the fore-,
main- and mizzen-masts, snapped the shrouds. The foretop and
topgallant-mast came down with a run and hung in wreckage on the
fore-mast, with the fore-yard vertical. The main-mast followed
immediately, snapping off about 10 ft. above the main deck. The
crow’s-nest fell within 10 ft. of where Hurley stood turning the handle
of his camera, but he did not stop the machine, and so secured a
unique, though sad, picture.
The issue of clothing was quickly accomplished. Sleeping-bags were
required also. We had eighteen fur bags, and it was necessary,
therefore, to issue ten of the Jaeger woollen bags in order to provide
for the twenty-eight men of the party. The woollen bags were lighter
and less warm than the reindeer bags, and so each man who received one
of them was allowed also a reindeer-skin to lie upon. It seemed fair to
distribute the fur bags by lot, but some of us older hands did not join
in the lottery. We thought we could do quite as well with the Jaegers
as with the furs. With quick dispatch the clothing was apportioned, and
then we turned one of the boats on its side and supported it with two
broken oars to make a lee for the galley. The cook got the
blubber-stove going, and a little later, when I was sitting round the
corner of the stove, I heard one man say, “Cook, I like my tea strong.”
Another joined in, “Cook, I like mine weak.” It was pleasant to know
that their minds were untroubled, but I thought the time opportune to
mention that the tea would be the same for all hands and that we would
be fortunate if two months later we had any tea at all. It occurred to
me at the time that the incident had psychological interest. Here were
men, their home crushed, the camp pitched on the unstable floes, and
their chance of reaching safety apparently remote, calmly attending to
the details of existence and giving their attention to such trifles as
the strength of a brew of tea.
During the afternoon the work continued. Every now and then we heard a
noise like heavy guns or distant thunder, caused by the floes grinding
together.
“The pressure caused by the congestion in this area of the pack is
producing a scene of absolute chaos. The floes grind stupendously,
throw up great ridges, and shatter one another mercilessly. The ridges,
or hedgerows, marking the pressure-lines that border the
fast-diminishing pieces of smooth floe-ice, are enormous. The ice moves
majestically, irresistibly. Human effort is not futile, but man fights
against the giant forces of Nature in a spirit of humility. One has a
sense of dependence on the higher Power. To-day two seals, a Weddell
and a crabeater, came close to the camp and were shot. Four others were
chased back into the water, for their presence disturbed the dog teams,
and this meant floggings and trouble with the harness. The arrangement
of the tents has been completed and their internal management settled.
Each tent has a mess orderly, the duty being taken in turn on an
alphabetical rota. The orderly takes the hoosh-pots of his tent to the
galley, gets all the hoosh he is allowed, and, after the meal, cleans
the vessels with snow and stores them in sledge or boat ready for a
possible move.”
“_October_ 29.—We passed a quiet night, although the pressure was
grinding around us. Our floe is a heavy one and it withstood the blows
it received. There is a light wind from the north-west to
north-north-west, and the weather is fine. We are twenty-eight men with
forty-nine dogs, including Sue’s and Sallie’s five grown-up pups. All
hands this morning were busy preparing gear, fitting boats on sledges,
and building up and strengthening the sledges to carry the boats....