Endurance by Alfred Lansing
How strongly I recommend this book: 9 / 10
Date read: June 26, 2025
Get this book on Amazon
Summary
This is an excellent book about the 1915 shipwreck of Shackleton and his men. It’s an incredible story of how a mission of exploration transformed into one of pure survival. I was struck by Shackleton’s unwavering optimism and leadership in the face of crisis, and the book really captures the psychological struggle and the torments his men had to endure while living on ice for so many days. It’s a powerful story about perseverance and, for me, it’s definitely a must-read.
Favorite Quotes and Chapter Notes
I went through my notes and captured key quotes from all chapters below.
P.S. – Highly recommend Readwise if you want to get the most out of your reading.
Highlights and Notes
part I
They were for all practical purposes alone in the frozen Antarctic seas. It had been very nearly a year since they had last been in contact with civilization. Nobody in the outside world knew they were in trouble, much less where they were. They had no radio transmitter with which to notify any would- be rescuers, and it is doubtful that any rescuers could have reached them even if they had been able to broadcast an SOS. It was 1915, and there were no helicopters, no Weasels, no Sno- Cats, no suitable planes. Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out— they had to get themselves out.
The goal of the Imperial Trans- Antarctic Expedition, as its name implies, was to cross the Antarctic continent overland from west to east. Evidence of the scope of such an undertaking is the fact that after Shackleton’s failure, the crossing of the continent remained untried for fully forty- three years— until 1957– 1958.
In an early prospectus designed to solicit funds for the undertaking, Shackleton played heavily on this matter of prestige, making it his primary argument for such an expedition. He wrote:“From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made. It will be a greater journey than the journey to the Pole and back, and I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this, for we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys— the crossing of the Continent.”
But in the Antarctic— here was a burden which challenged every atom of his strength. Thus, while Shackleton was undeniably out of place, even inept, in a great many everyday situations, he had a talent— a genius, even— that he shared with only a handful of men throughout history— genuine leadership. He was, as one of his men put it,“the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth, bar none.”
As was the custom, Shackleton also mortgaged the expedition, in a sense, by selling in advance the rights to whatever commercial properties the expedition might produce. He promised to write a book later about the trip. He sold the rights to the motion pictures and still photographs that would be taken, and he agreed to give a long lecture series on his return. In all these arrangements, there was one basic assumption— that Shackleton would survive.
In contrast to the difficulties in obtaining sufficient financial backing, finding volunteers to take part in the expedition proved simple. When Shackleton announced his plans he was deluged by more than five thousand applications from persons(including three girls) who asked to go along. Almost without exception, these volunteers were motivated solely by the spirit of adventure, for the salaries offered were little more than token payments for the services expected.
In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age— no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.
One man died of a heart ailment brought on partly by his unreasoning terror of the darkness. Another was seized with the idea that the rest of the crew intended to kill him, and whenever he slept he squeezed himself into a tiny recess of the ship. Still another gave way to hysteria which left him temporarily deaf and dumb. But there was very little depression on board the Endurance. The coming of the polar night somehow drew the men closer together.
In clear weather, if the moon was out, it swept in bold, high circles through the starlit skies for days on end, casting a soft, pale light over the floes. At other times, there were breathtaking displays of the aurora australis, the Antarctic equivalent of the northern lights. Incredible sunbursts of green and blue and silver shot up from the horizon into the blue- black sky, shimmering, iridescent colors that glinted off the rock- hard ice below. But apart from the increasing cold, the weather remained remarkably stable and free from gales.
By two o’clock the following morning the whole ship vibrated as the wind screamed through the rigging at 70 miles an hour. The snow was like a sandstorm blown up from the pole. Nothing could keep it out, though they lashed tarpaulins over the hatches trying to seal them off. By noon it was impossible to see much more than half the length of the ship. The temperature was 34 degrees below zero. Shackleton ordered that no man venture farther than the dog kennels which were only a few feet from the ship. The men who fed the dogs had to crawl on their hands and knees to keep from being blown away. Within two minutes after leaving the ship the blinding, suffocating snow blocked their eyes and mouths.
Each time a party went out, they came upon pressure, and occasionally a demonstration of power the like of which they had never witnessed before. On July 26, Greenstreet went with Wild’s team for a short run. Seeing some working ice, they paused to watch. As they stood looking, a solid, blue- green floe 9 feet thick was driven against a neighboring floe, and together they rose as easily as if they had been two pieces of cork. When he got back to the ship, Greenstreet wrote in his diary:“Lucky for us if we don’t get any pressure like that against the ship for I doubt whether any ship could stand a pressure that will force blocks like that up.”
A little of the old optimism began to creep back. The Endurance might just make it. Three times the ship had come under attack from the ice, and always the pressure had been worse than the time before. But each time the Endurance had fought back and she had won. As the early days of October passed, the ice showed definite signs of opening. Temperatures, too, began to rise. On October 10, the thermometer climbed to 9.8 degrees above zero. The floe which had been jammed under the ship’s starboard side since July broke free on October 14, and the Endurance lay in a small pool of open water— truly afloat for the first time since she was beset nine months before.
part II
Some arranged pieces of lumber to keep themselves off the snow- covered ice. Others spread pieces of canvas as ground- covers. But there was not enough flooring for everybody and several men had to lie directly on the bare snow. It made little difference. Sleep was all that mattered. And they slept— most of them embracing their nearest tentmates to keep from freezing.
The plan, as they all knew, was to march toward Paulet Island, 346 miles to the northwest, where the stores left in 1902 should still be. The distance was farther than from New York City to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and they would be dragging two of their three boats with them, since it was assumed that they would eventually run into open water.
Nevertheless, there was a remarkable absence of discouragement. All the men were in a state of dazed fatigue, and nobody paused to reflect on the terrible consequences of losing their ship. Nor were they upset by the fact that they were now camped on a piece of ice perhaps 6 feet thick. It was a haven compared with the nightmare of labor and uncertainty of the last few days on the Endurance. It was quite enough to be alive— and they were merely doing what they had to do to stay that way. There was even a trace of mild exhilaration in their attitude. At least, they had a clear- cut task ahead of them. The nine months of indecision, of speculation about what might happen, of aimless drifting with the pack were over. Now they simply had to get themselves out, however appallingly difficult that might be.
It was an observation typical of the entire party. There was not a hero among them, at least not in the fictional sense. Still not a single diary reflected anything beyond the matter- of- fact routine of each day’s business. There was only one major change in their general outlook— their attitude toward food. Worsley had this to say:“It is scandalous— all we seem to live for and think of now is food. I have never in my life taken half such a keen interest in food as I do now— and we are all alike…. We are ready to eat anything, especially cooked blubber which none of us would tackle before. Probably living totally in the open and having to rely on food instead of fire for body heat makes us think so much of food….”
Though he was virtually fearless in the physical sense, he suffered an almost pathological dread of losing control of the situation. In part, this attitude grew out of a consuming sense of responsibility. He felt he had gotten them into their situation, and it was his responsibility to get them out. As a consequence, he was intensely watchful for potential troublemakers who might nibble away at the unity of the group. Shackleton felt that if dissension arose, the party as a whole might not put forth that added ounce of energy which could mean, at a time of crisis, the difference between survival and defeat. Thus he was prepared to go to almost any length to keep the party close- knit and under his control.
In the beginning a few of the men, particularly little Louis Rickenson, the chief engineer, were squeamish about this seemingly cold- blooded method of hunting. But not for long. The will to survive soon dispelled any hesitancy to obtain food by any means.
Within sixty seconds, even that was gone as the ice closed up again. It had all happened in ten minutes. Shackleton that night noted simply in his diary that the Endurance was gone, and added:“I cannot write about it.” And so they were alone. Now, in every direction, there was nothing to be seen but the endless ice. Their position was 68 ° 38 ½′ South, 52 ° 28′ West— a place where no man had ever been before, nor could they conceive that any man would ever want to be again.
The final loss of the Endurance was a shock in that it severed what had seemed their last tie with civilization. It was a finality. The ship had been a symbol, a tangible, physical symbol that linked them with the outside world.
That night, the first after the sinking of the Endurance, Shackleton sanctioned a special treat, the serving of fish paste and biscuits for supper. Everyone was delighted.“Really, this sort of life has its attractions,” Macklin wrote.“I read somewhere that all a man needs to be happy is a full stomach and warmth, and I begin to think it is nearly true. No worries, no trains, no letters to answer, no collars to wear— but I wonder which of us would not jump at the chance to change it all tomorrow!”
And he occasionally became furious when he discovered that the cook had given him preferential treatment because he was the“Boss.” But it was inescapable. He was the Boss. There was always a barrier, an aloofness, which kept him apart. It was not a calculated thing; he was simply emotionally incapable of forgetting— even for an instant— his position and the responsibility it entailed. The others might rest, or find escape by the device of living for the moment. But for Shackleton there was little rest and no escape. The responsibility was entirely his, and a man could not be in his presence without feeling this.
In some ways they had come to know themselves better. In this lonely world of ice and emptiness, they had achieved at least a limited kind of contentment. They had been tested and found not wanting. They thought of home, naturally, but there was no burning desire to be in civilization for its own sake. Worsley recorded:“Waking on a fine morning I feel a great longing for the smell of dewy wet grass and flowers of a Spring morning in New Zealand or England. One has very few other longings for civilization— good bread and butter, Munich beer, Coromandel rock oysters, apple pie and Devonshire cream are pleasant reminiscences rather than longings.”
part III
Greenstreet was right. Like most of the others, he considered the laying in of all possible meat the prudent thing to do, as any ordinary individual might. But Shackleton was not an ordinary individual. He was a man who believed completely in his own invincibility, and to whom defeat was a reflection of personal inadequacy. What might have been an act of reasonable caution to the average person was to Shackleton a detestable admission that failure was a possibility. This indomitable self- confidence of Shackleton’s took the form of optimism. And it worked in two ways: it set men’s souls on fire; as Macklin said, just to be in his presence was an experience. It was what made Shackleton so great a leader. But at the same time, the basic egotism that gave rise to his enormous self- reliance occasionally blinded him to realities. He tacitly expected those around him to reflect his own extreme optimism, and he could be almost petulant if they failed to do so. Such an attitude, he felt, cast doubt on him and his ability to lead them to safety.
Since one of the items they had been forced to do without since abandoning the Endurance was toilet paper, they had to substitute the only disposable material at hand— ice. Thus, almost all of them were badly chafed, and unfortunately treatment was impossible since all the ointments and most of the medicines were now at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. In cold weather they were also greatly troubled with their eyes watering. The tears ran down a man’s nose and formed an icicle on the end, which sooner or later had to be broken off. And no matter how carefully it was done, a little patch of skin invariably came off with it, leaving a chronically unhealed sore on the end of his nose.
Day after day after day dragged by in a gray, monotonous haze. The temperatures were high and die winds were light. Most of the men would have liked to sleep the time away, but there was a limit to the number of hours a man could spend inside his sleeping bag. Every available time- killing pastime was exploited to die fullest and often much beyond. On February 6, James wrote:“Hurley & Boss play religiously a set of six games of poker patience every afternoon. I think each rather regards it a duty but it certainly passes away an hour. The worst thing is having to kill time. It seems such a waste, yet there is nothing else to do.”
Until the appearance of the swell, many of the men had struggled for months not to let hope creep into their minds. For the most part, they had convinced themselves not only that the party would have to winter on the floes— but even that such a fate would be quite endurable. But then came the swell— the physical proof that there really was something outside this limitless prison of ice. And all the defenses they had so carefully constructed to prevent hope from entering their minds collapsed.
Less than a week’s supply of blubber remained, so on March 26 the 5- ounce ration of seal steaks at breakfast was cut out. In its place the men were usually given a half- pound cake of cold dog pemmican and a half- ration of powdered milk; on very cold days, a few lumps of sugar were added. Lunch was one biscuit and three lumps of sugar, and supper, the only so- called hot meal of the day, consisted of seal or penguin hoosh,“cooked for the minimum possible time.” No water was issued at any time. If a man wanted a drink, he packed snow into a small can, usually a tobacco tin, and held it against his body to melt, or slept with it in his sleeping bag. But a full tobacco tin of snow yielded only a tablespoonful or two of water.
part IV
Bransfield Strait is about 200 miles long and 60 miles wide, lying between the Palmer Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. It connects the hazardous Drake Passage with the waters of the Weddell Sea— and it is a treacherous place. It was named in honor of Edward Bransfield, who, in 1820, took a small brig named the Williams into the waters which now bear his name. According to the British, Bransfield was thus the first man ever to set eyes on the Antarctic Continent. In the ninety- six years between the time of Bransfield’s discovery and that afternoon of April 9, 1916, when Shackleton’s men threaded their boats through the ice, precious little had been learned about conditions in these unfrequented waters. Even today, the U.S. Navy Department’s Sailing Directions for Antarctica, in describing conditions in Bransfield Strait, begins with an apologetic explanation that there is a“paucity” of information about the area.“It is believed,” the Sailing Directions continue, that strong, erratic currents are to be found, sometimes reaching a velocity of 6 knots.
As matters stood, the boats were uncomfortably crowded. The hoop tents and the rolled- up sleeping bags took up a disproportionate amount of room. There were also cases of stores and a considerable amount of personal gear— all of which left scarcely enough space for the men themselves.
Then he turned his attention to Holness who was shivering uncontrollably in his soaked clothes. But there weren’t any dry garments to give him because their only clothes were the ones they were wearing. To prevent Holness from freezing, Shackleton ordered that he be kept moving until his own clothes dried. For the rest of the night, the men took turns walking up and down with him. His companions could hear the crackling of his frozen garments, and the tinkle of the ice crystals that fell from him. Though he made no complaint about his clothes, Holness grumbled for hours over the fact that he had lost his tobacco in the water.
Thus the boats had to be hauled almost straight up while the men pulled from a safe distance back from the edge. The Wills was first, and she was raised without incident. The Docker was not so easy. She was halfway up when the ice gave way and Bill Stevenson, one of the firemen, plunged into the numbing water. A half- dozen hands pulled him to safety. The Caird was last, and again the overhang broke. Shackleton, Wild, and Hurley were just able to grab hold of the boat before they fell in. It was three- thirty before the boats were safe, and by then the men were very nearly exhausted. They had hardly slept for thirty- six hours. Their hands, unaccustomed to rowing, were blistered and a little frostbitten. Their clothes were soaked from the spray in the boats, and when they unrolled their sleeping bags they found them wet through.
The whole scene had a kind of horrifying fascination. The men stood by, tense and altogether aware that in the next instant they might be flung into the sea to be crushed or drowned, or to flounder in the icy water until the spark of life was chilled from their bodies. And yet the grandeur of the spectacle before them was undeniable. Watching it, many of them sought to put their feeling into words, but they could find no words that were adequate. The lines in Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur kept running through Macklin’s head:“… I never saw, nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, not though I live three lives of mortal men, so great a miracle.
The period at the oars was kept short so that each man had a turn as often as possible. It was the only way to keep warm. Those who were not rowing or on lookout did what they could to keep their blood moving. But sleep was out of the question, for there was nowhere to lie down. The bottom of each boat was so packed with stores that there was scarcely room for the men’s feet. Sleeping bags and tents took up most of the space in the bows, and the two thwarts on which the oarsmen sat had to be kept free. That left only a small space midships for the off- duty men to sit in a tight little group, huddled together for warmth.
For the second night running, there was no sleep, though a few men snuggled together in hopes of generating enough warmth to drop off for a moment. But it was achingly cold. Hussey’s thermometers were packed away so that no actual temperature reading could be taken, but Shackleton estimated it to be 4 below zero. They could even hear the water freezing. The snow fell on the newly formed ice with a tiny crackling sound, and the ice itself made a creaking hiss as it rose to the swell. The clothes the men wore, now that they were sitting almost motionless, froze stiff. Not only were their garments wet from the spray and the snow, they were also worn and saturated with the oil secreted from the men’s own bodies during six months of constant wear. If a man shifted his position, even slightly, his skin came in contact with a new, unwarmed surface of his clothing. Everyone tried to sit still, but it could not be done. The weariness, the lack of food, the exertion, and the worry had weakened them so that the harder they tried to sit still, the more they shivered— and their own shivering kept them awake. It was better to row. Shackleton in the Caird doubted that some men would survive the night.
To keep their feet from freezing, they worked their toes constantly inside their boots. They could only hope that the pain in their feet would continue, because comfort, much as they yearned for it, would mean that they were freezing. After a time, it took extreme concentration for them to keep wiggling their toes— it would have been so terribly easy just to stop.
When it came time to haul in the sea anchor, Cheetham and Holness leaned over the bow of the Docker trying to untie the icy knot in the rope with fingers so stiff they would hardly move. While they worked, the Docker rose to a sea, then pitched downward. Holness failed to pull his head away, and two of his teeth were knocked out on the sea anchor. Tears welled in his eyes, rolled down into his beard, and froze there.
They had been in the boats now for five and a half days, and during that time almost everyone had come to look upon Worsley in a new light. In the past he had been thought of as excitable and wild— even irresponsible. But all that was changed now. During these past days he had exhibited an almost phenomenal ability, both as a navigator and in the demanding skill of handling a small boat. There wasn’t another man in the party even comparable with him, and he had assumed an entirely new stature because of it.
They were on land. It was the merest handhold, 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep. A meager grip on a savage coast, exposed to the full fury of the sub- Antarctic Ocean. But no matter— they were on land. For the first time in 497 days they were on land. Solid, unsinkable, immovable, blessed land.
part V
Shackleton permitted the men to sleep until nine- thirty the next morning. But at breakfast an ugly rumor began to circulate, and when they had finished eating, Shackleton confirmed the almost shocking truth of it. They would have to move. There could hardly have been a more demoralizing prospect. Having barely escaped the sea’s hungry grasp a scant twenty- four hours before, now to have to return to it…. But the need was indisputable. They could see that only great good fortune had permitted them to land where they were. The cliffs at the head of the beach bore the marks of high tides and the scars of storm damage, indicating that the entire spit was frequently swept by seas. The place was obviously tenable only in good weather and while the tides were moderate.
On this score, their general feeling, at least outwardly, was confident. But how else might they have felt? Any other attitude would have been the equivalent of admitting that they were doomed. No matter what the odds, a man does not pin his last hope for survival on something and then expect that it will fail.
then what a miserable getting up,” wrote Macklin.“Everything deeply snowed over, footgear frozen so stiff that we could only put it on by degrees, not a dry or warm pair of gloves amongst us. I think I spent this morning the most unhappy hour of my life— all attempts seemed so hopeless, and Fate seemed absolutely determined to thwart us. Men sat and cursed, not loudly but with an intenseness that showed their hatred of this island on which we had sought shelter.”
In an entry notable for its candor, Orde- Lees wrote:“One cannot help but be a bit anxious about Sir Ernest. One wonders how he fared, where he is now and how it is that he has not yet been able to relieve us. [But] the subject is practically taboo; everyone keeps their own counsel and thinks different, and no one knows just what anyone else thinks about it, and it is quite obvious that no one really dare say what they really do think.”
If a man felt the need and the weather outside was bad, he would lie awake waiting for somebody else to go so that he might judge from the sound the level of the can’s contents. If it sounded ominously close to the top he would try to hold out until morning. But it was not always possible to do so, and he might be forced to get up. More than once, a man would fill the can as silently as possible, then steal back into his sleeping bag. The next man to get up would find to his fury that the can was full— and had to be emptied before it could be used.
part VI
Worsley replied that he was sure that they would make it, but it was evident that Shackleton was far from convinced. The truth was that he felt rather out of his element. He had proved himself on land. He had demonstrated there beyond all doubt his ability to pit his matchless tenacity against the elements— and win. But the sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape. It is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; the most that he can hope for is not to be defeated.
This, then, was the Drake Passage, the most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe— and rightly so. Here nature has been given a proving ground on which to demonstrate what she can do if left alone. The results are impressive.
The waves thus produced have become legendary among seafaring men. They are called Cape Horn Rollers or“graybeards.” Their length has been estimated from crest to crest to exceed a mile, and the terrified reports of some mariners have placed their height at 200 feet, though scientists doubt that they very often exceed 80 or 90 feet. How fast they travel is largely a matter of speculation, but many sailormen have claimed their speed occasionally reaches 55 miles an hour. Thirty knots is probably a more accurate figure. Charles Darwin, on first seeing these waves breaking on Tierra del Fuego in 1833, wrote in his diary:“The sight… is enough to make a landsman dream for a week about death, peril and shipwreck.”
The boat, however, behaved like a thing possessed. She staggered drunkenly upward over each new wave, then plunged sideways only to have her bow jerked violently around as she seized up on the sea anchor. There was never a moment— not even an instant of repose. The only thing to do was to hang on, and endure.
Each of the watches shivered through their four hideous hours, cringing beneath the decking, sodden and half- frozen, trying to remain upright against the wild lurching of the boat while perched on the despised rocks in the bottom. For seven painful days the rocks had made eating difficult; they had interfered with bailing; they had vastly complicated the simple act of getting about, and they had made sleeping all but impossible. But it was moving them that was worst of all. Periodically they had to be shifted in order to ballast the boat properly, which meant lifting them while crouched over and kneeling, often painfully, on other rocks. By now, every sharp corner and every slippery surface was intimately known and utterly detested.
The entire boat above the waterline was encased in ice, half a foot thick in places, and the rope to the sea anchor had grown to the size of a man’s thigh. Under the weight of it, she was riding at least 4 inches deeper, like a waterlogged derelict rather than a boat. Worsley was on watch and he immediately sent McCarthy to awaken Shackleton, who hurried aft. When he saw the situation, he excitedly ordered all hands called. Then he himself took a small axe and cautiously crawled forward. With extreme care so as not to puncture the decking, he began to knock the ice away with the back side of the axe. Periodically a wave burst against the boat and swept over him, but he kept at it for nearly ten minutes while the others anxiously looked on. By then he was so stiff with cold that he could no longer trust his grip or balance. He crawled back into the cockpit with the water dripping from his clothes and his beard frozen half- stiff. He was shivering noticeably as he handed the axe to Worsley to continue the job, cautioning him to use extreme care while he was on the decking.
Shortly after noon, as if from nowhere, a magnificent wandering albatross appeared overhead. In contrast to the Caird, it soared with an ease and grace that was poetic, riding the gale on wings that never moved, sometimes dropping to within 10 feet of the boat, then rising almost vertically on the wind, a hundred, two hundred feet, only to plunge downward again in a beautifully effortless sweep. It was perhaps one of nature’s ironies. Here was her largest and most incomparable creature capable of flight, whose wingspread exceeded 11 feet from tip to tip, and to whom the most violent storm was meaningless, sent to accompany the Caird, as if in mockery of her painful struggles. Hour after hour the albatross circled overhead, and there was an elegance of motion to the bird’s flight that was very nearly hypnotic. The men could hardly avoid a feeling of envy.
As if to emphasize their wretchedness, Worsley recorded:“Reindeer bags in such a hopeless sloppy slimy mess, smelling badly & weighing so heavily that we throw two of the worst overboard.” Each of them weighed about 40 pounds. Later he wrote:“Macty [McCarthy] is the most irrepressable optimist I’ve ever met. When I relieve him at the helm, boat iced & seas pourg: down yr neck he informs me with a happy grin ‘It’s a grand day sir’ I was feeling a bit sour just before….”
On the west coast of South Georgia there was not the smallest settlement, much less a beacon light or even a buoy to guide them. In fact, even to this day, the west coast of South Georgia is only sketchily charted. Thus it was entirely conceivable that they might come upon the coast in the dark— suddenly and disastrously. On the other hand, their fear of running onto the island was oddly counterbalanced by the dread awareness that they might just as easily miss it altogether— run by it in the night, and never know it was there. Indeed, they might already have done so. The darkness was now complete, and the Caird pounded forward on an ENE course with the wind on her port beam. The men peered ahead into the night with salt- rimmed eyes for the shadowy image of a headland; and they strained their ears for any unusual noise, perhaps the sound of surf pounding on a reef. But visibility could hardly have been worse— an overcast blotted out the stars, and the foggy mist still swept across the surface of the water. The only sounds that could be heard were the moaning of the wind through the stays and the surge of the heavy confused sea that was running.
“Land!” It was McCarthy’s voice, strong and confident. He was pointing dead ahead. And there it was. A black, frowning cliff with patches of snow clinging to its sides. It was just visible between the clouds, possibly 10 miles away. A moment later the clouds moved like a curtain across the water, shutting off the view.
The remainder of that night was an eternity, composed of seconds individually endured until they merged into minutes and minutes finally grew into hours. And through it all there was the voice of the wind, shrieking as they had never heard it shriek before in all their lives.
It seemed now that everything— the wind, the current, and even the sea itself— were united in a single, determined purpose— once and for all to annihilate this tiny boat which thus far had defied all their efforts to destroy it.
Worsley thought to himself of the pity of it all. He remembered the diary he had kept ever since the Endurance had sailed from South Georgia almost seventeen months before. That same diary, wrapped in rags and utterly soaked, was now stowed in the forepeak of the Caird. When she went, it would go, too. Worsley thought not so much of dying, because that was now so plainly inevitable, but of the fact that no one would ever know how terribly close they had come.
It was five o’clock on the tenth of May, 1916, and they were standing at last on the island from which they had sailed 522 days before. They heard a trickling sound. Only a few yards away a little stream of fresh water was running down from the glaciers high above. A moment later all six were on their knees, drinking.
part VII
Their situation was starkly simple: Unless they could get lower, they would freeze to death. Shackleton estimated their altitude at 4,500 feet. At such a height, the temperature at night might easily drop well below zero. They had no means for obtaining shelter, and their clothes were worn and thin. Hurriedly Shackleton turned and started down again with the others following. This time he did his best to keep as high as possible, cutting steps in the slope and working laterally around the side of the third peak—then up again once more. They moved as quickly as they could, but there was very little speed left in them. Their legs were wobbly and strangely disobedient.
There was no need to explain the situation. Speaking rapidly, Shackleton said simply that they faced a clear-cut choice: If they stayed where they were, they would freeze—in an hour, maybe two, maybe more. They had to get lower—and with all possible haste. So he suggested they slide. Worsley and Crean were stunned—especially for such an insane solution to be coming from Shackleton. But he wasn’t joking… he wasn’t even smiling. He meant it—and they knew it. But what if they hit a rock, Crean wanted to know. Could they stay where they were, Shackleton replied, his voice rising. The slope, Worsley argued. What if it didn’t level off? What if there were another precipice? Shackleton’s patience was going. Again he demanded—could they stay where they were?
When they were ready, he kicked off. In the next instant their hearts stopped beating. They seemed to hang poised for a split second, then suddenly the wind was shrieking in their ears, and a white blur of snow tore past. Down… down… They screamed—not in terror necessarily, but simply because they couldn’t help it. It was squeezed out of them by the rapidly mounting pressure in their ears and against their chests. Faster and faster—down… down… down! Then they shot forward onto the level, and their speed began to slacken. A moment later they came to an abrupt halt in a snowbank. The three men picked themselves up. They were breathless and their hearts were beating wildly. But they found themselves laughing uncontrollably. What had been a terrifying prospect possibly a hundred seconds before had turned into a breathtaking triumph. They looked up against the darkening sky and saw the fog curling over the edge of the ridges, perhaps 2,000 feet above them—and they felt that special kind of pride of a person who in a foolish moment accepts an impossible dare—then pulls it off to perfection.
But they were tired now to the point of exhaustion. They found a little sheltered spot behind a rock and sat down, huddled together with their arms around one another for warmth. Almost at once Worsley and Crean fell asleep, and Shackleton, too, caught himself nodding. Suddenly he jerked his head upright. All the years of Antarctic experience told him that this was the danger sign—the fatal sleep that trails off into freezing death. He fought to stay awake for five long minutes, then he woke the others, telling them that they had slept for half an hour. Even after so brief a rest, their legs had stiffened so that it was actually painful to straighten them, and they were awkward when they moved off again.
He started down—and just then a sound reached him. It was faint and uncertain, but it could have been a steam whistle. Shackleton knew it was about 6:30 A.M…. the time when the men at whaling stations usually were awakened. He hurried down from the ridge to tell Worsley and Crean the exciting news. Breakfast was gulped down, then Worsley took the chronometer from around his neck and the three of them crowded around, staring fixedly at its hands. If Shackleton had heard the steam whistle at Stromness, it should blow again to call the men to work at seven o’clock. It was 6:50… then 6:55. They hardly even breathed for fear of making a sound. 6:58… 6:59…. Exactly to the second, the hoot of the whistle carried through the thin morning air. They looked at one another and smiled. Then they shook hands without speaking.
“Who the hell are you?” he said at last. The man in the center stepped forward.“My name is Shackleton,” he replied in a quiet voice. Again there was silence. Some said that Sørlle turned away and wept.
epilogue
- Their spokesman, speaking in Norse with Sørlle translating, said that they had sailed the Antarctic seas for forty years, and that they wanted to shake the hands of the men who could bring an open 22-foot boat from Elephant Island through the Drake Passage to South Georgia. Then every man in that room stood up, and the four old skippers took Shackleton and Worsley and Crean by the hand and congratulated them on what they had done.