The
Endurance battled her way through a thousand miles of pack ice over a six
week period and was one hundred miles - one days sail - from her destination,
when on the 18th of January 1915 at 76°34'S, the ice closed in around her. The
temperature dropped dramatically cementing together the loose ice that
surrounded the ship as the ship's storekeeper wrote, she was "Like an
almond in a piece of toffee".
For Shackleton, the disappointment
must have been bitter, he was 40 years old, his country was at war, the
expedition had taken huge amounts of effort and energy to prepare, he was
unlikely to have this opportunity again.
Nevertheless, his men looked towards
"the Boss" as they called him. This collection of Royal Naval sailors,
rough and ready trawler hands and recent Cambridge University graduates amongst
others were now dependent on the man who had led them to this place and this
very unfortunate predicament.
The ship was
drifting to the southwest with the ice. Attempts were made to free the ship when
sometimes cracks appeared in the ice nearby, but to no avail. The ice around the
ship itself was thick and solid. Men with heavy improvised ice chisels and iron
bars breaking the ice up near the ship and the ship at full speed ahead had no
effect at all and the ship continued to drift.
By the end of February, temperatures
had fallen and were regularly -20°C, the ship was now clearly frozen in for the
winter. The worry was where the drifting ice would take them and would it be
possible to break out in the spring? The sides of the ship were cleared so that
if the ice began to press together, then hopefully the Endurance would be able
to rise above the ice and ride on it rather than being crushed.
This eventuality had not really been
planned for and the men became frustrated and restless, football and hockey
games were regular features on the sea ice until the darkness of the Antarctic
winter began. Sunrise glows came in early July heralding the return of the sun
and daylight, but the weather was not kind with regular blizzards and low
temperatures. Most worrying of all was the pressure from the ice, floes began to
"raft" over each other.
Everyone knew that one of two things
would happen, either the pack ice would thaw, break up and disperse in the
spring, so freeing the ship, or it would consolidate and driven by the effects
of wind and tide over hundreds of miles of sea would take hold of and crush the ship
- like a toy in a vice.
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"The ice is rafting up to
a height of 10 or 15 ft. in places, the opposing floes are moving against one
another at the rate of about 200 yds. per hour. The noise resembles the roar of
heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is
disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below"
Shackleton
|
The men went out to look for fresh
meat for the dogs and themselves in the form of seals and penguins, they were
still in low supply having disappeared at the start of winter, a few were taken
at the end of September.
On Sunday, October 23rd their position was 69°11'S, longitude 51°5'W.
The Endurance was under heavy pressure from the ice and not held in a
good position, instead of being able to slip upwards with the increasing
pressure, the ice had hold of her. The first real damage was to the stern-post
which twisted with the planking buckling in the same area, she sprang a leak. The bilge pumps were
started and the leak was initially kept in check.
On October 27th Shackleton wrote, "The position was lat. 69°5'S,
long. 51°30'W. The temperature was -8.5°F, a gentle southerly breeze was
blowing and the sun shone in a clear sky. After long months of ceaseless
anxiety and strain, after times when hope beat high and times when the outlook
was black indeed, we have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed
beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores
and equipment for the task that lies before us. The task is to reach land with
all the members of the Expedition. It is hard to write what I feel".
The Endurance had drifted at least 1186 miles
since first becoming fast in the ice 281 days previously, she was 346 miles from Paulet Island, the
nearest point where there was any possibility of finding food and shelter.
Shackleton ordered the boats, gear, provisions and
sledges lowered onto the ice. The men pitched five tents 100 yards from the ship but were forced
to move when a pressure ridge started to split the ice beneath them. "Ocean
Camp" was established on a thick, heavy floe about a mile and a half from
what was fast becoming the wreck of the Endurance.
The Endurance finally broke
up and sank below the ice and waters of the Weddell sea on November 21st 1915.
The men had saved as many supplies as they could (including Frank Hurley's
precious photo archive) before she disappeared.
The 28 men of the expedition were
now isolated on the drifting pack ice hundreds of miles from land, with no ship,
no means of communication with the outside world and with limited supplies. What
was worse was that the ice itself was now starting to break up as the Antarctic
spring got under way. On December 20th Shackleton decide that the time had come
to abandon their camp and march westward to where they thought the nearest land
was, at Paulet Island.
They had three lifeboats named after
patrons of the expedition who had donated funds. Two of these were now manhauled in
relays, the James Caird
and Dudley Docker. The third boat, the Stancomb Wills was left behind. If
the ice began to disappear under them, the men would take to the 20 foot
boats.
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"Thus, after a year's
incessant battle with the ice, we had returned........to almost the same latitude we
had left with such high hopes and aspirations twelve months previously; but
under what different conditions now! Our ship crushed and lost and we ourselves
drifting on a piece of ice at the mercy of the winds"
Shackleton,
On New Year's Eve 1915 |
Some of the men led by Frank Wild
returned to the area where the Endurance had been to retrieve the Stancomb Wills.
They were all forced into the boats on April 9th and made their way across a
stretch of open water, by the evening they were able once again to haul the
boats onto a large ice floe and pitch their tents.
That the men kept going during this
time was a tribute to Shackleton's leadership skills and his abilities and
understanding of the importance of keeping up morale. The whole group were kept
together in the monotonous and strenuous task of pulling laden lifeboats across
broken up and ridged ice floes. It was now 14 months since the Endurance
had become frozen into the ice and nearly 5 months since she had sank marooning
them in a featureless icy wilderness. On April 12th Shackleton found that
instead of making good progress westwards, they had actually traveled 30 miles
to the east as a result of the drifting ice. They did however spot Elephant
Island, part of the South Shetlands group and headed that way in seas that were
by now largely open for navigation. They made landfall on Elephant Island being
ecstatic to do so. It had been 497 days since they had last set foot on land.
Elephant
island
Their first landing place wasn't
ideal by any means, but they soon found a more appropriate place to make camp.
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"As we clustered round the blubber stove, with the
acrid smoke blowing in our faces, we were quite a cheerful company...Life was
not so bad. We ate our evening meal while the snow drifted down from the surface
of the glacier and our chilled bodies grew warm"
Shackleton
|
For the time being they were more
safe and secure than they had been for a long time, but they were still stranded far
from civilization with no-one knowing where they were or what their condition
was. There was no chance of rescue. No ships passed that way. No radio at that
time was capable of summoning help.
The outside world was not going to come to
Elephant Island.
Shackleton realised that in order to effect a rescue, he was going to have
to travel to the nearest inhabited place which was the whaling station back on
South Georgia, some 800 miles distant and across the most stormy stretch of
ocean in the world. They expected to encounter waves that were 50 feet from tip
to trough "Cape Horn Rollers" in a 22 foot long boat. Their
navigation was by a sextant and a chronometer of unknown accuracy, they were
dependent on sightings of the sun that could sometimes not be seen for weeks in
the overcast weather so characteristic of these latitudes.
Shackleton chose Frank Wild to stay
behind with the men on Elephant Island as he felt that he could hold them
together well. If there was no rescue by the spring they were to try and reach
Deception Island. The lifeboat chosen for the journey was the James Caird,
it was made seaworthy by whatever limited means were available and equipped with
a part cover against the weather and the sea. Launching her was eventful with
many of the men being soaked to the skin, a serious matter in the cold climate
and with very limited facilities for drying their clothes out and getting warm
again.
The party left behind on Elephant
Island used the two remaining life boats to make a hut, they were turned
upside down and placed on top of two low stone walls, tent and sail fabric were
used as lining to keep the wind and weather out. The men were even able to make
small celluloid windows from an old photograph case, a blubber stove provided
heat and was used as a cooker. Conditions were cramped and food was in short
supply. One of the party, Blackborow, (little more than a boy who had joined the
ship as a stow-away in Buenos Aries when his companion had been hired though he
had not) suffered from frostbitten toes. These were amputated by the surgeons by
the meager light given out by the blubber stove.
Next
page, the voyage of the James Caird
The men left behind on Elephant Island
Historical photographs on this page by
permission of National Library of Australia
