It has a good claim to being the most hostile place on earth. In 1911, Robert Scott launched his own ill-fated run at the Pole, reaching it in January 1912, only to discover the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it. Scott and his team died on the return journey. The story of that brave expedition and the extraordinary character of those men is told in the first Dangerous Book. It didn’t seem possible to include two ‘Extraordinary Stories’ of Antarctic exploration at that time – but the world turns and here we are, with a story that deserves to be told.
As the Pole had been reached, Shackleton set his cap to be the first to cross the entire continent on foot. The plan was to sail as far as possible through sea ice, set out on foot to the Pole, then continue through to the other side. It was, to say the very least, a massive undertaking. It was simply impossible for his men to carry enough food to keep them alive over such distances, so Shackleton needed two ships. Endurance was a solid Norwegian three-master, designed in oak to smash through half-frozen seas. The captain would be a New Zealander named Frank Worsley. Endurance would land as far south as possible and, if necessary, provide a base during the first hard winter. The second ship, Aurora, would make key supply drops on the other side of Antarctica. It became the ‘Endurance’ expedition, a name taken from both the ship and his family motto: Fortitudine Vincimus – ‘Through endurance, we conquer’.
The trip was mostly privately funded and Shackleton himself wrote to those who might donate. Public schools raised money for the dogs he would need and he named each dog after the school which had raised the funds for it. Given that he had seventy dogs, he ran out of those names fairly quickly. After that, the dogs were called things like Satan, Bosun, Sally, Fluffy, Sailor and Shakespeare.
Shackleton also asked a wealthy cloth manufacturer named James Caird for a relatively small amount. In the end, Caird donated £24,000, a sum worth millions today. Shackleton had that effect on those he met, many times. In gratitude, one of three lifeboats was named James Caird in the man’s honour, and a stretch of Antarctica is known today as the Caird Coast.
Shackleton advertised for men willing to endure years of harsh conditions. He wrote to The Times and almost five thousand hopeful replies came in, which says something about the age and culture. In the end, he chose fifty-six, in two teams of twenty-eight. Preparations continued right into the summer of 1914 – and in Europe, Germany invaded Belgium and Britain declared war in response. World War I began.
Shackleton immediately sent a telegram, offering himself, his men and both ships to the war effort. Though he had spent years planning the expedition, he gave it all up the moment war was declared. However, the First Lord of the Admiralty understood there was more to life than war and sent them on. That was a young Winston Churchill. By such choices and such men, history is written – for good or ill.
Shackleton described the single-word order from Churchill – ‘Proceed’ – as laconic. Laconia was the region of Greece that gave birth to the Spartans, famous for their courage and never wasting words. When Philip II of Macedon threatened them, asking if he should march to Sparta as friend or enemy, they sent a one-word message: ‘Neither.’ Furiously, he tried again: ‘You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city.’ Their reply was once more a single word: ‘If.’ In the end, he did not threaten them further and the word ‘laconic’ came to be used to describe a dry, brief response.
In August 1914, Endurance set sail from Plymouth on the first leg, to Buenos Aires in Argentina, then headed to the active whaling island of South Georgia – the last piece of inhabited land before Antarctica. The plan was to make for the coast of Antarctica and spend the winter months in camp, growing used to the conditions and waiting for the few months of spring when a crossing might be possible. They set off from South Georgia in December 1914, taking Endurance into the Weddell Sea, a dangerous graveyard for ships. The sea froze in great sheets as they went further and further south. At times, it seemed as if they were sailing across white land, breaking ice as they went.
January 1915 was spent forcing Endurance through ice floes. The men used a system of semaphore to signal to the captain at the helm, dodging round huge pieces of ice and breaking through others. The whalers back at South Georgia had said the pack ice was unusually far out that season – and so it proved. After days of slow progress searching for paths through, the ice grew so thick that even the reinforced hull of Endurance, combined with powerful engines, could not force the ship any further. Endurance was gripped in solid ice that froze hard, cracking and groaning against the timbers. Shackleton had no choice but to wait for spring. He had the sled dogs moved onto the surrounding ice and the men shot seals to feed them. They were at the 77th parallel of latitude, but moved north again as the ice floe they were on drifted, undoing all their labours. It was, in those months, the most isolated spot on earth.
To pass the time, Shackleton involved the men in races and competitions on the ice, binding them together in hardship. He dispensed with the normal ship’s routines, understanding instinctively that he didn’t need to enforce ship’s discipline with men he had hand-picked for the expedition. To do this, he redesignated the ship as a ‘Winter Station’. The crew kept their spirits up by hunting seals and training the dog teams. It was a bleak existence even so.
After months of unbroken darkness, the Antarctic spring in October brought hope – and then disaster. As the pack ice began to break up, vast pressures built against the hull of Endurance, crushing it remorselessly. Shackleton and the men tried to repair the broken beams, but the ship had to be abandoned. It sank from sight in November 1915, taking their hopes of crossing the continent with it. The men were left on the ice, with tents, dogs and supplies, but with no way of reaching their goal.
One reason Shackleton is held to be an example of a great leader of men is the decision he made then. Though everything he had dreamed of for years had been taken from him, he changed plan and accepted the new reality. He understood he could not complete the expedition – instead, his task was to save his crew. Not a soul knew they were there, on floating ice, at the bottom of the world. Without extraordinary intervention, all that lay ahead were starvation and death. The men used planks taken from the Endurance to raise the Union Flag – to give them hope. They were in British territory, but utterly alone and impossibly far from help.
John Frost Newspapers/Alamy Stock Photo
As the ice moved, the original camp proved too unstable and so they made another one further back. They began to ration food and burn seal blubber to cook and keep warm, while Shackleton planned a way out. They had kept the three lifeboats from Endurance – the James Caird, the Stancomb Wills and the Dudley Docker – and hauled them for seven miles to a more stable spot on the ice they named Patience Camp – while they waited for spring to advance.
In April 1916, the ice broke up and they took to the boats and the open sea, making for Elephant Island, an uninhabited flyspeck named after the enormous seals that rested there. The crew navigated and sailed the three small lifeboats for five days and nights in brutal cold, always wet and frozen by spray from the waves. When they were forced to row, the oars grew thick with ice. Yet when they reached the tiny island, they laughed and cheered and picked up pebbles from the shore – the first time they had set foot on true land for a year and a half.
Despite having reached solid ground, their predicament was still unknown. To get back to civilisation would require a much longer journey. Shackleton chose to make for the island of South Georgia. The Falkland Islands were closer, but the winds blew from that direction and the lifeboats were too frail to beat up against them. Though South Georgia was 800
