South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917; Includes both text and audio files

Rowing carefully and avoiding the blind rollers which showed where sunken rocks lay, we brought the Stancomb Wills towards the opening in the reef. Then, with a few strong strokes we shot through on the top of a swell and ran the boat on to a stony beach. The next swell lifted her a little farther. This was the first landing ever made on Elephant Island, and a thought came to me that the honour should belong to the youngest member of the Expedition, so I told Blackborrow to jump over. He seemed to be in a state almost of coma, and in order to avoid delay I helped him, perhaps a little roughly, over the side of the boat. He promptly sat down in the surf and did not move. Then I suddenly realized what I had forgotten, that both his feet were frost-bitten badly. Some of us jumped over and pulled him into a dry place. It was a rather rough experience for Blackborrow, but, anyhow, he is now able to say that he was the first man to sit on Elephant Island. Possibly at the time he would have been willing to forgo any distinction of the kind. We landed the cook with his blubber-stove, a supply of fuel and some packets of dried milk, and also several of the men. Then the rest of us pulled out again to pilot the other boats through the channel. The James Caird was too heavy to be beached directly, so after landing most of the men from the Dudley Docker and the Stancomb Wills I superintended the transhipment of the James Caird’s gear outside the reef. Then we all made the passage, and within a few minutes the three boats were aground. A curious spectacle met my eyes when I landed the second time. Some of the men were reeling about the beach as if they had found an unlimited supply of alcoholic liquor on the desolate shore. They were laughing uproariously, picking up stones and letting handfuls of pebbles trickle between their fingers like misers gloating over hoarded gold. The smiles and laughter, which caused cracked lips to bleed afresh, and the gleeful exclamations at the sight of two live seals on the beach made me think for a moment of that glittering hour of childhood when the door is open at last and the Christmas-tree in all its wonder bursts upon the vision. I remember that Wild, who always rose superior to fortune, bad and good, came ashore as I was looking at the men and stood beside me as easy and unconcerned as if he had stepped out of his car for a stroll in the park.

Soon half a dozen of us had the stores ashore. Our strength was nearly exhausted and it was heavy work carrying our goods over the rough pebbles and rocks to the foot of the cliff, but we dare not leave anything within reach of the tide. We had to wade knee-deep in the icy water in order to lift the gear from the boats. When the work was done we pulled the three boats a little higher on the beach and turned gratefully to enjoy the hot drink the cook had prepared. Those of us who were comparatively fit had to wait until the weaker members of the party had been supplied; but every man had his pannikin of hot milk in the end, and never did anything taste better. Seal steak and blubber followed, for the seals that had been careless enough to await our arrival on the beach had already given up their lives. There was no rest for the cook. The blubber-stove flared and spluttered fiercely as he cooked, not one meal, but many meals, which merged into a day-long bout of eating. We drank water and ate seal meat until every man had reached the limit of his capacity.

The tents were pitched with oars for supports, and by 3 p.m. our camp was in order. The original framework of the tents had been cast adrift on one of the floes in order to save weight. Most of the men turned in early for a safe and glorious sleep, to be broken only by the call to take a turn on watch. The chief duty of the watchman was to keep the blubber-stove alight, and each man on duty appeared to find it necessary to cook himself a meal during his watch, and a supper before he turned in again.

Wild, Worsley, and Hurley accompanied me on an inspection of our beach before getting into the tents. I almost wished then that I had postponed the examination until after sleep, but the sense of caution that the uncertainties of polar travel implant in one’s mind had made me uneasy. The outlook we found to be anything but cheering. Obvious signs showed that at spring tides the little beach would be covered by the water right up to the foot of the cliffs. In a strong north-easterly gale, such as we might expect to experience at any time, the waves would pound over the scant barrier of the reef and break against the sheer sides of the rocky wall behind us. Well-marked terraces showed the effect of other gales, and right at the back of the beach was a small bit of wreckage not more than three feet long, rounded by the constant chafing it had endured. Obviously we must find some better resting-place. I decided not to share with the men the knowledge of the uncertainties of our situation until they had enjoyed the full sweetness of rest untroubled by the thought that at any minute they might be called to face peril again. The threat of the sea had been our portion during many, many days, and a respite meant much to weary bodies and jaded minds.

The accompanying plan will indicate our exact position more clearly than I can describe it. The cliffs at the back of the beach were inaccessible except at two points where there were steep snow-slopes. We were not worried now about food, for, apart from our own rations, there were seals on the beach and we could see others in the water outside the reef. Every now and then one of the animals would rise in the shallows and crawl up on the beach, which evidently was a recognized place of resort for its kind. A small rocky island which protected us to some extent from the north-westerly wind carried a ringed-penguin rookery. These birds were of migratory habit and might be expected to leave us before the winter set in fully, but in the meantime they were within our reach. These attractions, however, were overridden by the fact that the beach was open to the attack of wind and sea from the north-east and east. Easterly gales are more prevalent than western in that area of the Antarctic during the winter. Before turning in that night I studied the whole position and weighed every chance of getting the boats and our stores into a place of safety out of reach of the water. We ourselves might have clambered a little way up the snow-slopes, but we could not have taken the boats with us. The interior of the island was quite inaccessible. We climbed up one of the slopes and found ourselves stopped soon by overhanging cliffs. The rocks behind the camp were much weathered, and we noticed the sharp, unworn boulders that had fallen from above. Clearly there was a danger from overhead if we camped at the back of the beach. We must move on. With that thought in mind I reached my tent and fell asleep on the rubbly ground, which gave a comforting sense of stability. The fairy princess who would not rest on her seven downy mattresses because a pea lay underneath the pile might not have understood the pleasure we all derived from the irregularities of the stones, which could not possibly break beneath us or drift away; the very searching lumps were sweet reminders of our safety.

Early next morning (April 15) all hands were astir. The sun soon shone brightly and we spread out our wet gear to dry, till the beach looked like a particularly disreputable gipsy camp. The boots and clothing had suffered considerably during our travels. I had decided to send Wild along the coast in the Stancomb Wills to look for a new camping-ground, and he and I discussed the details of the journey while eating our breakfast of hot seal steak and blubber. The camp I wished to find was one where the party could live for weeks or even months in safety, without danger from sea or wind in the heaviest winter gale. Wild was to proceed westwards along the coast and was to take with him four of the fittest men, Marston, Crean, Vincent, and McCarthy. If he did not return before dark we were to light a flare, which would serve him as a guide to the entrance of the channel. The Stancomb Wills pushed off at 11 a.m. and quickly passed out of sight around the island. Then Hurley and I walked along the beach towards the west, climbing through a gap between the cliff and a great detached pillar of basalt. The narrow strip of beach was cumbered with masses of rock that had fallen from the cliffs. We struggled along for two miles or more in the search for a place where we could get the boats ashore and make a permanent camp in the event of Wild’s search proving fruitless, but after three hours’ vain toil we had to turn back. We had found on the far side of the pillar of basalt a crevice in the rocks beyond the reach of all but the heaviest gales. Rounded pebbles showed that the seas reached the spot on occasions. Here I decided to depot ten cases of Bovril sledging ration in case of our having to move away quickly. We could come back for the food at a later date if opportunity offered.

Returning to the camp, we found the men resting or attending to their gear. Clark had tried angling in the shallows off the rocks and had secured one or two small fish. The day passed quietly. Rusty needles were rubbed bright on the rocks and clothes were mended and darned. A feeling of tiredness—due, I suppose, to reaction after the strain of the preceding days—overtook us, but the rising tide, coming farther up the beach than it had done on the day before, forced us to labour at the boats, which we hauled slowly to a higher ledge. We found it necessary to move our makeshift camp nearer the cliff. I portioned out the available ground for the tents, the galley, and other purposes, as every foot was of value. When night arrived the Stancomb Wills was still away, so I had a blubber-flare lit at the head of the channel.

About 8 p.m. we heard a hail in the distance. We could see nothing, but soon like a pale ghost out of the darkness came the boat, the faces of the men showing white in the glare of the fire. Wild ran her on the beach with the swell, and within a couple of minutes we had dragged her to a place of safety. I was waiting Wild’s report with keen anxiety, and my relief was great when he told me that he had discovered a sandy spit seven miles to the west, about 200 yds. long, running out at right angles to the coast and terminating at the seaward end in a mass of rock. A long snow-slope joined the spit at the shore end, and it seemed possible that a “dugout” could be made in the snow. The spit, in any case, would be a great improvement on our narrow beach. Wild added that the place he described was the only possible camping-ground he had seen. Beyond, to the west and south-west, lay a frowning line of cliffs and glaciers, sheer to the water’s edge. He thought that in very heavy gales either from the south-west or east the spit would be spray-blown, but that the seas would not actually break over it. The boats could be run up on a shelving beach.

After hearing this good news I was eager to get away from the beach camp. The wind when blowing was favourable for the run along the coast. The weather had been fine for two days and a change might come at any hour. I told all hands that we would make a start early on the following morning. A newly killed seal provided a luxurious supper of steak and blubber, and then we slept comfortably till the dawn.

The morning of April 17 came fine and clear. The sea was smooth, but in the offing we could see a line of pack, which seemed to be approaching. We had noticed already pack and bergs being driven by the current to the east and then sometimes coming back with a rush to the west. The current ran as fast as five miles an hour, and it was a set of this kind that had delayed Wild on his return from the spit. The rise and fall of the tide was only about five feet at this time, but the moon was making for full and the tides were increasing. The appearance of ice emphasized the importance of getting away promptly. It would be a serious matter to be prisoned on the beach by the pack. The boats were soon afloat in the shallows, and after a hurried breakfast all hands worked hard getting our gear and stores aboard. A mishap befell us when we were launching the boats. We were using oars as rollers, and three of these were broken, leaving us short for the journey that had still to be undertaken. The preparations took longer than I had expected; indeed, there seemed to be some reluctance on the part of several men to leave the barren safety of the little beach and venture once more on the ocean. But the move was imperative, and by 11 a.m. we were away, the James Caird leading. Just as we rounded the small island occupied by the ringed penguins the “willywaw” swooped down from the 2000-ft. cliffs behind us, a herald of the southerly gale that was to spring up within half an hour.

Soon we were straining at the oars with the gale on our bows. Never had we found a more severe task. The wind shifted from the south to the south-west, and the shortage of oars became a serious matter. The James Caird, being the heaviest boat, had to keep a full complement of rowers, while the Dudley Docker and the Stancomb Wills went short and took turns using the odd oar. A big swell was thundering against the cliffs and at times we were almost driven on to the rocks by swirling green waters. We had to keep close inshore in order to avoid being embroiled in the raging sea, which was lashed snow-white and quickened by the furious squalls into a living mass of sprays. After two hours of strenuous labour we were almost exhausted, but we were fortunate enough to find comparative shelter behind a point of rock. Overhead towered the sheer cliffs for hundreds of feet, the sea-birds that fluttered from the crannies of the rock dwarfed by the height. The boats rose and fell in the big swell, but the sea was not breaking in our little haven, and we rested there while we ate our cold ration. Some of the men had to stand by the oars in order to pole the boats off the cliff-face.

After half an hour’s pause I gave the order to start again. The Dudley Docker was pulling with three oars, as the Stancomb Wills had the odd one, and she fell away to leeward in a particularly heavy squall. I anxiously watched her battling up against wind and sea. It would have been useless to take the James Caird back to the assistance of the Dudley Docker since we were hard pressed to make any progress ourselves in the heavier boat. The only thing was to go ahead and hope for the best. All hands were wet to the skin again and many men were feeling the cold severely. We forged on slowly and passed inside a great pillar of rock standing out to sea and towering to a height of about 2400 ft. A line of reef stretched between the shore and this pillar, and I thought as we approached that we would have to face the raging sea outside; but a break in the white surf revealed a gap in the reef and we laboured through, with the wind driving clouds of spray on our port beam. The Stancomb Wills followed safely. In the stinging spray I lost sight of the Dudley Docker altogether. It was obvious she would have to go outside the pillar as she was making so much leeway, but I could not see what happened to her and I dared not pause. It was a bad time. At last, about 5 p.m., the James Caird and the Stancomb Wills reached comparatively calm water and we saw Wild’s beach just ahead of us. I looked back vainly for the Dudley Docker.

Rocks studded the shallow water round the spit and the sea surged amongst them. I ordered the Stancomb Wills to run on to the beach at the place that looked smoothest, and in a few moments the first boat was ashore, the men jumping out and holding her against the receding wave. Immediately I saw she was safe I ran the James Caird in. Some of us scrambled up the beach through the fringe of the surf and slipped the painter round a rock, so as to hold the boat against the backwash. Then we began to get the stores and gear out, working like men possessed, for the boats could not be pulled up till they had been emptied. The blubber-stove was quickly alight and the cook began to prepare a hot drink. We were labouring at the boats when I noticed Rickenson turn white and stagger in the surf. I pulled him out of reach of the water and sent him up to the stove, which had been placed in the shelter of some rocks. McIlroy went to him and found that his heart had been temporarily unequal to the strain placed upon it. He was in a bad way and needed prompt medical attention. There are some men who will do more than their share of work and who will attempt more than they are physically able to accomplish. Rickenson was one of these eager souls. He was suffering, like many other members of the Expedition, from bad salt-water boils. Our wrists, arms, and legs were attacked. Apparently this infliction was due to constant soaking with sea-water, the chafing of wet clothes, and exposure.

I was very anxious about the Dudley Docker, and my eyes as well as my thoughts were turned eastward as we carried the stores ashore; but within half an hour the missing boat appeared, labouring through the spume-white sea, and presently she reached the comparative calm of the bay. We watched her coming with that sense of relief that the mariner feels when he crosses the harbour-bar. The tide was going out rapidly, and Worsley lightened the Dudley Docker by placing some cases on an outer rock, where they were retrieved subsequently. Then he beached his boat, and with many hands at work we soon had our belongings ashore and our three craft above high-water mark. The spit was by no means an ideal camping-ground; it was rough, bleak, and inhospitable—just an acre or two of rock and shingle, with the sea foaming around it except where the snow-slope, running up to a glacier, formed the landward boundary. But some of the larger rocks provided a measure of shelter from the wind, and as we clustered round the blubber-stove, with the acrid smoke blowing into our faces, we were quite a cheerful company. After all, another stage of the homeward journey had been accomplished and we could afford to forget for an hour the problems of the future. 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. Then we dried a little tobacco at the stove and enjoyed our pipes before we crawled into our tents. The snow had made it impossible for us to find the tide-line and we were uncertain how far the sea was going to encroach upon our beach. I pitched my tent on the seaward side of the camp so that I might have early warning of danger, and, sure enough, about 2 a.m. a little wave forced its way under the tent-cloth. This was a practical demonstration that we had not gone far enough back from the sea, but in the semi-darkness it was difficult to see where we could find safety. Perhaps it was fortunate that experience had inured us to the unpleasantness of sudden forced changes of camp. We took down the tents and re-pitched them close against the high rocks at the seaward end of the spit, where large boulders made an uncomfortable resting-place. Snow was falling heavily. Then all hands had to assist in pulling the boats farther up the beach, and at this task we suffered a serious misfortune. Two of our four bags of clothing had been placed under the bilge of the James Caird, and before we realized the danger a wave had lifted the boat and carried the two bags back into the surf. We had no chance of recovering them. This accident did not complete the tale of the night’s misfortunes. The big eight-man tent was blown to pieces in the early morning. Some of the men who had occupied it took refuge in other tents, but several remained in their sleeping-bags under the fragments of cloth until it was time to turn out.

A southerly gale was blowing on the morning of April 18 and the drifting snow was covering everything. The outlook was cheerless indeed, but much work had to be done and we could not yield to the desire to remain in the sleeping-bags. Some sea-elephants were lying about the beach above high-water mark, and we killed several of the younger ones for their meat and blubber. The big tent could not be replaced, and in order to provide shelter for the men we turned the Dudley Docker upside down and wedged up the weather side with boulders. We also lashed the painter and stern-rope round the heaviest rocks we could find, so as to guard against the danger of the boat being moved by the wind. The two bags of clothing were bobbing about amid the brash and glacier-ice to the windward side of the spit, and it did not seem possible to reach them. The gale continued all day, and the fine drift from the surface of the glacier was added to the big flakes of snow falling from the sky. I made a careful examination of the spit with the object of ascertaining its possibilities as a camping-ground. Apparently, some of the beach lay above high-water mark and the rocks that stood above the shingle gave a measure of shelter. It would be possible to mount the snow-slope towards the glacier in fine weather, but I did not push my exploration in that direction during the gale. At the seaward end of the spit was the mass of rock already mentioned. A few thousand ringed penguins, with some gentoos, were on these rocks, and we had noted this fact with a great deal of satisfaction at the time of our landing. The ringed penguin is by no means the best of the penguins from the point of view of the hungry traveller, but it represents food. At 8 a.m. that morning I noticed the ringed penguins mustering in orderly fashion close to the water’s edge, and thought that they were preparing for the daily fishing excursion; but presently it became apparent that some important move was on foot. They were going to migrate, and with their departure much valuable food would pass beyond our reach. Hurriedly we armed ourselves with pieces of sledge-runner and other improvised clubs, and started towards the rookery. We were too late. The leaders gave their squawk of command and the columns took to the sea in unbroken ranks. Following their leaders, the penguins dived through the surf and reappeared in the heaving water beyond. A very few of the weaker birds took fright and made their way back to the beach, where they fell victims later to our needs; but the main army went northwards and we saw them no more. We feared that the gentoo penguins might follow the example of their ringed cousins, but they stayed with us; apparently they had not the migratory habit. They were comparatively few in number, but from time to time they would come in from the sea and walk up our beach. The gentoo is the most strongly marked of all the smaller varieties of penguins as far as colouring is concerned, and it far surpasses the adelie in weight of legs and breast, the points that particularly appealed to us.

The deserted rookery was sure to be above high-water mark at all times; and we mounted the rocky ledge in search of a place to pitch our tents. The penguins knew better than to rest where the sea could reach them even when the highest tide was supported by the strongest gale. The disadvantages of a camp on the rookery were obvious. The smell was strong, to put it mildly, and was not likely to grow less pronounced when the warmth of our bodies thawed the surface. But our choice of places was not wide, and that afternoon we dug out a site for two tents in the debris of the rookery, levelling it off with snow and rocks. My tent, No. 1, was pitched close under the cliff, and there during my stay on Elephant Island I lived. Crean’s tent was close by, and the other three tents, which had fairly clean snow under them, were some yards away. The fifth tent was a ramshackle affair. The material of the torn eight-man tent had been drawn over a rough framework of oars, and shelter of a kind provided for the men who occupied it.

The arrangement of our camp, the checking of our gear, the killing and skinning of seals and sea-elephants occupied us during the day, and we took to our sleeping-bags early. I and my companions in No. 1 tent were not destined to spend a pleasant night. The heat of our bodies soon melted the snow and refuse beneath us and the floor of the tent became an evil smelling yellow mud. The snow drifting from the cliff above us weighted the sides of the tent, and during the night a particularly stormy gust brought our little home down on top of us. We stayed underneath the snow-laden cloth till the morning, for it seemed a hopeless business to set about re-pitching the tent amid the storm that was raging in the darkness of the night.

The weather was still bad on the morning of April 19. Some of the men were showing signs of demoralization. They were disinclined to leave the tents when the hour came for turning out, and it was apparent they were thinking more of the discomforts of the moment than of the good fortune that had brought us to sound ground and comparative safety. The condition of the gloves and headgear shown me by some discouraged men illustrated the proverbial carelessness of the sailor. The articles had frozen stiff during the night, and the owners considered, it appeared, that this state of affairs provided them with a grievance, or at any rate gave them the right to grumble. They said they wanted dry clothes and that their health would not admit of their doing any work. Only by rather drastic methods were they induced to turn to. Frozen gloves and helmets undoubtedly are very uncomfortable, and the proper thing is to keep these articles thawed by placing them inside one’s shirt during the night.

The southerly gale, bringing with it much snow, was so severe that as I went along the beach to kill a seal I was blown down by a gust. The cooking-pots from No. 2 tent took a flying run into the sea at the same moment. A case of provisions which had been placed on them to keep them safe had been capsized by a squall. These pots, fortunately, were not essential, since nearly all our cooking was done over the blubber-stove. The galley was set up by the rocks close to my tent, in a hole we had dug through the debris of the penguin rookery. Cases of stores gave some shelter from the wind and a spread sail kept some of the snow off the cook when he was at work. He had not much idle time. The amount of seal and sea-elephant steak and blubber consumed by our hungry party was almost incredible. He did not lack assistance—the neighbourhood of the blubber-stove had attractions for every member of the party; but he earned everybody’s gratitude by his unflagging energy in preparing meals that to us at least were savoury and satisfying. Frankly, we needed all the comfort that the hot food could give us. The icy fingers of the gale searched every cranny of our beach and pushed relentlessly through our worn garments and tattered tents. The snow, drifting from the glacier and falling from the skies, swathed us and our gear and set traps for our stumbling feet. The rising sea beat against the rocks and shingle and tossed fragments of floe-ice within a few feet of our boats. Once during the morning the sun shone through the racing clouds and we had a glimpse of blue sky; but the promise of fair weather was not redeemed. The consoling feature of the situation was that our camp was safe. We could endure the discomforts, and I felt that all hands would be benefited by the opportunity for rest and recuperation.