7. All Well?!
The James Caird left Elephant Island on 24 April 1916. As Perce, himself, recounted later:
On April 24th he [Shackleton] started on his
desperate venture. With 5 others he set sail in a small lifeboat in an attempt
to reach South Georgia, over 800 miles away across the most tempestuous seas in
the world.[1]
After seventeen harrowing days in no more than
a supped-up lifeboat, the six exhausted men reached King Haakon Bay on the
coast of South Georgia. The physical courage and mental persistence of Crean,
Vincent and McCarthy, as well as Worsley’s incredible navigational skills,
Shackleton’s leadership qualities and McNish’s carpentry all contributed to the
success of their almost unbelievable, epic journey.[2]
In describing the tests of endurance faced by
the James Caird party, Perce later
spoke rather nonchalantly about the whole affair: after their ‘grim battle with
the elements they finally reached South Georgia’ and having ‘rested awhile they
crossed the island’.[3]
Leaving McCarthy behind in charge of McNish and Vincent—too weak at that point to
survive another trek—Shackleton, Crean and Worsley set out to cross South
Georgia on foot. The island is high, mountainous and mostly covered with
glaciers, ice caps and snowfields. With a sketchy map, with no detail of the
island’s interior, the three began the crossing at 2am, 19 May.
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of
sight–
Why, that’s the best game of them all![4]
After thirty-six hours of constant
dangers—glaciers, freezing temperatures, the pitch dark of night and a
terrifying slide of at least a thousand feet on a rope toboggan—the two
Irishmen and the New Zealander reached Stromness Harbour whaling station. They
were ragged, frozen, exhausted and likely close to delirium and collapse.
Despite having dined with him often before the Endurance left in 1914, the station manager did not recognise the
ghostly Shackleton on their arrival.[5]
Following the collection of his three comrades
sheltering under the James Caird on
the opposite side of South Georgia, the priority for Shackleton was the rescue
of the party stranded on Elephant Island. As Perce said, ‘Sir Ernest Shackleton
had been making desperate attempts to reach us, but owing to the unsuitable
vessels at his command he was unable to force the pack which encircled the
island’.[6] It
was to take four attempts for Shackleton to return to Elephant Island and he
felt the pressure of his duty to his crew.
Trying to describe his motivations to his
companion, Begbie, in later years, Shackleton cut to the point: ‘it was like
this: the thought of those fellows on Elephant Island kept us going all the
time.’ Begbie recalled Shackleton pacing the floor of a beautiful drawing-room,
smoking and telling him the ‘mental side of the story’. Shackleton said that as
himself, Crean and Worsley were crossing South Georgia, they didn’t speak of
the three men in King Haakon Bay or the twenty-two stranded on Elephant Island,
but each of them knew that his two friends were thinking of them all the time.[7]
Earlier, on Elephant Island, Worsley had come
to realise how strongly Shackleton felt about his personal and moral
responsibility and accountability for the men under his command.
Shackleton had always insisted that the
ultimate responsibility for anything that befell us was his and his only ...
His idea was that we had trusted him, that we had placed ourselves in his
hands, and that should anything happen to any one of us, he was morally responsible.
His attitude was almost patriarchal.[8]
After the third failed attempt to reach his
men, Shackleton’s disappointment was particularly heartfelt. His stress was
intense, noticeable by his reluctance to speak to many people, and was in, what
Worsley called ‘a silence more eloquent than words’.[9] Shackleton did, however,
write to his daughter, Cecily—then aged nine—to tell her of his anguish:
We were not able to get back through the ice
to our men, and I had to turn back, and now must wait for a bigger ship. I am
very anxious about them, for they must have so little to eat now, unless they
manage to get seals and penguins.[10]
Begbie said of his friend that he
was not only willing to die for his friends,
but willing to keep on living for them, even when death would have been like a
drought of nectar.[11]
His men’s lives were heavy on Shackleton’s
conscious but he would persevere, with the assistance of Crean and Worsley, to
do all in his power for the safety and wellbeing on his beloved crew.
*
Towards the end of August 1916 the situation
on Elephant Island was growing bleak. Hussey wrote that ‘everyone except Wild was
becoming listless’.[12]
Some had abandoned hope of rescue and grown apathetic. On 28 August there was a
relatively clear sea and Wild had a feeling that it would be the moment of
Shackleton’s return and Worsley recalled Wild as saying:
…the pack disappeared to the north-east,
leaving a comparatively clear sea. For some reason I thought you would come
this time. God knows we needed you. We had become terribly anxious about you as
week after week went by…[13]
On the morning of 30 August, Wild was
preparing lunch of limpets, seaweed and seal bones that had been collected
together for a stew. Hurley and Marston had been looking out for a ship as they
had done regularly on fine days. Marston’s shout of ‘SHIP O!’ was mistaken for
a call about lunch and was initially ignored, but when he then came dashing
maniacally back to Wild, the enormity of his sighting was recognised. He
gasped, ‘Wild, there’s a ship. Let’s burn a flare.’ Chaos ensued. The men ran
about looking for canvas and clothes to wave and burn as a signal. They
recklessly tore the canvas walls from the hut. In the maelstrom, the hoosh pot
was knocked over and as Wild said, ‘it will show you how excited we were when I
tell you that nobody paid any attention to that’.[14] Having rushed to the top of
Penguin Hill, Wild had put a pick in their remaining tin of petrol and set
coats, mitts and socks alight.[15]
The men gathered their few possessions in a
flurry and dashed out of the ‘Snuggery’. Hurley hurriedly grabbed hold of the
precious boxes containing the glass plates which held his photographic work and
visual record of their adventure. Other valuable items included the log book of
the Endurance and The Holy Bible that was given to
Shackleton by Queen Alexandra on an official visit to the Endurance in July 1914, shortly before its launch. She had written
a personal message, which Shackleton had torn out and kept when discarding
needless weight. Inspired by Psalm 107:24, Queen Alexandra inscribed the ship’s
Bible with the following words:
May the Lord help you to do your deeds, guide
you through all dangers by land and sea. May you see the works of the Lord and
all His wonders in the deep.[16]
The rest of that Bible was kept, however, by
McLeod, a devout Scot, who smuggled it along, thinking it unlucky to throw away
scripture.[17]
As the men on Elephant Island ran about
ecstatically, Shackleton, Crean and Worsley stood on the deck of the Yelcho anxiously.[18] Sir Ernest peered intensely
through his binoculars and after counting aloud all twenty-two men on the
island, they cheerfully shook each other’s hands and stood in a deep emotional
silence. The scene was recalled by Worsley:
He [Shackleton] put his glasses back in their
case and turned to me, his face showing more emotion than I had ever known it
show before. Crean had joined us, and we were all unable to speak. Then
Shackleton galvanised into life. It sounds trite, but years literally seemed to
drop from him as he stood before us. In that moment he had sloughed the
never-ceasing anxiety of four months.[19]
As the Yelcho
turned and directed straight for the camp, the men cheered, waving flags,
jumpers, canvas and all available. Wild recognised the figure of Shackleton on
the ship and was close to tears. McKernan pictured the sight of the men’s ‘unflappable
leader, the champion stoic… working hard not to cry’.[20] As Blackborow couldn’t
walk, he was ‘carried to a high rock and propped up in his sleeping bag, so
that he could view the wonderful scene’.[21] He was still the weakest
and the youngest of the crew and, as Wild put it, ‘he should have a front seat
in the stalls and not miss any of the wonderful show’. Worsley remarked that
the simple act of generosity was typical of Wild.[22] Orde Lees praised Wild and
the ‘buoyant optimism, dogged determination and calm demeanour’ of his
leadership on Elephant Island. Shackleton, who had left twenty-two men in the
hands of his trusted friend and companion, went one further: ‘I think without
doubt that all the stranded party owe their lives to him [Wild].’[23]
As the Yelcho
neared the island, Shackleton roared, ‘Are you all well?’ Amid a cacophony
of joyful yelling and cheering, Wild shouted, ‘All safe; all well, Boss!’ Despite their manic excitement, the men
glimpsed the smile that lit up the Boss’s face as he breathed ‘Thank God!’[24]
Shackleton himself did not step foot on the island; he knew there was no time
for delays as there was a heavy sea running and the pack could be unleashed by
a simple change of the winds. The rescue was rapidly carried out and it took no
more than an hour to ferry all men from the island out to the Yelcho, a short distance offshore.[25]
Finally the rescue was complete and, as
Worsley contemplated, it ‘was at 1 p.m. on August 30th, 1916—a hundred and
twenty-eight days since we had left them—days covering the worst of the
Antarctic winter’.[26]
Later, with access to the men’s writings, Shackleton wrote that the day of the
rescue was described by many as a ‘day of wonder’.[27]
As the Yelcho
sailed away and the island faded into the distance, Macklin remained on deck
pondering their remains left behind:
I could still see my Burberry [jacket]
flapping in the breeze on the hillside—no doubt it will flap there to the
wonderment of gulls and penguins till one of our familiar[gales] blows it all
to ribbons.[28]
Shackleton was later noted to have often told
his lecture audiences and varied listeners that the highest compliment that his
men ever paid him was their exclamations on Elephant Island of ‘We knew you’d
come back!’ He was deeply moved by the sentiment that the men held for him on
his return. He told Begbie that the most touching part about writing South was reading the diary entries that
showed this regard:
Simultaneously we burst into a cheer, and then
one said to another, ‘Thank God, the Boss is safe.’ For I think that his safety
was of more concern to us than was our own.[29]
This feeling was, of course, mutual. On their
arrival at the whaling station on South Georgia after their feat of colossal
human persistence, spirit and endurance, Shackleton, Crean and Worsley were
relieved not so much for their own safety, but that their companions would then
be themselves saved. ‘There are lots of good things in the world, Shackleton
said, ‘but I’m not sure that comradeship is not the best of them all.’[30]
Overjoyed with the survival of all of his
Weddell Sea men, Shackleton felt proud of their trust in him and in the bonds
of drudgery and endurance that held them together. The words of Lord Tennyson’s
poem Ulysses seem all too
appropriate:
…My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and
thought with me—
That ever with a frolic and welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine… [31]
[1] ‘A lecture given by Perce Blackborow’, The James Caird Society Journal Vol. 6 (2012), p. 10.
[2] For the James
Caird boat journey, see: Shackleton, South,
chapters 11-13; Worsley, Epic of Polar
Adventure, chapters 6-7; Smith, Shackleton,
chapter 35.
[3] ‘A lecture given by Perce Blackborow’, The James Caird Society Journal Vol. 6 (2012), p. 10.
[4] R. W. Service, ‘The Quitter,’ see: Mayer, A Life in Poetry, p. 108;
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-quitter/.
[5] For the crossing of South Georgia, see:
Shackleton, South, chapter 14;
Worsley, Epic of Polar Adventure,
chapter 8; Smith, Shackleton, chapter
36.
[6] ‘A lecture given by Perce Blackborow’, The James Caird Society Journal Vol. 6 (2012), p. 11.
[7] For this discussion and Shackleton’s comments
on the nature and importance of leadership, as well as the spiritual
experiences on South Georgia, see: Begbie, Shackleton,
pp. 44-61.
[8] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 80.
[9] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 173.
[10] Mill, Life
of Sir Ernest Shackleton, p. 234
[11] Begbie, Shackleton,
pp. 88-89.
[12] Smith, Shackleton,
p. 373.
[13] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 191.
[14] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, pp. 191-192.
[15] King (ed.), South, p. 165.
[16] King (ed.), South, p. 72. Psalm 107:24: These see the works of the Lord, and
his wonders in the deep. (KJV)
[17] Smith, Shackleton,
p. 373; King (ed.), South, p. 72.
[18] For their previous three failed attempts to
reached Elephant Island, see: Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, pp. 170-176; Smith, Shackleton,
pp. 367-371.
[19] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 181.
[20] McKernan, Shackleton’s
Stowaway, p. 266.
[21] Shackleton, South, p. 264.
[22] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 193.
[23] Smith, Shackleton,
p. 374.
[24] Mill, Life
of Sir Ernest Shackleton, p. 237.
[25] Smith, Shackleton,
p. 373.
[26] Worsley, Epic
of Polar Adventure, p. 183.
[27] King (ed.), South, p. 164.
[28] Lansing, Endurance,
p. 281.
[29] Begbie, Shackleton,
p. 87.
[30] Begbie, Shackleton,
p. 44.
[31] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659