chapter 2

Once more they were all on land, and safe. But the wondrous joy that had marked the landing only
thirty hours before was absent now. They realized, as one man said, that “Elephant Island had flattered
only to deceive.” She had revealed her true face to them, and the sight of it was ugly.
Moreover, an examination of the new campsite raised serious doubts about whether it had been
worth the trouble to move. It was a rocky spit about thirty yards across, extending to seaward like a
tongue stuck out from an enormous glacier 150 yards inland. The spit rose steeply from the water, and
its upper reaches appeared to be above the high water mark. But otherwise it was completely naked.
Except at the shoreline, there was not a boulder or even a small rock that might protect a man from the
wind.
“A more inhospitable place could scarcely be imagined,” wrote Macklin. “The gusts increased in
violence and became so strong that we could hardly walk against them, and there was not a lee or a
scrap of shelter anywhere.” As the forecastle hands were setting up No. 4 tent, the wind got under it
and ripped a 4-foot rent in its threadbare material. A few minutes later, No. 5, the old hoop tent, was
caught by a blast of wind that very nearly tore it to shreds. The men made no effort to repair their tents,
for by now it was dark and nobody really cared anyhow. They simply spread the tent cloths as best they
could and weighted them down with rocks. Then they spread out their sleeping bags, which had been
soaked anew during the trip in the boats, then lay down and fell asleep.
Throughout the night the wind continued to shriek down from the mountains. It got hold of the
Docker, the heaviest of the boats, and swung her completely around. During his watch, McIlroy looked
on helplessly as the wind picked up a large bag of ragged old blankets and carried it out to sea. The men
who were sleeping on the ground were slowly covered by an accumulation of snow. And by four o’clock,
everyone was sleeping on the ground, because the tents had threatened to blow away, and had to be
taken down.
The blizzard persisted throughout that day, and into the next. Hardly a man stirred from the meager
protection of his sleeping bag until 11 A.M., when Shackleton ordered all hands out to kill penguins.
OrdeLees wrote: “The blizzard was, if anything, worse. It was impossible to face the wind. The driving
snow rushed down one’s throat as one breathed and choked one.” There were about 200 penguins
altogether, and of that number they managed to secure a total of seventy-seven. “Skinning them with
our already partially frostbitten hands was painful work,” Orde-Lees continued, “for to bare the hand
for very few minutes in such a blizzard means almost certain frostbite. We sought shelter as we could
find . . . but it was only the warmth of the dead penguins that saved our hands.”
The weather cleared briefly during the night, and the hulking cliffs of the island stood out in silhouette
against the star-filled sky. By morning, a fresh blizzard had begun, but it was not quite so bad as the last
one.

It was April 20, a day notable for only one reason: Shackleton finally made official what everyone had
expected for a long time. He would take a party of five men and set sail in the Caird for South Georgia
to bring relief. They would leave as soon as the Caird could be made ready and provisioned for the trip.
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The news came as no surprise to anyone. In fact a formal announcement was unnecessary. The
subject had been discussed openly even long before the party had left Patience Camp. They knew that
whatever island they might ultimately reach, a boat journey of some sort would be necessary to bring
rescue to the party as a whole. Even the destination, illogical as it might look on a map, had been settled
to everyone’s satisfaction.
There were three possible objectives. The nearest of these was Cape Horn, the island of Tierra del
Fuego—“Land of Fire,” which lay about 500 miles to the northwest Next was the settlement of Port
Stanley in the Falkland Islands, some 550 miles very nearly due north. Finally there was South Georgia,
slightly more than 800 miles to the northeast. Though the distance to South Georgia was more than
half again as far as the journey to Cape Horn, weather conditions made South Georgia the most se sible
choice.
An easterly current, said to travel 60 miles a day, prevails in the Drake Passage, and almost incessant
gales blow in the same direction. To reach either Cape Horn or the Falkland Islands would mean beating
to windward against both of these colossal forces; it was enough to dare a 22-foot boat on these
stormwracked waters without trying to drive her to windward. En route to South Georgia, on the other
hand, the prevailing winds would be generally astern—at least in theory.
All this had been discussed and discussed again. And though the Caird’s chances of actually reaching
South Georgia were remote, a great many men genuinely wanted to be taken along. The prospect of
staying behind, of waiting and not knowing, of possibly wintering on this hateful island was far from
attractive.
Shackleton had already made up his mind, after long discussions with Wild, not only as to who should
be taken, but who should not be left behind. Worsley would be indispensable. They would travel
perhaps a thousand miles across the stormiest ocean on the globe. The ultimate goal was an island no
more than 25 miles wide at its widest point. To guide an open boat that distance, under conditions that
were frightening even to contemplate, and then to strike a pinpoint on the chart was a task that would
sorely tax even Worsley’s skill as a navigator. After him, Shackleton chose Crean, McNeish, Vincent, and
McCarthy.
Crean was tough, a seasoned sailor who did as he was told. And Shackleton was not sure that Crean’s
rough, tactless nature would lend itself well to a period of enforced and perhaps long waiting. McNeish
was now fifty-seven years old, and really not up to the journey. But both Shackleton and Wild felt that
he was still a potential troublemaker and not a good man to be left behind. Furthermore, if the Caird
were damaged by ice—a possibility which was far from remote—McNeish would prove invaluable. Jack
Vincent bore the same stigma as McNeish—his compatibility under trying conditions was open to
doubt, and he might fare badly if left behind. On the positive side, he had behaved well during the
journey from Patience Camp, and his simple strength was in his favor. By contrast, Timothy McCarthy
had never caused anyone a moment’s trouble, and he was universally liked. Shackleton picked him for
no more complicated reasons than that he was an experienced seaman, and that he was built like a
bull.
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As soon as Shackleton made the decision official, McNeish and Marston went to work removing the
planks that had been added to the Docker in order to fashion a sort of decking over the Caird. The
blizzard made working conditions miserable.
The rest of the men were busy trying to create some degree of comfort. A new shelter was made for
the galley out of packing cases, rocks, and some pieces of canvas. Because of the physical conditions of
Blackboro and Rickenson, who was still weak from his heart attack, Shackleton granted permission for
the Docker to be upended to form a shelter for the members of No. 5 tent. The men did what they could
to make this shelter weather-proof by packing snow and mud along one side, and draping blankets,
coats, and odd bits of canvas from the other. But nothing could be done to dry the ground beneath the
boat, which was a stinking mess of melted snow in which penguin guano had dissolved. The discomfort
was so intense that even sleeping was almost impossible. The blizzard had continued for three days and
nights. The winds, which Hussey estimated reached 120 mph, had driven the dustlike snow into
everything—even to the very foot of their sleeping bags, which had never even begun to dry out from
the boat journey.
The strength of the wind made it perilous at times even to venture outside. Occasionally small blocks
of ice were hurled through the air. Once a 10-gallon cooking pot was whisked from alongside the galley
and carried almost out of sight before it was dropped into the sea. The forecastle hands lost their hoosh
pot when it was put down on a rock for a moment; it simply disappeared. Another time McLeod spread
out his Burberry parka to dry with two stones “as large as his head on top of it.” When he turned his
back for a moment, the wind blew the rocks off, then snatched the parka away. Some men had their
mittens blown off. Though a canvas covering was placed over the pile of stores and anchored down by
a circle of large rocks, the wind seemed to reach underneath and snitch away small articles.
In spite of these miserable conditions, the work of preparing the Caird for her journey went o the
following day. McNeish, Marston, and McLeod attached the runners of a dismantled sledge across the
upper sides of the boat to form a framework for decking her over. Pieces of plywood from the cases of
stores were nailed over these, and a canvas covering of sorts was begun. The mainmast was removed
from the Docker and lashed inside the Caird’s keel in the hope that she would not break in two when
she encountered bad weather.
Periodically Worsley climbed to a ledge of rock about 150 feet high near the penguin rookery to
observe the ice formation. A narrow belt of broken floes lay offshore, but it did not look too thick to get
through. However, Worsley’s primary concern was the continuing thick weather which prevented him
from obtaining a sight with which to check his only remaining chronometer. Without a sight they would
have to rely on the hope that the chronometer was accurate.
Greenstreet’s frostbitten hands had recovered somewhat, and he and Bakewell were given the job
of providing the Caird with ballast. Together they sewed shale into canvas sacks, about a hundred
pounds to each sack. The canvas was frozen, and they had to thaw it out a foot at a time by holding it
close to the blubber stove. The heat and the rough stones caused the frostbite blisters in Greenstreet’s
hands to break and then bleed.
There were other significant preparations for the journey. Hurley buttonholed Shackleton, who
signed the following letter in Hurley’s diary:
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21st April, 1916
To whom this may concern viz. my executors assigns etc. Under is my signature to the following
instructions.
In the event of my not surviving the boat journey to South Georgia I here instruct Frank Hurley to
take complete charge & responsibility for exploitation of all films & photographic reproductions of all
films & negatives taken on this Expedition the aforesaid films & negatives to become the property of
Frank Hurley after due exploitation, in which, the moneys to be paid to my executors will be according
to the contract made at the start of the expedition. The exploitation expires after a lapse of eighteen
months from date of first public display.
I bequeath the big binoculars to Frank Hurley.
E. H. SHACKLETON
Witness
JOHN VINCENT

The next day the blizzard rose to new heights. Several men were cut on the face by bits of flying ice
and rock. All work except the simplest cooking was out of the question, and the men stayed in their
sleeping bags all day. Wild predicted that if conditions didn’t improve shortly, some of the weaker men
would not survive. And Shackleton met secretly with Macklin to ask how long he thought the men who
were remaining behind could hold out under such conditions. Macklin said he thought about a month.
Fortunately the wind eased considerably during the night, though a heavy snowfall continued. The
temperature dropped sharply. In the morning McNeish got busy once more with the Caird. All that
remained was to finish the canvas decking. Alf Cheetham and Timothy McCarthy were put to sewing
the bits of canvas together, but in the bitter cold it was so stiff they had to pull the needle through it
with a pair of pliers at every stitch.
At the same time, the welfare of the men who would be left behind was under consideration. For a
while they thought of building a hut of stones, but all the available rocks had been worn by the action
of the sea until they were very nearly round; since there was nothing to use for cement this plan had to
be abandoned. Instead, a party of men with picks and shovels began to dig a cave in the face of the
glacier at the head of the spit. But the ice proved to be almost rock-hard and it was slow work.
Shackleton spent the day supervising the various activities. He saw that the Caird was very early
finished, and announced that she would sail as soon as the weather permitted. As evening came on and
the weather looked more promising, Shackleton ordered Orde-Lees and Vincent to melt ice to fill the
two water casks to be carried aboard the Caird. They made every effort to find fresh-water ice from the
glacier, but all of it had been tainted slightly by salt water spray that had frozen against the face of the
glacier. When it was ready, Orde-Lees took a sample of the melted water to Shackleton, who tasted it.
He noted the trace of salt, but he said it would do all right.
Shackleton spent almost the whole night talking with Wild about a hundred different subjects,
ranging from what should be done in the event that a rescue party failed to arrive within a reasonable
length of time to the distribution of tobacco. When there was nothing more to discuss, Shackleton
wrote a letter in his log, which he left with Wild:
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April 23rd, 1916 Elephant Island
Dear Sir
In the event of my not surviving the boat journey to South Georgia you will do your best for the rescue
of the party. You are in full command from the time the boat leaves this island, and all hands are under
your orders. On your return to England you are to communicate with the Committee. I wish you, Lees
& Hurley to write the book. You watch my interests. In another letter you will find the terms as agreed
for lecturing you to do England Great Britain & Continent. Hurley the U.S.A. I have every confidence in
you and always have had, May God prosper your work and your life. You can convey my love to my
people and say I tried my best.
Yours sincerely
E. H. SHACKLETON
FRANK WILD