Endurance Page 14

  I fear my neck will be broken, but the back of my head smacks against a flap of blubber and I am tossed over further into what I realise is the bowel and intestines. I let go the hurricane lamp. It falls and goes out. Darkness is complete. I am smothered and unable to draw breath as I choke on what I imagine is undigested krill. I am grabbing and clawing at whatever I can, but all that I touch is slimy and gives way. It is an enormous effort to bring myself upright in the pitch-dark, but I manage it. Lifting my head above the blood and gore, I gasp for air. In seconds I am climbing and leaping the ribbed walls of my prison, but to no avail. I am drenched, and inside this once warm-blooded creature it is now below freezing.

  At the top of my lungs I call out, ‘Hello,’ and then, ‘Help!’ but I hear nothing in reply. My predicament seems bleak and I regret my unkind thoughts about our Norwegian hosts. I continue to call out hopelessly from the belly of the beast.

  After what seems an eternity I hear footsteps and see a glimmer of light and then a face wearing a look of incredulity. It is one of the whalers. With ropes and lamps, I am saved. I can’t hide my relief, but nor can I join in the laughter and cries of ‘Jonah’. I am taken to the manager’s house for a hot bath. My best clothing I never see again. My mortification is complete and I will not be sad to leave this place.

  However, first I have to endure being dressed in my host’s clothing and returned to the company of my colleagues and the Norwegians in a large dining room, its walls brightly painted red and blue. Each of the Norwegians insists on shaking my hand. I sense Shackleton watching me. Eventually I find a seat next to Wild, who is listening intently to our host Jacobsen recounting previous attempts to enter the Weddell Sea.

  ‘Ten years ago,’ says Jacobsen, ‘my father-in-law was master on Antarctic. His ship is designed for ice but is crushed to matchsticks . . . and then two years ago, before Germany and England decide to have this crazy war, Wilhelm Filchner wants to go exactly where you want to go, because the map says the Weddell Sea takes him furthest south. But the map is only what people think is there, of where they think there is land. And the map does not show ice. The Weddell Sea ice takes his ship, Deutschland, in a circle for a year. Filchner is lucky and survives. Now he is exploring the French countryside with the German army.’

  Jacobsen takes a puff of his cigar. ‘And the ice this year, I tell you, is far worse than 1912. That is why you should wait and try next spring.’

  Shackleton leans back and sticks out his jaw. ‘If I had known the war would drag on, I would not have come. But now I am here I cannot wait a year. This is when I am here. This is when I will go. If the ice stops us, then we will make camp and wait out the winter. What we can achieve in Antarctica will be of such importance it will outlast a war in Europe. But for Antarctica, you know, every continent in the world is occupied.’

  ‘Ja, and by the time you come back,’ Jacobsen interrupts, ‘they will mostly be occupied by Germans.’ Shackleton ignores this quip.

  ‘We will be the first to cross the Antarctic continent. No one before us could hope to do this. We are the ones to do it. Besides, Britain already has many war heroes, but the world also needs explorers.’

  ‘Like Scott.’

  ‘Yes, Fridjhof, like Scott—but, unlike Scott, I plan to bring my men home to their families.’

  Jacobsen puffs contentedly and smiles across at Shackleton. ‘Ja, the plan is good. But the ice is real. Here is how you will know I am correct. In summers past we do not see icebergs near South Georgia. But this summer they are there. When you leave South Georgia and turn south, I suggest you keep a sharp lookout.’

  I am a mere photographer, yet I can’t help but reflect that Jacobsen has lived here on the edge of the Weddell Sea for many years. Shackleton has dismissed Jacobsen’s concerns not because they are open to question, but because the boss has made up his mind. It is plain also that neither Wild nor Worsley will challenge him. Worsley is no Davis and Frank Wild is one of those incredibly talented people who latch on to a charismatic leader and follow without demur.

  Shackleton had been waiting for a ship due in from Buenos Aires, hopefully with mail from civilisation and the latest war news—and, I hope, perhaps a letter from Ma or Elsa. But when at dawn on Saturday, 5 December 1914 there is still no ship in sight, Endurance hands its mailbag to Sitka, raises anchor and sails out of Grytviken. Within the day the scientists on board are seeing their first icebergs, just as Jacobsen had predicted.

  Endurance was at war, although I did not realise it then. It was more like an elaborate sport, just how far south she could reach, how much of the polar world she could conquer. It was the start of a struggle Endurance could never win. She was on her maiden voyage. She battled gamely, but the odds were overwhelming. She had not been built for the Antarctic. Endurance was designed for sightseeing tours of Greenland, made redundant by the tensions in Europe. She was strongly built, with a steel prow for brushes with icebergs, but her hull was designed for comfortable cruising, not rounded and reinforced for wintering in a frozen sea.

  On Sunday 6 December I record in my diary that Endurance is at latitude fifty-six degrees south, longitude twenty-seven degrees west. She is pushed southwards by strong nor’-westerly winds and a high following sea. Her scientists are fascinated by the infinite variety of weathered icebergs that she passes. The bergs are in constant collision with the rolling southerly swells, which crash and spray spume across the ice monoliths. Progress is rapid, and a day later Endurance is at fifty-seven degrees south. Broken fragments of bergs and icefloe accumulate, and soon we are in pack ice which looks to be thickening. Endurance turns nor’-east to escape back into open water. By the ninth, Endurance has had to retreat north and is at latitude fifty-four degrees. She sails east and, when she can, south-east, skirting the edge of the pack. Eventually the line of the pack falls away to the south and we start to make headway.

  Saturday 12 December and Endurance reaches sixty degrees south and longitude seventeen degrees. This far south the longitude changes quickly. The sea is again littered with loose icefloe. As we progress, the ice forms extensive plates. Worsley navigates around the more solid-looking pieces till these are unavoidable and Endurance is forced to bump her way through. The wind is favourable and all square-rigged sails are set to drive the ship through the pressure of the pack. Occasionally she cops a heavy blow on her propeller and stalls and even spins a little in the ice. Worsley stays constantly at her helm and is visibly anxious as he guides her through. He heads straight downwind to the sou’-east to build up momentum, then pulls the wheel hard to starboard to strike the icepack in hope of forcing an opening. Once he breaks through, he straightens up to regain speed. Above the sound of the wind is the now-constant grind of ice on the timber hull. The ice claws at Endurance from bow to stern, but lets her through.

  Below decks the scraping noise has everyone on edge. Shudders vibrate through the hull as the bow of Endurance collides with unseen icefloes or rises up momentarily until its solid weight crashes back down through the plate ice.

  Sixty-one degrees south and the wind goes round to the south-west, full of sleet and snow. Visibility is poor. Endurance pauses, stops, drifts sideways. Square-rigged sails are furled. There is no steerage. An anchor is dropped onto the ice to keep head to wind. Engines are run to stop ice forming around the propeller.

  The next day, the wind shifts to the west and sails are hoisted. Endurance breaks through into open water and good progress is made. The low clouds are driven away and, when the sun comes out, the brilliance of sunlight and reflection from the ice is overwhelming. Our sleek black vessel enters a world of dark blue ocean and floating islands of plate ice which stretch to the horizon. Alongside ancient honeycombed bergs, the ocean turns aquamarine and turquoise. Bergs are dotted with sleeping seals, sea leopards and my old friends, Adelie penguins. The Adelies at least are curious at the entry of Endurance into their pristine frozen world, which until this century had withstood the ambitions of man. I hoist m
y full plate camera and cine camera to the highest point in the rigging and up I go to perch by myself for hours, far away from the personalities and hectic activities on board. As far south as I can observe from my vantage point, all that I see is ice.

  The Grytviken whalers have not exaggerated. It is a bad season for ice. But we are committed to our voyage. There is no turning back for Endurance. The engine alone now does most of the work. Worsley has come to enjoy using his ship as an elegant battering ram. Despite the seriousness of our predicament, he is childlike in targeting floes that are the most populated by sleeping seals and groups of chattering penguins. The seals are oblivious until tipped unceremoniously into the water and the penguins scatter port and starboard of the bow, cluck-cluck-clucking furiously in disbelief. Worsley calls for Scottish biologist Robert Clark to come to the helm, and then berates Clark for not answering the penguins that are calling out his name. Even Clark, a man of few words, manages a smile. Fortunately he is good-humoured, as this becomes a frequent jest.

  Every so often Endurance is brought to a halt by a solid section of floe. The engine is reversed, then Worsley chooses the most likely point and gives it full steam ahead. We all brace for collision, and as the ice shatters and gives way we breathe a sigh of relief. Occasionally, however, the ice holds and the bow of Endurance rises up on the floe. We wait in suspense to see if we are to be repelled. Gradually the weight of the keel forces a crack and the ice fractures in a line of water ahead of us into which Endurance steams before the lead closes over.

  Tuesday 22 December and we are sixty-three degrees south. It is slow-going. Every so often a new lead in the ice opens that takes us several miles further south. I look out for icebergs to film. They have the advantage over many subjects in that they fill the viewfinder, are stationary, and are luminescent and infinite in variety. The living wildlife, of course, is more elusive. I have seen a number of blue whales, but with rare exception I am unable to capture them on film. Most days Frank Wild shoots one or two seals to add to the larder as their steaks are a popular item on the menu. Overhead, Endurance has a regular following of petrels and terns which swoop on any scraps.

  Life on board Endurance has fallen into a routine of three eight-hour watches under Shackleton, Wild and Worsley respectively. Each shift is a mix of scientists and sailors, no matter how incompatible. Orde-Lees confides in me he has never before peeled a spud nor scrubbed a floor and thinks it a poor allocation of resources by Shackleton. I have to show him how to take the eyes out of a potato without losing a finger. He is particularly unhappy the morning he and I have to shovel coal into bags for heating the planned expedition hut.

  ‘But this is work the sailors should do,’ he says, holding the bag open as I am, apparently, better at shovelling.

  The days pass quickly as Endurance continues to push south. Blackborow has tacked up a calendar in the mess and draws a black cross through each day that passes. Without this the days and weeks become indistinguishable. There is now barely any night to segment each day. It is still light at midnight. I sleep whenever I am too tired to work in the darkroom. My rest is disturbed by the comings and goings of the crew, and the shuddering of Endurance as she continues her odyssey southwards. And at all hours of the night and day there is the clawing and scratching of ice on the hull, sometimes raucous and sometimes subdued whispering: ‘This far and no further, this far and no further.’

  Christmas Day finds Endurance at latitude sixty-five degrees south. Christmas luncheon is a special occasion for which tablecloths are turned over to hide their worst stains and a great variety of tinned delicacies are served, including mock turtle soup, whitebait, jugged hare, mince pies and figs and dates. Hussey entertains with a banjo and later on, outside, he entrances an appreciative audience of Adelie penguins on a nearby floe.

  I feel I do not know the other expedition members as well as I did on Aurora. It may be because I am the only Australian. I sense I am a little too loud for their liking and they don’t appreciate my clowning around. There are none I would call close friends. As a result I am more subdued, not the practical joker I was with the AAE.

  Boxing Day sees the start of a four-day south-westerly gale that stops all progress and forces Endurance back, losing many miles of hard-won gains. On 29 December, Worsley ambitiously rams Endurance between two floes, but they resist, causing minor hull damage. Endurance is wedged and can move neither forwards nor back. More sails are hoisted and the engine driven at full steam, but the ice has a firm grip. Frank Wild leads a work party overboard to attack the ice with picks and shovels. The cold conditions are conducive to vigorous work, and after an hour or so Endurance twists free and we quickly scramble up the side before we are left behind.

  By New Year’s Eve, having traversed several long leads, Endurance crosses the Antarctic Circle. The sun does not set at all but, despite this, the evening produces a most spectacular ‘sunset’ with gold and crimson light reflected between the clouds and icefloes. The scientists—Wordie, James and Clark—are good companions and have invited me to a quiet celebration in Clark’s cabin which, being near to the boiler, is not as cold as elsewhere.

  ‘Here ye go, lads,’ says Jock Wordie, as he places a brown paper parcel on the table. ‘Ye must hae a piece of me mother’s Hogmanay cake.’

  ‘But Jock, ye bin saving it all this time,’ says Clark.

  ‘Well, tis auld lang syne today, I’ll gie ye a wee piece each.’

  ‘It’s got icing,’ I observe as he cuts the string and unwraps the cake.

  ‘Not usually,’ Clark replies.

  ‘Och, lads,’ says Wordie in dismay. ‘It’s not icing; it’s mould. Ye better hae two pieces each!’

  The first and second of January 1915 see Endurance in thin, newly formed ice crust which she easily cuts through. I have suspended a small timber platform from the bowsprit and secure cinefilm of the steel-edged prow carving up the floe, the ice lifted and tossed port and starboard. I also take pictures looking down on the deck from the foretop yardarm. On Saturday 2 January, the ice providentially opens and Endurance covers one hundred and twenty-four miles by noon. Our latitude is now sixty-nine degrees south and Worsley estimates we are a hundred miles north-west of land. But the favourable conditions don’t last, and the next day it is again gale-force winds from the east-sou’-east. Worsley tucks Endurance in behind a berg some hundred-and-twenty-feet high to which we attach an ice anchor. On the fourth, the ice anchor is taken up to avoid collision with large moving bergs. By now the snowdrift is so thick it is impossible to see anything beyond the rigging. When the drift clears Endurance is walled in to the south by high pack ice and is forced north and nor’-east.

  This morning climbing down from my bunk I accidentally waken Clark in the bunk below when my stockinged foot steps on his face.

  ‘Wha tha fook! Hurly-burly,’ he cries out.

  ‘Bloody hell, Clark, have I broken your jaw?’

  ‘It’s nae my jaw I’m worried aboot. Ye haven’t washed ye socks since ye came aboard!’ Luckily he is a good sport. Before the day ends we sight blue whales and sperm whales in the distance. Endurance reaches 70 degrees south.

  By the sixth adverse winds again have Endurance moored to a large icefloe. Conditions do not look like improving and the dogs are taken down on the ice for exercise. They are very excited. They have been losing condition chained up on deck and snap at passers-by. They have been teased mercilessly by Mr Chippy, who delights in strutting along the tops of their kennels, just beyond the reach of their chains.

  The following day sees little improvement. Endurance is surrounded by heavy coastal formations of ice, which have been pressured into large hummocks well above the height of the bulwarks. Shackleton and Worsley decide to lift the ice anchor and look for an open lead heading south. As Endurance detaches, the once-pristine ice floe is now strewn with cans, boxes and rubbish, the detritus of our life on board. We are no better than Grytviken whalers.

  Endurance is back at latitud
e 69 degrees. On 10 January we catch glimpses of Coats Land. An offshore breeze opens up a wide sea channel to the south which Endurance charges down. She is surrounded by hundreds of seals attracted to her wake. A week later Endurance reaches latitude seventy-four degrees south. Worsley announces we are just one hundred and ninety miles from our destination, Vahsel Bay. But two days later we are stuck in a southerly blizzard and forced again to moor in the lee of a large iceberg. The winds are over fifty miles an hour and the best place to keep warm is my bunk. I curl up with For the Term of his Natural Life, a book about convicts by Marcus Clarke, which causes me to contemplate the good fortune of my own existence.

  Like Aurora, Endurance has a fine library. In it I find a small but invaluable travel book, Polar Exploration, by William Bruce, who led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902–04. Bruce wrote the book in 1911, just before Amundsen declared his intention to race Scott to the pole. I am surprised by Bruce’s forthright opinions. They accurately sum up the view I have formed of Shackleton:

  What the mass of the public desire is pure sensationalism, therefore the Polar explorer who attains the highest latitude and who has the powers of making a vivid picture of the . . . hardships involved will be regarded popularly as the hero and will seldom fail to add materially to his store of worldly welfare . . . The general rule, however, is that the man of science opens the way and reveals the treasures of the unknown, and the man of business follows and reaps the commercial advantage . . .

  It strikes me this is exactly why Mawson, the man of science, does not trust Shackleton. Shackleton is too desperate to be a hero. There is every chance he will bring about a tragedy of epic proportions. How is he going to bring the Weddell Sea expedition members home if he pushes Endurance south until she is locked in ice? As to the party crossing Antarctica to the Ross Sea, how can they know what they will find? What is Shackleton really expecting to achieve?