THE FOURTH MAN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 245, 29 September 1922, Page 7

THE FOURTH MAN.

A STOBY OF SHACKLETON. I he story o| “the Fourth Man” who ;i< eompanied Shackleton and Ids two t oinpanioiis in ilieir terrible journey across Souih Georgia, was referred to b\ Air. L. (). H. I'ripp in a lecture to \\ ollington territorials on tile subject • i the late Antarctic explorer at the ( oininunitx (-liib. Air. '1 ripp was telling how Shat kleton was dictaeting Ins book, “I In* Heart <.l the Antarctic,” to MT. Edward Saunders at his (Air. Iripp’s) house in Wellington. ‘1 sat in the room and listened,” said Ah . J ripp. “I was amazed at Shackleton’s command <4 language. lon could see that In* was suffering very much, his lav;* seemed to swell, and alter he had been dictating lor some considerable time, with tears in his eyes he turned to me and said: ‘ Iripp, you don't know what I’ve been through, and 1 can’t go on.’ I encouraged him to go on; lie would go outside as it he meant to stop; would light a cigarette, and eventually come back and continue; then he would stop again after half an hour or so, and again say that he could not go on. but 1 persuaded him to continue—there is no doubt that the mental strain was terrible. “Wheii he camo to the reference n his book to there being a Fourth Man with him when he crossed South Georgia, he turned round to me ana said: ‘This i» something 1 have not cold, you about beiore.’ The passage 1 refer to is as follows When I look back at these days, 1 have no doubt that Providence guided us. not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that sepaiated Lie phant Island from our landing place in South Georgia. I know that during that long and wracking march of 36 hours, oyer unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, and not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me: ‘Boss, 1 had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’ Clean confessed to the same idea. One feels ‘the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech’ in trying to describe things l intangible, but' a record of our journey would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts.’ ”