ADVENTURE IN THE SOUTH

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3303, 30 May 1931, Page 3

ADVENTURE IN THE SOUTH

WITH SHACKLETON IN THE AN ARCTIC. Although the conquest of the polar regions by aeroplane, and now by submarine, has stimulated the imagination of % people who enjoy tales of daring, in which man's courage and endurance are pitted against the forces of Nature, it is not easy to forget the heroism of the men who accompanied the late Sir Ernest Shackleton on his expedition to the South'Pole in 1914. For more than two years, while the rest of the world was at war, Shackleton's men fought a war of their own—a struggle in which their antagonist was the fierce and stormy south. In his book " South " Sir Ernest Shackleton gave an account of the expedition, but it was natural that modesty should have restrained his pen when it came to reciting his own part in the adventure. That omission has been remedied in Commander Frank Worsley's book, "Endurance, An Epic of Polar Adventure." Commander Worsley was the master of the Endurance, which was smashed, not long after the beginning of the great adventure, in the pack-ice. The story opens in July, 1915, and the setting is Shackleton's cabin in the Endurance. Ice, thousands of miles of it, was all round the ship; the wind was in a fury, and snow was falling in mad gusts. It was not a comforting atmosphere in which a ship's master should be told that his vessel was doomed. It was Shackleton who told Commander Worsley that the Endurance could not resist the squeezing of the ice-packs. There were 28 men on board the Endurance, and the ship was 1000 miles from the whaling stations of South Georgia and 400 miles from the Anarctic Continent, in the heart of the Weddell Sea. It was not a pleasant prospect. For two months the Endurance fought a losing battle against the ice. The end came in October. The vessel was crushed by "the whole force of the ice-\pack driven by l the winds and currents of the Weddell Sea, converging from three different directions on to one point. That point, unhappily, was the stern of the Endurance. Two massive floes, miles of ice, jammed her sides and held her fast, while the third floe tore across her stern, ripping off the rudder as though it had been made of matchwood." The party made a rough camp on the packice, and shortly afterwards they set out in the hope of reaching Graham Land by sledge. They had with them small sledges and two boats from the Endurance, the James Caird and the Dudley Docker, which were dragged across the ice. On the drifting packs, however, they made little progress, and after a march of several days they settled on the largest floe they could find, naming' their quarters, aptly enoilgh, Patience Camp.

ELEPHANT ISLAND. They drifted on the pack-ice for five months. It was March, 1915, before they sighted the continent. Shackleton, however, refused to risk crossing ice which would be opening and closing under the influence of tides and currents near the land, and decided to go on drifting until open water was reached. A month later the ice did break up alongside the camp, and the boats were launched. At length they reached Elephant Island, a dismal spot in the Weddell Sea, and Shackleton's relief was great. " Thank God I haven't killed one of my men!" were his first words, and he added. " I knew that one more night of exposure would do for some of them." But his relief was short-lived, as Commander Worsley explains:—" By the time we turned in that night Shackleton, Wild, and I already knew for certain that we were in grave danger; and the danger was this. We were in a latitude that was gale-ridden, perhaps the most tempestuous area in the world. We were only just above the level of high-water mark. It was obvious that the seas of every onshore gale would sweep that beach. With a thousand-foot cliff at our backs there could be no escape landward. The probalility was that we should be swept away without being able to launch a boat." Two days later they found a safer spot seven miles along the coast, and there they made camp, living under upturned boats, shivering, and wondering what was going to happen next. There was food for the time being, but the day dawned when Shackleton realised that he would not be able to feed his men through the winter. Frequently Commander Worsley and Shackleton discussed the possibility of making a journey in one of the small boats for help. One day Shackleton said gravely:—"Skipper, we shall have to make that boat journey, however risky it is. I'm not. going to let the men starve." Five were chosen for the hazardous journey, although all the men volunteered. The choice fell upon Tom Crean, Timothy McCarthy, A. 8.; McNeish, the carpenter; Vincent, the boatswain; and Commander Worsley. The James Caird was prepared for the trip. "We knew,".writes Commander Worsley, " that it would be

the hardest thing we had ever undertaken, for the Antarctic winter had now set in, and. we were about to cross one of the worst seas in the world." The boat in which the small party set out to cross the ocean was 22ft. 6in. in length. BY BOAT TO SOUTH GEORGIA.

It is surprising how calmly Commander Worsley writes of that awful voyage to South Georgia. Night and day they took turns at pumping! every three or four minutes they were soaked by the seas which swept the boat. Whenever possible they snatched an hour's rest in frozen sleep-ing-bags. The constant soaking caused their limbs to swell and lose all surface sensibility. Several times they had to remove the wall of ice which formed on the canvas decking. On the eleventh day they broached their last keg of water. Even as they approached the coast of South Georgia their troubles were not lessened. "We were in a welter of screaming winds," writes Commander Worsley, " that seemed to be rushing all round us with the speed of an aeroplane, and every few seconds the roaring seas dashed into the boat and sent up spray sufficient to thicken the air for 100 feet above us." Ultimately they landed in a tiny cove in King Haakon Sound.

On May 19, 1916, leaving three of the party, who were not fit to travel, under the upturned boat, Shackleton, Commander Worsley, and the remaining member of the party embarked on their pioneer journey across the island of South Georgia—"an adventure destined to be far more thrilling than ever I had dreamed," says Commander Worsley. " Our equipment was three days' food each, consisting of two pounds of sledging rations, a pound of biscuits, and two cakes of Stremier's nut food, all of which we carried over our shoulders. . . ." The land they crossed was a country of cliffs, precipices, snow, and glaciers. "The going was so hard that we had to halt every twenty minutes for a short spell, when we would throw ourselves flat on our backs, with legs and arms extended, and draw in gulps of air so as to get our wind again. . . We were in a solitude never before broken • by man. . . Before us was the Allardyce range—peak upon peak, snowclad and majestic, glittering in the sunshine." They looked into the shadowy depths of chasms in which battleships could have been hidden, slid down mountain sides, met disappointment cheerfully, went the wrong way, retraced their steps, and, after what seemed an age, reached Fortuna Bay and heard the cheery whistles of a whaling factory. What a royal welcome they received! The three men who had been left at King Haakon Sound were rescued by a whaling ship from the station, and Shackleton chartered a whaler, the Southern Sky, to make the trip to Elephant Island for the remainder of his company. But their way was barred by ice, and the whaler had to turn back when only 60 miles distant from the island. Shackleton w from the island. They made for the Falkland Islands, for Shackleton wanted to get into touch with the outside world and to obtain another vessel. Four attempts at rescue were made before Shackleton was rewarded with success. As the rescue ship approached the camp Shackleton stood peering " with painful intensity through his binoculars." "There were reefs and shoals about," writes Commander Worsley, " and all my attention was on the ship, when I heard him say in a low, strained voice, ' There are only two, skipper!' Then, « n 0) four.' A short pause followed and'he exclaimed, 'I see six—eight —' and at last, in a voice ringing with joy he cried, 'They are all there! Every one of them! They are all saved!'" The remainder of the book is devoted to Commander Worsley's war adventures—he was back in the navy in time to " bag " a German submarine—and to the last voyage which Shackleton made—the voyage of the Quest. On January 5, 1922, in the southern seas, Shackleton died. A sudden attack of angina pectoris was

the cause of death. He was buried in South Georgia. "I do not think he would have wished a different grave," says Commander Worsley. " He lies in a spot that for more than a hundred years has been the last home of seamen —whalers, sealers, and explorers. . . His was a proud and dauntless spirit, a spirit that made one glad he was an Englishman. . . Shackleton's body lies buried far from the land of his birth; let us ensure that his spirit continues to be our common heritage."