...seek and save the lost...
Shackleton's aim was the rescue of the men on Elephant Island and during the next hundred days he, Crean , and I fought against the elements and every kind of difficulty to effect this purpose.
We spent all that winter in four attempts in different vessels. Some people thought that Shackleton was mad to take small, frail craft far south and into the pack in winter time, but his anxiety about his men was so terrible that it would not let him rest. During those hundred days he passed through hell....the lines on his face became furrows and his thick, wavy hair showed streaks of grey.
In the "Southern Sky" we reached to within sixty miles of Elephant Island but were forced back by pack ice, snowstorms and shortage of coal. We returned to the Falkland Islands...
The second attempt was made in the trawler "Institutio Pesca, No. I", which was generously lent to Shackleton by the Uruguayan Government. In this vessel we reached to within eighteen miles of the camp on Elephant Island, but were again driven back by the accursed pack. It lay closely packed between us and the island and was rising and falling on the northwest swell. If we had pushed the unprotected trawler into this ice she would have crumpled up like a kerosene tin before we had covered a quarter of the distance. We returned to Port Stanley with our bunkers almost empty.
From the Falkland Islands we went to Punta Arenas in the Magellan Straits. The British residents there and the Chileans very generously subscribed ...which enabled Shackleton to charter and fit out the auxiliary schooner "Emma". She was seventy feet long on the waterline. I have commanded small sailing craft in some of the stormiest seas in the world, but that little schooner-with her forty-foot boom, trying to take charge-flogging her way south from Cape Horn to the pack ice in the dead of winter, beat them all....
...we met the pack and entered it, one hundred miles north of Elephant Island. The auxiliary engine broke down, we received heavy blows from the heaving ice and after sustaining some damage were forced to retreat. We were glad to escape, for not only would we have lost the vessel and our lives if we had forced farther into the ice, but we would have delayed the rescue of the men who were awaiting us.
For the fourth attempt the Chilean Government came nobly to the rescue. They lent Shackleton the little steamer "Yelcho". At the start we had a welcome change-fine weather from Cape Horn. But then we had to grope our way through fog and ice to the northwest breaker off Elephant Island. Finally we found the camp.
As I manoeuvred the "Yelcho" between stranded bergs and hidden reefs, Shackleton peered through his binoculars with painful anxiety. I heard his strained tones as he counted the figures that were crawling out from under the upturned boat. "Two-five-seven-" and then an exultant shout, "There all there, Skipper. They are all safe!" His face lit up and the years seemed to fall off his age. We three solemnly shook hands as if we were taking part in some ritual.
In three-quarters of an hour we were steaming back full speed for Cape Horn with every man safe on board....Shackleton was like an obnoxiously conceited but devoted parent with his offspring gathered round him...
They had had a terrible time, waiting as patiently as they could in their miserable abode and hoping against hope that the boat had not foundered with us. Frank Wild's cheeriness had kept them up. Every morning he used to shout, "Lash up and stow! Roll up your bags boys, the Boss may come today." Shackleton had every right to be proud, for it was his boast that he had never lost a life in any party that he was in charge of...
Six years later when looking at Shackleton's grave and the cairn which we, his comrades, erected to his memory on a wind-swept hill of South Georgia, I meditated on his great deeds. It seemed to me that among all his achievements and triumphs, great as they were, his one failure was the most glorious. By self-sacrifice and throwing his own life into the balance he saved every one of his men-not a life was lost-although at times it had looked unlikely that one could be saved.
His outstanding characteristics were his care of, and anxiety for the lives and well-being of all his men.
"Shackleton's Boat Journey" F. A. Worsley, Captain of HMS Endurance
Shackleton's aim was the rescue of the men on Elephant Island and during the next hundred days he, Crean , and I fought against the elements and every kind of difficulty to effect this purpose.
We spent all that winter in four attempts in different vessels. Some people thought that Shackleton was mad to take small, frail craft far south and into the pack in winter time, but his anxiety about his men was so terrible that it would not let him rest. During those hundred days he passed through hell....the lines on his face became furrows and his thick, wavy hair showed streaks of grey.
In the "Southern Sky" we reached to within sixty miles of Elephant Island but were forced back by pack ice, snowstorms and shortage of coal. We returned to the Falkland Islands...
The second attempt was made in the trawler "Institutio Pesca, No. I", which was generously lent to Shackleton by the Uruguayan Government. In this vessel we reached to within eighteen miles of the camp on Elephant Island, but were again driven back by the accursed pack. It lay closely packed between us and the island and was rising and falling on the northwest swell. If we had pushed the unprotected trawler into this ice she would have crumpled up like a kerosene tin before we had covered a quarter of the distance. We returned to Port Stanley with our bunkers almost empty.
From the Falkland Islands we went to Punta Arenas in the Magellan Straits. The British residents there and the Chileans very generously subscribed ...which enabled Shackleton to charter and fit out the auxiliary schooner "Emma". She was seventy feet long on the waterline. I have commanded small sailing craft in some of the stormiest seas in the world, but that little schooner-with her forty-foot boom, trying to take charge-flogging her way south from Cape Horn to the pack ice in the dead of winter, beat them all....
...we met the pack and entered it, one hundred miles north of Elephant Island. The auxiliary engine broke down, we received heavy blows from the heaving ice and after sustaining some damage were forced to retreat. We were glad to escape, for not only would we have lost the vessel and our lives if we had forced farther into the ice, but we would have delayed the rescue of the men who were awaiting us.
For the fourth attempt the Chilean Government came nobly to the rescue. They lent Shackleton the little steamer "Yelcho". At the start we had a welcome change-fine weather from Cape Horn. But then we had to grope our way through fog and ice to the northwest breaker off Elephant Island. Finally we found the camp.
As I manoeuvred the "Yelcho" between stranded bergs and hidden reefs, Shackleton peered through his binoculars with painful anxiety. I heard his strained tones as he counted the figures that were crawling out from under the upturned boat. "Two-five-seven-" and then an exultant shout, "There all there, Skipper. They are all safe!" His face lit up and the years seemed to fall off his age. We three solemnly shook hands as if we were taking part in some ritual.
In three-quarters of an hour we were steaming back full speed for Cape Horn with every man safe on board....Shackleton was like an obnoxiously conceited but devoted parent with his offspring gathered round him...
They had had a terrible time, waiting as patiently as they could in their miserable abode and hoping against hope that the boat had not foundered with us. Frank Wild's cheeriness had kept them up. Every morning he used to shout, "Lash up and stow! Roll up your bags boys, the Boss may come today." Shackleton had every right to be proud, for it was his boast that he had never lost a life in any party that he was in charge of...
Six years later when looking at Shackleton's grave and the cairn which we, his comrades, erected to his memory on a wind-swept hill of South Georgia, I meditated on his great deeds. It seemed to me that among all his achievements and triumphs, great as they were, his one failure was the most glorious. By self-sacrifice and throwing his own life into the balance he saved every one of his men-not a life was lost-although at times it had looked unlikely that one could be saved.
His outstanding characteristics were his care of, and anxiety for the lives and well-being of all his men.
"Shackleton's Boat Journey" F. A. Worsley, Captain of HMS Endurance
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