"Escape from the Antarctic" by Sir Ernest Shackleton

This tiny book tells a fraction of the story of The Endurance commanded by Shackleton which was attempting to land men for a trans-Antarctic expedition when it was caught in pack ice; after some months drifting the ship was crushed and the men had to camp on the drifting ice floe; they then got into two small boats and headed for Elephant Island where they camped. This book completes their adventures from this point.

Shackleton and five others sailed a small boat through mountainous seas 800 miles to South Georgia. Just sighting the sun through a sextant in a pitching boat in the middle of a hurricane when there was precious little sun made the navigation difficult, almost impossible. They endured days of hurricane and gale. When they reached South Georgia they had to stand away from the shore because the seas were driving the boat inland and threatened to smash it on the rocks. Finally they made landfall and captured baby albatross chicks to stew.

Then Shackleton and two others trekked across the South Georgia mountains which had never been crossed, or even explored, before. Finally they reached the whaling station and obtained relief for their crew mates. Even then it was weeks before they could charter a ship which could penetrate the newly forming pack ice and rescue the 22 men abandoned on Elephant Island.

Sometimes Shackleton gets bogged down in the details and this story is marred by only being a fraction of the full adventure but it was a delightful little read.

Selected quotes:

• "At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and southwest .... a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days."

• "I know that during the long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, 'Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.'" It is this paragraph that led T. S. Eliot to write in The Waste Land:

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you"

May 2009, 90 pages

Other books about travel and exploration reviewed in this blog may be found here.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" by Caroline Alexander

This book tells the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 31 shipmates who sailed the Endurance to the Antarctic in December 1914 in an attempt to land and then sledge across the continent. The ship got stuck in pack ice and they sat imprisoned in it till November 1915 when the pressure of the ice broke it apart. They then sat on an ice floe till April 1916 at which point the ice began to break apart and they climbed into 3 lifeboats and travelled to the nearest solid land, the uninhabited Elephant Island. Then Shackleton and five others climbed into another boat and travelled through the Southern Ocean seas to South Georgia. his was an astounding feat of navigation given that they only sighted the sun twice in four days and South Georgia is about the only landfall in one thousand miles. Even landing here was not the end because they landed on the uninhabited side; they then had to travel across the unmapped interior of South Georgia, over mountains and glaciers, to a whaling station which they reached in May 1916. This was STILL not the end because it then took Shackleton four months to organise a rescue boat for the 26 men left on Elephant Island who were finally rescued on August 30th 1916.

And no one died!!

This account was put together from the recollections and diaries of the men involved. The book includes stunning photographs from Frank Hurley who was a member of the expedition. It ends by telling of the lives of the men after their incredible survival, ranging from becoming a down and out in New Zealand to becoming Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and another who was Master of St John's in Cambridge.

It is an astonishing story of almost unbelievable courage and fortitude under horrendous conditions and a thrilling read.

April 2009, 203 pages