The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [21]
Despite the efforts to generate amusements, time hung very heavy for the scientists. James “Jock” Wordie, the geologist, and Reginald “Jimmy” James, the magnetician and physicist, had been friends at Cambridge. Jimmy James, earnest and reserved, was the stereotypical academic, brilliant and engaged in his field, somewhat baffled and inept in everything outside of it. The son of a London umbrella maker, James had led a sheltered academic life. He had given up a desirable university appointment to come south (his ice-block physics lab was called a “physloo” by the sailors). James was a good conversationalist, talking excitedly about such issues as vaporization, pressure of gases, and atmospheric phe-nomena—often baited by Greenstreet and Hudson, whose facetious questions would eventually silence him. Unexpectedly, he proved to be one of the best actors in the farcical skits that were a mainstay of ship entertainment.
Wordie was from Glasgow, and a popular member of the expedition. His dry humor and unmalicious leg pulling were much appreciated. He had determined to join the expedition while at Cambridge, despite having attended a dinner there with Lady Scott, Captain Robert Scott's colorful widow, who “tried to dissuade all would be candidates from the thought of going” with Shackleton. But Wordie suspected that this would be the “last big expedition which would go South.” Unable to do much in the way of geology, he had turned his attention to glaciology.
Worsley, James take observations during the winter
“Worsley and James had a large telescope which they set up, and by getting the exact moment of occultation of certain stars, were able to work out the exact time.” (Macklin, diary)
Robert Clark, the biologist, was a dour man of very few words; even in Hurley's photographs, his reserve and self-containment are unmistakable. He won respect from all hands, being hardworking and strong, and could be counted on to volunteer for disagreeable jobs such as shovelling coal; he was also an excellent football player. Almost from the moment he left England, he was at work with his dredging nets, and grimly continued with his scientific duties while in the ice. He was forever skinning and dissecting penguins, a practice that gave rise to the rumor among the sailors that the scientists were looking for gold in the animals' stomachs.
Leonard Hussey, the meteorologist, was a Londoner by birth, and his shipmates amused themselves by teasing him for being a “cockney.” Having taken his degree from London University, he worked in the Sudan as an archaeologist before joining the Endurance; Shackleton claimed to have chosen him because the improbability of a man travelling from the heart of Africa to Antarctica amused him. Hussey's dedication to science was perhaps not as strong as that of his companions.
“The vagaries of the climate quite bewilder Hussey,” Lees observed. “For just when he thinks it is going to do one thing the precise opposite happens.”
J. H. Wordie
“ ‘Jock' … is another Scotsman from Glasgow. … Taking him all round he is at once the most inoffensive & one of the most popular of our members. He has no use for cliques.” ( Lees, diary)
Robert S. Clark
“One day we saw a bunch of curious-looking penguins. … Clark went into ecstasies, or as near it as was possible for a dour Aberdonian to go.” (Macklin, diary)
Leonard D.A. Hussey
“I could never see that Hussey had much to do, for all his night observations were taken by the night watchman, but if we wanted him to come out and he did not want to come, he always pleaded great pressure of meteorological work.” (Macklin, diary)
A. H. Macklin
Reliable and loyal, Macklin was the only Antarctic “novice” selected for the transcontinental crossing.
The two surgeons on board, Alexander Macklin and James McIlroy,