The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [31]
Shackleton, shown leaning over the side, called this photograph “The Beginning of the End.”
“The water is level with the engine room floor but it is being easily kept under,” he wrote. “We still hope to bring our staunch little craft through.”
It was a cloudy, misty day. Pressure could be seen and heard all around, raising the ice to unimagined heights, but the ship herself was quiet. McNish still toiled on in the engine room, filling with concrete the space between the two bulkheads he had built and caulking them with strips of torn blankets.
“Things look a bit more promising now,” wrote Wordie later in the day. “The sun is shining for one thing, and we are hoping the cofferdam is a success.” From four in the afternoon until midnight, the pumps were worked continuously, until the incoming water was under control. All stores were shifted from the stern, so as to raise it above the water when the ice opened and allowed the ship to float again. Only the bilge pump was worked throughout the night, and the exhausted men snatched minutes of sleep despite the faint whispers of distress that arose from the ship. Chippy McNish was still below working on the cofferdam.
The 26th dawned clear, save for gentle, fleecy clouds, and full of sunshine that glinted with sparkling beauty off the ice. With the roar of pressure in his ears, Shackleton was struck by the surreal incongruity between the serene beauty of the day and the death throes of his ship; from the bridge, he had seen how the pressure was actually bending her like a bow, and it had seemed to Worsley that she was gasping to draw breath. She was leaking badly again, and the exhausted men worked the pumps in shifts—fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off—half asleep on their feet. At nine in the evening, Shackleton ordered the lifeboats and sledges lowered to a stable floe. The leak slowed, stanched to some degree by movement of the ice.
“All hope is not given up yet for saving the ship,” wrote Hurley. Nevertheless, he took the precaution of packing his photo album in waterproof cloth —”it being the only record of my work I shall be able to take, should we be compelled to take to the floe.” The Endurance had quieted, but that evening an unsettling incident occurred while several sailors were on deck. A band of eight emperor penguins solemnly approached, an unusually large number to be travelling together. Intently regarding the ship for some moments, they threw back their heads and emitted an eerie, soulful cry.
“I myself must confess that I have never, either before or since, heard them make any sound similar to the sinister wailings they moaned that day,” wrote Worsley. “I cannot explain the incident.” It was as if the emperors had sung the ship's dirge. McLeod, the most superstitious of the seamen, turned to Macklin and said, “Do you hear that? We'll none of us get back to our homes again.”
They continued to work the pumps throughout the night and morning. October 27 dawned clear and bright, but with a temperature of –8.5°. The ice had not ceased to roar, but the men were now too tired to notice. The pumps were being worked faster and faster, and someone was actually singing a chanty to their beat. The pressure increased throughout the day and at 4 p.m., reached its height. With a blow, the ship was knocked stern up, while a moving floe ripped away her rudder and sternpost; then the floe relaxed, and the beaten Endurance sank a little in the water. The decks began to break upward, and as the keel was ripped out, the water poured in.
It was all up. At 5 p.m., Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship. The dogs were evacuated down canvas chutes, and the supplies that had been readied were lowered to the ice. Shackleton, standing on the quivering deck, looked down the engine-room skylight to see the engines dropping sideways as the stays and plates gave way.
“Everything has come too quickly to make us pause to regret,” wrote Wordie. “That will come in the future.” The men were numbed by fatigue and the suddenness with which the end had come.