The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [38]
On the evening of November 21, shortly after the dogs had been fed, as the company read and chatted quietly in their tents, they heard Shackleton call out, “She's going.” Hurrying outside to the lookout platform and other points of vantage, the men looked out to see the last moments of the Endurance. Her stern rising high in the air, she went down bows first in one quick dive.
“There was a queer silence over the camp,” according to Bakewell. “As for me, there was an odd lump in my throat and I found it hard to swallow.… We were now very lonely.”
“She's gone, boys,” Shackleton said quietly from the lookout post. In his own diary he wrote, “At 5 p.m. she went down by the head: the stern the cause of all the trouble was the last to go under water. I cannot write about it.”
As the thaw continued, leads of open water increased, making the still occasional salvage trips to Dump Camp and hunting excursions increasingly dangerous. It was with great difficulty that the dog teams negotiated paths through the ever-changing maze of open lanes to collect seals killed earlier by scouting hunters. The floe on which they were encamped had rotated as much as 15 degrees to the east in the loosening ice. Yet the pack as a whole showed no signs of breaking up.
“Really Sir Ernest does not at all ignore the possibility of having to remain on the floe until it reaches the vicinity of the South Orkneys,” Lees reported. “But he does not like it to be discussed for fear of creating a feeling of despondency, especially among the sailors.”
Old landmarks drifted regally across the waterlogged, slurry landscape. The crew's old friend the Rampert Berg was now a mere five miles distant and appeared to be dark blue, a sign that it might be floating in open water. Thick mist sometimes obscured the landscape; wet snow fell, and once actual rain. In late November, a blue sky gave way to showers of hail that fell on the tents with a sound that reminded Wordie of heavy rain on trees. They were drifting northwest at a rate of a little more than two miles a day.
December was not an easy month for Shackleton. Towards the end of November, he had come down with an attack of sciatica, which worsened over the following days, until he was unable to leave his sleeping bag without assistance; it could not have been helped by his lying in a wool bag on waterlogged timber. Worse, his confinement removed him somewhat from the goings-on in camp. James, who shared
Ocean Camp
This may depict the striking of Ocean Camp, in preparation for the “Christmas march.”
Shackleton's tent, noted that “he was constantly on the watch for any break in morale, or any discontent, so that he could deal with it at once.” Above all else, Shackleton feared losing his grip on his men. The period of illness made him anxious and restive, and when he finally recovered, some two weeks later, he emerged from his tent not altogether in the best of spirits. “Boss hauls cook over the coals for making doughy bannocks,” Hurley recorded on Shackleton's first day up and about. The men, too, were restless, the sailors in particular showing worrisome signs of disaffection.
The entire company monitored the drift of their floe more intently than ever.
“Once across the Antarctic circle (66.31) it will seem as if we are practically half way home again,” Lees noted on December 12. “And it is just possible that with favouring winds we may cross the circle before the new year.” Only a few days later, a strong blizzard arising from the south promised to speed them over the magic line even sooner than anticipated; but on December 18, the wind swung around from the northeast, driving them back the way they had come. More disconcerting was the fact that their drift fluctuated between northwest and a subtle veer to the east, away from land. Shackleton discussed with Wild and Hurley the possibility of making another attempt to march to land, partly to forestall the ominous hint of an eastward drift; partly because,