The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [39]
“Found the surface & conditions good, there being about 75% of splendid going,” Hurley reported optimistically. Shackleton broke the news to the rest of the company that they would be on the march again on December 23, the day after Mid-summer's
Galley on Ice; Orde-Lees and Green the Cook
Their faces black with smoke from the blubber stove, Lees and Green prepare a meal in the makeshift galley during the ill-fated march from Ocean Camp to Patience Camp.
Day, which was to be celebrated as Christmas. The announcement of this second march came as an unwelcome shock to many. “As far as I have seen the going will be awful,” wrote Greenstreet. “Everything being in a state of softness far worse than when we left the ship, and in my opinion it would be a measure to be taken only as a last resort and I sincerely hope he will give up the idea directly. There have been great arguments about the matter in our tent.”
Despite the grand “blowout” feast for “Christmas,” the breaking of camp on the early morning of the 23rd was not accomplished in universally high spirits. Shackle-ton had determined that they should travel at night, when the surface of the ice was hardest, and consequently the men were awakened at three in the morning on a foggy, dreary day. The abortive first march had been undertaken with genuine optimism. On the second march, many set out in resigned, halfhearted obedience.
Eighteen men straining in harness relayed two of the boats ahead over the now precarious ice; then all hands returned to pack up the remaining supplies. Tents, galley, stores, sledges were dragged as far as the boats, where a new camp was pitched; the third boat was left behind at Ocean Camp. At the end of the first day of eight hours' marching, they had covered approximately one and a quarter miles.
The following days passed in the same dreary and unrewarding routine. Never entirely rested, their hunger never entirely satisfied, and their clothes always wet, the men strained and slipped at their loads over the hummocked and slushy ice, averaging for hours of labor a mile and a half a day. Shackleton's plan had been that they would pull west for sixty miles; by now, even he must have known they would never make this mark.
“A harder or more discouraging march, I have never had the misfortune to participate in,” wrote Bakewell.
On December 27, silent doubts and resentments became dramatically apparent.
“The skipper had trouble with the carpenter to-day whilst sledging,” wrote Wordie. “To-night the company assembled on the floe, and the ship's articles were read.” After struggling over a particularly bad section of ice for two hours, McNish dug in his heels and announced in abusive language he would go no farther.
Shackleton was up ahead with the pioneering party, and it was left to Worsley, who was in charge of the boat haulers, to tackle McNish. This he proved incapable of doing. There had always been tension between the two men; had the boat haulers been under the command of anyone else, the incident might not have arisen. In any case, a flustered Worsley sent for Shackleton, who hastened back from the head of the column.
McNish was exhausted, wet through, suffering from piles, and still heartsick over the loss of his pet, Mrs. Chippy. For weeks, he had complained that he had not been allowed to salvage wood from the Endurance to build a sloop that would carry them all to freedom. Others shared his disappointment. The old salt now turned sea lawyer, arguing that his duty to obey orders had terminated with the abandonment of the Endurance.
Hard words were exchanged between the two men. Technically, McNish's contention was correct. Nonetheless, Shackleton called a muster and read aloud the ship's articles, with a few elaborations of his own: He informed his men that they would be paid up until the day they reached safe port—not, as under normal articles, only until the loss of their ship. Consequently, the men were