The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [57]
“We put out a sea anchor to keep the James Caird 's head up into the sea,” Shackle-ton wrote. “This anchor consisted of a triangular canvas bag fastened to the end of the painter and allowed to stream out from the bows.” The drag of the sea anchor counteracted the boat's drift to the lee, and held her head into the wind so that she met the sea head-on. Up until now, however much the Caird was battered, however much icy water she shipped, she had moved forward, slowly, perceptibly closing the distance that lay between them and South Georgia. Now, soaked by bitter spray, the men waited anxiously in the pitching darkness and knew their suffering brought little progress.
“Looking out abeam,” wrote Shackleton, “we would see a hollow like a tunnel formed as the crest of a big wave toppled over on to the swelling body of water.” The spray that broke upon the reeling boat froze almost on impact, and towards the end of the eighth day, the Caird 's motion had changed alarmingly. No longer rising with the swell of the sea, she hung leaden in the water. Every soaking inch of wood, canvas, and line had frozen solid. Encased in icy armor fifteen inches thick, she was sinking like a dead weight.
Immediate action had to be taken. While the wind howled and the sea shattered over them, the men took turns crawling across the precariously glassy deck to chip away the ice. Worsley tried to evoke the unimaginable “difficulty and the peril of that climb in the darkness up that fragile slippery bit of decking.… Once, as the boat gave a tremendous lurch, I saw Vincent slide right across the icy sheathing of the canvas.… Fortunately he managed to grasp the mast just as he was going over board.”
Three times the boat had to be chipped clear. Whether using an axe or a knife, the task required strength, but also delicacy as the canvas decking had to be protected from damage at all cost. Flimsy though it was, it was their only shelter, and without it they could not survive. Two of the hated sleeping bags were now discarded; they had frozen solid in the night and had previously begun to putrefy — Shackleton esti mated that they weighed as much as forty pounds apiece. By these painstaking efforts, the Caird rose incrementally in the water and began to rise and fall again with the movement of the swell.
The next morning, the Caird gave a sudden, sickening roll leeward; the painter car rying the sea anchor had been severed by a block of ice that had formed on it, out of reach. Beating the ice off the canvas, the men scrambled to unfurl the frozen sails, and once they succeeded in raising them, headed the Caird into the wind. It was on this day, May 2, that McNish abruptly gave up any attempt to keep a diary.
“We held the boat up to the gale during that day, enduring as best we could dis comforts that amounted to pain,” wrote Shackleton, in an uncharacteristically direct reference to their physical suffering. The men were soaked to the bone and frost bitten. They were badly chafed by wet clothes that had not been removed for seven months, and afflicted with saltwater boils. Their wet feet and legs were a sickly white color and swollen. Their hands were black — with grime, blubber, burns from the Primus and frostbite. The least movement was excruciating.
“We sat as still as possible,” wrote Worsley. “[I]f we moved a quarter of an inch one way or the other we felt cold, wet garments on our flanks and sides. Sitting very still for a while, life was worth living.” Hot meals afforded the only relief. Shackleton ensured that the men had hot food every four hours during the day and scalding powdered milk every four hours of the long night watches.
“Two of the party at least were very close to death,” Worsley wrote. “Indeed, it might be said that [Shackleton] kept a finger on each