The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [66]
After two hours of a relatively easy downhill trek, they found themselves approaching a bay, which they took to be Stromness. With mounting excitement they began to point out familiar landmarks, such as Blenheim Rocks, which lay off one of the whaling stations. Almost giddy with anticipation, they continued to tramp along until suddenly the appearance of crevasses told them they were on a glacier.
“I knew there was no glacier in Stromness,” Shackleton recorded grimly. As at the very outset of their march, they had allowed themselves to be seduced into taking an erroneous route by the relative ease it promised. Wearily, despondently they turned back, setting a tangential course for the southeast.
They took nearly three hours to regain their former altitude at the foot of the rocky spurs of the range. It was five o'clock in the morning of May 20. Dawn was only a few hours away. A wind had begun to blow which, enervated as they were, chilled them to the bone. Shackleton ordered a brief rest, and within minutes Worsley and Crean had sunk down upon the snow and fallen asleep in each other's arms for warmth. Shackleton remained awake.
“I realized it would be disastrous if we all slumbered together,” he wrote, “for sleep under such conditions merges into death. After five minutes I shook them into consciousness again, told them that they had slept for half an hour, and gave the word for a fresh start.”
So stiff from the unaccustomed rest that they had to walk with their knees bent until fully warmed up, the men set course for a jagged range of peaks ahead; they were truly entering familiar territory now, and knew this range to be a ridge that ran in from Fortuna Bay, around the corner from Stromness. As they struggled up the steep slope leading to a gap in the range, they were met with a blast of icy wind.
Directly below them lay Fortuna Bay; but there, across a range of mountains to the east, they could see the distinctive, twisted rock formation that identified Stromness Bay. They stood in silence, then for the second time turned and shook hands with each other.
“To our minds the journey was over,” wrote Shackleton, “though as a matter of fact twelve miles of difficult country had still to be traversed.” But now they knew they would do it.
While Crean prepared breakfast with the last of their fuel, Shackleton climbed a higher ridge for a better view. At 6:30 a.m., he thought he heard the sound of a steam whistle; he knew that about this time the men at the whaling stations would be roused from bed. Scrambling down to the camp, he told the others; if he had heard correctly, another whistle should sound at seven o'clock, when the men were summoned to work. With intense excitement, the three waited, watching as the hands moved round on Worsley's chronometer; and at seven o'clock to the minute, they heard the whistle again. It was the first noise from the world of men they had heard since December 5, 1914. And it told them the station was manned; only hours away were men and ships, and with them the rescue of the company on Elephant Island.
Abandoning the Primus stove that had served them so well, they began their descent of the range, floundering down a slope of the deepest snow they had encountered during the journey. The descent steepened, and the snow gave way to blue ice. Worsley suggested returning to a safer route, but Shackleton adamantly insisted that they press ahead. They had been on the march for twenty-seven hours, and their reserves of endurance were running low. Always, there was the threat of bad weather; even now, a sudden gale or snowstorm could finish them off.
Cautiously at first, they cut steps with the adze; then, impatiently,