The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [72]
Wild set a strict camp routine. Poor Green was roused from his bed atop some of the supply cases at 7 a.m., just before daylight. Out in the gray dawn, he made his way to the galley, where he lit the blubber stove and spent the next two to three hours preparing thick seal steaks. At 9:30 a.m., Wild turned everyone out with the cry, “Lash up and stow! The Boss may come today.” With this, the men rolled up their bags and stashed them away amid the thwarts of the boats. After breakfast, fifteen minutes was allowed for “Smoke Oh” while Wild assigned the day's various tasks—hunting, skinning, and preparing penguins and seals, shoring up the Snuggery, mending, and so forth. “Hoosh Oh” was at 12:30 p.m., and the afternoon was passed in more of the same occupations as the morning. The evening meal of seal hoosh was served at 4:30 p.m., after which everyone settled in a circle on crates placed around the bogie stove. A strict seating rotation ensured that everyone got a place close to the stove once a week.
Elephant Island
Skinning penguins. “With the little stock of seal meat and the provisions we already have one penguin per day between every two men would be quite sufficient. That is eleven penguins per day for the whole party or a total of about 1300 birds for the period May-August inclusive. At present we are merely living from hand to mouth and have as yet only a very small reserve.” (Lees, diary)
“It is a weird sight,” wrote Hurley. “The light thrown up by the lamp illuminates smoke colored faces like stage footlights. The sparkling eyes & glint on the aluminium mugs, the stream of flickering light thrown out from the open bogie door, making weird dancing shadows on the inside of the boats makes me think of a council of brigands holding revelry after an escape in a chimney or coalmine.”
After “Smoke Oh,” the box seats were stowed so as to form Green's bed—a concession to the fact that his Jaeger woolen bag was soaked more than most. Those in the upper berths swung up between the thwarts with practiced agility, while the others spread their groundsheets and bags. Hussey often closed out the evening with half an hour's singing and playing on his banjo. Muttered conversations continued until sleep came, around seven o'clock. During the night, sheets of ice up to half an inch thick formed along the walls from condensation of their breath.
On May 10, Hurley took a group photograph with his small pocket camera.
“The most motley & unkempt assembly that ever was projected on a plate,” he wrote. He was in considerably higher spirits since moving into the hut, and once again responsive to the stern beauty of the changing light upon the glacier faces and cliffs.
The Party Marooned on Elephant Island
Hurley took this group portrait on May 10, 1916: “The most motley & unkempt assembly that ever was projected on a plate” ( Hurley, diary). Back row: Greenstreet, McIlroy, Marston, Wordie, James, Holness, Hudson, Stephenson, McLeod, Clark, Lees, Kerr, Macklin. Second row: Green, Wild, How, Cheetham, Hussey, Bakewell. Front row: Rickinson (below Hussey). Blackborow lay incapacitated in his bag.
“A sunrise of bright red clouds reflected in the mirrory stillness of the bay I am utterly powerless to describe,” he wrote. “The vast ice facade presented to the sea, assumed a bright pea green hue with isolated areas of emerald! … Violet tints & purples lingered on the snow slopes.… The rocky scarps ordinarily a greyblack, still kept their natural color but appeared to shine with a golden veneer.”
“Oh if I only had my cameras,” he wrote elsewhere, referring to his lost professional gear. All his surviving glass plates and cinematographic film, stored in their hermetically sealed cannisters, had been cached in a snow hole, along with the ship's log, the expedition's scientific records, and his photograph album.
Winter had set in. May is the southern hemisphere's equivalent