The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [81]
At the end of the war, Shackleton was characteristically broke, in not particularly good health and at loose ends. He was now rarely with his wife, for whom he nonetheless continued to express devotion, and lived mainly in the Mayfair flat of his mistress. Against his every inclination, financial necessity compelled him to hit the lecture circuit, telling the story of the thwarted Endurance expedition, now years past, to half-filled halls, while behind him, Hurley's luminous lantern slides evoked haunting memories. In preparing these slides, Hurley had perfected an ingenious method of composite image making, whereby photographs of wildlife were superimposed upon stretches of empty ice, for example, or any number of scenes were set against spectacularly back-lit clouds—his trademark. The purpose of the photographs had always been commercial, and Hurley seems to have had no compunction about this kind of manipulation.
In 1920, Shackleton suddenly announced a yearning to return to polar regions— whether north or south did not seem to matter. One last time, he hustled his way around London, seeking sponsorship, until eventually an old school chum from Dulwich, John Quiller Rowett, came to his aid, agreeing to underwrite the entire ill-defined enterprise.
Animated as he had not been in years, Shackleton sent word to old Endurance hands that he was headed south once again. McIlroy and Wild came from Nyasaland, in southern Africa, where they had been farming cotton; Green returned as cook.
Hussey came with his banjo, as well as Macklin, who had become one of Shackleton's closest friends. McLeod, the old shellback from Nimrod days, returned, as well as Kerr; Worsley was to be skipper.
Their ship, the Quest, was a lumbering former sealer that required repairs in every port of call. No sledging dogs were on board this time, just a single canine pet, named Query. Even as she set out, it was unclear exactly where the Quest was headed or what the purpose of this “expedition” was; plans ranged from circumnavigating the Antarctic continent to looking for Captain Kidd's treasure. It didn't matter. All on board were there to bask in the atmosphere of adventure, or of memories.
The Quest departed from London on September 17, 1921, seen off by a large, cheering crowd. Film footage from the expedition shows Shackleton as a somewhat stout, middle-aged man wearing suspenders: One could picture him with rolled-up trousers dabbling in the shallows at the beach. All his companions sensed he was not his former self, and Macklin and McIlroy were gravely concerned about his health. In Rio, Shackleton suffered a heart attack but refused to be examined, let alone turn back. He recovered, and the Quest continued south.
En route, the Quest encountered an unexpected apparition—an old-time five-masted square-rigged ship, the France. Excitedly, Shackleton's men ran their ship close by in order to take photographs. It was, for these veterans of the heroic age, a brush with an all-but-vanished era, and they regarded the vessel wistfully from their own lumbering ship.
On January 4, after a stormy passage, the Quest arrived in South Georgia. “At last,” wrote Shackleton in his diary, “we came to anchor in Grytviken. How familiar the coast seemed as we passed down: we saw with full interest the places we struggled over after the boat journey.… The old familiar smell of dead whale permeates everything. It is a strange and curious place.… A wonderful evening.
In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover
Gem-like above the bay.”
“The Boss says … quite frankly that he does not know what he will do after S. Georgia,” Macklin had written, only five days earlier.
In South Georgia Shackleton found a number of the old-stagers still manning the station. He was warmly greeted by Fridthjof Jacobsen, still Grytviken's manager, and the men went ashore and looked over the old haunts where they had passed a month while the Endurance lay at anchor. Enjoying the beautiful weather, they went walking in the hills, then sat and watched the gulls