The Endurance_ Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander [9]
“Eh! Chippy lad, coom darn,” Cheetham called out, in broad Liverpudlian. “Tha's barn t'ert South Pole wi me.”
Bilsby: “I'se better see t'missus furst.”
Cheetham: “Ah've seen t'wife, Chippy. Coom on.”
Panorama of South Georgia Island, with Endurance in harbour
Worsley and Greenstreet, in foreground, helped Hurley lug his camera equipment up to Ducefell to take this picture.
Frank Hurley, of course, had been south as well. He was twenty-six in 1911, when South he first heard word that Dr. Douglas Mawson, Australia's noted polar explorer, was planning a journey to the Antarctic. Determined to get the job of expedition photographer, but with no contacts to recommend him, Hurley had waylaid Mawson in a private railway compartment, selling himself to the explorer for the duration of their journey. Three days later, Hurley received word of his acceptance—Mawson had admired Hurley's initiative. The success of Hurley's eventual film about the Mawson expedition, entitled Home of the Blizzard, had partly inspired Shackleton's Imperial Trans Antarctic Film Syndicate venture. Aboard the Endurance, Hurley was considered “hard as nails,” able to endure harsh conditions and willing to go to any length to obtain a desired shot. Professionally much admired, he was not universally liked. Having come up in the world by dint of talent and hard work, he was keenly conscious of his superior abilities. He was susceptible to flattery and was considered “rather bombastic.” His nickname was “the Prince.”
George Marston had been with Shackleton on the Nimrod. A graduate of a London art school, he was part of a young set that included Shackleton's two sisters, Helen and Kathleen, who encouraged him to apply for the position of expedition artist. On the Nimrod expedition, Marston took part in three sledging journeys, one of them with Shackleton, who had been impressed with Marston's physical abilities. The son of a coachmaker and grandson of a shipwright, Marston was, like Hurley, marvelously versatile—which would prove useful.
Little is known of Able Seaman Thomas McLeod, a superstitious Scotsman who had been with Scott on the Terra Nova and Shackleton on the Nimrod. Having run away to sea at the age of fourteen, he had twenty-seven years of sailing experience.
Tom Crean was a tall, raw-boned Irish seaman, one of ten children born to a farming family in a remote part of County Kerry. He had come up the ranks of the Royal Navy, having enlisted at sixteen—adding two years to his age—as a boy second class, in 1893. Fluent in Irish and English, Crean always regretted that his formal education had ceased at primary school. His own sensitivity to this fact, more than the fact itself, may have prevented him from rising higher than he did. On the Endurance, Crean was second officer.
But in worth, if not in actual rank, Crean was, to use Shackleton's own word, “trumps.” He had gone south with Scott on both the Discovery and the Terra Nova expeditions, receiving the Albert Medal for bravery on the latter; and he had been among the sixteen who set out with Scott for the South Pole in 1911. Scott's method was to avoid assigning roles in advance, so that no one in the crew knew whether he was destined to be in the polar party, or to be turned back short of the final push, after hauling supplies for many miles. On January 3, 1912, Scott told Crean and two companions, Lieutenant “Teddy” Evans and William Lashly, that they were to turn back the next day. Although all supplies and equipment had been rationed for two teams of four men each, at the last minute Scott chose a fifth man, “Birdie” Bowers, to join the polar party. This decision not only contributed to the demise of his own party by adding an unexpected mouth to feed, but seriously burdened the returning trio with a four-man sledging load. Evans, already suffering from scurvy, collapsed and was pulled by his companions until they could go no farther. Then, thirty-five miles from the