The Fourth Rescue Attempt

Seen from above, South Georgia is a thin, mountainous island set in a vast grey ocean, its uncharted interior giving nothing away. Only at Stromness, on the coast, is there a stir: the whalers there could not stop staring at three men who had walked out of that interior—blackened by blubber smoke, clad in rags and makeshift crampons, their faces weathered to the texture of old leather. Those men now stood in the manager’s villa, accepting soap and water and clean clothing. The station manager listened to their story in silence, then offered them what hospitality the remote outpost could muster. But Shackleton had no time for rest. His first question, even before he had washed the grime from his hands, was about ships.

The whaling season was ending. The great factory ships were preparing to sail, and the catchers lay at their moorings, their boilers cold or cooling. The manager told him that the Southern Sky, a whale-catcher owned by the South Georgia Company, lay at Grytviken, some distance around the coast. She was available for charter, if Shackleton could arrange it. Shackleton, who had no money and no credit, who had walked out of the Antarctic with nothing but his life and the lives of his two companions, promised to arrange it. He would find a way. He always found a way.

But the men on Elephant Island could not wait for promises.

The crew had remained camped on the ice in the hopes that the floe would bring them closer to one of various islands. In April 1916, they set off in the Endurance’s three ship’s boats and eventually landed on Elephant Island. Because the island was remote and rarely visited, Shackleton had known from the moment they reached its stony shore that rescue would not come to them. He would have to go and bring it back. The James Caird had carried him eight hundred miles across the wildest ocean on earth, and now, standing in the warmth of a whaling station, he understood that the hard part was not over. It was just beginning.

Upon reaching Stromness, Shackleton’s immediate priority was retrieving the three companions left at Peggotty Camp. A whaler was dispatched around the coast, with Worsley aboard to guide the way, and by the evening of 21 May all six of the James Caird’s crew were reunited. There was no time for celebration. While the others rested and recovered, Shackleton composed his first telegram to London. The message was brief, informing the outside world of their arrival and his intention to organize a rescue for the main party. He did not elaborate on the condition of the men they had left behind, the dwindling rations, or the approaching winter. Those facts would have to wait until he could secure a ship.

The Southern Sky was a whale-catcher, built for chasing finbacks and blue whales through the icy channels of the southern ocean. She was not ideal for a rescue mission—her hull was designed for speed, not for pushing through pack ice—but she was available, and Shackleton had learned to take what was available. The British magistrate at Grytviken, James Innes Wilson, helped arrange the charter. Money was borrowed against the expedition’s assets in London, promises were made, and by 22 May, Shackleton and his five companions from the James Caird were aboard, steaming southward into the gray waters of the Weddell Sea.

They had not gone far when the ice found them.

The pack lay across their path like a wall. The Southern Sky pushed against it, her engines straining, her hull grinding against the frozen mass. But the ice that had trapped the Endurance, that had held twenty-eight men prisoner for ten months, was not moved by a whale-catcher. After three days of fighting the pack, Shackleton was forced to acknowledge the obvious: they could not get through. The Southern Sky turned back, her crew defeated by the same force that had crushed their ship.

Shackleton returned to South Georgia, but he did not stay. The island held stores for shipwrecked mariners and was visited from time to time by whalers, but it offered no solution to his problem. He needed a larger vessel, a ship built for ice. And he needed it now.

On 31 May, Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean boarded a steamer bound for Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of South America. The journey took them through the fjords and channels of Tierra del Fuego, past the glaciers and the wind-swept islands, and into the ramshackle port where the world’s southernmost civilization clung to the shore. Punta Arenas was a frontier town, a place of sheep farmers and sailors, of merchants and drifters. It was not a place where one expected to find salvation. But Shackleton had no other options.

The British consul in Punta Arenas, Allan MacDonald, received them with a mixture of astonishment and concern. He had heard rumors of the Endurance expedition’s fate—rumors that had filtered north through the whaling stations and the wireless reports—but he had not expected to see the leader of that expedition walking into his office, asking for a ship. MacDonald did what he could. He introduced Shackleton to the local authorities, to the naval officers and the merchant captains who might be persuaded to help. And he opened his own home to the weary travelers, offering them food and shelter while they planned their next move.

The Uruguayan government, when Shackleton approached them through diplomatic channels, proved unexpectedly generous. They offered the use of the Instituto de Pesca No. 1, a trawler that had been fitted out for scientific research. She was not an icebreaker, but she was sturdier than the Southern Sky, and her crew was willing to try. On 10 June, Shackleton and his small party boarded the trawler and set out once more for the Weddell Sea.

The weather turned against them before they reached the ice.

A storm swept up from the Drake Passage, driving the trawler before it. The Instituto de Pesca fought the waves, her engines laboring, her hull groaning under the strain. Then the crankshaft fractured with a sound that echoed through the vessel. The trawler’s engine shuddered and died. They were adrift in heavy seas, with no power and no way to steer.

The crew managed to make temporary repairs, but it was clear that the Instituto de Pesca could go no further. They limped back to Montevideo, where the Uruguayan navy examined the damage and pronounced it beyond their ability to fix quickly. Shackleton thanked them for their efforts, for their generosity, and for their willingness to try. Then he turned his attention to the next possibility.

The days were passing. Each failure cost them a week, sometimes two. The Antarctic winter was settling over the continent. The temperature dropped. The daylight shrank. On Elephant Island, twenty-two men were waiting in the dark, huddled under upturned boats, eating whatever they could scavenge from the frozen shore. They had no way of knowing that Shackleton had reached South Georgia, that he had already tried twice to reach them, that he was trying still. They could only wait, and hope, and try not to think about what it would mean if no one came.

Shackleton’s telegrams to London grew more urgent. By late June, he was wiring desperate appeals for immediate assistance, noting that previous attempts had failed due to ice and mechanical failure. The Admiralty, when it received these messages, was sympathetic but cautious. The Royal Navy was engaged in a war that consumed ships and men at a rate that defied comprehension. The North Sea was a killing ground; the Atlantic was stalked by submarines; the Dardanelles had become a charnel house. To spare a vessel for a rescue mission at the bottom of the world was, in the view of some at the Admiralty, to risk lives for men who might already be dead.

But Shackleton persisted. He wrote to the Royal Geographical Society, to the old men who had watched him set out two years before with such high hopes. He wrote to the newspapers, telling his story, making his case. And he continued to search for ships.

In Punta Arenas, Allan MacDonald had not given up. The British owner of the schooner Emma, he offered to equip his vessel for a further rescue attempt. The Emma was an old ship, a three-masted schooner that had seen better days, but she was available, and MacDonald was willing to risk her. Shackleton accepted the offer with gratitude. He had no other choices.

The Emma put to sea in July, with Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean aboard, along with a crew of volunteers who had heard the story and wanted to help. They sailed south, past Tierra del Fuego, into the grey expanse of the Drake Passage. The weather was foul—rain and sleet, winds that shifted and howled—but the Emma pushed on. She was not fast, and she was not strong, but she was willing.

They reached within a hundred miles of Elephant Island.

Shackleton could see the ice on the horizon, a white line that marked the edge of the pack. He could almost see the island itself, a dark smudge against the polar sky. But the ice was too thick, the pack too dense. The Emma pushed against it, her hull groaning, her sails straining, but she could not break through. After days of trying, after exhausting their coal and their provisions, they were forced to turn back.

Shackleton stood at the rail as the Emma came about, watching the ice recede behind them. He did not speak. There was nothing to say.

They returned to Punta Arenas in defeat. The town, which had followed their progress with such hope, received them in silence. The newspaper reporters who had gathered at the dock turned away, their stories unwritten. The volunteers who had crewed the Emma went back to their lives, shaking their heads at the futility of it all. And Shackleton went back to Allan MacDonald’s house, to sit at a table covered in charts and telegrams, trying to find another way.

The Chilean government had been watching.

Since Shackleton’s arrival in South American waters, the Chilean authorities had followed his efforts with interest. They had seen the British expedition fail, and fail again, and they had begun to wonder if there was something they could do. The Chilean Navy had a vessel, a small steam tug called the Yelcho, that had assisted the Emma during her attempt. She was not large, and she was not designed for ice work, but she was sturdy, and her captain was willing.

On 25 August, after weeks of negotiation and preparation, the Yelcho set out from Punta Arenas. Her captain was Luis Pardo, an officer of the Chilean Navy who had volunteered for the mission. He knew the risks. He knew that three previous attempts had failed, that the ice was thick and the weather was foul and the chances of success were slim. But he also knew that men were waiting, and that someone had to try.

Shackleton was aboard. He had insisted on coming, though he had no official standing, no authority over the Chilean crew. He was a passenger, an observer, a man who had promised to bring back a ship and could not stay behind while someone else made the attempt. Worsley was with him, and Crean—the three men who had crossed South Georgia together, who had walked out of the mountains and into the whaling station, who had not stopped since. They stood on the deck of the Yelcho as she steamed southward, watching the coast of Tierra del Fuego fall away behind them.

The Antarctic winter had closed in. The days were short, the nights long and bitter. The temperature hovered near freezing, but the wind chill made it feel far colder. The Yelcho’s crew wrapped themselves in wool and oilskins, their hands numb, their faces raw. They had been told that the men on Elephant Island had been waiting for four months, through the polar night, with no shelter but upturned boats and no food but penguins and seals. They did not know if those men were still alive. They only knew that they had to try.

The Weddell Sea lay before them, a grey expanse of water and ice. The pack had shifted since the previous attempts—ice was never static, never predictable. There might be a way through, or there might not. Pardo studied the charts, consulted with his officers, and made his course. Shackleton watched from the bridge, saying little, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

They passed the latitude where the Southern Sky had turned back. They passed the point where the Instituto de Pesca had lost her engine. They passed the coordinates where the Emma had met the impenetrable ice. And they kept going.

The ice began to thicken. The Yelcho pushed forward, her engines straining, her hull grinding against the frozen chunks that floated in her path. Pardo navigated carefully, threading between the floes, looking for leads, for open water, for any gap that might let them through. The crew stood ready at their stations, ready to break out the boats if the ship was trapped, ready to turn back if the ice proved too thick.

But the ice did not stop them.

On 30 August, after five days at sea, the Yelcho reached Elephant Island.

Shackleton saw it first—a dark shape rising from the water, a ridge of rock and ice that he recognized from months before. He had left twenty-two men on that shore, had promised them he would return, had spent four months trying to keep that promise. Now, standing on the deck of a Chilean tug, looking through binoculars at the beach where he had last seen them, he felt something he had not allowed himself to feel since the journey began.

The beach was in sight. The water between the ship and the shore was open, a narrow channel through the ice. Pardo brought the Yelcho as close as he dared, then dropped anchor. Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean climbed into a boat and rowed toward the shore.

They could see figures on the beach.

The men had seen the ship. They had come out from under their upturned boats, had gathered at the water’s edge, had stood watching as the boat approached. They were thin, their faces hollow, their clothes ragged and stained. They had survived four months of Antarctic winter on a diet of seal meat and penguin, with no shelter but the boats they had dragged above the tide line, with no certainty that anyone would ever come. Now they stood on the rocky shore, watching Shackleton row toward them.

Shackleton stepped onto the beach. He counted the men as they gathered around him—twenty-two, all present, all alive. He had promised to return, and he had kept his word. The journey that had begun with the crushing of the Endurance, that had continued through ten months of drifting ice, through the open-boat voyage to Elephant Island, through the eight-hundred-mile crossing of the Southern Ocean in the James Caird, through the crossing of South Georgia’s mountains, and through four attempts to bring back a ship—that journey was finally over.

The Yelcho took them all aboard. The twenty-two men who had waited, the three who had gone for help, the Chilean crew who had brought them together—they crowded the decks of the little tug as she turned northward, away from the ice, away from the island, toward the warmth of civilization. The weather held. The ice did not close behind them. As Shackleton recorded later, providence favoured them this time.

But the providence that favoured them had been earned through months of effort, through repeated failures, through the refusal to accept that the ice could hold them forever. The rescue had not come from heroism alone. It had come from persistence, from the willingness to try again and again, from the support of strangers who had no reason to help except that men were in need. The Chilean government had given a ship. The Uruguayan government had given a trawler. Allan MacDonald had given his schooner. The whalers of South Georgia had given supplies and guidance. Each failure had led to another attempt, each attempt had brought Shackleton closer to success, and success, when it finally came, had come on a borrowed tug with a volunteer crew.

The Yelcho reached Punta Arenas on 3 September 1916. The town turned out to greet them—crowds on the dock, flags flying, newspaper reporters jostling for position. The men of the Endurance expedition stood on the deck, thin and weathered, their faces showing the strain of what they had endured. They had been away for two years. They had lost their ship, their supplies, their plans. They had nearly lost their lives. But they had not lost each other.

Shackleton stood apart from the celebrations. He had brought his men back, every one of them, and that was what mattered. But he knew, as he looked around at the cheering crowds, that the story was not over. There were still men on the other side of the continent—the Ross Sea party, who had been laying depots for a crossing that would never happen. He had heard nothing from them since the expedition began. They might be alive, or they might not. He would have to find out.

The Chilean government had offered more than a ship. They had offered recognition, gratitude, a place in their history. Captain Pardo was hailed as a hero, and rightly so. The Yelcho was feted and photographed, her crew celebrated for their role in one of the greatest rescues in Antarctic history. But Shackleton knew that the rescue had been a collective effort, the product of many hands and many attempts. The ice had held them for nearly two years. It had taken four attempts, three ships, and the support of three nations to break that hold.

The men who had waited on Elephant Island would carry the memory of those months for the rest of their lives. They had lived under upturned boats, had eaten seal meat until the thought of it made them gag, had watched the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, had wondered with each passing day whether their leader had survived, whether he would come back, whether anyone would ever find them. Some of them had kept diaries, recording the mundane details of survival—the weather, the food, the routines that kept them sane. Others had simply endured, putting one foot in front of the other, trusting that something would change.

Now, standing on the deck of the Yelcho as she steamed northward, they could begin to imagine a future. They would go home, eventually. They would see their families, sleep in real beds, eat food that did not come from the body of a seal. They would tell their stories, and people would listen, and they would be called heroes. But they knew, as Shackleton knew, that the heroism had been in the waiting, in the endurance, in the refusal to give up when everything told them that hope was foolish.

The Antarctic winter was ending. The ice was beginning to break up, the days to lengthen. The continent that had held them for so long was releasing its grip, letting them go. But Shackleton, looking back at the white expanse receding behind them, understood that the ice had not been defeated. It had simply allowed them to leave. The Antarctic was not a place to be conquered, but a place to be survived. And survival, as he had learned through four rescue attempts and countless failures, was never guaranteed.

Shackleton stood at the rail, watching the shore approach. He was thinking of the men he had left behind on Elephant Island, of the months they had waited, of the moment when the Yelcho had appeared on the horizon and they had known that someone had come. He was thinking of the four attempts, the failures, the frustration of watching the ice turn him back again and again. He was thinking of the telegram he would have to send to London, to the families of the men who had been waiting for news, to the institutions that had supported him and the governments that had helped him. He was thinking of the costs—financial, physical, emotional—that the expedition had incurred, and would continue to incur until every man was accounted for.

But mostly he was thinking of the ship of men that had held together through two years of disaster. They had lost their vessel, their supplies, their plans. They had been tested by ice and sea and hunger and cold. They had been scattered across the Antarctic, some on Elephant Island, some on South Georgia, some—though he did not yet know it—on the other side of the continent.

But they had not broken. The social organism that Shackleton had built, the discipline and hierarchy and mutual dependence that had kept twenty-eight men alive when any one of them could have died a dozen times over—that organism had survived. And now, as the Yelcho carried them toward civilization, Shackleton understood that this was the real achievement. Not the crossing that had never happened, not the scientific work that had never been completed, but the survival of the men themselves.

The tug approached the dock at Punta Arenas. The crowds were waiting, the flags were flying, the band was playing. Shackleton straightened his coat, adjusted his cap, and prepared to step ashore. Behind him, the twenty-seven men who had followed him into the ice and out again stood ready to follow him once more. They had trusted him with their lives, and he had brought them through. Now they would trust him to bring them home.

The gangplank lowered. Shackleton walked down it, into the cheering crowd, into the flash of cameras, into a world that had almost forgotten them and now remembered that they existed. He shook hands with the officials, accepted the congratulations, smiled for the photographs. But his mind was already moving forward, to the next task, the next challenge, the next group of men who were waiting for someone to come.