An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (38 page)

Ahead lay the imposing barrier of five mountain peaks, which looked like the knuckles of a clenched fist. They chose the easiest-looking pass, climbing a steep face with the aid of McNeish’s adze. But fresh disappointment waited the men as they reached the 1,500-ft (450-m) peak after three hours’ steady uphill climbing.

At the crest they discovered that the slope broke away sharply in precipices and ice cliffs that were impossible to negotiate. Going ahead was too dangerous to contemplate and for the second time that morning, the three disappointed men were forced to retrace their steps. It was another bitter moment and for those who did not have time to spare, it was more valuable time lost.

The weather, so far, had been remarkably calm and stable. But it was the depths of winter in South Georgia and they knew that a sudden change could hit them at any moment.

At the bottom of the slope they warmed themselves with another helping of hot hoosh which helped take their minds off a frustrating and disappointing morning. Soon they were back on the march and ascending another steep pass in hopes of better luck at the next crest.

The climb was steeper than the first and the snow was soft, which made the going terribly heavy as they sank up to their knees with every step. It was also apparent how weak they had become. While the rest and fresh food at Cape Rosa and Peggoty Camp had been welcome, it was far too little recuperation for the seriously weakened trio who now moved ever more slowly. As they climbed higher in the increasingly rarefied air it became necessary to halt every twenty minutes and lay flat out in the snow gasping for breath.

At the second peak an even bigger blow awaited the men. The land ahead was just as menacing as the first, possibly worse. To carry on would be highly dangerous and again they faced the grim prospect of retracing their steps to find a safer route through the peaks. Worsley wanted to chance it but Shackleton vetoed the idea. They would have to go back – again. It was a third, bitter blow for the men who had wasted almost the whole day trying to find a pass through the knuckles of mountains.

The most pressing problem was that they were about 4,500 ft (1,400 m) up and swirling banks of fog were closing in from all sides. In the gathering gloom of twilight, darkness
approached and they had no shelter against the sub-zero temperatures of the South Georgia night. Without a tent or sleeping bags, they would probably freeze to death during the night.

As speedily as possible, the dejected trio began to zigzag down the icy slope and scurried across the snow towards the next pass as the sun began to set behind the snow-topped mountains at their backs. After half an hour of tortuously slow travel, with the light fading fast, they found the soft snowy banks very hard going and it was apparent that it would take many hours of arduous struggle to reach a safer more sheltered spot for nightfall.

Progress, Shackleton soon realised, was far too slow and the risk of being caught high up the mountain in the rapidly sinking temperatures of the night was growing by the minute. They had to descend much faster.

The three men huddled together on a ledge which had been hacked from the snow with the aid of McNeish’s adze. As the fog closed in around them, Worsley recalled a brief conversation which summed up their plight. He wrote:

The situation was desperate and Shackleton, who normally preferred not to take chances, offered a desperate solution. They would slide down the ice slope.

Below the men was a precipitous slope and in the gathering gloom they were unable to see what precisely waited them at the bottom. If they crashed into a rock it would mean certain disaster and there was always the possibility that the slope might give way to a yawning crevasse. Only desperate men would contemplate such a risky move.

For Crean the moment brought back the hair-raising episode four years earlier on the Beardmore Glacier with Evans and Lashly. Then, against his better judgement, they had climbed aboard their sledge and tobogganed down the glacier at speeds of up to 60 mph. Luckily they had survived.

As then, Crean could see there was little choice. Both he and Worsley agreed with Shackleton, though Worsley admitted it seemed ‘a most impossible project’.

The 50-ft (16-m) rope was coiled into three circular ‘mats’ and each man sat on the makeshift toboggan. Shackleton sat at the front, then Worsley and Crean at the rear. Worsley wrapped his legs around Shackleton’s waist and his arms around his neck, while Crean did the same to Worsley. They were locked together as one.

In an instant, Shackleton kicked off and the trio hurtled downhill, the wind whistling past their ears and the snowy landscape becoming a white blur as they rushed along. Crean, at the rear, had great difficulty preventing the adze cutting tool swinging round and slicing into the men as they plummeted downhill. They all clung to each other for dear life as they sped down the slope and Worsley recalled:

The trio’s downward descent began to slow as they reached softer snow and the toboggan suddenly came to an abrupt halt in a bank of snow which mercifully softened the impact of their crash landing. Slightly dazed, disoriented and relieved, the men hauled themselves to their feet and rather solemnly shook hands. A quick inspection found the biggest
casualty was their trousers, which were now in rags.

Their rapid descent had lasted two or three minutes and in the darkness it was unclear how far they had travelled. Shackleton estimated only 900 ft (275 m) while Worsley speculated that they had descended 3,000 ft (900 m). But the madcap scheme had worked. Luck had smiled upon them.

The heartily relieved trio enjoyed a quick meal and promptly resumed their slog across the soft snow, keeping a watchful eye for hidden crevasses, a constant danger in the gathering darkness. Very soon the moon appeared overhead, casting a ghostly light to help guide them over the treacherous but undeniably beautiful terrain. The scene was ‘majestic’ according to Worsley.

Today the ‘majestic’ place is called the Crean Glacier in honour of the Irishman who, with Shackleton and Worsley, crossed it first.

By midnight the men had been on the march for 21 hours, broken only by short rests and a meal every four hours. Now they were about 4,000 ft (1,200 m) high and suddenly began to see the land fall away before them on a downward slope. In the freezing temperatures, the snow would be firmer and the going a little better. At the bottom, they believed, lay Stromness Bay.

Cheered by their discovery, the men stopped for a meal, lit the primus and talked optimistically about reaching their goal. Shackleton recalled:

Within half an hour they were back on the march and once again confronted with utter dejection. They found themselves embroiled in a mass of dangerous crevasses which meant they were travelling across a glacier. But there is no glacier at Stromness. The disappointment, Shackleton remembered, was ‘severe’.

Not for the first time, the increasingly tired men had to turn around and retrace their steps in the snow. For two weary hours they plodded back where they had been and at 5 a.m., with dawn approaching, they stopped for a breather. They had been on the march without sleep for 26 hours and badly needed a far longer rest.

It is also likely that they were suffering from dehydration because they did not have enough spare fuel to melt snow for drinking water. Lack of adequate fluid intake in the cold, dry Antarctic environment is a constant threat and today doctors recommend drinking at least a gallon of water every day. In 1916, on the freezing South Georgia landscape, Crean, Worsley and Shackleton were drinking only a fraction of the necessary water intake.

As they huddled together for warmth behind a protective rock, Crean and Worsley succumbed to the growing fatigue and instantly dropped off to sleep. Shackleton was also on the brink of dozing off when he realised that sleep would be fatal. They would freeze to death in the open. After five minutes he woke his two comrades telling them they had slept for half an hour. It was a bare-faced lie that saved their lives.

Ahead lay another steep climb of about 1,000 ft (300 m). The men were understandably apprehensive at what they would find at the summit. At around 6 a.m. they reached the peak just as the dawn was beginning to shed light on the day. For a change, what they saw was highly promising. There were no threatening precipices or impassable cliffs, just a comfortable-looking slope down to a valley. Beyond the valley they could pick out the high hills which, they remembered, surrounded the whaling stations at Stromness and Husvick. Their goal was in sight.

Shackleton ordered a warming meal of hoosh to galvanise the men for the final leg of their journey. As Crean prepared the food, Shackleton went ahead to survey the terrain. It was about 6.30 a.m., the curtain of darkness was being slowly lifted and Shackleton suddenly thought he heard a noise in the
distance. It sounded faintly like a whistle but he could not be sure and he was aware that intense fatigue can play tricks on the mind. However, he assured himself that 6.30 a.m. was the time when the men at the whaling stations were woken up for work, probably by the sound of a factory whistle blowing.

Breakfast was gulped down and the men gathered around Worsley’s chronometer and stared silently as the hands moved round to 7 a.m. – the moment the whistle at Stromness would definitely ring out again to summon the men to work. The tension was unbearable as the seconds ticked by.

Right on time at seven O’clock they heard the toot of the far-off steam whistle. The men looked at each other, smiled and shook hands. It was the first sound from civilisation they had heard for almost eighteen months.

Worsley began to yell and Shackleton said it was a moment which was ‘hard to describe’. He recalled that all the pain and ache, boat journeys, marches, hunger and fatigue seemed to belong to the limbo of forgotten things.

The journey to safety was far from over though, and the men had to compose themselves quickly and grasp the reality of the situation. They were in the advanced stages of exhaustion, thirsty and they had to cross more unknown snow fields to reach Stromness.

The empty primus, which had provided vital hot food at regular intervals over the past hours, was dumped and they gathered together the last scraps of food. Each man was down to one last sledging ration and a single biscuit.

Although the men were fairly well fed on their overland trek, fatigue was taking over. They had not slept for nearly 30 hours and their steps became a weary plod as they frequently sank deep into the soft snow. Each step was a test of their resolve. At the back of their minds was the constant fear that the weather, which had been so kind, might take a vicious turn for the worst. They were in no condition to fight back.

Soon they came across a steep gradient of blue ice which threatened to halt their immediate passage. Crean and Worsley
lowered Shackleton down the full length of the 50-ft (15-m) rope, cutting steps with the adze as he moved down. There he cut a small platform and the others climbed slowly down. Then the process was repeated over and over again as they slowly and purposefully lowered themselves down the sharp gradient.

Worsley said the slope was nearly as perpendicular as a church steeple and they were terrified that the weather might suddenly deteriorate. Exposed as they were on the cliff face, they would probably not have survived. But, despite the gnawing fear of a sudden break in the weather, it took two painful hours for the severely drained men to slowly descend a mere 500 ft (150 m).

At the bottom of the gradient, the ground led easily to the valley. Slowly they moved across to the welcome flatter ground and soon began another climb up yet another ice slope. It was about 3,000 ft (1,000 m) to the top and the going was terribly heavy.

The danger was ever present, even when they came across a piece of flat, firm ground which made the going somewhat easier. It turned out to be another frozen lake and suddenly Crean broke through into freezing water. He sank up to his waist, the final indignity for a man who had already endured so much. But Worsley recalled:

They had no dry clothes to give their dripping colleague and all they could do was to plod on, hoping that continuous movement would warm Crean’s body and that the chilly wind might dry his clothes. By 1.30 p.m. in the afternoon they had managed to clamber up the ridge and gazed down on the wondrous sight below – in front of them, about 2,500 ft (760 m) below, was the Stromness Whaling Station.

They could see ships, buildings and, thankfully, the tiny figures of men hurrying about their work. Instinctively the three
men began yelling and waving but their voices were lost in the wind and, of course, no one was looking in their direction. No one in their right mind would have expected men to be approaching Stromness from the interior of South Georgia. Only desperate men would have contemplated travelling from the interior of South Georgia.