An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (34 page)

The men rose at 5 a.m. and packed their gear. Crean’s task in the
Wills
was made a little easier by the transfer of Blackborrow and Hudson, his two major invalids, to the other boats. But as they departed, the weather closed in with a vengeance, the wind gathering speed from gale to hurricane force. It was as though the Antarctic was refusing to let them escape. The
Wills
was swept in to shore by one mountainous swell and came perilously near to being smashed onto the rocks as Crean struggled to retain control.

In the turmoil several of the boats’ oars broke – Crean’s party in the
Wills
was reduced to only three. The little boat, although now lighter after Blackborrow and Hudson’s departure, began to fall behind and Worsley in the
Docker
dropped back to lend a hand. Worsley handed Crean an extra oar – the shortest – from the
Docker
.

Even in the depth of their current crisis Crean retained his sense of humour and Worsley cheerfully recalled:

After two hours of strenuous labour, the three little boats found shelter behind a point of rock and the men hurriedly ate some cold rations. Soon they resumed their slog. Despite the cold and wet, they continued to pull against the strong winds and at about 5 p.m., they arrived off the small sandy beach found by Crean and Wild the previous day.

As before, Crean took the
Wills
in first and the men gratefully clambered or were helped ashore as soon as the boat
ran to ground. As soon as they trod on firm ground, the first engineer, Louis Rickinson, collapsed with a heart attack, another victim of the strain.

The beach offered minimum protection but was safer than Cape Valentine. It was little more than a spit, extending steeply upwards about 100 yards (90 m) by 30 yards (27 m). Shackleton said it was ‘rough, bleak and inhospitable’ and Hurley said the beach was like the ‘courtyard of a prison’. Macklin remembered that a ‘more inhospitable place could scarcely be imagined’.

The beach was named ‘Cape Wild’ after Shackleton’s deputy. ‘Cape Bloody Wild’, some called it.

The weather immediately gave them a typically hostile Antarctic welcome, an early reminder of their continued vulnerability. A gale started to blow and when snow followed, it soon developed into a full-scale blizzard. At one point the
Docker
was lifted from the beach and swung round by the violent winds and the men had to take down the tents, their only shelter, because of the fear that they would blow away. Shackleton was blown off his feet. In an emergency move, the
Docker
was turned upside down to provide some meagre shelter.

But, despite the savagery all around them, some of the men were forced out of their bags next day to find stocks of seal or penguin. Skinning the beasts was appalling and freezing work in the sub-zero temperatures and one man reported that only the warmth from the dead animals’ bloody carcasses had saved their hands from severe frostbite.

The blizzard blew all night and most of the next day, confining the men to their bags for long periods and once again denting their already fragile morale. The shrieking blizzard had demonstrated that their little beach was relatively safe from the sea and not likely to be engulfed by the tides. In the circumstances, this was a major source of comfort and they were happy to clutch at such straws.

The main topic of conversation was rescue. It was abundantly clear that they could not expect help and equally,
it was obvious that some of the men would not survive a long boat journey across the Southern Ocean to safety. Many were thoroughly beaten and despondent, almost resigned to their fate. The fatigue, exposure and stress had proved too much for some and their survival was in doubt. McNeish was especially gloomy about the prospects for the men on the beach and wrote:

Hurley was equally pessimistic about the ability of some to resist the elements much longer and later recalled that the first few days on Elephant Island were ‘hell’. He did not believe they would all survive. Wordie, the geologist, estimated that a total of eight men were ‘broken down and unable to work’. These would have to be rescued – they could not rescue themselves. It would mean that a party of the fittest and most capable would have to take one of the boats and sail across the ocean for rescue.

Shackleton decided that six men would take the
James Caird
, the most seaworthy of the three boats, and bring a relief ship. All that had to be decided was who was to go and where they would go.

There were three principal options for relief. The nearest was Tierra del Fuego at Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America, about 600 miles (965 km) away to the northwest. Next came Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, which lay about 550 miles (885 km) almost due north. Lastly there was South Georgia, a little over 800 miles (1,300 km) to the northeast. Each journey presented immense obstacles.

To reach the closest points at Cape Horn or Port Stanley, the tiny boat would have to cross the fearsome Drake Passage and sail into the teeth of a strong westerly current and howling winds. Worsley observed that currents run at over 60 miles (96 km) a day and he added:

In theory, the prevailing winds would blow from behind the little boat and push them along towards South Georgia. The only realistic choice for rescue was South Georgia – the starting place for their journey fifteen months earlier.

Shackleton began by calling for volunteers to man the
James Caird
. Shackleton himself would lead the rescuers and Worsley, a navigator who had already demonstrated supreme skill, would be indispensable. Wild, the obvious choice for the journey, was asked to remain behind on Elephant Island to hold the remaining party of 22 castaways together.

Tom Crean was an ideal man for either staying behind with Wild or crossing the Southern Ocean with Shackleton. He would be invaluable to Wild on the spit at Elephant Island, helping to maintain morale and leading by example during what might be a long and stressful wait. Wild could not ask for a better lieutenant. Equally, his immense physical and mental strength and experience of the sea would be vital on the boat journey.

Crean’s outstanding record on two expeditions with Scott, notably the rescue of Evans, provided the right credentials for the task facing Shackleton. Moreover, Crean carried the respect of his colleagues. There was nobody better qualified for the daunting tasks ahead, whether on the beach at Elephant Island or in the
James Caird
on the open seas.

Initially Shackleton asked the Irishman to remain behind with Wild, sensing that his right-hand man would need strong support. But Crean, in Shackleton’s words, ‘begged so hard to come that, after consulting Wild, I promised to take him’.
⁶

The biographer, Huntford, claimed that Shackleton took Crean because he was a fellow Irishman while another writer, Alfred Lansing had a different explanation. Lansing, who
wrote his book
Endurance
in the late 1950s after consulting many survivors of the expedition, said Shackleton was not sure that Crean’s ‘rough, tactless nature’ would lend itself well to a period of enforced and perhaps long waiting.

Shackleton also chose another Irishman, Timothy McCarthy, a powerful and experienced seaman who was also popular with the other men. Then he picked Chips McNeish, who had blotted his copybook by a minor mutiny when under pressure on the ice floe some months earlier. Shackleton was impressed with McNeish’s work in raising the gunwales but, more pertinently, he did not want a potential troublemaker disrupting the fragile peace among the unstable castaways left on Elephant Island. The last member was Jack Vincent, another experienced sailor who was also occasionally difficult and could be kept under closer supervision in the boat.

The party and destination now decided, the men went to work preparing the
James Caird
for the momentous journey. McNeish, once again, performed minor miracles. There are no trees on Elephant Island so the resourceful carpenter cut up the remaining sledge and found other bits and pieces of wood from the lids of wooden supply cases, a few planks from the
Dudley Docke
r and the mast from the
Stancomb Wills
.

The main task was to cover the deck and to protect the little craft against the constant wash from the waves of the Southern Ocean. There was only enough spare wood to construct a frame, so McNeish finished the deck-covering with canvas. Without the covering, Shackleton admitted, the
James Caird
would never have survived the journey. The
Wills
’ mast was jammed into the hull from one end to the other along the keel to prevent the boat breaking her back under the strain of the gigantic seas which would hit them in the Southern Ocean.

The preparatory work, in keeping with their ordeal so far, was a torture for the men. With winter setting in, temperatures had dropped and the winds picked up. Work was constantly interrupted and had to be abandoned altogether on 20 April because of a furious gale which beat down upon them.

Crean was engaged in rigging the canvas covering over the
James Caird
, a painful and demanding task on the exposed beach. To sew the canvas, volunteers had to hold the material foot by foot over the blubber stove until it thawed out enough to manipulate. The canvas was so tough and frozen that the men had to use a pair of pinchers to pull the sewing needle through.

Ballast was also needed for the voyage, so several of the less fit men were employed filling bags, which were hurriedly made from old blankets, with sand and shingle from the beach. Others gathered up large stones to place in the bottom of the boat and some were deployed to melt ice for the two casks of drinking water the men would take in the boat. For good measure, they would take along some extra blocks of ice.

The preparation took the best part of a week, interrupted frequently by the bouts of severe weather. The plan was to set sail on 24 April, weather and the ice pack permitting. The last night on Elephant Island was bitterly cold and uncomfortable, but the men rose to find the sun shining. For the 28 desperate men anxiously searching for any optimistic signs, this was a good omen.

Even their departure was not straightforward. The unladen
James Caird
was hauled down the beach and into the sea, moving quickly about 100 yards from the shore to avoid the breakers. But the little boat was heavily buffeted by the crashing waves and came close to being overturned even before the rescue attempt could be launched. Wild recalled that only the timely intervention of Crean and Worsley saved the
James Caird
from being wrecked in the heavy swell.

At the same time, the
Wills
ferried 30 days of food and supplies out to the boat. On the second trip, the
Wills
was driven against some rocks and one of the two water casks was punctured. Unknown to the men, salty sea water leaked into their drinking water.

On another occasion, McNeish and Vincent were thrown into the sea by the heavy swell and were forced to
return to shore to swap their wringing wet clothes for dry garments with the men left on the beach. It was an opportune moment to remind the six men that they would not be wearing oilskins or sea boots for crossing the most turbulent ocean in the world.

By midday, the
James Caird
was ready to begin the perilous voyage. Shackleton said goodbye to the men, saving a special word of grateful thanks and good wishes for Wild, on whom a heavy burden was about to fall. The
Wills
came alongside for the last time and the two crews leaned across, exchanging a few feeble but well-meaning jokes to lift spirits. One crewman from the
Wills
told them to make sure that Crean behaved himself when they reached shore and Worsley recalled:

Finally, the men leant across the sides, shook hands for the last time and prepared to get under way. On the shoreline, the castaways were a forlorn sight, though they waved hopefully and made sure that the parting cries of ‘three hearty cheers’ rose above the constant noise of the sea breaking around their feet. Hurley said the men felt confident about the ‘six proven veterans, seasoned by the salt & experience of the sea’. He estimated that the journey to South Georgia would take fourteen days.

Slowly the
James Caird
began to pull away from Elephant Island, with the men on the beach straining for a final glimpse of the vessel as she rose and fell between the heaving swell. Very soon the tiny boat disappeared from view behind the dark menacing waves.

It was a toss-up which party faced the greatest ordeal – the 22 castaways stranded on the bleak inhospitable beach at Elephant Island, or the six men preparing to sail across the world’s most dangerous seas in a 22 ft 6 ins (7 m) long open boat without proper navigating equipment. Worsley remembered: