An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (36 page)

The vessel was half-full of water and Crean and McNeish grabbed anything that would carry water and began bailing for their lives. Worsley’s team quickly scrambled from their dungeon and joined in, knowing that another big wave would undoubtedly sink the dangerously overladen boat.

Shackleton said that never in 26 years’ experience of the sea had he encountered a wave so large. It was, he said, a ‘mighty upheaval of the ocean’ and Worsley guessed it had been caused by the ‘calving’ of some vast unseen iceberg many miles away.

The next day’s sight confirmed them less than 100 miles (160 km) from South Georgia, but the strain was beginning to tell on the weary men. Vincent was close to breaking down and McNeish, the eldest man in the party, was also suffering badly. But Crean remained unmoved and indomitable. Shackleton’s diary recorded:

By now the pressure was also getting to Shackleton, who at one point exchanged a sharp word with Crean over the water. As Crean was preparing an evening meal, he tasted the water from the second cask and found it salty. He called Shackleton, gave him a sip and asked what he should do. Shackleton snapped back that there was nothing they could do so the Irishman should go ahead and make the hoosh. But when cooked it was almost unpalatably salty.

The damage to the second water cask was the latest in a long line of setbacks which had bedevilled the expedition from the outset. While they had about two weeks’ food, their only supply of water was now brackish and barely drinkable. The six men had barely managed to cope with the heavy seas and cruel weather, but they would not be able to survive without fresh water. The need to find South Georgia was now critical.

The original plan was to head for Willis and Bird Islands at the western end of South Georgia, then swing eastwards to the whaling station at Leith Harbour on the north side of the island where they would find men and ships. But now it did not matter too much where they landed – so long as they landed as quickly as possible and slaked their growing thirsts. To underline their plight, Shackleton ordered the daily allowance should be cut to half a pint per man on 6 May. ‘Thirst took possession of us,’ he wrote.

Dawn broke on 8 May in stormy, squally conditions with the men feeling the thirst acutely. Their lips were cracked, tongues swollen and mouths dry, an incongruous predicament when surrounded by endless amounts of water.

But, by Worsley’s reckoning, they were nearing South Georgia and suddenly their hopes soared at the sight of small birds flying overhead, a clear indication that land was not far
away. The men peered into the distance through their heavily salt-rimmed eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of land through the hazy squall and billowing clouds which obscured their vision.

Shortly after midday, McCarthy let out a mighty yell – ‘
Land
!’ As the clouds and mist broke, right ahead lay the rugged black mountains of South Georgia. One glimpse, though, and it was gone as the clouds and mist closed in again and shut out the wondrous sight.

Worsley’s navigation had been impeccable and he remembered:

Shackleton said:

However, they had reached the southern coast of the island, not the western end which offered the easiest route to Leith or any of the other harbours of safety on the northern side. Nor was the weather prepared to release them from their torment. As they neared land, winds raced to about 60 mph and drove them dangerously close to the rocks. Worsley saw hazardous blind rolling waves, indicating shoals and reefs that would smash the
James Caird
to little pieces. It was far too risky to attempt a landing in the howling storm and the boat was taken back out to sea to stand off until the winds died down. It was so near, yet so far.

Daylight faded in the short winter’s day and the winds rose in intensity. Throughout the miserable storm-tossed night, the men had to bail and pump the water which flooded into the
Caird
. At one stage the little boat was caught on a cross sea, battered one way and then the other. The men were painfully thirsty and that night’s hoosh was badly tainted by the brackish water near the bottom of the damaged casket.

Shackleton privately doubted whether they would survive. It was the longest night of the journey and for the men probably the longest night of their lives.

Dawn on 9 May broke with winds screeching to hurricane force (over 73 mph on the Beaufort Scale) in the violent cross seas which threw up waves 40 ft high. Worsley said no one had seen anything like it before and added that the conditions ‘seemed to have been loosed from the infernal regions’.

By noon the wind had grown even stronger, racing to over 80 mph in a last desperate bid to prevent them from making their landfall. Some miles away in the same storm, an Argentinian vessel,
Argos
, sank off the coast of South Georgia with the loss of all hands.

Cooking was by now out of the question and the men gnawed on cold sledging rations, though they could hardly generate enough saliva to swallow. The water supply had dwindled to about a pint of murky liquid which had to be strained repeatedly through a fragment of gauze to remove the hairs.

The storm raged unbroken for ten hours but through one break in the clouds the men could pick out more rock formations as land neared. It was perhaps only 1 mile (1.6 km) away but again the boat was being dragged onto the shoals and reefs – so again they had to turn away.

The weather was appalling and Worsley’s log was short, sharp and straight to the point in a matter-of-fact way. He recorded:

At the height of the crisis, Crean and Worsley were forced to crawl on their stomachs out onto the decking and hoist the sail to allow the little vessel a chance to get away from the dangerous rocks. It took several minutes before they were able to drag themselves to their feet, clinging onto the mainsail in the roaring storm and finally fixing the sail. They then had to
repeat their hazardous trip, crawling on their stomachs in the pitching, rolling seas. It was another act of calm bravery and it almost certainly saved the
Caird
from destruction.

At around 4 p.m. the clouds lifted enough for them to catch sight of Annekov Island, a black 2,000-ft mountain which emerges from the sea about 5 miles (8 km) off the coast of South Georgia. The risk of running aground on reefs loomed again but, miraculously, the little boat cleared the danger and men faced up to the dreadful prospect of spending another night in the open sea. Worsley reported a ‘very heavy swell’ as they laboured to avoid the rocks.

Daylight broke on 10 May to find that the storm had abated and the wind was blowing gently. They were now free to make a run for dry land, but there was another shock for the men as Crean crawled out from the bows. As he emerged, his large frame struck the thwart and the pin which held the mast clamp in place was dislodged. The pin had worked loose in the hurricane and Worsley observed that, had it dropped out during the storm, the mast would have ‘snapped like a carrot and no power on earth could have saved us’. Luck had been with them, after all.

By noon they were close to Cape Demidov, the entrance to King Haakon Bay on the south of the island of South Georgia. But shortly afterwards, the winds began to blow in their faces, driving the boat away from land. They had no option but to lower sails and take to the oars. Two at a time, the men pulled and pulled, but after the privations and exhaustion of the past weeks, they were in no fit state. It was a hopeless task and the prospect of another night on board the boat looked likely.

They had already spent seventeen days in the open boat and were near the end of their tether. Another winter’s night in the Southern Ocean without water or hot food might have been the last for some.

By late afternoon, with the light fading, they could just see a narrow passage, too narrow for sail. It required another
supreme effort to row up to the channel. They pulled and then as they neared the gap, the oars were withdrawn and the boat passed through the small entrance like threading a needle.

Almost immediately, the little craft was carried on the incoming waves and ground to a halt in a small cove. Shackleton leapt onto the shore and held the boat fast. The others clambered ashore and to their relief immediately found a welcome stream of fresh water, probably from a glacier. In an instant, they all fell to the knees and drank.

The little cove, about 360 ft (110 m) long and 180 ft (55 m) wide, was surrounded by imposing black cliffs rising to over 100 ft (30 m) and topped off with a layer of snow. At the head of the cove was a rocky beach and the sharp eyes of Crean soon spotted a small cave which he believed would provide them with shelter for the night.

It was late evening on 10 May 1916, and 522 days since they had last set foot on South Georgia.

T
here was little rejoicing as they hauled themselves slowly onto the beach at the end of their remarkable boat journey. Never before had men accomplished such a feat in the Southern Ocean but it was hardly a thought that occupied them as they struggled up the stony beach, drained of energy and suffering badly from exposure and thirst.

The six men were a pitiful sight. They had paid a heavy price for their seventeen days in the open boat and were shocked to find that they could barely walk up the beach. Worsley said they had almost lost the use of their limbs through the continual wetting and cramped conditions which for much of the time prevented them from even the basic task of standing up straight.

The first consideration was to get the remaining food and equipment out of the boat, but it was soon apparent they were too weak to lift the boat to safety beyond the grasp of the sea. To lighten the load the rocks and bags of ballast were dumped, though this hardly helped. Normally six men would have managed to manhandle a small boat with some ease, but their strength had been sapped by the trials of the past seventeen days and they could barely move the boat, let alone drag it up the beach. Further struggle was useless so a rope was hastily tied around a nearby rock to hold it steady while the men refuelled themselves with a much-needed hot meal and rest.

The modest 12 ft (3.6 m) cave at the top of the beach was, in fact, little more than a hollow in the cliff-face. The entrance was blocked by a curtain of huge icicles, each about 15 ft (4.5 m) long, which might have deterred some from entering. But after seventeen days in the Southern Ocean it offered all the comfort of a five-star hotel.

Crean, resuming his duties as cook, prepared a meal, their first hot food in days. Shortly afterwards they collapsed into their sleeping bags, with Shackleton somehow finding the resolve and energy to take the first watch and keep an eye on the
James Caird
. They could ill-afford to lose the craft now with the journey around the island to Leith Harbour still ahead. But disaster was never far away.

Crean happened to be on watch at about 2 a.m. when the boat was suddenly caught by a heavy swell and broke loose from her makeshift mooring. Without thinking about his own safety, Crean plunged into the cold black water to catch the rope before it was carried out to sea. At one stage the Irishman was up to his neck in the foaming seas, clinging onto the boat before the others could scramble to his aid.

But, as before, the men were still too weak to drag the boat high up the beach and beyond the grasp of the rolling waves. It meant that the desperately tired men had to sit up for the remainder of the night to ensure that the precious boat was not lost to the ocean. The hostile environment denied the men even the simple pleasure of a few hours’ much-needed sleep.

In the morning, they decided to lighten the boat further by cutting down the top-sides and decking which McNeish had so carefully built three weeks earlier. Even then, it still took the tired little group much of the day to drag the
James Caird
inch by inch slowly up the beach beyond the high-water mark.

Towards the end of the day Crean and Shackleton went scouting for fresh meat and managed to find an albatross and a chick, which provided the hungry men with an excellent evening meal and badly needed inner warmth. McNeish pronounced it ‘a treat’ and for the first time in many weeks,
the men could relax a little. With the
Caird
safe, they all crawled into their bags and indulged themselves in the sheer luxury of twelve glorious hours of unbroken sleep on firm ground. For the moment, their humble refuge was all they required.

The little beach, called Cape Rosa by Shackleton, was clearly not intended to be their final destination. It was merely the first suitable landfall before making their way around the island to Leith Harbour or any of the cluster of whaling stations to be found on the north side.

Vincent and McNeish, in particular, had suffered badly during the fraught boat journey and were probably incapable of completing another sea journey. However, any lingering hopes of sailing around South Georgia to the north side were quickly dispelled when they awoke after their long sleep. In the previous night’s incident, the boat’s rudder had been lost. The vessel, which had crossed 800 miles (1,300 km) of the worst seas on the globe, was now reduced to little more than a humble rowing boat.