Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance

When the exhausted men arrive on Elephant Island, they kill an elephant seal—for which the island is named—and immediately eat it. The island is desolate and vulnerable to storm tides that could put their current location underwater. Although they need to search for a better site, they first need rest. They spend the rest of the day eating and sleeping. The next morning, Wild and five others take the Stancomb Wills to find somewhere else to set up camp. The rest of the men continue to eat and rest. They also drink water from the island’s glacier ice. Wild and crew return at night with news of a slightly better area seven miles west. Shackleton decides they will head out the next morning.

At five o’clock the next morning, they load up the three boats and head out to their new location. Through forceful winds and a strong current, they slowly sail forward. The boats “rolled and pitched in the violent, sucking backwash from the cliffs” (91). The men suffer from blisters and frostbite, and some have lost their mittens. When they finally reach the beach in the afternoon, they are again exhausted and freezing. They kill another seal, and Greenstreet, one of the men who has lost his mittens, puts his hands into the carcass for warmth.

Their new campsite is not much better than the previous one but is more elevated, which makes it safer from the threat of rising water in a storm. As soon as they arrive, a blizzard blows in. The wind is so strong they are unable to set up their tents and must sleep outside in their sleeping bags and blankets. The blizzard lasts for two days. Finally, when it is over, they can leave the shelter of their blankets, and Shackleton orders them to hunt for penguins for food. They know that they cannot stay in their new spot indefinitely, particularly as food sources will grow sparse during the winter. At some point, a team will have to leave and get help. They determine the best plan is to head 800 miles back east to South Georgia Island, where the whaling station is located.   

Although Worsley offers to lead the rescue mission, Shackleton knows he must be the one to do it. He knows his “responsibility had never been greater” (92), and he must return so the men do not feel abandoned. When he tells the men about the trip, “every man stepped forward to volunteer” (93). He chooses to take along Worsley for his navigational skills, as well as veteran explorer Crean, cheerful young crew member Tim McCarthy, and “troublemaker” John Vincent, who Shackleton feels will do better away from the others. He also takes McNeish, despite his previous threat of mutiny. He requires his carpentry skills in case repairs need to be made.

They decide to leave in four days, and McNeish starts to prepare the James Caird, which is the sturdiest boat of the fleet. They reinforce parts of the boat and bring along a stove, some food, and a keg of water. Worsley brings what is left of his navigational tools. They are anxious on the night before they leave, and Shackleton instructs Wild to take the men in the other boats if he does not return with a rescue ship.  

Early in the morning on April 24, everyone gets up to prepare the James Caird for its departure. Worsley and Shackleton climb a hill and determine the point at which their boat can break free from the ice and icebergs surrounding the island. When the boat is loaded and ready, the rescue crew says their goodbyes, and the remaining men cheer as the boat ships out into the water. Shackleton raises the sail and directs Worsley around the ice. For a couple of hours, they make strong progress, and then they spend another hour navigating their way through some of the ice they previously spotted from the hill. They pass through before it gets dark and make their way north. They have determined the best route is to go as far north as they can and then head east, since this will carry them away from the ice and “most frigid weather” (95).

The rescue crew has decided to sail straight through the night and day throughout the duration of the journey. One team mans the boat for four hours while the other team rests, and then they switch. The journey is a difficult one as their living space is extremely small and uncomfortable. They have to crawl to reach the sleeping bags and try to sleep as the boat heaves all around in the water. Their clothes are soaked through the entire trip, and there is always water at the bottom of the boat. The sleeping bags, made of reindeer hair, are rotting, and the hair is everywhere and gets into everything, including their food and water. Crean is the designated cook and makes the food on the stove while Worsley balances the pot. Shackleton also has them regularly drink hot milk with sugar so they can maintain their strength.

Three days into their journey, the weather takes a terrible turn. They encounter a gale that causes snow and strong waves. They pass wreckage from another ship as they continue to be blown north. It is difficult for Worsley to navigate because it is so hard to catch a glimpse of the sun. His readings are “the crudest of guesses” (98), and he has to look up information in tables in his soaking-wet books. On day seven, the winds grow stronger and the temperature drops. They worry about the sails icing over so they take them down. The situation becomes worse the next day as “fifteen inches of ice encased the boat above the water line” (99). It makes the boat heavy and vulnerable to rolling over. Due to the cold, the men work in short, five-minute increments to hack away at the ice.  

The gale finally ends, and everything in the boat is drenched. Some of the sleeping bags are unusable due to water damage, and the men throw them off the ship. They are frostbitten, hungry, and tired. Their legs and feet are swollen from being constantly wet and getting no exercise. McNeish, who is one of the older members of the crew, is starting to “break down,” along with young Vincent, who is “close to collapsing” (100). To make the situation more harrowing, the next night a huge wave hits the boat, and the crew spends an hour getting water out of it to prevent it from capsizing. However, on day 10, they feel optimistic when the sun appears, and Worsley calculates they have gone more than half the distance to their destination. 

For the next few days of the journey, the crew has milder weather and continues traveling east. Despite clearer skies, they discover on day 12 that saltwater has seeped into a hole in one of their two freshwater casks. They have to ration the water and can only drink it after straining it, since it is also filled with reindeer hair. On day 14 they spot floating kelp, which they take as an indication they are approaching land. Worsley calculates they are 80 miles away.

They will be approaching South Georgia Island from the opposite side of the whaling stations. Despite the fact that the southwest coast of the island, where they will land, is “mostly uncharted,” they decide it is safer than staying in the water. Continuing to sail around the island could lead to them being swept out to sea “with no landfall before Africa” (102). Although they spot land on their 15th day at sea, they are unable to find a safe harbor and must spend the night in the boat. 

The next day a major storm blows in, and the wind rapidly pushes the boat towards the dangerous rocks on the coast. They spend nine hours fighting the wind and enormous waves, continuously pumping water out of the boat. They later find out the same storm sank a 500-ton ship with the entire crew on board. Once the storm ends, they try to get some rest. They are unable to eat as the water supply is gone. They must reach land that day or McNeish, who is in the worst shape, might not make it. 

They spend the next day battling the winds, taking turns rowing to try to get to land. They finally spot a cove that seems relatively safe. There are massive cliffs on either side, but they find a rocky beach where they can pull into the harbor. Once they get the boat onto shore, they run to the glacier water to drink, collapsing “on their hands and knees” (105). They have returned to South Georgia Island 18 months after first leaving. 

As soon as they arrive, Shackleton has the men make sure the boat is “unloaded and beached” (106). It takes far longer than it normally would because they are so exhausted. Crean finds them a cave where they can make a camp, and they spend the next couple of days recovering from their harrowing journey. They make a fire and cover the ground of the cave with grass to make it more comfortable. They attempt to bathe as best they can in the snow and find some seals and albatross chicks for food. 

After regaining some of their strength, the men decide on the best way to proceed. They know the James Caird could probably not handle sailing 130 miles around the island to reach the whaling stations. Although the island’s mountainous snow-filled interior is uncharted, it is only 29 miles across. The trek will be dangerous, but Shackleton understands it is “the only choice” (107). He has too many people counting on him for the rescue mission not to succeed.

Shackleton decides to take Crean and Worsley, leaving behind McCarthy to tend to McNeish and Vincent, who are still ailing. They pack lightly, carrying the stove and food rations for three days. They also take an ax, a compass, a map of the island’s coast, and some rope they made from scraps. They leave early in the morning on May 18, planning to move as quickly as possible with only brief periods of rest. 

The group of three begins their journey exhausted, using the rope for safety as they climb up the mountainous terrain through the snow. Shackleton takes the lead, instructing them to stop in 15-minute increments for two minutes of rest. After several hours of hiking, they reach the summit of a mountain pass only to find the other side is a “sheer drop.” They head back down and make their way up to another pass, finding the other side to be “just as impossible” (109). Disappointed, they try yet another pass with the same results.

They finally reach a fourth pass just before dark. Shackleton leads the way down the other side, using the ax to make steps in the snow. Although the slope’s angle becomes easier, as night and fog roll in they cannot see where it goes. Since it will be too cold to stay where they are for the night, Shackleton argues that they have to continue down. Worsley and Crean are momentarily in disbelief that Shackleton is telling them to actually “slide down the mountain” (111). Despite their fear of the outcome, they know they have to risk it.

They sit “in a line with their knees around the man in front” and head down “like tobogganers with no toboggan” (111). In a few minutes they descend a mile, safely arriving several thousand feet lower than where they were initially. They shake hands in celebration and move away from the base of the slope to avoid getting caught in a potential avalanche. They eat and then begin moving again, heading east. At two o’clock in the morning, roughly 24 hours after they first left the cave, they can see “rocky islets below them” (112). They continue to descend the mountain but reach a point where it is too dangerous to move any further. They have to climb back up to keep going.

At six o’clock they reach a gap where they can see land and Stromness Bay below them to the east. An hour later they hear the whistle at the whaling station factory. They celebrate briefly, but they are out of fuel for the stove and still have many miles to travel. They slowly descend a steep and slippery slope, following the coastline. At one point they hit a glacier and are forced to go back up to get around it. Finally, they find themselves staring straight down at Stromness Bay and two small whaling ships from a point 3,000 feet up. Worsley tries to get the attention of the ships, but they are still too high.

They follow a ravine only to find it ends in a 50-foot drop. They use the rope to get down, with Worsley holding it until it is his turn. He shoves it under some rocks and climbs down, with Shackleton and Crean catching him at the bottom. They are unable to retrieve the rope, so they leave it there. They finally reach the whaling station. They reach the door of the home of the factory manager, Captain Sørlle, who asks them who they are despite the fact that he has met them previously. They are so dirty and tattered that they are unrecognizable. When Shackleton identifies himself, Sørlle begins to cry.

Shackleton is made aware that the Aurora, the ship that was meant to pick up Shackleton and his men on the other side of Antarctica, had also become trapped in ice. Since the damaged ship decided to retreat, everyone feared Shackleton and his men had made it across the continent “only to find themselves abandoned” (115). Everyone, including the factory workers, is in awe and disbelief of Shackleton’s story of survival. After Worsley is taken on a boat to get McCarthy, McNeish, and Vincent, Shackleton starts to plan the rescue trip to Elephant Island. Telegrams are “racing across the ocean” (116), proclaiming that Shackleton is safe.