Endurance Part Four (ch. 1 and 2)

Birds similar to those the crew saw

Excitement, freedom, dampness, exhaustion. All of these feelings were rushing through the minds of the members of the Endurance as they made their run for open water. "The birds were so thick their droppings spattered on the boats and forced the rowers to keep their heads lowered." In this sentence, Lansing uses concrete details to paint the scene the men endured. The details of this sentence help the reader visualize the swarms of birds and the sight of all their droppings. It creates a rather disturbing picture in my mind, but it is a reality that these men faced. The men took shifts in order to keep fresh rowers. They rowed all day, but they were unable to tell what their progress was because it was too cloudy to see the sun. They made camp on yet another floe that seemed capable. They ate and turned in for the night. Then at eleven o'clock that night, Shackleton was unable to sleep, so he dressed and went outside. He observed a swell on the floe until suddenly the floe cracked right down the middle. The crack went right through one of the tents and sent the men scrambling. Ernie Holness, who was sleeping in that tent, fell straight into the ice cold water. Shackleton pulled him out in one strong heave, and he jumped over to the other side to help secure all the belongings. Shackleton stayed on that side of the floe until everyone else had made it across, but the floe separated completely before he could make it across. Shackleton was set adrift. A boat was hurriedly sent after to retrieve their captain, and he was safely brought back to camp.

a Floe-Berg

The next morning the boats set sail again. They rowed through what couldn't be sailed through; all the while they had to live through the wet conditions, and they reluctantly had to make camp on what was described as a "floe-berg." A floe-berg is a mix between a floe and an iceberg. Shackleton feared camping on icebergs because at any moment one side could melt away and the crew would be thrown into the ice-cold water. That night Shackleton's fear became a reality, and the floe-berg began falling apart into the crashing water. The crew was rudely awakened yet again, and they were put on standby to launch the boats. Shackleton was waiting for the right moment to launch the boats without being thrown back into the jagged edges of the berg. They were able to safely launch and get away from the hazardous floe-berg. The men slept in the boats that they tied to a small floe. The next day, the sky cleared and Worsley was able to calculate their position. His findings were very disconcerting and demoralizing. He found that they were 124 miles east of King George Island and 61 miles southeast of Clarence Island. This put them 22 miles farther from land since they set sail.