“An intangible feeling of uneasiness made me leave my tent about 11 pm. I started to walk across the floe to warn the watchman to look carefully for cracks when the floe lifted on the crest of a swell and cracked under my feet as I was passing the men’s tent. [It] was one of the dome tents, and it began to stretch apart as the ice opened… I rushed forward, helped some men to come out from under the canvas…

“The crack had widened to about 4 feet and I saw a whitish object floating in the water. It was a sleeping bag with a man inside. I was able to grasp it and, with a heave, lifted man and bag on the floe. A few seconds later the ice-edges came together again with tremendous force.”

— Ernest Shackleton, South