Shackleton.

“We hear and see whales blowing all around absolutely continuously at times. A particularly ugly killer poked his head up and had a look around by our floe. Penguins are croaking… and occasionally a shoal of them swim through a pool with a peculiar leaping movement like great fleas hopping along the water surface, and looking fine in the brilliant sunshine. About twenty seals were visible…this morning at one time. Crowds of snow petrels are on the wing, with occasional giant petrels and skua gulls.”

— Reginald James

“A casual observer, might think the Explorer a frozen hearted individual, especially if he noticed the mouths watering when tears ought to be expected. Hunger brings us all to the level of other species, and our Saying ‘that sledge dogs are born for work & bred for food’ is but the rationale of experience.”

— Frank Hurley

“Fancy that ridiculous Shackleton & his South Pole — in the crash of the world.

“When all the sick & wounded have been tended, when all their impoverished & broken hearted homes have been restored, when every hospital is gorged with money, & every charitable subscription is closed, then & not till then would I concern myself with those penguins. I suppose however something will have to be done.”

— letter from Winston Churchill to his wife, writing from a Flanders trench, 1916 [Churchill in WWI]

“Churchill, of course, had originally been responsible for allowing Shackleton to proceed. He was, however, no longer First Lord of the Admiralty, having resigned over the failure of the Dardenelles campaign. … He was now a Lieutenant-Colonel, in command of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. He was in the trenches at Ploegstreet, in Flanders, in the Ypres Salient, one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Western Front.”

— Roland Huntford, Shackleton

24 March 1916: Wireless message from the Aurora, Shackleton’s Ross Sea ship, received in Australia:

“Hull severely strained. Ship released from ice March 14th … drift 500 miles … Wireless appeals for relief ship sent during winter no acknowledgment. Ship proceeding Port Chalmers, New Zealand. Jury rudder no anchors short of fuel.”

— Joseph Stenhouse (First Mate, Aurora)

“It was the first news of Shackleton’s expedition, either branch, since its departure in 1914.”

— Roland Huntford, Shackleton

“Greenstreet and I amuse ourselves at Marston’s expense.

Marston is the plumpest man in the Camp and we become very solicitous about his welfare and condition, making a great show of generosity by offering him old penguin bones that we have gnawed till there is nothing left. We implore him not to get thin and even go so far as to select chops, etc., off him and quarrel about who shall have the tenderest part.

Finally he gets so disgusted with us that whenever he sees us approaching he turns and walks away.”

— Frank Worsley