“[Why Shackleton] was allowed to go playing the giddy goat at the South Pole in the interests of nobody and nothing but himself, why was he allowed to take away useful men whose services might have been utilised in war… there are men on Elephant Island who might have been more useful and quite as much entertained in Flanders and Salonika. We have very little use for Sir. E. Shackleton.”
— The Strathspey Herald
Edward and Cicely Shackleton, unknown photographer and date
“I am very anxious about our men for they must have so little to eat now…We are very short of water, and have not been able to wash since we left South America…but that is nothing for I had no wash from October last year until 25th May this year…
“I will have many stories to tell you when I return…, but I cannot write them. I just hate writing letters but I want you to get this to know I am thinking of you my little daughter.”
— letter to Cicely Shackleton, Shackleton’s daughter
McIlroy has conducted this poll: if you were allowed only one dish right now, but it could be any dish, what would it be?
Clark: Devonshire dumpling with cream
James: Syrup pudding
McIlroy: Marmalade pudding and Devonshire cream
Rickenson: Blackberry and apple tart with cream
Wild: Apple pudding and cream
Hussey: Porridge, sugar and cream
Green: Apple dumpling
Greenstreet: Christmas pudding
Kerr: Dough and syrup
Macklin: Scrambled eggs on toast
Bakewell: Baked pork and beans
Cheetham: Pork, apple sauce, potatoes, and turnips
Blackboro: Plain bread and butter
“Little by little, conditions were becoming increasingly primitive. The treasured nut food had been finished, and the powdered milk too. And though these were sorely missed, their lack could hardly be compared with the tragedy when the tobacco finally ran out.”
— Alfred Lansing, Endurance
“My place is much envied by everyone owing to its proximity to the stove. No-one would have this place at first. I saw certain possibilities in it…except for the hairs, which are abominable, I have never regretted it. Marston occupies a hammock most of the night and day which is slung across the entrance. As he is large and the entrance very small, he invariably gets bumped by those passing in and out. His vocabulary at such times is interesting. Thank heavens man is an adaptable brute!”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Crew of the Endurance, Elephant Island, 1916
“The most motley & unkempt assembly that ever was projected on a plate.”
— Frank Hurley
“In the west, the darkness of night rolled away out of sight, dissolving as the eye rose into deep violet, purple, heliotrope and finally pale blue which melted overhead into the duck-egg green. All these colours were reflected in the inky sea & even more fully on the beautiful glacier that forms at once our companion & our menace, changing chameleon-like through every shade of colour from deep violet to rose, to grass green and to azure blue.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Visitor’s Book, The British Club, Punta Arenas, Chile, 1916
Signatures for Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean are in the column on the right.
“It sometimes seems that Sir Ernest and his comrades in that wee 22ft boat can never have accomplished the tremendous voyage they embarked upon, and if peradventure they have succeeded, why have they not returned with a ship to rescue us? Maybe no ship is available…
“Wild is a fine fellow to keep one’s spirits up. He is as great an optimist as Sir Ernest himself, and that is saying a good deal, but of course some of his remarks don’t bear much analysis, and he ought not to try and dupe me over the meat supplies, for I have been at it now for two years and it is truly a case of ‘telling it to the marines.'”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“The sea is quite calm, which is a bad omen, and what looks like a line of ice on the horizon is a worse one. A seal made quite a little pretence at trying to land. Had we a little more ammunition we should attempt to shoot him in the water.
“We had, however, a wonderful haul of 81 penguins. Owing to the alleged abundance of our food reserve, we were told that no part of the penguins need be kept except the heart, liver and skins. Really, we deserve to go without if we deliberately throw valuable food away like this.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Shackleton. 