“I often elect to sit up during the night and read for several hours if it is not altogether too cold. My comrades strongly approve of my doing so, for they do not cease to remind me daily that I am the most irritating, inveterate snorer they have ever had the misfortune to be in the same dormitory with, and judging from the number of brickbats etc. the irate would-be slumberers hurl at me during the night, it must be true.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“The wear and tear of this period was dreadful. To Shackleton it was little less than maddening. Lines scored themselves on his face more deeply day by day; his thick, dark, wavy hair was becoming silver. He had not had a grey hair when we had started out to rescue our men the first time. Now, on the third journey, he was grey-haired.”
— Frank Worsley
Eleventh Edition, 1911
“We fortunately brought five volumes of Encyclopaedia Brittanica along with us and one or two fellows brought poetry books on their own, so that we have something to read and, by exchanging, can always get a change, though personally I prefer the encyclopaedia which I like to read from beginning to end. The knowledge we obtain, though varied, is confined to subjects beginning with the letters A, E, M, P, and S only. We know all about the manufacture of paper and the arts of printing, mining, engraving etc., but butter-making, dyeing and flying are sealed books to us.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“The great day has at last arrived and who will blame us if we abandon ourselves to an orgy of gluttony? If we are ever to be rescued, we all heartily hope it won’t be this day, or at least not until after supper tonight.
“Breakfast consisted of a magnificent thick hoosh made from 24 8oz cakes of Bovril sledging ration. We also had a delicious beverage made from four 8oz packets of Trumilk powdered milk: truly a breakfast fit to fete an Antarctic king.
“What have we for luncheon? A biscuit-nut-food pudding. There is nothing like it, nor nothing so good. For supper we had a hoosh of selected meat chopped exceptionally fine, flavoured with four blocks of sledging ration and 1/2 lb sugar.
“After supper we had a grand concert of 24 items, including a few new topical songs, and so ended one of the happiest days of my life, and for once one retired to rest with a feeling of complete repletion.
“[The] concert was voted a great success.
“Hussey is indefatigable with his banjo and it really does, as Sir Ernest said, supply brain food; not exactly intellectual food, but music hath charms altogether unique on Elephant Island. Hussey obliged with his inimitable recitations, with a very good-humoured salle at me.
“Wild, with his fine bass voice, sang Massa’s Gone Away and two other songs; Marston, who has quite the best voice of any of us, sang Widdicome Fair, The Golden Vanity and Captain Stormalong; and How, A Sailor’s Alphabet and Every Night, a typical music hall song. Wordie croaked the one and only item of his repertoire, The Son of a Gambolier. His croaking is as funny as it is popular. James rendered a splendid topical song, Elephant Isle, and the remainder of the turns ranged from weak and indifferent, in which category were topicals by Hurley and myself, the first of which I forget and the latter I hope to as soon as possible.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Shackleton, Worsley and Crean in the British Club, Punta Arenas
“Of average height, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, with face much wind-burned, square of chin, with heavy brow overarching deep-set grey-blue eyes telling a tale of strain and constant care, but brightening not seldom with joviality and good humour; solid, forceful and infinitely determined, — such is Sir Ernest Shackleton.”
— The Magellan Times, Punta Arenas, Chile, 1916
“There’s Lees the awful pessimist /
who treads upon your toes, /
gets in the way and every day /
recites his tales of woes.”
— Leonard Hussey
“Hussey, our waglet, has made up a particularly heartless piece of poetry, or rather a recitation with banjo accompaniment.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“Dr McIlroy’s patient, Blackborrow, who has been treated for a frostbitten foot since the boat journey—eight weeks ago—had to be operated on today, the toes of the left foot having to be amputated at their junction with the foot. All hands, except Wild, self, and Howe were sent out during the performance to take ‘fresh air’… Never perhaps was anaesthetic administered under more extraordinary circumstances. The operating table was built from a number of nut food boxes covered with blankets, the temperature of the ‘Theatre’ (our murky interior) being maintained at 79° by ardently stoking the bogie with penguin skins. In spite of the extremely unfavourable conditions, the operation was eminently successful…”
— Frank Hurley
“Greenstreet and Hudson, being invalids, were also allowed to stay.”
— Roland Huntford, Shackleton
“Hudson was still suffering from what is generally described as ‘nervous breakdown.’ His breakdown is remarkable for a man of such fine physique, but it is often the case that powerfully built men do not endure hardship & exposure very well.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“Greenstreet took a lively interest in the proceedings.”
— Alexander Macklin
“Blackborrow had all the toes of his left foot taken off about 1/4″ stumps being left…The poor beggar behaved splendidly & it went thro’ without a hitch…Time from start to finish 55 minutes. When Blackborrow came to he was as cheerful as anything & started joking directly.”
— Lionel Greenstreet
“Practically the whole of the available anaesthetic was used up, so if I have to have my leg off—not that there is anything whatever the matter with it—I shall have to have it done without anaesthetic.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Snow Petrel by Roberto Pujana, 2005
“A number of snow petrels have settled on the beach, nestling down into the snow. This is so unusual that it must foretell some change in the weather, we think, very likely, a blizzard. They are very tame. I killed one with a stick, cooked and ate it, and finding it eatable, others went out and did likewise, but we are all a little ashamed of destroying such beautiful creatures to satisfy our greediness, though why their beauty should exempt them I don’t know. They may have horrid dispositions for all we know.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
Military funeral procession in Port Stanley, 1914; source
“My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of this port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughter-house at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief distraction is to walk from the slaughter-house to the graveyard. For a change one may walk from the graveyard to the slaughter-house…. I could not content myself to wait… knowing that six hundred miles away my comrades were in dire need.”
— Ernest Shackleton, South
[image: Falkland Islands: Postcards: 1915 AA series by T. & N. Binnie of Port Stanley depicting the Battle of the Falkland Islands naval funeral, from Grosvenor Auctions]
HMS Avoca: Armed Merchant Cruiser, hired merchantman, previously as SS Avon (naval-history.net)
“HMS Avoca, a British armed merchant cruiser at Port Stanley, might have taken Shackleton to Punta Arenas…”
— Roland Huntford, Shackleton
“The Avoca cannot remain waiting on Shackleton’s convenience…men o’war cannot be delayed in war time for matters not connected with the war.”
— British Admiralty, from the minutes
HMS Avoca Captain’s log, 4 June 1916 (naval-history.net)
Shackleton. 