“When I entered the hut a gory sight and a worse smell met my gaze etc., but I was not prepared for the frightful mess in which I found my bag. It had evidently been used to prevent the penguins from dirtying the pebbles. As no-one had seen any penguins on my bag, nor knew anything about it, my excerations were directed at the mob in general and I refrained from particularizing.”
— Thomas Orde-Lees
“I have had a year and a half of hell, and am older of course, but no lives have been lost, though we have been through what no other Polar expedition has done. It was Nature against us all the time the cable [to the Daily Chronicle] barely describes a little of what it was. Wild and Crean were splendid throughout.”
— letter from Ernest Shackleton to Emily Shackleton
Kathleen Scott photographed by Bassano Ltd, 1934
“Shackleton or no Shackleton, I think it is one of the most wonderful adventures I ever read of, magnificent.”
— Kathleen Scott
“After a somewhat hurried visit to Government House, Shackleton fled to the cable office and sent off a 2,000 word Press telegram. Having waited till about 11 o’clock next morning, he condescended to reveal himself—but not a soul in Stanley seemed to care one scrap! Not a single flag was flown… And why? An old kelper remarked, ‘E ought ter ‘ave been at the war long ago instead of messing about on icebergs.'”
— John Bull (magazine)
“We sat…discussing the pros and cons of Shackleton’s chances…and we talked about him the whole evening, till I noticed it was twelve o’clock and we rose at once to go. Lady Shackleton came out into the hall with us while Allan her Scottish maid with her for so many years, stood at the open door to intercept any passing cab for us. She hailed one successfully, and as she did so the telephone bell rang. We bade a hasty goodnight as Lady Shackleton went to the telephone and it being raining we ran down the steps and jumped into the cab. They tried to stop us, Allan even running after the cab, but we were gone. It was the news of Shackleton.”
— Campbell Mackellar, with Tryggve Gran
“On May 31st, a solitary whaler made its way into Port Stanley and dropped anchor. A bearded figure, with curly hair falling to his shoulders, endeavoured to go immediately ashore. He was stopped by the customs officers, but refused to reveal his identity. At length, however, finding matters too warm for him, and possibly afraid of being taken for a German spy, he swore the two officers to secrecy, and thus landed.”
— John Bull (magazine)
“That evening a sort of crude reception was held in what Worsley described as a ‘large room, full of captains and mates and sailors, and hazy with tobacco smoke.’ Four white-haired, veteran Norwegian skippers came forward. Their spokesman, speaking in Norse with Sørlle translating, said that they had sailed the Antarctic seas for forty years, and that they wanted to shake the hands of the men who could bring an open 22-foot boat from Elephant Island through the Drake Passage to South Georgia.
“Then every man in that room stood up, and the four old skippers took Shackleton and Worsley and Crean by the hand and congratulated them on what they had done.
“Many of the whalemen were bearded and dressed in heavy sweaters and sea boots. There was no formality, no speeches. They had no medals or decorations to bestow—only their heartfelt admiration for an accomplishment which perhaps only they would ever fully appreciate. And their sincerity lent to the scene a simple but profoundly moving solemnity. Of the honors that followed—and there were many—possibly none ever exceeded that night of May 22, 1916, when, in a dingy warehouse shack on South Georgia, with the smell of rotting whale carcasses in the air, the whalemen of the southern ocean stepped forward one by one and silently shook hands with Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean.”
— Alfred Lansing, Endurance
“When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snow fields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, “Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.” Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels “the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech” in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts.”
— Ernest Shackleton, South
[“…dearth of human words…” from Endymion (Book II) by John Keats, 1818]
“We had forgathered aboard Captain Thom’s ship on the Monday night with several whaling captains who were bringing up their sons to their own profession. They were “old stagers” with faces lined and seamed by the storms of half a century, and they were even more interested in the story of our voyage from Elephant Island than the younger generation was. They congratulated us on having accomplished a remarkable boat journey.”
“One spoke in Norse, and the manager translated. He said that he had been at sea over forty years; that he knew this stormy Southern Ocean intimately… and that never had he heard of such a wonderful feat of daring seamanship as bringing the 22-foot open boat from Elephant Island to South Georgia, and then to crown it, tramping across the ice and snow and rocky heights of the interior, and that he felt it an honour to meet and shake hands with Sir Ernest and his comrades. He finished with a dramatic gesture:
“These are Men!”
“Coming from brother seamen, men of our own cloth and members of a great seafaring race like the Norwegians, this was a wonderful tribute.”
— Frank Worsley
“I do not wish to belittle our success with the pride that apes humility. Under Providence we had overcome great difficulties and dangers, and it was pleasant to tell the tale to men who knew those sullen and treacherous southern seas.”
— Ernest Shackleton, South
McCarthy, McNeish, Vincent
“McCarthy, McNeish, and Vincent had been landed on the Monday afternoon. They were already showing some signs of increasing strength under a regime of warm quarters and abundant food. The carpenter looked woefully thin after he had emerged from a bath. He must have worn a lot of clothes when he landed from the boat, and I did not realize how he had wasted till I saw him washed and changed. He was a man over fifty years of age, and the strain had told upon him more than upon the rest of us. The rescue came just in time for him.”
— Ernest Shackleton, South
Shackleton. 