Michael Smith - Shackleton: The Boss: The Remarkable Adventures of a Heroic Antarctic Explorer

Chapter 1

DREAMING OF ADVENTURE

As a child Ernest Shackleton longed for far away places. He dreamt of travelling to the remote parts of the earth and exploring the unknown. He wanted to go where no one had been before.

At night he read books and comics which filled his head with the exploits of great voyages to distant lands. A favourite tale was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the classic book by Jules Verne about the submarine, Nautilus, that roamed the oceans under the mysterious Captain Nemo.

A fallen tree trunk in his garden became a ship's cabin and each day he sailed the seven seas in search of adventure.

Once he took a shovel into his back garden in Ireland and began digging a hole all the way to Australia. He did not get very far.

The parts of the world which held a special appeal for Ernest Shackleton were the North and South Poles where there is only ice and snow. He read all the books he could find about them. No one had ever been to either.

Ernest Shackleton's dream was to be the first man to leave his footprints in the two most remote places on earth. What he could never have expected was that his true-life adventures would be far greater, and more amazing, than anything in his dreams.

The Shackleton family ran a modest farm among the rich, green pastures of County Kildare, Ireland. Ernest was born in a large house at Kilkea, near Athy, in 1874. He was one of ten children eight girls and two boys who enjoyed a happy childhood, playing in the nearby fields.

When he was ten years old, his family abandoned the peaceful farm in Ireland and moved across the Irish Sea to the busy city of London. It was a big change. Ernest Shackleton did well at sports like boxing and football but found the new school hard going.

Ernest's father, who had sold the farm to become a doctor, wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and treat the sick. But Ernest dreamed of running away to sea.

Once, he took some friends to see a ship moored at London Bridge on the River Thames. The boys tried to enlist as sailors on the ship. The ship's chief steward took one look at the young lads and promptly threw them out. Ernest never forgot being turned away from the ship. He vowed it would never happen again.

Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Ernest Shackleton broke the news to his father that he did not want to become a doctor and begged to be allowed to leave school and join the navy instead. His father was very disappointed, but did not stand in the youngster's way.

Chapter 2

JOURNEY TO THE ICE

The first ship Ernest Shackleton worked on was called the Hoghton Tower, a cargo vessel bound for Chile in South America. He was enrolled at the lowest level, as ship's boy. His wage was the tiny sum of one shilling (5p) a month which is worth less than 4 euro a month today.

Life on board was harsh. Work was hard and when duties were finished, the sailors were cramped together below decks.

To reach Chile, the ship had to sail around the stormy Cape Horn at the very tip of South America. It is one of the roughest sea passages in the world and the ship was tossed around so violently that some crewmen were injured.

But Ernest was in his element. He loved the sea. He had found the adventurous life he wanted. Soon after returning home from his first voyage, Ernest Shackleton set sail once again.

He spent the next ten years sailing round the world, learning about the sea and ships. It was a good life. But he realised it was not enough to satisfy his thirst for adventure.

In 1900 Shackleton read that an expedition was being put together to explore the unknown continent of Antarctica.

It was a chance to fulfil another of his dreams a journey to the ice and snow. Luckily Shackleton knew a man whose father helped pay for the expedition. It was just the break he needed and Shackleton was accepted for the voyage. It was a dream come true and it was also a big step into the unknown.

Few men had ever set foot on the Antarctic Continent, the coldest and most hostile place on earth. There were no reliable maps and no native people to teach explorers how to survive the freezing conditions.

No one knew what to expect when the expedition reached the frozen continent. Or whether they would ever return.

The weather in the Antarctic is brutal. Temperatures often fall below -40 Celsius (-40 Fahrenheit) and even in the slightly warmer summer months it can be -20C (-4F). The lowest temperature ever recorded was taken in Antarctica an unbelievable -89.6C (-129F). At home today a typical freezer is only set at -20C (-4F).

The Antarctic expedition sailed from London in the summer of 1901. By chance, the expedition ship sailed from near the spot where Shackleton had been turned down on his first attempt to go to sea many years before.

The expedition ship, which was specially strengthened to withstand the crushing pressure of the ice, was built in Scotland and named Discovery. And the captain was Robert Scott.

Discovery crossed the oceans and headed for New Zealand, the last place they would stop to take on fresh supplies before plunging into the unknown. Next stop would be the icy wilderness of the Antarctic.

Nothing grows in the Antarctic so every scrap of food would have to be carried on sledges. It meant that Discovery was weighed down with supplies and food to feed the men for two or three years of exploration. Also on deck were sheep to provide fresh meat, and 23 howling dogs. The dogs would later help the men drag their sledges once they arrived on land.

The only wildlife, such as penguins and seals, were to be found on the shoreline. Consequently, once they left the shore and moved inland, the men would have to pull their food and equipment on sledges.

As Discovery pulled away from the dock and headed towards the ice, one of Scott's sailors climbed the rigging to get a better look at the cheering crowds. But the sailor lost his footing and crashed to the deck below. He was killed instantly. This was a grim reminder of the dangers the expedition faced.

Weeks later Shackleton caught his first sight of the great white continent. It was an awesome place of untamed natural beauty.

Not long after, Shackleton had a lucky escape of his own. He and the other explorers wanted to get a better view of the frozen land which lay sprawled in front of them. The plan was to send a man hundreds of metres into the sky in a hot air balloon so he could see what the local terrain was like.

Captain Scott had made the first ascent, gaining a marvellous view of Antarctica before him. Next up was Shackleton, eager to scan the horizon and to snatch a photograph of the unknown territory where the explorers were planning to go.

Suddenly, the balloon shot up to a dizzy height of around 250m (825ft) much too high! Swaying in the strong wind, Shackleton grasped the side of the balloon's basket. He could see a flat plain of ice and snow, a scene of endless whiteness.

No one had ever seen this far into the interior of the Antarctic and Shackleton quickly took a photograph, the first picture of the route to the Pole.

It might have been his last photo. When the balloon came back to ground it was checked for faults. To Shackleton's horror, it was discovered that the balloon was highly dangerous. Only luck had stopped the balloon plunging to the ground like a stone.

Danger is never far away in the Antarctic. On one occasion, a man was walking along the top of a hill near the water's edge when he slipped on the ice and plunged down a slippery slope into the freezing water. He was never seen again.