Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

The 22 men left behind on Elephant Island feel helpless after Shackleton’s departure, as the Caird has been loaded with the best supplies available. Superficially confident in Shackleton’s ability to reach help on South Georgia, many of the men privately feel that his odds of success are nil. The men agree to build a permanent hut and collect rocks to use as the hut’s foundation. Orde-Lees writes that the men “are all ridiculously weak” (248). The job takes a long time. Upon its completion, the men enter the hut to sleep and are afforded some protection from a howling storm that night. They improve the hut through trial and error; a chimney is extended through the roof to allow Green to cook without creating too much smoke. Ingeniously, they devise a makeshift lamp by filling a container with blubber oil and draping pieces of bandage over the sides as a wick.

The sun appears on May 2, and spirits improve. All the men speculate endlessly as to how long it might take Shackleton to reach South Georgia. Many of them feel that ice conditions forming around the island would prevent a rescue ship from reaching them, as the Antarctic winter is only weeks away.