THE END Of THE OPEN BOAT JOURNEY

For three days they had fair weather, although they only had blue skies once when Worsley could manage a sight. They continued bearing eastward, still shipping seas over their bows, still wet and cold. But at least they were not tormented by storms and freak monster waves.

On the twelfth day out from Elephant Island, however, they discovered a potential disaster. When the two casks of fresh water had been brought onto the James Caird, one had fallen into the surf and banged against a rock. Now they found that salt water had gotten into it. Shackleton reduced the water ration to half a cup a day. The water had to be strained through gauze to remove the reindeer hair that had gotten into it-the hair had gotten into everything. With red eyes inflamed by wind and salt spray, they stared ahead into the ocean, anxious for a sight of land, licking their cracked lips.

Just before dark on the fourteenth day, they saw a piece of floating kelp. "We joyfully hailed it as a sign of nearness to the land," Worsley wrote. If his calculations were correct, they were only eighty miles from South Georgia Island.

The whaling stations on the island were all on the northeast coast. The James Caird would be approaching from the southwest. Shackleton and Worsley debated where they should try to make a landfall. The southwest coastline was mostly uncharted, and they had no idea what kind of coves or natural harbors they could expect. On the other hand, trying to sail around to the other side put them at risk of being swept past the island and into the Atlantic with no landfall before Africa.

"Can you be positive of your position?" the Boss asked Worsley.
"Not to ten miles, but I can easily allow for that," the skipper replied. Frowning, Shackleton studied the featureless sea ahead of them. They "Can you be positive of your position?" the Boss asked Worsley.
"Not to ten miles, but I can easily allow for that," the skipper replied. Frowning, Shackleton studied the featureless sea ahead of them. They would have to make for the nearer coast, the uninhabited shore. It was the only safe choice.
May 8 was their fifteenth day out from Elephant Island. The day was foggy, and a heavy, cross sea and lumpy waves kept the men miserably wet.

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Through the mist they spotted a cormorant, and the men swore those birds never went farther than fifteen miles from land. They were close.

At noon the fog lifted into low clouds that scudded across their bows from the west-northwest. Rain squalls pelted them, hissing into the waves. Then McCarthy cried out, "Land ho!"
Ten miles ahead of them was a towering black mountain spotted with snow. The flying clouds hid it from their sight the next moment, but the men were grinning widely. "We've done it," Shackleton said in a hoarse, cracking voice.

They sailed ahead and by three o'clock could make out the faint patches of green tussock grass that grew among the snowy rocks. But as the sun began to go down in a red, stormy-looking glare, they still had not found a harbor. Swallowing their disappointment, they bore away from the dangerous coast to wait out the night.

"The heavy westerly swell increased," Worsley wrote. All night the Caird fell about in a very dangerous, lumpy, and confused sea, that seemed to run in on us from all directions, so that we sometimes shipped two seas over from opposite sides at the same time."

By dawn it was obvious that the men were in for another storm, and by noon the gale had blown up into hurricane force, lashing them with snow, rain, hail, and sleet. The howling winds were driving them straight toward the rocky coast. With each wave the boat was lifted high into the frenzy of the hurricane and then dropped into the trough, where it was almost becalmed. Each wave thrust them closer to the rocks.

Their only hope lay in trying to sail out of reach. Worsley knew that the boat was so low in the water that the wind had no purchase on the sides of the craft. If they set their two smallest sails, they could crawl up into the wind, away from the shore. It took more than an hour to rig the sails in the racing wind as they clung to the decks. Then the boat began clawing offshore, directly into the onrushing waves. Each sea now smashed with full force into the Caird. "While all bailed and pumped for dear life, she seemed to stop, then again charged a galloping wall of water, slam! like striking a stone wall with such force that the bow planks opened and lines of water spurted in from every

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seam, as she halted, trembling, and then leaped forward again," Worsley wrote. All afternoon and into the night, the punishment continued. Of all the dangers the men had confronted so far, this seemed to be the worst. They tried not to look back over their shoulders. The crashing of waves behind them told them how close they were to being smashed against the rocks. Shortly after nine that night the hurricane began to decrease. They had fought against it for nine hours. Much later they discovered that the hurricane had foundered a 500-ton steamer from Buenos Aires, sending it to the bottom with all hands.With the storm over, the first watch crawled into the bows to try to catch some sleep. A meal was out of the question: the water was gone, and their mouths and tongues were so swollen with thirst that they could hardly swallow. When the sun rose, the men stared bleary-eyed at the coast of South Georgia. They had to land that day. Shackleton thought McNeish would probably die if they didn't.

As Crean crawled out of his sleeping bag and began wriggling out from under the decking, his shoulder knocked against a pin that held the mast clamp in place. During the hurricane it had worked itself out until it held only by the tip. Now it fell out, opening the clamp and letting the mast topple forward. McCarthy caught it just in time. Crean held up the fallen pin in wonderment.

"Think of the strain it had been standing all the time, and holding on to the last, as if it knew what it meant to us," Shackleton remarked later. If the mast had fallen during the hurricane, they would have been lost.

Now King Haakon Bay was nine miles ahead of them. Worsley, Vincent, Crean, and McCarthy took turns at their two oars, pulling the boat forward and trying to get into the long fjord. It took all day, tacking against the wind, resetting the sails, rowing, tacking again, and rowing some more. The men scanned the water ahead desperately for floating ice to melt and drink, but found none. The early winter evening was falling when they saw a cove that might give them a good landing.

They pulled in to the entrance with the wind beating against their backs. Waves broke on boulders, sending white spray up into the twilight. Cliffs rose eighty feet high on either side of the cove, but at the southwest corner they spied a rocky beach where they could haul out. Shackleton stood in the bow

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directing the steering. The oarsmen felt ropes of kelp fouling their strokes with each pull. It was dark when their keel finally scraped over the rocks. They were back on South Georgia after eighteen months. At their feet, pools and streams of glacier melt came running forward to meet the ocean. The men fell on their hands and knees, lapping up the sweet water like dogs.

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