Last man standing / part 3/ draft 1

Last man standing / part 3/ draft 1

see part 1 and 2

Note- Shackleton stories are a compilation of facts, and more than some amount of fiction -author


" Earnest Shackleton is a good example of a man who was supremely confident and used planning and goal setting to produce several magnificent  fiascoes."
The Cynics apothecary
ed pritchard- 2013

It was all smiles in the beginning, even Shackleton who didn't smile much. When the "Endurance" got stuck in the ice we played soccer while we waited for warmer weather to unthaw the ship. We are still waiting nearly a year later but ice has destroyed our ship.  We sang songs as a group while we waited for the ice to thaw and the ship to be free. Now we huddle under a boat trapped on a mushy shrinking island of floating ice while we wait for boss, [Shacketon] to return from Wilhelmina Bay where whalers hunt to rescue his last four men. At first, we sang cheerfully pulling the boat we now sleep under, we were the mush dogs, the real mush dogs were eaten or ran off or lay down and died  to escape the cold. The horses too, all gone after much fuss; who would bring a horse to such a hostile place as Antarctica?  Where are us four men now? We wait, and we wait, and we wait, for rescue at a place called Patience camp where we die one by one.
Frank West
1915

"The ice flow we are stuck on is getting dangerously thin and the wind drives us East and then the currents drive us west, we end up nowhere."-- I hate penguin meat, it does not taste like chicken."
Swenson, a common sailor

"The men have never lost faith"
Shackleton-1902, 1908, 1915, and 1922

" If any place on earth is the end of the earth it's Elephant Island, Antarctica."
ed Laufter, American
1915

"It took 126 days for us to be rescued from Elephant Island, I lost use my fingers, partial use of my hands, and my feet sometimes cannot tell if they are touching the ground. If there is Hell, it is Antarctica."
last man standing[ sic anonymous]
1916
end part 3