Audiobook Sample (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
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Chapter six, the men's thoughts began to turn to spring the return of the sun and warmth when the endurance would break out of her icy prison. And they can make a new assault on Val Sell Bay. Only once in the last part of June did they hear any sounds of pressure that was on the 28th, and Worsley described it in his diary. At times during the night, a distant, rich, deep, booming note is heard changing at times to a long creak and groan, which seems to carry a menacing tone. It starts up gradually, but stops abruptly and sounds best in the distance. The greater the distance, the better the sound. But then, on July 9th, the barometer began to fall very, very slowly. For five consecutive days, the reading slid downward. 29.79 29.61 29.48 29.39 29.25 On the morning of July 14th, the bottom fell out of the glass, 28.88 An ominous gloom came on about noon. The wind back to the southwest and began to blow, though not much At first, it wasn't until seven PM that the snow began to fall. By two o'clock the following morning, the whole ship vibrated as the wind screamed through the rigging. At 70 miles an hour, the snow was like a sandstorm blown up from the pole. Nothing could keep it out, though. They lashed tarpaulins over the hatch is trying to seal them off. By noon, it was impossible to see much more than half the length of the ship. The temperature was 34 degrees below zero. Shackleton ordered that no man venture farther than the dog kennels, which were only a few feet from the ship. The men who fed the dogs have to crawl on their hands and knees to keep from being blown away. Within two minutes after leaving the ship, the blinding, suffocating snow blocked their eyes and mouths on. The endurance is Lee side. The force of the wind eroded the ice, leaving it grooved and channeled on the windward side snowdrifts 14 ft high, built up, weighing probably 100 tons. Overall, the flows alongside the ship bent downward under the weight of it in the ship herself. With the load, she was carrying sank a foot on the following day, the temperature dropped to negative 35 degrees, and the dogs were fed a half pound of lard each to help them ward off the cold. After breakfast, Shackleton ordered all hands onto the ice to try to clear the flows on the port side of snow. The area around the candles was becoming dangerously weighted down, and he feared it might buckle under carrying the dogs with it all. That night, the blizzard raged. But on July 16th, the snow began to thin out, and by early morning there were patches of clear sky overhead in the faint glow of light. At noon, newly created pressure ridges could be seen in every direction. They looked like hedge rows separating different fields of ice against these banks of snow had drifted, but otherwise the howling wind had blown the surface of the ice free from snow and polished it smooth. Before the storm. The packet man almost one solid mass of ice, but now it was broken into pieces, and there was an area of open water to the north. It was a situation that made pressure inevitable. The ice. Now that it was twisted and broken up, provided 10 million new services to catch the wind, and each flow was capable of movement independence. Of the rest, the PAC would move with the wind and a kind of behemoth. Thick momentum would be set up through the ice. The resulting forces called pressure, and it began on July 21st, not against the ship herself, for she was in the center of a thick, tough flow. But there were sounds of ice working toward the south and southwest. The noise continued all night and into the next morning. After lunch, Worsley decided to have a look around. He put on his knitted helmet and watch coat and climbed the ladder. Almost immediately, he returned with the news that their flow had cracked. There was a rush to grab Burberrys and helmets, and everyone dashed on deck. The crack was there, about 2 ft wide, running from the outer edge of the flow, where extreme pressure had jumbled. One slab on top of another to within about 40 yards of the endurance is port quarter. The sledges were immediately brought on board in the sea, watches set. A breakup seemed imminent. They waited all that day and into the night and all the next day, no breakup occurred. The pressure could be heard all around, and occasionally they felt a heavy shock transmitted through the ice. But still, the endurance remained locked in the unbroken center of the flow. The crack on the port quarter froze over, and as the days wore on without any significant change in their situation, the sense of expectancy diminished. The sea watches were cancelled and sledging practice was resumed on a limited scale. Each time a party went out, they came upon pressure and occasionally a demonstration of power, the like of which they had never witnessed before. On July 26th, Green Street went with Wilds team for a short run. Seeing some working ice, they paused to watch as they stood looking. A solid blue green flow 9 ft thick, was driven against the neighboring flow, and together they rose as easily as if they had been two pieces of cork. When he got back to the ship, Green Street wrote in his diary. Lucky for us, if we don't get any pressure like that against the ship, for I doubt whether any ship could stand a pressure that will force blocks like that up among the other men to the feeling of security was rapidly disappearing after supper that night, there was a somber quiet in the Ritz. The whole party had been cheered by the sun's refracting image, appearing over the horizon for one minute just afternoon. It was the first time they had seen it in 79 days, but it did not quite offset the general uneasiness. McNish, who was never one to dodge the issue, came straight to the point in his diary that night that the sun means a lot to us now as we will have more daylight as we go along. We're looking for higher temperatures now, but we don't want this flow to break up until there is some open water, for it would mean the ship being crushed if we got a drift at present. Six days later, at 10 a.m. On August 1st, while the dog drivers were shoveling snow away from the kennels, there was a tremble, followed by a scraping, grinding sound, and the endurance rose suddenly upward. They heeled to port and dropped back into the water again, rolling slightly, the flow had broken and the ship was free. Shackleton was on deck, immediately followed by the rest of the crew. Swiftly, he saw what was happening, and he shouted to get the dogs on board. All hands dropped onto the shuttering flow alongside the ship and went among the dogs, wrenching their chains out of the ice and hurrying them up the gangway. The entire operation took only eight minutes. It was just in time as the gangway was being hoisted. The ship moved violently forward and sideways, propelled by the force of the ice. Driving in and under her, the stout old flow that had protected her so long became an attacker, battering her sides and turning the little dog lose two bits against her. The worst of the pressure was toward the bow, and all hands watched in helpless anxiety as the flows below broke into fragments, reared up and were overlapped by other fragments, which smashed into the green heart sheeting along the waterline. It went on for 15 agonizing minutes and then driven from the stern. Once more, the endurance is. Bow slowly climbed up onto the flow ahead. The men could feel a rise in a spontaneous shot of relief went up. For the moment, she was safe. The ice near the ship remained under intense pressure until shortly after noon and then settled down. The endurance remained perched atop the ice with a five degree list to port. The boats were cleared for lowering, and all hands were instructed to have their warmest clothing handy in case they should have to get out and walk. But I'll remain quiet throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Worsley, after recording the day's events, concluded the entry in his diary that evening. If anything held the ship from rising to such pressure, she would crush up like an empty eggshell. The behavior of the dogs was splendid. They seemed to regard it as an entertainment. We had got up for their benefit. During the night, the wind picked up from the Southwest, and by morning it was a blowing gale. These winds, compressing the pack ahead of them, had been responsible for the pressure. By morning, the chunks of ice around the ship had re frozen into a solid mass. Curiously, in the general break up, one large section of the old flow had come through intact. But it had been driven in against the ship and tilted up at a 45 degree angle so that the well worn sledge tracks and its surface were now running uphill. Most of the men were put to the task of building new kennels on deck for the dogs. The job required several days as work, and amazingly, even before it was finished, the memory of what had happened was beginning to fade. On August 4th, just three days after the breakup, Shackleton came upon a group of men in the Ritz, speculating confidently that the endurance was equal to any pressure. He sat down at the table with them, Shackleton said. There once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night, the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer, and he drank all he could hold. When the mouse had finished, he sat up, twirled his whiskers and looked around arrogantly. Now then, he said, Where is that damned cat? In spite of Shackleton's meaningful parable, the growing confidence among the men refused to be stifled. They knew now what pressure was like. They had seen the ship come through it, and she was none the worse for having done so. The returning son also did much to raise their spirits. There was now actual daylight for about three hours every day, plus seven or eight hours of twilight. The men resumed their hockey games on the ice in some spirited contests were held when oversized Tom Crean harnessed up their puppies for their first attempts at sledging practice. His efforts stimulated great interest, Worsley observed, partly persuaded, mainly driven, they pursue a devious and uncertain course even more erratic than the poor ships across the Weddell Sea. Again, in an entry for August 15th, Worsley reflected the general high spirits among them. In describing the intense rivalries among the dog team drivers or owners, Worsley related with a characteristic touch of exaggeration. Some very tall bragging is indulged in by some in respect to their teams, merits and performance. One team appears to suffer from heart disease, their owner evidently expecting the whole creation to hold their breath as they pass by. A vulgar person who often indulges in whoops and yells of York's tallyho had the indescribable effrontery to let go his horrid war cry whilst riding on the imposing conveyance drawn by their dignified but nervous creatures and was reproved by their indignant owner, pointing out to the vulgar person into what terror his voice had thrown. The beautiful but highly stung and delicate doggies. It is my painful duty to relate that this awful, vulgar person, the very next day, being out with an ordinary team, gave vent to his fearsome bellow when passing the heart disease team. The result was disastrous. Two of the poor creatures fainted and had to be brought round with heart shorn etcetera, while the remainder went into hysterics until the vulgar person and his associates disappeared over the horizon. The heart disease team belonged to Macklin, who believed in training his dogs as gently as possible. The awful, vulgar person was Worsley himself. Another factor contributing to the general cheerfulness of the party was their drift. Ever since the blizzard in July, they had been blessed much of the time with strong southerly winds, and during that period they had covered a distance of more than 160 miles. But just at midnight on August 29th, a single heavy shock struck the ship. A moment later, there was a sound like a distant clap of thunder. The men sat up in their bunks, waiting for something more to happen, but nothing did. The next morning they saw a thin crack running out of stern, but that was all the rest of the day passed uneventfully. Then, about 6:30 p.m. Just as the crew was finishing supper, the endurance shuddered to the blow of a second shock. Several men jumped up from the table and rushed on deck again. There was nothing except that the crack a stern had widened to a mere half inch. The 31st was quiet until about 10 o'clock in the evening. Then the endurance began to creak and groan like a haunted house. The night watchman reported that the ice ahead and along the port side was on the move, but there was nothing the men could do, so they turned in. But a series of loud, snapping noises, which reverberated throughout the ship, kept them awake most of the night. Those whose bunks were on the port side suffered the most. As they lay trying to sleep, they could hear the ice scraping and battering against the whole outside. Less than 3 ft from their ears. The noise stopped just before dawn, but it was a tired, jittery group of men who sat down to breakfast that next morning. The pressure began again late in the afternoon and continued into the evening. That night it was the worst it had been, Worsley described in his diary. Just after midnight. There was a series of loud and violent cracks, groans and bumps to the ship, making her jump and shake fore and aft, many dressed hastily and rushed on deck. Personally, I've got tired of alarms against which we can do absolutely nothing. So when the loudest crash came, I listened to make sure there was no ripping, tearing. Sound of smashing Timbers was indicating an entrance of the ice into the hold, then turning over and went to sleep. By the next afternoon, the pressure had ceased in the Endurance had survived her second attack