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"South; The Endurance Expedition" by Earnest Shacleton
It is a famous episode of the race of reaching the South Pole between Norway and England. Norway reached fast and English team was lost in the continent of ice and snow.
When I read the tragedy of Scott and his men in a book for children, I was shocked so much.
Earnest Shacleton is the successor of Scott. He started his Antarctic adventure career under the Captain Scott. He was born on February 15, 1874 in County Kildare, Ireland.
(Firstly I am shocked with this name of place. I have read this name in the famous novel of James Joyce. The main character, Stephen Dedalus wrote on the flyleaf of the geography about himself:
Stephen Dedalus, Class of Elements, Clongowes-Wood College, Sallins, County Kildare, Ireland, Europe, The World, The Universe.
I learned this sentence by heart. Oh, it's the same place! Earnest and Stephen and James were dwellers of the same place!)
E.S. 's plan is crossing from the Weddell sea to the South Pole( the same route of Scott) and reaching to the Ross Sea( Japanese Antarctic base is there).
He has two ship. The Endurance, three hundred ton wooden ship is for the Weddel Sea with E.S. and his 28 men. The Aurora is for the Ross Sea with Captain Mackintosh with 12 men and ship crews. The latter is the support team to lay the depots for the continental crossing team.
But the Endurance can not reach the continent and is caught with the pack of ice. At last the Endurance is pressed with ice floes and packs to be broken. E.S. and his men draw the sledges on which they carry the 6 meters boats and stock to the Elephant Ireland which is situated on the rim of the Antarctic continent. And E.S. and 12 men raw the boat to the South Georgia Irelands.
The expedition is failed but the retreating process is the most thrilling reading in my life. All of the Endurance team member survives with the excellent leadership of E.S.
The mission of Aurora team is successful. Mackintosh and his men travel toward the Pole with laying the depots for the crossing-continent team completely.
But they are suffered by coldness and the short of food. From the last point of depot they starts going back. If they had taken the food for the E.S. team,
they could reach the base camp healthy. But they would not use the food for the E.S. and men. If they had consumed them, E.S. and men must walk without food and equipment. So they go back with a few biscuits and a cup of tea a day. Almost of sledding dogs starve to death. It is very sad to read these dogs can not catch up the sledge( as dogs cannot draw it, men draw it) and sit down in the snow to sleep forever. (E.S. foresees this situation and he orders his men to shoot their dogs and cat before the retreat.) On the way of this retreat, one member dies with heart disease. A survived member writes he was the hardest worker during the trip for depot work. Captain Mackintosh is carried on a sledge to the base camp. Then the men find the Aurora drifted away by the moving packs and floes. As the fresh seal meat and stocks revive the Captain M. , one day Mackintosh and one member leave for finding route for the missing ship. The storm comes. They disappears.
The drifting Aurora can wait the chance to escape from the ice and succeeds. Aurora sails to the New Zealand.
E.S. gets a new ship to rescue the left members successfully.
The survivors spend two winter season in the extreme coldness.
This expedition made me to forget changing the train four times.
This is the most thrilling nonfiction in my life.
(bought at Osaka in 2000, read from September 27 to October 5)
