1912 (6 page)

Little love was lost between Shackleton and Scott: both were strong characters with opposing leadership styles. Nevertheless, they apparently got on reasonably well at first. So much so that when Scott made his attempt on the South Geographic Pole, in 1903, he chose Shackleton along with Edward Wilson to accompany him. It is not clear what happened on this trip but Scott's second-in-command, Albert Armitage, wrote some years later that ‘Wilson and Shackleton were packing their sledges after breakfast one morning. Suddenly they heard Scott shout to them: “Come here you BFs.” They went to him and Wilson quietly
said: “Were you speaking to me?” “No Bill,” said Scott. “Then it must have been me,” said Shackleton. He received no answer. He then said: “Right, you are the worst BF of the lot, and every time you dare to speak to me like that you will get it back.” Before Shackleton left he told me he meant to return to prove to Scott that he—Shackleton—was a better man than Scott.'

Opinions differ about whether Armitage was telling the truth, so many years after the event and when all the protagonists were dead. But regardless of what was said during the aborted attempt on the South Geographic Pole, Shackleton fell gravely ill and Scott had the young officer invalided home before the end of the expedition. As the relief vessel
Morning
departed a young sub-lieutenant, Edward ‘Teddy' Evans, wrote: ‘We watched till Scott's men vanished out of sight, when poor Shackleton…broke down altogether and wept.'

Years later Shackleton was asked by a journalist why he was drawn back to the Antarctic when he might have resumed work on a shipping line. ‘Men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons,' he responded. ‘Some are actuated simply by a love of adventure, some have the keen thirst for scientific knowledge, and others again are drawn away from the trodden paths by the “lure of little voices,” the mysterious fascination of the unknown. I think that in my case it was a combination of these factors that determined me to try my fortune once again in the frozen south.'

On Shackleton's return to Britain, in 1903, he was feted as a polar hero. At first he seemed content to try different jobs and bask in the glory of his exploits on the ice. He tried to raise expeditionary funds in 1905 but it came to naught, and there the matter seemed to rest. Then Shackleton heard on the Royal Geographical Society grapevine of a future Antarctic expedition. Henryk Arctowski, from Belgium, was proposing to use Ross Island as a base for an attempt on the South Geographical Pole.

This news seems to have spurred Shackleton into action. By February 1907 he had managed to secure support from his then employer, the Scottish industrialist William Beardmore, whose wife appears to have been having an affair with Shackleton at the time. The story has it that, shortly after, Shackleton ran into Arctowski, who told him he intended to announce the Belgian project at the RGS dinner that evening—the venue of choice for aspiring Livingstones to first propose their expeditions. Shackleton managed to get up before Arctowski at the dinner and announce his own plans, much to the Belgian's chagrin. Shackleton was an incredible opportunist, but the strategy worked.

The British announcement was reported in newspapers and came as a bombshell to Scott, who was planning a return to the south himself. If this wasn't enough, the papers suggested Shackleton intended to use the
Discovery
's old Ross Island base. Since Scott's return, relations between the two men appear to have been largely cordial, even after the 1905 publication of a popular book on the
Discovery
expedition that laid bare Shackleton's illness during their failed attempt on the South Geographic Pole. Scott, though, was horrified at the newspaper reports and sent several letters to Shackleton the next day. ‘I needn't tell you that I don't wish to haunt you and your plans but in one way I feel I have a sort of right to my own field of work in the same way as Peary claimed Smith's Sound and many African travellers their particular locality…PS I feel sure with a little discussion we can work in accord rather than in opposition,' he wrote—and, later that day: ‘Well goodbye for the present. The subject is very close to my heart so please write openly and freely.'

Scott asked Edward Wilson, as a mutual friend, to negotiate different areas of operation in Antarctica. His preference was for Ross Island, with Shackleton to base himself further east along the Great Ice Barrier—perhaps King Edward VII Land, first spotted from the deck of the
Discovery
just a few years earlier.
In many respects it was an outrageous proposition: Shackleton was well within his rights to work anywhere he pleased, just as Henryk Arctowski was. Shocked, and apparently unaware of his former leader's plans, Shackleton soon found Wilson siding with Scott. A few days later Shackleton telegrammed his old leader at Gibraltar: ‘Will meet your wishes regarding base please keep absolutely private at present as certain supporters must be brought round to the new position.'

By March 1907 Shackleton had sufficiently developed his plans to present them to the RGS. He would set about a three-pronged attack on the new continent. While assiduously avoiding naming his base, he stated his intention to send one team south, to strike for the geographic pole; one east, walking across the barrier to King Edward VII Land; and a final team west, for the magnetic pole. The geographic pole was the main target—but ‘I do not intend to sacrifice the scientific utility of the expedition to a mere record-breaking journey,' Shackleton wrote. ‘I shall in no way neglect to continue the biological, meteorological, geological, and magnetic work of the
Discovery
.' He intended to take scientific observations across all the natural sciences and claim both poles in one fell swoop for the British Empire: an audacious plan.

Press coverage of the funding drive for Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition reached across the Empire and beyond. Shackleton somehow managed to secure an old wooden sealer, the
Nimrod
; refit it, secure sponsorship, purchase supplies and equipment; and depart for the voyage south—all in less than six months. But he was in trouble. The expedition was massively in debt, and the scientific team was largely a token force. To give themselves the best possible chance, the British Antarctic Expedition dispensed with irksome committees and had no intention of allowing the
Nimrod
to be frozen in the ice. This ‘would render the use of a relief ship unnecessary, as the same vessel
could come south again the following summer and take us off'. It would save Shackleton money he did not have.

After reading the newspaper announcements, Edgeworth David wrote to Shackleton requesting to join the
Nimrod
and visit Antarctica on the first leg of the expedition, returning with the vessel at the end of the summer, before the onset of winter darkness. In Antarctica, the new continent, and in Shackleton, the dynamic explorer, David saw a chance for science to compete with sport. Shackleton was delighted, and in typical style wrote back immediately, welcoming David and offering him a berth. David gave the expedition much-needed scientific credibility: until then it had only a geology undergraduate, Raymond Priestley, and a respected, self-taught biologist, James Murray.

Privately, Shackleton was not confident he could get to the South Geographic Pole, writing to Reginald Skelton, a friend from the
Discovery
expedition: ‘now with the change of base, to King Edward VII's Land, the future prospects of getting South are somewhat hypothetical.' The finances were not in nearly as good shape as had been made out, and public aims had to be presented bullishly if Shackleton was to secure enough money. When first he approached the RGS, in early 1907, Shackleton claimed he had pledges of £30,000—but this was far from the truth. In fact, shortage of money would be a theme for all of Shackleton's voyages.

Much like other explorers before him, though, Shackleton recognised the lucrative possibilities of offering rich benefactors prospective mineral wealth and a stab at immortality—all they had to do was open their purses. New landmarks would be named after those who had wisely invested in his expedition.
Industrialists and newspaper barons could have their names engraved on the world, alongside those of monarchs.

A friend later remarked of Shackleton that he was ‘unique in his love of talking big and his ability to do big things. The two qualities rarely go together.' The wealthy responded. William Beardmore confirmed an earlier offer of £7000, and others soon followed: not so much that the expedition was awash with money, but enough for Shackleton to launch a credible assault on Antarctica.

En route, Shackleton's request in Australia for expedition funding found willing listeners. In the previous two decades there had been calls to scientifically explore the Antarctic region that lay to the immediate south of Australia. Early on the Victorian state government was keen, and offered to jointly fund a British expedition. In Britain the learned societies were strongly supportive. But the British Treasury was wary of the exercise, and quashed the proposal.

Victoria cast around for another partner. By 1889 the state had an offer from Baron Adolf Nordenskjöld, who offered to lead an Australian–Swedish expedition south. Nordenskjöld was something of a catch for the Australians. In 1879 he had become the first to find a route through the Arctic sea ice and bergs to the Pacific—not along the Canadian coast favoured by Franklin and others, but instead via the lesser known Northeast Passage, tracking northern Scandinavia and the Siberian seaboard.

Despite the controversy surrounding its handling of the Burke and Wills expedition, the Royal Society of Victoria was keen to continue expeditionary work and, with Nordenskjöld's offer in hand, established an Antarctic Committee. Sister societies across the pre-Federation colonies were enthusiastically supportive and there seemed a real prospect of an Australian expedition departing in 1890. All that was needed was £5000 to match the money being put up by the Swedes.
Pledges came from the different societies, and appeals were made to the colonial governments and public. In 1889 the Tasmanian deputy surveyor-general, Chas Sprent, published an impassioned plea for Australia to take a lead in exploration, arguing that ‘there is more lasting honour to be gained than in fighting the battles of the Old Country against half-armed savages,' and concluding, ‘The scientific world is anxious to see a renewal of Antarctic exploration, and nothing would be more gratifying to them, nothing will be more calculated to give the world an earnest [impression] of our desire to help, than for Australia to take up this work.' But by late 1890 the many committees involved had sucked the life out of the enterprise, and the planned expedition fizzled out.

In Australia, Shackleton realised that David was well connected and capable of appealing to the same sentiments that had so nearly ensured an Australian expedition not twenty years earlier. The academic was thrust into the funding spotlight; those on the team, Shackleton reasoned, could use their own contacts. On 10 December 1907 David wrote to the prime minister of Australia, Alfred Deakin, outlining why the recently federated country needed to help finance Shackleton's expedition.

David changed his tune from his 1904 lecture, and waxed lyrical to Deakin on the value of Antarctic research, listing a string of points, including the new continent being Australia's nearest neighbour, its probable control on weather conditions across the country, the changing magnetic conditions that govern navigation in southern seas and the promise of mineral resources. Reaching the South Geographic Pole was point five on the list. Given David's scientific reputation and his having vouched for Shackleton, the federal government awarded £5000. Last-minute appeals in New Zealand secured a further £1000. Shackleton had no British government support, but he had his expedition.

Unaware of just how poorly funded the expedition was, David continued apace with scientific planning, purchasing equipment—often out of his own limited funds—so that the team could make the most of its time in the south. With news of the Australian role in the expedition, the local newspapers trumpeted David's plans. Out of the woodwork came former students of his, chief among them Douglas Mawson, a Yorkshire-born, tall and prematurely balding young geologist who was in the field at the time of the newspaper announcement. On 28 September 1907 Mawson wrote to David: ‘I should have dearly loved to have gone myself and shall in any case be with you as far as my imagination can carry me.' Mawson was fascinated by the prospect that Antarctica held the key to one of the great geological unknowns: why living and fossilised plants and animals were commonly found across South America, Africa, Madagascar and Australia.

David had asked in his 1904 Dunedin lecture whether Antarctica was home to the remarkable
Glossopteris
, a fossil plant that dominated the geological record during the Permian period, some 299 to 251 million years ago in Australia, Africa and India. With its distinctive tongue-shaped leaves, and growing up to eight metres in height, it appeared to be a form of tree fern but produced seeds. The most obvious explanation for it being found across the southern continents was an ancient land link to Antarctica, allowing wildlife to freely move between the continents.