My Name Is Shackleton

By 1914, Ernest Shackleton had come within 97 miles of the South Pole, testified as an ice expert at the Titanic inquiry, and cabled the Admiralty to offer his ship for the war. Churchill's reply was one word: "Proceed."

He proceeded. The Endurance was crushed in the Weddell Sea, and 28 men were marooned on a drifting floe.

Shackleton decided to walk out.

He stood on the ice, emptied his pockets of a gold cigarette case and a handful of gold sovereigns, and threw them into the snow. Then he told the meteorologist Hussey to keep his twelve-pound banjo. Vital mental medicine, he said. Later he crossed 800 miles of the Southern Ocean in a 22.5-foot lifeboat while Frank Worsley, held upright by two men, snatched sextant readings between waves. Then he climbed the uncharted mountains of South Georgia in 36 hours with 50 feet of rope, an adze, and screws driven through the soles of his boots for grip. You cannot picture the boots.

He walked into Stromness whaling station on 20 May 1916. The manager, Thoralf Sørlle, had known him before the war. Sørlle opened the door, looked at the three ragged men on his step, and asked who the hell they were.

The man in the middle said his name was Shackleton.

Every one of the 28 came home.