After I finish a book I tend to lend them out. Hardly anyone actually reads the book in a timely manner (if at all) so it it years before I get them back. . Why do I tell you this? Because when you only have the dust jacket and not the book it hinders your ability to flip through the pages to help recollect the story. I lent The Lost Men to my dad. I asked him about it and he didn’t remember it so I don’t think he ever started reading it. Anyway…
The greatest survival tale ever written (Yeah even better the The Worst Journey in the World
-National Geographic take that!) is Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
. The story of Ernest Shackleton’s voyage to cross Antarctica. I like the Alfred Lansing version, because I find the first hand accounts to sometimes be hard to read, esp. if they are in diary format. It usually makes for a more gripping story when you have an author who combs through all the journals and diary’s to put together a complete story. After you read Endurance and know the story check out The Lost Men. You know the whole time I was reading Endurance I was wondering something in the back of my mind. I was thinking, could I have survived with the crew. But behind that thought I was wondering, what about the other team? The poor saps that had to lay the resupply depot. What happened to them? I mean they didn’t have cell phones back them. There was no way to tell them “Hey Shackleton’s stuck in the ice don’t worry about killing yourself to lay the depots. “ Well thank god I wasn’t the only one who wondered. Enter The Lost Men.
This is their story. And well told it is. It also shows some of the flaws that Shackleton had as a planner. For this expedition was ill funded and not as well thought out as to supplies and equipment. Their tale is harrowing, even looking back now knowing that all their work is for naught, these men pushed themselves to the limit and beyond to keep their word. To ensure that IF Shackleton made it to the pole he could continue across Antarctica and pickup supplies. All they had to work with was a tentative timetable made up of ifs. If the Endurance made it to land by this date and if Shackleton made the trip the first season and if they made it across to the pole, they would need the resupply depots to be laid by this date. If not then there were alternate dates given.
The men of the Ross Sea Party unselfishly gave of themselves for two years laying the depots for a maybe. How’s that for dedication to the job. Not only that but they had to make multiple trips to supply each depot. They probably could have walked across Antarctica if they had just gone in a straight line instead of back and forth. I sometimes think our values have changed for the worse today. I mean, I miss a day of work, I don’t think twice about the hardship it creates. These guys gave their life for it. Well some of them did. Of course after the book I wondered, what happened to the depots they left? Maybe it says in the book, I don’t know. Next time I visit my parents I’ll look for it.
