Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

The issues of food, and sufficient quantities of blubber needed to cook it, become increasingly problematic as time goes on. By March 16, the cook has run out of flour; no seals have been caught for three weeks, and the men re-hash Shackleton’s refusal to retrieve the three seals shot by Orde-Lees several weeks earlier. The diplomatic physician, Macklin, writes a coded diary entry in which he says, “I think the Boss was a bit improvident in not getting in all the food possible whilst the going was good” (151). Rations are decreased daily, and the men experience the food shortage almost as “physical pain.” Jokes regarding cannibalism abound, usually at the expense of Marston, the expedition’s artist, who is the plumpest member of the group. By March 22, Shackleton advises Macklin, who has been extremely attached to his animals, that his team of dogs must be shot the next day in order to preserve food for the crew. Macklin reacts with resignation and indifference. Although land, the Danger Islets, is sited on March 23, the ice pack does not cooperate, and the crew is left trapped in an icy sea only 57 miles from land.

By March 26, it is found that some of the men have appropriated bits of blubber and penguin meat from the general store and “were trying to eat it—frozen and raw” (156).