Quotes from Alfred Lansing

The Endurance is crushed between the floes, October 24, 1915 (Royal Geographic Society) Frank Wild surveys the wreck of the Endurance on November 8, 1915, during their last official visit to the wreck (Royal Geographic Society)

so that if the ice closed in against her she would be squeezed up and out of the pressure.

But since the Endurance was designed to operate in relatively loose pack ice

she was not constructed so as to rise out of pressure to any great extent.

However, on the trip from London to Buenos Aires

her hull was altogether too rounded for most of those on board her.

The trip across the Atlantic took more than two months.

The weather continued to deteriorate, which seemed hardly possible.

They thus remained almost motionless, while their supply of meat dwindled alarmingly.

Then on January 13, a rumor spread that Shackleton was considering killing the dogs

The simple act of sailing had carried him beyond the world of reversals, frustrations, and inanities. And in the space of a few short hours, life had been reduced from a highly complex existence, with a thousand petty problems, to one of the barest simplicity in which only one real task remained—the achievement of the goal.

to ease the drain on the food supplies.

there was a deep emotional attachment involved.

At the thought of losing Grus, a puppy born a year before on the Endurance, Macklin reflected:

Then, in a quiet, level voice, Shackleton ordered Wild to shoot his own team along with McIlroy's, Marston's, and Crean's.

They looked up against the darkening sky and saw the fog curling over the edge of the ridges, perhaps 2,000 feet above them—and they felt that special kind of pride of a person who in a foolish moment accepts an impossible dare—then pulls it off to perfection.

Each dog in turn was taken off his trace and led behind a row of large ice hummocks.

and placed his revolver close to its head. Death was instantaneous.

At noon they were almost abeam of Cape Demidov once more

dead ahead were two inviting glaciers which held the promise of ice to be melted into water.

None of the dogs seemed to sense what was happening

unsuspectingly around the ice hummock to his death with his tail wagging.

There was even a trace of mild exhilaration in their attitude. At least, they had a clear-cut task ahead of them. The nine months of indecision, of speculation about what might happen, of aimless drifting with the pack were over. Now they simply had to get themselves out, however appallingly difficult that might be.

Shackleton decided to spare Greenstreet's team of year-old puppies "for the present