Ghost of a flea: Lifeboat ethics, Part II

? Orbital: The Box | Main | California ?

April 30, 2008

Lifeboat ethics, Part II

A second lifeboat will serve us better.

HMS Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition left Plymouth en route to the Antarctic via Buenos Aires and South Georgia on 8 August, 1914. All proceeded according to plan until the ship was caught in the ice of the Weddell Sea, 17 January, 1915. By February 24, Shackleton and his expedition realized they would be settling in for the winter.

Come spring the shifting ice shattered Endurance' hull and come October 27 the order to abandon ship. Shackleton's expedition camped on the ice for two months, hoping it would drift toward land. By 17 March, 1916 the ice had drifted to within sixty miles of Paulet Island but refuge remained cut off by treacherous ice. On April 9 even the precarious shelter of their ice floe was shattered as it broke in two. Shackleton and his men entered their lifeboats and made a sea crossing of seven days to Elephant Island, 580 miles south of the Falkland Islands and 550 miles southeast of Cape Horn. A very long way from shipping routes, a long way from anywhere; the closest navigable outpost of civilization a whaling station on South Georgia across 800 miles of open ocean.

Which brings us to our second lifeboat, the James Caird.

To prepare for the journey, Shackleton chose his strongest sailors to accompany him, John Vincent and Timothy McCarthy, as well as experienced officer Thomas Crean. Shackleton also selected McNish, who immediately made improvements to the open lifeboat. Morrell argues that Shackleton chose McNish and Vincent to accompany him not only for their talent and toughness, but also because they were noted malcontents. He did not want the atmosphere on Elephant Island to be disrupted. Shackleton had frequently chosen to have the most rebellious crew members close to him, in order to quell discontent amongst the party. The difficult task of navigating the crossing was left to Frank Worsley. Ensuring they were on the correct course was of utmost importance as missing their target would certainly have doomed the team.

The waters that Shackleton had to cross in his boat of 6.85 metres (22.5 ft) are among the most treacherous in the world. Weather reports confirm that gale-force winds of 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph) to 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) are present in the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica on an average of 200 days per year; they cause ocean swells of 6 metres (20 ft), and Frank Worsley later commented on the poor weather conditions which complicated the task. Celestial navigation readings were only possible at four times during the 800-mile (1,300 km) journey. He also noted that waves of 16 metres (52 ft) were not uncommon. Of one hair-raising moment of the journey, Shackleton wrote:

"At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and south-west. I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realised that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted, "For God's sake, hold on! It's got us!" Then came a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into hours. White surged the foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf. We were in a seething chaos of tortured water; but somehow the boat lived through it, half-full of water, sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow. We baled with the energy of men fighting for life, flinging the water over the sides with every receptacle that came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty we felt the boat renew her life beneath us."

Shackleton and the crew of the James Caird left Elephant Island, 24 April, 1916, sighting South Georgia two weeks later on May 8, finally hazarding a landing on May 10. Shackleton then lead two men on a thirty-six hour hike across the spine of the island - no man had ever made it further inland than half a mile - to reach the whaling station, and a tiny outpost of civilization, at Stromness. It would take three attempts, and the intercession of the Chilean government, before Shackleton rescued his men - all of his men - from Elephant Island on August 30, more than two years out from Plymouth, England, home and beauty. It is almost impossible to imagine the fortitude of these men, their skill, or the sheer bravura of the time they made. This was not only a staggering feat of strength and endurance, it was a testament to their age.

There is still great bravery in the world, still much to aspire to. But I cannot see anything of that post-Edwardian daring in our world, fashioned as it was in the trenches of the War To End All Wars. I have a great fear for what lies ahead of us. If the conflagration comes and our remaining strength should fail then many, many of us will be killed. The ones who survive will only do so through having chosen submission. Our books will be burned, our freedoms thrown with them on to the pyre. Our priceless, irreplaceable treasures of history, philosophy and art plundered and destroyed; at first through wanton violence and soon thereafter by neglect. Any truth remaining then claimed as a prize of war, as the "science" of the conquerors when it will be no more than barbarous, and sterile, translation.

If the worst comes, the one and only advantage we shall have lies in the inability of an illiterate foe to manage his pogrom beyond the first generation. Beyond that his society can only revert to its only established polity: peasantry, ignorance and the casual brutality of all against all for dominion. Think of the wreck of Afghanistan and Lebanon. This is a machine for making deserts, utterly lacking even the post-apocalyptic grandeur of Mad Max. We have to start thinking about the near future as it if was dystopian science fiction. We need to start thinking about what we can save; what we may keep hidden, keep safe.

In such a world any organized resistance will be sought out and destroyed. We must face the fact there will be collaborators and that, in time, our children and grandchildren may be indoctrinated against us. Some alive and known to us now will surprise us with their treachery but in all too many cases the traitors will be no surprise at all. Many of us will have chosen not to be alive to see that day. If some spark of civilization is to endure, we must imagine a leaderless resistance, a rhizomatic resistance; something closer to Anonymous than the Maquis of wartime France, there will be no friendly power across the Channel, no airdrops of arms, no broadcasts from Bush House.

In comments to Lifeboat ethics, Part I, Andrea Harris pointed out a flaw in environmentalist talk of the Earth as a lifeboat:

For after all, the whole idea of lifeboats is to enable people to be rescued from their situation. The limited environment is supposed to only be temporary. True, as your example and many others from history indicate, rescue isn't 100% assured, but on the other hand neither is the idea that one will be on the lifeboat for the rest of one's life.

She is right, of course. Our world is a lifeboat only in so far as we have hope for a savior, quite literally an alien concept to the secularists who proposed the metaphor. But I believe we must think of ourselves aboard a lifeboat, nonetheless, and think of ourselves attempting a dangerous passage in hope of rescue. The safe harbour I suggest lies somewhere in the future, in a time of a second Renaissance, a second Enlightenment. I do not know the way there but can only propose we set course by dead reckoning, guided by a star of conscience where no light may be seen through arafel, "the cloud darkness at the end of the universe".

We must think of ourselves as a second - and secret - James Caird Society, each captain our own life boat and set out into the open ocean. There is a great uncertainty that lies before us, and all that stands between us and the storm our wits and a mustard seed.

The James Caird has found a permanent harbour at Dulwich College.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 30, 2008 07:24 AM

Comments

I hope you're a lunatic and not a prophet. Either way, you're a fine writer.

Posted by: Occam's Carbuncle at April 30, 2008 08:55 AM

Very kind of you to say. I hope you are correct on both counts.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at April 30, 2008 08:56 AM

Shackleton was the bomb. Absolutely incredible that all of his men made it home alive.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at May 1, 2008 10:26 AM