“Our first night at the whaling-station was blissful. Crean and I shared a beautiful room in Mr. Sorlle’s house, with electric light and two beds, warm and soft. We were so comfortable that we were unable to sleep. Late at night, a steward brought us tea, bread and butter and cakes, and we lay in bed, reveling in the luxury of it all. Outside a dense snow-storm, which started two hours after our arrival and lasted until the following day, was swirling and driving about the mountain slopes. We were thankful indeed that we had made a place of safety, for it would have gone hard with us if we had been out on the mountains that night. Deep snow lay everywhere when we got up the following morning.”

After breakfast, Mr. Sorlle took us round to Husvik in a motor-launch. We were listening avidly to his account of the war and of all that had happened while we were out of the world of men. We were like men arisen from the dead to a world gone mad. Our minds accustomed themselves gradually to the tales of nations in arms, of deathless courage and unimagined slaughter, of a world-conflict that had grown beyond all conceptions, of vast red battlefields in grimmest contrast with the frigid whiteness we had left behind us.”

It was at Husvig that Shackleton and Crean boarded the Southern Sky, a steel-built steamer that wasn’t built for breaking the pack ice they would have to navigate through in order to rescue the 22 men on Elephant Island.

It would take another three attempts until, aboard the Chilean ship, Yelcho, they made the breakthrough and upon sighting the men, Crean and Shackleton quickly boarded the rowing boats to hurry their stranded crew-mates aboard in the culmination of the greatest survival and rescue tale in maritime history.

This epic story and others feature in the book.