At Long Last: Rescue!
Shackleton had one more challenge. Captain Worsley and Second Officer Crean went back to the landing site to retrieve the rest of the rescue team. They had stayed behind during the mountain and glacier trek and didn’t know whether the expedition had been successful. Shackleton had another problem. He needed to rescue the crew on Elephant Island. The first three rescue ships he organized were unsuccessful; one ran low on fuel going through ice.
Another came so close, 100 miles, but ice thwarted them, too. Finally, the Chilean vessel Yelcho reached the stranded men as they sat down for their boiled seal backbone lunch. When they saw the Yelcho, the men quickly abandoned their lunch to tear down the camp. Departure couldn’t come fast enough for the weary crew. Collectively, there were ten frostbitten toes, including those on the left foot of stowaway Percy Blackborow, but every man was rescued.
