The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition failed to cross Antarctica. It failed to accomplish the goal for which it had been mounted and funded and staffed. The Ross Sea party, on the other side of the continent, laid depots for a crossing that never came and lost three men in the effort.
What remains is the survival of the 28 men of the Weddell Sea party, in all its particularity — the names, the dates, the distances, the tools, the decisions, the morning announcements, the banjo, the Primus stove, the glass plates smashed on the ice.
And the ship, at 3,008 meters, still named. Still there.
## The Hour Before the Launch
On April 24, 1916, the morning the James Caird departed Elephant Island, the camp had been at the site for nine days.
Nine days was long enough for the initial euphoria of landfall — solid ground, the first in almost 500 days — to have given way to a clearer assessment of the situation. They were on an island that no rescue mission would come looking for. The nearest inhabited place was 800 miles away. The six men selected for the crossing were not well-rested or well-nourished or in optimal physical condition, because no one in the party was. They were in Antarctic-expedition condition, which meant they were alive and functional but had spent more than a year under sustained physiological stress.
Shackleton made his selections for the James Caird crew carefully. Worsley was essential: without the navigator there was no point in attempting the crossing. Crean was essential: his physical toughness and psychological stability had been demonstrated across multiple expeditions, and he was someone Shackleton trusted to hold up. McNish was essential: if anything went wrong with the boat during the crossing, he was the only person who could fix it, and his modifications to the boat had made it capable of the attempt in the first place.