"Indescribable"

Endurance, October 1915, colorized.

In the early pages of his 1931 book, Endurance, Frank Worsley gives a vivid account of how the pack-ice attacked the ship.

On the night of October 27, 1915, Endurance "got the whole force of the pack-ice driven by the winds and currents of the Weddell Sea, converging from three different directions on to one point.

That point unhappily was her stern. Two massive floes, miles of ice, jammed her sides and held her fast, while the third floe tore across her stern, ripping off the rudder as though it had been made of matchwood. ...

The shock of the impact was indescribable. To us it was as though the whole world were in the throes of an earthquake. At the beginning the sides of the ship had buckled in and out as though she had been a concertina ... It gave me the horrible impression that the ship was gasping for breath."