Inspiring "respect and confidence"
- Margot Morrell
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
In July 1915, while Orde Lees spent time in Shackleton's cabin to recover from a bout of sciatica, he used the opportunity of being unusually close to Shackleton to make extended observations and comments on the explorer's personality.
Saturday, 24 July, 1915
I am afraid I am in for a rather bad attack of sciatica. I have now been immovable on the flat of my back for a week, quite unable to sit up or even raise my head much.
At first I was in my own bunk lying in indifference & almost complete darkness all day, but it was draughty there and knowing warmth to be the best cure Sir Ernest had me taken up to his own cabin and placed in his own bunk! Here I have lain in the utmost comfort but severe pain for the last fine days whilst Sir Ernest has coiled himself up as best he could on a narrow little bench much too short for him!
He is a wonderful man. He takes the minimum of sleep; seldom more than three or four hours a night, sometimes less, but how he manages to get even that on such an uncomfortable couch is a puzzle.
His parental kindness in having me here at all needs no comment. Instead of reproaching me for being ill at all, which he would be quite justified in doing, he looks after me himself with all the tender care of a trained nurse, which indeed he seems to me to be far more than merely my leader & master for the time being. He attends to me himself, making up the fire day & night, making me a cup of tea during the night if I happen to say that I am thirsty, reading to me & always entertaining me with his wonderful conversation, making me forget my pain by joking with me continually just as if I was a spoilt child. What sacrifices would I not make for such a leader as this who gives up his own comfortable bed to cue a sick subordinate; but this is typical of him.
Monday, 26 July 1915
Sir Ernest has a wonderful character. Living (not dying thank goodness) in Sir Ernest's cabin & being with him so much all day I have had unique opportunities of studying his wonderful character in a way that I never could otherwise have done.
It may be rather mean of me to take advantage in this way of the accident & Sir Ernest's kindness which places me in a position to do so, but no doubt those who read this will not mind that; and Sir Ernest won't see it.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing that may at once be said of him is that, unlike most people, there is no underside to his character. One could not be on more intimate terms with him than I have been and yet, to my surprise, I find that he is precisely the same in intimacy as he is in public, in fact his outstanding frankness is, to my mind, his most characteristic attribute.
I have no hesitation is saying that whatever he says to his subordinates in approbation, in chiding or in giving advice or information is exactly what he really means, and at the same time he is always tactful without being in any way noticeably circumspect. He bears no resentment in private nor is he ever guilty of the slightest favoritism.
These qualities alone endear him to one and all and inspire that respect & confidence which make him pre-eminently the leader he is.
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