Sublime

Shackleton was concerned. Of all their enemies—the cold, the ice, the sea—he feared none more than demoralization.

It was saddening to discover how many apparently honorable men would stoop to almost to anything to help their own advancement.

and now his name had been brayed out in public – not even in the comparative privacy of the Board, but in a far more miscellaneous gathering – with the question openly directed at the chief of naval intelligence. It was unqualifiable. To rely on the discretion of these sailors whose only notion of dealing with an enemy as cunning as Bonaparte was t

Chapter Twelve: Adversity

He concentrated exclusively on the military aspect of the situation and overlooked the political consequences. “It was a callow, clumsy army that had arrived in North Africa with little notion how to act as a world power,” wrote one recent historian.39