Australian author Wilson McOrist tells the story of the forgotten part of Sir Ernest Shackleton's most famous expedition.
As part of his plan to be the first to cross the Antarctic, a second party was to lay supply depots for the last leg of his journey.
While Shackleton was dealing with the sinking of the Endurance in the Weddell Sea, a fate almost as catastrophic befell his Ross Sea party.
When their ship, Aurora, was blown from its moorings in a storm in McMurdo Sound in May 1915, 10 men were left ashore.
Their tale of completing their task, despite losing much of their equipment with the ship, ranks with Shackleton's own.
Little did they know their efforts were in vain.
McOrist's point of difference from previous books about this expedition is that he is the first author to have access to the individual diaries of all six men who hauled their loads to Mt Hope, the site of their southernmost depot.
He leaves much of the narrative to the Mt Hope party themselves, and this is the book's strength.
As with the three previous British expeditions to tread this path, the return journey proved a trial of survival.
When, in an echo of Scott's last days, a blizzard stopped them short of a depot, the three strongest set off to obtain critical supplies, and the drama in the three diary accounts reaches a crescendo at this point.
Most of the illustrations are reproductions of the diaries and the author's own photographs of Scott's huts, which were critical to the expedition's survival.
Unfortunately, the uncredited image on the dust jacket is a Frank Hurley shot of Endurance, not Aurora.
The book is a useful and credible addition to the large body of work on Antarctic exploration.
• David Barnes is a Dunedin reviewer with a longstanding interest in the Antarctic.
