A Leap of Faith (5 and 6)

"At ten thirty, Shackleton's booming brogue rang out: "Strike the tents and clear the boats!""

After the hardships on the floe, the crew finally managed to spot land some forty two miles away. However, they were concerned to launch the boats due to the open sea and fast flowing ice bergs. So they continued to wait for their flow to decrease distance or any moment when the sea looked safe. They stayed on the floe for two more weeks and struck gold with the hunting of two 1000 pound sea leopards. Also because the last of the dogs were no longer needed, Macklin's team and the puppy team were all killed and eaten. There is a feeling of Pathos when reading the description of one of the dogs happily munching on a bone before being shot.

Finally, Shackleton had no choice to order for the launching of the boats as the floe started to become more and more unstable due to the warmer weather. The men dodged around the cracks in the ice and loaded up all the boats and left. This abruptness reminds me of a film called Flight of the Phoenix. In the movie, a group of people are stranded in the desert and have to try to reassemble their crashed airplane in order to escape. However they have to take a crash course in flying when a gang of desert thugs discover the survivors and arrive to kill them. The survivors quickly board the plane, not even knowing if it will fly, and escape the blood-thirsty criminals in the knick of time. Both of these incidents have to do with a leap of faith.