Part V Summary and Analysis

Part V consists of six enumerated chapters. In brief, it describes how the men locate a suitable but inhospitable camp on Elephant Island—a camp dubbed Wild Camp. They then prepare a boat to make the nearly impossible trek to South Georgia Island, send the boat on its voyage, and settle down to a monotonous and dreadful life ashore Elephant Island waiting for some future rescue.

After making landfall the men eat and then hunt several seal which are in relative abundance on the remote beach. After eating they sleep "'as we had never slept before, absolute dead dreamless sleep, oblivious of wet sleeping bags'" (p. 179). The morning, however, holds a shocking realization—marks around the beach indicate that the high-water mark is well above the level of the flat area. They will have to move. Wild...