Yet for all the abuse his crewmates heaped on him, Orde-Lees was never provoked into a fight. He would usually reply in a hurt tone of voice, “Now, really, you shouldn’t say things like that.” Still he was anything but a coward. In fact he was almost foolhardy in the risks he took. Out seal hunting, he would dash across leads of open water, leaping from one chunk of ice to the next while killer whales cruised around. Once during the darkest part of the winter when the Endurance had been beset, he found a bicycle in the hold of the ship and went out for a ride across the frozen floes. He was
...more
