 The conditions underfoot were slushy during the day, as the temperature warmed up. Shackleton resolved to do most of the trekking at night, sledging the three lifeboats of the Endurance behind them. The sledging was hard work and after little more than a week, Shackleton and his men were forced to camp once more. Underneath, the ice continued to move northwards, and by April 1916, the floe they were on was nearly within sight of Elephant Island but beginning to break up. Shackleton ordered the expedition to the lifeboats, placing Worsley in charge of one of them, the Dudley Docker. It took a week to reach Elephant Island, the ice and currents inhibiting progress.
