Having reached South Georgia by sailing a small lifeboat from Elephant Island, Shackleton, Worsley and Crean then made the arduous crossing of the island to fetch help. Their clothing was threadbare, they had all but no equipment and they dared not sleep en route in case they never awoke.
When they discussed their experiences later, they discovered that they had all had the strange feeling that there had been a fourth person accompanying them on the gruelling trek. This belief caught the public imagination.
The phenomenon of imagining an extra presence is now called The Third Man Factor after T. S. Eliot’s lines in his poem <i>The Waste Land</i>. This has been experienced by many people; lone sailors, pilots, climbers and explorers – all of whom, having faced an almost fatal trauma, lived to tell of their sense of a guiding presence.
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
T.S. Eliot