Self-styled arctic outdoorsman, John Hornby had already compromised his abilities to survive in the tundra through several incidents of near starvation, and by injuries suffered as a soldier in World War I. He had openly admitted to peers that "he had had enough of the north and wished he had never come". Yet, foolishly, he conscripted his young cousin, nineteen year-old Edgar Christian, and a willing third party, twenty-nine year-old Harold Adlard,...