The white darkness

Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honour and sacrifice.

He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot.

Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history.

Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions.

In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses.

Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back.