For many, the key image they have of Tom Crean is the one of his lovingly holding the puppies he took care of on Shackleton"s Endurance expedition, the same puppies who would later have to be killed for food. His amazing adventures in the world"s most hostile region are among the greatest tales of hardship and survival, and Michael Smith brings this man"s story vividly to life for young readers. Tom Crean ran away from home at fifteen and lied about his age to join the Royal Navy. He served with Captain Scott on the Discovery Antarctic expedition and again later on the doomed Terra Nova expedition. He was among the last to see Scott alive and later he discovered Scott"s tent and buried him. In May, 1914, he joined Shackleton"s Endurance expedition and, after the ship sank, was one of the six, along with Shackleton, who sailed in the small boat to Elephant Island and later to South Georgia, and then back to the Island to save the castaways who had been left there-in August, 1916, more than two years after the expedition had begun.