Likewise, the normally congenial Shackleton could not stomach having scientists tag along on his 1907 Nimrod voyage to Antarctica: like Borchgrevink, he didn't want anyone getting in the way of his territorial objective—reaching the South Pole. Shackleton's single-mindedness created friction between him and the other officers—notably, with Lieutenant Rupert England, whose insistence on being cautious and taking extra time to unload the ship in McMurdo Sound caused Shackleton's to fire him and send him back to England. Such clashes occurred often, especially when the chain of command was not well established. Charles Hall tried to prevent questioning of his authority by making sure that his official orders spelled out that everyone else on the expedition was under his command and subject to “the rules, regulations, and laws governing the discipline of the Navy.”12 But then he had all but assured that conflict would arise if he were to die, by naming both his sailing master, Sidney Budington, and the chief scientist, Bessels, his successors. Before Hall's death, Budington had voiced his low opinion of the explorer, confiding to Tyson that he did not like being commanded by “a man not of the sea.” He and others in the party also took umbrage at the civilian Hall being called “Captain.” (Budington's animus seems to have stemmed, in part, from his having been caught stealing chocolate and sugar and then being reamed out by Hall for this theft.) Hall and Budington constantly locked horns—mainly, over the question of whether or not they should steer further into the ice with winter already coming on in late August 1870. Since the opinion of the landlubber Hall (who wanted to proceed) was not given much credence, the German scientists sided with Budington, increasing the ill-feelings on the ship. When the sailing master refused to go on after they had dropped anchor in a bay they would aptly name “Thank God Harbor,” Hall finally gave in. Tyson was appalled that the head of an expedition could tolerate such “insolence and incompetence,” but kept his own counsel. Still, the divisions on the Polaris only grew deeper—and more ominous.13
When rival explorers ended up in the same party, sparks were bound to fly. Among such contentious relationships that of Shackleton and Scott stands out. The middle-class Anglo-Irish Shackleton, the second of ten children, had grown up with dreams of going to sea, devouring books like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and Charles Hall's Life with the Esquimaux while neglecting his schoolbooks. Restless and bored by life at home, he managed to obtain a post on a Merchant Marine vessel bound for Cape Horn and the Pacific when he was only sixteen, in the spring of 1890. Gregarious, hard-working, headstrong, preternaturally ambitious, and supremely self-confident, Shackleton soon set his sights on more glorious adventures. Antarctica seemed a good place for him to make a name for himself: England was then focusing its attention on achieving territorial firsts there. But he soon ran into a formidable obstacle—Robert Falcon Scott. As leader of the National Antarctic Expedition, Scott got to pick the men he would take with him, and the application of the twenty-seven-year-old-Shackleton did not particularly impress him. However, because of his experience on sailing schooners, Shackleton was eventually offered the position of third officer on the Discovery in the midsummer of 1901. Scott, six years his elder and more reserved by nature, liked Shackleton's obvious enthusiasm, even though Scott's preference for an all-Royal-Navy crew caused him to have some misgivings about the easygoing, outspoken, and willful merchant mariner, who struck him as a “maverick.”14 Nonetheless, Scott showed his confidence in Shackleton by selecting him to go with him to attain a new Farthest South the following November, even though Shackleton had no prior experience in the polar regions. However, Shackleton's collapse on the way back, due largely to a heart condition (which he had concealed), prompted Scott to reassess him—and order Shackleton to return to England by relief ship—an unexpected decision that left the Irishman angry and reeling. He harbored suspicions that Scott was sending him back for ulterior reasons, out of fear that Shackleton might one day upstage him.
This incident foreshadowed clashes between the two explorers later in their careers. Both were bent on going down in the history books for achieving geographical milestones in Antarctica, and having this same goal put them on a collision course. Scott was wont to look at life through a Darwinian lens, and it was clear that he felt he and Shackleton were in a winner-take-all struggle for dominance.15 His experiences with Shackleton during the Discovery expedition bore this out. After recovering in New Zealand, touring the United States and returning to England to marry, Shackleton made plans to undertake another Antarctic land expedition, only to discover—to his surprise and dismay—that Scott intended to set out on one of his own. This put them in direct competition for funding from the Royal Geographical Society. The two rivals then became embroiled in a petty territorial spat: Scott insisted the desirable winter anchorage at McMurdo Sound was his and warned Shackleton in a tart letter to stay away from it. If the Irish explorer didn't, he would be standing in the way of Scott's completing his “life's work.”16 Taking a diplomatic tack, Shackleton then agreed to spend the winter elsewhere, but, in the end, heavy ice conditions forced him to point the Nimrod toward this Antarctic base in January 1908. Privately, Scott seethed over what he perceived as a duplicitous attempt to beat him to the South Pole.17 During a subsequent sledge trip, Shackleton savored the immense satisfaction of besting Scott's Farthest South record, even though he had to turn back when the pole itself was tantalizingly close—only 112 miles away. A year and a half later, he tried to patch things up with Scott, writing that he would not interfere with Scott's next—and final—expedition, but would instead wait to embark on another journey until after Scott had completed his.18 But their relationship remained badly strained. In November 1911, it was with the two goals of upstaging his rival and beating the Norwegians that Scott departed from Cape Evans for the South Pole, only to perish tragically on the way back. In death, as in life, Shackleton—the leader who miraculously brought every last member of his incredible Endurance expedition back alive—appears to have bested his challenger, whose martyrdom could not erase the fact that he had failed to reach the pole first. In the words of English polar historian Max Jones, “Today the stiff and indecisive Scott lies in Shackleton's towering shadow.”19 As Scott had foreseen, there could only be one winner in this titanic Antarctic struggle.
The fierce rivalry between Frederick Cook and Robert Peary is also well known, but it is often forgotten that the two men started out as congenial, mutually admiring companions: Peary invited the twenty-six-year-old Cook to come along as surgeon on an 1891 trek across northern Greenland after he had favorably sized up the doctor in his Philadelphia apartment. When Peary became incapacitated after breaking a leg, Cook skillfully set it and assumed command. But after that reasonably happy pairing, the explorers became locked in an epic race to be the first man to set foot at the North Pole. Cook kept the details of his forthcoming dash secret, and after his sensational claim to have made it to ninety degrees north made headlines around the world, the two became bitter enemies—and remained so for the rest of their lives.
Antagonism between competing explorers was unavoidable, given the high stakes involved. But conflicts between leaders and their men could be assuaged if the person in charge showed genuine concern for their welfare and made decisions that did not lead to unnecessary risks. Unfortunately, that was not always the case. Elisha Kane's contretemps with the sailor Godfrey on the Second Grinnell Expedition of 1853 is the most well-known of these confrontations—chiefly because the explorer's death freed Godfrey to tell his own version of what happened between them in the Arctic. (Before they sailed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Kane had required his officers and men to sign a document promising not to publish accounts of the expedition.) But Godfrey was not the only member of that expedition to skirmish with Kane. When the Advance reached a bay off the northern coast of Greenland in late August, Kane was bent upon continuing further north, to make it easier for him to make a dash for the pole in the spring. But all but one of his officers and crew thought this would
be foolhardy: they wanted to head south to safety. They did not trust Kane's judgment, as he had never had command of a ship before, let alone one in these waters. Godfrey would later write that he felt their surviving a winter in Greenland was as unlikely as “a salamander's supposed ability to live in fire.”20 None of the men thought the Advance had the slightest chance of reaching the North Pole. (The expedition's professed goal of locating the Franklin party was all but forgotten at this point.)
Kane reluctantly compromised and agreed to look for a winter anchorage at the next possible opportunity. He later claimed that the others “received this decision in a manner that was most gratifying”—an innocuous statement that scarcely does justice to their angry reaction.21 In fact, Kane's unilateral decision to go on belied his professed intention to treat his crew fairly and take their wishes into account. The men now clearly saw that their best interests would always come second to those of the doctor and his officers. The seeds for future disagreements and confrontations were thus sown. Indeed, reduced to “near desperation” that first winter, this Grinnell expedition would be torn apart by dissension and outright defiance of Kane's vacillating leadership. This peaked when all but five men voted to quit the ship the following summer and seek haven at the Danish outpost of Upernavik. After suffering through a horrific second winter on the ship, several on board openly disobeyed Kane's orders by skipping weekly prayers and made no secret of the fact they loathed him for his arrogance and indifference to their plight.22
The interminable, inky-black polar winters were often an unsparing test of an expedition's cohesiveness. Unable to leave their crowded quarters, the men would grow intolerant of each other's quirks and their leader's dominant personality. The four officers on the Greely party found that being packed into a fifteen-by-seventeen foot room at Fort Conger during the winter of 1881–1882 was like putting them inside a pressure cooker and slowly turning up the gas. A “mordant” Pavy and a “sarcastic” Kislingbury were easily irritated by Greely's vain and overbearing manner, and his unavoidable proximity only magnified these flaws.23 Few leaders still enjoyed admiration when things went badly. They were the ones who got blamed. Weaknesses and inconsistencies in their personalities were magnified. Robert Scott galled his officers on the Terra Nova expedition by his shifting moods. At times he could be empathetic, but at others his insecurities would cause him to demand “rigid unquestioning literal obedience to orders.” He had no ability to see himself critically, or with humor. In the mornings he could be “peevish,” thus setting a bad tone for the rest of the day. Scott's mercurial nature kept the others at a distance, which made them feel ill-at-ease and more lonely. (In a letter to his mother before leaving for the South Pole, “Titus” Oates had complained that Scott always thought about himself first, and “the rest nowhere.” Because of this selfishness, and Scott's inability to be “straight” with him, the veteran soldier had developed an intense dislike for his leader.24) Cherry-Garrard, who was much more admiring of Scott, also considered him temperamentally “weak” and reserved, someone who suffered depressions that could last for weeks—and then abruptly turn into an “irritable autocrat.”25 Scott's nickname on his final expedition was “The Owner”—a term devoid of the casual affection of “Boss”—which is what Shackleton's men called him.26 No doubt, Scott suffered by comparison with a saintly, stable figure like “Bill” Wilson, whose faith kept him grounded and forward looking. (In his journal, Wilson, too, made derogatory comments about Scott and his leadership.27) It was also Scott's fate to have to deal with predicaments for which he was constitutionally ill-prepared, and his reactions under the ensuring stress did not show him at his best. Having none of the reassuring wit and charm that Shackleton possessed almost to a fault, Scott could not rally his companions to handle the crises that arose on the march south. His impromptu changes of plan did not sit well with them, and some historians have judged him harshly for the choices he made en route. Of course, failure makes all actions look suspect. We can only speculate how differently Scott might be viewed today if his Southern Party had beaten the Norwegians to the pole, and he had returned to tell the tale.
It is perfectly understandable that heated friction would develop among men under these most trying and desperate of circumstances, when their lives were on the line and there was little they could do to help themselves. In such existential plights, many human beings put aside worries about their companions and concentrate on their own survival needs. In withdrawing, they wrestle alone with mounting despair and fear, unable to share these feelings and gain comfort from doing so. The sense of fellowship they may have treasured in happier days now comes fraught with resentment: they have no way of retreating into their own thoughts and finding solace there, for others are invariably present, an annoying reminder of their common plight. There is no space for their souls to find peace. The group becomes the oppressor and the tormentor. Under such conditions, always being together can be just as harmful as always being alone. To ward off the ill-effects of others’ presence, polar explorers put up psychological barriers between each other, such as remaining silent, averting eyes, staring blankly into space, showing no emotion, or becoming angry. Studies have found small groups are particularly prone to such antisocial reactions. The strains of close quarters irked the men on the Discovery expedition even before they reached Antarctica. The day their vessel crossed the equator, in late August of 1901, they staged the traditional seawater dunking for those making their maiden crossing into the Southern Hemisphere. In a foul mood from having been penned up below decks in tropical temperatures, with navy men quartered unhappily with merchant mariners, the neophytes did not take kindly to this ritual, and downing too much whisky afterward turned the festivities into an ugly brawl, with Scott fecklessly trying to restore discipline among his motley crew. This shipboard fight was a harbinger of things to come, when group tensions would be compounded by an adverse Nature.28
The Arctic and Antarctic regions had a way of bringing out the worst in those who dared to go there. Unremittingly unpleasant conditions oppressed the explorers and kept them feeling peevish. This state of mind made them hypersensitive to the slightest aggravation—spilling a soup dish or misplacing a pouch of tobacco. When minor incidents like these took place, they were all too quick to blame one of their companions and further sour the mood. Geologist Raymond Priestley was clearly being too sanguine when he predicted, early in his sojourn with the Northern Party at Cape Adare, that “the days when the Polar winter under normal conditions was a thing to be dreaded are past now, for good and all.”29 He had no idea what lay in store for him. By the time Priestley and the rest of his six-man sledge party were finally able to emerge from the ice cave where they had been forced to hibernate for the austral winter, in February 1912, his outlook had changed dramatically: “I do not for a moment say that any of us would care to repeat that winter; indeed, I believe that another similar experience would kill most of us, or drive us mad.” What it had certainly done was to tear them apart. With the cave only about five-and-a-half-feet high, none of them had been able to stand up straight except when they went out to hunt for seals or penguins, or haul their bloody carcasses back inside. They had worn the same ragged, blackened garments for eight months, with only a change of socks every third one. The filth, the foul air, the inadequate lighting, the tight spaces, the disgusting hooch they had to spoon into their mouths day after day, month after month, the oppressive cold, the even colder latrine—all these conditions had turned them into sullen recluses. Over half a year of this “inert vegetating existence” had reduced them to long periods of silence, interrupted now and then by “threadbare” conversation, along with evening singing of “chorus songs.” Tensions between the easily annoyed career naval officer Victor Campbell (“a shy, steely Old Etonian in flight from a troubled marriage”) and several other men had been bottled up, but barely concealed.30 With only three well-worn books at their disposal—the New Testament, David Copperfield, and Bocca
ccio's Decameron—their only imaginative escape for this wintry prison was via their daydreams, or while they slept, when the visions always revolved around food, rescue—or disaster. Normally active young men, capable of filling idle time by carrying out weather-related experiments, repairing gear, reading, listening to music, playing board games, and enjoying other pastimes, this “dirty, unwashed, and unkempt” band remained in a stupor for five months. When they were finally able to go out of their frozen cave and see the sunlight overhead, the men of this Northern Party silently congratulated themselves for having endured this “almost unparalleled strain” without once losing their tempers. They had come to know one other better than most persons ever do, but this knowledge was not something they had wanted or sought. Indeed, so much minute awareness of another human had been unbearable. They needed to get away and put this experience behind them. On the trip back the men found it hard to talk. They were afraid to say anything that might provoke a negative reaction, and so they limited their remarks to the weather, the sledges, and the snowy terrain they were crossing. They stayed away from any more controversial subjects “as you would the devil.”31 To an observer, Priestley and his team members would have appeared as total strangers, like those one comes upon in a train compartment in a foreign country—all happily lost in silence, all happily oblivious to each other's company.
To the Ends of the Earth Page 25