A First Rate Tragedy

by Diana Preston

  Lashly tried to erect a windmill to drive a dynamo for electric lighting, but its success was short-lived. The winds were too strong and an acetylene plant was used instead. In between their labours they played football on the ice and there was always ski practice. Scott described how ‘figure after figure can be seen flying down the hillside, all struggling hard to keep their balance . . .’ and usually coming a cropper. Tobogganing, using a contraption artfully fashioned out of a pair of skis and a packing case, soon became the craze while Ferrar, feeling full of energy, was the first to climb the nearby ‘Observation Hill’ and discover that they were in fact on an island. Named after Ross, it became one of the great landmarks in Antarctic exploration.

  The dogs provided another diversion. Scott and his men, nearly all inexperienced, began experimenting to see whether dogs could pull loads but while some worked well, others were so timid they grovelled at any attempt to drive them. They all fought ‘whenever and wherever they could’, Scott noted. What was the best way to handle dogs? Bernacchi, from his Southern Cross experience, was sure that all that was needed was kindness. Armitage, from his Arctic knowledge, argued that the only thing to do was to apply the whip. They decided to put their theories to the test and each selected a team of dogs. At first neither team could be persuaded to start. After a period of wild confusion with twisted traces and some vicious fights, Bernacchi eventually managed to coax his animals into a trot which became a wild career up a steep snow-slope leaving him panting behind. The other team declined to move at all. It seemed that gentle persuasion was the best approach, but if the incident proved anything it was that Scott and all his men had a great deal to learn about working with dogs.

  Life settled into an ordered routine but there remained a profound sense of the strangeness and the beauty of it all. The sun was now circling so low that a soft pink light tinged the snow and ice, fading into the purple outline of the distant mountains. The surrounding peaks seemed to turn to gold in the pure shafts of sunlight. The closer winter approached, the more spectacular were the effects – the diaries describe saffron tints deepening to crimson, fleecy clouds with bright gilded edges. But on 11 March the magic fled. Scott was forced to record one of their blackest days in the Antarctic. A sledge party had departed for Cape Crozier, some fifty miles away, under Royds. Scott had intended to lead it himself but had injured his knee skiing. He watched it depart in some despair, conscious of the very limited experience of his men – they did not know – and he had not arranged for them to learn – how to allocate their rations, how to put up their tents, how to use their cookers, how to run their dogs or even how to dress for the conditions. His misgivings were confirmed by the news, brought back by the distraught and wild-eyed survivors, of a tragedy out on the ice.

  Royds had decided to send most of the party, dogs included, back to the ship because of bad conditions and inadequate equipment. There were only three pairs of skis between them all. However, some of the returning party, which included Edgar Evans, found themselves in a driving blizzard on a steep icy slope some 1,000 feet high. This was their first real experience of an Antarctic blizzard, often caused by the wind whipping up snow crystals on the ground rather than by falls of new snow. They slithered, struggling for a purchase on mirror-smooth ice and suddenly saw a precipice beneath their feet and below it the open sea. They managed to stop themselves with one exception. Able seaman George Vince, an obliging and cheerful character, was unable to get a grip on the ice because of the fur boots he was wearing. What followed was over in an instant. Before his horror-stricken companions had time to react, Vince flashed past and disappeared. When news of the tragedy reached the ship the siren was sounded and Shackleton went out in a whaler to search forlornly among the floes, but everyone knew Vince was dead.

  For the first time since they had arrived at McMurdo Sound their new environment had shown the treachery lurking beneath the beauty. Some of the men became so overwrought at this loss to their small community that they thought they could see a figure crawling down the hillside, only to find it was an illusion. The accident brought reality back into what had been a Boy’s Own adventure. It also emphasized their isolation. There was no way of relaying the news to the outside world and to Vince’s family. Meanwhile another member of the party was still missing. There was great relief, not to say astonishment, when Clarence Hare the steward, also believed to have perished, was seen descending the hillside and staggering towards the ship having spent forty-eight hours exposed to wind and snow. He was not even frostbitten and was strong enough to complain to Wilson, his doctor, about being given invalids’ fare.

  Vince’s death was, in fact, the second to have occurred since the Discovery had sailed from England in 1901. As she left the New Zealand port of Lyttelton on her way southwards, another young seaman, Charles Bonner, had, in his excitement, shinned up to the top of the mainmast with a bottle of whisky to wave farewell, lost his balance and crashed to the deck. Able seaman Thomas Crean, an Irishman from County Kerry who was to achieve such a name for himself on Scott’s final expedition, had replaced him. Scott felt these deaths keenly and must have brooded over his own responsibility for them. He attributed the death of Vince to the expedition’s lack of experience and prefaced one of the chapters in the Voyage of the Discovery paraphrasing Shakespeare’s words, ‘Experience be a jewel that we have purchased at an infinite rate.’ In his heart of hearts Scott had been troubled from the beginning by the knowledge that he and his team were just amateurs. He might know about the navy and how to run a ship but he was no seasoned explorer.

  The community was now kept busy by the numerous tasks which had to be accomplished before the sun set for the last time. There was plenty to occupy them. The dogs fought suddenly and savagely for no apparent reason, having lulled their masters into a false sense of security – ‘. . . alas for dog morals!’ Scott wrote. Gradually he and his companions learned that when one dog was shown particular favour, or separated from the rest of the pack, it immediately became an object of suspicion to the rest. Yet despite these insights Scott remained genuinely shocked at their behaviour, talking anthropomorphically of ‘murderers’ and ‘victims’ and finding the dog mind quite inscrutable.

  In mid-March Royds and his companions returned safely from their sledging trip to learn of the death of Vince. They brought tales of hardship of their own: the difficulty of handling the dogs, of extraordinarily localized extremes of weather and terrifying, all-engulfing blizzards, of cramp and frostbite and the inadequacy of night suits made out of thin wolf-skin. They had had to turn back without reaching Cape Crozier.

  There was now the worry of what the full winter would bring. They were nearly 500 miles further south than where the Southern Cross had wintered. Would they be able to cope with the cold, and dark and isolation? Scott took his mind off such thoughts by organizing a further sledging trip, ostensibly to lay depots for journeys south when the spring came, but in reality to gain more experience for himself and his men. He waited until the sea was sufficiently frozen to allow them to take the best route south over the ice of the bay. The sea duly froze over on Good Friday. To Lashly, however, this was less important than what the cook was up to. He glumly recorded: ‘. . . had hot cross buns or bricks, could not tell hardly which.’3

  The final sledging trip brought further problems with the dogs and Scott wished heartily that he had left them behind. Not only did they refuse to pull properly but they began to shed their coats. They were, after all, dogs from the northern hemisphere. In Siberia, their home, summer would be beginning. All in all there was nothing but hard graft, discomfort and frustration. After three days the party was only nine miles from the ship and Scott decided to bring the autumn sledging to an end. There would be time through the long dark winter to analyse the hard lessons learned and plan to do better. However, one lesson he did not absorb in time was that the ship’s boats, which had been moved to the sea-ice to allow a canvas deck-covering to be fitted snugly over the Disco
very, would become completely frozen in. On the basis of his past experience, Bernacchi warned what would happen, but Scott told the physicist sharply to mind his own business. It was Bernacchi’s ‘one and only experience with what seemed an unreasonable side of his nature’. Over the winter the boats became embedded in the solid floe and it was indeed a colossal task to free them.

  On 23 April the sun sank for the last time, not to reappear until late August. However, sombre thoughts were banished by an extra ration of grog and much hilarity as the men drank to the speedy passage of the long night. Scott was careful to establish a routine to give life some appearance of normality. The home of the eleven officers, including Scott, was the Discovery’s comfortable wood-panelled wardroom. This was 30 feet by 20 feet with a huge stove at one end, a table down the middle and a piano which only Royds could play well. It was a communal life but without the degree of boredom and irritation that Bernacchi had experienced at Cape Adare. Each officer had the sanctum of his own cabin while the crew’s quarters, called the mess-deck, were separate which eliminated what Bernacchi called ‘the friction of conflicting tastes’ and made it easier to run things along naval lines. The crew’s quarters were also larger and warmer as they were situated over the provision rooms and hold, which provided good insulation against the cold.

  Meals were always at the same time and the fare was wholesome and simple. The only problems were caused by the inefficiency, dirtiness and insubordination of the cook, a sulky Antipodean named Brett whose ability to tell tall stories far exceeded his culinary skills. At one stage Scott clapped him in irons and on his next expedition he paid rather more attention to the recruitment of his cook, recognizing the vital link between good food and morale during the long Antarctic winter.

  Breakfast was a large bowl of porridge with bread, butter, marmalade and jam and sometimes seal liver. The midday meal was soup, seal or tinned meat and either a jam or a fruit tart. Supper was the remains of the day’s meat dishes or bread, butter and tea, perhaps with some jam or cheese. Although the men and the officers ate separately and had their main meals at different times, Scott was adamant that the fare should be the same, except for luxuries sent by friends, wines and such ‘few delicate but indigestible trifles’ that were produced for special dinners in the wardroom. Out sledging on the ice, officers and men would be alike in every respect so there was no reason to make unnecessary distinctions on board ship. When a merchant seaman complained about the quality of a cake that had been served, Scott was able to prove that exactly the same cake had been served in the wardroom and to punish the complainer for whingeing. The same individual was plainly unhappy with more than just the cuisine and on sledging trips had been known to sit up and exclaim, ‘Fancy me from bloody Poplar, on the bloody Ice Barrier, in a bloody sleeping-bag!’4

  In the wardroom it was a regulation that each member should take his turn as president of the mess, keeping order with a little wooden mallet and imposing fines of ‘port all round’ on anyone who swore or gambled. Shackleton was fined five times in one meal for offering to bet that someone was wrong.5

  During the day there was plenty to keep them all occupied. There was the sledging equipment to be seen to – sleeping bags to be made or repaired, as well as sledges, tents and cookers to be checked. Outside there was always work to be done – digging and clearing, making holes in the sea-ice for fish-traps, freeing the paths to and from the huts where the scientific observations were carried out, and a constant programme of repairs to put right the damage inflicted by the heavy winter gales. In the evenings other more relaxing tasks took over – the seamen occupied themselves with wood-carving, netting, mat-making, whist, draughts, ‘and even chess’ as Scott observed patronizingly and in apparent surprise. He also recorded that much time was beguiled by ‘a peculiar but simple game called “shove-ha’penny”’ and he explained to the uninitiated how it was played. The officers concentrated on chess, bridge and once a week, at Bernacchi’s suggestion, there were debates in the wardroom where such topics as women’s rights or the rival merits of Browning versus Tennyson were vigorously discussed.

  Books on Arctic travel were in demand on the mess-deck; so were such stirring tales as Fights for the Flag and Deeds that Won the Empire. One man was deeply immersed in The Origin of Species. However, both officers and men had something home-grown to read. One of the products of the long winter was the South Polar Times, edited by Shackleton. As Scott described ‘. . . he is also printer, manager, type-setter, and office-boy’. He plainly relished the task and produced five issues during that long dark winter of 1902, often sitting in conclave with Wilson who contributed fluid sketches of sea leopards pursuing emperor penguins and squads of evil-eyed killer whales hunting among the ice floes.

  The two constructed an ‘editor’s office’ in one of the holds and the men of the Discovery – from the mess-deck as well as the wardroom – submitted material anonymously or under a nom de plume. ‘Fitz-Clarence’ alias Michael Barne was delighted to find his ‘Ode to a Penguin’ considered worthy of publication:

  O creature which in Southern waters roam,

  To know some more about you I would wish.

  Though I have seen you in your limpid home,

  I don’t think I can rightly call you ‘fish’.

  To taste your body I did not decline

  From dainty skinner’s fingers coming fresh,

  ’Twas like shoe leather steeped in turpentine,

  But I should hardly like to call it ‘Flesh’.

  The South Polar Times was also an excuse for some terrible jokes: ‘Why did the Weddle waddle? Because the Crab’it’er (Crabeater)’. There was even a sports page. However, it was intended to be educational as well as amusing so there were erudite articles by the scientific staff. It certainly produced a sense of comradeship and helped morale over a difficult period when for hours if not days weather conditions pinned the men to the ship and sunshine seemed just a distant memory. Sometimes the squalls were so severe that, even though the Discovery was iced in, the men could feel her ‘give’ or flex.

  The issue which described Midwinter’s Day was determinedly buoyant in tone: ‘Everything and everyone was bright and cheerful; the dark demon of Depression finds no home here; “Depression” can be taken out of our Polar Dictionary, and the phrase “white silence” will not suit a place where the hills re-echo the voices of busy men.’ Certainly there was nothing depressing about the dinner of mutton, plum pudding, mince pies, jellies and ‘excellent dry champagne’ followed by crystallized fruits, almonds and raisins, nuts, port and liqueurs. The Discovery was decorated in honour of the coming return of the sun – the mess-deck was made particularly gorgeous with chains and ropes of coloured paper and Japanese lanterns, while the stokers’ mess surpassed everything with a magnificent carved ice-head of Neptune.

  Royds had been throwing his surplus energies into organizing amateur theatricals. It could be hazardous trying to return to the ship after rehearsing in the hut. Blizzards could blow up so suddenly that the troupe had to join hands and sweep forward until someone was able to grab the guide rope leading to the gangway.

  However, the shows for which the mess-deck supplied most of the performers were a triumph. The ‘Royal Terror Theatre’ was set out with chairs for the officers and benches for the men – (the general egalitarianism did not apparently extend as far as the theatre). In the flickering glow of a large oil lamp the audience was treated to a performance containing such delights as songs, with Royds at the piano and ‘singers in true concert attitude’ and a ‘screaming comedy’ in one act. The South Polar Times graciously reviewed this as one of the most successful entertainments ever given within the Polar Circle. The next performance was the ‘Dishcover Minstrel Troupe’, which gave its all in temperatures of -40°F. Songs like ‘Marching through Georgia’ and ‘Swanee River’ had probably never been sung in stranger surroundings. And there were more schoolboy jokes – Mistah Johnson apparently asked of Mistah Bones, ‘
What am de worst vegetable us took from England?’ to which the reply was ‘The Dundee Leak’ – a punning reference to the mysterious and persistent leak that had plagued the Discovery on her outward voyage.

  As the winter progressed all the officers including Scott took it in turns on night duty to make the two-hourly observations required for the scientific research. Scott also recorded how he used the opportunity to do his laundry though he feared he made a poor job of it. But there were compensations. The night watchman was allowed the luxury of cooking himself a box of sardines. As the toothsome smells penetrated, ‘a small company of gourmets’ would rouse each other to devour a small finger of buttered toast with two sardines ‘done to a turn’ with a grunt of satisfaction and go back to sleep. There is something redolent of midnight feasts in the dorm here. Of course, they were a young crew. The average age of the forty-four men on board was only twenty-five. The New Zealand ladies had christened them ‘The Babes in the Wood’ in view of their youth and their wooden ship.6 Their youth also showed in their inexperience in their respective fields. Wilson wrote that ‘With the single exception of Hodgson we are all intensely ignorant of anything but the elementary knowledge of our several jobs.’7

  Wilson’s own modesty and high standards made him unduly severe – the men had at least the eagerness to learn and enthusiasm of youth so revered by Markham. Armitage was to be seen out on the ice undertaking the chilly task of taking star observations with the large theodolite. Thermometers had been placed in strategic positions on the shore, towards Mount Erebus or on Crater Hill and they needed to be read. Hodgson the naturalist spent his time dredging and digging. Occasionally he bore a frozen mass in triumph back to the ship’s wardroom where it was allowed to thaw out and disclose ‘the queer creatures that crawl and swim on the floor of our Polar sea’.8 Royds looked after the meteorological records. Bernacchi tended his magnetic instruments and the electrometer and made auroral, seismic and gravity observations. Barne led a sort of ‘picnic life’ journeying with just a few sticks of chocolate in his pocket to some distant seal-hole where with the help of a flickering lantern he let down strings of thermometers.9 It was chilly and laborious work and in his darker moments Scott wondered, whether it even possessed the advantage of being useful.