A First Rate Tragedy

by Diana Preston

  The party soon encountered problems. Atkinson’s foot became so badly chafed that he had to return to Cape Evans. Scott was not particularly sympathetic on the grounds that Atkinson ‘ought to have reported his trouble long before’. Also, the surface of the Barrier proved softer and more yielding than the mirror-hard surface they had expected. The ponies found it hard going and floundered badly. Scott had to acknowledge that the conditions did not suit them: ‘The great drawback is the ease with which they sink in soft snow . . . they struggle pluckily when they sink, but it is trying to watch them.’ Oates saw what was happening and grew despondent, but Scott dismissed his concern on the grounds that ‘he is not an optimist’. Pony snow shoes – circles of wire hooped with bamboo – were tried out on one pony, Weary Willie. Much to everyone’s surprise, including Oates who had so little confidence in the shoes that he had brought only a single set, they had a magical effect. Meares and Wilson were sent back to get some more but found that the ice had broken up, making a return to Cape Evans impossible. Scott understandably fretted that ‘so great a help to our work has been left behind at the station’.

  The party struggled on south and east to reach a position due south of Cape Crozier, which they nicknamed Corner Camp. It gave a straight course for the Beardmore Glacier, the path taken by Shackleton, which was to be Scott’s gateway to the Pole. However, before they could move on, the first blizzard struck – it was an awesome encounter with what Cherry-Garrard called ‘raging chaos’ and it delayed them for three days. When it cleared they pushed south again past Minna Bluff (named for Sir Clements Markham’s wife Minna), and set up Bluff Depot near the 79th parallel. Cherry-Garrard described what it was like sharing a tent with Scott:

  Scott’s tent was a comfortable one to live in, and I was always glad when I was told to join it . . . He was himself extraordinarily quick, and no time was ever lost by his party in camping or breaking camp. He was most careful, some said over-careful but I do not think so, that everything should be neat and shipshape . . . And if you were ‘sledging with the Owner’ you had to keep your eyes wide open for the little things which cropped up, and do them quickly, and say nothing about them.

  Life with Scott sounds wholly admirable, if a bit of a strain. Disciplined himself, he expected others to be similarly meticulous. Wright later recalled how some of the men were so in awe of Scott that they went outside into the cold to urinate, rather than doing so in the corner of the tent as was usual.

  Although they had only been sledging for eighteen days, the ponies were weakening. Scott’s journal shows his distress and anxiety – not only was he depending on the ponies for the Polar journey, but he was haunted by their suffering. Oates, who loved horses too but was less sentimental, took a more pragmatic view, arguing that it would be better to drive the ponies as far south as possible and then kill them and depot the meat for the men and dogs of the Polar party. He thought it unlikely that many of the ponies would survive the journey back to Cape Evans. Nevertheless, Scott decided to send the three weakest – Blossom, Blucher and James Pigg – back with Teddy Evans, Keohane and Forde. Blossom died almost immediately and Blucher after just thirty miles, vindicating Oates’s view.

  Oates continued to argue for pushing on and killing the ponies, particularly Weary Willie, who was now very weak, having been set on by some of the dogs, but Scott refused, according to Gran, and there was a telling exchange: ‘I have had enough of this cruelty to animals,’ was Scott’s reply, ‘and I’m not going to defy my feelings for the sake of a few days’ march.’ ‘I’m afraid you’ll regret it, sir,’ said Oates in the end. ‘Regret it or not, my dear Oates,’ Scott answered, ‘I’ve made up my mind, like a Christian.’12 In the event the farthest south they reached was only 79° 29'S, 130 geographical miles from Cape Evans and thirty miles farther north than Scott had intended. They laid a depot, called it ‘One Ton’ because of the enormous amount of stores left there, and marked it with a black flag. Scott now wrote in his diary that ‘we shall have a good leg up for next year and can at least feed the ponies full up to this point’. But as events would prove, if Scott had listened to Oates and laid the depot further south, nearer the Pole, the returning Polar party, frozen, starving and exhausted, might have gained at least temporary relief.

  By now the temperature had dropped to around -21°F and many of the party were feeling the cold – Oates in particular was suffering with a frostbitten nose. Reflecting that this did not bode well for the next season’s journeys, Scott now divided the party for the return journey. Scott, Wilson, Cherry-Garrard and Meares went ahead with the two dog teams. Bowers, Oates and Gran followed at their own pace with the five exhausted ponies. An interesting exchange took place between Oates and Gran as they tramped northwards again. According to Gran: ‘Oates was a completely closed book to me until I shared camp life with him . . . I (had) gained the impression that I did not find grace in his eyes . . .’ Gran was correct. On 31 January Oates had written to his mother: ‘I can’t stand this Norwegian chap, he is both dirty and lazy. I have had one row with him and I should think it won’t be very long before I have another.’ However, as Gran described, on the return journey from One Ton Depot:

  Oates told me straight out that what he had against me was not personal; it was just that I was a foreigner. With all his heart he hated all foreigners, because all foreigners hated England. The rest of the world led by Germany were just waiting to attack his Motherland, and destroy it if they could. I was about to reply when Bowers quickly intervened: ‘Could be something in what you say, Oates, but all the same I wager what you will that Gran would be with us if England is forced into war through no fault of her own.’ ‘Would you?’, asked Oates. ‘Of course,’ I replied, and the next instant he grasped my hand. From this moment the closed book opened, and Oates and I became the best of friends.

  Scott meanwhile was increasingly impressed by the dogs’ performance. They made excellent time on the return journey and he had begun to consult Meares about how dog teams might perform on the Polar plateau. However, his confidence was soon shaken again. He and Meares narrowly escaped death when a snow bridge collapsed as they were crossing a crevasse. All but the leader of their team, the magnificently strong Osman, who had survived being washed overboard during the storm, tumbled in. Looking down, an appalled Wilson saw ‘a great blue chasm in which hung the team of dogs in a festoon’. They managed to haul up eleven dogs, but two had slipped from their harness, fallen onto a snow shelf 65 feet below and promptly gone to sleep. Forgetting his responsibilities as leader and ignoring the strenuous objections of the others – Wilson thought it was an insane risk – the sentimental, animal-loving Scott insisted on being lowered on a rope to rescue them. This he managed, and the weary party reached Safety Camp on 22 February without further incident to find Teddy Evans with his solitary pony, James Pigg.

  However, worse was to come. Atkinson, whose foot had recovered, delivered a bag of mail left at Cape Evans by the Terra Nova before she sailed on to New Zealand. The post included a letter from Campbell containing the dire tidings that he had discovered Amundsen camped on the ice at the Bay of Whales, a bight in the Great Ice Barrier near Edward VII Land. This was where Scott had made his precarious ascent in a balloon in 1902 and the most southerly point that a ship could reach. It was also a mere 400 miles from Scott’s own winter quarters. The challenge could not have been clearer. A bitterly angry Scott pored over Campbell’s account of the tense encounter between the Norwegians and the British.

  Campbell described how his party had been unable to land as planned on King Edward VII Land because ice barred the Terra Nova’s way. Turning back, Campbell had decided to seek a wintering place on the Barrier itself and, rounding a point, the men of the Terra Nova had been astounded to see the Fram, as welcome as a Viking raiding ship, moored snugly at the Barrier’s edge. As Wilfred Bruce wrote to Kathleen, ‘Curses loud and deep were heard everywhere.’13

  The crews visited each other in an atmosphere of ex
cruciating politeness. The Norwegian shore party consisted of nine men and 110 dogs, compared to Scott’s two shore parties totalling thirty-three men and their assorted transport. The Norwegians were quite open about their plans. Amundsen intended to make a dash for the Pole with their dogs and on skis and to start as early as the weather allowed. He invited Campbell to stay at the Bay of Whales and make use of some of his dogs but Campbell declined. After meticulous civilities on both sides he took his leave, preferring to sail on with the Terra Nova on her passage to New Zealand and attempt a landing beyond Cape Adare.

  Scott’s first reaction, as Cherry-Garrard described many years later to George Bernard Shaw, was fury. He had to master the temptation to rush to the Bay of Whales and have it out with Amundsen. Cherry-Garrard had never seen his captain so distressed. There are overtones here of Scott the child who hated losing. The thought of having the prize plucked from his grasp, plus the fact that Amundsen had not ‘played the game’ were unbearable. It was not fair! However, more sober reflection convinced him that, ‘The proper, as well as the wiser, course for us is to proceed exactly as though this had not happened. To go forward and do our best for the honour of the country without fear or panic.’

  However, whether Scott liked it or not, the Polar journey would now be a race. He began to weigh up their respective chances, reflecting gloomily that at the Bay of Whales Amundsen was some sixty miles closer to the Pole. He pondered Amundsen’s reliance on dogs, admitting that his plans for running them seemed excellent and that he would be able to start earlier with dogs than he could with ponies. It would have depressed him further to know that on his final depot-laying journey Amundsen had achieved nearly sixty miles on his best day, his dogs whisking effortlessly over the frozen surface of the Barrier, and that he had laid his final depot 150 miles farther south than Scott’s. On average Scott had only managed between a third and a half of Amundsen’s speed.

  Scott anyway found it difficult to accept that intelligent animals like dogs could be driven for hundreds of miles over featureless terrain all the way to the Pole. He believed that ‘A dog must be either eating, asleep or interested. His eagerness to snatch at interest, to chain his attention to something, is almost pathetic. The monotony of marching kills him.’ Yet, even if Scott had now wanted to alter his plans and abandon his reliance on ponies, there was the danger of being accused of copying Amundsen.

  While Scott was still reflecting on this strange twist of fate, Bowers, Oates and Gran arrived at Safety Camp with all five ponies, but Weary Willie was in a bad way. Scott stayed with Oates and Gran, trying unsuccessfully to nurse him but he died in the night. It emphasized even more clearly to Scott that ‘these blizzards are terrible for the poor animals . . . It makes a late start necessary for next year.’

  Meanwhile Scott had sent the others ahead to the safety of Hut Point, which Wilson and Meares reached with the dog teams. However, a nightmarish sequence of events awaited Bowers, Cherry-Garrard and Crean. Unlike Wilson they decided to cross the sea-ice with their four emaciated ponies. As Bowers described, ‘it was a beastly march back: dark, gloomy and depressing.’ Progress was slow and they made camp on ice which seemed solid enough but extreme weariness probably affected their judgement – Bowers made the customary cocoa with curry powder and Crean did not even notice. They awoke to the unpleasant discovery that, as Bowers described, ‘We were in the middle of a floating pack of broken-up ice.’ One pony, Guts, had vanished and a desperate race now ensued to drag their sledges and the remaining three ponies from floe to floe to reach the safety of the Barrier. As if this were not enough, Bowers described the ‘further unpleasantness’ caused by the sight of squadrons of killer whales cruising with ‘fiendish activity’ in the thirty to forty feet or so of open water which lay between them and the Barrier.

  Thomas Crean, the huge Irish petty officer with a profile like the Duke of Wellington’s, leapt across the floes. Gaining the Barrier, he raised the alarm and Scott hurried to the Barrier’s edge. Meanwhile Bowers and Cherry-Garrard had their work cut out to calm the ponies terrorized by the sight of ‘Huge black and yellow heads, with sickening pig eyes only a few yards from us’.14 Luckily their floe came to rest against the edge of the Barrier and a mightily relieved Scott shouted down, ‘My dear chaps, you can’t think how glad I am to see you safe!’15 Bowers wrote how he ‘realised the feeling Scott must have had all day. He had been blaming himself for our deaths and here we were very much alive.’

  However, Scott saw continuing danger. At any moment the current might shift and the floe with its bedraggled and exhausted cargo would float out to sea. He therefore ordered Bowers and Cherry-Garrard to abandon the animals. They did so but while they persisted in trying to cut steps to lead the ponies up on to the Barrier after them, the ice floe broke loose again. They had to endure the sight of the three disconsolate beasts floating away. The next morning Bowers spotted the ponies about a mile to the north west where their floe had again come to rest. However, in the frantic efforts to hustle them once more across a moving bridge of ice floes to the safety of the Barrier two fell in and Oates and Bowers had the sickening task of killing them with pickaxes to save them from the whales. Only one survivor, Nobby, made it to safety. It was a great blow to Scott’s plans for the Pole. ‘If ever a man’s footsteps were dogged by misfortune, they were surely our leader’s,’ wrote an unusually sombre Teddy Evans. The fatalistic Wilson put the sequence of calamities down to God’s will, just as he had their survival from the storm at sea.

  The break-up of the sea-ice also meant that the party was now trapped at Hut Point. They were forced to exist in the smoky, reeking atmosphere of the old Discovery hut whose stove was fuelled with lumps of seal blubber. Their plight was made even more frustrating by the knowledge that ‘Cape Evans, though dimly in sight, was as far off as New Zealand till the sea froze over,’ as Bowers wistfully described. Living conditions became even more cramped when on 14 March Griffith Taylor and his band of geological surveyors, including Edgar Evans, arrived. Petty Officer Evans had won the admiration of Griffith Taylor and his fellow academics for his strength and courage, his inexhaustible supply of anecdotes and unusual swearwords and his choice of reading matter. They had abandoned their more erudite tomes in favour of his William le Queux novel and copy of the Red Magazine.

  The men rubbed along well enough in a spirit of camaraderie. They dined on fried seal liver and penguin breast and Wilson invented a penguin lard which tasted like very bad sardine oil. Oates put in a plea for plain cooking, remarking in a loud voice: ‘Some of our party, who rather fancy themselves as cooks, quite spoil the meals by messing up the food in their attempts to produce original dishes.’16 However, he appears to have enjoyed Wilson’s chapattis. He tried unsuccessfully to get Wilson to give him some brandy ‘for medicinal purposes’ by pretending to throw a fit but Wilson saw through it: ‘Yes, he’s got a fit all right; rub some snow down his neck, and he’ll soon get over it.’17

  Scott was pleased to see such high spirits but his own confidence had been severely jolted by the events of the depot journey, compounded by the news about Amundsen. He wrote: ‘It is ill to sit still and contemplate the ruin which has assailed our transport . . . The Pole is a very long way off, alas!’ As soon as the sea-ice began to re-form Scott leapt at the chance to be off, though some of the group had misgivings. Soon men and sledges were descending onto the sea-ice by alpine ropes. Teddy Evans admired Scott’s resolution, writing that ‘a more nervous man would have fought shy because once down on the sea ice, there was little chance of our getting back’. It is a measure of Scott’s frustration that he was prepared to take such a risk, but he was worried about what he might find at Cape Evans, fearing that ‘misfortune was in the air’ and that ‘some abnormal swell’ might have wrought havoc.

  The gamble paid off and on 13 April they regained the relative luxury of Cape Evans, where a relieved Scott found ‘all safe’. They looked so changed with their beards, weatherbeaten skins and clot
hes soaked in seal blubber and soot, that Ponting took them for Norwegians. When he realized who it was he rushed for his camera but, as he later wrote:

  To my intense disgust . . . Petty Officers Evans and Crean had clipped off their bushy, black beards before their turn came round, leaving only a lot of bristles that were sufficient to dismay any self-respecting camera . . . But Griffith Taylor, with a lofty scorn for gibes, which added greatly to my respect for him, declined to sacrifice his ‘Keir-Hardie’ whiskers for anyone.

  Ten days later the sun rose for the final time for four months, heralding the arrival of winter. In the dark days to come Scott would have much on which to reflect. On the voyage south he had written: ‘Fortune would be in a hard mood indeed if it allowed such a combination of knowledge, experience, ability and enthusiasm to achieve nothing.’18 But Fortune had not smiled. Instead she had allowed in an interloper.

  12

  Winter

  As the darkness fell, life settled into an orderly routine. The hut was comfortable, even cosy, with acetylene gas jets, stoves, clothes lines, clocks and the all-important gramophone on which the men played such sentimental favourites of the age as ‘A Night Hymn at Sea’ by Clara Butt and K. Rumford and ‘Tis Folly to Run Away From Love’ by Margaret Cooper. The nine men of the mess-deck lived their separate existence, separated from the wardroom by a shelved wall and warmed by the galley stove, the hut’s main source of heat. Debenham described how: ‘In the hut the temperature at floor-level was kept below freezing point so that any snow brought in could be swept out daily, but at table height it would be about 50°F., while at the peak of the hut it could rise to 70°F., where we could thaw a bucket of ice for our weekly wash.’