Importantly, since investigation of the South Magnetic Pole was an important part of Discovery’s brief, comparisons of the ship’s magnetic instruments with the South African land-based instruments were made. Navigators had known the importance of the magnetic compass as a means of finding north (and south) from as early as the twelfth century. These magnetic readings differ significantly from the true north and south and by different amounts in different parts of the world. Ocean charts that show the difference between the magnetic readings and the true north, the magnetic declination, were first produced by the famous astronomer Edmond Halley in 1700–1 and were based largely on his observations on board HMS Paramore. The charts did not, as Halley had hoped, solve the longitude problem, but they were still of practical help to sailors in correcting the compass. Even in the eighteenth century Halley knew that the direction of the magnetic field changes with time, so revisions of the chart were needed and were made regularly in his lifetime; indeed, these recordings are still made today, though from satellites and aircraft. In Scott’s time it was known that observations made at sea were not as accurate as land recordings, so to get as precise a picture as possible multiple observations needed to be recorded from all around the oceans and the magnetic equipment on ships needed to be compared with accurate values on land. Discovery’s magnetic equipment was compared with readings in South Africa and afterwards in New Zealand. These recordings were a routine part of the remit of all expeditions to far-off places, but Discovery could contribute most significantly because, as there is so little land in the south, sea-based observations were of considerable navigational value. In addition to the observations, Scott hoped to get far enough south to make useful additions to knowledge on the South Magnetic Pole’s location.
The halts that gave Skelton much work in the engine room found Scott working also. In Cape Town he dismissed one member of the crew who he thought a troublemaker and docked pay and leave from two in the engineering section for drunkenness (Seaman Scott says they were flogged).18 Skelton wrote that drink continued to cause a lot of problems.19 But Wilson did not comment on this; every halt was a source of increasing pleasure. He relished the opportunities to explore and enjoy each country’s flora and fauna, a heaven-sent opportunity for a naturalist. In South Africa he also made interesting contacts with new colleagues and was introduced to the local wine. He labelled and packed the Trinidad birds and eggs to be taken home. He wrote to his father that ‘the callow chick was growing into a fat, burly, brown-faced man’; by now he had put on a stone in weight, in spite of all his physical exercise.20 Fears of a recurrence of his chest problems were forgotten.
Social activities abounded. The Admiral hosted a dinner for the officers and a party for the whole crew. The Philosophical Society hosted a dinner, the Governor a picnic and dinner. When he left South Africa, Wilson wrote that they were all sorry to part with the wonderfully unselfish and thoughtful Admiral and his sister. Scott wrote that Discovery steamed out of the harbour, ‘accompanied by the cheers of the warships and proud of this last tribute of their generous sympathy’.21 He wrote, ‘Thus ends an experience that makes one truly proud of a glorious profession – added to the practical benefits of our visit one is deeply touched by the real kindness and sympathy shown by all; men and officers have had a glimpse of the real efficiency and meaning of our navy.’22
Discovery left South Africa on 14 October 1901 en route for New Zealand, twelve days after her intended departure. She followed a direct route, out of the normal shipping lanes. There were no communications; the ship was on her own. All too soon it was evident that, despite the South African naval efforts, the leak had accompanied her. The crew had to work at the bilges each day, pumping out the seawater. But, by the end of the month they caught the westerlies and the ‘roaring forties’23 which meant that they could make very good daily runs, often clocking up more than 200 miles a day.24 Scott explains that Discovery’s high rounded stern gave extra buoyancy though made her more difficult to steer.25 As the ship sped along the noise was deafening, the timbers creaked and groaned, doors banged and everything not fixed down skidded away merrily as towering waves crashed on the deck. Wilson described the rolling powers of the boat as ‘tremendous’, though this never upset him. Once, when there was a particularly mountainous wave, the ship swerved round, the quartermaster was thrown over the wheel and Scott himself was submerged and had to cling grimly to the rails to avoid disappearing over the sides, as the monstrous sea swept over the deck and the spray dashed as high as the upper topsails.26 This particular rogue wave flooded into the wardroom smashing the crockery; the deck was awash with dog kennels, planks, ropes and life belts. Polar clothes, just brought out of the hold, were soaked.
Painting tested Wilson’s patience. Any brush or tube of paint that was not fixed ended up on the floor which became a jumble of books, ink, candle grease, medicines, soapy slops and paints. But it was ‘a happy little hovel’ that Wilson did not want to change.27 For painting on deck he used a sketching box hung round the neck. This kept the paper comparatively dry most of the time. Scott wrote to Oriana saying that not only would Wilson’s intellect and abilities win him a great name but that his kindness, loyalty and good temper were possessions that had endeared him to all his companions. He goes on, ‘How truly grateful I am to have such a man with me and how much it lightens my responsibilities’.28 Clearly, Scott already felt a degree of confidence and ease with Wilson that he could never allow himself with naval personnel.
By early November the sea was calmer but the ship went on rolling. Wilson thought that if it suddenly became still, everyone would be sick. In spite of this, he wrote, the most accurate work continued every day, occasionally enlivened by a burst of nautical language. He wrote that
the beauty of the wild ocean is indescribable. The colouring and lights and shadows, the heavy black snow squalls are all so in-keeping with the rush and roar of the wind that is driving us on and the heavy thud of the seas as they break against our sides or on our deck.29
He was delighted by the number and variety of birds, recording twenty to thirty albatrosses at one time, plus every type of petrel, a small whale (of twenty feet) and gold crested penguins. He rigged up his laboratory on deck, doing his work and writing at a big (immobilised) table. His family was always in his thoughts and he celebrated Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November with his father’s gift of a bottle of cherry brandy.30
By mid-November, Discovery had arrived at a position of particular magnetic interest. Anomalies had been noted to the north of the magnetic pole, close to the position they were at. Scott took the ship south as far as he could to record these changes. To do this he moved even further away from normal shipping lanes,31 so there was considerable concern when a fire broke out in the forecastle early on 14 November. Although it burnt the woodwork considerably, it was quickly extinguished, but was a salutary reminder of the terrible dangers of fire to wooden ships, especially in such lonely waters. Wilson hoped that it was ‘a scare that will be the best guarantee against fire in the future’.32 He was always fatalistic, writing later in a way that can scarcely have been enthusiastically read at home when the letter eventually arrived: ‘I hope I shall come back to you all. I believe I shall, but one cannot tell what God has planned for one’s immediate future’.33
They were so far south that they moved into ice, seeing the first piece on 16 November, only the size of soup plate, but causing great excitement and winning Barne a bottle of champagne for spotting it from the bridge. This foretaste was soon to be followed by large white and green lumps, moulded by the sea into fantastic shapes. This was a completely new experience, as was the ice pack, two or three feet thick. To break through the solid pack the ship rode two or three feet above the ice, then crashed down on it, her weight cracking and splitting the floe which cast a ghostly glimmer by night but was distinctly un-ghostlike as they scraped and banged against the boat. Wilson was on deck for hours recording the white and grey snowy splendour, ful
l of movement and sounds, so different to the white stillness of Davos.
Discovery pushed her way through the ice with her engines fired. She reached as far south as 62.5° S by 139° E, less than 200 miles from the Antarctic, but her coal reserves were low, there were time constraints and the ship needed to get to New Zealand to pick up more equipment, provisions and, importantly, the husky dogs.34 She was turned north-east again reluctantly as soon as the magnetic readings were completed. This run was notable again for the quantity and variety of birds, which followed the ship, a novelty for most of the crew who, taught by Wilson who had the knowledge to identify and name the visitors, began to learn to recognise them. These birds varied from albatrosses with their wingspan of several feet down to little petrels that flitted under the foaming wave crests. Wilson listed the southern fulmar, black and white Antarctic petrels, snow petrels, sooty albatross, as well as cape pigeons.35 To accurately record a new bird, and following Ruskin’s precepts, he painted its head, profile, top view, feet and legs and completed the record with two full views from front and back and one recording the outstretched wings.36 This time-consuming business, reminiscent of Stubbs’ careful depiction of horses, showed how he learned to understand his subjects’ structures. He and the other scientists remained keen to get further specimens and Scott occasionally stopped the boat or used a variety of devices to capture the specimens ‘on the hoof’. Wilson never seems to have worried unduly about killing animals for scientific purposes or for food in spite of his devotion to St Francis.
On 22 November Wilson was delighted to engineer an unscheduled stop at Macquire Island (he had to bribe Armitage with a bottle of liqueur to get Scott’s permission).37 Macquire was the only stop made on the way to New Zealand and is a small island 600 miles south-west of their destination. Scott, Barne and Wilson explored it together. Here, Wilson saw thousands of penguins for the first time standing to attention like ranked armies of soldiers. Very little was known about penguins in the early 1900s. Penguins in general and emperor penguins in particular were to become his great scientific interest. In Macquire Island there were no emperor penguins but two other varieties, the brightly-coloured king penguins and smaller orange crested penguins. Both sexes busily guarded their single egg, which they balanced on their feet whilst they sat on their haunches, their toes in the air. The birds tried to save their eggs from the attentions of the visitors by pecking at the men or whacking their legs with their flippers. The noise was deafening, the smell of guano (excreta) overpowering, but the men managed to take two live king penguins with them to New Zealand.
On this island the trio found a hut left by sealers with a superb collection of bird skins, some of them rare, including an albino penguin with a gold crest. All the specimens were neatly preserved, labelled and wrapped in paper. No sign of the collector could be found; there was certainly no corpse. But after some hesitation they left the collection intact, shutting the door on probable future deterioration.38 Koettlitz dashed about happily collecting botanical specimens, Ferrar gathered geological specimens. Skelton was busy with his camera. Two seals were sacrificed in the interest of science. The visit, of just a few hours, was an undoubted success. Not only did the collections increase, but also the larder was stocked with meat and about a hundred king penguin eggs. The doctors and Scott understood that fresh meat might be helpful in the war on scurvy although they continued to think that putrefaction of tinned meat was of the greatest importance. On the island, Wilson, as always, made watercolour illustrations of the birds. These and his skins were sent back to London from New Zealand. He became so enthused by all the new wildlife that he started planning a project close to his heart. He aimed to write and illustrate a book on the birds seen on the expedition.39
As they progressed to New Zealand the routine continued, as did the debates and talks. For men brought up in Victorian England debates were a routine feature of life and these continued throughout the outward journey. One subject that was debated was ‘the ethics of sport’ and Wilson was practically alone in arguing that sport was a relic of barbarity. He prophesied that it would die out in time in civilised nations and thought that only Scott had realised previously that the question of sport had another side to it.40 He kept up his correspondence, to be posted when possible, and he made regular diary entries. He continued to admire Scott, writing to his parents:
He is a most capable man in every way. … I admire him immensely, all but his temper. He is quick tempered and very impatient, but he is a really nice fellow, very generous and ready to help us all in every way and to do everything he can to ensure us the full merit of all we do.41
Three days after leaving Macquire Island, Auckland Island was seen. Discovery arrived off Lyttleton Head at midnight on 28 November 1901. The ship was berthed the following day and given the usual enthusiastic, helpful welcome, one that rivalled Cape Town. Wilson had his first glimpses of a land that he and Oriana grew to love and hoped to return to.
Discovery was put into dry dock and again every packing case was unloaded under Shackleton’s supervision. Exhaustive attempts to find the cause of the leak were so unsuccessful that when she put to sea again the leak continued with such vengeance that the mortified local contractor felt obliged to organise further investigations at his own expense. Although more defects were made good and the ship thoroughly examined, water continued to get in. ‘The Leak’ was well advertised; the sight of water pouring from the ship in dry dock was all too newsworthy. From London, Sir Clements had to assure the press that such leaking was normal in a wooden boat and that Scott never thought it a serious threat.42 In New Zealand new additions to the crew included the physicist Louis Bernacchi. He and Armitage were soon busy co-ordinating magnetic readings on the land and the ship to validate the ship’s compass .43
This was a stop that found Wilson over-busy. He had to get all his specimens ready to be taken back to England and to do this he was given access to the taxidermy room in Christchurch Museum plus an assistant, but even so the work was numbing. The skins of fifty wet greasy king penguins, that had been dead for a week, had to have the fat scraped off. He also had to blow and clean all his Penguin eggs. After days of this round-the-clock activity he decided to leave the ship and move to a hotel. He wanted to have a last taste of baths, space and good food. In a letter to his mother who had sent him a book of prayers and two photographs, a picture of St Francis and the altar of the church where he was married, he wrote, ‘You must be very grateful to Ory because she has made all this time so much happier and easier for me’.44
When I look back upon the extraordinary way in which it was made possible I feel more certain than ever of the reality of a guiding hand that leads us through all sorts of strange and unexpected and at the time most disagreeable paths very often, always with the very best end in view, so long as our wills are entirely given up to the guide who knows so much better than us what is best for us.
Perhaps thinking of his illness, he went on, ‘Thank God Ory and I have seen and marvelled at so much obvious guidance even against our wills in our lives that we neither of us have the least fear of the outcome in the future’.45 His passive acceptance of fate and his religious beliefs may seem simplistic. His younger brother Jim, who went on to be a Church of England minister, seems to have had grave reservations about Wilson’s religious writings being made public and destroyed them after his death.46 But Wilson was not a weak man. He had no fear for his own mortality and he had the courage to face up to issues that demanded action. Comments such as these should be read in relation to his day-to-day life, in which he trained himself to accept the good and the bad, health and illness, happiness and unhappiness as part of his allocated lot. Injustice would always rouse him. But, as he wrote in Cambridge, ordinary day-to-day life should not need planning and worrying, but rather, grateful acceptance.
In New Zealand the officers and crew took part in the obligatory social engagements. The officers were on a charm offensive, answering questions an
d criticism with care. Scott lectured on the background and goals of the expedition. To the usual question ‘Why?’ the reply was that the question missed an important point: ‘How could they expect to know anything of the mighty universe of which the world is but an atom, if they didn’t explore to its uttermost recesses their own little globe’.47 Thousands of curious people came to visit the ship. The crew were plied with drink. The mess was presented with a ‘pianette’, bought for £40 for use in the Sunday services. Railway journeys to Christchurch were provided free, as was the port docking. Donations of £1,000 were given towards expedition costs.48
A visit to see traditional Maori dancing was arranged. Wilson decided that the demonstration was hypocritical and artificial. These Maoris, who normally dressed in European-style clothes, whose children spoke English and who attended a very English church, were dressed in grass petticoats and feathers and sang and danced and did the Haka. He thought that this was ‘a childish presentation and a piece of barbarous acting, reminiscent of a pantomime’.49 But his love of New Zealand was permanent and Oriana kept contact with and visited her friends in New Zealand for the rest of her life.
There were crew changes. Scott dismissed some of the crew and crewman Clarence Hare, destined to be of considerable medical interest in Antarctic folklore, joined the complement as did a flock of forty-five terrified sheep50 and twenty-three howling sledge dogs, their kennels, exploration equipment, huts for the magnetic work, an extra forty tons of coal and 1,500 gallons of paraffin. Well-wishers stood around to wish ‘Godspeed’ to the overloaded boat, and usefully, to pull the fighting dogs apart. The expedition issued four sets of postcards to be sent at various stages of the voyage and an issue was sent from New Zealand.51 The Eastern Extension Telegraph Co. allowed final farewell messages to be sent home free of charge and the ship was repainted.
With Scott in the Antarctic Page 10