On 23 July, Wilson’s birthday and ‘quite the funniest I had ever spent’,41 the roof ripped ‘into hundreds of little fragments in fewer seconds than it takes to read this’,42 dislodging the sledge and rocks and leaving the men lying open to the raging elements. They lay mummified in snow, in the darkness and with no food or drink. They were like this for forty-eight hours. Wilson and Birdie sang songs and hymns: ‘He who would valiant be’. Cherry-Gerard joined in. They slaked their thirst by sucking small pieces of snow, Wilson prayed and intermittently Birdie thumped him; if he still moved he knew he was still alive. Now Wilson’s steady character came to the fore, his courage never left him:
we had to think out a plan for getting home again without our tent and without the canvas roof of the hut. We still had the floor cloth of the tent and this we were lying on so it couldn’t blow away. We could build a snow hut every night on the way home and put this on the top or we could always build a burrow in the Barrier big enough for all three of us and make a very good roof with the canvas flush with the surface. We had no doubt of getting back so long as this blizzard did not last till we were all stiffened with the cold in our bags.43
The effort that this would have required is almost indescribable, certainly Cherry-Garrard had long since given up all hope: ‘Without the tent we were dead men’.44 He reflected that his life had been a bit wasted, ‘the road to Hell might be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities’.45 He decided he was going to try to die. He was not going to try to keep warm. He thought he might be able to get hold of some of Wilson’s morphine.46 Meanwhile the indomitable Bowers made a note of the wind speed, it was force twelve on the Beaufort scale. This was the only time when his meteorological observations fell to just one recording in the day.47
On 24 July they managed to get the primus lamp working and eat pemmican and drink tea. They sat on their bags with the floor cloth above them to protect the primus. Never was a meal, choked with hair, feathers and dust, so delicious. With a lull in the blizzard they were able to explore around the hut. Miraculously they found the tent had only blown for a quarter of a mile. It had been snapped shut by the wind on its careering ride but was relatively unharmed and definitely usable. Bowers ‘thanked God in his mercy’.48 Their lives ‘had been taken away and given back to us’.49 They moved the tent reverently and solemnly to a new position lower down the slope and put their equipment into it. Birdie tied his sleeping bag to the tent; anywhere the tent was going, he was going too.
By now Wilson’s priority was to get back to Cape Evans. He was responsible for Bowers and Cherry-Garrard and he knew that they still faced deadly conditions on the return journey. They had only one can of oil left.50 Characteristically Birdie was prepared to go back to the rookery, but by now Wilson had abandoned all thoughts of dissecting embryos at their different stages of development. Cherry-Garrard, weak from lack of sleep, accepted the offer of Bowers’ eiderdown lining. The first few nights he spent in it were wonderful, but then the new liner began to ice up like the old one. Wilson’s bag had been splitting badly for days. They could not roll the bags but laid them out on the sledge ‘like three squashed coffins’.51 Bowers’ balaclava helmet became so frozen that his head was in a solid ice block and to look down he had to bend his whole body. All their socks and finesco and mitts were frozen; when put into the men’s breast pockets or inside their vests at night they did not even thaw out, let alone dry.52 Even Bowers wrote, ‘We had really reached the pit’.53
The return journey took seven days. They went too far east and got onto a crevasse field. Bowers fell in one and dangled in his harness until the others managed to haul him out with blistered hands, an effort that caused non-stop pain because of the raw sores on their fingers.
On the slopes of Mount Terror the temperature dropped from minus 21 to 46°F. They moved forward cautiously listening to the sound of the snow and its feel under their feet. The Windless Bight gave them a better surface on the return journey and they managed several miles each day instead of the dismal one and a half they had on the way out. Cherry-Garrard’s teeth split in the cold, and he drifted in and out of sleep as he walked, waking up as he bumped into his companions. Finally they reached Hut Point, the Discovery base. By now the light was a little better and Cherry-Garrard wrote that he could not describe the relief that that gave him. They found that the relative warmth in The Hut affected their feet; they walked around ‘like cats on hot bricks’ and could only get relief by making their feet cold again when the pain wore off. Their hands were very painful. They finally reached base on 1 August, wearily climbed out of their frozen clothes, had a good meal, a haircut, a shave and lots of sleep. The journey was over.
The expedition lived vividly in Cherry-Garrard’s memory. He wrote that the journey had beggared belief, ‘no words could express its horror’.54 Wilson appreciated his colleagues. As they packed for the last time he said, ‘I want to thank you two for what you have done. I couldn’t have found two better companions and what is more I never shall’.55 Cherry-Garrard was proud of that.
Scott wrote that they looked more weatherworn than anyone he had ever seen, with wrinkled and scarred faces, dull eyes and their hands whitened and creased.56 Cherry-Garrard ‘looked like nothing human. He had on a big nose guard covering all but his eyes and huge icicles and frost stuck out like duck’s bills from his lips. Ponting said he had seen the same look on some half-starved Russian prisoners’ faces’.57 When they warmed up, their feet, hands, noses and mouths swelled and tingled.
What could Wilson claim they had achieved? The meteorological data was to be of use and importance. Experimentation with different proportions of fat, protein and carbohydrate in the diet was of use; although this could have been done without a journey to Cape Crozier, it did give a unique experience of the most extreme conditions and Scott and Wilson and Bowers were able to formulate different rations for the next expedition. On the expedition all three had 32 oz of food. Bowers had had 12 oz of pemmican and 20 oz of biscuit; the other two eventually had had fat in their diet although Cherry-Garrard started on the same amounts of pemmican and biscuit. When Wilson could not manage his allocated 8 oz of butter, he and Cherry-Garrard settled on a butter (4 oz), biscuit (16 oz) and pemmican (12 oz) combination. It was thought that the inclusion of fat made this the best diet, as has been confirmed subsequently.58 Information about the increase in weight of the equipment in the course of the journey was of interest; the bags weighed in total 52 lbs at the start of the expedition and 118 lbs at the end and the tent had increased by 25 lbs in weight mostly due to ice collecting on the inside.59 But on the question of the connection between primitive birds, as represented by penguins, and reptiles, no conclusion could be made. The embryos Wilson collected were more advanced than he had thought; they were too developed to test Haeckel’s theory. There were no teeth, scales or feathers to connect the birds with reptiles. More importantly, though Wilson could not know this at the time, the premise on which he was working was wrong. Penguins are not, as he thought and wrote, ‘the most primitive and behindhand birds in existence’,60 they are in fact quite far down the avian evolutionary tree. Flightless birds have evolved from birds with flight rather than the other way around. Penguins have specialised and adapted to life in the Antarctic from their more primitive flying ancestors over millions of years. If there was a connection between birds and dinosaurs, penguins were the wrong breed of bird to study. But Sarah Wheeler in her biography of Cherry-Garrard writes how his reward was an affirmation of the value of dignity and the abnegation of the self.61 Although the timing of the expedition has been criticised, Wilson would have remained serene. Although it could be classified as a failure, he would have seen God’s purpose in the expedition.
Facts about the emperor’s lifecycle were not discovered for years. If Wilson could have anticipated the appalling problems they encountered and impossibility of proving a connection between dinosaurs and birds, the journey would have b
een lunacy. But he could not; every explorer, adventurer and trailblazer must take risks, either to be rewarded with huge success or nothing. Wilson hoped for great achievements with this journey and his determination to push through with it rings loud and clear.
He took some time to recover. His fingers remained numb and his hands were painful for weeks; it was not so easy to restart work on his sketches and his journal. He wrote that the winter, his last alive, was quiet as judged by the regularity of the horse exercising and the lack of incident to report in his journal.62 The Winter Journey was recorded tongue-in-cheek in The South Polar Times by Bowers who wrote a four-page poem (some lines recorded at the beginning of this chapter). Cherry-Garrard, in his editorial, merely stated, ‘The Cape Crozier Party left on June 27th and returned on August 1st.63 Wilson, constitutionally busy, got up early and woke Bowers at 6a.m. and the cook, sweeper and stable man at 7a.m. He also woke Simpson with a cup of tea, so that he could start work for an hour before breakfast; before 8a.m. was the only quiet time in the day. Dr Atkinson lectured on scurvy. But important preparations continued for the summer programme. The mess table was piled with rations to be weighed and bagged for the great journey to the Pole. The plans were for sixteen men to set out: four with motors, ten with ponies and two with dogs. Only the chosen few would attempt the Pole. Lieutenant Evans wrote, ‘Dr Wilson, our Chief of Scientific Staff helped us all. To ‘Uncle Bill’ we all went for sound practical advice. Wilson was a friend and companion to Captain Scott and to all the expedition’.64 Scott also heaped praise on Wilson, writing in his journal in October:
Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he really is the finest character I ever met – the closer one gets to him the more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and dependable; cannot you imagine how that counts down here? Whatever the matter one knows that Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal and quite unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and things than is first guessable, a quiet vein of humour and really consummate tact, and you have some idea of his values. I think he is the most popular member of the party and that is saying much.65
By August the twilight hours increased until at last Wilson saw the sun again on 26 October. It was glorious to stand bathed in it; they all felt very young and sang and cheered. There were celebrations and champagne. Scott, having decided that Amundsen would not push him into changing his plans, wrote in October that he did not know what to think of Amundsen’s chances; he thought that if Amundsen got to the Pole it would be due to the dogs. But his anxieties must have been many. He knew that Amundsen’s base was sixty miles closer to the Pole; he would have been more anxious if he had known that Amundsen was to start on 22 October.
Polar Journey 1911
13
Death in the Antarctic
By October the party for the main southern journey had been selected; Wilson was amongst them and each member of the party knew that the men to be picked for the final assault on the Pole would come from this group. He wrote in his Journal:
I don’t see any other course than to carry through the job I came here for, which was, in the main, this sledge journey to the Pole. ‘L’homme propose, mais le bon Dieu dispose’ is an honest creed, and in this case, l’homme hasn’t decided to do anything from first to last that he wasn’t convinced would be approved by his infinitely better half and Le Bon Dieu will do the rest. … Whatever happens, even if it’s worse than anything one can bring oneself to imagine, there is no more to be said or done than this.1
Right up until the expedition’s departure he continued painting, adding picture after picture to his portfolio, painting on wet paper and working quickly. As always, he aimed at accuracy; if the result was only attractive but not exact, he threw it away. He hoped that the paintings would be exhibited along with Ponting’s photographs in London and so keep things Antarctic, and Antarctic exploration, in the public consciousness. Ponting was returning to England in 1912, so the exhibition would be before Wilson’s planned return. Generously he gave permission for his sketches to be shown before they had been completely worked up.2 In addition, as Chief of Scientific Staff he had prepared his report for the Royal Society. It was to go into the press telegram returning with the ship in March3 and was to be published in The Times in May. It describes the scientific objectives of the expedition (illustrating the essential difference between British and Norwegian expeditions) and Wilson recorded details of Antarctic pressures, temperatures and wind velocity, the investigation of the high atmosphere using small balloons, the weekly magnetic observations and work on the glacier fronts. He reported his own expedition to Cape Crozier and said that he had got three chicks at different stages of development, which he hoped would be scientifically interesting. He wrote to Oriana also:
Be assured I am content to feel that I was really wanted here after all, as you assured me I was and would be when we parted. … Whether we reach the Pole or not I really care very little as long as we feel we have done all we could. I feel I am here for a better purpose than to merely get to the Pole. … God comfort you my own dear wife.4
He was realistic about British chances, ‘we are not as cocksure about it as we were’,5 and realised that if he was on the final Polar party, he would not get back to base before the ship had to leave for New Zealand. This had implications for publicity. ‘Amundsen may reach the Pole and get his news back in 1912. We may not’.6 He was only unhappy when he thought of Oriana’s disappointment when Terra Nova got back to New Zealand in 1912 without him, ‘Help Ory, dear Mr and Mrs Smith’.7
The influence he wielded remained noticed. Scott, writing to Reginald Smith, said:
Wilson has been all that you expected of him. I find myself wondering at his energy, his tact and his unselfishness: such qualities have made him beloved by all and in return he wields the power of an oracle. … I hold him mainly responsible for the extraordinary amicable relations which have existed amongst us; it is really a fact that there have been no quarrels or other social troubles since the expedition started. To sum up he has proved himself a greater treasure than even I expected to find.8
The much-heralded Pole assault began in a low-key fashion. The dog teams with Meares and Dimitri in charge, left on 21 October to lay depots and advance loads.9 On 24 October the two motor tractors, each pulling three laden sledges, spluttered into life and pulled slowly away from Cape Evans, recorded on film by Ponting. Scott, in his heart of hearts, thought that the tractors would not be very useful on this expedition,10 but he was eager that they should succeed enough to show their possibilities which, he thought, might revolutionise Polar travel.11 He was right in both thoughts: the motors stuttered and often broke down, the track chains skidded on the hard sea ice and the mechanics’ work, on cold metal, at temperatures below minus 30°F, was exasperating and painful. One machine lasted six days, the other eight, after which they were abandoned. After the final breakdown, the motor party, led by Lieutenant Teddy Evans, packed all the supplies on the sledges and man-hauled. But Scott was also correct about their possibilities; they were to be developed further and may be considered precursors of the tanks used in France in the First World War.
On the same day that the tractors were abandoned, the pony caravan started out. Wilson was one of ten pony leaders who followed Lieutenant Evans’ trail south. The plan was that the ponies would go over the Barrier sea ice and then cross onto the Beardmore Glacier (named after William Beardmore, Shackleton’s sponsor) nearly 400 miles south and discovered by Shackleton as being the route onto the high Arctic plateau and thence to the Pole. Scott knew that it was unlikely that he would be able to take the ponies further than the first stage of the Beardmore Glacier.12 He planned to sacrifice them there and store the meat to be eaten later. The dog teams would also turn back at the glacier. Shackleton, on his expedition, had concluded that dogs were unsuited to the glacier, and could slow the expedition down.13 Scott planned that when the men reached the plateau th
ey would man-haul southwards towards the Pole, along 160° E, laying food and fuel depots along the route, a distance of less than 300 miles. Each depot was to be marked with black flags flying on bamboos (Amundsen had a system of markers stretching out at mile intervals from each depot) and each was to contain enough rations to take the party to the next depot, assuming progress of fourteen geographical miles per day.14
The ponies took just over four hours to get from Cape Evans to Hut Point, their departure also recorded on film by Ponting. At Hut Point someone remembered that the Union Jack, presented by Queen Alexandra to plant at the Pole, had been left behind. It was unthinkable to go without it, so Scott used the landline telephone (installed in the winter) to instruct Gran to ski over to Hut Point with it. A Norwegian therefore carried the British flag for the first few miles of the expedition. The ponies departed in order: weakest first, then the stronger ones followed by the dog teams. They marched at night when the snow surfaces were harder, though temperatures colder, and the men experienced the predictable problems of getting reasonably synchronised arrivals from convoys travelling at strikingly different speeds. Sometimes the dog teams had to wait for hours before leaving. But the first real setback for the pony party was a blizzard on 7 November, which trapped the men in their tents and left the ponies suffering behind protective snow walls. Meanwhile, the dogs raced into camp, hardly affected by the atrocious conditions. Scott said that it showed that the dogs ought to be able to help them a good deal.
With Scott in the Antarctic Page 26