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Until
the end of the 19th century, only sealers and whalers
had set foot on the desolate southern land we call
Antarctica. Until as late as 1820, no one had even seen
its mainland. In the 1890s however, explorers of various
countries began to compete for being the first to reach
both the North and the South Poles. In 1901–04 Captain
Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) was the first person
to explore Antarctica extensively by land.
What
is Antarctica?
Antarctica
is an enormous continent. Britain could fit into it more
than 50 times. More than 99% of it is covered by
ice. In places, this ice is more than three miles thick.
Antarctica is completely surrounded by the vast Southern
Ocean, half of which freezes in winter. It is high,
windy and extremely cold. There is no indigenous human
population and no life forms at all except around the
coast.
How
did the Antarctic get its name?
More
than 2000 years ago, Greek writers described a large
mass of land in the south of the world. Even though they
had never seen it, they believed it must exist so that
it could 'balance' the land they knew about in the
northern half of the world. They named this imagined
land 'Anti-Arkitos', meaning the 'opposite of the
Arctic'.
Did
explorers before Captain Scott try to reach the
Antarctic?
Yes.
For instance, one aim of Captain Cook on his second
Pacific voyage of 1772–74, was to find the great
southern continent. He sailed all round Antarctica but
ice and fog prevented him from getting far enough south
to see it. Cook decided that people would probably never
travel further south than latitude 71 degrees, the
position he reached. This was still more than 1000 miles
from the Pole.

Robert
Falcon Scott - Antarctic Explorer
SCOTT
OF THE ANTARCTIC
Robert
Falcon Scott was born at Outlands on June 6, 1868, to
John and Hannah Scott. Robert's father, John Edward
Scott, was the youngest of eight children. Of John's
four older brothers, one died young, two went into the
Indian army and one became a naval surgeon. However,
poor health kept John from the family service tradition.
Instead, John inherited a small brewery in Plymouth
which his father and uncle had bought for £4782 out of
prize money received during the Napoleonic wars. The
family home was also inherited from his father, Robert.
This was a house called Outlands near Stoke Damerel,
just outside Devonport. The property, a small country
estate, was complete with a nice home, a stream at the
bottom of the garden, three large greenhouses, dogs, a
peacock on the lawn and a small staff of maids and
gardeners. In 1861 John Scott married Hannah Cuming,
daughter of William Bennett Cuming of Plymouth, a
Lloyd's surveyor, Commissioner of Pilotage, Commissioner
for the Catwater Improvement, and a member of the
Chamber of
Commerce.
Suffice
it to say, this family was a highly respected, very
conservative and rather well-to-do Plymouth family. The
sons of such Devon families took to the sea as birds to
the air and one of Hannah's brothers, Harry Cuming,
became a Vice-Admiral. Thus, there was a significant
naval tradition on both sides of Robert Falcon Scott's
parentage. "Con", as his parents called him,
was born into a large family; he had two older sisters,
Ettie and Rose, a younger brother, Archie, and a younger
sister, Katherine.
Throughout
Con's childhood, daydreaming was a habit he worked hard
to overcome as everyone, including himself, considered
it a flaw. Other weaknesses, equally shameful in this
era, were his uneasiness with the sight of blood and of
suffering in animals. Although he tried hard to conceal
it, he never really overcame these perceived problems.
As
a boy, he was "shy and diffident, small and weakly
for his age, lethargic, backward, and above all,
dreamy" as one of his biographers wrote. On the
other hand, he had a happy childhood as the first five
children were born within a nine year period providing
plenty of playmates. Although subject to occasional fits
of temper, Con's father, John, was considered an
easygoing father with plenty of patience.
Con's
mother, Hannah, was loved and worshipped by all the
Scott children; to Con she was always "the dear
Mother". Not much is known about Hannah but one
thing is certain: she had strong religious principles
and never questioned the teachings of the Church of
England. "My own dearest Mother," wrote Con on
his departure from New Zealand on his last journey in
1910, "I quite understand and anticipated your
anxiety concerning our spiritual welfare. I read the
Church service every Sunday on our voyage to Melbourne
and I propose to do the same with equal regularity
throughout the voyage. You need not have any anxiety on
this point".
Robert
F. Scott joined his first seagoing ship in August, 1883,
at the age of thirteen. The ship, HMS BOADICEA,
was the flagship of the Cape Squadron, and in her he
served as midshipman for two years. This was the first
time that young Con had earned money, about £30 a year.
Midshipmen were still students with naval instructors as
their teachers. Training was intense for these young men
as Admiral Sir William Jameson wrote that midshipmen
were "up aloft in all sorts of weather and away for
long hours in boats under oars and sail. In spite of
rigid barriers, young officers learnt the lower deck
point of view in a way which is often difficult to
achieve in these more democratic days". The young
men worked in the rigging 120 feet above deck. They
slept in hammocks, bathrooms were unknown, instructors
were strong and intense in their verbal attacks, and
punishment included beatings and extra drill. As a
result, survival created a man, from a boy, with
complete suppression of a young boy's natural feelings
of fright, homesickness and lack of
self-confidence.
He
had to learn to bear pain without flinching, to obey
orders directly, and disregard any immature tendencies.
This treatment could be quite traumatic for a young boy
coming from a comfortable home. Con Scott was considered
an excellent example of a student as he learned the
lessons thoroughly while climbing up the lower branches
of the navy. After a brief tour with the HMS
LIBERTY , he served a year on HMS MONARCH,
whose captain rated Con a "promising young
officer". At the end of 1886 he joined HMS
ROVER and was rated by her captain as an
"intelligent and capable young officer of temperate
habits". Con was 18 when the Royal Navy's Training
Squadron, to which the HMS ROVER belonged,
was cruising in the Caribbean. The midshipmen of the
four participating ships raced their cutters across the
bay at St. Kitts in the West Indies. The race was
narrowly won by Con and a few days later young Con was
invited aboard the HMS ACTIVE to dine with
the Commodore, Albert Markham. Present at the dinner was
Albert's cousin and guest, a middle-aged geographer
named Clements Markham. Clements was thoroughly
impressed by Con's intelligence, enthusiasm and charm
and later wrote "My final conclusion was that Scott
was the destined man to command the Antarctic
expedition". Destiny had arrived for young Scott.
After
nine months on the HMS ROVER , Scott went
on to spend the winter of 1887-8 at the Royal Naval
College at Greenwich and in March 1888 he was awarded
first-class certificates in pilotage, torpedoes and
gunnery, coming in with the highest marks in his class
in his year of seamanship. He was commissioned as a
sub-lieutenant and at the end of 1888, he was instructed
to join the cruiser HMS AMPHION stationed
near Vancouver, Canada. He had to make his own way
across North America with the last stage of his trip
being a long journey in a tramp steamer from San
Francisco to Esquimault, BC.
After
Scott's tour of service in the Pacific, he joined HMS
CAROLINE briefly in the Mediterranean. The
summer of 1891 was spent on leave with his family at
Outlands. This was undoubtedly the most carefree time of
Con's life as his lieutenant's salary of £182 10s a
year provided him with independence allowing him to pay
his own expenses. He played golf with his brothers and
played tennis with his sisters. It was a happy time for
the twenty-two year-old.
In
September 1891 Con reported to the torpedo training ship
HMS VERNON. He graduated with
first-class certificates in all subjects and was
appointed to HMS VULCAN in the
Mediterranean. By the end of 1894, at the age of
twenty-five, Con received tragic news from his mother:
the family was virtually bankrupt. John Scott had sold
the brewery on Hoegate Street a few years before and was
now enjoying his life of retirement while working in his
greenhouses. Hannah had assumed that interest income
from the sale of the brewery would allow them a
comfortable life and one can imagine her shock when John
revealed the necessity to give up Outlands as he had
drawn on the capital and, although never confirmed,
likely made a poor investment which resulted in the loss
of their remaining capital. In questionable health and
63 years old, John Scott had to look for a job.
Hannah
Scott
John
actually did find a job, as a manager of a small
brewery. Outlands was let go and the family, except for
Con's sister Rose, moved to Holcombe House, near Shepton
Mallet, which they rented for £30 a year. Rose had
landed a job at Nottingham Hospital and it wasn't long
before the three remaining sisters began searching for
their own careers. The oldest sister, 32-year-old Ettie,
went on to become an actress. Attractive and single, she
joined a touring company whose leading lady was Irene
Vanbrugh. The two younger sisters, Grace (Monsie) and
Kate (or Kitty) chose the more conventional trade of
dressmaking.
The
financial disaster of 1894 was bad enough, but three
years later, in October 1897, John Scott died of heart
disease at the age of 66, leaving his family without any
support or life insurance. Hannah had to leave Holcombe
House and the family became, briefly, penniless and
homeless. Monsie and Kate had moved to a room over a
shop in Chelsea so it was not long before Hannah moved
in with them. The financial burden of Hannah fell upon
her two sons who were struggling themselves on very
meager Service pay. At the time, Archie was in West
Africa. After the financial collapse of his family, he
had himself moved from the Royal Artillery to the post
of ADC and private secretary to the Governor of Lagos,
Sir Gilbert Carter. The pay was better and living
expenses were less. A year later he transferred to the
Hausa Force which was engaged in bringing law and order
to warring tribes of the interior of the Oil Rivers
Protectorate. After his father's death, Archie
contributed £200 a year to his mother's welfare. This
was nearly as much as Con's entire salary but Con still
managed to send £70 a year to his mother.
This
period was extremely difficult for Con. He had very
little money left to cover his personal expenses and
enjoying a mild weekend of shore leave was out of the
question. He had to pinch every penny as even an
occasional glass of wine, game of golf, and so forth
were normally too expensive. To take a young woman to
dinner would have been impossible. He was cut off from
his friends as he never had the funds to share in the
same enjoyments as his comrades. Poverty, and real
poverty it was, could only have forced Con to withdraw
unto himself. Years later he wrote to his future wife
"Do you remember I warned you that secretiveness
was strongly developed in me? Don't forget that at forty
the reserve of a lifetime is not easily broken. It has
been built up to protect the most sensitive spots".
The "sensitive spots" were his lack of
self-confidence, his sense of inferiority, of
frustration and isolation, born from his inability to
share life's experience with his peers due to his lack
of money. But, self-pity was not among his faults. There
are no complaints in any recorded document written by
Con.
His
devotion to family remained constant throughout his
life. Once he learned of the financial crisis in 1894,
he applied for a transfer to HMS DEFIANCE,
stationed at Devonport, so that he could help with the
sale of Outlands and assist his mother and sisters in
moving to Somerset. When they were settled, he applied
for another seagoing job and was appointed torpedo
lieutenant in HMS EMPRESS OF INDIA, a
battleship in the Channel Squadron. This appointment
lasted less than one year but while in the
Mediterranean, he once again encountered Clements
Markham and his cousin.
In
the summer of 1897, Scott was appointed torpedo
lieutenant to the flagship of the Channel Squadron, HMS
MAJESTIC. From this ship came a number of future
expedition members on Scott's first trip to the
Antarctic aboard DISCOVERY: Lieutenant
Michael Barne, Engineer-Lieutenant Reginald Skelton,
Warrant Officer J. H. Dellbridge, and two petty
officers, Edgar Evans and David Allan. It was at this
time, while serving aboard the HMS MAJESTIC,
that his father died. His oldest sister, Ettie, had
married a promising politician, William Ellison-Macartney,
only a few months before John's death. Con felt good
about this as certainly Ettie would be in a much more
stable and secure environment than if she had remained
at Outlands with a looming financial crisis. Ettie's
husband helped Monsie and Kate study the fashion
industry in Paris by advancing them a loan. In addition,
he contributed a small sum towards his mother-in-law's
support. Meanwhile, Rose took a bold step that same year
by taking a nursing job in the Gold Coast, then known as
the White Man's Grave.
In
the autumn of 1898 Archie came home on leave and Con
took him for a cruise off the Irish coast in the HMS
MAJESTIC. Con was extremely proud of his brother
and said Archie was "absolutely full of life and
enjoyment and at the same time so keen on his job. He
deserves to be a success. Commissioner, Consul and
Governor is the future for him I feel". A little
over a month later Archie went to Hythe to play golf,
contracted typhoid fever and died within a week. Hannah
was devastated and felt fully responsible for his death.
Hannah felt that Archie served in West Africa solely to
earn extra money which he could send home to his
financially strapped mother and sisters. It was there,
in West Africa, that Hannah felt Archie's health
deteriorated. Con wrote to her, "Don't blame
yourself for what happened, dear. Whatever we have cause
to bless ourselves for, comes from you. He died like the
true-hearted gentleman he was, but to you we owe the
first lessons and example that made us gentlemen. This
thing is most terrible to us all but is no penalty for
any act of yours". Now the whole financial burden
of the family fell on Con, other than what little his
brother-in-law could afford to give. His brother-in-law
was not a rich man and soon they had children. The first
of three, Phoebe, was born in 1898.
Rose,
still a nurse in the Gold Coast, worked hard to save her
own money and in 1899 she married Captain Eric Campbell
of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, one of her brother
Archie's fellow officers in the Hausa Force.
While
serving on the HMS MAJESTIC, the third
meeting between Con and Clements Markham took place.
While home on leave in June, 1899, "chancing one
day to be walking down the Buckingham Palace Road, I
espied Sir Clements Markham and accompanied him to his
house. That afternoon I learned for the first time that
there was such a thing as a prospective Antarctic
Expedition; two days later I wrote applying to command
it". Scott wrote, in The Voyage of the Discovery,
that "I may as well confess that I had no
predeliction for polar exploration". His sister
Ettie confirmed that "he had no urge towards snow,
ice, or that kind of adventure" but had grown
restless with the navy and "wanted freedom to
develop more widely" as he had "developed
great concentration, and all the years of dreaming were
working up to a point". After sending his
application, Con returned to duty aboard HMS MAJESTIC
for the best part of a year.

Sir
Clements Markham
In
1894 Markham had invited the Royal Society to join with
the Royal Geographic Society, of which he was President,
to finance the Antarctic project of his dreams. In
hindsight, Markham felt this was a mistake as he was
essentially snubbed by the Royal Society as their members
felt the RGS was beneath them. Markham was then put off by
the First Lord of the Admiralty and worse, by the Prime
Minister, Lord Salisbury, who "regretted that he was
unable, under existing circumstances, to hold out any hope
of HMG embarking upon an expedition of this
magnitude". Markham fought on by lobbying his
friends, addressing meetings and writing papers, all in
vain. He became very concerned as he felt other nations
would rush in ahead of them and claim the riches certainly
awaiting the first continental explorers.
Markham
was furious. In 1895, a wealthy British publisher, George
Newnes, put up the money for Carsten Borchgrevink's 1898 SOUTHERN
CROSS EXPEDITION. Here was a penniless Norwegian
schoolmaster in Australia securing good British
money while Markham, with all his influence, was left with
empty hands. Finally, in 1897, the Council of the Royal
Geographic Society pledged £5000. Markham "kept on
writing letters to rich people" and suddenly Mr.
Llewellyn Longstaff, a paint manufacturer living in
Wimbledon, pledged £25,000. This generous gift caught the
attention of the Prince of Wales, who had "declined
to connect himself with the expedition
until public feeling was manifest", and soon others
followed. In July, 1899, the Government announced a grant
of £45,000, provided that private sources matched it with
an equal amount. At that time Markham had raised £42,000
in pledges so, with a little arm-twisting, he persuaded
the RGS to contribute the additional £3,000.
A
joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal
Geographic Society was formed to plan the expedition,
acquire a ship, and assemble the personnel. This is when
the fireworks started. From the very beginning, the two
societies disagreed over the aim of the expedition. The RS
saw it as an opportunity for extensive scientific
research; Markham and the RGS declared it an opportunity
for research and advancement in scientific knowledge
concerning magnetism, meteorology, biology and geology.
Actually, the real aim to Markham was twofold:
geographical discovery and opportunities for young naval
officers to win distinction in times of peace. The RS felt
the expedition leader should be a scientist while Markham
felt he "must be a naval officer; he must be in the
regular line and not in the surveying branch, and he must
be young. These are essentials".
Markham
was soon in for a serious struggle as the scientists
joined forces with the "hydrographic clique" to
offer their own choice for leadership. They didn't have a
problem with a naval officer commanding the ship, but they
expected him to simply ferry the scientists to the ice,
drop them off for their year of work, and come back the
following year to pick them up and bring them home. Their
choice to fill the position of Director of the Scientific
Staff was John Walter Gregory, an eminent geologist.
Although his scientific ability was unchallenged, Markham
felt he was unsuitable as commander of such an expedition.
Actually, he was well qualified as he had not only been on
safari in East Africa's Rift Valley when it was wild,
unmapped and dangerous, he had scaled Alpine peaks and
explored Spitzbergen within the Arctic circle.
The
joint committee began searching for an expedition leader
the same month that Markham invited Scott to apply for
that same position. Gregory was appointed Scientific
Director in February 1900, four months before Scott was
named the expedition's naval commander. Markham then sent
a request to the First Lord of the Admiralty for the
release of two young officers, one to lead and the other
to be second in command:
"The
work involved in the stress of contest with the mighty
powers of Nature in the Antarctic regions calls for the
very same qualities as are needed in the stress of
battle. Our application is that a young Commander should
be allowed to take charge of its executive work...Youth
is essential in polar service. No efficient leader of
discovery in icy seas has ever been over forty, the best
have been nearer thirty."
Markham
offered three names: Commander John de Robeck, aged
thirty-eight, Robert F. Scott, aged thirty-two and Charles
Royds, aged twenty-four. Although Robeck's request was
denied, Scott and Royds were approved for release on April
5, 1900. The joint committee met on April 18, 1900, and
Markham informed the committee that the Admiralty had
released Scott and Royds. Sir William Wharton, of the
joint committee, was extremely angry at Markham for going
over the committee's head and assuming authority for
naming leadership. Meanwhile, the remaining committee
members were furious and now Scott's appointment was
questionable. At the next meeting, on May 4, another
committee was appointed to settle the issue, six on
Markham's side and six on the side of the
"hydrographic clique" who would "strive to
secure a job for the survey department with obstinate
perversity". As luck would have it, at the next
committee meeting on May 24, two of the "hydrographic
clique" representatives stayed away which placed the
majority with Markham. The fight was over as Scott's
appointment was confirmed. The next day the committee
unanimously approved Scott as the expedition leader.
In
December 1900 Professor Gregory arrived in Great Britain
from Australia to organize his side of the expedition.
When he arrived in London he was shocked to learn of his
position on the team since he expected the Antarctic
command had been placed under his direction. He expected
to lead the expedition on the ice while Scott wintered
over in Melbourne. According to Markham, instead of going
to work on his scientific program, Gregory set about
conspiring with the hydrographers to have Scott's
leadership role overturned. Try as he might, Gregory was
unsuccessful in his bid to capture the command. In May,
1901, Gregory was sent a telegram with a choice to either
serve under Scott's command, or resign. Gregory resigned
in disgust. Dr. George Murray, head of the botanical
department of the British Museum, was appointed in his
place on the condition that he go only as far as Melbourne
to give scientific advise and training to the other
scientists and then return to his duties at the museum.
Gregory went on to occupy the Chair of Geology at Glasgow
University for twenty-five years. At the age of
sixty-eight, while crossing a river in Peru, he drowned.

South
Pole expedition Jan 18 1912 L to R: Edward Wilson, Edgar
Evans, Scott, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers
The
DISCOVERY Expedition - 1901-04
After
his meeting with Markham in June 1899, Scott went back to
sea and resumed his duties aboard the HMS MAJESTIC.
On June 9, 1900 Scott received his letter of appointment
and two days later wrote a formal letter of acceptance to
the committee. A follow-up letter arrived on the desk of
the two Presidents shortly thereafter in which Scott
wrote:
-
I
must have complete command of the ship and landing
parties. There cannot be two heads.
-
I
must be consulted on all matters affecting the
equipment of the landing parties.
-
The
executive officers must not number less than four,
exclusive of myself.
-
I
must be consulted in all future appointments, both
civilians and others, especially the doctor.
-
It
must be understood that the doctors are first medical
men, and secondly members of the scientific staff, not
vice versa.
-
I
am ready to insist on these conditions to the point of
resignation if, in my opinion, their refusal imperils
the success of the undertaking.
Scott
went on leave for a few weeks and then started work by
taking a course in magnetism at Deptford. Living with his
two sisters and mother over the shop in Chelsea, Scott
started his day by jogging across Hyde Park for exercise.
He plunged himself into the planning of the expedition.
Extraordinary details had to be worked out and even Hugh
Robert Mill, distinguished librarian of the Royal
Geographic Society (1892-1900), thought that Scott
"if anyone, could bring order out of the chaos which
had overtaken the plans and preparations".
In
October 1900 Scott and the Markhams went to Christiania
(Oslo) to consult Nansen. His vessel, the FRAM,
had just returned intact with her crew after drifting
right across the Arctic from the Siberian sea to emerge,
after thirty-five months, north of Spitzbergen, which
proved the Arctic region to be an ocean rather than a
continent. The FRAM was designed like a
saucer so that she would be lifted above the ice floes
rather than crushed by them. It was a revolutionary design
but to reach the Antarctic a ship would have to cross
terrible seas and force her way through hundreds of miles
of ice pack, so they thought a whaling vessel would be
more suitable. (Ironically, Amundsen later borrowed the FRAM
from Nansen and sailed her to Antarctica and right into
the Ross Sea.) Scott and Nansen quickly became fast
friends. Of Nansen, Scott wrote to his mother, "He is
a great man, absolutely straightforward and wholly
practical, so our business flies along apace. I wish to
goodness it would go as well in England". Later,
Nansen wrote of Scott, "I see him before me, his
tight, wiry figure, his intelligent, handsome face, that
earnest, fixed look, and those expressive lips so
seriously determined and yet ready to smile--the features
of a kindly, generous character, with a fine admixture of
earnestness and humour". Nansen told him to get dogs
so he did as Nansen and bought them in Russia. It was
suggested that he buy Greenland dogs which were bigger and
better, but they were hard to get as the many Arctic
expeditions of the previous fifty years had taken a toll
on the supply of these dogs. Twenty dogs and three bitches
were selected in Archangel and sent to the London zoo
where they were kept until they could be shipped to New
Zealand.
The
Crew
On
May 29, 1900 Albert Armitage was appointed to serve as
second-in-command and navigator. Armitage, aged
thirty-six, came from the Merchant Navy where he had been
an officer in the P and O fleet. His prior experience came
from his participation, as navigator, with the Jackson-Harmsworth
Arctic expedition in 1894. The expedition's primary goal
was to determine if Franz Josef Land was part of a
continent which might extend all the way to the North
Pole. Armitage, and seven others, landed at Franz Josef
Land and proceeded to spend three years in a hut within
the 80°N circle, shooting polar bears and doing
scientific research. Franz Josef land was simply a series
of scattered islands that had been incorrectly mapped by
their discoverer, Julius Payer.
One
day Armitage was searching the area with his field glasses
when he spotted someone approaching on skis. The man was
covered in oil and grease and black from head to foot. It
was Nansen! Nansen and one companion had left the FRAM
and her crew to make a dash for the North Pole.
Unfortunately, they too soon discovered the impossibility
of such a trek. They wintered in a tiny hut, living on
bear meat in a latitude of 86°13'N, the farthest-north
record that stood until Peary reached the Pole in 1909.
Nansen and his companion had been dragging sledges and two
kayaks, having eaten all the dogs by then, across seven
hundred miles of ice, hoping to reach Spitzbergen where
whaling vessels occasionally called. Finding Armitage
saved their lives as a trip across the open seas to
Spitzbergen in kayaks would have resulted in certain
death. They returned to civilization in July 1896 in the
Windward.
The
doctor on the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition had been
Reginald Koettlitz, a six foot tall man with drooping
mustaches of German heritage. At the age of thirty-nine,
Koettlitz received his appointment in 1900. Markham
described him as "a very honest food fellow, but
exceedingly short of commonsense". However, Koettlitz
was in agreement with other notable doctors that scurvy,
the plague of all polar expeditions, was caused by a
poison resulting from putrefaction of preserved food. The
remedy was absolutely pure food.
The
assistant surgeon was a young man recently qualified at
St. George's Hospital. He had a wonderful talent for
drawing and painting in water colors, was a deeply
religious man and had a passion for birds. His name was
Edward Adrian Wilson, son of a Cheltenham doctor.
A
courageous young man, Wilson spent too many chilly nights
bird-watching, too many long nights with his studies to
make up for time spent in art galleries, too much starving
himself so he could give money to beggars or to buy books,
and probably too much smoking. He ruined his health and
contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. After spending two
years in Norway and a Swiss sanitarium, he shook the
disease but as soon as he began his duties as junior house
surgeon he contracted blood poisoning which resulted in a
painful abscess in his armpit. When Scott met him in 1900,
his arm was still in a sling. Scott appointed him on the
spot but he still had to pass an Admiralty Medical Board.
He failed the first time and the second exam, only weeks
before sailing, reported "Mr. E. A. Wilson unfit on
account of disease in the right lung". Scott told
Markham he must have him and Wilson told Scott
"I quite realize it will be kill or cure, and have
made up my mind that it will be cure". Dr. Wilson's
contributions to the expedition were enormous and his
incredible gallery of original artwork left for our
enjoyment is highly prized and very valuable.

Discovery,
by E. A. Wilson
The
three naval officers appointed, at about the same time as
Scott, were Charles Royds as first lieutenant, Michael
Barne as second naval lieutenant and Reginald Skelton as
chief engineer. Royd's charge was to deal with the men and
internal economy of the ship. He was serving on HMS
CRESCENT, which was the flagship on the North
America station, at the time of his appointment. Michael
Barne had been educated at Stubbington School in
preparation for the navy and later served with Scott on HMS
MAJESTIC. Reginald Skelton also served with Scott
on the HMS MAJESTIC. A Norfolk man, he had
joined the navy as an engineer-student in 1887, served in
various ships on various stations until Scott finally met
him when he was appointed senior engineer on the HMS
MAJESTIC.
There
were still three scientific positions to be filled and the
first of those, as naturalist, was offered to a Scot, W.
S. Bruce. Unfortunately he was busy organizing his own
Scottish expedition (the SCOTIA in 1902) and
he declined. The position was then offered to Thomas Vere
Hodgson, aged thirty-seven, director of the marine
biological laboratories in Plymouth. ("Young to have
a polished bald head, sometimes needing a skull cap, but
otherwise apparently strong and healthy" as Markham
wrote).
The
geologist, Hartley Ferrar, aged twenty-two, had just
graduated from Cambridge with an honor's degree. Born in
Ireland and raised primarily in South Africa, Markham felt
he was capable but "very young, very unfledged, and
rather lazy; however, he most likely could be "made
into a man in this ship" by "the young
lieutenants".
The
physicist was Louis Bernacchi, aged twenty-five. His
appointment was so late in coming that he had to join the
ship in New Zealand. He had spent a very adventurous
childhood on a mountainous island that was uninhabited
except for his family and their dependents. His father was
a silk merchant from Lombardy and had bought the island
from the Tasmanian Government for £20,000. Louis studied
physics and astronomy at the Melbourne Observatory and was
the only member of the expedition to have prior experience
in the Antarctic. He had just spent two years with Borchgrevink's
SOUTHERN CROSS expedition and had wintered
over in the hut at Cape Adare. Markham declared him
"Always grown up--never a boy".
Ernest
Shackleton was an
unusual choice. He was a Merchant Navy officer, like
Armitage, but no one had invited him to join. Shackleton
went to sea at the age of sixteen as an apprentice in a
sailing vessel and his captain considered him "the
most pigheaded, obstinate boy I ever came across". He
worked his way up the ladder and was soon the third
officer in a Union Castle liner. He became engaged to
become married and told his future father-in-law "my
fortune is all to make but I intend to make it
quickly". He was ambitious but had no special
interest in the polar regions or scientific research, for
that matter. He applied to join the expedition and was
promptly turned down. In Shackleton's case, it was a
simple "who-you-know" matter--Llewellyn
Longstaff, who had been the first to pledge financial
backing to the expedition, had a son who was a passenger
to Cape Town on the liner in which Shackleton
served.
The
two men became friends and Shackleton persuaded young
Longstaff to set him up for an interview with Armitage.
The second-in-command was impressed and recommended him to
Scott who, in February 1901, appointed him third
lieutenant in charge of holds, stores, provisions and deep
sea water analysis. Armitage wrote "His brother
officers considered him a very good fellow, always quoting
poetry and full of erratic ideas". Shackleton was
forced to leave the expedition in 1903 and was replaced by
George F. A. Mulock, who remained with the expedition
until conclusion. Mulock was only twenty-one but had
received excellent instruction as a surveyor in HMS
TRITON, and his services provided were invaluable.
This
concluded the complement of primary officers and
scientists. The navy also released three warrant officers
and six petty officers, including Edgar Evans and David
Allan from the HMS MAJESTIC.

L
to R: Lt. Armitage, Lt. Mulock, Lt. Shackleton, Dr.
Wilson, Lt. Skelton, Capt. Scott,
Lt. Royds, Dr. Koettlitz, Mr. Bernacchi and Mr. Ferrar on
board Discovery
The
DISCOVERY was built at Dundee. She was the
sixth of her name and the first to be specifically
designed and built for scientific work. She had to be a
wooden ship to withstand the pressure of the ice since
steel would simply buckle. She had to be a sailing ship
but with auxiliary engines. The ship was to be
exceptionally strong, built from a variety of timbers:
English oak for the frames, eleven inches thick; Riga fir
for the lining, eleven inches; Honduras mahogany, pitch
pine or oak for the four-inch-thick lining, all sheathed
with two layers of planking--twenty-six inches of solid
wood in all. Her bow was incredibly strong; some of the
bolts running through the wood were eight and a half feet
long.
The
vessel was 172 feet long and 34 feet wide, of 485 tons
register and a displacement of 1620 tons. She had to have
room to store fuel, oil, 350 tons of coal, fresh water,
dog food, medical supplies, scientific instruments, axes
and saws, a sectional wooden hut, a piano and a library.
Invitations for bids were offered but only two were
received. On December 14, 1899 a contract with the Dundee
Ship Building Company was signed. The keel was laid on
March 16, 1900 and the final cost, including engines, was
£49,277. On March 21, 1901 Lady Markham, with a pair of
golden scissors, cut the tape and the DISCOVERY
was launched.
Food
for the 47 men was stored aboard: 150 tons of roast
pheasant, 500 of roast turkey, whole roast partridges,
jugged hare, duck and green peas, rump steak, wild cherry
sauce, celery seed, black currant vinegar, candied orange
peel, Stilton and Double Gloucester cheese, 27 gallons of
brandy, 27 gallons of whiskey, 60 cases of port, 36 cases
of sherry, 28 cases of champagne, lime juice, 1800 pounds
of tobacco, pemmican, raisins, chocolate and onion powder.
While being loaded, many visitors came to see her. Among
them were two former colleagues of Sir James Clark Ross:
Sir Erasmus Ommaney (now aged eighty-seven) who had sailed
with Ross to the Arctic in 1835, and the famous botanist
Sir Joseph Hooker, naturalist in James Clark Ross's EREBUS
and TERROR expedition.
It
was upon Hooker's advice that Scott found £1300 to
purchase a balloon for the voyage. With much fanfare and a
Godspeed service on board, the DISCOVERY
weighed anchor on July 31, 1901, paused at Spithead to
correct her compasses and proceeded to Cowes to receive
the royal blessing. The new King and Queen, still
uncrowned, came aboard. The Queen's Pekinese fell
overboard and one of the sailors had to rescue it. The
next day, August 6, the DISCOVERY passed
Needles on her way to the unknown. As Markham noted,
"Truly, they form the vanguard of England's chivalry.
No finer set of men ever left these shores, nor were men
ever led by a finer Captain".

Discovery
launched March 21, 1901
The
DISCOVERY was so heavy in the seas that she
could not make more than seven knots. This became an
immediate concern as New Zealand was 14,000 miles away.
Her first stop was at Madeira Island where they took on
more coal and sent back considerable mail. After leaving
Madeira, the men were shocked to find that the DISCOVERY
was leaking water into the hold and, as a result, had
ruined a significant amount of food. What could be dried
was saved and the rest was thrown overboard. The ship
arrived in Cape Town on October 3, 1901 where nearly
everyone proceeded to get drunk. Owing to the slowness of
the voyage, Scott decided to cut the Melbourne leg of the
journey and sail directly to Lyttleton, New Zealand. As a
result of this decision, Dr. Murray was left in Cape Town
so that he could return to his post at the British Museum.
The
DISCOVERY arrived at Lyttleton at the end of
November where the leak at last received attention.
Meanwhile, the hospitality extended to the crew was
generous, at the very least. Royds wrote that there was
"Not a single sober man on board. The men are rushed
at as soon as they get ashore and all good Service feeling
is lost and I have awful times. Better men never stepped a
plank whilst they are at sea, but in harbor they are
nothing but brute beasts, and I am ashamed of them, and
told them so, and penitent indeed they are, but only until
they are drunk again". Scott wrote that the drunken
men "disgust me, but I'm going to have it out with
them somehow. There are only a few black sheep but they
lend colour to the flock". A few were discharged and
replaced. The men were nearly all bachelors and the young
sailors soon were welcomed right into New Zealand homes.
Skelton lived with the Meares family and eventually
married the youngest daughter, Sybil, while Ferrar went on
to meet his future wife in Christchurch.
While
in New Zealand, Scott was to receive some good news from
Markham. The men had determined that a relief ship would
be needed to resupply the DISCOVERY the
following year and, of course, check on their condition.
In May 1901 Mr. Llewellyn Longstaff contributed £5000
which Markham used to purchase the MORGENEN.
In September she sailed from Norway to England where she
was refitted and renamed the MORNING.
Lieutenant William Colbeck, RNR, was appointed her
commander. Colbeck had Antarctic experience as he had been
the magnetic observer on Borchgrevink's SOUTHER
CROSS EXPEDITION.
On
December 21 the DISCOVERY was escorted by HMS
RINGAROOMA and HMS LIZARD out of the
harbor as cheering crowds stood on the shore waving
farewell.
Soon
after crossing the Antarctic Circle they entered the ice
pack. Just before midnight on January 8, 1902, Royds
sighted land off the port bow. They headed for Cape Adare,
where Borchgrevink's
party had wintered, and soon landed on the beach. From
Cape Adare they sailed nearly due south along the shore of
Victoria Land and eventually landed at Cape Crozier on the
northeastern tip of Ross Island where Royds and Wilson
climbed to 1350 feet and viewed the Great Ice Barrier
stretching as far as the eye could see. From Cape Crozier
they steamed along the eastern edge of the Barrier and on
January 30, after emerging from a whiteout in a snowstorm,
the eastern extremity of the Barrier was reached where
patches of rock were determined to rise 2000 feet above
them. Scott named the new discovery King Edward VII Land.
Scott turned about and retraced their route back to
McMurdo Sound where they intended to set up winter
quarters. Along the way they stopped long enough for Scott
and Shackleton to take a trip aloft in the balloon. The
balloon developed a leak and was never used again.
After
arriving at their winter quarters, the ship was secured by
ice-anchors to an ice-foot and a 36-foot square hut was
built. Two smaller huts were put up to house the magnetic
instruments and the dogs were moved into their kennels.
On
February 16, 1902, the sun slipped below the horizon for
the first time. It was too late in the season for any
long-distance sledge trips so Scott planned a few short
practice trips to test the equipment and men. As it turned
out, Armitage and Bernacchi were the only men with a
little dog-driving experience. It was hilarious to watch
them but many hard lessons were learned.
The
first trip was a three-day affair to White Island by
Wilson, Shackleton and Ferrar. A hard lesson was learned
on this first sledge trip as the three nearly became the
first casualties of the expedition. Distances in the
Antarctic are very deceptive and when plans were made, the
three felt the island could easily be reached in a day and
a half of sledging. The men had decided to haul the sledge
themselves. It was two days before they reached the island
whereupon a blizzard set in and frostbite struck their
faces and feet. They were so exhausted from the trip that
they could hardly pitch their tent and cook their meal.
The trip taught them how little they actually knew about
the Antarctic.
The
next trip was taken by four officers and eight men with
four sledges (Leader Royds, Quartley, Vince, Weller, Wild,
Barne, Skelton, Evans, Heald, Plumley, Koettlitz and
Hare). On the morning of March 4 the men started out for
the penguin rookery at Cape Crozier where they were to
leave a canister containing directions on how to find the
expedition's winter quarters. Scott was to lead the party
but had to decline as he had injured his knee in a skiing
accident. The dogs did hardly anything but fight,
frostbite attacked, the snow was so soft that they sank in
well above their ankles and progress was so slow that on
the second day they only made five miles. The rations got
mixed up in the bag so that a mush of sugar, cheese,
butter, soup tablets and chocolate had to be cooked
together.
Most
of the dogs went lame and the men were exhausted so on the
fourth day Royds decided to push ahead with Koettlitz and
Skelton and send the rest, under leadership of Barnes,
back to the ship. Royds and his men had a terrible
struggle and after five days of hard going, they still
hadn't found the rookery. Royd's decided to give up the
search and return to the ship as temperatures reached -42°F.
Royds, Koettlitz and Skelton reached the hut in four days
but the other men had not been so lucky. Barnes and the
returning party, eight members in all, had arrived to
within four miles of the ship at a hill called Castle
Rock. When they reached the summit, a blizzard came up and
reduced visibility to nearly nil. They pitched their tents
and since they couldn't get their cookers to work,
frostbite began to set in. An experienced crew would have
remained, no matter how uncomfortable, but the novice crew
decided to head out into the storm. They soon found
themselves on a steep slippery slope where Evans stepped
on a patch of bare ice and tumbled out of sight. Barne sat
down and slid after him with Quartley following close
behind. All three men miraculously came to a halt when a
patch of soft snow stopped them at the edge of a precipice
with the sea pounding below.

Terra
Nova - Antarctic Exploration Vessel
A
howling dog flashed past and disappeared over the edge.
Frank Wild took charge of leading the remaining five who
were left at the head of the slope. He led them off in the
direction of the ship but suddenly came upon a cliff with
the dark sea below; another step and he would have gone
right over the edge. Unfortunately, Vince could get no
grip on the slippery ice and, like the dog, he vanished
over the edge and into the sea. Wild, Weller, Heald and
Plumley were able to fight their way back to the ship. Of
the original twelve, only four had returned. A search
party was quickly organized and led by Wild who came upon
Barne, Evans and Quartley wandering about in a daze at
Castle Rock. That evening Royds brought in his party and
so it seemed only two men were lost, Vince and Clarence
Hare. Hare had last been seen heading back to the
abandoned sledges to get his ski boots. Two days later a
figure came walking down the hill towards the ship.
Incredibly, it was Hare and without even a trace of
frostbite. It seems he had fallen down and simply gone to
sleep. The snow covered and preserved him as he slept for
thirty-six hours!
One
more sledging trip was undertaken before winter set in. On
Easter Monday, Scott started off with Armitage, Wilson,
Ferrar and eight men with three sledges and nine dogs. The
objective was to lay depots towards the south for use of
the sledging parties in the spring. The dogs refused to
work and the temperature dropped to -47°F. When they
became exhausted, the men crawled into their sleeping
bags. As Wilson put it, "Once in, one can do
literally nothing but lie as one falls in the tent.
Reindeer skin hairs get in your mouth and nose and you
can't lift a hand to get them out". At night the men
would sweat which would produce a puddle beneath them and
since nothing could be dried, by morning "you put on
frozen mitts and frozen boots, stuffed with frozen grass
and rime. There's a fascination about it all, but it can't
be considered comfort". Two more days of this and
Scott decided enough was enough. They packed up their gear
and headed back to the ship with everyone learning from
this experience. On April 23, 1901 the sun sank below the
horizon and would not reappear for more than four months.
A
winter routine was established with each man having his
own special task. Royds was in charge of the seamen and
petty officers, who were employed on routine activities
such as "watering ship" every few days by
hacking out blocks of ice and taking them on board to be
melted in the boiler. Exercise was a problem as blizzards
and extreme cold kept everybody inside for days on end.
Birthdays were celebrated by special dinners and a
religious service was held each Sunday. The South Polar
Times appeared, edited by Shackleton, and all were
invited to contribute; the first copy was formally
presented to Captain Scott. Some men played cards and
chess while others read and carried out scientific
studies.
Summer
sledging began on September 2 when Scott and eight others
set out to lay a depot. They were back in three days as
the conditions were impossible for both men and dogs. A
typical sledging camp can be best described from
descriptions written in the diaries of the men who fought
the extremes. The first step was to set up a small tent
just large enough for three men to lie down in. Snow was
piled up around the outside of the tent in order to hold
it down in case of a blizzard. The sledge would be
unloaded and the cooker set up inside the tent. One had to
be careful when grabbing metal as sometimes your skin
would stick right to it. Changing from the day outfit into
night gear was a laborious task, indeed. First you removed
your finneskoes, making sure you left them in the shape of
your feet since they froze as hard as bricks in a few
minutes and would be impossible to put on in the morning
until one could find a way to thaw them out. Then you had
to unlace your leggings, which had to be done with bare
hands. Needless to say, a pause was necessary periodically
to stuff your hands back in your pants to keep them from
frostbite.
Three
pairs of socks were pulled on which had been kept next to
the body all day in order to keep them warm. Then came a
long pair of fur boots reaching above the knee, then fur
trousers and finally a loose fur blouse. Day-socks were
often tucked inside the pant leggings in order to keep
them warm for the next morning. Then came supper which
consisted of a hoosh made of pemmican, cheese, oatmeal,
pea-flour and bacon. At bedtime it was often discussed
whether each man should sleep in his own bag or if three
should try it together. When it's -40°F, it's certainly
much easier to keep warm with three in a bag.
Unfortunately, one could not move without disturbing the
others, not to mention the fit of experiencing a leg
cramp, which they often did. Condensation of breath was
another problem. After a few days the inside of the tent
became covered with a layer of ice and every time the wind
shook it, a shower of ice fell on the men sleeping
beneath.
Also,
their breath froze in their beards and around the necks of
their fur coats which produced a collar as stiff as a
board. Shivering fits could last for hours. Next morning,
the whole process would be repeated in reverse. Then,
Bernacchi wrote twenty-five years later, came a ceremony
that no one ever talks about. Bathrooms were ruled out
since they took too long to dig and besides, they would
just fill up with snow. So, "feeling like a ham in a
sack", each man took his turn loosening his clothes,
going out into the snow, facing the wind and
"watchfully awaiting a temporary lull. It's a ghastly
business". No matter how quick you were, your clothes
would fill with snow and for the next few hours you would
walk around with a wet, cold bottom. Some of the men
suffered from dysentery so one can easily imagine how much
misery these men had to sustain when blizzards raged for
days on end.
On
September 17, 1902 Scott went on a preliminary
reconnaissance with Barne and Shackleton. On the second
night a blizzard came up and nearly took their tent away
as they had neglected to pile enough snow around the
outside. Before they made it back to the ship all had
suffered from frostbite.
Many
sledging trips took place over the spring and early
summer. On November 2 Scott, Wilson and Shackleton set
forth on their southern journey together with a large
supporting party under Barne. This was to be the
centerpiece of the expedition. Soon after leaving, they
were slowed by sticky snow and deep sastrugi. A two-day
blizzard kept them in their tent and on the third day
Shackleton started to cough. Beyond Minna Bluff, they were
into the unknown and "already appeared to be lost on
the great open plain". At the 79th parallel,
photographs were taken and half of Barne's supporting
party turned back. The rest pushed on until November 15 at
which time the balance of Barne's party took for home.
From the next day, things began to go wrong. The major
problem came with the dogs. Instead of bringing dog
biscuit to feed them, dried stockfish was brought. The
stockfish had become tainted as the DISCOVERY
sailed through the tropics and now the dogs wouldn't eat
it. From November 16 onwards Scott's diary makes sad
reading, with the dogs daily losing heart and condition,
and the men's hopes of making a heroic journey slowly
fading away.
There
was nothing they could do but to press on as far south as
they could and when the dogs could do no more hauling,
they simply would do the hauling themselves. They would
have been better off just killing the dogs and depoting
the meat as they sledged south but they went on hoping
somehow the dogs would revive. On November 25, the party
became the first to cross the 80th parallel, beyond which
all maps were blank. "It has always been our ambition
to get inside that white space and now we are there so the
space can no longer be a blank; this compensates for a lot
of trouble". Hunger now became a problem with the men
as rations were significantly reduced in order to preserve
what little food they had left. "We cannot stop, we
cannot go back, and there is no alternative but to harden
our hearts and drive", Scott wrote. "Certainly
dog driving is the most terrible work one has to face in
this sort of business". On December 5 Scott wrote,
"The events of the day's march are now becoming so
dreary and dispiriting that one longs to forget them when
we camp; it is an effort even to record them in a diary.
Our utmost efforts could not produce more than three miles
for the whole march". Five days later the first dog
died.
The
other dogs pounced on the fallen animal and ate the
corpse. They decided to try and save the best nine dogs by
feeding them the flesh of the others. Wilson volunteered
for the job of butchering as Scott considered the job
"a moral cowardice of which I am heartily
ashamed". The victim was led away, with tail wagging,
as the others howled in anticipation of the meal to come.
Scott wrote, "We can only keep them on the move by
constant shouting; this devolves on me. Stripes and
Brownie doing absolutely nothing and vomiting. Poor old
Grannie pulled till she could pull no longer and lay down
in the snow; they put her on a sledge and she soon died.
The dogs take away all idea of enjoying the marches".
More
problems appeared as Dr. Wilson noticed that Shackleton's
gums were swollen, the first sign of scurvy. Portions of
seal meat were increased but "hunger is gripping us
very tightly". On December 20 Wilson lay awake all
night from sheer hunger. On December 26 snow-blindness was
bothering Wilson's eyes so badly that he finally told
Scott. The next day he hauled his sledge blindfolded as
Scott described to him the mountains that were coming into
view. Within sight was a huge peak which was larger than
any mountain they had seen thus far. They estimated its
height at 13,000 feet and named it Mt. Markham. Scott
decided to turn for home on December 31, having reached 82°17'S.
They had traveled 300 miles farther south than anyone
before them and were only 480 statute miles from the Pole.
A
dog a day was dropping dead or being slaughtered. Bismark
was killed on January 4, Boss dropped behind and was never
seen again, and when Kid died, they gave up trying to
drive the rest and instead set them free to follow behind.
When they were down to one day's ration, Scott pulled out
his telescope and spotted the depot left on the outward
march. Meanwhile, Shackleton's scurvy symptoms had
reappeared; his throat was congested, his breath short,
his gums were red and swollen and he started to spit
blood. Now there were only two men to pull the sledges as
Shackleton could only walk beside them in order to avoid
too much exertion.
On
January 18, 1903, Shackleton completely gave out which
forced them to camp for a number of days. Finally, on
January 28 they reached Depot A, only sixty miles from the
ship. "At length and at last we have reached the land
of plenty". With Shackleton aboard one of the
sledges, the team set off the next day and sledged fifteen
miles. On February 2, White Island came into view and
Scott wrote,"We are as near spent as three persons
can be". On February 3, Skelton and Bernacchi came
out and greeted them. Soon they were back on the ship with
handshakes and congratulations coming from all. They had
been gone for ninety-three days and had covered 960
statute miles.

L
to R: Shackleton, Scott, Wilson
The
MORNING, commanded by William Colbeck, had
left Lyttleton on December 6, 1902. On January 24, 1903
she made fast with ice-anchors to the flow off Hut Point.
A party from the MORNING delivered bags of
mail; Royds alone had sixty-two letters and a cake. But
all the talk was whether the eight or nine miles of ice
that penned in the DISCOVERY would break up
and be carried out to sea in time for her to return with
the MORNING to Lyttleton. Colbeck could not
risk leaving any later than the end of February and by
February 10 it appeared the DISCOVERY would
not break free as new ice was forming.
On
February 22 they tried blowing holes in the ice with
explosives to crack the floes but this didn't work. By the
25th Scott accepted the fact that the MORNING
would have to leave without them or risk being trapped
itself. Fourteen tons of stores were offloaded onto the
ice along with twenty tons of coal. The crew of the MORNING
sledged them half way at which point they met the DISCOVERY
crew who finished the sledge back to Hut Point.
The
MORNING had one other primary purpose to
fulfill: to remove any members of the expedition who
wished to return to civilization. Eight men applied to
return with the MORNING but Scott struggled
with how to handle Shackleton. In his diary, Scott wrote
that "On board he would have remained a source of
anxiety, and would never have been able to do hard
out-door work".
Dr.
Koettlitz then put his opinion in writing: "Mr.
Shackleton's breakdown during the southern sledge journey
was undoubtedly, in Dr. Wilson's opinion, due in great
part to scurvy taint. I certainly agree with him; he has
now practically recovered from it, but referring to your
memo: as to the duties of an executive officer, I cannot
say that he would be fit to undergo hardships and exposure
in this climate". Shackleton went home. There is much
controversy over this decision as rumors were in
circulation that Scott had other reasons for sending
Shackleton home. Armitage disagreed with Scott's decision
and bitterness towards Scott grew through the years that
followed. Before the departure of the MORNING,
Scott went so far as to suggest that Armitage go home to
be with his wife and a child that he had never seen.
Armitage was offended and insulted and later wrote,
"I had been told that Sir Clements Markham intended
to make the expedition a great Royal Navy one only,
but all went well with me for the first year, when Scott
thought that he had enough experience to go on his own--he
had not --then he endeavoured to rid himself of all
the Merchant Service element. When he, in a most kindly
manner, suggested that I should return in the MORNING,
I absolutely refused. But he never forgave me, as not only
did I destroy the RN idea, but he feared that I would
obtain kudos which he desired". It was in fact
Armitage who never forgave Scott.
Once
it was realized that the MORNING would sail
alone, all the men got busy writing letters. On March 1,
1903 there was a farewell party on the MORNING
which went on for half the night. The next morning the MORNING
set sail. Shackleton shed tears as he watched his friends
and shipmates drop out of sight. In his place,
Sub-Lieutenant George Mulock, aged twenty-one, transferred
to the DISCOVERY.
The
winter of 1903 set in earlier and was much colder than the
year before. Sledging plans were made for the following
season while resentment grew between Scott and Armitage.
Royds wanted to go back to Cape Crozier to look for more
penguin eggs while Armitage wanted to go south across the
Barrier, more or less in Scott's footsteps. Royds wrote,
"In my opinion, his sole wish is to beat the
Captain's record. This the Captain wouldn't allow, though
not for that reason by any means". This put Scott in
an awkward position. If he refused, Armitage would charge
that Scott wanted to keep the "farthest south"
record to himself and not "let a subordinate have a
go". This raised the question with Scott: are they
there to do scientific and discovery work or are they
there to compete for a dash to the South Pole? Scott
clearl |