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Throughout
Con's childhood, day-dreaming 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 easy-going
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, home-sickness 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 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 Roverbelonged, 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
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 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 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. 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 week-end 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 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. Hannah
Scott 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 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 1895, a wealthy British publisher,
George Newnes, put up the money for Carsten
Borchgrevink's 1898
Southern Cross expedition. Here was a penniless
Norwegian school-master 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: Makham
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. After
his meeting with Markham in June 1899, Scott went back to
sea and resumed his duties aboard the 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: 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 straight-forward 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
moustaches 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 sanatorium, 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. The Discovery, by
Dr. E. A. Wilson 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 dependants. 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 pig-headed, 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
Majestic. 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,
blackcurrant 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 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 harbour 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 Southern 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
north-eastern 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 white-out 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. 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
Discoverysailed 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. 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
clearly felt that it was the first-named objective. Scott
could find no purpose in allowing Armitage to make a dash to
the south as he felt, without dogs, Armitage would be
fortunate to get as far as he had and would only risk death
for himself and his party. It simply made no sense to Scott.
Wilson wrote, "The Captain worked out the possibilities on
paper and showed them to me, and I agreed with him in
thinking it was far better to apply all our sledging
energies to new work, rather than covering old ground with
the chance of doing so little at the end of it. The upshot
of it all is that Armitage is off the sledging list for this
year altogether, though whether this is due to himself or
anyone else I cannot say". Armitage's resentment only
deepened. On
August 21, 1903 the rim of the sun appeared for the first
time over the horizon. The sledging plans were pinned to the
notice board with instructions for everyone to return and be
back on board Discovery by December 15 so that all
hands could work together to free the ship, if possible
before the return of the Morning. There were to be
two major ventures, each with a supporting party to lay
depots and then return. Scott was to go west up the Ferrar
glacier as far as he could get; Barne was to explore an
inlet south of McMurdo Strait. The first to leave the ship,
on September 7, were Royds, Wilson and four men, bound for
Cape Crozier. The journey was rather uneventful as eggs and
two live chicks were collected. On the trip back to the ship
the temperature fell to -61°F which resulted in
significant frostbite among the men. They arrived back at
the ship without any further hardship. On September 9 Scott set out with
Skelton and four others to lay a depot in preparation for
the ascent of the western mountains. Meanwhile, Barne's
party was out on the Barrier laying a depot southeast of
White Island where the mercury in their thermometer dropped
to -67.7°F and then broke. Scott's team left for their
main journey on October 12. With four sledges, hauling 200
pounds per man, they reached New Harbour and dragged their
loads up Ferrar glacier to a basin at about 4500 feet. The
runners on the sledges became damaged to the point that the
whole team had to turn around and travel eighty-seven miles
back to the ship for repairs. Five days later they started
out again and this time they succeeded in struggling to the
top of the mountains where they were caught in a blizzard
that nearly buried them alive. It was the most miserable
week of his life, Scott wrote. They spent twenty-two out of
every twenty-four hours in their sleeping bags for a whole
week. They only climbed out long enough to get the cooker
going and eat a hot meal. On November 14 they reached the summit
at 8900 feet where they found themselves on a flat plain.
For the next two weeks they sledged due west. A constant icy
wind produced raw and bleeding lips. Lashly wrote, "The wind
seems to be very troublesome here". On December 1 the team
turned back. Scott wrote, "I don't know where we are but I
know we must be a long way to the west. As long as I live, I
never want to revisit the summit of Victoria Land". He was
disappointed to find it an endless plateau nearly 9000 feet
above sea level. It was
now a familiar story: hunger, exhaustion, deep sastrugi,
fog, snowdrift, frostbite and snow-blindness. Food ran short
and oil was nearly gone. On December 14 Scott faced the fact
that they were lost. They had reached the edge of the
plateau and were beginning to descend when Lashly slipped
and started to slide on his back down the slope. In the
process, he took the legs out from under the others and down
they went, sledge and all, and when they came to a halt,
they were stunned to find themselves at the head of the
glacier, in familiar territory, only five or six miles from
their depot. Miraculously, there were no broken bones.
In Lashly's words, "all of a sudden
the Captain and Evans disappeared down a crevasse and
carried away one of the sledge runners, leaving me on top.
It was now my duty to try and get them up again". Scott and
Evans were left dangling with blue walls of ice on either
side and nothingness below. Remarkably, Scott was able to
swing his feet around and grip the wall with his crampons.
Using the last of his strength, Scott was able to climb out
to safety while Lashly pulled Evans up, whose only comment
was "Well, I'm blowed". That night they reached the depot
and eight days later, on Christmas Eve, they reached the
ship. In fifty-nine days they had hauled their sledge 725
miles. Only
four men were at the ship to greet them when they arrived as
the others were out on the ice, ten miles away, sawing and
blasting at the ice in the hope of breaking it up to a point
where the Discovery could be freed. Scott was pleased
that all the sledging trips had returned safely. On the
western mountains Ferrar had discovered a fossil leaf.
Wilson was pleased with the results of his "penguin"
expedition. By the
end of December, "twenty miles of ice hangs heavy on me".
Scott had to start preparations for a third winter at Hut
Point. On January 5, 1904 a ship came into view. It was the
Morning and a few minutes later, Wilson exclaimed,
"Why, there's another". Wilson wrote, "We were dumbfounded".
Wilson and Scott set off for the two ships and were
subsequently greeted at the edge of the ice by four men
speaking "such perfect Dundee that we could hardly
understand a word they said". They were from the second
ship, the Terra Nova. Soon Wilson and Scott were
aboard the Morning receiving their mail and
questioning their old friend William Colbeck as to why two
relief ships were at anchor in McMurdo Sound. Terra
Nova and Morning reach the
Discovery When the Morning returned from
the Antarctic in 1903, Markham was delighted with the news
of Scott's expedition but clearly a second relief expedition
would be necessary. Unfortunately, there was little money
left so together with Sir William Huggins, Markham appealed
to the Government for a grant of £12,000. Markham knew
all along that a second relief expedition would be necessary
but this was a fact he had concealed from the Government
when the original plans were laid. The Government felt
misled and promptly took the matter out of the hands of the
Societies. If left up to Markham and his group, the
Government felt they would find an excuse to leave them on
the ice for yet another year. The Government would take no
chances as the goal would be to get the men home, safe and
sound, even if it meant abandoning the Discovery.On
June 20, 1903 the Government agreed to pay for the relief
expedition provided the Morning was handed over
"absolutely and at once", free of charge, to the Admiralty.
Reluctantly, both societies agreed and the Morning
now had new owners. Sir William Wharton, the hydrographer,
was appointed by the Admiralty as chairman to the newly
formed Antarctic Relief Committee. Now the
Government took an odd position. Wharton wrote, "It cannot
be considered as certain that the Morning could get
through single-handed, and a second vessel, if a suitable
one could be found, would be a great additional safeguard".
This decision by the Admiralty came on June 22, 1903 which
gave them little more than four months to locate, refit and
get her to Lyttleton by mid November. Wharton investigated
resources all over Europe in an attempt to find a worthy
whaling vessel that could accomplish the goal and it was
from St. John's, Newfoundland that the suggestion came to
purchase the Terra Nova. She was considerably larger
than the Morning at 744 tons and 187 feet in length,
and she came at a hefty price. She was purchased on July 6
for £20,000, some £17,200 more than Markham paid
for the Morning and well above her appraised value.
Try as they might, by the time she was
ready to sail it was simply too late in the season for the
Terra Nova to reach New Zealand on her own and still
leave enough time to make McMurdo Sound. So, Wharton
instructed her to be towed by naval vessels as far as the
Persian Gulf from where she would continue on under her own
sail and steam. HMS Minerva towed her from Portsmouth
to Gibraltar, HMS Vindictive took her on to Aden and
from there HMS Fox towed her to an area 120 miles off
the east coast of Socotra where she was left on her own for
the final leg. The Terra Nova abandoned plans to meet
the Morning in Lyttleton as it was closer to sail
directly to Hobart, Tasmania and meet up with her there. The
two ships met in Hobart on October 31 and together they
departed for McMurdo Sound. Scott
and his fellow officers were not only dismayed, but
insulted, by the arrival of the Terra Nova along with
the Morning. They had no idea of the problems
encountered by Markham in England but one thing they knew
for certain: one ship was all that was needed and to send
two implied they were in deep trouble and unable to handle
things on their own. Scott wrote, "It was not a little
trying to be offered relief to an extent which seemed to
suggest that we have been reduced to the direst need. No
healthy man likes to be thought an invalid". Scott was very
concerned that his career would be jeopardized. After all,
if found an incompetent commander by his superiors, he might
as well forget any promotion upon their return. Ironically,
the Government seemed concerned that the expedition might be
having too good a time. To them it made no sense to have
their officers and men remain indefinitely in the Antarctic
on full pay, all the while feasting on seals and provisions
sent at great expense in an annual relief ship. In July 1903 the Government "could not
consent to the officers and men of the Royal Navy being
employed in any further expedition in the ice, even if
sufficient private funds were raised for such a purpose, and
that Commander Scott will receive directions to this
effect". These directions were given to Colbeck, commander
of the Terra Nova. To make matters even worse,
instructions were given to Colbeck to have the
Discovery abandoned if she could not be freed from
the ice. Scott was furious. In normal conditions "a sailor
would go through much rather than abandon his ship but the
ties which bound us to the Discovery were very far
beyond the ordinary", Scott wrote. She was dearly loved by
her crew; she had been their home for two and a half years.
She was considered the finest ship ever built for such a
task and to abandon her would be like a broken marriage; it
may not have been their fault but the men would have
returned "as castaways with the sense of failure dominating
the results of our labours". Twenty
miles of ice separated the ship from open water in mid
January. Captain Mackay of the Terra Nova felt the
departure date should not extend beyond February 25, 1904
and Colbeck agreed. Blasting and sawing proved useless so
nothing was left but to pray for southeasterly gales. Aboard
the Discovery Scott read the Admiralty's instructions
to his crew and "There was a stony silence. I have not heard
a laugh in the ship since I returned". The crew
began the difficult task of transferring all the scientific
collections and equipment to the Morning and Terra
Nova. For the next five weeks the ice slowly began to
break up. An all-out attack on the ice was put into gear.
Explosives, saws and everything imaginable was used in an
attempt to free the ship. On January 27 Scott wrote, "I
fear, I much fear, things are going badly for us". Royds
wrote, "It is perfectly sickening. Why doesn't it break up?
What the devil is holding it? The prospects are as cheerless
as they could be and I could simply scream at our absolute
helplessness". The thermometer fell to -14°F. By
February 3 Royds wrote, "things look hopeless...everything
is at a standstill". On February 12, Royds wrote, "As I
write, the Terra Nova is now only about two miles
away and the ice continues to break away. The ice was simply
rushing out in huge lumps and floes, every blast sending
more out, and cracking well behind". Now they worked harder
than ever to free the ship as destiny was in the balance.
St. Valentine's Day saw the break they
needed as Scott and others raced up to Hut Point and noted
that "The ice was breaking-up right across the strait, and
with a rapidity which we had not thought possible. I have
never witnessed a more impressive sight; the sun was low
behind us, the surface of the ice-sheet in front was
intensely white, and in contrast the distant sea and its
forking leads looked almost black. The wind had fallen to a
calm, and not a sound disturbed the stillness about us. Yet
in the midst of this peaceful scene was an awful unseen
urgency rending that great ice-sheet as though it had been
naught but the thinnest paper...now without a word, without
an effort on our part, it was all melting now, and we knew
that in an hour or two not a vestige of it would be left,
and that the open sea would be lapping on the black rocks of
Hut Point". The
relief ships butted their way, side by side, to the
Discovery.The men cheered as the Terra Nova
broke through the last sheet of ice at 10:30 p.m. and freed
the Discovery. A few days were hurriedly spent
preparing the ships for departure. In memory to George
Vince, a final emotional ceremony was held on the ice and a
wooden cross was erected to mark his grave. Despite a difficult departure to open
water, the three ships finally were under way, leaving
McMurdo Sound on February 19, 1904. Scott decided to take
the Discovery round Cape Adare and explore to the
west along the northern coast of Victoria Land. The
Morning was to head straight for the Auckland
Islands where the three ships would rendezvous and sail
together to Lyttleton. After two years in the ice, the
Discovery was far from seaworthy; water poured into
the holds, the pumps wouldn't work, gales came up and
subsequently everyone got seasick since they'd been
landlocked for so long. The rudder was in such poor shape
that it was ready to fall off; they had a spare but it was
only half as big. The farther west they went, the thicker
the ice became. Becoming short of coal, the ship turned
north to find open water so they could use the sails. By
this time she had lost touch with the Terra Nova. She
was pushed so far north that she missed land altogether and
instead re-discovered the Balleny Islands. On March 14 they reached the Auckland
Islands with only 10 tons of coal left aboard. Neither of
the other ships were there so while they waited, some of the
crew cleaned and painted the ship while others went ashore
and shot anything that looked edible, including wild cattle
and pigs. The New Zealand Government maintained a depot of
emergency supplies for the use of ship-wrecked sailors
(called by sealers Sarah's Bosom). The other vessels showed
up a few days later and after three days sailing, on Good
Friday, April 1, 1904, they reached Lyttleton Harbor. There
was a wonderful welcoming party and guests and reporters
swarmed the ships. Unfortunately, a remark made by Scott
in a crowd was overheard by a reporter who took the comment
totally out of context and falsely reported the incident.
The men of the Discovery were in total agreement
concerning the absurdity of sending the Terra Nova to
rescue them. The story published by a Reuter's reporter made
headlines in England: Commander Scott emphatically protests
against the despatch by the Admiralty of the Terra
Nova, which he declares to have been a wasteful expense
of money. He says that had the proper position of the
Discovery been made known, it would have been obvious
that she was perfectly safe, and no assistance beyond that
which the Morning could render was requisite. Scott
felt his goose was cooked when it came to a promotion. Even
Royds commented, "Although it was the truth, he never said
it". Back
home, matters weren't much better. Together with his
brother-in-law, Scott was still supporting his mother. His
two sisters were having a difficult time in the dressmaking
industry as his mother wrote, "it is really a bad season,
and no money going". Scott felt if he was not promoted, a
certain life of poverty would return. Scott wrote to his
mother from New Zealand, "If they wait till we get home,
then two or three persons will inevitably leap over my head.
The question is whether they will pass me over in June. It
is such a close thing that it must make a great deal of
difference". Meanwhile,
the ship was in need of repairs and yet money was so tight
that Scott only paid the regular crewmembers while the
officers were left to fend for themselves. Everyone wrote
home from Lyttleton. Royds and Wilson wrote to Scott's
mother, Hannah, telling her how proud they were of her son's
efforts. Wilson wrote, "Without a doubt he has been the
making of the Expedition and not one of us will but feel
more and more grateful to him for the way he has acted
throughout. Notwithstanding that it is a difficult thing, at
least I imagine it is, for the Captain to make intimate
friends with anyone, I feel as though we were real friends,
and I need hardly say I am proud of it". The
Discovery was placed in dry dock for two months to
complete repairs. Meanwhile, Scott was wined and dined by
dignitaries all over the island. Scott wrote his mother, "We
have had a very good time here but it is high time we were
off, as all our young men are getting engaged. Skelton is
actually caught. I believe the young lady is very nice". The
young lady was Sybil. Others were caught as well: Teddy
Evans of the Morning and Ferrar among the officers,
Blissett and Weller among the men. Incredibly,
Royds and Scott were taken to court and fined £5 for
shooting cattle on Enderby Island, in the Auckland Islands,
while waiting for the other ships to rendezvous. Although
running wild, they had no idea the cattle were private
property. As for
the scientists work, the collections went to the British
Museum of Natural History and their statistical material to
the Royal Society. Upon arrival in England, all the
scientists went their separate ways. Wilson worked on his
huge collection at the Natural History Museum. He never went
back to medical practice. The Service men had no problems
with future employment; they simply slipped back into their
regular jobs without any loss of seniority. Royd's figured
it would take ten years before a promotion and he was quite
accurate as he did not reach rank of Captain until 1914.
Skelton made a brilliant career for himself in the Royal
Navy. But it was Scott who pondered his fate as the
Discovery sailed from Lyttleton on June 8, 1904. On
September 10, over three years after leaving, the
Discovery reached Spithead. Sir Clements
Markham and his wife were aboard the ship when she steamed
into Portsmouth Harbor where "All the men of war, and a line
of boats sent from Whale Island, gave hearty cheers". It was
here that Scott learned of his appointment as post-Captain
which was to take effect the following day. In his welcoming
speech at the East India Docks on September 16, Markham
declared, "Never has any polar expedition returned with so
great a harvest of scientific results". Truly, this had been
the most revealing of all Antarctic exploration as
meticulous records were kept on the scientific work. But
Scott could not accept full credit as he proclaimed that "An
Antarctic expedition is not a one-man show, not a two-man
show, nor a ten-man show. It means the co-operation of
all...There has been nothing but a common desire to work for
the common good". Scott
now moved his mother and two sisters to a house they found
at 56 Oakley Street, off the Chelsea Embankment. This was to
be Scott's home for four years and it still stands today
marked by a blue commemorative plaque. Initially,
Scott received royal thanks but his only honor was the
appointment to Commander of the Victorian Order, a step up
from the Membership which he already had. Even the press
hounded the Government as they felt he should have at least
received an Order of the Bath, if not a
knighthood. An
exhibition at the Bruton Galleries opened on November 4,
1904, which drew an estimated 10,000 visitors. Inside were a
collection of Wilson's drawings, Skelton's photographs, a
model of the Discovery, sledging equipment and
rations. On November 7 Scott gave his first big lecture to
7,000 invited members and guests of the two Societies at
Albert Hall. Now the praise was raining down on Scott. He
was awarded the Patron's Gold Medal of the RGS, was made a
member of the French Legion of Honour and the Russian
Geographical Society, and received medals from the
Geographical Societies of Philadelphia, Denmark and Sweden.
What pleased him most was an honorary degree of Doctor of
Science from Cambridge University. When he left London he
headed for Edinburgh for more lectures and the Royal
Geographical Society's Livingstone Medal. Shackleton had
arranged this and now the two were on excellent terms. Scott
wrote his mother, "Everyone is very pleased with Shackleton.
He is showing great energy and business capacity". Scott
traveled with Shackleton to Glasgow and Dundee for more
speaking engagements. Meanwhile, Markham pleaded with the
Government to retain the Discovery for future polar
work but his remarks fell on deaf ears. She was sold to the
highest bidder, the Hudson's Bay Company, for £10,000,
about one-fourth her original cost. Scott
continued to travel around the country giving lectures and
making preparations to publish a book about the expedition.
Scott wrote, "Of all things I dread having to write a
narrative and am wholly doubtful of my capacity; in any
event if I have to do it, it will take me a long time. I
have not...the pen of a ready writer". By the start of 1905
the book was nearly completed. On October 12, 1905, in an
edition of 3000 copies, the Voyage of the Discovery
was published. An incredible piece of work, the two-volume
edition was profusely illustrated with Wilson's drawings and
Skelton's photographs. Scott needlessly worried about his
abilities for writing as nearly all the critics praised it.
The Times Literary Supplement called it "a masterly
work". His former crewmembers each received a free copy and
they all loved it. Scott insisted on sending Wilson a check
for £100 as a fee for reproducing his drawings; Wilson
refused but Scott made him take it anyway. (Today, a single
drawing can fetch $10,000 or more.) The book sold reasonably
well; the first edition sold out immediately so 1500 more
copies were printed the following month. But then the sales
fell dramatically; when the book went out of print in 1919,
total sales amounted to 5,272 copies. (Try to find one!)
Scott was a little concerned with Armitage's newly published
book, Two Years in the Antarctic which also came out
in the autumn of 1905, but he wrote nothing derogatory about
his former leader. Scott
was single and thirty-seven years old when, in April 1906,
he announced at an RGS meeting that "I am sorry to say that
my lines are cast in such places that in all probability I
shall not return to those regions". But there was a great
deal of emotion as in the same speech he touched on "those
fields of snow sparkling in the sun, the pack-ice and bergs
and blue sea, and those mountains, those glorious southern
mountains, rearing their heads in desolate grandeur. The
movements of the pack, those small mysterious movements with
the hush sound that comes across the water, and I hear also
the swish of the sledge...I cannot explain to you, they will
always drag my thought back to those good times when these
things were before me". Bernacchi wrote years later, "Those
were golden days and their memories are fraught with joy".
Michael Barne, with frostbitten fingers, was already trying
to raise money to finance his own expedition. Later in
April, Scott was saying that "in all probability" he would
return to the Antarctic as London society expected him to
make a dash for the Pole. In September, Scottish playwright
J. M. Barrie wrote to Scott, "I chuckle with joy to hear all
the old hankerings are coming back to you. I feel you have
to go out again, and I too keep an eye open for the man with
the dollars". By early 1907 , Scott had made up his mind to
lead a second expedition to 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.
In the autumn of 1898 Archie
came home on leave and Con took him for a cruise off the
Irish coast in the 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.
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. 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.
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 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
Majestic.
Lt. Royds, Dr. Koettlitz, Mr. Bernacchi and Mr. Ferrar on
board Discovery
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 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.