An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (24 page)

But what cannot be denied is that Tom Crean was the difference between life and death for Teddy Evans.

T
he mood at Cape Evans and Hut Point in the early months of 1912 was initially optimistic. The first returning party – Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard, Wright and Keohane – had averaged over 14 miles a day on the way to the safety of One Ton Depot and there was a general belief that Scott would probably reach the Pole. Although everyone knew it would be a close-run thing because of the late start, the party was confidently expected to make it back to base.

However, Crean’s dramatic return to Hut Point was a bolt from the blue which shook everyone from their complacency. His heroics in saving the life of Evans could not disguise the realisation that Scott, too, was probably in trouble out on the Barrier with the season closing in. The appalling state of Evans and the sight of hard men like Crean and Lashly on the brink of collapse had shattered any illusions that the Pole had been lightly won. Crean’s arrival was the harbinger of doom.

Despite his punishing ordeal, Crean made an astonishing recovery, travelling with a dog team to Cape Evans on 23 February – only four days after he had staggered into Hut Point delirious with hunger and fatigue after his eighteen-hour walk across the ice. He was carrying vital news about the polar party from Atkinson, the doctor, who was now the most senior able-bodied man at base camp.

Atkinson had elected to remain at Hut Point with the sick man, Evans, and suggested that either Wright or Cherry-Garrard should take a dog team south to meet Scott’s party on the return from the Pole. However, Wright was needed for other scientific work and with no other fit men available, Cherry-Garrard was placed in charge of the mission.

Cherry-Garrard was hopelessly ill-suited for the crucial task. He had never driven dogs before so he took along the Russian, Dimitri. But neither could navigate and Cherry’s glasses, which he needed to combat serious short-sightedness, were a serious impediment to polar travelling because they frequently became misted.

Although Scott was relying heavily on the dogs to come out to meet him on the Barrier, he had contributed to his own downfall with a series of muddled and contradictory orders for the dog drivers. His specific order was that the dogs were not to be risked because they would be needed for other field trips. This was interpreted as meaning that the dogs were not to be taken too far south to meet the in-coming party, so Atkinson was not proposing an outright rescue mission for the polar party. Atkinson, acting on earlier orders from Scott, insisted that the polar party was ‘not in any way dependent’ on the dogs.

Cherry-Garrard, with deep misgivings, set out on 25 February and reached One Ton, some 150 miles (240 km) away from Cape Evans, late on 3 March. There was no sign of Scott. Cherry-Garrard, inexperienced and unused to command, was unsure what to do. In addition, the weather was so bad that it was impossible to see anything at a distance, which meant that he might easily miss Scott in the swirling snow if he travelled further south.

More important, there was a lack of dog food for a long journey. Nor was Cherry-Garrard equipped to improvise by exploiting the dogs Norwegian-style. He possessed the typical British mawkishness towards dogs and could not stomach the notion of copying Amundsen’s brutally efficient method of
killing dogs to feed the others as they travelled. And, of course, at the back of his mind was Scott’s order not to risk the dogs.

He waited until 10 March and with no sign of Scott, departed back to Cape Evans with temperatures down to –33 °F (–36 °C) or 65° of frost. There was, he wrote some years later, ‘little anxiety’ for the polar party.

On the same day, about 70 miles (112 km) to the south, Scott’s party were struggling to Mount Hooper Depot and Oates was on the verge of collapsing.

Cherry-Garrard, sadly, never forgave himself for not driving south and felt great responsibility for the death of his friends. However, he was not equipped for such a journey and there was no guarantee he would have spotted the party in the awful swirling weather on the Barrier. It is quite possible that the names of Cherry-Garrard and Dimitri would have been added to the casualty list if he had driven south, though it was no consolation for the sensitive, emotional Cherry-Garrard who brooded over the tragedy until his own death in 1959.

It was readily apparent that Cherry-Garrard and Dimitri had been weakened by their brief, three-week journey onto the Barrier in search of Scott. But Cherry and Dimitri had been fit, rested and well fed before they started. By contrast, the polar party was now seriously undernourished and had endured a terrible four and a half months’ slog over more than 1,600 miles across the worst terrain in the world in rapidly falling temperatures.

The men at Cape Evans kept a constant lookout on the horizon to the south, half-hoping to see a flare in the distance from Hut Point which would signal that the polar party had finally come in. On 17 March, the day that Oates committed suicide, Cherry-Garrard calculated that Scott’s return would be five weeks after the arrival of Crean at Hut Point, namely 26 March. He wrote:

By 25 March, the day before Cherry-Garrard expected the party’s arrival, concern was beginning to mount among the men at Cape Evans. Gran’s diary read:

Atkinson and Keohane went on a short man-hauling excursion to Corner Camp but were hampered by the poor weather which was by then engulfing Scott further to the south. On 30 March, the day after the polar party is likely to have perished, Atkinson said he was ‘morally certain’ that they were dead. Slowly, but with greater certainty, the grim reality began to sink in and each man began to come to terms with the loss.

Despite the tragedy, the men had little option but to buckle down and prepare for a second Antarctic winter. The
Terra Nova
had already left for New Zealand, taking the seriously ill Teddy Evans and others who for various reasons wanted to serve only one year in the South. Evans, still on the brink of death, had to be carried on a sledge to the waiting ship at the beginning of March. He was placed in a bunk and was unable to move until the
Terra Nova
reached New Zealand on 2 April.

Two others – the new cook Archer and the ex-
Discovery
seaman Thomas Williamson – had joined the shore party, which now numbered fifteen. Atkinson, now installed as leader of the expedition, reorganised things and placed Crean in charge of all the sledging stores and equipment. This was an important role because it was clear that at least two very substantial journeys would have to be undertaken in the
Antarctic spring and summer of 1912 and Crean’s extensive experience on the ice would be invaluable.

Crean’s heroic march and the 750-mile haul with the final supporting party had earned the Irishman even greater respect among his colleagues and his was undoubtedly a voice to be heard in any discussion about future plans. Few, if any, of the men at Cape Evans could match Crean’s experience of ice travel.

Many years later, Gran would fondly recall the Irishman’s substantial presence and stature at that time in the hut at Cape Evans. Crean clearly left a big impression on the Norwegian and in an interview in 1973 he said:

Crean was also a popular member of the party and Wright described him as ‘very good natured’. Debenham remembered that his ‘quips and brogue kept the mess-deck part of the hut merry’ and added:

The first priority for the men at Cape Evans in the winter of 1912 was to locate Lt Campbell’s six-man northern party which was long overdue, and unknown to anyone, was still stranded in the Cape Adare region. A rescue party, it was assumed, would be needed in September or October.

The second priority was the sorrowful task of searching for the bodies of their dead companions in the Polar party, although some felt this would be largely a waste of time. It was felt that the men had probably fallen down a crevasse on the descent of the treacherous Beardmore and were lost forever. However, the men felt a duty to try to locate the bodies, if only to establish that the men had indeed reached the Pole.

Atkinson, although a naval officer, was far less rigid and secretive than Scott in his approach and one innovation was that he openly discussed the spring travel plans with the entire wintering party. There was a lengthy discussion about the two options – either to look for Campbell or hunt for the bodies of the polar party. After an open discussion, they elected to search first for the polar party. To paraphrase Cherry-Garrard’s assessment, they would be leaving live men to search for dead men.

The sun soon disappeared and the winter routine began, though the weather was noticeably worse than the previous year. Temperatures were frequently recorded as low as –50 °F (–45 °C) and winds were logged at up to 89 mph. One blizzard raged unbroken for eight days and the hut literally shook under the strain of the constant onslaught.

Conditions inside the hut were far more comfortable than in the previous winter. The fifteen men occupied the space reserved for 25 and they endured none of the food shortages which had characterised the polar journeys. But it was an altogether more low-key and subdued atmosphere than the previous year. In the grim circumstances, there was little to look forward to. They passed a fairly comfortable winter, peppered with the regular business of scientific readings, lectures, eating, and making preparations for the coming southern journey.

The men took as much outdoor exercise as the violent weather allowed and inside the hut, they played endless games of cards, draughts and bagatelle. Crean managed to win a billiards tournament in May, a game which Gran said was the ‘very best medicine against low spirits’. The midwinter celebration was held on 22 June in the now customary fashion of any wintering group in the ice, with a lavish meal, elaborate party games and the obligatory mock Christmas tree.

A month later Crean celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday by shaving off his beard and discovering that there was to be an important change to the diet for the coming sledging season.
After Evans’ dreadful scurvy on the final supporting party and the likelihood that the polar team had succumbed to the same ailment, Atkinson now ordered the men to eat an onion every day. Gran remembered:

The sun returned in late August and preparations for the southern journey gathered pace, with food and equipment being arranged and packed onto the sledges and the men getting a little more exercise as the weather improved. In mid-October they began to take horse fodder out to Corner Camp, near to where Crean had started his brave solo march to save Evans.
Terra Nova
had brought down seven mules from the British army in India, which Scott had ordered as insurance for a second assault on the Pole if his first attempt failed. The mules would now be needed for a different reason.

On 29 October 1912 the eleven men of the search party left Cape Evans, headed southwards on their mission to establish the harsh truth of Scott’s last expedition.

As before, Crean led a draught animal, a mule called Rani. He was joined by Wright, Gran, Nelson, Hooper, Williamson, Keohane and Lashly. The dog teams led by Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard and Dimitri followed on 2 November. The aim was to travel at night when the surfaces were firmer, making 12 miles (19 km) a day to One Ton Depot.

It is impossible to know what was going through the minds of men like Crean and Lashly who, only months earlier, had battled against the most cruel and vicious weather and travelling surfaces to cross the formidable featureless landscape of the Barrier. The men would not have been human if they did not fear the Barrier and vividly recall to themselves how close they had come to perishing along with
the men whose bodies they were now trying to find in the bleak, forbidding wilderness.

One insight into their thinking is contained in diaries kept by Debenham, the geologist, who had evidently spoken about the hazards of the Barrier to Crean and others during the long winter nights. He was discussing the prospect of a second winter in the Antarctic and wrote:

Fortunately, it was an uneventful journey. Although the weather was cold and temperatures dipped below –20 °F (–29 °C), the two parties made solid progress and reached One Ton Depot at midnight on 11 November. Even at this very late stage, some even held onto the dim hope that they might escape reality and find the men alive. Gran later recalled: