The Dangerous Book of Heroes (50 page)

Many from Scott's expedition had caught the polar itch. Scott, Barne, and Shackleton all had Antarctic plans—initially unknown to one another. Barne joined Scott and together they pursued the vital development of motorized sledges. In 1907, Shackleton publicly announced his plans and agreed with Scott that he would make his base on King Edward VII Land, not Ross Island. Shackleton had stamps issued by the New Zealand Post Office with “
King Edward VII Land
” printed on them, but when he arrived there in 1908, he could find nowhere to land.

He inspected the Bay of Whales but discovered that since their
balloon flights, massive slabs of the ice barrier had separated or “calved” away. He considered it too unstable and dangerous to camp there. Reluctantly, he sailed west to Ross Island and erected his hut twenty miles north of Hut Point.

Using four ponies and no dogs, Shackleton headed south across the ice barrier at the end of 1908. He discovered a route over the ice joint, ascended the Transantarctic Mountains by the Beardmore Glacier—losing his last pony in a crevasse there—and reached the Polar Plateau. Shackleton, Frank Wild (ex-
Discovery
), Eric Marshall, and Jameson Adams man-hauled with no skis to reach ninety-seven miles from the South Pole before turning back. At the same time, a three-man party under Australian Edgeworth David man-hauled to the South Magnetic Pole and raised the British flag.

 

Scott officially announced his second scientific and geographic Antarctic expedition on September 13, 1909—the day before Kathleen gave birth to their only child, Peter. The Royal Geographical Society, Nansen, the Admiralty, Barne, Shackleton, and others had known of Scott's plans since 1907. Trials of the first motorized sledge were announced in January 1908, while newspaper reports of Scott's marriage confirmed his plans to go south again. Further motorized-sledge trials took place in Norway in March 1909, with Nansen watching. There was no secret about Scott's plans; his second expedition was known about for years.

In 1907, meanwhile, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had announced his plans for an Arctic voyage, an attempt to be first to the North Pole. However, on September 15, 1909, American Robert Peary announced that he had reached the North Pole, while another American, Frederick Cook, claimed to have reached it in 1908. In secret, four days after Scott's official announcement, Amundsen changed his destination to the South Pole. Only a brother knew. Even his patron Nansen—who lent him his ship
Fram
for the Arctic expedition—was not told. Historians who claim that Amundsen did not know of Scott's expedition are clearly wrong. It was Scott who knew nothing of Amundsen's plans.

French explorer Jean Charcot, also eyeing the Antarctic, stated: “There can be no doubt that the best way to the Pole is by way of the Great Ice Barrier, but this we regard as belonging to the English explorers, and I do not propose to trespass on other people's grounds.” When Peary proposed an attempt on the South Pole—from the other side of Antarctica—he actually asked Scott if he had any objections. They met in London and agreed on joint scientific programs. Amundsen himself wrote to Nansen: “It is not my intention to dog the Englishmen's footsteps. They have naturally the first right.” Yet that is exactly what he did.

Amundsen lied to Nansen, lied to the Norwegian government who helped finance him, lied to his sponsors, and lied to the press. Scott tried several times to contact Amundsen to arrange Antarctic-to-Arctic scientific programs, so Scott's Norwegian skiing expert Tryggve Gran—recommended by Nansen—arranged a meeting. Scott and Gran traveled to Amundsen's home, but Amundsen did not show up. His secrecy reveals his chicanery.

It was not until Scott and his seventy-strong scientific expedition reached Melbourne in the
Terra Nova
in October 1910 that they received the truth from Amundsen. He telegrammed:
BEG LEAVE TO INFORM YOU
F
RAM
PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC, AMUNDSEN
. He had taken nineteen men, including a party of six champion skiers, and 120 dogs, and said he would be based on the opposite side of Antarctica.

When the news reached Norway, its people became hostile to Amundsen and Nansen remained ominously silent. Amundsen's sponsors asked the government to request more funds from Parliament; the government refused.

Scott reached Ross Island again in January 1911 and established a new camp at Cape Evans, ten miles north of Hut Point. A larger hut was erected, and the huskies, ponies, the first motorized sledges in the world, scientific equipment, and stores were transported ashore. Scott's plans for the next three years were many but simple.

Science was the major purpose of the expedition—the largest ever to Antarctica—and that is how it would continue. Scientific parties
set out as planned that summer, including two more wintering-over parties to the north and east. Using dogs and ponies, they laid depots southward across the ice barrier for an exploration to the South Pole the following summer, while Hut Point hut was cleared of ice and used as a forward depot. Scott laid the first Antarctic telephone line between the two huts.

In February, during a voyage to deploy the eastern wintering-over party, the
Terra Nova
discovered Amundsen camped just along the Ross Sea at the Bay of Whales. To his credit, Scott never condemned Amundsen for his subterfuge, even in his private letters. In fact, his instructions to his men were to lend assistance if the Norwegians needed it. Scott knew how unstable the ice barrier at the Bay of Whales was. Amundsen was taking a gamble making a base there.

A Norwegian sailor wrote of their discovery: “Well, if they are planning something bad (we were constantly asking ourselves in what light the Englishmen would view our competition) the [120] dogs will manage to make them turn back…. I had better be armed for all eventualities.” The Norwegians apparently considered Amundsen's actions so bad that they thought they might be attacked. Tryggve Gran wrote: “I think Amundsen's enterprise falls far short of what a gentleman would permit: there is nothing like it in polar history.”

Even at Melbourne, it had been too late for Scott to make a race of it: he had only thirty-three dogs and seventeen Siberian ponies. Scott knew and admitted this. He wrote several times that if Amundsen found a route up the mountains suitable for dogs, he would undoubtedly reach the pole before him. Shackleton, though, had reported the Beardmore—the
only
known route—as unsuitable for dogs.

The irony is that American Frederick Cook had not reached the North Pole and it's probable that Peary hadn't either. After eighty years of doubt, Arctic and Antarctic explorer Wally Herbert, first to cross the whole Arctic via the North Pole, was given access to all Peary's records by the American National Geographic Society. He concluded that Peary was probably thirty to sixty nautical miles west of the pole and knew it. The North Pole had been there for Amundsen to conquer after all.

During the winter of 1911, a dangerous and bitter journey in twenty-four-hour darkness was made from Cape Evans to collect penguin eggs. Dr. Wilson was attempting to establish the mutation of birds from marine to land life by examining penguin embryos. Wilson, Bowers, and Cherry-Garrard completed this harrowing five-week journey. They used themselves as guinea pigs, experimenting with three different rations to find the best for extreme polar conditions, as well as testing improvements in polar equipment and clothing. It's from Scott, not from Amundsen's reindeer skins, that modern polar clothing derives.

With the return of the sun in a cold September, Scott authorized three short scientific journeys. These included a twenty-mile run for airing the dogs to Hut Point and back under Cecil Meares and Demetri Gerof, British and Russian husky experts. Meanwhile, at the Bay of Whales, Amundsen, with six men and his dogs; set out for the South Pole on the eighth.

A week later he returned. Five of his dogs had frozen to death, with the other dogs' paws cut and bleeding from the ice. His men were frostbitten and demoralized. There were accusations of cowardice, and a near mutiny by second in command Johansen. Having failed to learn from Scott's and Shackleton's earlier expeditions, Amundsen had not understood the differences between Antarctic and Arctic weather and snow. He banished Johansen and one other from the polar party and on his later return to Norway publicly humiliated him. Johansen later committed suicide. Amundsen then set out for the pole a second time, on October 19, with four men.

Tryggve Gran, who knew both Scott and Amundsen, was withering in his comparison of the two leaders. “Scott was a man. He would always listen to you. Amundsen would listen to nobody. He was only interested in himself. So Amundsen, as a human being, was not worth much, but Scott was worth a lot.” Without doubt, Scott had charisma.

From Cape Evans in October, the two motorized sledges set out hauling supplies for the polar depots. Those sledges were the world's first tracked vehicles—forerunners of the tank as well as the modern
polar sledge. They covered fifty-one miles across Ross Island and the ice barrier before breaking down, all that was expected at that first stage of their development. Photographer Herbert Ponting wrote: “To the memory of Scott must therefore be given the honour due to a pioneer of motor traction in the Polar regions, for he used it with a certain measure of success.”

Scott's 883-mile polar journey started on November 1 with ten ponies and sledges. He had to reach Shackleton's farthest south earlier than Shackleton, with more food and more fuel, in order to reach the pole and return safely. With Shackleton's willing permission, Scott used his Beardmore Glacier route to the Polar Plateau, the only known route across the ice joint. In comparison, Amundsen took two huge gambles in that he hoped to find another crossing farther east as well as a glacier suitable for dogs.

Despite soft snow, the Siberian ponies averaged twelve miles a day across the ice barrier, the men skiing or walking alongside. The dog teams were the last to leave, for they were the fastest. Closer to the Beardmore, the ponies were killed one by one with a bullet to the head. Their meat was buried for use on the return journey, a precaution against scurvy and food for the dogs. At the foot of the Beardmore, an unseasonal four-day blizzard delayed the expedition.

Farther east and unknown to Scott, Amundsen's good fortune was remarkable. He'd reached the mountains and found a passage across the ice joint. In addition, the glacier before him was not split by crevasses, ice falls, and chasms like the Beardmore—it was suitable for dogs. Near the top, Amundsen killed twenty-two dogs to feed the others.

Scott—who was nothing if not flexible—used his dogs two weeks longer than originally planned, hauling sledges a further forty-five miles up the Beardmore until it was too dangerous to use them more. Many of the roped men fell into hidden crevasses, but if a dog team had gone down, it would have taken its sledge, stores, and, possibly, the driver with it. Meares, Demetri, and their dog sledges returned to Cape Evans.

From then on sledges had to be man-hauled, yet both Scott's and
Shackleton's experiences of the Polar Plateau showed that a good speed could be maintained. Three depots were left up the 136-mile glacier, and the Polar Plateau was reached on December 21. This was a scientific exploration, so the men were surveying, recording, mapping, and writing as they traveled because, in the future, others would follow. Robert Scott had a lot in common with James Cook. Both were Royal Navy, both were great explorers, both were scientists, neither would be unnecessarily rushed, and both looked after their men.

From the plateau, four more men returned, with Scott's instruction to store dog food at One Ton Depot on the ice barrier. Eight men then continued toward the pole. On Christmas Day 1911, they hauled sledges for fifteen miles. Bowers observed: “One gets down to bedrock with everybody, sledging under trying conditions. The character of a man comes out and you see things that were never expected. I think more highly than
ever of our leader.” Their average increased to twenty-three miles a day across the plateau and soon they were ahead of Shackleton's time, mostly on skis but walking when it was faster. They were using the polar rations tested in the midwinter journey and found them sufficient, while two more depots were left on the plateau, at 3° and 1.5° degrees latitude from the pole. The two teams celebrated the new year in their tents, drinking tea with chocolate rations and talking until 1
A.M
.

Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid

On January 4, 1912, Scott announced the final polar party as Edward Wilson (doctor and scientist), Henry “Birdie” Bowers (Royal Indian Marine lieutenant, navigator, and meteorologist), Edgar “Taff” Evans (immensely powerful as well as their sledge and ski repairer), and Lawrence “Titus” Oates (Royal Inniskilling Fusilier also powerfully built). The three returning men were second in command Lieutenant “Teddy” Evans and stoker Bill Lashly, who were the most tired of them all, and Tom Crean. Scott judged Oates only slightly stronger than Crean, his most difficult choice of all.