The Worst Journey in the World (37 page)

He will go down to history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole
and who died as fine a death as any man has had the honour to die. His
triumphs are many—but the Pole was not by any means the greatest of
them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self,
and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love.

Scott had under him this first year in his Main Party a total of 15
officers and 9 men. These officers may be divided into three executive
officers and twelve scientific staff, but the distinction is very rough,
inasmuch as a scientist such as Wilson was every bit as executive as
anybody else, and the executive officers also did much scientific work. I
will try here briefly to give the reader some idea of the personality and
activities of these men as they work any ordinary day in the hut. It
should be noticed that not all the men we had with us were brought to do
sledging work. Some were chosen rather for their scientific knowledge
than for their physical or other fitness for sledging. The regular
sledgers in this party of officers were Scott, Wilson, Evans, Bowers,
Oates (ponies), Meares (dogs), Atkinson (surgeon), Wright (physicist),
Taylor (physiographer), Debenham (geologist), Gran and myself, while Day
was to drive his motors as far as they would go on the Polar Journey.
This leaves Simpson, who was the meteorologist and whose observations had
of necessity to be continuous; Nelson, whose observations into marine
biology, temperatures of sea, salinity, currents and tides came under the
same heading; and Ponting, whose job was photography, and whose success
in this art everybody recognizes.

However much of good I may write of Wilson, his many friends in England,
those who served with him on the ship or in the hut, and most of all
those who had the good fortune to sledge with him (for it is sledging
which is far the greatest test) will all be dissatisfied, for I know that
I cannot do justice to his value. If you knew him you could not like him:
you simply had to love him. Bill was of the salt of the earth. If I were
asked what quality it was before others that made him so useful, and so
lovable, I think I should answer that it was because he never for one
moment thought of himself. In this respect also Bowers, of whom I will
speak in a moment, was most extraordinary, and in passing may I be
allowed to say that this is a most necessary characteristic of a good
Antarctic traveller? We had many such, officers and seamen, and the
success of the expedition was in no small measure due to the general and
unselfish way in which personal likes and dislikes, wishes or tastes were
ungrudgingly subordinated to the common weal. Wilson and Pennell set an
example of expedition first and the rest nowhere which others followed
ungrudgingly: it pulled us through more than one difficulty which might
have led to friction.

Wilson was a man of many parts. He was Scott's right-hand man, he was the
expedition's Chief of the Scientific Staff: he was a doctor of St.
George's Hospital, and a zoologist specializing in vertebrates. His
published work on whales, penguins and seals contained in the Scientific
Report of the Discovery Expedition is still the best available, and makes
excellent reading even to the non-scientist. On the outward journey of
the Terra Nova he was still writing up his work for the Royal Commission
on Grouse Disease, the published report of which he never lived to see.
But those who knew him best will probably remember Wilson by his
water-colour paintings rather than by any other form of his many-sided
work.

As a boy his father sent him away on rambling holidays, the only
condition being that he should return with a certain number of drawings.
I have spoken of the drawings which he made when sledging or when
otherwise engaged away from painting facilities, as at Hut Point. He
brought back to Winter Quarters a note-book filled with such sketches of
outlines and colours: of sunsets behind the Western Mountains: of lights
reflected in the freezing sea or in the glass houses of the ice foot: of
the steam clouds on Erebus by day and of the Aurora Australis by night.
Next door to Scott he rigged up for himself a table, consisting of two
venesta cases on end supporting a large drawing-board some four feet
square. On this he set to work systematically to paint the effects which
he had seen and noted. He painted with his paper wet, and necessarily
therefore, he worked quickly. An admirer of Ruskin, he wished to paint
what he saw as truly as possible. If he failed to catch the effect he
wished, he tore up the picture however beautiful the result he had
obtained. There is no doubt as to the faithfulness of his colouring: the
pictures recalled then and will still recall now in intimate detail the
effects which we saw together. As to the accuracy of his drawing it is
sufficient to say that in the Discovery Expedition Scott wrote on his
Southern Journey:

"Wilson is the most indefatigable person. When it is fine and clear, at
the end of our fatiguing days he will spend two or three hours seated in
the door of the tent, sketching each detail of the splendid mountainous
coast-scene to the west. His sketches are most astonishingly accurate; I
have tested his proportions by actual angular measurement and found them
correct."
^[132]

In addition to the drawings of land, pack, icebergs and Barrier, the
primary object of which was scientific and geographical, Wilson has left
a number of paintings of atmospheric phenomena which are not only
scientifically accurate but are also exceedingly beautiful. Of such are
the records of auroral displays, parhelions, paraselene, lunar halos, fog
bows, irridescent clouds, refracted images of mountains and mirage
generally. If you look at a picture of a parhelion by Wilson not only can
you be sure that the mock suns, circles and shafts appeared in the sky as
they are shown on paper, but you can also rest assured that the number of
degrees between, say, the sun and the outer ring of light were in fact
such as he has represented them. You can also be certain in looking at
his pictures that if cirrus cloud is shown, then cirrus and not stratus
cloud was in the sky: if it is not shown, then the sky was clear. It is
accuracy such as this which gives an exceptional value to work viewed
from a scientific standpoint. Mention should also be made of the
paintings and drawings made constantly by Wilson for the various
specialists on the expedition whenever they wished for colour records of
their specimens; in this connection the paintings of fish and various
parasites are especially valuable.

I am not specially qualified to judge Wilson from the artistic point of
view. But if you want accuracy of drawing, truth of colour, and a
reproduction of the soft and delicate atmospheric effects which obtain in
this part of the world, then you have them here. Whatever may be said of
the painting as such, it is undeniable that an artist of this type is of
inestimable value to an expedition which is doing scientific and
geographical work in a little-known part of the earth.

Wilson himself set a low value on his artistic capacity. We used to
discuss what Turner would have produced in a land which offered colour
effects of such beauty. If we urged him to try and paint some peculiar
effect and he felt that to do so was beyond his powers he made no scruple
of saying so. His colour is clear, his brush-work clean: and he handled
sledging subjects with the vigour of a professional who knew all there
was to be known about a sledging life.

Scott and Wilson worked hand in hand to further the scientific objects of
the expedition. For Scott, though no specialist in any one branch, had a
most genuine love of science. "Science—the rock foundation of all
effort," he wrote; and whether discussing ice problems with Wright,
meteorology with Simpson, or geology with Taylor, he showed not only a
mind which was receptive and keen to learn, but a knowledge which was
quick to offer valuable suggestions. I remember Pennell condemning
anything but scientific learning in dealing with the problems round us;
'no guesswork' was his argument. But he emphatically made an exception of
Scott, who had an uncanny knack of hitting upon a solution. Over and
over again in his diary we can read of the interest he took in pure and
applied science, and it is doubtful whether this side of an expedition in
high northern or southern latitudes has ever been more fortunate in their
leader.

Wilson's own share in the scientific results is more obvious because he
was the director of the work. But no published reports will give an
adequate idea of the ability he showed in co-ordinating the various
interests of a varied community, nor of the tact he displayed in dealing
with the difficulties which arose. Above all his judgment was excellent,
and Scott as well as the rest of us relied upon him to a very great
extent. The value of judgment in a land where a wrong decision may mean
disaster as well as loss of life is beyond all price; weather in which
changes are most sudden is a case in point, also the state of sea-ice,
the direction to be followed in difficult country when sledging, the best
way of taking crevassed areas when they must be crossed, and all the ways
by which the maximum of result may be combined with the minimum of danger
in a land where Nature is sometimes almost too big an enemy to fight: all
this wants judgment, and if possible experience. Wilson could supply
both, for his experience was as wide as that of Scott, and I have
constantly known Scott change his mind after a talk with Bill. For the
rest I give quotations from Scott's diary:

"He has had a hand in almost every lecture given, and has been consulted
in almost every effort which has been made towards the solution of the
practical or theoretical problems of our Polar world."
^[133]

Again:

"Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he
really is the finest character I ever met—the closer one gets to him the
more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and dependable; cannot
you imagine how that counts down here? Whatever the matter, one knows
Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal and quite
unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and things than is
at first guessable, a quiet vein of humour and really consummate tact,
and you have some idea of his values. I think he is the most popular
member of the party, and that is saying much."
^[134]

And at the end, when Scott himself lay dying, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson:

"I can do no more to comfort you, than to tell you that he died as he
lived, a brave, true man—the best of comrades and staunchest of
friends."
^[135]

Physically Scott had been a delicate boy but developed into a strong man,
5 feet 9 inches in height, 11 stone 6 lbs. in weight, with a chest
measurement of 39¼ inches. Wilson was not a particularly strong man. On
leaving with the Discovery he was but lately cured of consumption, yet he
went with Scott to his farthest South, and helped to get Shackleton back
alive. Shackleton owed his life to those two. Wilson was of a slimmer,
more athletic build, a great walker, 5 feet 10½ inches in height, 11
stones in weight, with a chest measurement of 36 inches. He was an ideal
example of my contention, which I believe can be proved many times over
to be a fact, that it is not strength of body but rather strength of will
which carries a man farthest where mind and body are taxed at the same
time to their utmost limit. Scott was 43 years of age at his death, and
Wilson 39.

Bowers was of a very different build. Aged 28, he was only 5 feet 4
inches in height while his chest measurement (which I give more as a
general guide to his physique than for any other reason) was 40 inches,
and his weight 12 stones. He was recommended to Scott by Sir Clements
Markham, who was dining one day with Captain Wilson-Barker on the
Worcester, on which ship Bowers was trained. Bowers was then home from
India, and the talk turned to the Antarctic. Wilson-Barker turned to Sir
Clements in the course of conversation and alluding to Bowers said: "Here
is a man who will be leading one of those expeditions some day."

He lived a rough life after passing from the Worcester into the merchant
service, sailing five times round the world in the Loch Torridon. Thence
he passed into the service of the Royal Indian Marine, commanded a river
gunboat on the Irrawaddy, and afterwards served on H.M.S. Fox, where he
had considerable experience, often in open boats, preventing the
gun-running which was carried on by the Afghans in the Persian Gulf.

Thence he came to us.

It is at any rate a curious fact, and it may be a significant one, that
Bowers, who enjoyed a greater resistance to cold than any man on this
expedition, joined it direct from one of the hottest places on the globe.
My knowledge is insufficient to say whether it is possible that any trace
can be found here of cause and effect, especially since the opposite
seems to be the more common experience, in that such people as return
from India to England generally find the English winter trying. I give
the fact for what it may be worth, remarking only that the cold of an
English winter is generally damp, while that of the Antarctic is dry, so
far at any rate as the atmosphere is concerned. Bowers himself always
professed the greatest indifference not only to cold, but also to heat,
and his indifference was not that of a 'poseur,' as many experiences will
show.

At the same time he was temperamentally one who refused to admit
difficulties. Indeed, if he did not actually welcome them he greeted them
with scorn, and in scorning went far to master them. Scott believed that
difficulties were made to be overcome: Bowers certainly believed that he
was the man to overcome them. This self-confidence was based on a very
deep and broad religious feeling, and carried conviction with it. The men
swore by him both on the ship and ashore. "He's all right," was their
judgment of his seamanship, which was admirable. "I like being with
Birdie, because I always know where I am," was the remark made to me by
an officer one evening as we pitched the tent. We had just been spending
some time in picking up a depôt which a less able man might well have
missed.