Scott
The search party arrived at Hut Point to find Campbell already there. "At long last there's something cheerful to record," wrote Gran in his diary. [1]
Notes:
[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 27 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.221.
November 27, 2012
November 26, 2012
Monday, 26 November 1912
Scott
The search party arrived at Safety Camp. "Since 'lunch' at midnight," Gran wrote in his diary, "Wright, Nelson, and I have hauled 'Abdullah's' sledge. The animal was exhausted and simply couldn't get on at all." [2]
Notes:
[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Tryggve Gran, diary, 26 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.221.
Hooper and Abdullah at Cape Evans, 1912. [1]
The search party arrived at Safety Camp. "Since 'lunch' at midnight," Gran wrote in his diary, "Wright, Nelson, and I have hauled 'Abdullah's' sledge. The animal was exhausted and simply couldn't get on at all." [2]
Notes:
[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Tryggve Gran, diary, 26 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.221.
November 17, 2012
Sunday, 17 November 1912
Scott
For the return to Hut Point, Gran put on Scott's skis: "they at any rate will complete the 3,000-km trail," he wrote in his diary. [2] They hurried back, for (to their knowledge) there was still no news of Campbell and his men.
Notes:
[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 17 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.218. A film clip of Gran in 1962 recalling the finding of Scott is posted at NRK.no/skole.
For the return to Hut Point, Gran put on Scott's skis: "they at any rate will complete the 3,000-km trail," he wrote in his diary. [2] They hurried back, for (to their knowledge) there was still no news of Campbell and his men.
Notes:
[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 17 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.218. A film clip of Gran in 1962 recalling the finding of Scott is posted at NRK.no/skole.
November 15, 2012
Friday, 15 November 1912
Scott
A commemorative card with an illustration of Oates's memorial, 1913. [1]
The search party went on to look for Oates, but found only his sleeping bag a few miles away. They put up another cairn and cross, which was marked "Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Capt. L.E.G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons."
Amundsen's letter to King Haakon, left at Polheim 17th December 1911, and collected by Scott a month later. [2]
Back at what Williamson called "Sorrowful Camp", he and Gran found by chance a bag containing Amundsen's letter to King Haakon, among the debris on Scott's sledge.
Cherry, knowing now that Scott and his party had been only sixty miles away when he and Dimitri had waited for them at One Ton, was haunted by self-recrimination. "If only we had travelled for a day and a half," he wrote in his diary, "we might have left some food and oil on one of the cairns, hoping that they would see it.... It will always to the end of my life be a great sorrow to me that we did not do this." [3]
Amundsen
One of Amundsen's receptions, at an unidentified location. [4] Amundsen lectured on his attainment of the South Pole at the Queen's Hall, London. Kathleen Scott was present; his photographs, she thought, "were very poor, & many of them faked -- painted etc." [5] (In the days before colour photography, prints and lantern slides were frequently touched up by hand.)
A Bristol schoolgirl who also attended one of Amundsen's lectures wrote in her diary, "Amundsen had a simply killing Norwegian accent. And we had to consentrate [sic] for all we were worth to be able to understand what he said. [The slides were] mostly coloured and simply lovely.... Amundsen told us that many people asked what was the use of trying to get to the S. Pole etc. The man said with the utmost scorn, 'Little minds have only room for thoughts of bread & butter.'" [6]
Notes:
[1] Dundee Heritage Trust.
[2] Source unknown.
[3] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, 15 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.556.
[4] Roald Amundsen Bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[5] Kathleen Scott, [source not given] quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.8. In Mrs Scott's defence, it is difficult at times not to compare Ponting's brilliant photographs with the rather indifferent ones from Amundsen's expedition.
[6] Quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.7.
November 13, 2012
Wednesday, 13 November 1912
Scott
"Hour after hour, so it seemed to me," Cherry wrote later, "Atkinson sat in our tent and read. The finder was to read the diary and then it was to be brought home -- these were Scott's instructions written on the cover. But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened -- and after that they were brought home unopened and unread. When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates' death, which Scott had expressly wished to be known." [1]
"Of their sufferings hardship and devotion to one another the world will soon know," wrote Williamson, "the deeds that were done were equally as great as any committed on Battlefield and the respect and honour of every true Britisher." [2]
But, wrote Gran in his diary, "I cannot rid myself of the thought that we ought to have been able to save Scott. Perhaps we might have succeeded if Cherry could have navigated. My companions are too phlegmatic. It is sometimes a good thing to raise Hell. Perhaps Scott himself is most to blame. He did not want to risk others' lives to save his own. But I wonder if he didn't also think that if Shackleton managed to come back without help, so could he -- and so he could, if it had been Our Lord's intention .... Atkinson was too much the calm, conservative doctor. He is capable, but too unimaginative. Ah yes, it is sad indeed." [3]
"The question of what we might have done for them with the dog teams is terribly on my mind," wrote Cherry, "but we obeyed instructions, and did our very utmost -- up to breaking down ourselves -- and I know that we did our best. To have found that they were here when we were at One Ton could have been most terrible -- but they did not get here till 11 days after we had to leave: & we could not have waited longer." He added, "It is all too horrible -- I am almost afraid to go to sleep now." [1]
Notes:
[1] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.14.
[2] Thomas Williamson, diary, [date not given], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.556.
[3] Tryggve Gran, diary, [13 November, 1912?], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.555.
[4] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, 12-13 November 1912, Scott Polar Research Institute.
"Hour after hour, so it seemed to me," Cherry wrote later, "Atkinson sat in our tent and read. The finder was to read the diary and then it was to be brought home -- these were Scott's instructions written on the cover. But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened -- and after that they were brought home unopened and unread. When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates' death, which Scott had expressly wished to be known." [1]
"Of their sufferings hardship and devotion to one another the world will soon know," wrote Williamson, "the deeds that were done were equally as great as any committed on Battlefield and the respect and honour of every true Britisher." [2]
But, wrote Gran in his diary, "I cannot rid myself of the thought that we ought to have been able to save Scott. Perhaps we might have succeeded if Cherry could have navigated. My companions are too phlegmatic. It is sometimes a good thing to raise Hell. Perhaps Scott himself is most to blame. He did not want to risk others' lives to save his own. But I wonder if he didn't also think that if Shackleton managed to come back without help, so could he -- and so he could, if it had been Our Lord's intention .... Atkinson was too much the calm, conservative doctor. He is capable, but too unimaginative. Ah yes, it is sad indeed." [3]
"The question of what we might have done for them with the dog teams is terribly on my mind," wrote Cherry, "but we obeyed instructions, and did our very utmost -- up to breaking down ourselves -- and I know that we did our best. To have found that they were here when we were at One Ton could have been most terrible -- but they did not get here till 11 days after we had to leave: & we could not have waited longer." He added, "It is all too horrible -- I am almost afraid to go to sleep now." [1]
Notes:
[1] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.14.
[2] Thomas Williamson, diary, [date not given], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.556.
[3] Tryggve Gran, diary, [13 November, 1912?], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.555.
[4] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, 12-13 November 1912, Scott Polar Research Institute.
November 12, 2012
Tuesday, 12 November 1912
Scott
Early in the morning, about ten miles south of One Ton Depot, they saw in the distance what they thought was a cairn. Wright, going over to investigate, saw that it was a tent that had been drifted up.
Wright later wrote, "I had been plugging away along my chosen course when I saw a small object projecting above the surface on the starboard bow, but carried on the chosen course until we were nearly abreast of this object.... I decided [it] had better be investigated more closely, but did not expect if was of great interest.... It was the 6 inches or so tip of a tent and was a great shock.... I tried to signal my party to stop and come up to me, but my alphabetical signals could not be read by the navy and I considered it would be a sort of sacrilege to make a noise. I felt much as if I were in a cathedral and found myself with my hat on." [2]
He went out to meet the rest of the advance party, waiting until Atkinson and Cherry could arrive.
"Wright came across to us," Cherry wrote afterwards. "'It is the tent.' I do not know how he knew. Just a waste of snow: to our right the remains of one of last year's cairns, a mere mound: and then three feet of bamboo sticking quite alone out of the snow: and then another mound, of snow, perhaps a trifle more pointed. We walked up to it. I do not think we quite realized -- not for very long -- but some one reached up to a projection of snow, and brushed it away. The green flap of the ventilator of the tent appeared, and we knew that the door was below." [3]
"I must own I shed a few tears," wrote Williamson, "and I know the others did the same, it came as a great shock to us all, although we knew full well for months past that we should meet with this sort of thing everyone seemed dumfounded [sic] we did not touch anything but just stood gazing and wondering what awful secrets the tent held for us." [4]
Two of the men went into the tent, but they could see little as the drift around it obscured the light, until they dug it out.
"Everything was tidy," wrote Cherry later. "The tent had been pitched as well as ever, with the door facing down the sastrugi, the bamboos with a good spread, the tent itself taut and shipshape. There was no snow inside the inner lining. There were some loose pannikins from the cooker, the ordinary tent gear, the personal belongings and a few more letters and records -- personal and scientific. Near Scott was a lamp formed from a tin and some lamp wick off a finnesko. It had been used to burn the little methylated spirit which remained. I think that Scott had used it to help him to write up to the end. I feel sure that he had died last -- and once I had thought that he would not go so far as some of the others. We never realized how strong that man was, mentally and physically, until now."
After ordering camp to be made a little ways off, Atkinson then opened the tent and, before anything was removed, insisted on each of them going in one by one, so that there could be no disagreement over what was found.
"Captain Scott lay in the middle, half out of his sleeping bag," Gran wrote, "Bowers on his right, and Wilson on his left but twisted round with his head and upper body up against the tent pole. Wilson and Bowers were right inside their sleeping bags. The cold had turned their skin yellow and glassy, and there were masses of marks of frost-bite. Scott seemed to have fought hard at the moment of death, but the others gave the impression of having passed away in their sleep." [5]
"I did not go over for quite a good time," Williamson wrote, "for fear I could not look on this most pityable [sic] scene, but when at last I made up my mind I saw a most ghastly sight, those sleeping bags with frozen bodies in them the one in the middle I recognized as Capt. Scott ... the other two bodies I did not see, nor did I care to see them poor fellows." [6]
When they had finished, Atkinson took out the watches and documents, and the tent was collapsed over the bodies and a cairn built, topped by Gran's skis tied into a cross. Atkinson read the burial service.
"We never moved them," wrote Cherry. "We took the bamboos of the tent away, and the tent itself covered them. And over them we built the cairn. I do not know how long we were there, but when all was finished, and the chapter of Corinthians had been read, it was midnight of some day. The sun was dipping low above the Pole, the Barrier was almost in shadow. And the sky was blazing -- sheets and sheets of iridescent clouds. The cairn and Cross stood dark against a glory of burnished gold."
"It was a truly solemn moment," Gran wrote. "It was moving to witness 11 weather-beaten men standing with bared heads singing. The sun flamed through threatening storm-clouds, and strange colours played over the icy desert. Driving snow whirled up around us and, when the hymns came to an end, a white mantle had already covered the dead." [7]
Notes:
[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Charles S. Wright, Silas : the Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright (Columbus : Ohio University, 1993), quoted by David Crane in Scott of the Antarctic (New York : Knopf, c2005), p.509.
[3] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.14.
[4] Thomas Williamson, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.554.
[5] Tryggve Gran, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.216.
[6] Thomas Williamson, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.554.
[7] Tryggve Gran, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.217.
The cairn, November 1912. [1]
Early in the morning, about ten miles south of One Ton Depot, they saw in the distance what they thought was a cairn. Wright, going over to investigate, saw that it was a tent that had been drifted up.
Wright later wrote, "I had been plugging away along my chosen course when I saw a small object projecting above the surface on the starboard bow, but carried on the chosen course until we were nearly abreast of this object.... I decided [it] had better be investigated more closely, but did not expect if was of great interest.... It was the 6 inches or so tip of a tent and was a great shock.... I tried to signal my party to stop and come up to me, but my alphabetical signals could not be read by the navy and I considered it would be a sort of sacrilege to make a noise. I felt much as if I were in a cathedral and found myself with my hat on." [2]
He went out to meet the rest of the advance party, waiting until Atkinson and Cherry could arrive.
"Wright came across to us," Cherry wrote afterwards. "'It is the tent.' I do not know how he knew. Just a waste of snow: to our right the remains of one of last year's cairns, a mere mound: and then three feet of bamboo sticking quite alone out of the snow: and then another mound, of snow, perhaps a trifle more pointed. We walked up to it. I do not think we quite realized -- not for very long -- but some one reached up to a projection of snow, and brushed it away. The green flap of the ventilator of the tent appeared, and we knew that the door was below." [3]
"I must own I shed a few tears," wrote Williamson, "and I know the others did the same, it came as a great shock to us all, although we knew full well for months past that we should meet with this sort of thing everyone seemed dumfounded [sic] we did not touch anything but just stood gazing and wondering what awful secrets the tent held for us." [4]
Two of the men went into the tent, but they could see little as the drift around it obscured the light, until they dug it out.
"Everything was tidy," wrote Cherry later. "The tent had been pitched as well as ever, with the door facing down the sastrugi, the bamboos with a good spread, the tent itself taut and shipshape. There was no snow inside the inner lining. There were some loose pannikins from the cooker, the ordinary tent gear, the personal belongings and a few more letters and records -- personal and scientific. Near Scott was a lamp formed from a tin and some lamp wick off a finnesko. It had been used to burn the little methylated spirit which remained. I think that Scott had used it to help him to write up to the end. I feel sure that he had died last -- and once I had thought that he would not go so far as some of the others. We never realized how strong that man was, mentally and physically, until now."
After ordering camp to be made a little ways off, Atkinson then opened the tent and, before anything was removed, insisted on each of them going in one by one, so that there could be no disagreement over what was found.
"Captain Scott lay in the middle, half out of his sleeping bag," Gran wrote, "Bowers on his right, and Wilson on his left but twisted round with his head and upper body up against the tent pole. Wilson and Bowers were right inside their sleeping bags. The cold had turned their skin yellow and glassy, and there were masses of marks of frost-bite. Scott seemed to have fought hard at the moment of death, but the others gave the impression of having passed away in their sleep." [5]
"I did not go over for quite a good time," Williamson wrote, "for fear I could not look on this most pityable [sic] scene, but when at last I made up my mind I saw a most ghastly sight, those sleeping bags with frozen bodies in them the one in the middle I recognized as Capt. Scott ... the other two bodies I did not see, nor did I care to see them poor fellows." [6]
When they had finished, Atkinson took out the watches and documents, and the tent was collapsed over the bodies and a cairn built, topped by Gran's skis tied into a cross. Atkinson read the burial service.
"We never moved them," wrote Cherry. "We took the bamboos of the tent away, and the tent itself covered them. And over them we built the cairn. I do not know how long we were there, but when all was finished, and the chapter of Corinthians had been read, it was midnight of some day. The sun was dipping low above the Pole, the Barrier was almost in shadow. And the sky was blazing -- sheets and sheets of iridescent clouds. The cairn and Cross stood dark against a glory of burnished gold."
"It was a truly solemn moment," Gran wrote. "It was moving to witness 11 weather-beaten men standing with bared heads singing. The sun flamed through threatening storm-clouds, and strange colours played over the icy desert. Driving snow whirled up around us and, when the hymns came to an end, a white mantle had already covered the dead." [7]
Notes:
[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Charles S. Wright, Silas : the Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright (Columbus : Ohio University, 1993), quoted by David Crane in Scott of the Antarctic (New York : Knopf, c2005), p.509.
[3] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.14.
[4] Thomas Williamson, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.554.
[5] Tryggve Gran, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.216.
[6] Thomas Williamson, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.554.
[7] Tryggve Gran, diary, 12 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.217.
November 7, 2012
Thursday, 7 November 1912
Scott
The Northern Party upon their return, 1912. From left, Abbott, Campbell, Dickason, Priestley, Levick, and Browning.[1]
After a brief stop at the Discovery Hut -- where they found Atkinson's note for Pennell to the effect that "Wright and 8 men with the mules which the ship brought this year, and Atkinson with Dimitri and Cherry-Garrard, have gone off to search for the bodies" [2] -- Campbell and his Northern Party arrived back at Cape Evans. Debenham and Archer were the only ones there.
Despite often-horrible conditions on the journey, they had even -- heroically -- managed to collect geological specimens depoted by Edgworth David during the first half of his 1908-09 journey along the same route.
They had been gone 304 days.
"Campbell reached Hut Point only five days after we left it with the dog-teams," wrote Cherry later. "A characteristic note left to greet us on our return regretted they were too late to take part in the Search Journey. If I had lived through ten months such as those men had just endured, wild horses would not have dragged me out sledging again. But they were keen to get some useful work done in the time which remained until the ship arrived." [3]
Notes:
[1] Scott Polar Research Institute. The photograph is catalogued by SPRI in the Levick Collection; it may therefore have been taken by Levick himself, at Hut Point.
[2] Quoted by Katherine Lambert in The Longest Winter (Washington DC : Smithsonian Books, c2004), p.183.
[3] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.19.
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