June 1912

Scott
 

"Afterguard dinner mid-winter 1912", photo by Debenham, June 1912. From left, Cherry, Silas Wright, Atkinson, Nelson, and Gran. [1]

Atkinson's quiet leadership held together those waiting out the winter at Cape Evans. Lectures were given -- "but not as many as during the previous winter when they became rather excessive: and we included outside subjects," noted Cherry, who spoke once on rowing and later on Florence under the Medici -- a second edition of the expedition's South Polar Times was produced, and scientific experiments continued, and Oates's Indian mules occupied much of the men's time. [2]

"This winter is passing a lot better than I thought it would under the circumstances," Keohane wrote. "It is no doubt owing to our skelleywag board everybody is very keen on winning." [3]

"We usually wear our underclothing about a month," noted Williamson. "Now that we have run out of soap we shall be obliged to wear them much longer periods." [4]

But there was no escaping the sight of the empty bunks. "Cherry was his usual cheerful self," Silas remembered later, "but rather subdued by the loss of his two greatest friends." [5] Cherry himself wrote afterwards that it was at times "a ghastly experience." "The scenery has lost much of its beauty to us," wrote Deb, "the auroras are cheap and the cold rather colder." [6]


Notes:

[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, in The Worst Journey in the World, ch.14.
[3] Patrick Keohane, diary, 21 July 1912, quoted by Sara Wheeler in Cherry : a Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (New York : Modern Library, 2003, c2001), p.139.
[4] Thomas Williamson, diary, 11 July 1912, quoted by Sara Wheeler in Cherry : a Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (New York : Modern Library, 2003, c2001), p.139.
[5] Charles S. Wright, in Silas : the Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright (p.300), quoted by Sara Wheeler in Cherry : a Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (New York : Modern Library, 2003, c2001), p.140.
[6] Frank Debenham, in The Quiet Land : the Antarctic Diaries of Frank Debenham (p.143), quoted by Sara Wheeler in Cherry : a Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (New York : Modern Library, 2003, c2001), p.140.

Tuesday, 6 June 1911

Scott

Scott's birthday lunch, 6th June. From left, Bowers, Atkinson, Wright, Nelson, Lt. Evans, Scott, Wilson, Simpson, Taylor, Gran, unknown (possibly Oates?).

"It is my birthday, a fact I might easily have forgotten, but my kind people did not," wrote Scott in his diary. "At lunch an immense birthday cake made its appearance and we were photographed assembled about it. Clissold had decorated its sugared top with various devices in chocolate and crystallised fruit, flags and photographs of myself."

"Captain Robert Falcon Scott's last birthday dinner, 6th June, 1911, photographed by Herbert George Ponting during the British Antarctic ('Terra Nova') Expedition (1910-1913). From left to right: Atkinson, Meares, Cherry-Garrard, Taylor, Nelson, Evans, Scott (centre), Wilson, Simpson, Bowers, Wright, Debenham, and Day. Standing are Oates (left) and Gran." [1]

"After my walk I discovered that great preparations were in progress for a special dinner, and when the hour for that meal arrived we sat down to a sumptuous spread with our sledge banners hung about us. Clissold's especially excellent seal soup, roast mutton and red currant jelly, fruit salad, asparagus and chocolate -- such was our menu. For drink we had cider cup, a mystery not yet fathomed, some sherry and a liqueur.

"After this luxurious meal everyone was very festive and amiably argumentative. As I write there is a group in the dark room discussing political progress with discussions -- another at one corner of the dinner table airing its views on the origin of matter and the probability of its ultimate discovery, and yet another debating military problems. The scraps that reach me from the various groups sometimes piece together in ludicrous fashion. Perhaps these arguments are practically unprofitable, but they give a great deal of pleasure to the participants. It's delightful to hear the ring of triumph in some voice when the owner imagines he has delivered himself of a well-rounded period or a clinching statement concerning the point under discussion. They are boys, all of them, but such excellent good-natured ones; there has been no sign of sharpness or anger, no jarring note, in all these wordy contests! all end with a laugh." [2]


Amundsen

Bjaaland, Hassel, Wisting, Helmer Hanssen, Amundsen, Johansen, Prestrud, and Stubberud around the table at Framheim, in an undated but obviously celebratory photo. [3]

Johansen, on this Norwegian Independence Day, "proposed the Chief's skål, and said that working together was easy on the present expedition, because we had such a straightforward, understanding and pleasant chief." [4]


Notes:

[1] Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.
[2] R.F. Scott, diary, 6 June, 1911, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.
[3] Roald Amundsen Bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[4] Hjalmar Johansen, diary, 7 June, 1911, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.384.

Tuesday, 26 July 1910

Scott

Ilha Trindade, part of the Trindade and Martim Vaz archipelago, date unknown [1]

The Terra Nova put in at South Trinidad (now Ilha Trindade), an uninhabited volcanic island off the east coast of Brazil. Here several parties went ashore, the scientists to hunt specimens. "Cherry-Garrard and I took the birds," Wilson wrote in his diary, "Pennell and Bowers undertook insects and earthworms. Lillie undertook the botany and geology of which there was enough for everyone to observe what they could. Nelson with two or three helpers worked along the coral pools on the shore and caught many of the brightly coloured fish that lived there eating crabs." [2]

Edward W. Nelson and Denis G. Lillie were biologists, to be part of the shore and ship's parties respectively. Like most of the scientific staff, they were both from Cambridge. Lillie was deeply eccentric, believing for one that he had been a Persian or Roman in a previous existence, but despite this -- or perhaps because of it -- he was well-liked on the expedition.


Notes:

[1] Projecto Tamar - ICMBio.
[2] Edward Wilson, diary, 26 July, 1910, in Diary of the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic, 1910-1912 (London : Blandford, c1972), p.27.