not gathered together at Cape Evans for the winter until May 12. During
the latter half of the winter a journey was made by three men led by
Wilson to Cape Crozier to investigate the embryology of the Emperor
penguin: this is called the Winter Journey.

The journey to the South Pole absorbed the energies of most of the
sledging members during the following summer of 1911-12. The motor party
turned back on the Barrier; the dog party at the bottom of the Beardmore
Glacier. From this point twelve men went forward. Four of these men under
Atkinson returned from the top of the glacier in latitude 85 deg. 3' S.: they
are known as the First Return Party. A fortnight later in latitude 87 deg.
32' S. three more men returned under Lieutenant Evans: these are the
Second Return Party. Five men went forward, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates
and Seaman Evans. They reached the Pole on January 17 to find that
Amundsen had reached it thirty-four days earlier. They returned 721
statute miles and perished 177 miles from their winter quarters.

The supporting parties got back safely, but Lieutenant Evans was very
seriously ill with scurvy. The food necessary for the return of the Polar
Party from One Ton Camp had not been taken out at the end of February
1912. Evans' illness caused a hurried reorganization of plans, and I was
ordered to take out this food with one lad and two dog-teams. This was
done, and the journey may be called the Dog Journey to One Ton Camp.

We must now go back to the six men led by Campbell who were landed at
Cape Adare in the beginning of 1911. They were much disappointed by the
small amount of sledge work which they were able to do in the summer of
1911-1912, for the sea-ice in front of them was blown out early in the
year, and they were unable to find a way up through the mountains behind
them on to the plateau. Therefore, when the Terra Nova appeared on
January 4, it was decided that she should land them with six weeks'
sledging rations and some extra biscuits, pemmican and general food near
Mount Melbourne at Evans Coves, some 250 geographical miles south of Cape
Adare, and some 200 geographical miles from our Winter Quarters at Cape
Evans. Late on the night of January 8, 1912, they were camped in this
spot and saw the last of the ship steaming out of the bay. They had
arranged to be picked up again on February 18.

Let us return to McMurdo Sound. My two dog-teams arrived at Hut Point
from One Ton Depot on March 16 exhausted. The sea-ice was still in from
the Barrier to Hut Point, but from there onwards was open water, and
therefore no communication was possible with Cape Evans. Atkinson, with
one seaman, was at Hut Point and the situation which he outlined to me on
arrival was something as follows:

The ship had left and there was now no possibility of her returning owing
to the lateness of the season, and she carried in her Lieut. Evans, sick
with scurvy, and five other officers and three men who were returning
home this year. This left only four officers and four men at Cape Evans,
in addition to the four of us at Hut Point.

The serious part of the news was that owing to a heavy pack the ship had
been absolutely unable to reach Campbell's party at Evans Coves. Attempt
after attempt had made without success. Would Campbell winter where he
was? Would he try to sledge down the coast?

In the absence of Scott the command of the expedition under the
extraordinarily difficult circumstances which arose, both now and during
the coming year, would naturally have devolved upon Lieutenant Evans. But
Evans, very sick, was on his way to England. The task fell to Atkinson,
and I hope that these pages will show how difficult it was, and how well
he tackled it.

There were now, that is since the arrival of the dog-teams four of us at
Hut Point; and no help could be got from Cape Evans owing to the open
water which intervened. Two of us were useless for further sledging and
the dogs were absolutely done. As time went on anxiety concerning the
non-arrival of the Polar Party was added to the alarm we already felt
about Campbell and his men; winter was fast closing down, and the weather
was bad. So little could be done by two men. What was to be done? When
was it to be done with the greatest possible chance of success? Added to
all his greater anxieties Atkinson had me on his hands--and I was pretty
ill.

In the end he made two attempts.

The first with one seaman, Keohane, to sledge out on to the Barrier,
leaving on March 26. They found the conditions very bad, but reached a
point a few miles south of Corner Camp and returned. Soon after we knew
the Southern Party must be dead.

Nothing more could be done until communication was effected with Winter
Quarters at Cape Evans. This was done by a sledge journey over the newly
frozen ice in the bays on April 10. Help arrived at Hut Point on April
14.

The second attempt was then made, and this consisted of a party of four
men who tried to sledge up the Western Coast in order to meet and help
Campbell if he was trying to sledge to us. This plucky attempt failed, as
indeed it was practically certain it would.

The story of the winter that followed will be told, and of the decision
which had to be taken to abandon either the search for the Polar Party
(who must be dead) and their records, or Campbell and his men (who might
be alive). There were not enough men left to do both. We believed that
the Polar Party had come to grief through scurvy, or through falling into
a crevasse--the true solution never occurred to us, for we felt sure that
except for accident or disease they could find their way home without
difficulty. We decided to leave Campbell to find his way unaided down the
coast, and to try and find the Polar Party's records. To our amazement we
found their snowed-up tent some 140 geographical miles from Hut Point,
only 11 geographical miles from One Ton Camp. They had arrived there on
March 19. Inside the tent were the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers.
Oates had willingly walked out to his death some eighteen miles before in
a blizzard. Seaman Evans lay dead at the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier.

*       *       *       *       *

Having found the bodies and the records the Search Party returned,
proposing to make their way up the Western Coast in search of Campbell.
On arrival at Hut Point with the dog-teams, I must have gone to open the
hut door and found pinned on to it a note in Campbell's handwriting; but
my recollection of this apparently memorable incident is extraordinarily
vague. It was many long months since we had had good news. This was their
story.

When Campbell originally landed at Evans Coves he brought with him
sledging provisions for six weeks, in addition to two weeks' provisions
for six men, 56 lbs. sugar, 24 lbs. cocoa, 36 lbs. chocolate and 210 lbs.
of biscuit, some Oxo and spare clothing. In short, after the sledge work
which they proposed, and actually carried out, the men were left with
skeleton rations for four weeks. They had also a spare tent and an extra
sleeping-bag. It was not seriously anticipated that the ship would have
great difficulty in picking them up in the latter half of February.

Campbell's party had carried out successful sledging and useful
geological work in the region of Evans Coves. They had then camped on the
beach and looked for the ship to relieve them. There was open water
lashed to fury by the wind so far as they could see, and yet she did not
come. They concluded that she must have been wrecked. The actual fact was
that thick pack ice lay beyond their vision through which Pennell was
trying to drive his ship time after time, until he had either to go or to
be frozen in. He never succeeded in approaching nearer than 27 miles.

It was now that a blizzard wind started to blow down from the plateau
behind them out into the continually open sea in front. The situation was
bad enough already, but of course such weather conditions made it
infinitely worse. Evans Coves is paved with boulders over which all
journeys had to be fought leaning against the wind as it blew: when a
lull came the luckless traveller fell forward on to his face. Under these
circumstances it was decided that preparations must be made to winter
where they were, and to sledge down the coast to Cape Evans in the
following spring. The alternative of sledging down the coast in March and
April never seems to have been seriously considered. At Hut Point, of
course, we were entirely in the dark as to what the party would do, hence
Atkinson's journey over to the western side in April 1912.

Meanwhile the stranded men divided into two parties of three men each.
The first under Campbell sank a shaft six feet down into a large
snow-drift and thence, with pick and shovel, excavated a passage and at
the end of it a cave, twelve feet by nine feet, and five feet six inches
high. The second under Levick sought out and killed all the seal and
penguin they could find, but their supply was pitifully small, and the
men never had a full meal until mid-winter night. One man always had to
be left to look after the tents, which were already so worn and damaged
that it was unsafe to leave them in the wind.

By March 17 the cave was sufficiently advanced for three men to move in.
Priestley must tell how this was done, but it should not be supposed that
the weather conditions were in any way abnormal on what they afterwards
called Inexpressible Island:

"March 17. 7 P.M. Strong south-west breeze all day, freshening to a full
gale at night. We have had an awful day, but have managed to shift
enough gear into the cave to live there temporarily. Our tempers have
never been so tried during the whole of our life together, but they have
stood the strain pretty successfully.... May I never have such another
three trips as were those to-day. Every time the wind lulled a little I
fell over to windward, and at every gust I was pitched to leeward, while
a dozen times or more I was taken off my feet and dashed against the
ground or against unfriendly boulders. The other two had equally bad
times. Dickason hurt his knee and ankle and lost his sheath knife, and
Campbell lost a compass and some revolver cartridges in the two trips
they made. Altogether it was lucky we got across at all."[26]

It was a fortunate thing that this wind often blew quite clear without
snowfall or drift. Two days later in the same gale the tent of the other
three men collapsed on top of them at 8 A.M. At 4 P.M. the sun was going
down and they settled to make their way across to their comrades. Levick
tells the story as follows:

"Having done this [securing the remains of the tent, etc.], we started on
our journey. This lay, first of all, across half a mile of clear blue
ice, swept by the unbroken wind, which met us almost straight in the
face. We could never stand up, so had to scramble the whole distance on
'all fours,' lying flat on our bellies in the gusts. By the time we had
reached the other side we had had enough. Our faces had been rather badly
bitten, and I have a very strong recollection of the men's countenances,
which were a leaden blue, streaked with white patches of frost-bite. Once
across, however, we reached the shelter of some large boulders on the
shore of the island, and waited here long enough to thaw out our noses,
ears, and cheeks. A scramble of another six hundred yards brought us to
the half-finished igloo, into which we found that the rest of the party
had barricaded themselves, and, after a little shouting, they came and
let us in, giving us a warm welcome, and about the most welcome hot meal
that I think any of us had ever eaten."

[Illustration: PRIESTLEY AND CAMPBELL]

Priestley continues:

"After the arrival of the evicted party we made hoosh, and as we warmed
up from the meal, we cheered up and had one of the most successful
sing-songs we had ever had forgetting all our troubles for an hour or
two. It is a pleasing picture to look back upon now, and, if I close my
eyes, I can see again the little cave cut out in snow and ice with the
tent flapping in the doorway, barely secured by ice-axe and shovel
arranged crosswise against the side of the shaft. The cave is lighted up
with three or four small blubber lamps, which give a soft yellow light.
At one end lie Campbell, Dickason and myself in our sleeping-bags,
resting after the day's work, and, opposite to us, on a raised dais
formed by a portion of the floor not yet levelled, Levick, Browning and
Abbott sit discussing their seal hoosh, while the primus hums cheerily
under the cooker containing the coloured water which served with us
instead of cocoa. As the diners warm up jests begin to fly between the
rival tents and the interchange is brisk, though we have the upper hand
to-day, having an inexhaustible subject in the recent disaster to their
tent, and their forced abandonment of their household gods. Suddenly some
one starts a song with a chorus, and the noise from the primus is dwarfed
immediately. One by one we go through our favourites, and the concert
lasts for a couple of hours. By this time the lamps are getting low, and
gradually the cold begins to overcome the effects of the hoosh and the
cocoa. One after another the singers begin to shiver, and all thoughts of
song disappear as we realize what we are in for. A night with one one-man
bag between two men! There is a whole world of discomfort in the very
thought, and no one feels inclined to jest about that for the moment.
Those jests will come all right to-morrow when the night is safely past,
but this evening it is anything but a cheery subject of contemplation.
There is no help for it, however, and each of us prepares to take another
man in so far as he can."[27]

In such spirit and under very similar conditions this dauntless party
set about passing through one of the most horrible winters which God has
invented. They were very hungry, for the wind which kept the sea open
also made the shore almost impossible for seals. There were red-letter
days, however, such as when Browning found and killed a seal, and in its
stomach, "not too far digested to be still eatable," were thirty-six
fish. And what visions of joy for the future. "We never again found a
seal with an eatable meal inside him, but we were always hoping to do so,
and a kill was, therefore, always a gamble. Whenever a seal was sighted
in future, some one said, 'Fish!' and there was always a scramble to
search the beast first."[28]

They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber lamps. Their clothes
and gear were soaked with blubber, and the soot blackened them, their
sleeping-bags, cookers, walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed
their eyes. Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as to
afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with blubber that
they would stand up by themselves, in spite of frequent scrapings with
knives and rubbings with penguin skins, and always there were underfoot
the great granite boulders which made walking difficult even in daylight
and calm weather. As Levick said, "the road to hell might be paved with
good intentions, but it seemed probable that hell itself would be paved
something after the style of Inexpressible Island."

But there were consolations; the long-waited-for lump of sugar: the
sing-songs--and about these there hangs a story. When Campbell's Party
and the remains of the Main Party forgathered at Cape Evans in November
1912, Campbell would give out the hymns for Church. The first Sunday we
had 'Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore Him,' and the second, and the
third. We suggested a change, to which Campbell asked, "Why?" We said it
got a bit monotonous. "Oh no," said Campbell, "we always sang it on
Inexpressible Island." It was also about the only one he knew. Apart from
this I do not know whether 'Old King Cole' or the Te Deum was more
popular. For reading they had David Copperfield, the Decameron, the Life
of Stevenson and a New Testament. And they did Swedish drill, and they
gave lectures.

Their worst difficulties were scurvy[29] and ptomaine poisoning, for
which the enforced diet was responsible. From the first they decided to
keep nearly all their unused rations for sledging down the coast in the
following spring, and this meant that they must live till then on the
seal and penguin which they could kill. The first dysentery was early in
the winter, and was caused by using the salt from the sea-water. They had
some Cerebos salt, however, in their sledging rations, and used it for a
week, which stopped the disorder and they gradually got used to the
sea-ice salt. Browning, however, who had had enteric fever in the past,
had dysentery almost continually right through the winter. Had he not
been the plucky, cheerful man he is, he would have died.

In June again there was another bad attack of dysentery. Another thing
which worried them somewhat was the 'igloo back,' a semi-permanent kink
caused by seldom being able to stand upright.

Then, in the beginning of September, they had ptomaine poisoning from
meat which had been too long in what they called the oven, which was a
biscuit box, hung over the blubber stove, into which they placed the
frozen meat to thaw it out. This oven was found to be not quite level,
and in a corner a pool of old blood, water and scraps of meat had
collected. This and a tainted hoosh which they did not have the strength
of mind to throw away in their hungry condition, seems to have caused the
outbreak, which was severe. Browning and Dickason were especially bad.

They had their bad days: those first days of realization that they would
not be relieved: days of depression, disease and hunger, all at once:
when the seal seemed as if they would give out and they were thinking
they would have to travel down the coast in the winter--but Abbott killed
two seals with a greasy knife, losing the use of three fingers in the
process, and saved the situation.

But they also had their good, or less-bad, days: such was mid-winter
night when they held food in their hands and did not want to eat it, for
they were full: or when they got through the Te Deum without a hitch: or
when they killed some penguins; or got a ration of mustard plaster from
the medical stores.

Never was a more cheerful or good-tempered party. They set out to see the
humorous side of everything, and, if they could not do so one day, at any
rate they determined to see to it the next. What is more they succeeded,
and I have never seen a company of better welded men than that which
joined us for those last two months in McMurdo Sound.

On September 30 they started home--so they called it. This meant a sledge
journey of some two hundred miles along the coast, and its possibility
depended upon the presence of sea-ice, which we have seen to have been
absent at Evans Coves. It also meant crossing the Drygalski Ice Tongue,
an obstacle which bulked very formidably in their imaginations during the
winter. They reached the last rise of this glacier in the evening of
October 10, and then saw Erebus, one hundred and fifty miles off. The
igloo and the past were behind: Cape Evans and the future were in
front--and the sea-ice was in as far as they could see.

Dickason was half crippled with dysentery when they started, but
improved. Browning, however, was still very ill, but now they were able
to eat a ration of four biscuits a day and a small amount of pemmican and
cocoa which gave him a better chance than the continual meat. As they
neared Granite Harbour, a month after starting, his condition was so
serious that they discussed leaving him there with Levick until they
could get medicine and suitable food from Cape Evans.

But their troubles were nearly over, for on reaching Cape Roberts they
suddenly sighted the depot left by Taylor in the previous year. They
searched round, like dogs, scratching in the drifts, and found--a whole
case of biscuits: and there were butter and raisins and lard. Day and
night merged into one long lingering feast, and when they started on
again their mouths were sore[30] with eating biscuits. More, there is
little doubt that the change of diet saved Browning's life. As they moved
down the coast they found another depot, and yet another. They reached
Hut Point on November 5.

The story of this, our Northern Party, has been told in full by the two
men most able to tell it: by Campbell in the second volume of Scott's
book, by Priestley in a separate volume called Antarctic Adventure.[31] I
have added only these few pages because, save in so far as their
adventures touch the Main Party or the Ship, it is better that I should
refer the reader to these two accounts than that I should try and write
again at second hand what has been already twice told. I will only say
here that the history of what these men did and suffered has been
overshadowed by the more tragic tale of the Polar Party. They are not men
who wish for public applause, but that is no reason why the story of a
great adventure should not be known; indeed, it is all the more reason
why it should be known. To those who have not read it I recommend
Priestley's book mentioned above, or Campbell's equally modest account in
Scott's Last Expedition.[32]

The Terra Nova arrived at Cape Evans on January 18, 1913, just as we had
started to prepare for another year. And so the remains of the expedition
came home that spring. Scott's book was published in the autumn.

The story of Scott's Last Expedition of 1910-13 is a book of two volumes,
the first volume of which is Scott's personal diary of the expedition,
written from day to day before he turned into his sleeping-bag for the
night when sledging, or in the intervals of the many details of
organization and preparation in the hut, when at Winter Quarters. The
readers of this book will probably have read that diary and the accounts
of the Winter Journey, the last year, the adventures of Campbell's Party
and the travels of the Terra Nova which follow. With an object which I
will explain presently I quote a review of Scott's book from the pen of
one of Mr. Punch's staff:[33]

"There is courage and strength and loyalty and love shining out of the
second volume no less than out of the first; there were gallant gentlemen
who lived as well as gallant gentlemen who died; but it is the story of
Scott, told by himself, which will give the book a place among the great
books of the world. That story begins in November 1910, and ends on March
29, 1912, and it is because when you come to the end, you will have lived
with Scott for sixteen months, that you will not be able to read the last
pages without tears. That message to the public was heartrending enough
when it first came to us, but it was as the story of how a great hero
fell that we read it; now it is just the tale of how a dear friend died.
To have read this book is to have known Scott; and if I were asked to
describe him, I think I should use some such words as those which, six
months before he died, he used of the gallant gentleman who went with
him, 'Bill' Wilson. 'Words must always fail when I talk of him,' he
wrote; 'I believe he 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. Whatever the matter, one knows Bill will be sound, shrewdly
practical, intensely loyal, and quite unselfish.' That is true of Wilson,
if Scott says so, for he knew men; but most of it is also true of Scott
himself. I have never met a more beautiful character than that which is
revealed unconsciously in these journals. His humanity, his courage, his
faith, his steadfastness, above all, his simplicity, mark him as a man
among men. It is because of his simplicity that his last message, the
last entries in his diary, his last letters, are of such undying beauty.
The letter of consolation (and almost of apology) which, on the verge of
death, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson, wife of the man dying at his side, may
well be Scott's monument. He could have no finer. And he has raised a
monument for those other gallant gentlemen who died--Wilson, Oates,
Bowers, Evans. They are all drawn for us clearly by him in these pages;
they stand out unmistakably. They, too, come to be friends of ours, their
death is as noble and as heartbreaking. And there were gallant gentlemen,
I said, who lived--you may read amazing stories of them. Indeed, it is a
wonderful tale of manliness that these two volumes tell us. I put them
down now; but I have been for a few days in the company of the brave ...
and every hour with them has made me more proud for those that died and
more humble for myself."

I have quoted this review at length, because it gives the atmosphere of
hero-worship into which we were plunged on our return. That atmosphere
was very agreeable; but it was a refracting medium through which the
expedition could not be seen with scientific accuracy--and the expedition
was nothing if not scientific. Whilst we knew what we had suffered and
risked better than any one else, we also knew that science takes no
account of such things; that a man is no better for having made the worst
journey in the world; and that whether he returns alive or drops by the
way will be all the same a hundred years hence if his records and
specimens come safely to hand.

In addition to Scott's Last Expedition and Priestley's Antarctic
Adventures, Griffith Taylor, who was physiographer to the Main Party, has
written an account of the two geological journeys of which he was the
leader, and of the domestic life of the expedition at Hut Point and at
Cape Evans, up to February 1912, in a book called With Scott: The Silver
Lining. This book gives a true glimpse into the more boisterous side of
our life, with much useful information about the scientific part.

Though it bears little upon this book I cannot refrain from drawing the
reader's attention to, and earning some of his thanks for, a little book
called Antarctic Penguins, written by Levick, the Surgeon of Campbell's
Party. It is almost entirely about Adelie penguins. The author spent the
greater part of a summer living, as it were, upon sufferance, in the
middle of one of the largest penguin rookeries in the world. He has
described the story of their crowded life with a humour with which,
perhaps, we hardly credited him, and with a simplicity which many writers
of children's stories might envy. If you think your own life hard, and
would like to leave it for a short hour I recommend you to beg, borrow or
steal this tale, and read and see how the penguins live. It is all quite
true.

So there is already a considerable literature about the expedition, but
no connected account of it as a whole. Scott's diary, had he lived, would
merely have formed the basis of the book he would have written. As his
personal diary it has an interest which no other book could have had. But
a diary in this life is one of the only ways in which a man can blow off
steam, and so it is that Scott's book accentuates the depression which
used to come over him sometimes.

We have seen the importance which must attach to the proper record of
improvements, weights and methods of each and every expedition. We have
seen how Scott took the system developed by the Arctic Explorers at the
point of development to which it had been brought by Nansen, and applied
it for the first time to Antarctic sledge travelling. Scott's Voyage of
the Discovery gives a vivid picture of mistakes rectified, and of
improvements of every kind. Shackleton applied the knowledge they gained
in his first expedition, Scott in this, his second and last. On the whole
I believe this expedition was the best equipped there has ever been, when
the double purpose, exploratory and scientific, for which it was
organized, is taken into consideration. It is comparatively easy to put
all your eggs into one basket, to organize your material and to equip and
choose your men entirely for one object, whether it be the attainment of
the Pole, or the running of a perfect series of scientific observations.
Your difficulties increase many-fold directly you combine the one with
the other, as was done in this case. Neither Scott nor the men with him
would have gone for the Pole alone. Yet they considered the Pole to be an
achievement worthy of a great attempt, and "We took risks, we knew we
took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no
cause for complaint...."

It is, it must be, of the first importance that a system, I will not say
perfected, but developed, to a pitch of high excellence at such a cost
should be handed down as completely as possible to those who are to
follow. I want to so tell this story that the leader of some future
Antarctic expedition, perhaps more than one, will be able to take it up
and say: "I have here the material from which I can order the articles
and quantities which will be wanted for so many men for such and such a
time; I have also a record of how this material was used by Scott, of the
plans of his journeys and how his plans worked out, and of the
improvements which his parties were able to make on the spot or suggest
for the future. I don't agree with such and such, but this is a
foundation and will save me many months of work in preparation, and give
me useful knowledge for the actual work of my expedition." If this book
can guide the future explorer by the light of the past, it will not have
been written in vain.

But this was not my main object in writing this book. When I undertook in
1913 to write, for the Antarctic Committee, an Official Narrative on
condition that I was given a free hand, what I wanted to do above all
things was to show what work was done; who did it; to whom the credit of
the work was due; who took the responsibility; who did the hard sledging;
and who pulled us through that last and most ghastly year when two
parties were adrift, and God only knew what was best to be done; when,
had things gone on much longer, men would undoubtedly have gone mad.
There is no record of these things, though perhaps the world thinks there
is. Generally as a mere follower, without much responsibility, and often
scared out of my wits, I was in the thick of it all, and I know.

Unfortunately I could not reconcile a sincere personal confession with
the decorous obliquity of an Official Narrative; and I found that I had
put the Antarctic Committee in a difficulty from which I could rescue
them only by taking the book off their hands; for it was clear that what
I had written was not what is expected from a Committee, even though no
member may disapprove of a word of it. A proper Official Narrative
presented itself to our imaginations and sense of propriety as a quarto
volume, uniform with the scientific reports, dustily invisible on Museum
shelves, and replete with--in the words of my Commission--"times of
starting, hours of march, ground and weather conditions," not very useful
as material for future Antarcticists, and in no wise effecting any
catharsis of the writer's conscience. I could not pretend that I had
fulfilled these conditions; and so I decided to take the undivided
responsibility on my own shoulders. None the less the Committee, having
given me access to its information, is entitled to all the credit of a
formal Official Narrative, without the least responsibility for the
passages which I have studied to make as personal in style as possible,
so that no greater authority may be attached to them than I deserve.

I need hardly add that the nine years' delay in the appearance of my book
was caused by the war. Before I had recovered from the heavy overdraft
made on my strength by the expedition I found myself in Flanders looking
after a fleet of armoured cars. A war is like the Antarctic in one
respect. There is no getting out of it with honour as long as you can put
one foot before the other. I came back badly invalided; and the book had
to wait accordingly.

[Illustration: FROM NEW ZEALAND TO THE SOUTH POLE--Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
del.--Emery Walker Ltd., Collotypers.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, Introduction.

[2] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, vol. i. p. 23.

[3] Ibid. p. 28.

[4] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, vol. i. p. 268.

[5] Ibid. p. 275.

[6] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. 9.

[7] Ibid. p. 14.

[8] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. p. 117.

[9] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. pp. 216-218.

[10] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. pp. 244-245.

[11] Leonard Huxley, _Life of Sir J. D. Hooker_, vol. ii. p. 443.

[12] Ibid. p. 441.

[13] Nansen, _Farthest North_, vol. i. p. 52.

[14] Nansen, _Farthest North_, vol. ii. pp. 19-20.

[15] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. 229.

[16] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. vii.

[17] Ibid. p. 273.

[18] See Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 490.

[19] Wilson, _Nat. Ant. Exp., 1901-1904_, "Zoology," Part ii. pp.
8-9.

[20] Wilson, _Nat. Ant. Exp., 1901-1904_, "Zoology," Part ii. p.
31.

[21] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. p. 327.

[22] Scott, _The Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. pp. 347-348.

[23] See pp. 128-134.

[24] See pp. xxxi-xxxii.

[25] See p. xxviii.

[26] Priestley, _Antarctic Adventure_, pp. 232-233.

[27] Priestley, _Antarctic Adventure_, pp. 236-237.

[28] Priestley, _Antarctic Adventure_, p. 243.

[29] Atkinson has no doubt that the symptoms of the Northern Party
were those of early scurvy. Conditions of temperature in the
igloo allowed of decomposition occurring in seal meat. Fresh
seal meat brought in from outside reduced the scurvy
symptoms.

[30] This tenderness of gums and tongue is additional evidence of
scurvy.

[31] Published by Fisher Unwin, 1914.

[32] Vol. ii., Narrative of the Northern Party.

[33] A. A. Milne.




CHAPTER I

FROM ENGLAND TO SOUTH AFRICA

Take a bowsy short leave of your nymphs on the shore,
And silence their mourning with vows of returning,
Though never intending to visit them more.
_Dido and Aeneas._


Scott used to say that the worst part of an expedition was over when the
preparation was finished. So no doubt it was with a sigh of relief that
he saw the Terra Nova out from Cardiff into the Atlantic on June 15,
1910. Cardiff had given the expedition a most generous and enthusiastic
send-off, and Scott announced that it should be his first port on
returning to England. Just three years more and the Terra Nova, worked
back from New Zealand by Pennell, reached Cardiff again on June 14, 1913,
and paid off there.

From the first everything was informal and most pleasant, and those who
had the good fortune to help in working the ship out to New Zealand,
under steam or sail, must, in spite of five months of considerable
discomfort and very hard work, look back upon the voyage as one of the
very happiest times of the expedition. To some of us perhaps the voyage
out, the three weeks in the pack ice going South, and the Robinson Crusoe
life at Hut Point are the pleasantest of many happy memories.

Scott made a great point that so far as was possible the personnel of the
expedition must go out with the Terra Nova. Possibly he gave
instructions that they were to be worked hard, and no doubt it was a good
opportunity of testing our mettle. We had been chosen out of 8000
volunteers, executive officers, scientific staff, crew, and all.

We differed entirely from the crew of an ordinary merchant ship both in
our personnel and in our methods of working. The executive officers were
drawn from the Navy, as were also the crew. In addition there was the
scientific staff, including one doctor who was not a naval surgeon, but
who was also a scientist, and two others called by Scott 'adaptable
helpers,' namely Oates and myself. The scientific staff of the expedition
numbered twelve members all told, but only six were on board: the
remainder were to join the ship at Lyttelton, New Zealand, when we made
our final embarcation for the South. Of those on the ship Wilson was
chief of the scientific staff, and united in himself the various
functions of vertebral zoologist, doctor, artist, and, as this book will
soon show, the unfailing friend-in-need of all on board. Lieutenant Evans
was in command, with Campbell as first officer. Watches were of course
assigned immediately to the executive officers. The crew was divided into
a port and starboard watch, and the ordinary routine of a sailing ship
with auxiliary steam was followed. Beyond this no work was definitely
assigned to any individual on board. How the custom of the ship arose I
do not know, but in effect most things were done by volunteer labour. It
was recognized that every one whose work allowed turned to immediately on
any job which was wanted, but it was an absolutely voluntary
duty--Volunteers to shorten sail? To coal? To shift cargo? To pump? To
paint or wash down paintwork? They were constant calls--some of them
almost hourly calls, day and night--and there was never any failure to
respond fully. This applied not only to the scientific staff but also,
whenever their regular duties allowed, to the executive officers. There
wasn't an officer on the ship who did not shift coal till he was sick of
the sight of it, but I heard no complaints. Such a system soon singles
out the real willing workers, but it is apt to put an undue strain upon
them. Meanwhile most of the executive officers as well as the scientific
staff had their own work to do, which they were left to fit in as most
convenient.

The first days out from England were spent in such hard and crowded work
that we shook down very quickly. I then noticed for the first time
Wilson's great gift of tact, and how quick he was to see the small things
which make so much difference. At the same time his passion for work set
a high standard. Pennell was another glutton.

We dropped anchor in Funchal Harbour, Madeira, about 4 P.M. on June 23,
eight days out. The ship had already been running under sail and steam,
the decks were as clear as possible, there was some paintwork to show,
and with a good harbour stow she looked thoroughly workmanlike and neat.
Some scientific work, in particular tow netting and magnetic
observations, had already been done. But even as early as this we had
spent hours on the pumps, and it was evident that these pumps were going
to be a constant nightmare.

In Madeira, as everywhere, we were given freely of such things as we
required. We left in the early morning of June 26, after Pennell had done
some hours' magnetic work with the Lloyd Creak and Barrow Dip Circle.

On June 29 (noon position lat. 27 deg. 10' N., long. 20 deg. 21' W.) it was
possible to write: "A fortnight out to-day, and from the general
appearance of the wardroom we might have been out a year."

We were to a great extent strangers to one another when we left England,
but officers and crew settled down to their jobs quickly, and when men
live as close as we did they settle down or quarrel before very long. Let
us walk into the cabins which surround the small wardroom aft. The first
on the left is that of Scott and Lieutenant Evans, but Scott is not on
board, and Wilson has taken his place. In the next cabin to them is