An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor Page 11

  Crean’s journey to alert Scott to the plight of Bowers and Cherry-Garrard was the first recorded occasion when the Irishman undertook a solo journey across treacherous terrain to help rescue stricken comrades. It displayed the first clear signs of Crean’s great physical and mental strength under pressure and showed the value of the Irishman’s fortitude and ability to improvise in the most testing circumstances. The incident also demonstrated that Crean had great confidence in his own ability and was not afraid to take risks.

  It was also a foretaste of the heroics which Crean would perform on the Barrier a year later with an even more memorable solo escapade.

  The rescue of his comrades also provided an early insight into the modest and unassuming nature of the Irishman. Frank Debenham, who wrote an appreciation of Crean’s life for the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, remembered chatting to the Irishman about his exploits on the ice floes. He recalled:

  ‘As always he made light of his feats in extricating himself from trouble and all I ever got out of him about that trip was, “Oh I just kept going pretty lively, sorr, them killers wasn’t too healthy company”.’12

  Meantime, Bowers and Cherry-Garrard spent an anxious few hours awaiting rescue before Crean, having recovered from his ordeal, reappeared with Scott and Oates. An alpine rope was used to drag the two men to the surface. But, despite intense efforts, the three remaining ponies were lost.

  Crean’s reward, typical of the unforgiving Antarctic climate, came a few days later when he was struck by a severe case of snowblindness, a painful and debilitating experience for even the toughest of individuals which is caused by too much white light entering the eye. Before the arrival of effective sunglasses, polar travellers were frequently struck by snowblindness and in Crean’s case he was so incapacitated that he could only hold the reins while the others struggled to rescue a pony which had fallen into the freezing waters.

  Soon afterwards, the bulk of the depot-laying party reassembled at Hut Point. But the short journey back to base was impossible because the sea between the old Discovery quarters and Cape Evans had not yet frozen over. To add to their general discomfiture, their numbers were soon swollen to sixteen with the arrival of Griffith Taylor’s geological party from the western mountains.

  On 16 March, Crean was in the eight-man party, the last of the season, which sledged out to Corner Camp, some 35 miles away, in poor weather. Temperatures had soon plunged to –40 °F (–40 °C), visibility was down to 10 yards and winds reached over 30 mph. The season was closing in and provided the men with a grim warning of the dangers facing the polar party, who were scheduled to be making their return at around this time the following year.

  After returning to Hut Point on 24 March, the group waited patiently for the sea to freeze over. But they had to wait until 11 April, with the days shortening, before they could set out for Cape Evans. It was a risk because the sea had not fully frozen and some in the party were understandably concerned. But they arrived safely to a warm welcome from comrades they had not seen for almost three months.

  They were an unkempt bunch, unshaven and dirty after ten weeks in tents out on the Barrier. Ponting, the photographer, wanted to catch a picture of Crean, but he had already clipped off his bushy black growth – thus robbing history of the sight of the Irishman with a full-set beard!

  After a brief stopover the group returned to Hut Point to pick up Wilson and six others who had stayed behind. Scott, who led the group of eight back to Hut Point, took two of his talismen – Crean and Lashly – and was much impressed with their contributions. He wrote:

  ‘I am greatly struck with the advantages of experience in Crean and Lashly for all work about the camps.’13

  Crean had time before the season closed in to show that he was apparently impervious to the cold. He was sharing a tent with Bowers, Hooper and Nelson and during the night temperatures had fallen fast to –38 °F (–39 °C) or 70° of frost. Crean somehow managed to slip head first, half out of the tent and let in a freezing cold stream of air which disturbed the others. Crean, however, slept through the experience and a bemused Bowers was moved to observe:

  ‘It takes a lot to worry Captain Scott’s coxswain.’14

  The bulk of the group returned to Cape Evans on 21 April, tired after three months of hard, cold labour but relieved that the depot-laying work was now finished. But there was no disguising the disappointment felt throughout the group. What was supposed to be a fairly straightforward affair had fallen far short of expectations and delivered a major blow to Scott’s painstaking preparations for the Pole. Only one of the eight ponies had survived the journey and it had taken thirteen men over one month to drag supplies to 79° 28½′ south, about 140 miles from Hut Point.

  In contrast, Amundsen and his dogs had carried considerably more supplies another 120 miles further south. Amundsen was equipped for faster travel, nearer the Pole and now better prepared.

  While Scott had no idea of Amundsen’s progress, he was concerned at the threat posed by the Norwegian party. To compound his anxiety, the loss of the vital ponies would hamper his efforts to transport large caches of food and supplies across the Barrier. As he surveyed the pony losses and helped to pull Bowers and Cherry-Garrard from the ice floe, Scott was heard to remark: ‘This is the end of the Pole’.

  On 23 April, two days after most of the men were reunited at Cape Evans, the sun disappeared for four months and they settled down for another winter of blackened isolation. And to contemplate the challenges ahead.

  8

  Hopes and plans

  Cape Evans was a happier home base than Discovery, possibly because the individuals rubbed along together better and possibly because the routine was less rigid. For example, there were more scientists from civilian life on Terra Nova than on Discovery, which had been dominated by Royal Navy personnel and subject to the stricter naval codes of discipline. The civilians had neutralised the effect of the stiff naval routines.

  To his credit, Scott worked hard to ensure that the men were not idle and devised a number of tasks and events which, generally speaking, kept people busy. While there were inevitably differences between individuals, the diaries and letters of the 25 men who lived at Cape Evans rarely display any deep sense of personal dislike among a diverse group of people who were, after all, literally living on top of one another for months on end. There were people who did not get along with others and their diaries show certain resentments, hardly surprising in the circumstances. There was also criticism of Scott’s methods and decisions. However, these differences never boiled over, perhaps because somehow individuals found a little space away from each other, even in the cramped confines of the 50 ft × 25 ft (15.2 m × 7.6 m) hut perched on a frozen outcrop in the blackness of an Antarctic winter.

  With 25 people inside, the hut was inevitably crowded but comparatively cosy, even if the permanent pall of pipe and cigarette smoke would be frowned upon today. Comparisons with the Discovery routine, particularly the eating habits, were strong.

  Breakfast began with lashings of hot porridge, freshly baked bread and generous helpings of butter and steaming mugs of cocoa. Occasionally fish might be served if someone had managed to catch something in the traps, although fishing was a thoroughly uncomfortable experience in the Antarctic winter.

  Lunch, a more modest affair, was usually bread and cheese, washed down with ample supplies of cocoa. On odd occasions the cook, Thomas Clissold, would serve up tinned sardines or even lamb’s tongues. Supper was the most substantial meal, starting with tinned soup and followed on six days a week by seal meat and tinned fruit. Clissold would vary things a little by serving fried seal liver or seal steak and kidney pie. The highlight of the culinary week was undoubtedly Sunday when Clissold prepared best New Zealand lamb which had been brought down especially on Terra Nova, courtesy of the generous New Zealanders.

  Midwinter’s Day, the surrogate Christmas Day for Antarctic explorers, was celebrated in lavish style. Gran said i
t was a day of ‘champagne and celebration’ and the tables were decorated with flags and bunting. Bowers and the seamen made a Christmas tree from ski sticks and penguin feathers and decorated it with candles and bunting. Drink flowed throughout the day with unusual freedom and the small party needed no second invitation to relieve the winter boredom. Gran remembered that he was forced to climb over 50 bottles of Heidsieck 1904 champagne stacked up in the crew’s quarters.

  Ponting recalled that the meal was ‘food for the gods’ and years later members were able to recall the exact menu. A seal soup was followed by roast sirloin of beef, Yorkshire pudding, horseradish sauce, Brussels sprouts and potatoes. Afterwards a huge plum pudding was carried in head-high to the table, accompanied by joyous shouts from the expectant diners. Those with room to spare could feast on a selection of mince pies, raspberry jellies, walnut toffee, butter bonbons and other delicacies. It was all rounded off with fine liqueurs and rum punch which were served long into the evening while the gramophone played a tinny, nostalgic reminder of home.

  Away from the feasting, one important duty was to ensure that the remaining ten ponies were properly treated and in fit shape to carry out their planned task of shifting tons of essential supplies across the Barrier to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. Trusted people like Crean were asked to assume responsibility for individual ponies and take them for regular exercise throughout the winter.

  Where possible, the men also took as much exercise as the conditions would allow and regular games of football were played on the ice in bone-chilling temperatures of –30 °F (–34 °C) and with winds howling to 40 mph. Scott also recorded that the best players were Atkinson, Hooper, Taff Evans and Tom Crean.

  There were other diversions apart from eating and smoking. The gramophone, donated by HMV, was popular and the small collection of records was played over and over again in the winter evenings. Ideally the men might have enjoyed a little more musical variety from the pianola. Unfortunately, the repertoire of the musicians was limited and these lost their popularity as winter advanced!

  Chess, draughts, backgammon and dominoes were also played and individuals could always retire to their bunks to read and reread the small library which had been provided. Tastes varied, with a few popular cheap novels contrasting with the works of Kipling or Dickens. Oates was famed for burying his nose in Napier’s History of the Peninsula War and, of course, there were the obligatory volumes of recent polar books for those who needed to stir their imagination about the hostile climate outside their door.

  Church services were held on Sundays, with hymns sung. Crean, as a Catholic, was excused, just as he had been on Discovery and would say his prayers alone. There were occasional games of moonlight football and the South Polar Times, which first appeared on Discovery, was revived under the editorship of Cherry-Garrard. A few inveterate gamblers played poker but with money virtually useless in Antarctica, the currency was cigarettes.

  One of the regular features which Scott introduced to help keep people busy was a series of three evening lectures a week delivered by individuals on a wide range of subjects. Ponting was a particular favourite with his talks and lantern shows on his lengthy travels around the world to countries like Burma, India and Japan. Bowers talked about polar clothing and Wilson lectured on the Antarctic’s birds. Oates, predictably, ventured forth on horse management, the physicist Charles Wright tried to hold everyone’s attention with The Constitution of Matter and geologist Frank Debenham lectured on the classification of rocks which, he admitted to his diary, was a ‘very dry subject’.

  The highlight of the lecture season came on 8 May when Scott outlined his plans for the forthcoming polar journey which provided the first clear indication that the explorers faced a very tight and potentially hazardous schedule. He estimated that the party would be gone for a total of 144 days and would not return to Hut Point until about 27 March.

  Scott could not afford to start earlier because of the weakness of the ponies who, as the depot-laying journey had demonstrated, were not suited for travel across the ice and highly vulnerable to the low temperatures of the Antarctic spring. Just as worrying to some was that the scheduled date of return was dangerously late in the season when temperatures would plunge.

  It was certainly too late to catch the ship, Terra Nova, which would have to leave the South by about 10 March to avoid being frozen in like Discovery. This, in turn, meant that the men on the polar party faced a second winter in the Antarctic, an unhappy prospect for some as they were only just starting their first sojourn.

  The men who would lead the assault on the Pole faced a daunting itinerary. It consisted of five months of sledging, first about 400 miles (640 km) across the Barrier, then a 120-mile climb of 10,000 ft (3,000 m) up the Beardmore Glacier and finally around 350 miles across the uncharted Polar Plateau.

  After reaching the Pole they would retrace their steps across the Plateau, down the Beardmore and across the Barrier at a time when, as experience had shown, the weather conditions would be deteriorating badly. From the start, it was a high-risk exercise with precious little margin for error.

  It was a round trip of about 1,800 miles (2,896 km), the longest polar journey ever attempted. The men would have to walk every mile, each one responsible for dragging up to 200 lb (90 kg) across the ice. More worrying than anything else was the knowledge that the party would have to spend 84 days – almost three months – on the hostile Polar Plateau itself, 10,000 ft above sea level and exposed to its fearsomely low temperatures.

  The intention was to take groups of men in parties of three or four, dropping off support parties en route. It was still not clear whether Scott would lead a three-or four-man party on the final assault to the Pole and at this stage, no one knew who would be in the final party. Indeed, it is not clear from his writings at the time that Scott had entirely made up his mind about the men he would take to the Pole. Although he had many months to weigh up the merits of his men, he apparently did not choose his polar party until long after the expedition was under way.

  Significantly, Scott again dismissed the idea of using dogs for the main assault and insisted that a combination of ponies and good old-fashioned man-hauling would be used to get to the Pole. His faith in the motor tractors had vanished during the winter.

  Gran, who fully understood why Amundsen would employ dogs, was sceptical. He already felt distinctly uncomfortable as the sole Norwegian at Cape Evans but his reservations about the planned polar journey were purely practical. He wrote:

  ‘I personally doubt whether the dogs are as useless as he [Scott] says. I wonder whether there isn’t an element of complacency in his attitude when we compare Amundsen’s plan with his 100 dogs?’1

  In the meantime, preparations were under way for a short but highly risky trip in the depths of the dark Antarctic winter to collect the eggs of the Emperor penguin from the rookery at Cape Crozier for embryonic research. The idea was Wilson’s, and Scott, who did not like confrontation, readily agreed to allow him to take along Bowers and Cherry-Garrard, even though he was concerned about the enormous risks of the venture. It was a horrendous trip which would later prompt Cherry-Garrard to call his classic book on the expedition The Worst Journey in the World.

  The purpose of the jaunt was primarily scientific, although Scott also hoped that the three men would test out key equipment and food supplies for the more important polar journey in the spring. What he did not appear to appreciate was that the terrible journey would expose three important members of the expedition team, who were likely to be included in the polar party, to the most appalling travelling conditions and serious risks from which they were very lucky to survive.

  The hazardous and unnecessary journey reflected the essential conflict between exploration and scientific study which characterised Scott’s last expedition and contrasted starkly with the single purpose of Amundsen’s expedition. While Scott had two aims, Amundsen was able to be single-minded.

  A more decisiv
e leader would have vetoed the winter journey in 1911, perhaps saving it for the following season when the Pole had been reached. It is inconceivable that Amundsen would have risked key personnel on the Cape Crozier journey ahead of his attempt on the Pole.

  The three-man group, pulling a 757-lb (343-kg) sledge, managed only a few miles of slog each day in the pitch darkness and almost unimaginable weather conditions. There were constant winds of around 60 mph and temperatures frequently sank to –50 °F (–45 °C). At one stage the thermometer plunged to an astonishing –77.5 °F (–61 °C). In such intense cold, their breath and bodily sweat froze and in one highly graphic recollection Cherry-Garrard said the three men in the sleeping bags shook with cold until they felt their backs would break. He said ‘madness or death may give relief’ and added that they thought of death ‘as a friend’.

  They survived their horrible 36-day ordeal but the penguin eggs proved to be of little scientific value. The three, who were photographed by Ponting immediately after returning from their ordeal, had the haunted, shattered look of men who had stared a terrible death in the face. Gran perhaps summing up the feelings of many at Cape Evans, said that without doubt the three men were in ‘bad shape’ and added: