An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor Read online

  The final send-off from Port Chalmers on Christmas Eve, 1901, was noticeably more restrained than the scene at Lyttelton three days earlier, with events undoubtedly overshadowed by the tragic loss of Bonner. The ship, weighed down with coal, provisions and livestock, steamed ponderously away from civilisation at 9.30 a.m. Louis Bernacchi, who was physicist on the expedition, said every hole and corner of the ship was utilised for something ‘… until the Plimsoll line had sunk so deep it was forgotten’. He described the send-off as a ‘most un-ship-shape confusion’.

  Although the second send-off was a muted affair, Ringarooma was nearby and Crean was able to bid his own personal farewell to former comrades. It would be almost two and a half years before Discovery returned from the South and once again berthed at Lyttelton.

  Christmas Day, 1901 was not what Crean or the rest of the crew might have expected as the Discovery moved slowly south – the first British expedition to sail to the Antarctic since Sir James Clark Ross 60 years earlier. There seems to have been little celebration and the mood on board was more pensive. The death of Bonner was still fresh to the memory and some among the traditionally superstitious sailors may have felt it was a bad omen for the expedition.

  Scott, contemplating at least one year out of contact with civilisation, wrote:

  ‘Christmas Day, 1901 found us on the open expanse of the Southern Ocean, but after such a recent parting from our friends we had none of us had much heart for the festivities of the season and the day passed quietly.’6

  The traditional Christmas dinner was postponed because of the death of Bonner and not eaten until 5 January when Discovery had crossed the Antarctic Circle. Shipwright Duncan, who came from Discovery’s home town of Dundee, summed up the melancholic mood on board as the new year, 1902, dawned with the ship ploughing through the Southern Ocean. He wrote:

  ‘New Year’s morning broke fine, bringing back memories of old, turning my thoughts to My Dear Loved ones at Home, we being about 14,000 miles from them and in Latitude where there has not been any ships for a century and I may say cut off from the civilised world but return as yet being doubtful. Hoping for the best.’7

  Nonetheless, Discovery enjoyed very good weather which was enormously fortunate in view of the heavily over-laden decks and the notorious reputation of the stormy Southern Ocean. It is the most ferocious stretch of water on earth and a strong gale would have posed a serious and potentially catastrophic threat to the ship. Scott admitted that the consequences of gales would have been ‘exceedingly unpleasant’ and accepted that the expedition would have lost its deck cargo – a jumble of provisions cases, heaps of coal, 45 terrified sheep and 23 howling dogs.

  The Discovery party sighted its first iceberg on 2 January 1902 at latitude 65½° south. A day later, Discovery slipped across the Antarctic Circle – 66° 33′ south – and Bernacchi recorded a peculiar sea-going custom in which ordinary seamen are permitted to drink a toast with both feet on the table. It is possible to visualise the ample frame of Crean indulging in this odd ritual for the first of many times he would cross the Circle.

  The Discovery party recorded their first sight of Antarctica at 10.30 p.m., 8 January 1902. Scott wrote:

  ‘All who were not on deck quickly gathered there, to take their first look at the Antarctic Continent; the sun, now near the southern horizon, still shone in a cloudless sky, giving us full daylight.’8

  Bernacchi, whose family originated in Italy, was more expansive, even though he alone of the Discovery party had sailed south before. Bernacchi was physicist on Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink’s Southern Cross expedition, which in 1899 had been the first to deliberately spend a winter in the Antarctic. Now, as he saw the familiar landscape a second time, he was captivated:

  ‘It was a scene of fantastic and unimagined beauty and we remained on deck till morning.’9

  Bernacchi’s book, The Saga of the Discovery, paints a glowing picture of life on the lengthy expedition, though others tell a slightly different tale. Bernacchi said:

  ‘Discovery throughout the whole of her three years’ commission was what is known as “A Happy Ship”. One cannot recall a serious quarrel either among the officers or the men. She was a floating abode of harmony and peace.’10

  However, it was not a view shared throughout the ship and the crew below decks were beginning to complain. For the men the rigid, mind-numbing routine and discipline of naval life remained constant, regardless of the icy conditions. One of Crean’s fellow seamen, Thomas Williamson, writing at the time, painted a different picture to Bernacchi when he said:

  ‘… this monotonous idea of scrubbing the decks every morning in the Antarctic, with the temperature far below freezing point, is something terrible; it seems as though they cannot forget the Navy idea or commandment (thou shalt not miss scrubbing decks no matter under what circumstances) … as soon as you turn the water on it is frozen and then you have to come along with shovels to pick the ice up which the water has made.’11

  Frank Wild, who was to serve both Scott and Shackleton with great distinction, gave a clear signal that Discovery had been a troubled ship right from the start off the coast of the Isle of Wight. He wrote bluntly in a letter home:

  ‘The voyage out to New Zealand was neither eventful nor happy.’12

  Another incident recorded by Reginald Skelton, the chief engineer, also typified the men’s unhappiness. Two stokers had their grog and tobacco stopped because of what Skelton described as ‘discontented language’ about their food. Scott’s biographer, Roland Huntford, believed that Discovery’s sailors were depressed by the unnecessary naval routine and felt uninformed and nervous. No one, he wrote, had bothered to tell them where they were going, nor for how long.

  While this was the best-equipped expedition the British had ever sent south, there was a conspicuous lack of knowledge and understanding about polar matters among the officers on Discovery. Only three men had been to the ice before. Bernacchi had travelled South with Borchgrevink, while Lieutenant Albert Armitage and the doctor, Reginald Koettlitz, had both been on the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition to the Arctic some years earlier.

  Crean’s colleagues on Discovery were a mixed bunch but, under Markham’s influence, they inevitably had a heavy bias towards the navy.

  Scott’s deputy was Albert Armitage, a merchant officer with the P & O. Two of Scott’s former officer colleagues from HMS Majestic were in the party: Lieutenants Michael Barne and Reginald Skelton. Another, Lt Charles Royds, could boast that his uncle, Wyatt Rawson, had once been to the Arctic. The remaining officer was another from the merchant ranks, Ernest Shackleton, a colourful and popular character who was born in Ireland’s County Kildare but moved to London at an early age.

  There were two doctors, Koettlitz and Edward Adrian Wilson, known to one and all as ‘Bill’ and soon to be a close friend of Scott. Geologist was Dublin-born Hartley Ferrar and the biologist was Thomas Hodgson, later to become curator of Plymouth Museum.

  Below decks, the men were largely drawn from the Royal Navy, including experienced sea-dogs like the boatswain Thomas Feather, the second engineer James Dellbridge and Petty Officer Jacob Cross. There was also a group of men who would become celebrated polar veterans during the Heroic Age – men like Edgar ‘Taff’ Evans, Ernest Joyce, Bill Lashly, Frank Wild and Thomas Williamson.

  As a group, they were united by their lack of polar experience. Few, if any, had shown any great interest in polar matters prior to the expedition. Nor was there any obvious reason why, for example, Scott should lead the expedition other than as a means of his personal advancement in the Navy. He had previously displayed no particular interest in the Antarctic and had no experience of the demands which the cold and ice place upon even the most resolute of people. It is unlikely that Scott had bothered to read very many books on the subject.

  What is undeniable is that Scott sailed south clinging to the discredited methods of survival and travel promoted by the obsessive 70-year-old Markham which,
in turn, were based on his own brief experience in the Arctic 50 years earlier.

  Polar survival and travel had made great strides since the 1850s, particularly through the advances made by the proficient and innovative Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen. The American Robert Peary was also developing into a first-class polar explorer at the time and had published several books detailing his methods and experience in the Arctic North.

  But the British expedition was poised to enter unknown and hostile territory without taking a great deal of notice of these advances and with an inexperienced and largely untried group of sailors and scientists.

  Discovery sailed closer to land and on 9 January 1902, anchored at Robertson Bay near Cape Adare, where Borchgrevink – and Bernacchi – had wintered in 1899. Some made a brief visit to Borchgrevink’s hut and Lashly added a homely touch to proceedings:

  ‘I have also left a letter to my wife – she may get it some day if the postman should happen to come this way.’13

  More important for the safety of the expedition, a note was left in a tin cylinder recording Discovery’s position. Scott had sailed south with comparatively vague instructions about a landing and wintering site and if the Discovery was crushed by the ice, search parties would have great difficulty locating the lost party. The note in the tin box was their only communication with the outside world if they became lost.

  After some weeks sailing along the coast, new territory was discovered on 30 January 1902, and Scott named it Edward VII Land in honour of the new King. It was the expedition’s first new discovery in Antarctica.

  On 3 February Crean was chosen for the expedition’s first brief sledging journey across the ice into the unknown hinterland. The Irishman joined Armitage, Bernacchi and three others on a brief trip to the south to examine the immediate surroundings, notably the area where the Ice Barrier meets the land. The six men spent an uncomfortable night cramped in a tent made for only three, before returning to Discovery the following afternoon. However, the close quarters did at least keep the men warm and their first significant discovery of the expedition was the uncomfortable fact that temperatures on the Barrier were significantly lower than on the ship. It was a painful early introduction to the rigours of the Antarctic climate.

  Another ‘first’ for the party was achieved while Crean’s party was away when two ascents were made in a balloon. Sir Joseph Hooker, the elderly Arctic veteran, suggested that the party could obtain a better view of the unknown landscape if they ascended in a hydrogen-filled balloon. Scott elected to climb into the cramped little basket and go up first and he came perilously close to achieving another notable ‘first’ – the first man to be killed in a balloon over the Antarctic.

  After climbing slowly to 500 ft, Scott threw out the sandbag weights and the balloon shot upwards to about 800 ft. Fortunately, the weight of the chain halted the upward climb and Scott slowly began to descend. Despite the hair-raising escapade of his captain, the impetuous Shackleton immediately climbed into the basket and began his ascent. He took the first aerial photographs of Antarctica but neither saw anything useful. Wilson, irritated by the whole dangerous episode, said it was ‘perfect madness’ to allow novices to risk their lives. Fortunately for Wilson’s peace of mind, the balloon developed a leak after Shackleton’s ascent and was never used again.

  But there was also some anxiety at the increasingly urgent need to find suitable wintering quarters before the season closed in and, worst of all, that Discovery might became stuck fast in the ice. By 8 February, Scott had reached the head of McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea, close to the imposing volcano Mount Erebus on the edge of the Great Ice Barrier. It was decided to establish the expedition’s base camp at this spot and soon after, a shore party landed. The group immediately began to erect a wooden hut on a rocky promontory, which became known as ‘Hut Point’.

  Originally, it had been intended that Discovery would return to the safety of New Zealand for the winter, leaving a landing party to overwinter and prepare for exploration in the following Antarctic spring and summer. But Scott changed his mind after finding a snug sheltered harbour in which the ship was expected to moor safely during the bitter Antarctic winter. Although the ship would be frozen in for the winter, the belief was that the spring and summer thaw would free her. He was wrong and it would be exactly two years before Discovery was freed from the grip of ice.

  Parties of men worked flat out to bring provisions ashore to the newly erected hut and make the ship ready for its winter hibernation. It was long, heavy work but somehow they also found time for play and Scott recorded:

  ‘After working hours, all hands generally muster on the floe for football. There is plenty of room for a full-sized ground in the bay and the snow is just hard enough to make a good surface.’14

  Scott also sent his novices out onto the ice in an early training session designed to get them accustomed to travel over unfamiliar terrain. Although Scott had consulted the expert Nansen before leaving England, he was blissfully ignorant of the skills of ski travel or dog-sledging. They made an inauspicious start to polar exploration when Charles Ford, the ship’s steward, slipped and broke his leg.

  It was an unhappy start and Crean’s messmate, Williamson, dolefully recorded:

  ‘So, here we are, doomed for at least twelve months.’15

  Shortly afterwards, the party began to dig in and prepare for the dreaded Antarctic winter.

  4

  A home on the ice

  Hut Point, the site of Discovery’s winter quarters, is a small volcanic promontory which lies at the southern end of Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound. In the distance stands the towering, smoking volcanic beacon of Mount Erebus, which rises 12,400 ft (3,779 m) above the frozen sea level and stands imperiously as the world’s most southerly volcano.

  The narrow peninsula reaches out to touch the very tip of the Great Ice Barrier – the vast sheet of floating ice which is up to half a mile thick and covers an area larger than France. The Barrier is 400 miles long and almost 500 miles across at its widest point and in a warmer climate it would be an enormous triangular-shaped bay, lined on one side by an imposing chain of mountains, which point towards the South Pole. Now known as the Ross Ice Shelf, it is the flat, forbidding and hostile gateway to the Transantarctic Mountains, which ultimately lead 10,000 ft up (over 3,000 m) to the Polar Plateau and South Pole itself.

  The Barrier was named after Sir James Clark Ross, who was awestruck when he first encountered the formidable sight 60 years earlier. As he sailed alongside, the Barrier loomed higher than his ships’ masts and Ross said that he might as well try to ‘sail through the cliffs of Dover’.

  There was plenty of work for Crean and his colleagues before the sun finally disappeared for four long months and the officers, scientists and men had little time to waste on idle thoughts about the rigours ahead. Provisions for up to three years were landed, including 42,000 lb (over 19,000 kg) of flour, 3,000 lb (1,360 kg) of roast beef, 800 gallons (3,636 l) of rum and the 45 sheep who had managed to survive the horrendous trip south. There was also an endless supply of equipment, including extra clothing, tents, sledges and a windmill to power a dynamo for lighting. The party also carried a modest printing press on which the South Polar Times was published – the first journal to be published in Antarctica.

  Although the hut had been erected, it was decided to spend the winter on board Discovery. Crean had quickly established himself as a popular and adaptable member of the party, capable of turning his hand to most tasks and with a great appetite for work. Armitage, the navigator and Scott’s second-in-command, was obviously fond of the Kerryman and had spotted a character in the making. In his book, Two Years in the Antarctic, Armitage wrote:

  ‘Crean was an Irishman with a fund of wit and an even temper which nothing disturbed.’

  Crean was in his twenty-fifth year as Discovery sailed south and physically in his prime. He was a big, broad-shouldered man, taller than average, although not as t
all as is often depicted. He had grown since enlisting in the Navy eight years earlier and Crean’s naval records show that he stood 5 ft 10 ins (almost 1.8 m), although some contemporary references described him as being well over 6 ft. It may be that his deep chest and broad shoulders conveyed the impression of greater height and at 5 ft 10 ins he would have been taller than many others at the turn of the century. He was a cheerful-looking soul, with dark brown hair and clear hazel eyes. His trademark was the broad, welcoming grin and a warm ‘open’ face.

  Crean was quickly recognised as a thoroughly dependable and stalwart member of the Discovery party. He soon adapted to life on the ice, developing into a highly capable sledger who was disciplined and never afraid of hard work. Doubtless his upbringing on an Irish farm had acclimatised him to hard work but it was his adaptability, reliability and enduring sense of humour which probably marked Crean out from the bunch. The officers also discovered that he was someone who obeyed orders.

  His selection for the first sledging party immediately after landing had shown that he quickly picked up the knack of man-hauling sledges quicker than most. It was an unlikely talent for a man from the splendid green fields and rolling hills of southwest Ireland.