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 64 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 65 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 66 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. 67 [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. 68 [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 69 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. 70 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 71 a port and starboard watch, and the ordinary routine of a sailing ship with auxiliary steam was
