with the mast and there was nothing to be done.
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The squall passed, the sail was freed and furled, and the next big squall found us ready to lower upper topsails and all was well. Finally the damage was a split sail and a strained mast.
The next morning a new topgallant sail was bent, but quite the biggest hailstorm I have ever seen came on in the middle of the operation. Much of the hail must have been inches in circumference, and hurt even through thick clothes and oilskins. At the same time there were several
waterspouts formed. The men on the topgallant yard had a beastly time. Below on deck men made hail-balls and pretended they were snow.
From now onwards we ran on our course before a gale. By the early morning of October 12 Cape Otway light was in sight. Working double tides in the engine-room, and with every stitch of sail set, we just failed to reach
Port Phillip Heads by mid-day, when the tide turned, and it was impossible to get through. We went up Melbourne Harbour that evening, very dark and blowing hard.
A telegram was waiting for Scott:
"Madeira. Am going South. AMUNDSEN."
This telegram was dramatically important, as will appear when we come to the last act of the tragedy. Captain Roald Amundsen was one of the most notable of living explorers, and was in the prime of life--forty-one, two years younger than Scott. He had been in the Antarctic before Scott, with the Belgica Expedition in 1897-99, and therefore did not consider the South Pole in any sense our property. Since then he had realized the
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dream of centuries of exploration by passing through the North-West Passage, and actually doing so in a 60-ton schooner in 1905. The last we had heard of him was that he had equipped Nansen's old ship, the Fram, for further exploration in the Arctic. This was only a feint. Once at
sea, he had told his men that he was going south instead of north; and when he reached Madeira he sent this brief telegram, which meant, "I shall be at the South Pole before you." It also meant, though we did not appreciate it at the time, that we were up against a very big man.
The Admiral Commanding the Australian Station came on board. The event of the inspection was Nigger, the black ship's cat, distinguished by a white
whisker on the port side of his face, who made one adventurous voyage to the Antarctic and came to an untimely end during the second. The seamen made a hammock for him with blanket and pillow, and slung it forward among their own bedding. Nigger had turned in, not feeling very well, owing to the number of moths he had eaten, the ship being full of them.
When awakened by the Admiral, Nigger had no idea of the importance of the occasion, but stretched himself, yawned in the most natural manner,
turned over and went to sleep again.
This cat became a well-known and much photographed member of the crew of the Terra Nova. He is said to have imitated the Romans of old, being a
greedy beast, by having eaten as much seal blubber as he could hold, made himself sick, and gone back and resumed his meal. He had most beautiful fur. When the ship was returning from the Antarctic in 1911 Nigger was frightened by something on deck and jumped into the sea, which was running fairly rough. However, the ship was hove to, a boat lowered, and Nigger was rescued. He spent another happy year on board, but disappeared
one dark night when the ship was returning from her second journey to the
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South in 1912, during a big gale. He often went aloft with the men, of his own accord. This night he was seen on the main lower topsail yard, higher than which he never would go. He disappeared in a big squall, probably because the yard was covered with ice.
Wilson rejoined the ship at Melbourne; and Scott left her, to arrange further business matters, and to rejoin in New Zealand. When he landed I think he had seen enough of the personnel of the expedition to be able to pass a fair judgment upon them. I cannot but think that he was pleased. Such enthusiasm and comradeship as prevailed on board could bear only good fruit. It would certainly have been possible to find a body of men who could work a sailing ship with greater skill, but not men who were more willing, and that in the midst of considerable discomfort, to work hard at distasteful jobs and be always cheerful. And it must have been
clear that with all the energy which was being freely expended, the expedition came first, and the individual nowhere. It is to the honour of all concerned that from the time it left London to the time it returned
to New Zealand after three years, this spirit always prevailed.
Among the executive officers Scott was putting more and more trust in Campbell, who was to lead the Northern Party. He was showing those characteristics which enabled him to bring his small party safely through one of the hardest winters that men have ever survived. Bowers also had shown seamanlike qualities which are an excellent test by which to judge the Antarctic traveller; a good seaman in sail will probably make a
useful sledger: but at this time Scott can hardly have foreseen that Bowers was to prove "the hardest traveller that ever undertook a Polar journey, as well as one of the most undaunted." But he had already proved
himself a first-rate sailor. Among the junior scientific staff too,
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several were showing qualities as seamen which were a good sign for the future. Altogether I think it must have been with a cheerful mind that Scott landed in Australia.
When we left Melbourne for New Zealand we were all a bit stale, which was not altogether surprising, and a run ashore was to do us a world of good after five months of solid grind, crowded up in a ship which thought nothing of rolling 50Adeg each way. Also, though everything had been done that could be done to provide them, the want of fresh meat and
vegetables was being felt, and it was an excellent thing that a body of
men, for whom every precaution against scurvy that modern science could suggest was being taken, should have a good course of antiscorbutic food and an equally beneficial change of life before leaving civilization.
And so it was with some anticipation that on Monday morning, October 24, we could smell the land--New Zealand, that home of so many Antarctic expeditions, where we knew that we should be welcomed. Scott's Discovery, Shackleton's Nimrod, and now again Scott's Terra Nova have all in turn
been berthed at the same quay in Lyttelton, for aught I know at the same No. 5 Shed, into which they have spilled out their holds, and from which they have been restowed with the addition of all that New Zealand, scorning payment, could give. And from there they have sailed, and thither their relief ships have returned year after year. Scott's words
of the Discovery apply just as much to the Terra Nova. Not only did New
Zealand do all in her power to help the expedition in an official
capacity, but the New Zealanders welcomed both officers and men with open
arms, and "gave them to understand that although already separated by many thousands of miles from their native land, here in this new land
they would find a second home, and those who would equally think of them
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in their absence, and welcome them on their return."
But we had to sail round the southern coast of New Zealand and northwards up the eastern coast before we could arrive at our last port of call. The
wind went ahead, and it was not until the morning of October 28 that we sailed through Lyttelton Heads. The word had gone forth that we should sail away on November 27, and there was much to be done in the brief month that lay ahead.
There followed four weeks of strenuous work into which was sandwiched a considerable amount of play. The ship was unloaded, when, as usual, men and officers acted alike as stevedores, and she was docked, that an examination for the source of the leak might be made by Mr. H. J. Miller
of Lyttelton, who has performed a like service for more than one Antarctic