1912 (12 page)

Wilson later wrote to Edgeworth David, telling him that Mawson would not be joining them. ‘His reason,' Wilson explained, ‘was that there was no work to be done which he considered worth his while, either at King Edward's Land, or from McMurdo Sound, either S. or W. He would have
reconsidered his position had Captain Scott seen his way to landing him as one of the party any where on the coast westward along from Cape North. But until King Edward's Land is worked out this could not form part of our programme.' In February 1910 Mawson's proposed research agenda was low on the British expedition's list of priorities.

David recommended three young men as alternative geologists: Raymond Priestley, who had been south with Shackleton, Frank Debenham and Griffith Taylor. The last was known for his strong views, which were sometimes forcibly given; Taylor would in later life declare, ‘I do not believe that either mental or physical work of a high order is possible for the average Britisher when the wet bulb registers much above 75 degrees,' and would argue the climate of the Australian interior meant it would be best settled by Mongoloids. Still, he was a superb geologist.

Mawson knew him, and expressed his frustration at the British leader's unwillingness to consider Cape Adare: ‘I am almost getting up an expedition of my own—Scott will not do certain work that ought to be done—I quite agree that to do much would be to detract from his chances of the Pole and because of that I am not pressing the matter any further. Certainly I think he is missing the main possibilities of scientific work in the Antarctic by travelling over Shackleton's old route. However he must beat the Yankees…'

Other men were brought in to support the expedition for logistic or financial reasons. Before Scott's effort, one member of an exploration team would traditionally be assigned the role of photographer. Now they had a professional within the ranks. Herbert Ponting, a ‘camera artist', would record the expedition in photographs and on film. The work would help raise much-needed funds, particularly for the second year of the expedition, as Ponting could show a supportive public film and photographs on his return from the first southern summer.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard—Cherry, as he was known on the expedition—and a military man, Captain Lawrence ‘Titus' Oates, both paid £1000 and joined. And, learning of a possible competing Welsh Antarctic Expedition to be led by Edward ‘Teddy' Evans—one of the officers on the
Morning
, which had brought Shackleton home from Antarctica in 1903—Scott invited the young naval lieutenant to join him as his second-in-command. Evans readily agreed.

Nineteen hundred and nine was not a good year to go knocking on people's doors asking for money. The Liberal chancellor David Lloyd George's People's Budget aimed to eliminate poverty in Britain by redistributing the national wealth through taxes on the better-off. The rich were not feeling—outwardly, at least—flush. And it was the rich who Antarctic explorers traditionally sought help from.

Scott was not the only one to struggle. The Scottish were one of the first to find it too much, and they failed to get their Antarctic venture off the ground. The possibility of American competition aided the British fundraising effort, but across the Atlantic the public battle between Peary and Cook over the North Pole failed to galvanise opinion about joining the race south. Financial support dwindled, ending the prospect of an American expedition to Antarctica.

With the American and Scottish teams seemingly out of the running, Scott was more determined than ever to make his expedition a reality. Travelling across the country he gave public lectures, held private talks, and approached companies and schools to sponsor equipment. For all his efforts, though, Scott was nervous about promising rich mineral reserves, and his approaches to possible backers were lacklustre. ‘It would be foolish,' he said to a Manchester audience in February 1910, ‘to hold out a great prospect of the discovery of workable minerals. But if there were such minerals in the South Polar region it was
certain we could not get them without going to look for them.' His deputy, Evans, was not so shy on the subject and used the promise of riches to great effect, garnering substantial funds for the coffers.

The trips around the country were not all about acquiring donations. They were also a chance to meet scientists and engineers to discuss expedition plans. The pioneering Marie Stopes, an expert in ancient plants, allegedly danced the night away with Scott in Manchester, and the young scientist extolled the virtues of finding
Glossopteris
leaves during the expedition. She implored the naval officer to take her south with him. Scott declined, but later visited Stopes at the university to learn more about the fossils she had described so excitedly on the dance floor. Unlike the lead-up to Scott's previous journey, fundraising was indirectly helping to develop the expedition's research program.

Scott had intended to take the
Discovery
south again, but the vessel had been sold and its new owners would not release it. There were not many other choices. Though Shackleton's
Nimrod
was available, Scott selected the old whaling vessel that had been sent south in 1904 to extract him and his men, the
Terra Nova
. The ship cost £12,500, more than a quarter of his original budget, and was in a sorry state. As Evans would later write, ‘Poor little ship, she looked so dirty and uncared for…I often blushed when admirals came down to see our ship, she was so very dirty.'

Removing the whale-blubber tanks, with their overpowering stench, workers scrubbed the
Terra Nova
inside and out, and prepared the vessel in earnest for the expedition's needs. New living spaces were installed, laboratories were put on the poop, the hull was reinforced and a large freezer placed on
the upper deck. Because the freezer was free of iron, it was also home to the ship's compass and the Lloyd-Creak dipping circle—meaning the measurements would be taken alongside 150 frozen mutton carcasses.

As early as 1906 Scott was toying with the innovative idea of a motorised sledge for travelling on the ice. The following year he had approached his friend and colleague from the
Discovery
expedition Reginald Skelton, a naval engineering officer, about helping with its design and going south with him. Skelton threw all his spare time into the project. Originally the plan was to have ‘an ordinary sledge propelled by a broad drum or wheel with “paddles” or “ridges” on its rim, the wheel to be situated between the sledge runners, like the stern wheel of a river steamer and driven by say an 8–10 HP petrol motor'. With two air-cooled cylinders, this new type of sledge was designed to carry twenty-two times what a man could pull, at a healthy pace of five kilometres an hour. If it worked, it would make a world of difference.

In March 1908 the first prototype was ready for tests in the French Alps. The results were not encouraging: the engine and wheels could not handle the conditions, and the men went home dejected. Skelton went back to the drawing board, returning to a notion he had been playing with for some time. Writing to Scott, Skelton remarked: ‘I was trying to think of some arrangement to lay its own track…the same arrangement of engine as before, but the sledge is lengthened and a second broad wheel added and a flexible band with ridges as its outer surface.' This pioneering concept was the forerunner of the tank that would be used in France during World War I.

By March 1910 the redesigned sledge was ready for testing in Norway. Watched on by Nansen, the new motors successfully negotiated slopes and dragged sledges behind, apparently effortlessly. Although there was no steering—a man up front
would pull on a rope attached to the front to alter direction—the press loved the contraption. With time of the essence, Scott had to hope that the motorised sledges would be as effective in the south and transport supplies across the Great Ice Barrier. He later recorded in his diary: ‘A small measure of success [for the expedition] will be enough to show their possibilities, their ability to revolutionise Polar transport.'

Scott was fascinated by Shackleton's near miss with the South Geographic Pole and, remembering Armitage's obsession with horses, decided to try them himself. Cecil Meares, a mysterious multilingual adventurer with alleged links to British Intelligence, was dispatched to Siberia to buy dogs, about which he knew a lot, and ponies, about which he knew nothing. The quality of the two hundred or so horses available at the market was not brilliant, from all accounts, and became even less so with Scott's instructions to buy only white and grey steeds after Shackleton's observation that the darker horses tended to fare worst of all on the
Nimrod
expedition. The belief was that white animals might better resist the cold, and nineteen were bought, delighting the pony seller who was said to conclude the deal with a ‘plenty big smile'.

Oates, a decorated veteran of the Boer War who would be responsible for the horses on the expedition, was appalled at their state and described them as the ‘greatest lot of crocks I have ever seen'. Frank Debenham, one of the geologists, described it as a ‘curious blunder'. Perhaps suspecting the horses may not be enough, Scott also invited an expert Norwegian skier, Tryggve Gran—who had also been considering taking his own expedition south—to train members of the team in the use of skis.

If all this failed, the expedition could always fall back on man-hauling the sledges. Scott famously wrote of his
Discovery
expedition:

Dogs greatly increase the radius of action, but to pretend that they can be worked to this end without pain, suffering, and death is futile. Such sordid necessity robs sledge travelling by dogs of much of its glory. In my mind, no journey ever made with dogs can approach the height of the fine conception which is realized when a party of men go forth to face hardships, dangers, and difficulties with their own unaided efforts, and by days and weeks of hard physical labour succeed in solving some problem of the great unknown. Surely in this case the conquest is more nobly and splendidly won.

Teddy Evans abhorred the idea of being second-in-command alongside the engineer Skelton, who held a higher rank as commander. Skelton, recognising that this was not a naval operation, said he would be happy to take a civilian title if it would help. The offer was not enough. Evans flatly refused to work with him, and Scott was forced to let Skelton go, despite the three years of work he had done for the expedition. It was not an auspicious start.

And yet, for all the personality clashes, the team was remarkably cosmopolitan. Many of the British members had enlisted from across the Empire, and were accompanied by Gran from Norway, the Australian geologists and two Russian dog drivers who had joined with Meares.

But the Australians, at least, felt there was a general feeling that British was best. Debenham observed: ‘the Australian is more or less disliked by the Englishmen I've met. There is a decided “down” on things Australian in the expedition. It is not altogether explained by the acknowledged tendency we have to “bragging” and “swanking”. At times it is quite absurd, and these fellows will not believe that Sydney is reasonably up to
date or that educational methods in Australia are not hopelessly out of date.'

Scott, though, was open to international expertise furthering research on the poles. Believing the Norwegian Roald Amundsen to be heading for the North Geographic Pole in the
Fram
in 1910, Scott called on the explorer's home during his visit to test the motorised sledges. As Amundsen was a veteran of numerous polar ventures, Scott was keen to discuss the possibility of synchronising their scientific observations in both hemispheres.

When he failed to see Amundsen, Scott attempted to phone him. Both times the master was not in. Disappointed, the British leader returned home to finish his preparations, and sent scientific instruments identical to his own to the errant Norwegian, so that any data collected could be most reliably compared.