During the afternoon they drew 4-1/2 miles nearer to the One Ton Depôt, and there they made their last camp. Throughout Tuesday a severe blizzard held them prisoners, and on the 21st Scott wrote: 'To-day forlorn hope, Wilson and Bowers going to depôt for fuel.'
But the blizzard continued without intermission. '22 and 23. Blizzard bad as ever—Wilson and Bowers unable to start—to-morrow last chance—no fuel and only one or two of food left—must be near the end. Have decided it shall be natural—we shall march for the depôt with or without our effects and die in our tracks.'
'March 29.—Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece, and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depôt 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
'It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.
'R. SCOTT.
'Last entry For God's sake look after our people.'
After Cherry-Garrard and Demetri had returned to Hut Point on March 16 without having seen any signs of the Polar party, Atkinson and Keohane made one more desperate effort to find them. When, however, this had been unsuccessful there was nothing more to be done until the winter was over.
During this long and anxious time the leadership of the party devolved upon Atkinson, who under the most trying circumstances showed qualities that are beyond all praise. At the earliest possible moment (October 30) a large party started south. 'On the night of the 11th and morning of the 12th,' Atkinson says, 'after we had marched 11 miles due south of One Ton, we found the tent. It was an object partially snowed up and looking like a cairn. Before it were the ski sticks and in front of them a bamboo which probably was the mast of the sledge...
'Inside the tent were the bodies of Captain Scott, Doctor Wilson, and Lieutenant Bowers. They had pitched their tent well, and it had withstood all the blizzards of an exceptionally hard winter.'
Wilson and Bowers were found in the attitude of sleep, their sleeping-bags closed over their heads as they would naturally close them.
Scott died later. He had thrown back the flaps of his sleeping-bag and opened his coat. The little wallet containing the three notebooks was under his shoulders and his arm flung across Wilson.
Among their belongings were the 35 lbs. of most important geological specimens which had been collected on the moraines of the Beardmore Glacier. At Wilson's request they had clung on to these to the very end, though disaster stared them in the face.
'When everything had been gathered up, we covered them with the outer tent and read the Burial Service. From this time until well into the next day we started to build a mighty cairn above them.'
Upon the cairn a rough cross, made from two skis, was placed, and on either side were up-ended two sledges, fixed firmly in the snow. Between the eastern sledge and the cairn a bamboo was placed, containing a metal cylinder, and in this the following record was left:
'November 12, 1912, Lat. 79 degrees, 50 mins. South. This cross and cairn are erected over the bodies of Captain Scott, C.V.O., R.N., Doctor E. A. Wilson, M.B. B.C., Cantab., and Lieutenant H. R. Bowers, Royal Indian Marine—a slight token to perpetuate their successful and gallant attempt to reach the Pole. This they did on January 17, 1912, after the Norwegian Expedition had already done so. Inclement weather with lack of fuel was the cause of their death. Also to commemorate their two gallant comrades, Captain L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons, who walked to his death in a blizzard to save his comrades about eighteen miles south of this position; also of Seaman Edgar Evans, who died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier.
'"The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord."'
With the diaries in the tent were found the following letters:—
To Mrs. E. A. Wilson
My DEAR MRS. WILSON,
If this letter reaches you Bill and I will have gone out together. We are very near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end—everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others, never a word of blame to me for leading him into this mess. He is not suffering, luckily, at least only minor discomforts.
His eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the Almighty. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man—the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.
My whole heart goes out to you in pity.
Yours,
R. SCOTT.
To Mrs. Bowers
My DEAR MRS. BOWERS,
I am afraid this will reach you after one of the heaviest blows of your life.
I write when we are very near the end of our journey, and I am finishing it in company with two gallant, noble gentlemen. One of these is your son. He had come be one of my closest and soundest friends, and I appreciate his wonderful upright nature, his ability and energy. As the troubles have thickened his dauntless spirit ever shone brighter and he has remained cheerful, hopeful, and indomitable to the end.
The ways of Providence are inscrutable, but there must be some reason why such a young, vigorous and promising life is taken.
My whole heart goes out in pity for you.
Yours,
R. SCOTT.
To the end he has talked of you and his sisters. One sees what a happy home he must have had and perhaps it is well to look back on nothing but happiness.
He remains unselfish, self-reliant and splendidly hopeful to the end, believing in God's mercy to you.
To Sir J. M. Barrie
My DEAR BARRIE,
We are pegging out in a very comfortless spot. Hoping this letter may be found and sent to you, I write a word of farewell.... More practically I want you to help my widow and my boy—your godson. We are showing that Englishmen can still die with a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end. It will be known that we have accomplished our object in reaching the Pole, and that we have done everything possible, even to sacrificing ourselves in order to save sick companions. I think this makes an example for Englishmen of the future, and that the country ought to help those who are left behind to mourn us. I leave my poor girl and your godson, Wilson leaves a widow, and Edgar Evans also a widow in humble circumstances. Do what you can to get their claims recognized. Goodbye. I am not at all afraid of the end, but sad to miss many a humble pleasure which I had planned for the future on our long marches. I may not have proved a great explorer, but we have done the greatest march ever made and come very near to great success. Goodbye, my dear friend.
Yours ever,
R. SCOTT.
We are in a desperate state, feet frozen, etc. No fuel and a long way from food, but it would do your heart good to be in our tent, to hear our songs and the cheery conversation as to what we will do when we get to Hut Point.
Later.—We are very near the end, but have not and will not lose our good cheer. We have four days of storm in our tent and no where's food or fuel. We did intend to finish ourselves when things proved like this, but we have decided to die naturally in the track.
As a dying man, my dear friend, be good to my wife and child. Give the boy a chance in life if the State won't do it. He ought to have good stuff in him.... I never met a man in my life whom I admired and loved more than you, but I never could show you how much your friendship meant to me, for you had much to give and I nothing.
To the Right Hon. Sir Edgar Speyer, Bart.
Dated March 16, 1912. Lat. 79.5°.
My DEAR SIR EDGAR,
I hope this may reach you. I fear we must go and that it leaves the Expedition in a bad muddle. But we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen. I regret only for the women we leave behind.
I thank you a thousand times for your help and support and your generous kindness. If this diary is found it will show how we stuck by dying companions and fought the thing out well to the end. I think this will show that the spirit of pluck and the power to endure has not passed out of our race....
Wilson, the best fellow that ever stepped, has sacrificed himself again and again to the sick men of the party....
I write to many friends hoping the letters will reach them some time after we are found next year.
We very nearly came through, and it's a pity to have missed it, but lately I have felt that we have overshot our mark. No one is to blame and I hope no attempt will be made to suggest that we have lacked support.
Goodbye to you and your dear kind wife.
Yours ever sincerely,
R. SCOTT.
To Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Charles Bridgeman, K.C.V.O., K.C.B.
My DEAR SIR FRANCIS,
I fear we have slipped up; a close shave; I am writing a few letters which I hope will be delivered some day. I want to thank you for the friendship you gave me of late years, and to tell you how extraordinarily pleasant I found it to serve under you. I want to tell you that I was not too old for this job. It was the younger men that went under first.... After all we are setting a good example to our countrymen, if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men when we were there. We could have come through had we neglected the sick.
Good-bye, and good-bye to dear Lady Bridgeman.
Yours ever,
R. SCOTT.
Excuse writing—it is -40°; and has been for nigh a month.
To Vice-Admiral Sir George le Clerc Egerton, K.C.B.
My DEAR SIR GEORGE,
I fear we have shot our bolt—but we have been to Pole and done the longest journey on record.
I hope these letters may find their destination some day.
Subsidiary reasons for our failure to return are due to the sickness of different members of the party, but the real thing that has stopped us is the awful weather and unexpected cold towards the end of the journey.
This traverse of the Barrier has been quite three times as severe as any experience we had on the summit.
There is no accounting for it, but the result has thrown out my calculations, and here we are little more than 100 miles from the base and petering out.
Good-bye. Please see my widow is looked after as far as Admiralty is concerned.
R. SCOTT.
My kindest regards to Lady Egerton. I can never forget all your kindness.
To Mr. J. J. Kinsey-Christchurch.
March 24th, 1912.
MY DEAR KINSEY,
I'm afraid we are pretty well done—four days of blizzard just as we were getting to the last dopôt. My thoughts have been with you often. You have been a brick. You will pull the Expedition through, I'm sure.
My thoughts are for my wife and boy. Will you do what you can for them if the country won't.
I want the boy to have a good chance in the world, but you know the circumstances well enough.
If I knew the wife and boy were in safe keeping I should have little to regret in leaving the world, for I feel that the country need not be ashamed of us—our journey has been the biggest on record, and nothing but the most exceptional hard luck at the end would have caused us to fail to return. We have been to the S. pole as we set out. God bless you and dear Mrs. Kinsey. It is good to remember you and your kindness.
Your friend,
R. SCOTT.
Letters to his Mother, his Wife, his Brother-in-law (Sir William Ellison Macartney), Admiral Sir Lewis Beaumont, and Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Smith were also found, from which come the following extracts:
The Great God has called me and I feel it will add a fearful blow to the heavy ones that have fallen on you in life. But take comfort in that I die at peace with the world and myself—not afraid.
Indeed it has been most singularly unfortunate, for the risks I have taken never seemed excessive.
...I want to tell you that we have missed getting through by a narrow margin which was justifiably within the risk of such a journey.... After all, we have given our lives for our country—we have actually made the longest journey on record, and we have been the first Englishmen at the South Pole.
You must understand that it is too cold to write much.
...It's a pity the luck doesn't come our way, because every detail of equipment is right.
I shall not have suffered any pain, but leave the world fresh from harness and full of good health and vigour. This is decided already—when provisions come to an end we simply stop unless we are within easy distance of another depôt. Therefore you must not imagine a great tragedy. We are very anxious of course, and have been for weeks, but our splendid physical condition and our appetites compensate for all discomfort.
Since writing the above we got to within 11 miles of our depôt, with one hot meal and two days' cold food. We should have got through but have been held for four days by a frightful storm. I think the best chance has gone. We have decided not to kill ourselves, but to fight to the last for that depôt, but in the fighting there is a painless end. So don't worry. The inevitable must be faced. You urged me to be leader of this party, and I know you felt it would be dangerous.
Make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games; they encourage it at some schools. I know you will keep him in the open air.
Above all, he must guard and you must guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous as you know—had always an inclination to be idle.
There is a piece of the Union Jack I put up at the South Pole in my private kit bag, together with Amundsen's black flag and other trifles. Send a small piece of the Union Jack to the King and a small piece to Queen Alexandra.
What lots and lots I could tell you of this journey. How much better has it been than lounging in too great comfort at home. What tales you would have for the boy. But what a price to pay.
Tell Sir Clements I thought much of him and never regretted his putting me in command of the Discovery.
The causes of the disaster are not due to faulty organization, but to misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken.
We fought these untoward events with a will and conquered, but it cut into our provision reserve.
Every detail of our food supplies, clothing and depôts made on the interior ice-sheet and over that long stretch of 700 miles to the Pole and back, worked out to perfection. The advance party would have returned to the glacier in fine form and with surplus of food, but for the astonishing failure of the man whom we had least expected to fail. Edgar Evans was thought the strongest man of the party.
The Beardmore Glacier is not difficult in fine weather, but on our return we did not get a single completely fine day; this with a sick companion enormously increased our anxieties.
As I have said elsewhere we got into frightfully rough ice and Edgar Evans received a concussion of the brain—he died a natural death, but left us a shaken party with the season unduly advanced.
But all the facts above enumerated were as nothing to the surprise which awaited us on the Barrier. I maintain that our arrangements for returning were quite adequate, and that no one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year. On the summit in lat. 85°, 86° we had -20°, -30°. On the Barrier in lat. 82°, 10,000 feet lower, we had -30° in the day, -47° at night pretty regularly, with continuous head wind during our day marches. It is clear that these circumstances come on very suddenly, and our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather, which does not seem to have any satisfactory cause. I do not think human beings ever came through such a month as we have come through, and we should have got through in spite of the weather but for the sickening of a second companion, Captain Oates, and a shortage of fuel in our depôts for which I cannot account, and finally, but for the storm which has fallen on us within 11 miles of the depôt at which we hoped to secure our final supplies. Surely misfortune could scarcely have exceeded this last blow. We arrived within 11 miles of our old One Ton Camp with fuel for one last meal and food for two days. For four days we have been unable to leave the tent—the gale howling about us. We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shewn that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last. But if we have been willing to give our lives to this enterprise, which is for the honour of our country, I appeal to our countrymen to see that those who depend on us are properly cared for.
Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.
R. SCOTT.
Abbott, George P., P.O. 209, 242, 260
Adélie Land 35
Admiralty, the, 8, 18, 182-3, 200, 206
Alaska 11
Albemarle, H.M.S., 206
Albert Medal, the, 372
Alpine Rope, 256-7, 266, 274, 367
Amphion, H.M.S., 11
Amundsen, Roald, 259-60, 301, 324, 346, 383, 428
Anton, Groom, 209, 276, 278, 280, 285, 289, 299
Archer, W. W., chief steward, 209
Armitage, Lieut. A. B., 25, 32, 43, 57, 63, 89, 97, 103, 105, 138, 153-4, 176, 178
Arrival Bay, 60
Heights, 60, 234
Athletic sports, 137-8
Atkinson, Edward L., surgeon, R.N., parasitologist, 208, 213, 224, 236, 243, 259, 261, 267, 270, 273, 279-80, 284, 285-6, 295 seq., 308, 319, 320-1, 327, 329, 330, 336, 340, 344, 354-5, 362-3, 372, 411, 418-19
Auckland Islands, 195
Australia, Government of, 207
Balaclave helmets, 251
Balfour, Rt. Ron. A. J., 16
Balleny, Capt. John, 197
Islands, 196-7
Barne, Lieut. Michael, 26,
32, 43,
53, 61, seq.,
80, 87,
98-9, 100,
104, 106,
108, 131-2,
147, 149,
152, 155,
176
Glacier, 275
Barrie, Sir J. M., letter to, 422-4
Barrier, Great Ice, 53, seq., 90, 176, 203, 222, 224-5, 241, 243, 246, 260 seq., 294, 304, 305, 321, 377
Bay of Whales, 259-60
Beaumont, Admiral Sir Lewis, 427
Beppo, pony, 7
Bernacchi, Louis C., physicist, 27, 43, 53, 75, 85-6, 135, 147, 152, 176
Birthday, celebrations of, 286-7
Biscay, Bay of, 32
Bismarck, dog, 108
Bjaaland, Olav Olavson, 383
Blanco, dog, 108
Blissett, A. H., 132
Blizzard, The, 80
Blossom, pony, 250
Bluff, The, 130
Camp, 250, 336
Boats, mishap to, 84, 85, 139, 140
Bonner, Charles, 38-9
Borchgrevink, 43
Boss, dog, 108
Bowers, Lieut. H. R., 28, 208, 216, 224, 230-1, 234-236, 243, 247, 249, 250-4, 261-7, 270, 273, 275, 278-81, 283-4, 286, 289, 293-5, 299, 300-8, 311-14, 317, 319, 320, 322, 324-5, 334, 343-5, 352, 354, 357-8, 359, 364, 368, 371, 373 seq.
Bowers, Mrs., letter to, 421-2
Bridgeman, Admiral, Sir F. C., letter to, 425
Britannia, The, 6
British Museum, the, 19
Browning, E. B., quoted, 328
Browning, Frank V., P.O., 209, 242
Bruce, Canon Lloyd, 207
Bruce, Kathleen, 207
Bruce, Lieut. Wilfred M., 209, 224
Buckingham Palace Road, 15
Bulwark, H.M.S., 206
Burlington House, 19
Campbell, Lieut. Victor L. A., 208, 216, 224, 226, 229, 232, 233, 238, 240-1, 242, 259-60, 292, 315
Cape Adare, 42,
43, 45,
141
Armitage, 59,
225, 259,
263
Bernacchi, 315
Bird, 225
Crozier, 52,
61, 64,
69, 70,
105, 137,
141-2, 155-6,
176, 222-3,
281
Crozier Party, 294,
300-7, 317
Evans, 225,
234-5, 239,
246, 260,
268, 271-3,
280, 300,
316-17, 321,
328, 365
Jones, 48
Mackay, 301
North, 146,
189, 196,
198, 260
of Good Hope, 32-3
Royds, 180,
185, 286
Sibbald, 49
Wadworth, 47
Washington, 49, 52
Castle Rock, 60, 62, 64, 65, 262, 273
Cheetham, Alfred B., boatswain, 209
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley, assistant zoologist, 224, 236, 243, 251-2, 254-6, 257-8, 261-6, 270-1, 273, 279-81, 284, 288, 294, 300-7, 308, 318, 323, 329, 334, 340, 342, 344, 347, 352, 354, 362, 364, 411-12, 418
Chinaman, pony, 308, 318, 329-30, 332-3, 336, 338-9, 340-41
Christiania, 89
Christopher, pony, 308-9, 318-19, 320, 329, 333, 336, 342
Clarke, Charles, ship's cook, 179
Clissold, Thomas, cook, 209, 276, 278, 280, 286, 289, 296, 319, 329
Coal, 46, 189, 194, 216, 218-19, 220
Colbeck, Captain William, 141-2, 143, 147, 182-3, 185, 194, 198
Coleridge, quoted, 211
Colville, Rear-Admiral, 206
Commonwealth Range, 357
Cook, Capt. James, 31
Corner Camp, 247, 261, 263, 270, 312, 314, 317, 372
Crater Heights, 60,
234
Hill, 60, 69,
88
Crean, Thomas, P.O., 209, 237, 243, 259, 261, 262-5, 270, 273, 278-80, 285, 296, 299, 308, 318, 321, 323, 344, 354, 364, 370-2
Cross, Jacob, P.O., 48, 103, 155-6
'Cruise of the Beagle,' 162
Dailey, F. E., carpenter, 59, 153, 157
Darwin, Charles, 162
Day, Bernard C., motor engineer, 208, 227, 236, 276-7, 279, 290-1, 299, 318, 321, 323, 329, 330-1, 339, 340
Debenham, Frank, geologist, 208, 236, 242, 270, 273, 281-2, 283, 296, 325-6, 327