Of course the whole business simply bristles with "ifs": If Scott had taken dogs and succeeded in getting them up the Beardmore: if we had not lost those ponies on the Depôt Journey: if the dogs had not been taken so far and the One Ton Depôt had been laid: if a pony and some extra oil had been depôted on the Barrier: if a four-man party had been taken to the Pole: if I had disobeyed my instructions and gone on from One Ton, killing dogs as necessary: or even if I had just gone on a few miles and left some food and fuel under a flag upon a cairn: if they had been first at the Pole: if it had been any other season but that.... But always the bare fact remains that Scott could not have travelled from McMurdo Sound to the Pole faster than he did except with dogs; all the king's horses and all the king's men could not have done it. Why, then, says the practical man, did we go to McMurdo Sound instead of to the Bay of Whales? Because we gained that continuity of scientific observation which is so important in this work: and because the Sound was the starting-point for continuing the exploration of the only ascertained route to the Pole, via the Beardmore Glacier.
I am afraid it was all inevitable: we were as wise as any one can be before the event. I admit that we, scrupulously economical of our pemmican, were terribly prodigal of our man-power. But we had to be: the draft, whatever it may have been on the whole, was not excessive at any given point; and anyhow we just had to use every man to take every opportunity. There is so much to do, and the opportunities for doing it are so rare. Generally speaking, I don't see how we could have done differently, but I don't want to see it done again; I don't want it to be necessary to do it again. I want to see this country tackle the job, and send enough men to do one thing at a time. They do it in Canada: why not in England too?
But we wasted our man-power in one way which could have been avoided. I have described how every emergency was met by calling for volunteers, and how the volunteers were always forthcoming. Unfortunately volunteering was relied on not only for emergencies, but for a good deal of everyday work that should have been organised as routine; and the inevitable result was that the willing horses were overworked. It was a point of honour not to ca' canny. Men were allowed to do too much, and were told afterwards that they had done too much; and that is not discipline. They should not have been allowed to do too much. Until our last year we never insisted on a regular routine.
Money was scarce: probably Scott could not have obtained the funds for the expedition if its objective had not been the Pole. There was no lack of the things which could be bought across the counter from big business houses—all landing, sledging, and scientific equipment was first-class—but one of the first and most important items, the ship, would have sent Columbus on strike, and nearly sent us to the bottom of the sea.
People talk of the niggardly equipment of Columbus when he sailed west from the Canaries to try a short-cut to an inhabited continent of magnificent empires, as he thought; but his three ships were, relatively to the resources of that time, much better than the one old tramp in which we sailed for a desert of ice in which the evening and morning are the year and not the day, and in which not even polar bears and reindeers can live. Amundsen had the Fram, built for polar exploration ad hoc. Scott had the Discovery. But when one thinks of these Nimrods and Terra Novas, picked up second-hand in the wooden-ship market, and faked up for the transport of ponies, dogs, motors, and all the impedimenta of a polar expedition, to say nothing of the men who have to try and do scientific work inside them, one feels disposed to clamour for a Polar Factory Act making it a crime to ship men for the ice in vessels more fit to ply between London Bridge and Ramsgate.
And then the begging that is necessary to obtain even this equipment. Shackleton hanging round the doors of rich men! Scott writing begging letters for months together! Is the country not ashamed?
Modern civilized States should make up their minds to the endowment of research, which includes exploration; and as all States benefit alike by the scientific side of it there is plenty of scope for international arrangement, especially in a region where the mere grabbing of territory is meaningless, and no Foreign Office can trace the frontier between King Edward's Plateau and King Haakon's. The Antarctic continent is still mostly unexplored; but enough is known of it to put any settlement by ordinary pioneer emigration, pilgrim fathers and the like, out of the question. Ross Island is not a place for a settlement: it is a place for an elaborately equipped scientific station, with a staff in residence for a year at a time. Our stay of three years was far too much: another year would have driven the best of us mad. Of the five main journeys which fell to my lot, one, the Winter Journey, should not have been undertaken at all with our equipment; and two others, the Dog Journey and the Search Journey, had better have been done by fresh men. It is no use repeating that Englishmen will respond to every call and stick it to the death: they will (some of them); but they have to pay the price all the same; and the price in my case was an overdraft on my vital capital which I shall never quite pay off, and in the case of five bigger, stronger, more seasoned men, death. The establishment of such stations and of such a service cannot be done by individual heroes and enthusiasts cadging for cheques from rich men and grants from private scientific societies: it is a business, like the Nares Arctic expedition, for public organization.
I do not suppose that in these days of aviation the next visit to the Pole will be made by men on foot dragging sledges, or by men on sledges dragged by dogs, mules or ponies; nor will depôts be laid in that way. The pack will not, I hope, be broken through by any old coal-burning ship that can be picked up in the second-hand market. Specially built ships, and enough of them; specially engined tractors and aeroplanes; specially trained men and plenty of them, will all be needed if the work is to be done in any sort of humane and civilized fashion; and Cabinet ministers and voters alike must learn to value knowledge that is not baited by suffering and death. My own bolt is shot; I do not suppose I shall ever go south again before I go west; but if I do it will be under proper and reasonable conditions. I may not come back a hero; but I shall come back none the worse; for I repeat, the Antarctic, in moderation as to length of stay, and with such accommodation as is now easily within the means of modern civilized Powers, is not half as bad a place for public service as the worst military stations on the equator. I hope that by the time Scott comes home—for he is coming home: the Barrier is moving, and not a trace of our funeral cairn was found by Shackleton's men in 1916—the hardships that wasted his life will be only a horror of the past, and his via dolorosa a highway as practicable as Piccadilly.
And now let me come down to tin tacks. No matter how well the thing is done in future, its organizers will want to know at first all we can tell them about oil, about cold, and about food. First, as to oil.
Scott complains of a shortage of oil at several of his last depôts. There is no doubt that this shortage was due to the perishing of the leather washers of the tins which contained the paraffin oil. All these tins had been subjected to the warmth of the sun in summer and the autumn temperatures, which were unexpectedly cold. In his Voyage of the Discovery Scott wrote as follows of the tins in which they drew their oil when sledging: "Each tin had a small cork bung, which was a decided weakness; paraffin creeps in the most annoying manner, and a good deal of oil was wasted in this way, especially when the sledges were travelling over rough ground and were shaken or, as frequently happened, capsized. It was impossible to make these bungs quite tight, however closely they were jammed down, so that in spite of a trifling extra weight a much better fitting would have been a metallic screwed bung. To find on opening a fresh tin of oil that it was only three-parts full was very distressing, and of course meant that the cooker had to be used with still greater care."[330] Amundsen wrote of his paraffin: "We kept it in the usual cans but they proved too weak; not that we lost any paraffin, but Bjaaland had to be constantly soldering to keep them tight."[331]
Our own tins were furnished with the metallic screwed stoppers whic
h Scott recommended. There was no trouble reported[332] until we came up to One Ton Camp when on the Search Journey. Here was the depôt of food and oil which I had laid in the previous autumn for the Polar Party, stowed in a canvas 'tank' which was buried beneath seven feet of snow; the oil was placed on the top of the snow, in order that the red tins might prove an additional mark for the depôt. When we dug out the tank the food inside was almost uneatable owing to the quantity of paraffin which had found its way down through seven feet of snow during the winter and spring.
We then found the Polar Party and learned of the shortage of oil. After our return to Cape Evans some one was digging about the camp and came across a wooden case containing eight one-gallon tins of paraffin. These had been placed there in September 1911, to be landed at Cape Crozier by the Terra Nova when she came down. The ship could not take them: they were snowed up during the winter, lost and forgotten, until dug up fifteen months afterwards. Three tins were full, three empty, one a third full and one two-thirds full.
There can be no doubt that the oil, which was specially volatile, tended to vaporize and escape through the stoppers, and that this process was accelerated by the perishing, and I suggest also the hardening and shrinking, of the leather washers. Another expedition will have to be very careful on this point: they might reduce the risk by burying the oil.
The second point about which something must be said is the unexpected cold met by Scott on the Barrier, which was the immediate cause of the disaster. "No one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year.... 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."[333]
They came down the glacier in plus temperatures: nor was there anything abnormal for more than a week after they got on to the Barrier. Then there came a big drop to a -37° minimum on the night of February 26. It is significant that the sun began to dip below the southern horizon at midnight about this time. "There is no doubt the middle of the Barrier is a pretty awful locality," wrote Scott.
Simpson, in his meteorological report, has little doubt that the temperatures met by the Polar Party were abnormal. The records "clearly bring to light the possibility of great cold at an extremely early period in the year within a comparatively few miles of an open sea where the temperatures were over 40 degrees higher." "It is quite impossible to believe that normally there is a difference of nearly 40 degrees in March between McMurdo Sound and the South of the Barrier." The temperatures recorded by other sledge parties in March 1912 and those recorded at Cape Evans form additional evidence, in Simpson's opinion, that the temperatures experienced by Scott were not such as might be expected during normal autumn weather.
Simpson's explanation is based upon the observations made in McMurdo Sound by sending up balloons with self-recording instruments attached. These showed that very rapid radiation takes place from the snow surface in winter, which cools the air in the immediate neighbourhood: a cold layer of air is thus formed near the ground, which may be many degrees colder than the air above it. It becomes, as it were, colder than it ought to be. This, however, can only happen during an absence of wind: when a wind blows the cold layer is swept away, the air is mixed and the temperature rises.
The absence of wind from the south noted by Scott was, in Simpson's opinion, the cause of the low temperatures met by Scott: the temperature was reduced ten degrees below normal at Cape Evans, and perhaps twenty degrees where Scott was.[334]
The third question is that of food. It is this point which is most important to future explorers. It is a fact that the Polar Party failed to make their distance because they became weak, and that they became weak although they were eating their full ration or more than their full ration of food, save for a few days when they went short on the way down the Beardmore Glacier. The first man to weaken was the biggest and heaviest man in the expedition: "the man whom we had least expected to fail."
The rations were of two kinds. The Barrier (B) ration was that which was used on the Barrier during the outward journey towards the Pole. The Summit (S) ration was the result of our experiments on the Winter Journey. I expect it is the best ration which has been used to date, and consisted of biscuits 16, pemmican 12, butter 2, cocoa 0.57, sugar 3 and tea 0.86 ounces; total 34.43 ounces daily per man.
The twelve men who went forward started this S ration at the foot of the Beardmore, and it was this ration which was left in all depôts to see them home. It was much more satisfying than the Barrier ration, and men could not have eaten so much when leading ponies or driving dogs in the early stages of summer Barrier sledging: but man-hauling is a different business altogether from leading ponies or driving dogs.
It is calculated that the body requires certain proportions of fat, carbohydrates and proteins to do certain work under certain conditions: but just what the absolute quantities are is not ascertained. The work of the Polar Party was laborious: the temperatures (the most important of the conditions) varied from comparative warmth up and down the glacier to an average of about -20° in the rarefied air of the plateau. The temperatures met by them on their return over the Barrier were not really low for more than a week, and then there came quite commonly minus thirties during the day with a further drop to minus forties at night, when for a time the sun was below the horizon. These temperatures, which are not very terrible to men who are fresh and whose clothing is new, were ghastly to these men who had striven night and day almost ceaselessly for four months on, as I maintain, insufficient food. Did these temperatures kill them?
Undoubtedly the low temperatures caused their death, inasmuch as they would have lived had the temperatures remained high. But Evans would not have lived: he died before the low temperatures occurred. What killed Evans? And why did the other men weaken as they did, though they were eating full rations and more? Weaken so much that in the end they starved to death?
I have always had a doubt whether the weather conditions were sufficient to cause the tragedy. These men on full rations were supposed to be eating food of sufficient value to enable them to do the work they were doing, under the conditions which they actually met until the end of February, without loss of strength. They had more than their full rations, but the conditions in March were much worse than they imagined to be possible: when three survivors out of the five pitched their Last Camp they were in a terrible state. After the war I found that Atkinson had come to wonder much as I, but he had gone farther, for he had the values of our rations worked out by a chemical expert according to the latest knowledge and standards. I may add that, being in command after Scott's death, he increased the ration for the next year's sledging, so I suppose he had already come to the conclusion that the previous ration was not sufficient. The following are some of the data for which I am indebted to him: the whole subject will be investigated by him and the results published in a more detailed form.
According to the most modern standards the food requirements for laborious work at a temperature of zero Fahr. (which is a fair Barrier average temperature to take) are 7714 calories to produce 10,069 foot-tons of work. The actual Barrier ration which we used would generate 4003 calories, equivalent to 5331 foot-tons of work. Similar requirements for laborious work at -10° Fahr. (which is a high average plateau temperature) are 8500 calories to produce 11,094 foot-tons of work. The actual Summit ration would generate 4889 calories, equivalent to 6608 foot-tons of work. These requirements are calculated for total absorption of all food-stuffs: but in practice, by visual proof, this does not take place: this is especially noticeable in the case of fats, a quantity of which were digested neither by men, ponies, nor dogs.
Several things go to prove that our ration was not enough. In the first case we were probably not as fit as we seemed after long sledge journeys. There is no doubt that when sledging men developed an automaticity of certain muscles at the expense of other mus
cles: for instance, a sledge could be hauled all day at the expense of the arms, and we had little power to lift weights at the end of several months of sledging. In relation to this I would add that, when the relief ship arrived in February 1912, four of us were at Cape Evans, but just arrived from three months of the Polar Journey. The land party, we four among them, were turned on to sledge stores ashore. This in practice meant twenty miles every day dragging a sledge; a good deal of 'humping' heavy cases, from five o'clock in the morning to very late at night; with uncertain meals and no rests. I can remember now how hard that work was to myself and, I expect, to those others who had been away sledging. The ship's party sledged only every other day "because they were not used to it." This was extremely bad organization, and in view of the possibility that some of the men might be required for further sledging in the autumn, just silly.
Again, there is the experience of the man-hauling parties of the Polar Journey. There was, you may remember, a man-hauling party on the way to the Beardmore Glacier. They travelled with a light sledge but they lost weight on the Barrier ration. It is significant that they picked up condition when they started the Summit ration, especially Lashly.
The Polar Party and the two returning parties, who were on the Summit ration from the foot of the Beardmore until the end of their journeys, weakened, in Atkinson's opinion, more than they should have done had their ration been sufficient. The First Return Party covered approximately 1100 statute miles. At the end of their journey their pulling muscles were all right, but Atkinson, who led the party, considers that they were at least 70 per cent weaker in other muscles. They all lost a great deal of weight, though they had the best conditions of the three returning parties, and the temperatures met by them averaged well over zero.