A First Rate Tragedy Page 11

  The last of the ice around the Discovery was dislodged two days later by explosive charges. The final blast shook the vessel from end to end but it did the trick. Scott wrote thankfully that ‘our good ship was spared to take us homeward’. On 16 February 1904 a sombre ceremony took place. The company of the Discovery gathered bare-headed around the cross erected to George Vince while Scott read prayers. Nine years later another cross would be erected nearby to mark another tragedy.

  The next day brought near disaster. As if a malicious southern spirit was reluctant to give her up, a gale forced the Discovery headlong onto a shoal. For a few hours ‘truly the most dreadful I have ever spent’, Scott wrote, it looked as if she might not survive. The engines would not function and she was trapped in the gale, being pounded against the shoal. However, during the evening the current turned, running south rather than north, and the Discovery began to work astern. The crew managed to get the engines running again and were relieved to find that the ship had sustained little damage. She was ready to begin her long journey home.

  As the Discovery set sail for New Zealand and the now familiar landmarks of McMurdo Sound faded from view, Scott must have wondered what kind of reception his expedition would receive when he reached England. He could look back on some remarkable achievements but he was wise enough to realize that he faced enemies as well as allies in the establishment and that his reception might not be all he wished.

  7

  The Reluctant Celebrity

  On 10 September 1904 a spruce and gleaming Discovery steamed into Portsmouth Harbour. Friends and relatives packing the quayside were delighted to see that the crew looked ‘wonderfully well’. These fit bronzed men, with skins ‘like seasoned mahogany’ according to the Daily Express, were the antithesis of the wasted and exhausted figures that some had expected to return. Sir Clements Markham bore some of the responsibility for stirring up anxieties about the men’s condition because he had wanted to ensure that a relief expedition was sent. The horrors of the Franklin Expedition had made a deep impression on him in his youth and he was determined there should be no similar tragedy in the South. In fact the figures standing proudly on the deck were not only in the rudest of health, they had actually put on weight. The only sign of their ordeal was that they appeared to talk rather slowly and to move ponderously as if still shrouded in their heavy weatherproof garments.

  A few days later the Discovery sailed for London where she tied up in the East India Docks. However, there was no official reception – the only dignitary to greet the returning heroes was the Mayor of Gravesend. The following day a lunch was given by the Royal and Geographical Societies but it was in a warehouse. The Daily Express condemned the shabbiness of this ‘luncheon in a shed’ and asserted that the City of London should have offered the intrepid explorers a Guildhall banquet. It was noted that none of the Lords of the Admiralty were present while ‘The Lord Mayor sent a sheriff to say a few words’. A guest at the lunch wrote with eerie foresight and a true understanding of human nature:

  I cannot help feeling that there still ought to remain some sort of ceremony of a national character to show that we as a nation realize and appreciate the sacrifice these men have made for science and to the credit of their country. Had the ship’s crew perished in the Antarctic, we doubtless should have raised a national memorial to them. It seems to me a pity that we should suffer their deeds to pass to oblivion because they have returned safe and sound.

  Scott had been worrying about how the expedition would be judged by the Admiralty and the waspish scientific establishment. He knew some would blame him for allowing the Discovery to be frozen in, thereby necessitating a second winter, but a more pressing concern was gnawing at him. In New Zealand the press had been quick to report that he had criticized the Admiralty for sending down the Terra Nova. He had been quoted as asserting that the men of the Discovery had been very well able to take care of themselves and that a single ship, the Morning, would have been quite sufficient for their relief. Indeed, that was what he genuinely believed. Like the rest of the crew he had felt humiliated by the scale of the relief expedition which had smacked of overkill and melodrama. He prided himself on his self-sufficiency and resented being portrayed as vulnerable and in need of rescue. However, he had far too much common sense to have expressed these views publicly and had hastily issued a rebuttal to The Times and to Reuters and telegraphed the Admiralty and the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. He feared, correctly, that it would be hard to convince them of his innocence and he was afraid that his chances of promotion would suffer. Therefore it was a relief to learn that he had been promoted captain with effect from the day of his arrival.

  Scott was also gratified by the generally positive reaction to the Discovery’s achievements. The accusation that he was not fit to lead a scientific expedition had rankled from the early days when the scientific establishment turned their noses up at him. Sir Clements Markham, of course, was quick to claim that splendid things had been achieved, pronouncing that ‘Never has any Polar expedition returned with so great a harvest of scientific results’.1 Yet Scott was aware that Sir Clements was regarded as tiresomely opinionated and thoroughly partisan.

  Far more significant, therefore, was the endorsement of the scientific results by Chief Hydrographer to the Admiralty, Rear-Admiral Sir William Wharton, who had at one stage caballed with the scientists against Scott, but who now wrote that: ‘Commander Scott and his staff have most magnificently maintained the high standard of efficiency of former Polar explorers.’2 The press took note of the growing swell of approval and began to lionize Scott. ‘True to the spirit of his instructions he has done what he set out to do, and even more,’ applauded The Times. A contributory factor was that by 1904 explorers were back in fashion. Scott had sailed away at a time when the country was struggling to come to terms with a disturbing and unsatisfactory war in South Africa and interest in an adventure like his had been muted. However, by the time the Discovery returned, the Boer War had been won and people had regained their appetite for tales of romance and derring-do. There was a sufficient flavour of heroic recklessness about the Discovery expedition to excite the public. The other news sensation of the year was the Younghusband expedition to Tibet.

  Scott could reflect that the plaudits were justified – he had indeed told a good story in his formal report to the Admiralty. The expedition had identified a coastline where it was possible to land, revealed much about the general geographical nature of Antarctica and shown that it was possible to survive the bleakest of conditions on this frozen continent and to travel over it. The expedition had made a total of twenty-eight sledge journeys and Scott, Wilson and Shackleton had advanced over 250 miles further south into Antarctica than any man before them. Important magnetic, meteorological, geological, zoological research had also been completed, including Wilson’s pioneering work to unravel the mysterious life cycle of the emperor penguin.

  In his report to the Admiralty Scott praised the ‘exemplary behaviour’ of all his men but among those marked out for special commendation were Evans and Lashly, his companions on ‘the terrible plateau’. Lashly was immediately promoted to chief stoker – Scott reported that he had ‘undoubtedly saved our lives by his presence of mind when Evans and I had fallen into a crevasse’. Evans was promoted petty officer 1st class and went off to the gunnery school at Portsmouth to train. Scott’s praise of the men of the mess-deck also shows how thoroughly he was a man of his time.

  Both in New Zealand and at home they have been feted, and made much of, and fully exposed to all the temptations which so frequently demoralize men of their class . . . they have come through such an ordeal unscathed and have preserved their good name to the end . . . The Officers will be the last to forget how much they owe to the rank and file.

  His new-found celebrity made Scott anxious. Though ambitious, he was not someone who courted the limelight and he had a natural modesty. From the very beginning he was quick to emphas
ize that: ‘An Antarctic expedition is not a one-man show, not a two-man show, nor a ten-men show. It means the co-operation of all . . . There has been nothing but a common desire to work for the common good.’3 (Scott’s later rivalry with Shackleton shows that this generous and genuine view did not prevent him from believing that, as leader, he had personal claims on the area he had explored.) He was intensely proud of his success at welding a team out of the young and inexperienced Antarctic novices, himself included, who had sailed out together three years earlier. The fact that so many would be eager to return with him suggests that for all his faults he had succeeded as a leader and was not the cold-blooded egocentric, jealously preserving the best opportunities for himself that an embittered Armitage would depict.

  Scott could now turn his attention to more domestic matters, taking satisfaction in his ability to afford to move his mother and sisters from their lodgings over the shop to somewhere more comfortable. He also treated himself for the first time to a really well-cut suit from a good tailor. If he was to become a lion he knew he needed to be a well-groomed one. He had been able to make his naval uniform last, disguising its shabbiness, but he now needed clothes that would pass muster in the eyes of that cruel and observant entity ‘society’. In fact, he had received an invitation to Balmoral. Edward VII had been delighted to have a newly discovered area of Antarctica named after him and had sent Scott a congratulatory telegram. He now wanted to meet the young explorer.

  Scott described his visit in a letter to his mother, but only after first encouraging her to go ahead with her move and urging her not to worry about money. He wrote that on the first evening the King appointed him a Commander of the Victorian Order – the only official honour he was, in fact, given as the press indignantly pointed out. On the second evening he lectured to the ‘King, Princess of Wales, some of the Connaughts, Prime Minister, and many others’. His talk had only been intended to last an hour but went on for nearly two because the King asked so many questions. Apparently ‘all sorts of nice things’ were said afterwards. Disconcertingly, the Prime Minister Balfour, announced that he himself was ‘Father of the Expedition!!!’ (The exclamation marks are Scott’s.) The next day the King took Scott on a grouse drive. It was all clearly something of an ordeal although Scott was gratified by the honour. His letter concluded ‘P.S. I never had to wear knee breeches or a frock coat.’4 It’s hard to tell whether he was wistful or relieved.

  A week before his visit to Balmoral, Scott had written to the First Sea Lord asking for six months’ leave in which ‘to undertake a narrative of our voyage’, to be published in the spring. He was careful to express himself in suitably modest language, saying that he would be very sorry to do anything which the Admiralty might think unbecoming to a naval officer and that apart from writing the book he was ‘trying to keep as quiet as possible’. However, this was difficult. Markham arranged an exhibition at the Bruton Galleries which opened on 4 November amid extraordinary scenes. The fashionable world alighted from their carriages, horseless or otherwise, confidently bearing their cards only to be told by the patient policemen that they would have to queue like anybody else. It was a new experience for the great and the good to have to stand in line and perhaps a sign of the changing times. The exhibition, which featured several hundreds of Wilson’s inspirational sketches, Skelton’s photographs, a model of Discovery and sledging equipment, drew about 10,000 visitors.

  Three days later Scott found himself addressing 7,000 members and guests of the two societies in the Royal Albert Hall. It must have been daunting, even though his Discovery comrades were on the stage with him. He was so flustered that he forgot to pay tribute to Armitage and other colleagues. The response from the audience was rather cool – a muted clapping echoed around the huge hall. In fact just a few days before the lecture Markham had been furious to receive what he thought ‘a very nasty letter’ from the secretary of the Royal Society effectively demanding that the men of the Discovery should neither lecture nor deliver papers. The next night Scott got a very different reception when he gave his first public lecture entitled ‘Farthest South’ to an audience which had paid anything from a shilling to ten and sixpence (the standard rates for West End theatre tickets) to hear him and applauded loudly.

  The need to raise funds to pay off the expedition’s debts put Scott on the treadmill of the lecture circuit. He was soon in great demand, traversing the country and honing his lecturing skills. Shackleton arranged for him to address the Scottish Royal Geographical Society in Edinburgh where he was awarded the Livingstone medal. In fact he and Shackleton were quite close during the period after his return, the trauma of ‘Shackles’s’ departure home forgotten in the excitement of reunion. Shackleton was one of the first to surge aboard the Discovery and had stayed until the early hours talking excitedly and quizzing Scott. Markham had helped him win his appointment as Secretary to the Scottish Royal Geographical Society. Though the pay was poor, only £200 a year, Emily Dorman’s father had died, leaving her mistress of an income of £700 a year, quite enough for them to marry and live in middle-class comfort. Shackleton was also enjoying himself, shaking the fusty members of the society by introducing such technological devilry as electric light and a typewriter.

  Scott soon developed skill and confidence as a speaker, learning such tricks as running a hand in mock despair through his hair when a slide failed to come up on the screen at the right time and delighting his audiences with very English understatements and humorous asides about the savage conditions he and his comrades had endured. According to the newspaper reports of the day he was a very rapid speaker, but clear and compelling. He had no need of notes. The Manchester Guardian pronounced that ‘if he is as efficient an explorer as he is a lecturer, then he stands in the front rank’. As so often in his life he had to exercise economy, travelling third class, which caused embarrassment when a group of city dignitaries came to greet him in the Midlands expecting the hero to emerge triumphant from a first-class compartment.

  However, Scott worried that he was making only slow progress with his book. Despite his passion in his early youth to express himself in writing he felt intimidated by the scale of the task and the fear of failing. He wrote that ‘Of all things I dread having to write a narrative and am wholly doubtful of my capacity; in any event if I have to do it, it will take me a long time.’5 By early 1905 Scott was close to despair and asked the Admiralty to spare him for a further three months to complete the book. To force himself to progress he went every day to the Markhams’ house where Royds was staying while he completed his study on meteorology. Sir Clements enjoyed the company of the two young men, strolling with them, and Minna his wife, in Eccleston Square in the evenings. There are two interpretations of his interest in them – the traditional one that they were substitutes for the sons he had never had or the more modern and cynical one that he had a homosexual fascination with young men. Whatever the reason he was certainly fond of them and rather possessive.

  Scott probably found the old gentleman a bit overpowering. By the spring he knew he needed greater solitude and moved to Ashdown where, with the help of Reginald Smith, senior partner in the publishers Smith, Elder and Co and editor of the Cornhill Magazine who became a lifelong friend, the book at last took substance. Scott dedicated it to Sir Clements Markham as ‘the Father of the Expedition and its Most Constant Friend’ as Markham no doubt expected. Published in October 1905 in two volumes it immediately sold out and the accolades poured in – the Times Literary Supplement called it ‘a masterly work’.

  However, the question facing Scott was what to do next. The publication of The Voyage of the Discovery marked a watershed in his career as an explorer. Receiving a gold medal from the American Geographical Society in April 1906 he gave his audience to understand that in all probability he had finished with exploring. A factor in this was that he had become exasperated with being a celebrity, confiding to a relation that he had had enough notoriety to last him a lifetime. He retu
rned to sea in August 1906 to serve as flag captain to Rear-Admiral Egerton in HMS Victorious. However, within a bare month he had apparently had a change of heart. In September his friend J.M. Barrie, the tiny playwright then enjoying huge success with Peter Pan, was writing to express his delight that all the old hankerings were coming back to Scott and promising to keep an eye out for a likely millionaire to fund the expedition.

  What had changed? Whatever Scott may have said publicly, the siren call of the South had never really gone away. At the very least he knew he had not finished the job and that the public had expectations of him. On his return, The Times had asked the question: ‘Will the problem of the Antarctic be left where it stands?’ To a man of Scott’s persistence and ambition this was galling. If he could reach the Pole the security which had so far eluded him would be his for life. A knighthood, official honours, fame would all follow. If he did not make the attempt, his career would progress but would be unlikely to bring him the great prizes. However, something deeper than personal pride and ambition was at work here. During the very speech in which he had announced he was unlikely to return to Antarctica, he had described the sparkling frozen landscapes with an emotion that bordered on longing. That beautiful solitary world held a special place in his heart, appealing to the romantic in him while the excitement it represented could never be matched by anything the peacetime navy could offer. The challenge of adventuring into the unknown was fundamentally more attractive than the prospect of a conventional naval career and ‘the whirl of this modern life’.6