p. 170“male penguins newly arrived at the colony, as evidenced by their ‘spotlessly clean’ white breasts”; Ibid.
p. 170“marking her in Levick’s estimation as ‘unquestionably an old arrival and a bride long past her virginity.’”; Ibid.
p. 171“a neighbor ‘put out its beak and stole one of the pieces!’”; Ibid.
p. 171“he laments, ‘Unfortunately I am going away sledging for four days . . .’”; Ibid.
p. 172“the penguin is trying to sit on eggs ‘amidst a slush of melting snow, so that the eggs were nearly floating in water.’”; Ibid.
p. 172“the most striking fact about this rookery seemed to me to be the absence of open water for many miles”; Ibid.
p. 172“by November 20 he laments that ‘my photography (chiefly in work with Priestley) is taking a great amount of time’”; Ibid.
p. 172“Mated couples appear to fast absolutely until the first egg is laid, after which they go off to feed by turns.”; Ibid.
p. 173“the couples took turn and turn about on the nest, one remaining to guard and incubate while the other went off to the water.”; Levick, Antarctic Penguins.
p. 174“they were sociable animals, glad to meet one another, and, like many men, pleased with the excuse to forget for a while their duties at home”; Ibid.
p. 174“Levick records that the skuas ‘are stealing a large number of eggs.’”; Levick, Zoological Notes.
p. 174“he notes that ‘a large number of nests in the rookery are now to be seen deserted.’”; Ibid.
p. 174“eggs in some nests ‘may have first been filched by skuas, and the nest then deserted’”; Ibid.
p. 174“he emphasizes that ‘the number of deserted nests is now very great indeed.’”; Ibid.
p. 174“he states that ‘The number of deserted nests continues to increase.’”; Ibid.
p. 174“as many are to be found on the ground, frozen, which have not yet been eaten by skuas”; Ibid.
p. 175“I daresay the cocks are the greater offenders in this respect . . .”; Ibid.
FOURTEEN: COMPETITION
p. 177“Amundsen chooses an especially daunting one: a steep, wide glacier marked by ‘crevasses and chasms,’”; Huntford, Scott and Amundsen.
p. 178“what Amundsen describes as ‘pit after pit, crevasse after crevasse, and huge ice blocks scattered helter skelter.’”; Ibid.
p. 178“Glittering white, shining blue, raven black . . . the land looks like a fairytale.”; Ibid.
p. 178“there was depression and sadness in the air—we had grown so fond of our dogs”; Amundsen, The South Pole.
p. 182“This afternoon I saw a most extraordinary site (sic).”; Russell et al., Dr. George Murray Levick (1876–1956).
p. 182“On returning to the hut I told Browning, hardly expecting to be believed”; Ibid.
p. 183“there must be a certain number of both cocks and hens wandering about who have been left out in the race for partners”; Levick, Zoological Notes.
p. 184“he is so prepared to sacrifice the ponies, which Cherry-Garrard describes as ‘a horrid business.’”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 185“Amundsen has declared it a rest day ‘to prepare for the final onslaught.’”; Huntford, Scott and Amundsen.
p. 185“‘Sledges and ski glide easily and pleasantly,’ according to Amundsen”; Ibid.
FIFTEEN: TIMING
p. 188“‘owing to the wind the old birds are sitting very closely and there are probably many hatched already.’”; Levick, Zoological Notes.
p. 188“Whilst the chicks are small the two parents manage to keep them fed without much difficulty”; Levick, Antarctic Penguins.
p. 188“To see an Adélie chick of a fortnight’s growth trying to get itself covered by its mother is a most ludicrous sight.”; Ibid.
p. 190“I think somehow we are the first to see this curious sight.”; Huntford, Scott and Amundsen.
p. 190“I have never known any man to be placed in such a diametrically opposite position to the goal of his desires”; Amundsen, The South Pole.
p. 191“Ski are the thing, and here are my tiresome fellow-countrymen too prejudiced to have prepared themselves for the event.”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 192“‘the perfect mass of crevasses into which we all continually fall; mostly one foot, but often two, and occasionally we went down altogether.’”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 192“Scott tells Atkinson ‘to bring the dog-teams out to meet the Polar Party’”; Ibid.
p. 192“The final advance to the Pole was, according to plan, to have been made by four men.”; Ibid.
p. 193“‘We started more than half an hour later on each march and caught the others easy. It’s been a plod for the foot people and pretty easy going for us.’”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 193“At present everything seems to be going with extraordinary smoothness.”; Ibid.
p. 194“He hoisted ‘the flag to signal to the hut.’”; Levick, A Gun for a Fountain Pen.
p. 194“The penguin chicks are able to walk now and huddle together in batches.”; Campbell, The Wicked Mate.
PART FOUR: AFTER CAPE ADARE
SIXTEEN: HOOLIGANS
p. 204“The cock did not seize the hen with his beak, by the feathers on the back of her head as chickens do.”; Levick, Zoological Notes.
p. 204“There is also an added note, written in a different light blue ink that says, “More notes on this later.”; Ibid.
p. 204“At first he wrote in English, ‘I saw a couple of penguins at an empty nest today, in the midst of a group of occupied nests.’”; Ibid.
p. 205“I saw another astonishing sight of depravity today.”; Ibid.
p. 205“As he put it so succinctly, ‘There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins.’”; Ibid.
p. 207“Nothing I had experienced in the Ross Sea or in any other part of the world came up to the gales and blizzards of Commonwealth Bay”; John King Davis, High Latitude (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1962).
p. 207“After a ‘pleasant and uneventful trip,’ according to Priestley”; Priestley, Antarctic Adventure.
p. 208“‘we would all have sworn that if there was one place along the coast which would be accessible in February, this would be the one.’”; Ibid.
p. 208“causing the pack ice and bergs to ‘bank up’ on its southern side, and then to ‘stream northwards’ from its tip”; Ibid.
p. 209“during the past ages the Antarctic has possessed a climate much more genial than that of England at the present day”; Ibid.
p. 210“‘This told us the whole story,’ writes Scott that evening.”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 210“Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority”; Ibid.
p. 210“I imagine it was intended to mark the exact spot of the Pole as near as the Norwegians could fix it.”; Ibid.
p. 211“Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must face our 800 miles of solid dragging”; Ibid.
p. 211“Bowers writes that they are ‘thinning’ and ‘get hungrier daily’”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 211“God help us, with the tremendous summit journey and scant food.”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 214“The first of these is that the chick’s downy coats become thick enough to protect them from cold”; Levick, Antarctic Penguins.
p. 214“The individual care of the chicks by their parents is abandoned, and in place of this, colonies start to ‘pool’ their offspring.”; Ibid.
p. 216“The crimes which they commit are such as to find no place in this book”; Ibid.
SEVENTEEN: WEATHER
p. 218“Wilson, the doctor, records that Oates’s ‘big toe is turning blue-black.’”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 218“‘The weather is a
lways uncomfortably cold and windy,’ according to Wilson.”; Ibid.
p. 218“despite Scott noting that Evans ‘is going steadily downhill,’ the next day he allows Wilson to take rock samples”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 219“‘We cannot do distance without the ponies,’ Scott tells his men.”; Ibid., and Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 219“with nothing but glaring white ahead, darkened by snow goggles, it is simply a form of mental starvation”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 219“the way in which I as the chief character must avoid making such mistakes in the second.”; Ibid.
p. 220“A considerable number of adults are still in full moult, and a few have finished moulting”; Ibid.
p. 220“driving them one by one into the water in response to the newly found instinct to catch their own food there.”; Ibid.
p. 220“‘A very terrible day,’ as Scott observes.”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 220“the remainder of us were forced to pull very hard, sweating heavily”; Ibid.
p. 221“He is ‘on his knees with clothing disarranged, hands uncovered and frostbitten, and a wild look in his eyes.’”; Ibid.
p. 221“It is a terrible thing to lose a companion in this way”; Ibid.
p. 221“‘Pray God,’ he writes in his diary”; Ibid.
p. 221“February 17th: Still blowing hard with drift”; Campbell, The Wicked Mate.
p. 222“Levick’s nose gets ‘rather badly frostbitten.’”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 222“We are now a little anxious about the ship, which was due on the 18th.”; Ibid.
p. 223“Scott writes perceptively, ‘It is a race between the season and hard conditions and our fitness and good food.’”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 223“There is little doubt we are in for a rotten critical time going home”; Ibid.
p. 223“They have scarcely enough, Scott realizes, even with the ‘most rigid economy’ to get them to their next depot”; Ibid.
p. 224“Blizzards have kept them ‘practically confined to our bags for 13 days—a record I believe for any antarctic party, and it has been absolutely miserable,’”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 224“for them, cruelly, to spy what they think is ‘smoke on the horizon and under it a small black speck.’”; Campbell, The Wicked Mate.
p. 224“Instead of their ship, it turns out to be ‘only an iceberg with a cloud behind it.’”; Ibid.
p. 225“the road to hell might be paved with good intentions, but to us it seemed probable that hell itself would be paved something after the style of Inexpressible Island”; Priestley, Antarctic Adventure.
p. 225“Campbell’s chances of relief are getting woefully small,” writes Wilfred Bruce”; Hooper, The Longest Winter.
p. 226“pack ice which they only manage to get out of ‘with much difficulty.’”; Ibid.
p. 226“‘Our faces shone in rivalry with the sun,’ Roald Amundsen, first man to the South Pole, will say”; Amundsen, The South Pole.
p. 227“I think of you and what you may wish, more than of him, and am in a strange mood”; Huntford, Scott and Amundsen.
p. 227“Nansen even goes on to say to her, “I wish that Scott had come first.”; Ibid.
p. 229“Scott notes fatalistically now, ‘The dogs which would have been our salvation have evidently failed.’”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
EIGHTEEN: DOGS
p. 231“I confess I had my misgivings. I had never driven one dog, let alone a team of them”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 231“asked that they increase the rations for the dogs because they were ‘losing their coats.’”; Ibid.
p. 232“‘the chance of seeing another party at any distance was nil.’”; Ibid.
p. 232“Ironically, they make ‘23 to 24 miles (statute) for the day.’”; Ibid.
p. 232“if he went under now, I doubt whether we could get through”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 233“Scott orders Wilson to ‘hand over the means of ending our troubles.’”; Ibid.
p. 234“Abbott, Browning & I have killed & butchered 8 seals”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 234“it is going to be a queer time for us through the dark months.”; Ibid.
p. 234“when we ought to be getting on with the sealing and work on the cave, and we are losing the sun daily.”; Ibid.
p. 238“According to Scott, ‘We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death’ and ‘tried to dissuade him.’”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 238“I am just going outside and may be some time.”; Ibid.
p. 238“remarkably, ‘at Wilson’s special request,’ Scott consents to the remaining three of them continuing to pull the thirty-five pounds”; Ibid.
p. 241“The wind increased to hurricane force, and suddenly one of the tent poles (on the lee side) broke with a snap”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 241“the pressing of the tent on them “produced a helpless suffocating sensation”; Ibid.
p. 241“they are unable to find anywhere sheltered enough to give them ‘the ghost of a chance’ of erecting their spare tent”; Ibid.
p. 242“‘I shall always remember the appearance of Brownings (sic) face,’ wrote Levick afterward”; Ibid.
p. 242“to spend ‘a most uncomfortable night’ according to Campbell”; Campbell, The Wicked Mate.
p. 242“the prospect of the winter before us is enough to give anyone the hump I should think”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 242“They ‘have two days’ food but barely a day’s fuel’”; Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition.
p. 242“Scott’s right foot is badly frostbitten: ‘Amputation is the least I can hope for now.’”; Ibid.
p. 242“the blizzard rages unabated and ‘outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift.’”; Ibid.
NINETEEN: WINTER
p. 244“what Priestley describes as the ‘visible darkness’ afforded by the faint light”; Priestley, Antarctic Adventure.
p. 245“We are settling into our igloo now, and a dismal hole it is too.”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 249“‘Campbell,’ he replies.”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 249“just then it seemed to me unthinkable that we should leave live men to search for those who were dead”; Ibid.
p. 249“Campbell’s men ‘might die for want of help.’”; Ibid.
p. 249“‘Were we to forsake men who might be alive to look for those whom we knew were dead?’”; Ibid.
p. 250“Levick describes it as ‘a great day of feasting.’”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 250“I have not realised how hungry I have been during the last month or so”; Ibid.
p. 250“Priestley says, ‘none of the famous wines of the world could possibly taste to us as did this,’”; Priestley, Antarctic Adventure.
p. 251“The hoosh flavoured with seal’s brain and penguins’s liver, was sublime”; Ibid.
p. 252“when they ‘once more went back to a subnormal allowance’ of food”; Ibid.
p. 252“His fur mit (sic) was nearly full of blood which soon froze into a solid block.”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 252“his hands are ‘filthy & soaked with blubber from the stove,’”; Ibid.
p. 252“I shall feel rotten about it if his tendons are cut”; Ibid.
p. 252“He observes, ‘The tendons of three fingers are cut I am sorry to say.’”; Ibid.
p. 252“‘We had another double hoosh,’ Campbell notes”; Campbell, The Wicked Mate.
p. 254“Levick, ever one to display his Victorian-bred roots, pronounces it ‘a most boring production.’”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p.
254“This inevitably involves ‘dining sumptuously at the various inns on the way,’”; Lambert, ‘Hell with a Capital H.’
p. 254“It is uncommonly cheering to think of the stretches of white dusty road at home at the present time”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 254“down the Saskatchewan, and writing about it, with plenty of good photographs”; Ibid.
p. 254“Campbell & I spend hours over planning my trip down the Saskatchewan.”; Ibid.
TWENTY: RETURN JOURNEY
p. 255“Personally I am looking forward to the sledge journey before us with mixed feelings”; Levick, diaries, Scott Polar Research Institute.
p. 256“Campbell says he means to start on or about the 22nd Sept.”; Ibid.
p. 256“The epidemic of diarrhoea continues in spite of precautions”; Ibid.
p. 256“Campbell 2. Levick 2. Priestley 4. Abbott 3. Browning 3. Dickason 2.”; Ibid.
p. 256“only to have Priestley come shuffling down the shaft ‘in the last extremity.’”; Ibid.
p. 256“Levick writes: “‘Our small stack of literature is disappearing fast.’”; Ibid.
p. 257“Midwinter’s feast on June 22: ‘One of the memorable days of our lives.’”; Ibid.
p. 258“‘I believe they thought we were ghosts,’ wrote Levick afterward.”; Ibid.
p. 259“then walks up to Cherry-Garrard, saying simply, ‘It is the tent.’”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 259“That scene can never leave my memory.”; Ibid.
p. 259“There is a loud crack ‘like a shot being fired’”; Sara Wheeler, Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (London: Jonathan Cape, 2001).
p. 260“It is the happiest day for nearly a year—almost the only happy one.”; Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
p. 260“‘We were entirely free from fat, and, indeed, were so lean that our legs and arms were corrugated.’”; Lambert, ‘Hell with a Capital H.’
p. 261“There was no sound from behind except a faint, plaintive whine from one of the dogs”; Sir Douglas Mawson, The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911–1914 (London: Ballantyne Press, 1915).
p. 261“Mawson and Mertz rush back to discover ‘a gaping hole in the surface about eleven feet wide.’”; Ibid.
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