Reaching the summit of Mount Erebus was their first success. ‘We stood on the verge of a vast abyss [with] a huge mass of steam filling the crater.’ Photograph by Douglas Mawson, 10 March 1908.
Before winter set in, the only achievement at Cape Royds was a hazardously impromptu first ascent of Mount Erebus in March 1908. Eric Marshall, the surgeon, forbade Shackleton to undertake it unless he passed fit. Shackleton declined to be examined and the climb was made by the 50-year-old David, Mawson, Lieutenant Adams (the expedition’s second-in-command), the two doctors Marshall and Mackay, and Sir Philip Brocklehurst, the 20-year-old baronet adventurer of the party. This triumph of amateur mountaineering to the smoking crater, conducted without even proper boots and dogged by altitude sickness, fixed Erebus’s height at 4,115 metres (13,500 feet).
Shackleton’s style was very different from Scott’s. There was no ‘wardroom’ or ‘mess-deck’ in his hut: everyone lived together, though Shackleton’s one distinction as leader was having a personal sleeping cubicle. There were tensions but his outward confidence and the courteous maturity of David maintained a working equilibrium through the winter, helped by Marshall’s quite advanced dietary regime, which included both plenty of fresh seal meat and tinned fruit and tomatoes (all anti-scorbutic in effect). As with Scott, no serious attempt was made to perfect the use of either skis or the dogs, who were growing bored from lack of exercise. When Shackleton began shuttling supplies to Hut Point over the sea ice in August, it was all by man-hauling and using the car for the few miles of hard surface over which it would run.
In early October, David, Mawson and Mackay left on an epic journey of their own up to the Victoria Land plateau to accomplish Ross’s old dream of reaching the South Magnetic Pole. On 3 November, having laid an advanced depot 160km (100 miles) south of Hut Point, Shackleton, Adams, Marshall and Wild set off with their four surviving ponies and, until 7th, an initial support party, to reach the South Pole. Shackleton calculated this at 1,202km (747 miles) from Cape Royds, and he hoped the journey would be a straight and relatively level march over the Barrier. They had 91 days’ food and allowing that it might be stretched to 110, this meant covering at least 20km (12.5 miles) a day. The dogs (inadequate in number) were left behind. The feet of ponies and men without skis sank into the snow at every step but by 26 November they had passed the most southerly point of Scott and Shackleton’s first journey in 29 days, compared to 59.
By 1 December they had only one pony left, the other three having been shot and depoted for food as they weakened. Ahead the Barrier ended in a line of mountains, which they could not have known were the 4,800m (3,000-mile) Transantarctic Range, peeling off inland from the Ross Sea. Two days later, crossing massive pressure ridges of ice, they climbed a low pass dubbed the Gateway and discovered beyond it their cause – the rising, awesome 160km (100-mile) sweep of what Shackleton was later to name the Beardmore Glacier, falling off the polar plateau. This was one of the few ways up through the mountains and had ample hazards of its own. These quickly became clear when their last pony vanished through the snow into one of the hundreds of hidden crevasses, itself a shocking enough event, but one that also deprived them of its meat. By Christmas Day they were some 2,895 metres (9,500 feet) up at the top, 885km (550 miles) from ‘home’ and with about 400km (250 miles) to go to the Pole. They had less than a month’s supplies left, and their average speed was down to about 15km (9.5 miles) a day against the still rising and difficult ground, as well as continuous headwinds and blizzards, which on some days stopped them from leaving their tent.
Shackleton, Wild and Adams at their furthest south (lat. 88° 23’). Shackleton recorded: ‘Our last day outwards. We have shot our bolt… whatever regrets may be, we have done our best.’ Photograph by ES Marshall, 9 January 1909.
By New Year’s Day 1909 they were nonetheless closer than anyone had been before to either the North or South Poles, but altitude sickness was seriously affecting Shackleton in particular, as they crossed the 3,353-metre (11,000-foot) contour in temperatures around -30°C. This they endured with inadequate clothing, having discarded as much as possible to save weight, with the result that their body temperatures were technically below critical level. They were also increasingly malnourished. At 4am on 9 January 1909, as another blizzard died away, they left their tent and sledge to make a final dash south and plant the Union flag Queen Alexandra had given them at 88° 23’ south. This was just 156km (97 miles) from the Pole, 589km (366 miles) beyond Scott’s furthest south. Having taken photographs, they immediately turned back, now with the wind behind them and helped by a sail made from a tent floor-cloth. Already weak, their survival was entirely dependent on following their own outward tracks and finding the small depots they had left on the way – a task made more difficult when they lost the sledgemeter wheel, which counted off the miles as they went. On 20 January, with just one day’s food left and starvation looming, they found their first depot and extra clothing near the head of the Beardmore Glacier. At this point, even though the altitude was now decreasing rapidly, Shackleton collapsed with breathing difficulty and a high temperature, and for some time had to be carried on the sledge. It was almost a repeat of the Discovery journey, though without critical scurvy. Fortunately the weather was good but by the time they were very close to the next depot 64km (40 miles) on, everyone was so exhausted that only Marshall was able to reach it and bring back food. Finally, down on the Barrier, Shackleton recovered but the same desperate sequence was repeated, depot by depot, with dysentery added to the mix when they ate meat from a pony left at the base of the glacier.
As the last 480km (300 miles) slowly wore them down, all that saved them was generally fair weather, willpower, and finally help from the party left at Cape Royds. This took the form of a large cairned depot 80km (50 miles) south of Hut Point, which, following orders left by Shackleton, Joyce and others had laid in two journeys beginning on 15 January. For this, Joyce had successfully used dogs, having taken the interest and effort to form them and himself into an adequate team, with impressive results. Shackleton reached this point and plentiful food on 23 February but knew he had only five days left to return to Hut Point before Nimrod, which Joyce’s note confirmed had now arrived, would sail for New Zealand, giving his party up for dead. In fact this had already been assumed: they were now a month overdue in terms of the food supply with which they had started. Consequently, lookouts who should have been posted for them from 25 February were not on station.
In the end, with Marshall no longer able to continue, Shackleton and Wild made a 40-hour, 48km (30-mile) forced march, practically without food and only brief rest, to the Discovery hut, arriving on the evening of 28 February. It was unexpectedly deserted and unsupplied, with an ominous note from David saying everyone else was safe but implying that Nimrod might have already sailed. Despair loomed until the following morning, when the ship, now commanded by Evans from the Koonya, returned from a safer offing to land a small wintering party under Mawson. This had been hastily arranged after much argument on board, the sole purpose being to search for the bodies of the southern party. Shackleton – who had not slept properly for more than 50 hours – insisted on immediately leading the rescue of Marshall and Adams, a further two-day and nearly 100km (60-mile) march out and back on foot, since the dogs were waiting for collection at Cape Royds. It was an extraordinary demonstration of both responsibility and endurance, given his earlier collapse and exhausted state. When they returned on 3 March, he immediately ordered Nimrod’s departure for New Zealand, abandoning part of their baggage and equipment ashore rather than add a further day’s risk of being trapped in the gathering ice of the southern winter.
The southern party finally on board Nimrod (left to right: Wild, Shackleton, Marshall, Adams). Shackleton wrote: ‘We had been given up for 10 days past & killed in a hundred different ways.’ Unknown photographer, 4 March 1909.
Despite the Royal Geographical Society’s reluctance to recognise the Nimrod voya
ge’s achievements, they issued a gold medal to Shackleton and silver replicas to members of the expedition.
3 WHITE WARFARE
by Diana Preston
‘A period of badly strained optimism’ was how HG Wells described the opening years of the 20th century. While predicting a world of aeroplanes, air-conditioning and cosy suburban living, he also foresaw wars more widespread than the conflict with the Boers, in which Britain was engaged as 1900 began. No one was yet quite sure who the enemy would be. Some newspapers warned that the French might launch a combined forces raid on London while Britain was distracted in South Africa. Later, as the Germans began to build a navy to rival Britain’s dreadnoughts, they became the more likely enemy.
Much to the glee of Britain’s rivals, the war in South Africa had not gone well initially. There were major defeats at Spion Kop and elsewhere. Robert Baden-Powell and his men were besieged in Mafeking and were only relieved with much difficulty. Nevertheless, the mad rejoicing in the streets at the relief brought a new word into the vocabulary, to ‘maffick’. ‘Mother may I go and maffick, rush around and hinder traffic?’ went one rhyme, not without irony. But this could not mask fears that modern Britons were becoming decadent compared with their forebears. Baden-Powell – soon to found the Boy Scouts and already an instant hero for his role in the siege – saw disturbing parallels with the decadence and decline of the Roman Empire. He warned of the dangers of physical degeneracy. He recalled how the Romans had come to grief because their soldiers ‘fell away from the standard of their forefathers in bodily strength’.
Such self-doubt and uncertainty fuelled a hunger for heroes as tangible reaffirmation of Britain’s greatness. But these heroes must not be swaggering, bragging types. Britain’s dignity had long demanded understated, self-deprecating heroes, unfailingly cheerful in the face of adversity. When Livingstone was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1874, the press lauded ‘the brave, modest, self-sacrificing African explorer’, enthusing that such virtues were those ‘which our country has always been ready to acknowledge, which our religion has taught us to revere, and seek to cultivate and conserve’. Baden-Powell himself seemed to embody the stiff upper lip, sending laconic telegrams from Mafeking such as ‘All well. Four hours bombardment. One dog killed.’ So keen were the myth makers to reinforce this image that they even claimed Baden-Powell never cried during childhood.
‘A British Hero’. A souvenir postcard of Captain Scott and the Terra Nova in an Antarctic landscape, published after Scott’s death. It shows how he was by then presented to the British public.
Edwardians thought that men should behave heroically for King, country and comrades, not out of personal ambition. Also, while winning was important, it was not everything. The good sport and the plucky loser were held in huge esteem. Although Britain topped the medals table with 56 gold medals at the 1908 Olympic Games at London’s White City, some of the loudest applause greeted Queen Alexandra’s presentation of a consolation gold cup to the Italian marathon runner Durando Pietri. He had collapsed while leading in the final lap and been disqualified for receiving help over the finish line. In one of the rowing events at Henley, the British team chivalrously waited for their Dutch opponents to resume rowing after they had run their boat into the bank.
The ideal hero in a society steeped in the works of GA Henty, Rudyard Kipling and Conan Doyle also embodied a certain boyish, schoolboy fervour. JM Barrie, creator of Peter Pan and friend of Captain Scott, captured this somewhat naïve spirit in his introduction to ‘Like English gentlemen’, an allegorical tribute written after Scott’s death: ‘And so this hero of heroes said, I am going to find the South Pole. It will be a big adventure.’
Antarctic exploration indeed seemed a ‘big adventure’ to the Edwardians, satisfying a number of needs in this society in transition. First, national pride and precedence required that Britain should claim the South Pole. The British had long been pre-eminent in Antarctic discovery, from the days of Captain Cook to James Clark Ross and beyond. Yet, on a deeper, psychological level, Antarctica represented an ultimate testing ground, a kind of quest for the Holy Grail, where Britons could demonstrate that they retained the manly attributes of old. Sir Clements Markham, the driving force behind the 1901–1904 Discovery expedition, fostered such thoughts, designing sledge flags like medieval pennants for the participants.
Antarctica’s almost mystical remoteness was another factor. Like Barrie’s ‘Neverland’, this place of mists and legends could not be seen by ordinary mortals. When Scott, Shackleton and the rest set off in 1901, it was to disappear behind an icy screen into terra incognita – a white, featureless wasteland. There had been many recent developments in communications. Telegraphs enabled Queen Victoria in 1897 to broadcast her message to the Empire at the single press of a button in Buckingham Palace and for it to pass through to Tehran within two minutes on its way to the furthest corners of her dominions. However, all such innovations were intriguingly and entirely irrelevant in Antarctica. Once the explorers had sailed over the southern horizon, the world could know nothing of their struggles and achievements until they, or a relief ship, emerged with news the following season.
Public interest in Antarctica was initially quite low-key. However, the popular press like the Daily Mail – launched in 1896 priced at half a penny and with circulation by 1900 of a million copies a day – had an appetite for heroes and new-found lands, and played an influential role. When the Discovery expedition was announced, the papers emphasised the quest for the Pole, rather than the scientific aspects. The Morning Post rejoiced: ‘Even in the last throes of an exhausting struggle [the Boer War], we can yet spare the energy and the men to add to the triumphs we have already won in the peaceful but heroic field of exploration.’
They brought their readers the subsequent, joyful news that Scott, Shackleton and Wilson had reached within 645km (400 miles) of the Pole. When Sir Clements Markham, who feared a repeat of the Franklin tragedy, expressed anxiety for the men’s safety, the papers fuelled the public’s anxiety. Would the men of the Discovery return safely? If so, would they be emaciated, exhausted skeletons, harrowed by unimaginable experiences? When the Discovery finally sailed into Portsmouth Harbour in September 1904, a surprised Daily Express journalist reassured his readers not only that the men looked like ‘seasoned mahogany’ but that, against all the odds, they had positively flourished.
The special ‘Furthest South’ supplement in the Illustrated London News was written by Shackleton on his return in July 1903 and included some of his own photographs.
The press alighted on Scott who discovered, somewhat to his dismay, that he had become a ‘celebrity’. His remarks to journalists that the men of the Discovery had been very well able to take care of themselves, and had had no need of the relief vessel sent to find the party, endeared him to the public. Heroes were supposed to be self-sufficient, scornful of danger and disdainful of fuss. Scott was lionised by London society and invited to Balmoral by King Edward VII to report in person. He was made a CVO (Commander of the Royal Victorian Order), although he did not receive the rumoured knighthood. An Antarctic Exhibition staged by Markham at London’s Bruton galleries, which included several hundred of Edward Wilson’s inspirational drawings, a model of the Discovery and sledging equipment, drew 10,000 fascinated visitors. The fashionable world descended from their carriages, horseless or otherwise, to be told by the patient policemen that they would have to queue like everyone else. It was a new experience for them to have to wait their turn and perhaps a sign of the changing times. The exhibition’s photographs of the Discovery trapped in the ice brought the scale, magic and danger of Antarctica home to people with a compelling immediacy. They were confronted by images of a world that until then had only existed in their imagination.
A handbill advertising the first public lecture on the Terra Nova expedition, 4 June 1913. Illustrated lectures were an important way to engage audiences on a more personal level. Relatively high prices and profess
ional organisation exploited their patriotic and human appeal.
Scott’s lyrical account, The Voyage of the ‘Discovery’, immediately sold out. The sentiments he expressed seemed a perfect rebuttal of all those fears about British decadence and decline. He scorned the use of dogs, asserting that the only truly ‘manly’ way was to pull the sledge yourself. He wrote: ‘No journey ever made with dogs can approach the height of that fine conception … when men go forth … with their own unaided efforts and … succeed in solving some problems of the great unknown.’ His philosophy was perfectly attuned to the ethos of his age. It is embodied in most Antarctic expeditions today.
What the public could not know was the personal impact the experience had had on their new hero. Scott was a fine writer and his book captured the siren beauty of Antarctica; but he could not reveal his personal feelings, the self-doubt and anxiety that had, on occasions, tormented him. A man of his time, he would have found it unthinkable to confess publicly to his lack of confidence and bouts of introspection, and it was certainly not what the public wanted from its hero. Yet, as he later confided in his wife, Kathleen, Antarctica had been a personal proving ground where he had battled as much against personal weaknesses as against the bitter physical conditions.
At the same time, like Shackleton, he had fallen in love with Antarctica. They had both been initially attracted to exploration through that unheroic thing – personal ambition. Neither were well-off and both had their way to make in the world. Scott was supporting his mother and sisters, while Shackleton wanted to establish himself in the eyes of his fiancée’s wealthy family. But, as they sledged together across the Great Ice Barrier, ambition had fused with something else. Both had been gripped by Antarctica’s astonishing beauty. Both had seen the possibilities it offered. Both felt compelled to return by what Shackleton termed the ‘Call of the South’, a kind of magnetic attraction.
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