by Sara Wheeler
Seventeen years Apsley’s senior, Woollcombe came from an old Devon family with land and deep Tory roots. After graduating from Keble, he had followed his father’s calling and taken holy orders. Still single, he was a short, jolly man, deeply religious, teetotal and, like Apsley, a keen nature enthusiast and pheasant shooter. Towards the end of 1908 he had accepted an appointment as travelling secretary of the Church of England Men’s Society, an organisation with over 100,000 members committed to the promotion of muscular Christianity. In this capacity, Woollcombe was to carry the message on a three-year tour of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Here was the obvious solution to Apsley’s dilemma. He could sail to Australia with his friend, travel with him for a period and then split off on his own. Woollcombe was delighted with the plan. Evelyn was less pleased. She hated the idea of being left in charge of Lamer, let alone the other estates. But she didn’t make things difficult, comforting herself with the knowledge that Apsley would be back within a year. Fortunately, she did not know what lay in the unfathomable future.
It seemed a good time to leave. In March 1909 panicky rumours surged over the country concerning the alarming growth in Germany’s naval power, and two months later, as Apsley’s ship was being loaded, parliament was obliged to step in to deny ‘evidence’ that Germany was plotting war. Imperial power was being shored up all over the globe, and at home Liberals and Conservatives were at each other’s throats over free trade and Home Rule for Ireland with more than the usual measure of venom.
On 16 May Woollcombe and his young friend set sail from Plymouth on the Orient Steam Navigation Company’s 6,400-ton steamer Ormuz, one of the best-known liners of her day (‘the greyhound of the Southern Seas’, according to The Times). They called at Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples and Port Said before proceeding down the Suez Canal, where the crew of a passing ship hailed the Ormuz to ask which horse had won the Derby. After crossing the Arabian Sea to the western coast of India they steamed round to Ceylon, where Woollcombe hurtled ashore to address members of the Colombo branch of the Men’s Society. On the longest leg of the journey, a haul over the Equator and down to Australia, the Ormuz battled the squally south-west monsoon while everyone on the upper deck was sick.
The Orient Line, of which the Steam Navigation Company was an offshoot, had recently lost the Australian mail contract, though its southbound ships, all beginning with ‘O’, still carried cargo as well as 400 passengers, of whom just over a quarter travelled first class like Apsley and Woollcombe. Their upper-deck cabins featured bathrooms with marble baths, and they dined in a saloon panelled with inlaid rosewood and mahogany and upholstered in velvet, its revolving chairs anchored to the floor to prevent diners from shooting across the carpet and colliding with the soup tureens. The first-class passengers dressed for dinner, the men in black or white tie, spats and watch chains and the women in elegant evening gowns. When the ship was in port coaling, there was plenty of time to stroll down the gangplank and indulge in some gentle tourism. In Naples Woollcombe and Apsley had a guided tour of nearby Pompeii, and at Port Said they were taken to the new mosque, where they were obliged to put on large slippers which looked like wicker baskets. At sea they lounged in cane chairs on the wide promenade deck, rising occasionally for a game of bucket quoits or deck billiards or even cricket, at which the passengers were regularly thrashed by the officers.
Apsley took to shipboard life immediately, even the impromptu dances on deck after sunset and the fancy-dress balls. While Woollcombe held evensong in his cabin, Apsley lounged in the smoking room, visited the on-board barber for a shave and noted the birds wheeling in the ship’s wake, as well as the pretty girls leaning on the rails. His experience on the Ormuz left him with a love of cruising that was to last his whole life. Loosed from his moorings, the abundance of free time allowed him to relax, a task he found difficult on land, and being physically marooned enabled him to cast off his anxieties, too. He relished the contained world of an ocean-going ship, just as he was to relish an Antarctic hut.
They reached Fremantle, the port twelve miles south of Perth in Western Australia, on 17 June, just over a month after leaving England. The passengers crowded the decks as the ship hooted up to the mouth of the Swan River and into Princess Royal Harbour accompanied by a flotilla of tiny craft. The two men went straight up to Perth, and Apsley tagged along as Woollcombe toured around addressing meetings. The Church of England Men’s Society was already well established in Australia, and at one venue 2,500 men turned up. From Western Australia the tour moved south to Adelaide, continued round to Tasmania (‘the Bishop is a great Men’s man’) and travelled up to sub-tropical Queensland. At the end of September they surfaced in Brisbane, where Apsley heard the official news that Scott was planning a second expedition (it had been announced in The Times on 13 September).
From the start, Apsley was sure that this was for him. In his short acquaintance with Wilson he had glimpsed something he badly wanted: a clear sense of purpose and the chance of adventure. The newspapers reported that Wilson had been appointed chief of scientific staff, and Apsley immediately wrote to him to apply for service. He sent the letter via Reggie and informed both men that if necessary he could shorten his trip and sail straight home for an interview. It was not an empty gesture. He was determined to let nothing stand in the way of his application.
Leaving Woollcombe in Brisbane to continue his tour, Apsley struck out alone. He took a series of cargo ships up the coast of Queensland, through the Arafura Sea and on to the island of Celebes (now Sulawesi), sandwiched on the Equator between Borneo and the Spice Islands (now the Moluccas) in the Dutch East Indies. On the way up to China and Japan he passed through the Singapore Straits Settlements, then British. His arrival was anticipated by a raft of references unleashed on the expatriate community by Arthur Farrer, his lawyer, whose fulsome letters focused on Apsley’s rowing achievements – it’s difficult to see how these were going to come in handy in Singapore – and talked him up as ‘a very cultivated, capable, nice fellow and a particular friend of mine. His father was a very good class and the son is like him.’ After steaming up through the South and East China Seas, Apsley’s ship stopped at the new dock in Nagasaki. Four years after emerging victorious from their war with Russia, the Japanese were well disposed towards the English, and Apsley particularly enjoyed travelling among them. The highlight of his adventures was a partial ascent of Mount Fuji.
By the end of the year he was in Calcutta, the capital, at that time, of British India. The expatriate community was large enough even to sustain Old Wykehamist dinners, though the leisurely pace of colonial life had been quickened that year by nationalist unrest, and the government was busy banning Gandhi’s article on Indian Home Rule. Apsley left by rail for Lucknow, where his mail pursued him. Reggie wrote to say that he had discussed Apsley’s application with Wilson, and reassured his cousin that he was not risking the chance of a place by remaining abroad. Expeditionary finances were perilous, and to further Apsley’s cause Reggie had told Wilson that if he were accepted, he would not expect to be paid a salary. Smith went loyally on to thrash out the pros and cons of an Antarctic adventure, one of the cons being a delay on Apsley’s planned call to the Bar. No doubt in some place in his heart Apsley put this on the ‘pro’ list.
He saw some of the Himalayas, including Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, and at the beginning of 1910 he was back in Calcutta in time for his twenty-fourth birthday. He hurried to the main post office and discovered among his mail a reply from Wilson on British National Antarctic Expedition notepaper. It was dated 8 December 1909. ‘My dear Cherry-Garrard,’ wrote Wilson:
Your letter duly reached me and I have discussed your proposal with Captain Scott as with Reginald Smith . . . The facts are these. Scott thinks that it is just possible that when we have filled up the actual scientific staff with the necessary experts in each branch, there may still be a vacancy for an adaptable helper, such as I am
sure you would be; ready to lend a hand where it was wanted. Only, I must frankly say that as it is a matter of real importance in these shore parties to reduce numbers to a minimum, the reverse may be possible and there may be no room for any but the absolutely necessary staff.
If however you will allow the matter to stand over until you return, and if, after coming once more into closer touch with your home ties, you are still anxious to go, I can promise that your application will not have been forgotten, and will not have suffered by the waiting. Only at present it is quite impossible to make you any promise – I wish it were otherwise – and you must be prepared for disappointment. I am delighted to hear that you are enjoying your travels.
From the start, Wilson was unequivocal in his support. During their Scottish sojourn he had been impressed by Apsley’s intelligence, enthusiasm and sensitivity, and by the time he received the younger man’s formal application the foundations of their friendship were in place. Besides his natural affection, Wilson was influenced by his deep loyalty to Apsley’s cousin. ‘I am biased in favour of anyone who is a friend of Reginald Smith’s,’ he wrote, ‘and you are more than that.’
When he received Wilson’s letter, Apsley immediately wrote to Reggie, who replied on 3 February.
Dr Wilson is up to his ears with work and yet makes time to pay me constant visits and so does Captain Scott. They are getting on very well with their preparations and everything points to the Terra Nova [the expedition ship] starting in June . . . it looks as if should they not get to the Pole in the next two years they will stay on and make a third effort. ‘We are going to get there this time’, they say.
I need not say that your keen ambition to go is very much in my thoughts. And it will be a question which you only can decide whether you can ask your Mother to make the sacrifice which your going will mean to her. Apart from this there seem to me many reasons and inducements for you taking part in the venture if they can have you . . . Take good care of yourself and ‘haste ye back’ as you know we say in Scotland.
The rest of Apsley’s mail revealed widespread anxiety over the January 1910 general election, an event precipitated by the refusal of the House of Lords to pass Lloyd George’s land-taxing budget the previous December. Apsley watched anxiously, via out-of-date newspapers in steamy expatriate drawing rooms, as the authority of the Lords was pitted against Liberal reforms, the latter including a graduated income tax culminating in a supertax on all incomes over £5,000. Power was shifting away from the landed estates and into London, a process which irritated Apsley intensely from start to finish. Taxation hurt, and like most middle- and large-scale landowners he protested indignantly at government plans to fund the desperately needed social reform programme with a little of his money; but the way the country was abandoning the status quo distressed him more profoundly.
The traveller returned at the beginning of April, six weeks earlier than his mother had expected. He had sailed across the Pacific to San Francisco, where he watched seals playing on the rocks outside the harbour and wondered if he would shortly be seeing a great deal more of them. But he abandoned plans to travel in California, anxious that further absence might jeopardise his Antarctic prospects. At home he basked in maternal attention and lavished his sisters with Japanese robes. He had been abroad for twelve months, and had thoroughly enjoyed himself; all he could think about now was when he could get away again. It was not just that travel offered an escape from squirearchical responsibilities and interminable correspondence with tenants and lawyers and land agents, though that was attractive enough. There was a deeper appeal, a visceral, illusory sense that one’s true self lay somewhere out there, waiting to be uncovered.
On 7 April a telegram arrived at Lamer from Kensington. ‘Welcome home delighted see you Devonshire Club tomorrow 5 o’clock.’ It was from Wilson. Apsley rushed down to town, but after the meeting expressed grave doubts about his chances: he learned that 8,000 men had applied for a place on the expedition. Such was the lure of the poles. Ten days later Reggie reported a startling idea that had originated with Wilson. ‘I have seen Wilson more than once about you,’ he wrote, ‘and I learn that the Antarctic land lies this way. Scott has not yet gathered as much money as he needs for the Expedition, and he finds that he can get volunteers – unqualified – who will subscribe in order to go.’ Like many explorers before him and since, cash was Scott’s main problem. Although the navy were lending him men and the government had made him a grant of £20,000, the expedition was not an official national undertaking. Scott was cobbling funds, equipment and personnel together from a wide range of sources: from anywhere he could.
‘Putting it quite baldly,’ Reggie continued, ‘I learn that if you subscribe £1,000, there would be a good chance of your being accepted. If this is confirmed, as I expect, you will have a good prospect . . . The question then is whether you will think it right to volunteer in such terms? And will your going in this way, if you like to take the risk of subscribing a large sum . . . be in any way to your detriment or discomfort?
‘This is really a matter for you and for you only. One man, I hear, a soldier from India, is going in this way. [This was Captain Oates.] And there may be more. I am sure that Wilson will do all that a good friend can do for you, but . . . you know already that your short sight will militate against you, perhaps increasing the chance of accident to you.’
On 19 April Apsley took the train to London again, this time to see Farrer. The usual matters were queuing up for attention: cottages at Denford, sanitation at Little Wittenham, monies due from the General’s trust, decisions on stocks and shares. When the business was over they turned with some dismay to the uproar in the House of Commons, where the Liberals were preparing legislation that would effectively abolish the power of the Lords.
Two days later Apsley heard from Wilson that he had not been accepted on Scott’s expedition.
‘I am more sorry than I can say to have been the means of conveying to you your disappointment,’ wrote Wilson. ‘But there are two things that give me even more pain. One is that it should have been necessary for me to offend your sense of the fitness of things by suggesting that you might pay money for a place in the expedition, and the other is that the whole thing has been a very great disappointment to Reginald Smith, and I would have done anything in the world to have avoided that had it been possible.’ In fact, Apsley had no scruples about his financial donation. It was perfectly standard for a member of an expedition to contribute funds then; and it would be now. But for Wilson the inner life was infinitely more important and more real than the outer, and he recognised the shadow of potential moral compromise in the scheme that he had proposed.
Apsley decided to make a noble gesture. He would give the thousand pounds anyway.
On 25 April, Wilson wrote again. It seemed that it was not over after all. ‘Captain Scott wants to see you again and have a talk over things with you before giving you a final answer. Can you manage to be at the office, 36 Victoria Street, on Wednesday forenoon, say at 11 o’clock?’ Eight thousand men might have applied but Apsley had Wilson’s support: in Scott’s eyes it was a powerful advantage. ‘I have received your cheque,’ Wilson continued, ‘and I am withholding it, as Captain Scott wishes you to see him first. He says he must satisfy himself by a talk with you that there is no misunderstanding on the subject before coming to a determination, otherwise he feels you might both be in something of a false position. I believe he is right, and the time has come when you and he must understand one another. I can tell you one thing however, and that is that he very much appreciates the motive which induced you to send your subscription independently of your chance of being taken. That is an action which appeals to him, not because of the money for which he cares very little, except impersonally, insofar as it helps the Expedition to be a success, but because he knows what to expect of a man who felt it was the right thing to do.
‘I know Scott intimately, as you know. I have known him now for ten years,
and I believe in him so firmly that I am often sorry when he lays himself open to misunderstanding. I am sure that you will come to know him and believe in him as I do, and none the less because he is sometimes difficult. However you will soon see for yourself.
‘Come prepared to be examined medically in the event of your being accepted, as we have arranged to overhaul everyone at the office that day . . .
‘You have my heartiest good wishes.’
He was accepted on Wednesday 27 April. There was a spare place on the scientific staff after all, and Scott had taken a liking to Reggie’s bright, keen young cousin. He almost failed his medical, because he could only see people on the other side of the road ‘as vague blobs walking’, but Wilson went and had a talk with Scott about it and they said he could go if he was prepared to take the additional risk. ‘At that time,’ Apsley wrote later, ‘I would have taken anything.’
4
Winning All Hearts
The Terra Nova was a three-masted wooden whaler with auxiliary steam, and she reeked of blubber. She had already been to the Antarctic once: when the Discovery was stuck in the ice on Scott’s first expedition both the Terra Nova and the Morning had been sent down as relief ships. The 747-ton Terra Nova sailed under the white ensign, a privilege accorded only, outside the Navy, to ships of the Royal Yacht Squadron. But by 1910 she was a battered old tub, hardly the ideal vessel for an enterprise on the scale of Scott’s. ‘The Discovery was a palace compared to the Terra Nova,’ Wilson reckoned.
