An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor

by Michael Smith

  With the unloading of supplies and equipment now largely complete, attention switched to the two important tasks which had to be wrapped up before the severe Antarctic winter took grip. First was an important journey to lay down depot supplies for the spring march to the Pole. Second, the Terra Nova was to carry a party of six men under Lt Campbell to undertake exploratory and scientific work to the east past the Barrier onto King Edward VII Land.

  However, what was supposed to be a straightforward scientific outing had a couple of major surprises in store. Campbell’s party – geologist Raymond Priestley, surgeon Murray Levick and the seamen, George Abbot, Frank Browning and Harry Dickason – sailed eastwards along the Barrier, reaching a place called the Bay of Whales. Suddenly and unexpectedly, they caught sight of another ship. It was Amundsen’s Fram.

  Campbell, a cultured man who spoke Norwegian, strode across the ice to meet Scott’s rivals. After a while, three of the English party went aboard for breakfast and Campbell returned the favour by inviting Amundsen and two others onto Terra Nova for lunch. They were both rather stiff, formal occasions with each side politely attempting to learn details about the other’s plans but without resorting to the vulgarity of a direct question. Half an hour after lunch Terra Nova sailed back towards Cape Evans with the news of the remarkable meeting.

  After they had left, Amundsen reported that some of the Fram party had caught irritating colds.

  Campbell promptly abandoned the eastern option and switched his attention to Cape Adare and Terra Nova Bay to the north and the six men were duly landed. However, 30 miles of ice later wrecked plans for the Terra Nova to lift them off the land and the six-man party was forced to spend the winter in a 12 ft × 9 ft cave, eking out a survival by killing seals and penguins. But, as if to remind even stranded sailors that naval discipline was inviolate, Campbell drew a line in the snow-filled cave to signify separate ‘quarters’ for the officers and men.

  The achievements of Campbell’s party should not be underestimated. If they had not been overshadowed by the tragedy of Scott’s march to the Pole, the ordeal of the Northern Party in that tiny cave would undoubtedly have been regarded as one of the great endurance and survival stories of polar history.

  The journey to lay depots for the following season was vital and Crean was an obvious choice for the mission, his experience on Discovery giving him a significant lead over most of the others who prepared for the first major trip of the expedition. He cheerfully worked alongside Taff Evans in preparing sledges for the thirteen-man party and Scott was relieved to have such a reliable, hard-working back-room team.

  The intention was to carry a large amount of supplies and equipment to three depots out on the Barrier which would be picked up by the party returning from the Pole a year later in 1912. The depots were the vital supply links.

  The first depot, to be called ‘safety Camp’, was barely 2 miles onto the Barrier and was thought to be a region of firm ice which would not disappear with the regular seasonal breakup of the sea-ice. The second depot was ‘Corner Camp’, some 35 miles from Hut Point, Discovery’s old base and situated at the place where travelling parties would turn away from the base camp region to head due south across the Barrier for the Beardmore Glacier and the Pole itself.

  Finally, the most important depot would be laid some 170 miles from Cape Evans at 80° S. The cache, which became known as ‘One Ton Depot’ because of the large amount of supplies and equipment it would hold, was to be the crucial link in the supply chain for the returning polar party. But no one at this stage realised how crucial.

  The thirteen-man party set out on 24 January 1911, with Crean leading a pony called Blossom, one of the eight animals which each carried around 570 lb of supplies. The others in the party were Scott, Lt Evans, Wilson, Oates, Bowers, Meares, Cherry-Garrard, Gran, Atkinson, Forde, Keohane and the Russian Dimitri, plus 26 dogs. The group, which was hauling a total of 5,385 lb, carried fourteen weeks’ food and fuel. Only Crean, Scott and Wilson had any real experience of polar travel, though Gran was an expert skier and was therefore somewhat accustomed to the environment.

  The routine was briefly interrupted when Crean and some of the party broke off to visit the old Discovery hut at Hut Point, which was a nostalgic detour for the Irishman. It was seven years since he had last seen the old hut.

  The depot-laying party, which began with great expectations, soon ran into difficulties and Scott immediately turned to Crean’s experience to solve the problem. Edward Atkinson, the surgeon, had developed a suppurating heel caused by chaffing soon after leaving Cape Evans. The heel was lanced when the party reached Safety Camp but his condition did not improve.

  Scott decided to leave Atkinson behind and turned to Crean as one of the most trusted and dependable members of the party to look after the dispirited surgeon. Scott’s diaries recorded the incident:

  ‘Atkinson and Crean remained behind – very hard on the latter. Atkinson suffering much pain and mental distress at his condition – for the latter I cannot have much sympathy, as he ought to have reported his trouble long before. Crean will manage to rescue some more of the forage from the Barrier edge – I am very sorry for him.’4

  Gran, with classic understatement, said:

  ‘It isn’t funny to be ill here.’5

  Crean was obviously disappointed at missing out on the expedition’s first important mission and Cherry-Garrard recognised it. He recalled:

  ‘Poor Crean was to spend his spare time in bringing up loads from the Fodder Depot to Safety Camp and, worse from his point of view, dig a hole downwards into the Barrier for scientific observations!’6

  A spare tent and primus stove was found for the two men but a disappointed Crean was forced to watch the party break camp and disappear slowly southwards on 2 February. The depot journey, which was to have been a fairly routine affair, ran into considerable difficulties that would have tragic consequences.

  The weather deteriorated and the ponies, on whom Scott had placed such faith, suffered badly. Despite the exemplary care of Oates, the ponies were weaker than expected and, without equine snow shoes, they frequently sank deep into the soft snow surface, making their task a terrible ordeal. The realisation was dawning on the party, particularly the horseflesh expert Oates, that the ponies were not adequate for the planned task of carrying large quantities of supplies across the Barrier.

  Although doubts about the ponies began to grow, Scott was equally unconvinced about the dogs. He had never quite come to terms with the difficult task of driving and handling the beasts. Indeed, his weakness with both the dogs and the ponies was to prove a serious flaw in his overall management of both expeditions.

  Scott had great hopes that the ponies would be vital in hauling tons of supplies across the Barrier, thus saving the men from the back-breaking work of man-hauling. But, misguidedly, he despatched Meares to Russia to buy the animals. Meares was no expert on horse-flesh and he had purchased a poor bunch. Oates, the real expert, was not even consulted about the animals and instead was employed humping boxes around Terra Nova on the Thames like an ordinary docker when he might have served the expedition more profitably buying the right type of ponies. Significantly, Oates was appalled when he saw the beasts, dismissing them as a bunch of ‘wretched old cripples’.

  Scott had a further difficulty with animals. He was squeamish and could not tolerate what he saw as cruelty or unnecessary blood-letting. It was an attitude that would prove costly because he could not bring himself to shoot the weaker dogs and ponies, leaving the meat as food for the men and animals on their return journey. It was precisely this method of killing off dogs as he travelled which helped Amundsen to move so efficiently across the ice.

  However Scott rejected the idea and complained to a dismayed Oates about unnecessary ‘cruelty to animals’. Despite protests from Oates, he decided to halt the harrowing pony marches and place One Ton Depot at 79° 28½’ S. It was about 30 miles north of where he planned, enough to make the diffe
rence between life and death.

  Scott hurried back to Hut Point, losing two more dogs in the process. At Hut Point he was reunited with Teddy Evans who had returned early with three of the weaker ponies. There was a double dose of bad news. Evans had lost two ponies on his return journey and there was a letter from Campbell informing Scott about Amundsen’s camp 400 miles away at the Bay of Whales. Scott conceded that Amundsen’s plan was a ‘very serious menace’ to his ambitions and noted that the Norwegians were camped 60 miles nearer to the Pole. Scott, once again showing little understanding of utilising animals in polar travel, even wondered how Amundsen had got his 120 dogs onto the ice.

  Crean had been busy carrying pony fodder and seal meat up to Safety Camp. He and Atkinson had also gone back to Hut Point and cleared the snow which had built up inside the familiar old Discovery hut.

  On 24 February Crean was back in harness alongside Scott as they travelled back to Corner Camp, where they were to meet Bowers and Cherry-Garrard. Crean’s experience of the ice was invaluable to Scott and both agreed that travelling by foot was harder than using skis. But Scott persevered with foot-slogging and the men prepared to head back for Hut Point.

  The simple return to Hut Point, which almost turned into a disaster, was to be the first of Crean’s many acts of heroism on the expedition.

  Bowers, who was on his first polar journey and was understandably inexperienced, had been ordered to start back alone to Hut Point on 28 February with one of the remaining ponies. Soon Scott ordered Crean and Cherry-Garrard to take three more animals and catch him up. Scott remained behind with Oates and Gran to nurse another sickening pony.

  Bowers, as a marine lieutenant, held the senior rank and was an immensely enthusiastic and well-meaning character. But Crean knew far more about the ice and had developed into an accomplished traveller in these treacherous conditions. His experience was to prove invaluable.

  The trio marched across the remaining miles of the Barrier and eventually stepped down onto the sea-ice adjacent to Cape Armitage, close to Hut Point. But they soon came upon ice which was moving, a dangerous sign that it was breaking up all around them. Crean, aware of the dangers of falling into the freezing water, suggested that they push farther west to where he had previously seen firmer ice, but the inexperienced Bowers was unsure. Although the ice was 5–10 ft (1.5–3 m) thick, water was squelching through in some places and they could feel the disturbing swell of the sea beneath them, which indicated that the ice was breaking up.

  The ponies were close to exhaustion, darkness was descending and a mist was swirling around the three men. Bowers, nominally in charge, decided to camp for the night and lit the primus stove to make a drink of hot cocoa. It took one and a half hours to heat the water alone and in the misty darkness, Bowers mistook a small bag of curry power for the cocoa bag. Unwittingly, Crean drank his mug of boiling curry before discovering that anything was wrong.

  But, barely two and a half hours later at 4.30 a.m., the three men were woken by strange noises and appalled at what they saw. The ice had broken up around them, one of the ponies had disappeared, two of the sledges were on another floe and then suddenly their own floe split in two.

  The men were stranded on a 30-ft floe in misty semi-darkness and dangerously low temperatures, floating menacingly towards open sea and certain death. Cherry-Garrard recalled that it looked a ‘quite hopeless situation’.

  The trio leapt up and began their desperate fight for survival, with the men jumping from one moving floe to another, dragging their sledges and enticing the three terrified ponies to join them. They desperately needed to find a larger, more solid piece of ice.

  Crean, summoning up his Discovery experience, was a tower of strength and offered considerable reassurance to the two inexperienced men. Bowers observed that the Irishman behaved ‘as if he had done this sort of thing often before’ which, of course, he had. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard, who were suffering their first ordeal in the ice, could not have chosen a better companion for the occasion.

  When the men had gained some confidence in their ability to leap across the moving ice floes, another serious threat emerged with the sudden appearance of killer whales. It is not unusual for these whales to attack an ice floe in search of a meal, deliberately tipping a seal or penguin into the sea and its waiting jaws.

  After about six hours of aimless drifting, with the killer whales still circling the marooned party, their floe came floating up close alongside the Barrier itself. It was only a small comfort since the Barrier presented a sheer cliff of ice some 15 or 20 ft high (4.5–6 m) and it was impossible to haul the ponies and sledges to safety.

  At one stage there was a lane of open water between them and the Barrier about 150 ft (45.6 m) wide which Cherry-Garrard said was a ‘seething cauldron’. Bergs were falling off the Barrier and killer whales filled the rest of the lane. At one point, Cherry-Garrard recalled seeing at least six whales crammed into a space between two floes which was no larger than normal room-size.

  Crean showed great composure, despite the grave danger and the rawness of his colleagues. He bravely volunteered to go for help, hoping to climb aboard any passing ice floe which floated close enough to the Barrier that would allow him to climb up with the improvised aid of a ski stick. It was a desperate gamble.

  Bowers stuffed Crean’s pockets with food and a note to Scott. The two men watched as Crean boldly jumped from one floe to another, eagerly looking for the one which would carry him closer towards the Barrier. But this was no instant rescue. Crean spent many hours waiting for the right floe to drift by and Bowers, writing afterwards, described the scene:

  ‘Crean was hours moving to and fro before I had the satisfaction of seeing him upon the Barrier. I said: “Thank God one of us is out of the woods, anyhow”. Crean had got up into the Barrier at great risks to himself as I gathered afterwards from his very modest account.’8

  Luckily, Cherry-Garrard took the trouble to record Crean’s ‘modest account’ of the hair-raising escapade in his famous book of the expedition, The Worst Journey in the World, which was published many years afterwards.

  In the semi-darkness, Crean had made for the Barrier over the best path of the ice, but was soon forced to retrace his steps and make for nearby White Island, jumping from floe to passing floe. A single slip on the ice would have killed the Irishman and possibly spelt death for the stranded Bowers and Cherry-Garrard. Crean himself took up the story:

  ‘I was pretty lively and there were lots of penguins and seals and killers knocking around that day.

  [One of the ski sticks] was a great help to me for getting over the floes. It was a sloping piece like what you were on and it was very near touching the Barrier, in one corner of it only. Well, I dug a hole with the ski stick in the side of the Barrier for a step for one foot, and when I finished the hole I straddled my legs and got one on the floe and one in the side of the Barrier. Then I got the stick and dug it in on top and I gave myself a bit of spring and got my outside leg up top. It was a terrible place but I thought it was the only chance.

  I made straight for Safety Camp and they must have spotted me; for I think it was Gran that met me on skis. Then Scott and Wilson and Oates met me a long way out; I explained how it happened. He was worried-looking a bit, but he never said anything out of the way. He told Oates to go inside and light the primus and give me a meal.’9

  Scott was full of praise for the Irishman and remembered to record the incident in his diary. He wrote:

  ‘He [Crean] travelled a great distance over the sea ice, leaping from floe to floe and at last found a thick floe from which, with the help of a ski stick, he could climb the Barrier face. It was a desperate venture, but luckily successful.’10

  Wilson, who was at Safety Camp with Scott, said Crean had considerable difficulty and ‘ran a pretty good risk’ in undertaking the solo walk to alert the others. Gran was despatched to run out on his skis and meet the lonely figure seen from a distance walking across the ice.
He was the first to reach the weary Crean and in the circumstances feared the worst:

  ‘He was tired and looked done in, and I was afraid to ask about the party’s fate. I ask carefully and am answered robustly, “All right, sir”. The answer was encouraging in a way, but unfortunately it was clear, after some probing, that the situation was not quite all right.’11

  Crean, a Catholic, may have appreciated the irony of the occasion. It was Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent and the start of the 40 days of penitence.

  Bowers admitted that he had underestimated the danger signs on the sea-ice but did not forget to mention the ‘splendid behaviour of Cherry and Crean’. Teddy Evans, who was later to be the ultimate beneficiary of Crean’s courage, said the Irishman had acted with ‘great gallantry’.

  In retrospect, it seems likely that the two stranded men could easily have abandoned their ponies and equipment and scrambled up the Barrier in the same fashion as Crean. However, this should not diminish the courage which he showed in setting out alone, without shelter in sub-zero temperatures, to bring help for his comrades.