Chapter
One: In Training
19
ponies, 33 dogs, and 130 men – 24 of whom were officers. Poor
beasts suffering – on the ship Terra
Nova –
the effects of the sea's motion, or, when the sea got up, in real
danger of being washed overboard, saved or hanged, in the dogs' case,
by their chains. 'So much', Scott writes, 'depends on fine weather.'
*
The
sensory experience of an expedition in the Antarctic. Impressions
that read like poetry. One can hear, see and feel it, though remote
from the landscape, though separated by the passage of time.
Herbert
Ponting's – the expedition's photographer – black and white
stills and moving image bring it closer. (YouTube and Wikipedia are
wonderful research tools!) There is Terra
Nova!
There are the men of whom Scott writes. There are the dogs and
ponies. There is the hut, the home from home, they erected, which
inside sounds so well organised. There are the penguins, which
afforded much comic entertainment. There is the scenic shot Ponting
gushed over and got: 'a view of the ship seen from a big cave in an
iceberg', not included in this Oxford edition of Scott's journals.
And there is Ponting himself with his camera.
Most
effecting.
*
Comfortable;
too
comfortable? At
Hut Point and more so at Cape Evans, the Home Station. Are there too
many comforts? Are they growing dependent on them? And will these
cause them to slack off? Explorers, says [Edward Adrian] Wilson in
his journal, want hard conditions, the opposite of modern living;
therefore, they will also explore at the end of a productive day
these soft questions.
*
Sunday
Service: prayers and hymns. A 'stretch off the land': ski or walk,
exercise the dogs or ponies. Evening discussions, splitting into
various groups, at the dinner table, in the dark room, to debate:
political progress; the origin of matter; military problems, etc.
Wordy contests, with never a too raised or a too sharp voice, always
concluded with a laugh. Lectures: reading papers thrice weekly; Scott
assessing – in his journals – each speaker's ability and the
attention of the audience. A slide show. A birthday dinner. A
midwinter festival: games, music, dance, and stimulating liquid
refreshment. Community; company. A unity of purpose; an uplifting of
spirits. Men, where they have to (and want to), pull together.
*
The
hut converted into a lecture hall: slide shows and talks.
Physiographical in nature with illustrations from scientific books.
Subjects worked up from the polar library. Tales of travel with
Ponting's plates to a confusing number of places: Burmah; Japan;
India; North China; Alpine scenery. An impression here, an impression
there. 'A lecture need not be a connecting story, [links joining one
episode to another]; perhaps it is better it should not be', writes
Scott after a Ponting lecture.
Another
night: an adventure with Meares to a wild place of the earth,
illustrated only with maps. Scott provides the outline; then notes
(p.280): 'We are all adventurers here, I suppose, and wild doings in
wild countries appeal to us as nothing else could do. It is good to
know that there remain wild corners of this dreadfully civilised
world.'
*
Twelve
good men for the Southern advance; all experienced sledge travellers.
In a letter to Kathleen (Scott's wife) Scott writes (p.303): 'You see
altogether I have a good set of people with me,' going on to mention
some by name and character: Wilson, Bowers, Wright, 'The Soldier'
Oates, Edgar Evans, Crean, Lashly; thus bringing to an end the first
chapter of the expedition's history.
Picture credit: Scott at Cape Evans taken by Herbert Ponting.
See
Journals, Captain Scott's Last Expedition,
Robert Falcon Scott (Oxford World's Classics).
Adapted from a series
of entries on reading Scott's journals, November 2022.
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