An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (25 page)

They rose the next day, 12 November, and pressed on a further 11 or 12 miles (18–19 km) south of One Ton. Towards the end of their march, Crean was among the first to notice what looked like an old cairn of snow with a black flagstaff pointing out, lying about half a mile off to the right of their course. Keohane thought it was a broken bamboo from one of last year’s camps. Wright, on skis, veered off towards the object. It was the tip of a tent. They had found the polar party.

Inside the small green tent they saw three bodies – Scott in the middle flanked by Wilson and Bowers. Wilson, on Scott’s left, had his hands folded neatly over his chest. The flap to Scott’s sleeping bag was open and his arm was thrown across
his old friend Wilson. Everything was neat and tidy. Beside his head lay a bag of tea and some tobacco and under his shoulder they found a little wallet containing his three notebooks. Alongside the bodies were their final letters.

The cold had turned Scott’s skin yellow and glassy and Gran said there were ‘masses of marks of frostbite’. It was a ‘horrid sight,’ he added. ‘It was clear he had had a very hard last minutes. His skin was yellow, frostbites all over.’
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The search party was deeply affected by the scene and Williamson admitted:

Atkinson asked each man to go into the tent one by one to see the bodies and make sure that there would be no dispute over the details of their sad discovery. Williamson remembered ‘a most ghastly sight’ and Gran was so upset that he had to leave the tent.

Crean, who had wept when bidding farewell to Scott ten months earlier, was again in tears. Although he had been very disappointed at not being selected for the polar party, the Irishman could not disguise the powerful sense of loss which he felt for the man whom he had loyally served for over ten years. In a letter written some time afterwards, he expressed his feelings:

Crean entered the tent and saw the bodies. Once again, the tears welled up inside and the big Irishman leant over and gently kissed Scott’s forehead.
¹¹
Some years later Crean remembered the mournful scene and wrote to an acquaintance:

While Crean was obviously distressed, he composed himself and graciously went across to Gran to break the historic news that his fellow Norwegians under Amundsen had been the first men to reach the South Pole. It was an enormously generous and noble gesture by the Irishman and many years later Gran still remembered the touching scene in the snow. In his own words, Gran recalled:

Atkinson read the diaries from cover to cover and then called the men together and passed on details of the tragedy, notably the loss of Evans and Oates. He read aloud Scott’s ‘Message to the Public,’ which concluded with the now famous words:

The men collected their watches, notebooks and other valuables and collapsed the bamboo tent pole over their fallen comrades. A massive 12 ft (3.6 m) cairn of snow was built over
the bodies and topped off with a cross made from Gran’s skis. Each member of the party signed a note recording the five deaths, which ended with the words: ‘The Lord gave and Lord taketh away …’

The eleven sorrowful men then stood bareheaded on the bone-chilling Barrier and said their own silent personal farewells, forgetting for a brief moment the biting cold. It was, said Gran, ‘a truly solemn moment’.

The next day they set out to find the body of Oates. All they discovered was his sleeping bag, a theodolite and a finnesko snow boot which had been slit down the side to accommodate his badly swollen and frostbitten foot. Another large cairn was built and a note attached to a cross which recorded the death of a ‘very gallant gentleman’.

Crean had a special memory of Oates, with whom he had shared a tent in the first five weeks of the journey from Cape Evans. In 1918, six years after Oates’ death, he fondly recalled him in a letter to an acquaintance:

Oates, too, was fond of Crean and shortly before the fateful expedition set out from Cape Evans in October, 1911, he had written to his mother that Crean and another unnamed man were ‘splendid chaps and great friends of mine’.

The eleven disconsolate men finally returned to where they had found the three bodies and set up camp near the cairn. It was a sombre gathering and Keohane said:

It was bitterly cold and the wind whipped up the snow as the men began the journey back to Cape Evans. Gran travelled with Scott’s skis, a symbolic gesture which ensured that they, at least, completed the 1,800-mile (3,000-km) trip to the South Pole and back. The quicker-moving dog teams returned to Cape Evans on
25 November to discover that Campbell’s northern party had survived being stranded for a winter and were safely back at base. It was the first cheering news they had received for many months and their survival helped lift spirits generally.

Three weeks later the
Terra Nova
sailed from Lyttelton to pick up the 21 souls now camped together at Cape Evans. On board was Teddy Evans, now Commander Evans, who had made a full recovery from scurvy and in typical fashion, was raring to go. The little ship, a very welcome sight, sailed back into McMurdo Sound on 18 January 1913, to the noise of hearty cheers from the joyful men on the land. Evans shouted a cheerful greeting through a megaphone to the men gathered on the shore and was surprised at the silence which quickly descended on the little group. No one was quite sure what to say, or how to break the news. Campbell, now the most senior officer at Cape Evans, paused and yelled back:

Evans said it was a moment of ‘hush and overwhelming sorrow’.
Terra Nova
’s stewards hurriedly took down the banners and bunting and stored away the champagne and cigars which had been assembled to welcome the conquering heroes. A renewed sense of gloom soon descended.

All the men of the wintering party were anxious to get away from Antarctica, especially those with two years of isolated service under their belts. But there was one final solemn duty to perform before leaving Cape Evans.

It had been decided to erect a large wooden cross to commemorate their dead companions. Frank Davies, the ship’s carpenter, set about the task of making a cross from jarrah, a hard wood from Western Australia, which would be able to withstand Antarctica’s harsh and corrosive climate. Two days later on 20 January Crean trudged off with seven others towards Hut Point for the last time.

The men – Crean, Atkinson, Wright, Lashly, Debenham, Keohane, Davies and Cherry-Garrard – headed for Observation Hill, a 700-ft (215-m) volcanic cone overlooking the old
Discovery
camp at Hut Point and one of the most prominent and welcome sights to greet weary men returning from the Barrier. Crean knew Observation Hill better than anyone else. Ten months earlier he had somehow summoned the strength to scramble around the hill in the final stages of his walk to save the life of Teddy Evans.

The journey out to Hut Point was the last significant piece of man-hauling undertaken on Scott’s last expedition and right to the end, the hostile Antarctic environment was determined to remind the explorers of its supremacy.

As they approached Hut Point, the wind struck up and Crean was nearly lost. He crashed through the slushy ice and no sooner had he been hauled out than the Irishman plunged back into the freezing waters for a second time. Fortunately, Crean was in his sledging harness and his worried comrades managed to pull him out before the weight of his thick polar clothing dragged him under. Some dry clothes were found at the hut and in customary phlegmatic style, Crean seemed unmoved by the experience. His temperament was firmly intact despite the ordeals of the past year and Cherry-Garrard recalled:

The solemn duty of erecting the huge cross, which had been cut into several pieces for transportation, involved heavy hauling of the blocks of wood up the steep Observation Hill. Finally, by about 5 p.m. in the afternoon, the blocks were bolted together and the cross, measuring almost 12 ft and weighing close to 300 lb (136 kg) was erected.

For a brief moment the men punctured the tranquillity around Hut Point Peninsula with three rousing cheers for their dead comrades. As the silent stillness returned to the hilltop,
the men cast a final glance upwards at the cross towering over them, which carries the names of the five men and the fitting inscription from Tennyson’s
Ulysses
:

C
rean was back on board the familiar
Terra Nova
as the small ship eased its way out of McMurdo Sound on 23 January 1913. The British Antarctic Expedition, soon to be known as Scott’s Last Expedition, was nearly over.

While they had been away, the world had lost Florence Nightingale and Leo Tolstoy, and the passenger vessel,
Titanic
, had struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sunk with the loss of 1,600 people.

After a fairly reasonable trip across the usually treacherous Southern Ocean,
Terra Nova
sighted New Zealand on 9 February, the first glimpse of trees and vegetation since they pulled out of Port Chalmers well over two years earlier. The next day the ship slipped quietly into the harbour at Oamaru on New Zealand’s South Island and the dependable Crean went ashore with Atkinson and Lt Pennell to provide the world with the first news of the tragedy.

Scott had an exclusive contract with the Central News Agency in London for information about the expedition and the men were ordered not to answer questions as they made their way to the cable office. A message would be sent to the Agency in London, who would then flash the news around the world.

The men returned to
Terra Nova
, dutifully dodging questions from inquisitive New Zealanders, who were
surprised at the earlier than expected return of the ship. It was no easy task considering the huge interest in the expedition and Crean told Cherry-Garrard that they had been chased, ‘but they got nothing out of us’.
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Terra Nova
sailed away from Oamaru as the men unpacked their shore clothing and prepared to greet civilisation face to face. It was an uncomfortable preparation. Beards were shaved off, hair was cut, feet were crammed into tight-fitting boots and the men struggled into unfamiliar clothes that seemed as though they were last worn a lifetime away.

At dawn on 12 February,
Terra Nova
crept into Lyttelton, the White Ensign flying at half-mast. Small silent crowds had gathered on the quayside as the ship moved slowly towards her berth and the first visitors came on board carrying newspapers with big bold headlines screaming: ‘CAPTAIN SCOTT DEAD’.

It was the first time the men appreciated the scale of the disaster and the effect it had on ordinary people. Understandably, the men had totally underestimated the impact the tragedy had made on the general public and Cherry-Garrard explained: