Death on the Ice (53 page)

That night the five officers—Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Teddy Evans—shared a tent and not only did it seem more snug, the wind was muffled too. After supper they took to their bags, while Scott summarised their progress so far. He was full of praise for Crean and Evans and their efforts on the sledges. If they all pulled true, he was hoping for up to twenty-five miles per march.

Nobody groaned, but all felt like doing so. They had managed between fourteen and seventeen miles a day, although it was true that sledge problems and bad surfaces—including crevasses—had caused them to tarry. But twenty-five, a third more than their best recent day, felt like it was asking a lot. Except nobody had any doubt that if there were four Captain Scotts per sled, it would be achieved. Shove, shove, shove, Cherry had observed about him, and he was right.

Evans, though, was only half listening. Scott had made his group jettison their skis, ostensibly to save weight. Man-hauling on foot had taken the last of his reserves and he had trouble keeping his eyes open. Oates wondered if this was why Scott had done it, to make it clear just how depleted he was. Everyone in the tent knew that Scott’s party would go forward, although Oates was sure Crean or Bowers would take his place. He hadn’t been able to disguise totally his limp, despite not wanting to show weakness.

‘Hell of a thing.’

‘What is?’ Scott asked.

Oates was not aware he’d spoken. ‘What’s that?’

‘What is a hell of a thing?’

‘Sorry. I was thinking about the Boers.’

‘What about them?’ asked Wilson.

Oates pulled the sleeping bag up to his neck, moving his feet to try to get them warm. ‘Nothing.’

‘Come on, Farmer Hayseed,’ said Bowers. ‘You tell us little bits about them and what you did and then stop. It’s about time you told us about the army. Nobody here knows anything but the Navy. Dr Wilson not even that. Tell us about the cavalry.’

So, to his own surprise, he did. He spoke about South Africa, Gestingthorpe, Eton and Ireland, then the respective merits of Napoleon and Wellington, then back to his youth in Essex, till he ran out of words. When he had finished he said: ‘I think I deserve a brandy after that.’

Wilson laughed and rolled over. ‘Sorry, the supply is purely medicinal. But thank you for an entertaining evening.’

Scott patted him on the leg. ‘Yes, thank you. You’ve quite come out of your shell, Soldier. Well done. And happy New Year.’

Oates pushed himself down into the bag, cursing his freezing feet and numb hands but, for some unfathomable reason, enjoying a warm glow of contentment inside. As he drifted off to sleep, he composed the next note he would scribble to his mother if he were lucky enough to be in the final party.

I am afraid the letters I wrote you from the hut were full of grumbles but I was very anxious about starting off with those ponies. But now I am part of this last push, I am full of hope. I might even be selected for the Pole. Imagine that! We have plenty of food and as soon as we start back we have good depots. Some of us shall get to the Pole all right.

‘That’s a bad cough you’ve got there, Crean.’

The seaman looked up at Scott. It was 3 January; time for the parties to split from each other. They were 150 miles or so from the Pole. It was now they had to gather themselves for the final sprint.

Crean did have a bad cough. The same cough he’d had every morning since he started smoking a pipe. ‘I understand a half-sung song, sir.’ And, despite his inner turmoil, he smiled.

‘Thank you, Crean. I knew you’d take it well.’

Crean didn’t take it so well inside. He was tough, fit and loyal. Fitter than most. And he was intact. Taff Evans had cut his hand badly when they were sawing down the sledges. He’d kept it from Scott, lest it influenced his decision, but it was going to make some of the manual work harder for him.

But Crean was loyal to Taff, too. So he kept quiet. He waited till Scott had left the tent before he punched the floor till his knuckles ached. Then he let himself weep with anger and disappointment.

Next Scott took Teddy Evans to one side. They stood with their back to the wind. Scott found it difficult to say the words. In the end, Evans did it for him.

‘I’m not going, am I?’

‘No, Teddy. You are slowing us down.’

‘You made us depot our skis.’

‘You weren’t using them properly. It saved you a hundred pounds, Teddy. That was why. Anyway, I had made my mind up before then.’

‘Back in New Zealand, no doubt.’

Scott shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You have hauled longer than anyone, Teddy. You’ve pushed yourself to the limit and beyond.’

‘I could make the Pole. It can’t be more than a fortnight, if the weather holds.’

‘I know you could make it. That’s not the trick just now, is it? It’s getting back to tell the tale. We’ve demonstrated my team has the speed and the stamina. We exchanged sleds and we were still the quicker.’

‘You promised me, skipper.’

Scott thought Evans might cry. ‘There were no promises, Teddy.’

Evans rubbed his aching eyes. ‘You’ll take all of them?’

‘Yes. Wilson, Taff, Oates. A scientist, a seaman, a soldier and myself.’

Evans dipped his head and Scott heard his teeth grind. ‘Very well.’

‘And, Teddy, I think you should go back on the
Terra Nova
.’

Evans’s head whipped up. ‘Why?’

‘To sort things out for next season. There is much expedition business in Lyttleton. Fending off creditors for one, no doubt. Sourcing fresh animals.’

Evans narrowed his eyes. ‘You want rid of me?’

‘No, that’s not it.’

The anger flooded back into him. ‘Like Shackleton. You want rid of me.’

Scott overcame his usual embarrassment at such confrontations and spoke firmly, and to Evans’s face. ‘I am no fool, Teddy. I know what you have been saying. You aren’t happy with my leadership. Fine. But I don’t want a second-in-command back at the hut questioning my orders or motives. Do you understand?’

Evans remained quiet. He had certainly been grumbling about Scott’s planning and imperious attitude, but only in private. Had someone betrayed him?

‘I have written a commendation for you, should you decide to return to England. But I hope you’ll come back south next season on the ship.’

‘Sir.’ The word was pushed out with great reluctance.

‘And one more thing. Could you spare me Bowers?’

Evans look shocked. ‘Birdie? Five?’

‘Yes.’

‘But we cached for four. Everything is worked for four to the Pole. The returning party will have to try and divide the depoted food into five and three. And you only have supplies for four.’

‘But the man pulls like a train. What we lose in rations we gain in speed. And he can navigate and has the eyesight of a hawk.’

‘And the tent routine?’ Evans asked.

‘We slept five the other night. It was much warmer.’

‘One night is hardly the same as rubbing up for months. And we know how you like a shipshape tent.’

Scott ignored this. Evans was notoriously slipshod and untidy on the ice. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Will he, though? He has no skis.’

A flicker of irritation crossed Scott’s features. ‘If anyone can manage, it’s Birdie.’

‘So I have to pull back with just three. And only I can navigate. What if anything happens to me?’

‘Don’t let it. I know the broken sledgemeter is a nuisance, but you are the only man here I would trust to get back that distance without one.’ That much was certainly true. ‘Only you, Teddy.’

He gave a rueful laugh. ‘You know how to soften a blow.’

‘It’s not that. It’s the truth.’

‘Five. You are sure?’

‘I have considered it carefully. If we are going to make it, we have to be whip-fast.’

Now it was done, the decision made against him, Teddy Evans felt a strange sense of calm come over him. Was it relief? Had he ever really wanted the Pole that badly? Or was it exhaustion? He couldn’t tell. ‘In which case, please take Birdie with my best wishes.’

That night, as they ate their pemmican in strained silence, Teddy Evans gave Birdie Bowers a small silk flag. ‘It’s from Mrs Evans. I told her it would fly at the Pole. I had expected to be there to see it.’

‘It’ll fly there, sir, don’t you worry. And I’ll take a photograph for Mrs Evans.’

‘You will make it, won’t you, Birdie?’

The little man nodded. ‘Make it or the trying.’

‘Don’t say that, Birdie.’

Bowers laughed at the superstition in Evans’s voice. ‘Then I will see you back at Cape Evans.’

‘Be certain of it.’

They separated the next day, once Evans, Lashly and Crean were sure the Scott sled was pulling well and the strange combination of four on skis and one walking would work. It did, thanks to Birdie Bowers’s prodigious efforts to keep pace with the skiers. A lesser man might have stumbled, but Birdie set his jaw, leaned into the traces, and tramped and pulled, as Wilson put it, for all he was worth and about ten per cent more. When they stopped to make their goodbyes, Crean cried once more, but Lashly and Evans put a brave face on it.

Lashly took Taff Evans to one side and slipped him a few squares of chocolate. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Taff.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Sharing a tent with four officers?’

‘Three and the doctor. And Titus ain’t Navy. But what about it?’

‘We get another blizzard like that last one, you’ll find out whether their shit really does smell the same as ours.’

Lashly dissolved into guffaws, but Taff wasn’t smiling. He really hadn’t considered the lavatory etiquette of being tent-bound with the Owner. All dignity went at times of need and he had shared with officers before, even with Scott, but never had to face up to being unable to step outside to do his business. It had happened just before the Beardmore, but he hadn’t been with Scott then. ‘We’ll manage,’ he said glumly. ‘We’ve all got but one arseshole. Even you. And sometimes you speak out of it.’

‘Oh, now, Taff, don’t go off like that. It’s only jealousy speaking.’

Taff brightened at this. ‘I suppose it is. You’ll wish me luck, then?’

‘ ’Course I will, Taff. And I’ll be drinkin’ at your place one day.’

‘That you will.’

‘I expect a free pint, mind.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

A few yards away, Oates slapped Evans on the back and said: ‘Quite a slog back, Teddy, but at least you’ll have Christopher waiting for you to eat. Say hello to the old bugger from me.’

‘Don’t worry about us. You get to that pole.’

Scott handed Teddy Evans the letter he had written to Kathleen. ‘Can you give that to
Terra Nova
, Teddy? It simply says we are in a good position with a fine party.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And Teddy, I told Cherry to make sure the dogs come to One Ton Camp in March. The twenty-seventh. I would like to change that. Best make it Mt Hooper, which should be restocked with whatever you take, and perhaps as far as eighty-two degrees. And a week earlier than I suggested. Just in case.’

‘Aye, skipper.’

‘Mt Hooper, then south, eighty-one or eighty-two, depending on conditions, although no further. Tell Meares.’

‘Meares will have gone. He’s back on
Terra Nova
, too.’

‘Oh. Yes.’ How could he have forgotten that? ‘Dimitri, then, and Atch or Wright. A good navigator. You won’t forget?’

‘Stand on me, skipper.’

‘Need it in writing?’

Teddy Evans tapped his temple. ‘Up here, sir.’

With the wind tugging at their clothes, their faces masked by windbreaks and goggles, the two groups shook hands one last time.

Scott reckoned that his team watching the Last Returning Party turn north for home would be a terrible mistake for morale, so he pushed on. They had travelled a few hundred yards when they heard the hip-hip of three cheers and he felt his eyes burning from more than snow-glare. His goggles fogged. He suspected the others’ did too.

After a mile or so, Oates glanced back and saw the three men waiting in line despite the wind in their faces, intent on watching till the polar party shrank to nothing and were swallowed by the whiteness of the plateau. At least when they turned it would be at their backs, he thought, pushing them back to safety. Scott’s team had another thirteen or fourteen days before they had that luxury.

At first they made good speed, over a smooth surface, but then they hit the type of snow that baffled Scott. It was more like gritty sand, and refused to let the skis or runners glide, acting more like starch paste than a lubricant. They managed twelve and a half miles, a good tally given the conditions. By the time they camped, though, the hated wind had dropped and the temperature had risen, and the five men were able to stand around outside in comfort, smoking and gabbling with the nervous talk of the overexcited. The last of the partings was done, and it gave all of them a heady sense of liberation.

After the euphoria faded slightly, they went back to work. Oates and Wilson set about unpacking the stove and pannikins. Taff worked on dividing the rations for five. Bowers used the swing thermometer. Scott excused himself; he had much to write.

‘Sir,’ said Bowers to Scott as he stepped towards the tent.

‘Yes, Birdie.’

‘I just want to say thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘Bringing me.’

‘Without skis? I’m sorry about that.’

‘I’d walk barefoot to be with you there, sir,’ said the little man. Scott believed him.

‘What do you think our chances, Birdie?’

‘If God be with us, who can be against Us?’

Scott smiled. Both Wilson and Bowers were convinced they had God on their side. Who was cheering on Amundsen, then? he wondered.

The thought punctured his mood, and he imagined he could hear the ghostly yapping of dogs somewhere on the plateau. The howling echoed off the distant mountains. When he cocked his head the better to catch it, the noise had disappeared. An illusion; the wind perhaps. There had been no signs of the Norwegians, so whichever way they had come, it hadn’t been the Beardmore. And who was to say there was another stairway to the plateau like that one?