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Those are likely the last words written by Robert Scott, on March 29, 1912, as his expedition to the South Pole reached its sad conclusion. His journey, begun with such promise in November of 1911, had seen excitement turn to bitter disappointment and then disaster.
When his small group of five arrived at the South Pole in January of 1912, the discovered that Roald Amundsen, having started his trek in mid-October (two weeks earlier than Scott) and taken a somewhat shorter route, had arrived a month earlier. Dejected, Robert Scott and his four companions began the long, arduous journey back two days later, on January 19th.
They initially made good time, but then the Antarctic conditions worsened considerably. Edgar Evans was the first of the five men to succumb, battling serious illness and injuries from a fall which really slowed the team down, before perishing on February 17th.
The remaining four men were able to continue, but were further delayed by dwindling food supplies, even worse weather, and Lawrence Oates’ deteriorating condition. His voluntary self-sacrifice in mid-March was a testament to his desire for his three comrades to survive, but ultimately didn’t help.
Scott and his two remaining companions were only able to advance a further twenty miles over the next three days before a terrible blizzard forced them to stop, just eleven miles from their next base camp…and here they would stay. With their supplies gone, and no way to move, there was but one tragic outcome in the brutal -40°F conditions.
For a few days, Scott spent his waning strength writing letters to the families of Wilson and Bowers, some friends, and to his mother and wife. Stoic even in the face of his own death, Scott wrote, “We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.”
On March 29, 1912, an emaciated Robert Scott gathered the last of his fleeting strength and penned his final words. With Wilson and Bowers likely already dead beside him, thoughts probably turned to those they were leaving behind when he wrote, “Last entry. For God’s sake look after our people.”
Scott’s body and those of his two companions were recovered the following “summer”…November of 1912. The bodies of Evans and Lawrence Oates were never found, lost to the frozen desolation of the world’s most brutal environment.
Recommended Reading: The Coldest March
Great post. I recently saw a documentary about Scott on PBS that debunked the notion that he had somehow been foolhardy in leading his men on the mission. Scott did underestimate the harshness of the conditions that they would face … but he was basing his planning on climate data that he had gathered. The winter Scott faced turned out to be much worse than those for which he had records.
Yeah, good point. The weather was particularly bad for Scott. I don’t have weather records in front of me, but it seems that the weather grew worse from mid-November on, during a time of traditionally better conditions. This would have affected Amundsen less.
Susan Solomon’s book does much study of the weather and agrees with you as well. But I would imagine that my final analysis (as a non-expert) is that these “races to the Poles” that seemed to dominated the early 1900′s were done without a good understanding of how the human body responds to brutal cold, without good knowledge of how to properly clothe and fuel the body in those conditions, and with crude transportation.
Rather than be too critical of the Terra Nova Expedition, I’m more surprised that any of the polar expeditions survived.
I’ve decided to move Leonard Bickel’s book Mawson’s Will up the ranks of the unread. I’ve owned the book for years and, when I was in college, listened to it read on the radio by a local Public Radio guy. It’s a fascinating account of Douglas Mawson’s expedition.
Thanks for continuing to contribute your thoughts and comments…I truly appreciate it.
Regards,
Joel