From Ice Floes to Battlefields E-Book

Anne Strathie

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 429

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

February 1912: Harry Pennell and his Terra Nova shipmates brave storms and ice to bring supplies to Antarctica. They hope to celebrate Captain Scott's conquest of the South Pole, but are forced by ice to return north before Scott's party returns. In New Zealand a reporter tells them that Roald Amundsen reached the Pole first. Returning to Antarctica in early 1913, they learn that Scott's party reached the Pole but died on the ice shelf. Back in Britain memorial services, medal ceremonies, weddings and resumed careers are abruptly interrupted by the First World War. Fit and able men, Scott's 'Antarctics' trade one adventure for another. By 1919 Scott's 'Antarctics' have fought at Antwerp, the Western Front, Gallipoli, in the Channel, at Jutland and in Arctic Russia. They serve on horseback, in trenches, on battleships and hospital ships, in armoured cars and flimsy aircraft; their brothers-in-arms include a prime minister's son and poet Rupert Brooke. As in Antarctica, life is challenging and dangerous. As on the ice, not all survive.

Leseprobe

In memory of my late parents, Jack and Marion Strathie, and all those who have died in or suffered due to wars or in exploring the wonderful world which we all share.

Acknowledgements

I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to numerous organisations and individuals who have contributed in a wide range of ways to this book and have made researching and writing it both enlightening and enjoyable.

I thank the museums, archives, libraries and galleries that conserve and interpret the documents, artefacts and images which lie at the heart of biographical and non-fiction writing. I particularly thank the following, including for permission to quote from documents in their custody or use images from their collections.

In Britain: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge (Naomi Boneham, Lucy Martin); Blandford Museum (Bridget Spiers and fellow volunteers); The Wilson, Cheltenham (Ann-Rachael Harwood); Cheltenham Library; Haslar Heritage Group (Eric C. Birbeck MVO); King’s College, Cambridge (Rupert Brooke Archives); Imperial War Museum; National Archives, Kew; National Portrait Gallery; Natural History Museum; Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery; Royal Geographical Society (Eugene Rae, Sarah Evans and colleagues); Royal Signals Museum (Adam Forty); The Alliance Boots Archive and Museum Collection; University of St Andrews Library (Group 22–2, Rachel Hart and colleagues).

Outside Britain: Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand (Sarah Murray, Nicolas Boigelot); Akaroa Museum; Archives New Zealand; In Flanders Field Museum, Ypres, Belgium (Dominiek Dendooven, Annick Vandenbilke); Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada (Bert Riggs); Royal British Columbia Museum, Canada (Marion Tustanoff, Kelly-Ann Turkington); University of Melbourne Archives, Australia (Georgina Ward); Waitaki District Libraries and Archive, Oamaru, New Zealand.

I also thank the descendants and family members of Harry Pennell and others who served on the Terra Nova expedition, and writers, historians, explorers and others who have provided guidance, information, encouragement and, in several cases, permission to use written material or photographs. They include: David and Virginia Pennell; June Back and family; Christopher Bayne and other relatives of Edward Atkinson; Dr Paul Baker; John Barfoot; Sarah Baxter (Society of Authors); Christopher Bilham; Dr Steven Blake, David Elder and other members of the Cheltenham Wilson centenary committee; Sheena Boese; Julian Broke-Evans; Robin Burton; Stephen Chambers (Gallipoli Association); Jeff Cooper (Friends of Dymock Poets); Peter Cooper (SEA. Ltd); David Craig; Wendy Driver; Angela Egerton; Tony Fleming; Mike Goodearl; Luci Gosling (Mary Evans Picture Library); Hermann Gran; Signora Francesca Guarnieri; Dr Henry Guly; Andrew Hay and family; Trevor Henshaw; Steven Heyde; Dr Max Jones; Heather Lane; Jo and Ian Laurie; Neela Mann; Karen May; Katherine Moody (Christchurch Public Libraries); Sir Andrew Motion (Trustee, Rupert Brooke Estate); David Newman; David Parsons; Graeme Pearson; Thérèse Radic (University of Melbourne); Adrian Raeside; Dr Stephen Ross and Dr Pearl Jacks; Leonard Sellers; Caroline Strange (Australian National University, Canberra); George and Valerie Skinner; Roy Swales; Michael Tarver, Joan Whiting-Moon, and (alphabetically last, but certainly not least) Dr David Wilson.

I am also grateful to the authors whose books have provided invaluable information on and background to events covered in this book. I also thank those involved in the BBC’s First World War programmes and those working at the BBC and elsewhere on websites and blogs covering different aspects of the First World War and polar exploration.

My thanks go also to family members and friends who have supported me on my Antarctic and First World War voyages of discovery. They include (but are not limited to): Jean Strathie; Roberta Deighton, Fiona Eyre, Jill Burrowes and families; Michael Bourne, Ali Rieple, the Nuttalls, Isaacs, Nops and other Cranfield friends; Helen Brown; the Cairncrosses; Lin and Robert Coleman; the Fortes family and Margaret Douglas; Tracey Jaggers, Pauline Lyons, Moira and Martin Wood, Penie Coles, Jackie Chelin, Simon Day and other Cheltenham friends; Charlotte Mackintosh and her fellow godchildren; Jan Oldfield; the late Clive Saunders and Eva Borgo Saunders; Joanna Scott; Ann Watkin, the Leggs and other St Andrews University friends; Roz and John Wilkinson; Sophie Wilson.

Thanks also to Mark Beynon, Naomi Reynolds and their colleagues at The History Press for commissioning this book and helping bring it to fruition. I also thank them, other publishers, bookshops and libraries who continue to make books widely available.

As the above acknowledgements show, this book is the sum of many parts; any errors within it are of my own making.

Contents

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Prologue

1.  Southward Ho!

2.  Battling Through the Pack

3.  Breaking News – and a Mysterious Death

4.  Final Journeys

5.  From Oamaru to Awliscombe

6.  Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New

7.  From Arctic to Antwerp

8.  ‘Antarctics’ on the Seven Seas

9.  Cavalry Officers, Chateaux and Censors

10.  Your Country Needs You!

11.  From Blandford Camp Towards Byzantium

12.  Crossing Paths and Keeping in Touch

13.  The ‘Big Show’ – and a Great Loss

14.  Deaths on the Western Front

15.  Of Scientists, Sailors and Shackleton

16.  A Norwegian ‘Warbird’ Keeps His Promise

17.  Northward Ho!

18.  Moving On

Epilogue

Appendices

A: Expedition Personnel

B: Summary Timeline, 1910–19

C: Other Information

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Plates

Copyright

Introduction

About five years ago, during my research for Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott’s Marvel, I noticed that the name of Harry Pennell appeared regularly in Bowers’ letters and journals from the early part of the Terra Nova expedition. Bowers always wrote warmly of Pennell, as did Scott, Edward Wilson and other members of the expedition. Pennell, who had joined the expedition as navigator on the Terra Nova, was clearly a much respected, admired and liked member of the team.

In February 2013 I visited Oamaru, New Zealand, where events were being held to commemorate the centenary of the clandestine landing by Pennell and his friend Edward Atkinson with the news that Scott, Bowers, Wilson, Lawrence Oates and Edgar Evans had died on their way back from the South Pole. A conversation with members of Harry Pennell’s family, the discovery that Pennell had several connections with Gloucestershire (where I live) and the availability of previously unpublished letters and journals combined to inspire this book. When I realised the extent to which Pennell kept in regular contact, often from a great distance, with his Terra Nova expedition companions (the ‘Antarctics’ of the title) and others, including Bowers’ mother and that he had died in one of the major engagements of the First World War, I decided that the book should take the form of a group portrait rather than a simple biography. I have a feeling that Pennell, a modest man who valued his friends and colleagues, would not have objected.

In outward appearances Pennell and Bowers were very different – Pennell was tall and lean, Bowers short and stocky – but they shared a love of and capacity for sustained hard work, a profound Christian faith and a deep sense of devotion and duty to family, friends and colleagues. They were both highly intelligent and fascinated by the world they lived in; both saw ships and the sea as their element and calling.

Bowers and Pennell met in London in June 1910 and took their leave of each other in early January 1911, with Bowers heading south from Cape Evans to lay food depots along the Ross Sea ice shelf and Pennell sailing north to New Zealand. Both hoped that Scott would allow Pennell to join the landing party the following year but events conspired against Pennell and Bowers meeting again.

The first part of From Ice Floes to Battlefields tells the story of the Terra Nova expedition (largely from Pennell’s standpoint) and its bitter-sweet aftermath, which is interrupted when ‘trouble in the Balkans’ leads into the First World War. The following section consists of a series of interconnected (though largely self-contained) chapters which follow Pennell and his friends as they once again expand their horizons, push themselves to their limit and deal with death.

No man, even the apparently ubiquitous Winston Churchill, saw and understood every aspect of the war. Pennell and his friends kept in touch with each other but when on active duty sometimes did not know what was happening on a nearby ship, in a trench a few miles away or to their families. In writing of Scott’s ‘Antarctics’ and their experiences I have largely done so from their viewpoints, which combine to produce a series of ‘in the moment’ snapshots rather than a comprehensive panorama or in-depth analysis of a globe-encompassing war.

During the Terra Nova expedition Pennell and many of his companions kept journals and wrote long letters, many of which are held by the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, or other archives in Britain and elsewhere. The wartime writings of Scott’s ‘Antarctics’ are less easily traced and, as a result, the source material for the second part of this book ranges from affectionate family letters to brusque regimental diaries and, where no primary material has been identified, from detailed analyses of a single engagement to century-spanning regimental histories.

In the First World War, as in Antarctica and on the Southern Ocean, some of Scott’s men thrived, others struggled and a few died. The five men who died on their return journey from the South Pole are, perhaps inevitably, the most famous members of the expedition. When I embarked on writing this book, I viewed Pennell and other ‘Antarctics’ largely through the prism of the Terra Nova expedition; now, as I finish it, I am full of admiration for what they achieved both in Antarctica and during the war and touched by the efforts they made to keep in touch with and support their fellow ‘Antarctics’.

I hope that readers will also share my sense of discovery – and, on many occasions, enjoyment – as they follow Harry Pennell and his companions from the ice floes of Antarctica, by way of London’s theatres and restaurants and the British countryside, to the battlegrounds of Europe and the Seven Seas and into the hard-won peace which followed.

Anne Strathie, Cheltenham

Antarctica, showing surrounding countries. Map © and courtesy of Michael Tarver, Mike Goodearl.

Prologue

In February 1911, on the Ross Sea ice shelf in Antarctica, Norwegian mariner and ski expert Lieutenant Tryggve Gran found himself sharing a tent with Captain Lawrence Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons and Lieutenant Henry Bowers of the Royal Indian Marine.1

The three men, who had met in London in June 1910, were all members of the shore-based party of Captain Robert Scott’s second Antarctic expedition. They were on their way back to the expedition’s headquarters at Cape Evans after several weeks of laying food depots to be used during the following season’s attempt to reach the South Pole.

As the Antarctic winter approached, days shortened and temperatures dropped. Day by day, they plodded onwards, following in their snow-filled outward tracks, peering into the misty gloom for route markers they had planted on their way south. At the end of each day’s march, after building walls of snow to shelter their weary ponies, the three men pitched their tent and crawled into their cramped quarters. They would then light their portable stove, wait patiently while ice and snow melted into their first drink since their midday break and prepare some simple hot food. They would then climb into their sleeping bags for some well-earned rest.

During the long journey from Britain ‘Birdie’ Bowers and ‘Soldier’ Oates had become good friends. Bowers owed his nickname to his large, beak-like nose; Oates was the expedition’s only military man. Tryggve Gran, whose first name most of his fellow explorers found hard to pronounce, was known as ‘Trigger’. Gran, one of the youngest men on the expedition, had been recruited by Scott as a ski expert; his ability to move quickly and fluently across the snow was much admired, but he had gained a reputation (including with Scott) for a tendency to conserve his energy between journeys. Bowers and Oates were, by contrast, recognised as two of the hardest-working and most robust members of the expedition.

Gran hoped that the current period of enforced proximity would enable him to develop more of a bond with his two British companions. As all three men had travelled widely, he decided to initiate a discussion on international relations, including those between Britain and Germany. Gran recalled an occasion when, as a young midshipman, he had arrived in Hamburg to find German dockers standing on the quayside shouting ‘Down with England and the damned Englishmen!’ When he had tried to find out what had given rise to the demonstration he learned that the owners of Germany’s main transatlantic shipping line had tried to break a local strike by bringing in British dockers.

Oates said he would not be surprised if Gran, like most other ‘foreigners’, was also anti-British. Bowers, in an effort to keep the peace, suggested that if Britain ever found herself at war with Germany, Gran could join him in taking a commission with Oates’ regiment. Bowers was so sure that Gran would agree to the prospect of the three men fighting together against the Germans that he wagered Oates some of his soup that evening if Gran proved him wrong.

After Gran confirmed that Bowers was correct, Oates and Gran shook hands to seal their bargain – and Bowers began looking forward to his soup.

On 29 October 1912, after the long, dark Antarctic winter was over, Gran and other members of the expedition’s landing party set out from Cape Evans to try to establish what had happened to Scott and the other members of the South Pole party, which had, they knew, included Bowers and Oates.

On 12 November Gran and his companions spied the tip of a tent above the snow. Inside they found the bodies of Scott, Bowers and Edward Wilson, Scott’s Chief of Scientific Staff. There was no sign of the bodies of Oates or Petty Officer Edgar ‘Taff’ Evans.

Scott’s journal entries showed that Evans had died in mid-February and that Oates, whose feet had become so badly frostbitten that he could hardly walk, had limped out of their shared tent a month later. Oates had hoped that by sacrificing his life he would give Scott, Wilson and Bowers a better chance of survival. But they had died in their blizzard-bound tent towards the end of March 1912.

On the way back to Cape Evans Gran wore Scott’s skis, so that they at least would have completed the return journey to the South Pole.

On Thursday, 30 July 1914, on a beach at Cruden Bay, near Aberdeen, Gran waited for the weather to clear so he could embark on his potentially record-breaking flight over the North Sea. He knew this was his last chance as British aviation authorities had announced that all commercial flights from Britain would be banned from that evening due to the tense international situation.

Just over a month previously Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Since then, the situation had escalated and it now seemed possible (at least according to the newspapers) that major powers, including Germany and Britain, might become involved in what had initially seemed to be an isolated incident in a troubled but distant region.

As Tryggve Gran waited for the North Sea mist to lift he remembered his conversation with Bowers and Oates in a tent at the other end of the world – and the promise he had made to them.

New Zealand, showing places associated with the Terra Nova expedition. Map © and courtesy of Michael Tarver, Mike Goodearl.

Voyages of the Terra Nova during the expedition: the years appear at the northerly end of each voyage; the voyage towards King Edward VII Land took place in early 1911. Map by Stanfords, image © private.

McMurdo Sound, showing (on right) Ross Island, with Cape Evans and Hut Point. Map by Stanfords, image © private.

Voyages of the Terra Nova, January–March 1912, showing the journeys made when depositing Campbell and his Northern Party at Evans Cove and attempting to relieve them; where lines stop short of the coast, this indicates that pack ice was blocking the route. Map by Stanfords, image © private.

Note

1.  This incident was related by Gran in his memoirs of the Terra Nova expedition, Tryggve Gran’s Antarctic Diary, 1910–13, and his war experiences, Under the British Flag; it is also referred to in Limb and Cordingley, Captain Oates, p. 140, and Smith, I Am Just Going Outside, pp. 143–4.

1

Southward Ho!

In London, on Friday, 20 May 1910, Captain Robert Scott, Lieutenant Edward Evans, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and other naval officers who would soon be travelling to Antarctica on SY Terra Nova took part in the funeral parade of King Edward VII.

The late monarch’s son, now King George V, was joined in his mourning by members of his extended family, including the rulers of Germany, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria and members of the ruling families of Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Yugoslavia, Montenegro, Romania, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Egypt.

Their duty done, Scott and his men returned to West India Docks or the expedition’s office in Victoria Street. Men had travelled from all over the world to join the expedition and were still arriving. Bowers had been released from his duties with the Royal Indian Marine in Bombay and the ship’s navigator, Lieutenant Harry Pennell, was still on his way back from Australia.

When Pennell had applied to join what had initially been known as the ‘Scott–Evans Antarctic expedition’ in summer 1909 he had been serving with the navy’s Mediterranean Fleet.1 Now 27, Pennell had gone to sea at the age of 16 and won a medal for his services on Britain’s China Station during the Boxer Rebellion. He had then passed out from HMS Britannia (where Scott and the new monarch had also trained) with five first-class certificates, full marks in piloting and navigation, and a £10 prize. When Pennell learned that his application to join what was now officially called ‘The British Antarctic Expedition’ had been successful, he had been completing a round of duty with the Australasian station.2

Edward ‘Teddy’ Evans, Scott’s naval second in command, was two years older than Pennell. He had, following a somewhat eventful school career, failed to secure a Britannia cadetship, but, after training on HMS Worcester (where Bowers had also trained), had won a scholarship to Greenwich Naval College. Evans and Scott had first met on HMS Majestic; in 1902 and 1903 Evans had served on the Morning, the relief ship which had helped release Scott’s main expedition ship from the grip of the pack ice during his Discovery expedition. Whilst in New Zealand between voyages, Evans had met and married Hilda Russell, the beautiful daughter of a prominent Christchurch lawyer. On his return to Britain he had initially concentrated on his naval career; he resisted the temptation to join Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition, but soon started organising an Antarctic expedition of his own.

When Scott learned that Shackleton had established a new ‘Furthest South’ record but failed to reach the Pole, he began planning a second expedition. Sir Clements Markham, past president of the Royal Geographical Society and staunch supporter of Scott, persuaded Evans to combine forces and resources with Scott for another attempt on the Pole and a major scientific programme. Although Evans was less well-known than Scott he brought to the expedition feast substantial support from members of the Cardiff business community, who were keen to support an expedition involving a naval officer of Welsh extraction.

Evans agreed to Markham’s proposal, in return for which he was appointed captain of the Terra Nova and Scott’s naval deputy. When Evans and First Mate Lieutenant Victor Campbell joined the expedition’s landing party, it would fall to Harry Pennell to captain the Terra Nova back through the pack ice and Southern Ocean to New Zealand. Pennell would then return to Antarctica in early 1912 and again in early 1913, on which last voyage he would pick up any members of the South Pole or scientific parties still on the ice. Although fuel costs would be heavy, this would be a small price to pay to reduce the risk of the Terra Nova becoming frozen in, as this time there was no permanent relief ship.

On 15 June 1910 the Terra Nova was cheered away from Cardiff, her final British port of call. Scott, who was not on board, was staying on in London to complete final financial arrangements for the expedition, before travelling by steamer to Cape Town and trying to raise further funds before the Terra Nova arrived. Scott’s wife, sculptress Kathleen Scott, Hilda Evans and Oriana Wilson, wife of Chief of Scientific Staff Edward Wilson, would travel with him.

As the ship headed south, Teddy Evans proved to be a convivial captain who joined in and often instigated officers’ wardroom ‘entertainments’. Pennell spent most of the time on the bridge or in the crow’s nest, but found time to work on the zoological log and perform the occasional hornpipe.3 At Cape Town, Scott, who had barely met some of the men who might accompany him to the South Pole, decided to join the ship for the next leg of the voyage. Edward Wilson, much to the disappointment of Pennell, Bowers and others, left the ship to accompany ‘the wives’ (as they were sometimes referred to outside their hearing) on the steamer to Melbourne.

The voyage south had given Pennell (now known as ‘Penelope’) the chance to get to know his fellow travellers, particularly the scientists (mainly Cambridge graduates) he now regularly encountered in the wardroom.4

Edward Wilson was, Pennell felt, ‘a real expert’ in seabirds and marine wildlife and an ‘extraordinarily well read and pleasant man’. Of the expedition’s two marine biologists, Edward Nelson (who had worked on a North Sea ‘Fishery Investigation’) would land on Antarctica, while Dennis Lillie (a specialist in whales) would remain on the ship and trawl the Southern Ocean and waters round Antarctica for samples.

George Simpson (known as ‘Sunny Jim’), who had been seconded from the India Meteorological Department, appeared to be ‘a really clever man, well up in the job’ of recording Antarctic weather conditions. The other scientists had their own specialisms: Murray Levick and Edward Atkinson were both naval doctors (although Atkinson was also a parasitologist); Griffith Taylor, Frank Debenham and Raymond Priestley were geologists; Charles Wright was a physicist and Apsley Cherry-Garrard a zoologist.

Although Pennell sometimes felt ‘rather a worm and appallingly ignorant’ in comparison to the scientists he soon gained the impression that every man aboard seemed keen to do ‘his best for his messmates & for the expedition’.

On 28 October the Terra Nova sailed into Lyttelton, the port for Christchurch, New Zealand. She would remain there for a month while cargo was reloaded, repairs were carried out and more expedition members, and sledge-dogs and ponies (from Manchuria and Siberia) joined the ship.

Scott and his men were well looked after by Joseph Kinsey, the English-born shipping agent who had handled local arrangements for Scott’s Discovery and Shackleton’s Nimrod expeditions. Scott, like Teddy Evans, had family connections in New Zealand and Edward and Oriana Wilson had forged firm friendships there during their belated honeymoon which followed the Discovery expedition. One of Pennell’s fellow lieutenants, Henry Rennick, also had friends from his time serving in New Zealand waters with HMS Penguin of Britain’s Australasia station. Lyttelton was also an established recruiting ground for crew with previous Southern Ocean experience.

Pennell was pleased to see Edward Wilson again, but was less sure about how he felt about ‘the wives’, in particular Kathleen Scott. In Cape Town Pennell had found Scott and Evans to be rather susceptible to the ‘petticoat influence’ and he suspected that Kathleen Scott (‘an ambitious lady’) was trying to persuade Scott to appoint her brother, Lieutenant Wilfred Bruce (whose experience was on large passenger ships), as captain of the Terra Nova in place of Pennell on the return voyage to New Zealand.5 Kathleen Scott and Hilda Evans also took sides whenever Scott and Evans disagreed about expedition matters (a not infrequent occurrence). At one point matters reached such a pitch that it looked as if Teddy Evans might resign before the ship left New Zealand but Wilson and Campbell had, thankfully, managed to smooth things over.6

Although Wilson was a clear favourite amongst expedition members he was closely followed, in Pennell’s opinion, by Edward Atkinson.7 Pennell considered Atkinson (known as ‘Atch’ or, for less obvious reasons, ‘Jane’) to be ‘an out and out gentleman with the quiet self-assurance that makes a man without making him offensive’. Although Atkinson, like Wilson, ‘lent a sympathetic ear to everyone’s trouble’, he could, Pennell noticed, also take a dislike to someone ‘on very short acquaintance’ or (in Pennell’s view) on ‘very insufficient grounds’. But Pennell respected Atkinson’s judgement and views, particularly in relation to ‘the mess-deck feeling’ on specific issues. And, Pennell felt, he could be trusted to honour confidences.8

While the ship was docked, Pennell dined regularly with Atkinson, Bowers and Oates at their boarding house in Sumner, across the hills from Lyttelton. Pennell enjoyed himself on these occasions but noticed that Atkinson, if he over-indulged, had the tendency to become obstinate or, as he had done at a farewell dinner for London expedition agent George Wyatt and his attractive wife, somewhat comically over-amorous.9

On 29 November 1910, with everyone and everything aboard, the Terra Nova embarked on her 2,500-mile voyage across the Southern Ocean. While Kathleen Scott, Oriana Wilson and Hilda Evans waved their husbands away from a tug, a spray-soaked young lady in the bow of their vessel waved and called out her farewells to Henry Rennick.10

When the Terra Nova entered the ‘Roaring Forties’ and ‘Furious Fifties’ Pennell and his fellow mariners were in their element.11 The ship, weighed down with coal and the wherewithal to support men and animals in Antarctica for up to three years, sat low in the water. As she ploughed through the Southern Ocean, waves crashed over her gunwales, washed across her decks and found the slightest gaps between her groaning deck-planks.

Pennell now had the opportunity see how the men he would soon be commanding performed in such conditions. In the bowels of the ship, Chief Artificer William Williams (‘a really good man’) and his stokers and firemen managed to keep fires alight and engines turning.12 On deck and aloft, boatswain Alfred Cheetham and his men wrestled valiantly with winches, rigging and sails, using favourable winds to help conserve precious coal stocks. ‘Alf’, a wiry, cheery merchant seaman from Hull who was of an age with Scott, had served on the Morning under Evans and Nimrod under Shackleton. Cheetham, who had been spotted helping himself to a length of Nelson’s brand-new trawling rope and splicing it into the rigging, seemed to be ‘an absolute magpie’, albeit for the general good.13

As the Terra Nova rocked, rolled and yawled through the Southern Ocean Pennell tried to hold a steady course while Rennick and Bruce organised ‘bucket crews’ of scientists and other non-mariners who were not confined to their bunks by sea-sickness.14 Below decks, Bowers and Teddy Evans were trying to help Williams and his men clear the soot-clogged pumps. On deck, Cecil Meares, the expedition’s much-travelled dog expert, cavalry officer Lawrence Oates (in charge of ponies) and their Russian assistants tried to ensure the expedition’s land-based animal transport reached their destination in fit states. Bowers and Bernard Day (in charge of motor-sledges) lashed additional ropes round items of heavy equipment that seemed at risk of being washed overboard.

In early December, just outside the Antarctic Circle, the ship entered the pack ice. For almost three weeks Evans, Pennell, Bowers and others coaxed their ship through the tightly packed ice floes, weaving through leads of open water, punching their way through intransigent pancake ice. Pennell and his shipmates celebrated Christmas Day 1910 in some style on a motionless ship, but by New Year’s Day 1911 they had made it through to the open waters of McMurdo Sound.

Scott had hoped to establish his base around his Discovery expedition quarters at Hut Point but they were inaccessible due to the ice. He gave orders to return north to a sheltered, sloping shelf which he immediately named ‘Cape Evans’ in honour of his naval second in command. Pennell’s job now was to hold the Terra Nova steady adjacent to the sometimes unstable sea-ice so that animals, provisions, building materials, sledges and other equipment could be unloaded and, with the assistance of dogs and ponies, moved quickly to solid ground.

On the higher ground, ship’s carpenter Francis Davies and a team of helpers had begun building the main expedition hut, stables and outbuildings. Scott had thoughtfully arranged for a library of books, a gramophone and a Broadwood pianola (donated by the makers) to be installed in the hut to help while away the long, dark Antarctic winter evenings. Rennick, who had regularly played the pianola on the voyage south, now disassembled and reconstructed it, a job he did cheerfully, despite having no prospect of playing it again in the foreseeable future.15

During the voyage south Scott had approached Rennick and asked him to step down from the landing party (for which he had been recruited) so that Bowers could be transferred from the ship’s party to the landing party (within which Bowers would now serve as quartermaster). Rennick was unable to hide his disappointment, but showed no resentment towards Bowers and completed his task on the pianola with a lively rendition of Home, Sweet Home.16 Pennell had initially been disappointed about the change of plans. He had looked forward to working with Bowers, a natural seaman and shipboard favourite, but decided that Rennick was ‘an A1 chap’ whose surveying expertise would also be of great value.

On 17 January 1911 the Cape Evans hut was declared ready for occupation – a landmark event which meant that the ship (on which most of the men were still living) could be made ready for departure and the expedition proper could begin.

On 24 January Scott set out south with Wilson, Teddy Evans, Atkinson, Bowers, Oates, Meares, Demitri Gerof (Meares’ assistant), Gran, Apsley Cherry-Garrard (a young scientist recruited by Wilson, nicknamed ‘Cherry’) and three petty officers, Tom Crean (a Discovery veteran), Pat Keohane and Robert Forde. Over the next few weeks they would deposit caches of provisions and animal fodder on the ice shelf (to around 80°S), which would be used during the following season’s attempt to reach the Pole.

Scott knew he was not the only one with Antarctic aspirations over this and the coming season. Lieutenant Wilhelm Filchner of Germany and Lieutenant Nobu Shirase of Japan had both announced their intentions to claim the Pole for their nations. Australian scientist Douglas Mawson, a member of Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition, had discussed joining forces with Scott but decided to mount his own expedition to Cape Adare, some 400 miles north of Cape Evans. Scott, who felt he had the advantage over all three in terms of both reaching the South Pole and his scientific programme, had been surprised to receive a cable in Melbourne, announcing that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was now also heading to Antarctica.

Amundsen had been a member of the 1897–99 Belgian Antarctic expedition, but owed his fame to having discovered the elusive North-West Passage. He had announced his intention of flying his country’s flag on the North Pole but, possibly due to recent claims by Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary to have reached the earth’s northernmost point, had decided to race Scott to the South Pole instead.

Scott, who saw reaching the Pole as a means of publicising his expedition’s scientific work as well as a goal in itself, decided not to change his plans in response to Amundsen’s implied challenge. He would, as intended, return from the South Pole not just with proof that he had been there, but with a full set of navigational and other observations and geological specimens collected on the way there and back.

Once the depot-laying party had departed, the Terra Nova (now under First Mate Victor Campbell) deposited a ‘Western Party’ at Butter Point, where they would explore glaciers in the area. This international group consisted of two Australian scientists, Griffith (‘Griff’) Taylor and Frank (‘Deb’) Debenham, a Canadian geologist, Charles (‘Silas’) Wright and a Welsh petty officer, Edgar Evans (a Discovery veteran). Wright and Taylor knew each other from Cambridge, where Wright had heard Douglas Mawson’s tales of the Nimrod expedition and been persuaded to walk to London to apply for Scott’s expedition.

The Terra Nova’s next port of call was to be King Edward VII Land, where Campbell and his ‘Eastern Party’ would disembark and explore land discovered and named by Scott during the Discovery expedition. Campbell’s party consisted of Raymond Priestley (a Nimrod expedition scientist), George Levick, Petty Officers George Abbot and Frank Browning and Able Seaman Harry Dickason.

As the Terra Nova sailed along the immense Ross Sea ice-barrier Pennell saw something which was new to him:17

a large mass of ice calving from the Barrier not a mile from us. The noise was … rather like a heavy gun firing & then near the Barrier appeared a huge mass of spray & snow that took fully a minute to subside, when 3 fairly large bergs could be seen & a vast accumulation of débris of ice. Our photographers got the cameras to work though the light was very bad.

As they approached King Edward VII Land, Campbell and Pennell climbed to the crow’s nest to spy out a suitable landing place. The 700ft cliffs of ice looked impenetrable, so Campbell gave orders to go about and return to the Bay of Whales, where they could moor while he considered his options.18

Just after midnight on 3 February, Bruce, who was on watch with Dennis Lillie, spotted what initially looked like an ice-bound shipwreck but soon revealed itself as the Fram, the ship which veteran Norwegian Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen had loaned to Amundsen, originally for his attempt on the North Pole. Campbell, who spoke Norwegian fluently, went over to the ship and returned with the news that Amundsen was at the expedition’s hut on the ice shelf but would be back in the morning.

The following morning, Campbell, Pennell and Levick joined Amundsen and his companions for breakfast:19

The shore party consisted of 9 including Amundsen and Johannsen & were a fine looking body of men both in physique & appearance … Their sole idea is the Pole, for which they have 100 dogs, from Greenland … The dogs are to be fed on fish. The men will follow on ski and say that they can even then hardly keep pace. Apparently no depots will be laid out this year … Amundsen returned the visit … & we also had a look at the Fram. Her oil fuel has not been replenished since Europe & her little motor gives her 5 to 6 knots in a flat calm; they also say that she has proved herself a better sea boat then they had reasonably expected.

The encounter with the Norwegians had been cordial enough, but Campbell decided to abandon his plans for exploring King Edward VII Land and return to Cape Evans with a message for Scott about the unexpected encounter. He would then make a decision as to where his party would land.

Pennell, meanwhile, was considering the allocation of duties amongst his Terra Nova ‘afterguard’.20 Williams and Cheetham would now be short of several hands each, so Rennick would take every third watch in addition to carrying out his regular soundings. Expedition secretary Francis Drake would deal with his customary paperwork, serve as meteorologist, keep ice logs, tally provisions, act as postmaster and take photographs as and when required. On the scientific front, Lillie would take and analyse specimen dredgings, keep a tally of whale species and ‘lend a hand’ as required. Bruce would, in addition to sailing duties, maintain the overall zoological log and keep the fair copy of the survey book. Pennell knew from his experience of working on the zoological log with Wilson on the southern voyage, that this record was somewhat a collegiate effort, with final entries only agreed following heated debates as to whether, for example, ‘a whale was Sibbaldii or Australis, etc., when one & all have learned the little knowledge they possess from Lillie’.

Campbell returned from Cape Evans, where he had left his note about Amundsen to be given to their leader when he returned from the ice shelf. Campbell and his party would now sail north with Pennell until a suitable location for investigation and over-wintering could be identified.

On 9 February 1911 the Terra Nova headed out of McMurdo Sound in thick snow. Gale-force winds and newly formed ice floes hampered their progress but eventually they made it through to Cape Adare, which Campbell regarded as a possible suitable site. Priestley and others were aware that Mawson had already declared his intention of exploring the area but, with coal stocks shrinking and the sea showing signs of freezing over, Campbell knew that, if he did not land immediately, he and his party might have to return to New Zealand with the ship.

As Campbell and his men prepared to land, Pennell caught up with his journal.21 He had found it hard to say farewell to Atkinson and others who had become friends on the voyage south. Pennell had, he felt, taken longer than he should have to realise that Levick’s somewhat slow demeanour concealed an excellent mind. Pennell’s main concern regarding the Cape Evans’ party was that Teddy Evans was still getting ‘ruffled at small things’ with Scott, which suggested that tensions might arise during long sledge journeys ‘when everyone’s temper gets up a bit!’ Pennell was aware that Scott had never really forgiven Shackleton after a quarrel during the Discovery expedition’s southern journey but that Wilson usually managed to keep the peace and Atkinson and others would try to keep out of any rows.

As to who would reach the South Pole first, Pennell considered Scott to be ‘a certainty’. Amundsen he thought was a ‘likely runner’ who, if his skiers and dogs did not let him down, could reach the Pole a few weeks ahead of Scott. But Pennell felt that, even if Scott was second to the Pole, his expedition would still have considerably greater overall value, particularly given Amundsen’s behaviour, which Pennell felt had not been ‘entirely straightforward’.

On 20 February 1911, with Campbell and his party safely ashore, Pennell gave orders to set sail. He agreed with Campbell that he would, ice permitting, return in January 1912 and move what was now the Northern Party to another location which they could explore before returning to Cape Evans. Should Pennell return and find Cape Adare cut off by ice, Campbell and his party would make their way back to Cape Evans overland.

During the first day of Pennell’s first command the Terra Nova almost ran into an iceberg in thick fog, but swift thinking and hard work by Cheetham and his men brought the ship round in the nick of time.22 The following day, as they headed west, Bruce called out from the bridge that he could see uncharted land. By nightfall ‘Oates Land’, ‘Mount Bruce’, ‘Bowers Mountains’, and glaciers named for Rennick, Lillie and Dennistoun had been marked on the ship’s charts. As the ship entered ‘the home or mortuary of icebergs’, even Pennell’s sharp eyes were fooled into believing that a collection of weathered icebergs was ‘an archipelago of snow covered islands’.23

Whenever it appeared that the Terra Nova might become frozen in, Bruce would muster all spare hands on deck to ‘rock ship’, a process which involved men dashing in unison across the deck until the ship’s hull swung like a pendulum. As longer nights and daytime blizzards limited their sailing hours, Lillie would pass the time by helping with coal trimming.24 Pennell, who suspected that the sea might freeze over completely sooner rather than later, tried to ride a northerly swell out of the pack. His manoeuvre failed but he enjoyed watching whales at close quarters:25

rorquals close alongside the ship … have to thrust their noses up vertically & blow in a sort of standing-on-their-tails position. All day we have been watching them, photos taken & the men have amused themselves at times by pelting them with coal ashes or other little missiles. Several times one rested its head on a floe … The grooves on their throats were plainly seen, & one sometimes even saw their ‘moustaches’ … we have passed an exceptional number of seals … it appears to be their courting season, for they go through the most extraordinary movements without any apparent reason except … showing off.

On 9 March, over seven weeks after leaving Cape Evans, the Terra Nova finally emerged from the pack. Pennell hoped for fair winds to New Zealand but found himself faced with a combination of inky-dark nights, ferocious gales, scattered icebergs and high seas. As the ship bobbed like a cork and water leaked in, everyone’s skills and nerves were tested, but by 21 March the storm had abated and they had not seen an iceberg for a week.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, after the barometer had plummeted ‘into its boots’, they found themselves in a Force 9 squall. As massive waves pounded the ship and swamped the decks, the ageing pumps once again clogged up with a mixture of salt water and coal-dust:26

Mr Williams … had to lie flat on the boiler room plates & when the ship rolled to Starboard, stretch right down, with his head below the plates & clear as much coal away from the suction as possible; this often meant that the water surged back before he could get his head out, and there can be few nastier liquids to be ducked in than that very dirty bilge water.

On 28 March 1911, almost five weeks after leaving Campbell’s party, the Terra Nova arrived at Stewart Island, 20 miles off the southern tip of New Zealand. Pennell and Drake went ashore and sent cables to Joseph Kinsey in Christchurch and to Central News Agency in London (who had purchased exclusive rights to Scott’s expedition reports). When they returned Pennell and Drake reminded everyone aboard not to speak to anyone (particularly newspaper reporters) until reports on the expedition based on the cable to Central News Agency had appeared in New Zealand newspapers.

Pennell could now take time to consider his first voyage as captain and how his crew had performed:

our N.Z. men have proved themselves real seamen … The E.R. [Engine Room] department are not one jot behind the U.D. [Upper Deck] party. The afterguard have turned up on every occasion to lend a hand … Lillie has taken his [turn] on the pumps & on deck. Drake ha[s] taken over all the writing and meteorological observations … Bruce & Rennick have been perfect treasures … Mr Cheetham makes an ideal watchkeeper always alert & on the lookout & absolutely reliable & what is more loves the ship for her fine qualities & watches over her as boatswain with the greatest care … We all say that [steward] Archer ought to take on the motto … ‘while she swims I’ll cook’ … he has never been defeated …27

By the time the Terra Nova docked at Lyttelton the Christchurch Press and other newspapers were running reports on the expedition based on Central News Agency’s cables from London. Although the main focus of interest was on the progress of Scott and the landing party, Pennell’s account of the return voyage and encounter with Amundsen’s party also appeared to be newsworthy.

There was also news of other Antarctic expeditions.28 Mawson, who was in London fundraising for his expedition, was reported to be unhappy that Campbell would be exploring Cape Adare before he could do so. Shirase had passed through Wellington in early February and was on his way to the Ross Sea. Filchner, who could only claim the Pole for Germany if both Scott and Amundsen failed this season, would be working around the Weddell Sea until he knew the position regarding the Pole. Kinsey and Pennell, when asked by reporters what effect Amundsen’s presence would have on Scott’s plans, responded that everything would proceed as previously announced.29

Pennell arranged for the Terra Nova to go into dry dock for repairs, gave everyone a period of shore leave and began finalising arrangements for the surveying and sounding work which Scott hoped might be commissioned by New Zealand’s maritime authorities.30 Pennell gratefully accepted the hospitality of the Kinseys (in Christchurch) and of the Dennistouns, friends of Kinsey, who invited him to spend weekends at their farm station at Peel Forest, near Timaru, south of Christchurch. He was pleased to be invited back since, on an earlier visit, his borrowed horse had kicked out and broken the leg of George Dennistoun, his hosts’ elder son. Dr Hugh Acland, whom Pennell had recently met in Christchurch, also invited him to spend a weekend at his family’s estate at Mount Peel, which was close (in farm station terms) to Peel Forest.31

By 9 July, after Pennell had agreed everything with the maritime authorities, a spick and span Terra Nova set sail for Three Kings Islands, off the tip of North Island.32 The islands, a recognised shipping hazard which lacked a lighthouse or fog warning system, had never been fully surveyed and mariners claimed that (as confirmed by a recent preliminary survey) official charts were inaccurate.

Rennick knew Three Kings Islands well. Ten years previously, when serving on HMS Penguin, he had been near them and spotted a life-raft with eight thirsty, starving, sun-burned people aboard. Once rescued, they explained that they were survivors from the SS Elingamite. Their ship had run into fog-shrouded cliffs at Three Kings Islands several days previously and sunk with the loss, they believed, of almost fifty crew and passengers.33 At the subsequent enquiry Ernest Attwood, the Elingamite’s English-born captain, had been found guilty of ‘reckless navigation’ and stripped of his master’s certificate, despite his protestations regarding the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the charts with which he had been issued.

For ten weeks Rennick, working with helpers, took hundreds of measurements on, around and between the Three Kings Islands. When the Terra Nova returned to Lyttelton he plotted his soundings and distances on a fresh chart showing the dimensions of the islands and their positions in relation to each other and the coast. After he had submitted his chart to the British and New Zealand maritime authorities it was used at a new hearing on the wrecking of the Elingamite. Ten years after his ship had gone down Captain Attwood’s name was cleared and his captain’s certificate was reissued to him.

As he prepared to leave Lyttelton, Pennell bought newspapers so that Scott and the others could read about the outside world and other expeditions. The Fram had already left her winter quarters in Buenos Aires, bound for the Ross Sea, from where, according to the newspapers, she would bring Amundsen back to either Stewart Island or Lyttelton. Filchner was in the Weddell Sea, carrying out scientific work. Shirase had left Sydney on 19 November, heading for King Edward VII Land; before leaving he had presented a samurai sword to Professor Edgeworth David (under whom Taylor, Debenham and Mawson had studied) as a sign of gratitude for his support for their endeavours. On 2 December Mawson left Hobart in the Aurora; he was now planning to chart and explore the coast between Kaiser Wilhelm II Land and Cape Adare.34

On 15 December 1911 Harry Pennell gave orders for the Terra Nova to cast off from Lyttelton harbour. All being well, and ice permitting, he and his shipmates would soon have news of their own expedition’s progress.

Notes

Information on Pennell’s early naval career is from sources including David Pennell (Pennell’s great-nephew), Pennell’s journals, ‘Harry Pennell: Scott’s Navigator’ and ‘From the South Pole to Jutland’ (articles by Chris Bingham).

1.  MS433, 2 August 1909.

2.  MS433, 3 and 23 June 1910.

3.  Wright, 1993, p. 27.

4.  MS433, 23 June 1910 (a long entry written during a stop in Madeira).

5.  MS433, 2 October 1910.

6.  MS433, 29 November 1910.

7.  MS433, 2 October 1910.

8.  MS433, 26 October 1910.

9.  MS433, 27 December 1910 and 14 April 1911.

10.  The incident relating to Rennick was mentioned by Frank Debenham in The Times, 26 November 1960.

11.  In the Southern Ocean, the ‘Roaring Forties’ are followed (when sailing south) by the ‘Furious Fifties’, ‘Screaming (or Shrieking) Sixties’ and ‘Silent Seventies’.

12.  MS433, 26 October 1910.

13.  MS433, 6 July 1910.

14.  Bruce, 1932, p. 6.

15.  MS433, 2 October 1910; Strathie, p. 82.

16.  There are references to Rennick and the pianola in Scott, Journals, entry of 20 January 1911, p. 99, Ponting, The Great White South, pp. 23, 129–30, Evans, South with Scott, pp. 77–8, and Taylor, pp. 233ff., and on www.pianola.org.

17.  MS107, 30 January 1911.

18.  The Bay of Whales was discovered and named by Shackleton during the Nimrod expedition.

19.  MS107, 3–4 February 1911.

20.  MS107, 8 February 1911.

21.  MS433, 13 February 1911.

22.  MS107 (21–22 February 1911); ‘The Voyages of the Terra Nova’ report (22 February 1911) in Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition, Vol. II, p. 361; Bruce, Reminiscences of the Terra Nova in the Antarctic.

23.  MS107, 25–26 February 1911.

24.  MS107, 28 February–1 March 1911. Coal trimming involves moving the coal around so it does not cause the ship to list but is ready for use in the engine rooms.

25.  MS107, 3 March 1911.

26.  MS107, 28 March 1911, Pennell’s final journal entry covering that voyage.

27.  ‘While she swims I’ll cook’ refers to an expression used by Podmore, the cook on Joseph Conrad’s fictional ship Narcissus.

28.  This and subsequent information on the expeditions of Filchner and Mawson are from Turney, 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica and contemporary newspaper reports.

29.  Evening Post (Christchurch), 29 March 1911 and other newspapers.

30.  MS107, 9 July to 10 October 1911 covers this period.

31.  MS433, 11 July 1911.

32.  The islands were discovered and named in January 1643 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, 3 weeks after he became the first known European to see New Zealand.

33.  The wreck of the Elingamite and its aftermath were extensively reported in New Zealand newspapers.

34.  The Aurora, like the Discovery and Terra Nova, was built in Dundee.