An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (11 page)

But throughout his life Shackleton enjoyed good fortune at important moments, whereas Scott did not. For example, Shackleton returned home from his
Nimrod
expedition saddled with debts of £20,000 (equivalent to over £1,700,000 in today’s money) and no obvious method of redeeming them. It was typical of his luck that the Government came to
his rescue, awarding him a knighthood and wiping out his debts.

In the event, Scott struggled to raise the £40,000 (today: £3,400,000) he needed. It eventually came from a mixture of government grants, donations from wealthy private individuals and earnings from the sale of publishing rights, plus public subscriptions. The Liberal Government of Herbert Asquith donated £20,000 but, disappointingly, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society, who had sponsored the
Discovery
expedition, contributed only £750 (today: £63,000) between them for Scott’s bid to conquer the Pole.

Scott went on a whirlwind tour of the country, drumming up money from public subscriptions, sometimes without much success. At one gathering in Wolverhampton he raised the tiny sum of £25 (today: £2,000). Some members of the expedition also chipped in with personal contributions, either with direct donations or by accepting nominal sums in wages. The cavalry captain, Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates, donated £1,000 (today: £85,000) to the enterprise which was to cost him his life.

The ship presented a further problem, partly because the natural choice,
Discovery
, was unavailable. It had been chartered to the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada, so Scott turned to the Dundee whaler,
Terra Nova
, which had been on the 1904 relief expedition and was fairly well known to him. It was bought with a down-payment of £5,000 (today: £425,000) and the promise of a further £7,500 when funds became available.

Terra Nova
was eminently suitable, a veteran of the whaling fleet and the trip to McMurdo Sound some years earlier to rescue
Discovery
had proven her worth. Built in the Dundee shipyard of Alexander Stephens in 1884,
Terra Nova
was 187 ft long and registered at 749 tons. Experienced sailors said she was ‘an easy ship’.

But while the money-raising campaign plodded along very slowly, there was no problem raising a party of men to go South. Scott set up an office in London’s Victoria Street and
was promptly deluged with applications from 8,000 willing volunteers drawn from all walks of Edwardian life. Scott’s
Discovery
expedition a few years earlier had alerted the public to Antarctica, but Shackleton’s heroic failure had aroused a more popular response and the public now wanted the South Pole to be conquered.

Scott wanted to surround himself with tried and trusted people, including a few carefully chosen men from the
Discovery
years such as Tom Crean. He was helped by the Admiralty’s slightly unusual decision to allow him to choose his own team, although unlike
Discovery
, this was not to be a Royal Navy-dominated expedition.

Crean, after spending the past two and a half years working alongside Scott, had been selected even before the expedition had been formally launched. From places like the Chatham barracks and in the Atlantic fleet, Scott had confirmed what he had initially found on the
Discovery
– that Crean was the type of reliable, trusted character who would be invaluable to the venture.

Although no record exists of earlier conversations, it is safe to assume that the matter was discussed at considerable length during the years Crean and Scott spent together in uniform. The appointment was made official when he wrote to the Irishman at Chatham from the offices of the British Antarctic Expedition in Victoria Street on 23 March 1910:

Crean, now approaching his thirty-third birthday, joined the
Terra Nova
on 14 April 1910, as a Petty Officer at a salary of 15s (75p) a week. The monthly pay of £3 (today: £255 per
month) was somewhat better than the £2.5s.7d (£2.28) he received on
Discovery
and, of course, he was going back to his adopted home. He would be gone for another three years.

Scott also signed up the two other veterans from
Discovery
, Taff Evans and chief stoker, Lashly, who with Crean were to become the expedition’s most influential figures ‘below decks’.

Others on board from the old ship were PO Williamson and William Heald. Scott also recruited his friend, Dr Wilson, as head of the large and diverse scientific team. After
Discovery
, Wilson had undertaken a major study of a mysterious disease which was killing large numbers of grouse and by coincidence, in 1905, had visited Crean’s hometown of Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula.

The purpose of the expedition was primarily to reach the South Pole, but Scott was also anxious to complete a wide range of scientific work which would add a large degree of academic credibility to the mission. Under the guidance of Wilson, he took meteorologists, geologists, biologists, physicists, a motor engineer and Herbert Ponting, the 40-year-old photographer, or ‘Camera Artist’, who was to capture some unforgettable photographs and moving film footage of Antarctica.

Scott’s Number Two was to be Edward ‘Teddy’ Evans, who had sailed on the first
Discovery
relief expedition in 1903 and knew Antarctica. A place was also found for Henry Robertson Bowers, a small, squat man of only 5 ft 4 ins with a beak-like nose and enormous strength who boasted a 40-inch chest measurement. Inevitably, Bowers was known as ‘Birdie’.

Transportation was to be a key element of the
Terra Nova
expedition and Scott appointed the taciturn ex-English public schoolboy and cavalry officer, Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, to look after the Siberian ponies. The intention was that the ponies would carry essential supplies onto the Barrier and avoid too much man-hauling of the sledges. A slightly eccentric global traveller, Cecil Meares, was hired to look after the dog teams and Bernard Day, a member of Shackleton’s recent
Nimrod
party, was appointed to take care of the motor-driven tractors. Scott agreed to take along a tall, dashing 21-year-old Norwegian ski expert, Tryggve Gran, after consulting Nansen in Norway shortly before the expedition sailed.

The polar landing party, 31 in all, was rounded off by two Russians, Anton Omelchenko and Dimitri Gerof, hired to groom the ponies and help drive the dogs. It also included a six-man party, under the leadership of Captain Victor Campbell, which would explore the coast of King Edward VII Land.

Crean joined
Terra Nova
and immediately bumped into several familiar faces like Evans and Lashly and soon began to get acquainted with the others as they came aboard over the next few weeks. He was on hand to record the party’s first meeting with the ill-fated Oates, who arrived on the
Terra Nova
, which was berthed at South-West India Docks on the Thames, in May. The arrival of Oates, a cavalry captain with a distinguished record from the Boer War, was eagerly awaited by the naval men who were keen to indulge in customary inter-service rivalry and banter.

But as he stepped onto the ship, the 30-year-old Oates was wearing a battered bowler hat and a scruffy looking raincoat buttoned up to the neck, which was hardly the typical attire of a stiff-backed, cavalry captain. The seamen were astonished and according to later recollections from relatives of Oates, Crean observed:

Oddly enough, Oates, who became known as ‘soldier’, had once ridden at the Tralee races in Ireland, only a few miles from Crean’s home along the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry. Although
they came from very different social and cultural backgrounds, the men would develop a mutual respect for one another.

There was feverish activity in and around South-West India Docks in the spring of 1910 as
Terra Nova
prepared to set sail. Gran, the Norwegian, arrived in mid-May, and reported men tearing about ‘like busy ants’. An endless supply of equipment boxes were stowed away as the party tried to find suitable space on the crowded holds and decks for the sailing party of 60 men, 30 dogs, 19 ponies and countless boxes of stores and equipment for at least two years.

Preparations were eventually complete and at 5 p.m. on 1 June 1910,
Terra Nova
finally slipped away from the wharf and onto the Thames. Some of those onboard were struck by two odd coincidences as
Terra Nova
moved slowly along the Thames. First, the nation was again mourning the loss of a monarch, King Edward VII who had died three weeks earlier after only nine years on the throne. As
Discovery
left the same port in 1901, Britain was still coming to terms with the death of Queen Victoria after 63 years on the throne and was preparing for the coronation of Edward. Second,
Terra Nova
had to sail past
Discovery
, now in the merchant fleet of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which happened to be berthed in the same dock.

Terra Nova
headed first to Greenhithe near Dartford and then round to Spithead and on to Cardiff, where she was to take on 100 tons of free coal and a large donation for the expedition’s kitty from generous public subscriptions in South Wales.
Terra Nova
had caught the imagination of Wales and the people of Cardiff alone raised around £2,500, (today: £212,000) the largest single donation of the £14,000 (today: over £1,200,000) which the expedition raised through public subscription.

There was one other sober duty to perform before the ship left Britain. On the way to Cardiff, Scott mustered the entire party at the stern of the ship and quietly suggested that each man should make out a will before travelling South.

At Cardiff, a banquet was held for the officers at the Royal Hotel, while the men were entertained at nearby Barry’s Hotel. After dinner, Scott asked the men to join the officers and Taff Evans, a native of South Wales, was given pride of place between Scott and the Lord Mayor. Unfortunately, the burly Evans got so drunk that it took six fellow sailors to help him back on board
Terra Nova
.

Finally, on 15 June 1910,
Terra Nova
was ready to bid farewell to Britain and set sail for the Antarctic. A large and boisterous crowd had gathered to cheer the expedition off, mindful that they would be gone for at least two years, perhaps more. Public hopes were high and there was a feeling that capturing the South Pole, the last geographic prize, would provide a boost to the country’s confidence. Britain, after seeing the end of the long Victorian age and the brief Edwardian era, was undergoing considerable social change under the Liberal Government of Asquith and was more uncertain than it had been for a very long time. For some, the prize of capturing the South Pole would be a symbol of the country’s strength, particularly at a time when the threat of war with Germany was looming ever larger.

The departure was strongly reminiscent of
Discovery
’s farewell almost a decade earlier. Like
Discovery
, the
Terra Nova
made a slightly unhappy start as she slipped through the lock gates. In the excitement, a member of the crew was accidentally knocked overboard. But unlike the incident involving the unfortunate Bonner on
Discovery
nine years earlier, the mishap was not fatal. The seaman managed to clamber back on board and the vessel moved slowly out into the Channel flanked by a flotilla of crowded small pleasure craft. On board one vessel, the Cardiff Artillery band energetically played ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Lt Evans yelled a grateful thanks to the crowds through a handy megaphone and
Terra Nova
was finally on her way.

The first stop was to be Madeira, next Simonstown, South Africa, and then on to Melbourne, Australia, before leaving for
the final staging post of Lyttelton in New Zealand, as
Discovery
had done nine years before.

As they crossed the equator on the way to South Africa on 15 July, Crean was at the centre of the traditional festivities and an initiation ceremony for those, mainly the young scientists, who were ‘crossing the line’ for the first time. Taff Evans was dressed as Neptune, the strapping Petty Officer Frank Browning an unlikely sea goddess Queen Amphitrite and Williamson and Crean were the two policemen who manhandled the victims to their ritualistic ducking. Gran was ducked with some relish on the dubious basis that he had never before crossed the line in a British ship.

Scott had remained behind in Britain to complete fund-raising engagements and would travel independently to South Africa. He finally caught up with
Terra Nova
at Simonstown and set off to slowly cross the Indian Ocean for Melbourne.

No one on board
Terra Nova
was prepared for the shock that awaited them.

Terra Nova
reached Melbourne on 12 October 1910, and Scott found a telegram waiting for him. It was sent from Madeira on 3 October when
Terra Nova
was in the middle of the Indian Ocean and simply read:

R
oald Amundsen, who came from a Norwegian family in a small rural community a few miles south of Oslo, was born to be a polar explorer. Amundsen was the consummate professional at a time when the British were still effectively amateurs and from the moment he decided to challenge Scott in the race to the reach the South Pole, it was an unequal struggle.