The Dangerous Book of Heroes Read online

  Anti-Scott biographers point to Petty Officer Evans being spiritually alone, cut off by his “social superiors,” which hastened his decline. There’s no evidence for this; it’s mere invention. In fact, Taff Evans was an extrovert. He swapped yarns with Scott, Wilson, and Bowers. He’d sailed with Scott in the navy, sledged with him many times, and cheerfully shared three-man sleeping bags with Scott and others. There was no class divide. Scott was the son of a Plymouth brewer, while Wilson and Bowers chatted with anyone.

  A few hours later Scott, Wilson, Bowers, and Oates reached the depot. The next day they crossed the ice joint onto the barrier and reached the first pony camp, where they dug fresh meat out of the ice. They were ten thousand feet lower than the plateau, and the temperature was appreciably warmer. The dog teams should have been approaching from the north, and there was a line of depots all the way to Cape Evans. They had fresh meat, extra rations and fuel, a new sledge left for them, and only four hundred miles of the sixteen-hundred-mile journey remained. They set out and reached the Southern Barrier depot on the twenty-second, to find that some cooking fuel had evaporated from the sealed cans. Away from the mountains, though, their speed increased and they averaged fifteen miles per day.

  Without warning, the weather changed. On the twenty-fifth, the temperature dropped to -20° F, on the twenty-seventh it was -30, and by March 2 it had reached a vicious -40, which is the same in both centigrade and Fahrenheit. Yet it wasn’t the cold itself that threatened disaster—it was the change the temperature made to the ice and snow underfoot. The surface turned crystalline. This created immense friction, anchoring the sledges to the ice, dragging at the runners like thick mud.

  Although Wilson and Bowers still recorded their scientific data, Scott was by then the only one keeping a diary. On March 2 they reached the Middle Barrier depot. Again they found that fuel had evaporated from the sealed cans. The wind was blowing unseasonably into their faces, and Oates’s feet were frostbitten: “Titus Oates disclosed his feet, the toes showing very bad indeed, evidently bitten by the late temperatures.” He continued hauling with the others.

  On the third they traveled ten miles, on the fourth, nine, on the fifth, eight. On March 6 they made only six and a half miles, and Scott recorded that they “feel the cold terribly. The surface…is coated with a thin layer of woolly crystals…. These are too firmly fixed to be removed by the wind and cause impossible friction on the runners. Amongst ourselves we are unendingly cheerful, but what each man feels in his heart I can only guess.”

  Elsewhere on the sixth, the Fram arrived in Australia and Amundsen telegrammed the world that he was first to the South Pole. Publicly Nansen congratulated Amundsen; in his diary he recorded his disappointment.

  In Scott’s team, Bowers maintained his meteorological log until March 19, and from this and subsequent weather records it’s now understood what happened. Scott planned the polar journey with meteorologist George Simpson, later director of the Meteorological Office of the United Kingdom. Simpson’s weather predictions were based upon all known information. Yet 1912 was an abnormal year—a rogue year. In late February and March was the worst weather ever recorded on the ice barrier. Scott experienced temperatures ten to twenty degrees colder than average. The conditions were ferocious, the ice under the sledges like glue. From going very well, suddenly they were in desperate trouble. Where were the dog teams?

  Dog food had not been taken to One Ton Depot as ordered. There is no apparent explanation for this. Teddy Evans had passed Scott’s second order to Meares and Gerof for the dog teams to meet Scott ninety to fifty miles from Beardmore. By then, though, Evans was near death. He hadn’t eaten his meat rations and had contracted scurvy on top of severe exhaustion. Dr. Atkinson assumed command and saved Evans’s life, but Scott’s orders were not carried out. Meares’s father had died in Britain, and Meares left Cape Evans in late February by the resupply voyage of the Terra Nova, in which Evans also left.

  Only then did Atkinson order Gerof, Cherry-Garrard, and one dog sledge to One Ton Depot. They reached it, a quarter of the way across the barrier, on March 3. More food for the polar party was deposited but still no dog food, and they camped. One hundred three miles south, the exhausted polar party skied toward them.

  On the seventh Scott wrote: “We are 16 miles from our depot [Lower Barrier]. We hope against hope that the dogs have been to Mt. Hooper [Lower Barrier]; then we might pull through.” They reached the depot on the ninth. There is no diary entry that day.

  On the tenth he wrote: “Yesterday we marched up to the depot…. Cold comfort. Shortage on our allowance all round. I don’t know that anyone is to blame. The dogs which would have been our salvation have evidently failed. Meares had a bad trip home I suppose.” As well as fuel evaporation, discovered later to be from faulty can manufacture, there was less food than ordered. Scott reported: “Oates’ foot worse. He has rare pluck and must know that he can never get through. He asked Wilson if he had a chance this morning, and of course Bill had to say he didn’t know. In point of fact he has none. The weather conditions are awful.”

  They left Hooper on the tenth, but a blizzard struck after only a few hundred yards and they were forced to camp again. On the eleventh they sledged six miles. All were frostbitten and Oates was near the end, unable by then to use his fingers. Although still hauling, he was slowing the others’ progress through the time he took to prepare himself each day.

  At One Ton Depot in the same freak weather, Cherry-Garrard was in anguish over what to do. Atkinson had said that if Scott had not arrived at the depot before him, he was to judge what action to take. On the tenth, Cherry-Garrard and Gerof returned to Hut Point and telephoned Atkinson at Cape Evans.

  Scott made no entry for the twelfth, but it was probably then that he distributed the opium tablets to Bowers, Oates, and himself, leaving Wilson the morphine. Each man was thus able to make his own decision about his life. On the thirteenth they were blizzard-bound. On the fourteenth they pushed on. It took all morning to prepare Oates, the three cumbersomely dressing him. At noon, in -42° F, they sledged northward a few more miles before the weather deteriorated and they were forced to camp again.

  On the morning of March 16, blizzard-bound in their tent, Oates awoke and dragged himself out of his sleeping bag. He said: “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Scott wrote: “He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since…. We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman.”

  Some biographers have belittled Oates’s gesture as suicide. Dr. Wilson, a devout Christian and in the tent, wrote to Mrs. Oates: “This is a sad ending to our undertaking. Your son died a very noble death, God knows. I have never seen or heard of such courage as he showed from the first to last with his feet both badly frostbitten—never a word of complaint or of the pain. He was a great example.” Oates knew that his frostbite was destroying his companions’ chances of survival, that because of his slowness they might never reach the next depot. He also knew that they would not leave him. Twice he asked and twice they refused. Suicide? The Bible states it more clearly: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

  The blizzard eased, and the three broke camp and sledged north, still carrying Oates’s sleeping bag—in case. On the seventeenth they were blizzard-bound. On the eighteenth they reached fifteen and a half miles from One Ton Depot, just three days away at their improved speed since Oates’s leaving. They were eleven miles from One Ton on the nineteenth when another blizzard hit. By then, all of them had severe frostbite, Scott the worst by his own admission. On the twenty-first Wilson and Bowers planned to ski to One Ton and return with fuel and food, but the blizzard made it impossible. They lay inside the frozen tent, battered by the moaning wind.

  Scott recorded: “22 and 23. Blizzard bad as ever—Wilson and Bowers unable to start—tomorrow last chance—no fuel and
only one or two of food left—must be near the end. Have decided it shall be natural—we shall march for the depot with or without our effects and die in our tracks.”

  Atkinson and Patrick Keohane reached the barrier from Cape Evans on March 27, searching for their companions. They lasted thirty-five miles in the desperate conditions before turning back.

  Scott’s last entry was dated March 29. “Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott.”

  On November 12, a search party led by Atkinson including Gran, Cherry-Garrard, Gerof, and his dogs reached them. Canadian Charles Wright first saw the tip of the tent poking above a snowdrift. They dug it out and looked inside.

  It’s probable that forty-three-year-old Scott died last, for the sleeping bags of Wilson and Bowers were tied from the outside, while Scott’s was not. Scott’s right arm was resting across Wilson, his great friend. Dr. Atkinson certified death from natural causes and recovered the opium and morphine. In their last letters, the three men’s thoughts were not of themselves but of their families. Scott’s final sentence reads “For God’s sake look after our people.”

  There are always “if onlys,” but what killed Scott, Wilson, Bowers and Oates was not “if onlys.” It was not because they failed to use dogs and ponies; they used them wherever they could. They also skied wherever they could. It was not because they failed to use accepted Antarctic practices; they established the accepted practices. It was not through missing depots, for they found them all. What killed them was the extraordinary weather.

  Scott realized this and blamed no one except himself, for a leader is responsible for everything, even for events beyond his control—as Amundsen and Shackleton are responsible for the deaths in their various expeditions. Scott wrote: “Subsidiary reasons for our failure to return are due to the sickness of different members of the party, but the real thing that has stopped us is the awful weather and unexpected cold towards the end of the journey. The traverse of the Barrier has been quite three times as severe as any experience we had on the summit. There is no accounting for it, but the result has thrown out my calculations.”

  Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid

  There is an accounting for it now. From subsequent records and the calculations of meteorologists George Simpson of Britain and Susan Solomon of the United States, it is established that 1912 was a freak weather year.

  A cairn of snow was built over the tent and a cross of Tryggve Gran’s skis erected on top. He wore Scott’s skis back to Cape Evans to ensure that they traveled all the way. Above Hut Point, Scott’s men erected a nine-foot-high wooden cross, the ice barrier behind. It’s there today. On it is carved IN MEMORIAM, the five names, and the line TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO FIND, AND NOT TO YIELD.

  It is the last line from Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses.” They are apt because they are true: the five explorers strove, sought, found, and would not yield, even to circumstances beyond their control.

  Evans sledged and skied until he collapsed, struggled forward on his knees until he was unconscious, and died never knowing where his strength had gone. Oates sledged and skied until he saw that his frostbite would slow and kill his comrades, so left to slow them no longer. Scott, Wilson, and Bowers pushed on until constant blizzards made further travel impossible, and died together naturally.

  They did not yield.

  Recommended

  The Voyage of the Discovery by Robert Falcon Scott, vols. 1 and 2

  The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

  Diary of the “Terra Nova” Expedition 1910–12 by Dr. Edward Wilson

  Scott’s Last Expedition (personal journals) by Robert Falcon Scott

  The Coldest March: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon

  Captain Scott by Sir Ranulph Fiennes

  The Men of Colditz

  There were two qualifications for the Allied soldiers of World War II to be sent to Colditz Castle as prisoners. They had to be officers, and they had to have escaped before. Men who had tunneled out of other prisons, men who had walked out dressed as guards, laborers, and even women were sent to Colditz. In that way, the Germans managed to assemble a group of the most imaginative, determined, and experienced enemy officers in one place. In that context, it is perhaps not so surprising that when the prison was finally liberated by American soldiers in 1945, they found a fully working glider in the attic, ready to go.

  The interned soldiers were all Allies, from Poland, Canada, Holland, France, Belgium, Britain, or, toward the end, the United States. However, there was always the chance that one might be a stool pigeon, a man planted by the Germans to spy on the prisoners. Security had to be tight, even among their own men. It is astonishing now to consider that the Colditz prisoners constructed realistic identity papers, uniforms, disguises, a typewriter, keys, and tunnel equipment from the few supplies they had or could steal. Their beds were straw mattresses over boards that found use in shoring up tunnels, false doors, and cupboards and even as carved guns and glider wings. For tunnel lamps, they used candles made from cooking fat in a cigarette tin, with a pajama-cord wick.

  Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid

  Colditz, known to the Germans as Oflag IV-C, had been used in World War I to hold prisoners and is about a thousand years old. One side overlooks a cliff above the Mulde River. To escape Colditz, situated in the heart of the German Reich, one had to cross four hundred miles of hostile territory in any direction. The walls were seven feet thick. But the first escape attempts involved Canadian officers just picking up buckets of whitewash and a long ladder and walking out, pretending to be painters. They were quickly recaptured, then kicked and battered with rifle butts. The stakes were always life and death for those who tried to escape, and despite the schoolboy quality of some of the attempts, it was never a game. In the “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III in 1944, fifty out of the seventy-six escaping officers were caught and shot.

  The garrison at Colditz always outnumbered the prisoners. The entire castle was floodlit at night, and as well as a hundred-foot drop on one side, there was a nine-foot barbed-wire fence, a moat, and a thirteen-foot-high outer wall. The Geneva Convention enforced the humane treatment of prisoners, at least in theory. German officers were interned in England, and there was a joint benefit in avoiding brutal treatment. Food and Red Cross parcels were allowed in at irregular intervals, and the prisoners could send carefully censored letters home. They could buy essential supplies, such as razor blades for shaving, toothpaste, soap, and even musical instruments. They were allowed to cook for themselves on small stoves in the dormitories.

  The day began at 7:30 A.M. and was organized into four roll calls in the main courtyard. At first the largest contingents were Polish and British. From those, there were a variety of talents available from the prison population, from lock pickers and forgers to civil engineers. There was a theater in the castle, and the prisoners put on elaborate productions and musicals while in Colditz. One of the posters for a performance was replaced by the following: “For Sunshine Holidays, visit Sunny Colditz, Holiday Hotel. 500 beds, one bath. Cuisine by French chef. Large staff, always attentive and vigilant. Once visited, never left.”

  Three times a week the prisoners were allowed exercise, from fencing to soccer and boxing. They were even allowed to keep a cat. When it vanished, the prisoners assumed it had gone to find a mate, until its body was discovered wrapped in a parcel in a trash bin. For all the surface gentility of their treatment, savagery was always close by. The last roll call was at 9 P.M., at which point the “night shift” began—the escape committees of Colditz.

  In January 1941, a British tunnel plan w
as put into action with the construction of a sliding box to go under floorboards. The theory was that even if the floorboards were taken up by investigating Germans, the rubble-filled box would look solid enough and hide the tunnel below. It passed inspection shortly after construction, and the guards saw nothing suspicious. However, the tunnel was abandoned as too easy to find. The men involved were locked into their room after some minor offense, and in protest, they unlocked and removed the door from its hinges, carried it around the camp in slow procession, and presented it to the German officers.

  Pat Reid, MBE (later MC and author of The Colditz Story), spent part of a night in the Colditz brick drains, working to break through a wall. Taking turns with Rupert Barry and Dick Howe, he spent several nights scraping with bits of steel and nails. The underground bricks and cement proved tougher than their improvised tools. Another manhole entrance to the sewers looked more promising, and the men used the canteen as a base, having made a key for the door out of a piece of an iron bed. They made better progress but found the way blocked by thick clay. Reid’s next idea was to make a vertical tunnel from the first, so that it would be possible to go some way from the buildings underground before heading for the outer wall.

  On a surprise night inspection, the absence of the working tunnelers was discovered and the commandant told the men in the dormitory that they would all be shot. The Germans began tearing up the floor and summoned dogs to search. The dogs found nothing, and Reid had to hang on to a manhole from underneath as guards tried to lift it. He and the others constructed a false wall in the tunnel, hiding their supplies behind it. After that, they returned in darkness to their beds. The Germans were astonished to have them reappear at morning roll call, and the commandant was criticized by his superiors for a false alarm.