The Terra Nova Expedition
Finding the Polar Party
The Spring search for Captain Scott
In the Antarctic spring the remaining members of the expedition discussed plans for the new search for the Polar party. Cherry-Garrard wrote in his diary: "I had a long talk with Lashly, who asked me what I candidly thought had happened to the Southern Party. I told him a crevasse. He says he does not think so: he thinks it is scurvy”. William explained the route they had taken in the last returning party and suggested that Scott was likely to have returned the same way. Cherry continues:
"Lashly thinks it would be practically impossible for five men to disappear down a crevasse. Where three men got through (and he said it would be impossible to get worse stuff than they came through), five men would be still better off. This is not my view, however. I think that the extra weight of one man might make all the difference in crossing a big crevasse: and if several men fell through one of those great bridges when sledge and men were all on it, I do not think the bridge would hold the sledge."
On October 29th, having set out depots in the usual manner, the search journey began with the eight-man mule party (which included William) leading the way. The rest of the party with dog teams caught up with them at One Ton Depot nearly two weeks later. William, in a letter to his colleague from Discovery days Reginald Skelton, described what followed.
“Our intentions were to go as far as Mt Darwin if we did not pick them up before reaching there. Almost everybody seemed to think they had gone down a crevasse but I said it was almost impossible for 5 people to go down a hole while they were on ski & one days march beyond 1 ton depot we saw what looked to be a cairn away to the east of our course but right on last years course.”
It was, in fact, the Polar party’s tent. After digging down they cleared the entrance. Dr Atkinson asked William to go with him into the tent. William’s account continues,
“On entering the tent we found it contained only 3 people but we could not identify anyone the tent being so dark, we decided to uncover them but by their look they must have a bad time, & it looked very much like Capt Scott being the last survivor, it must have been a dreadful time for him to wait for death”.
William emerged from the tent in tears. Dr Atkinson read aloud to the men from the diaries they had recovered. Then they removed all the possessions from the dead men before allowing the tent to drape over their bodies and then created a snow cairn over it. They recited the burial service and all signed a note about their dead colleagues and placed it on top. William used Tryg Gran’s skis to make a simple cross which was placed on the cairn. It was only now, as Dr Atkinson read out aloud the events recorded in Scott’s diary, that William found out what had happened to the friends he had cheered on their way to the Pole ten months earlier.
The search party spent that night beside Scott’s tent, though according to Seaman Keohane, they slept very little. The next day they searched for the body of Captain Oates but soon realized it was hopeless and set off back to Hut Point.
The search team (William 2nd from right back row)
In the meantime, Lieut. Evans (Deputy Leader of the Expedition) had recovered sufficiently to sail the Terra Nova back to the Antarctic and arrived on January 18th 1913. The search party had already decided to erect a cross in memory of the polar party and the ship’s carpenter set to work to make one. There was some discussion as to the inscription and they decided on the concluding line of Tennyson's poem ‘Ulysses’, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
On January 18th William wrote a brief letter to his brother in which he explains:
“We found the party on the 12th of November on our own search for them 140 miles from Hut Point & 11 miles from the 1 Ton Depot…but I very much doubt if they had reached there they could have gone much further as when they camped & the worst blizzard came on lasting several days they were finished”.
On the same day, in a much more detailed letter to Lieutenant Skelton he wrote:
“One thing is almost certain, is, that had they reached one ton depot they would not have reached hut point as the weather was so bad, & although the food & fuel there was ample, it is doubtful where they were in a fit state to carry enough to take them 120 miles, & it appears that Dr Wilson was unable to do much for several days before they arrived at their last camp, they appears to have all been badly frost bitten. But it appears by Capt Oates coming on as far as he did that they expected the dogs out to at least 80.30, but as they failed it was all over with them, of course the dogs did go out but had returned from 1 ton after remaining there 6 days.”
On January 20th at 8 am a small party of men, including William, left the ship to sledge the cross to Hut Point. Observation Hill was chosen for its position and the cross was raised nine feet high and fixed several feet into the ground in the hope it would never move. Although the paint has worn off in places the cross still remains.