‘I’ve seen men scared before, but never a man as scared as that’

Centenary of the departure of Captain Scott and the Terra Nova from Cardiff, June 2010

On 15 June 1910 Captain Scott and the British Antarctic Expedition set sail from Cardiff on board the Terra Nova.

Throughout June centenary events have been held in Cardiff to commemorate Scott’s departure so it seems a fitting time to highlight letters held at Glamorgan Archives that give a wonderful insight into the expedition and the harsh conditions that were faced.
The letters were written by Wilfred Bruce, Scott’s brother-in-law, who was also a member of the expedition team based on board the Terra Nova (ref. DSS). Writing to his friend Lilian Knowles in March 1911 he describes how the ship was nearly lost in severe gales:

‘We met a gale three days out and the complete extinction of the great expedition was very nearly a ‘fait accompli’ in the first chapter.  She was loaded very deeply and her decks were fearfully lumbered up with motor-sledges, ponies, dogs, coal, petrol etc. She leaked so much above and below in the terrific sea, that the engine fires were put out and all our pumps choked.  We kept her a float till the gale was over by baling with buckets up the perpendicular engine room ladders. Sixteen blooming hours did we learned scientist, naval lieutenants, seamen, cooks and servants – pass buckets of filthy oily water over each others’ heads and pour them over the side. ... We clear with the loss of two ponies, one dog, half our bulwarks and much coal and petrol, all washed over the side.  Our cabins, bunks and clothes were all wet.’

He goes on to describe a hair-raising attack by killer whales which could have cost the life of the expedition photographer, Herbert Ponting:

‘... we had an attack of whales, on our dogs really, but it threatened much more than the dogs, four ‘killer whales’ chasing penguins, sighted some of our dogs tied up to a mooring wire near the edge of the floe.  They tried to get at them on the ice, coming half out of the water in their endeavours.  I was working stores on the ice and had big heaps of petrol cases ready to be sledged on shore.  I called to Ponting, our photographer, to come and snap the wonderful sight and he went quite close to the whales, who just at this time changed their mode of attack and dived under the ice, charging up from underneath and breaking the four feet thick ice into fragments.  Huge panic and excitement.  The ship was adrift, (her ice anchors being now fast to loose ice), the stacks of petrol on loose floes amid waves of ice four feet high.  Ponting was isolated on a five yards square floe and a ‘killer’ put his head out between him and the ship and only a few feet from him and stared at him.  I was about fifteen yards away.  I’ve seen men scared before but never a man as scared as that.  Well luckily they cleared off for a few minutes and when they came back we dosed them with a fusillade of rifle shots and eventually saved everything, dogs, petrol, Ponting and all.’

 

Captain Scott was clearly concerned that news of the expedition should not reach the Norwegians, their rivals in the race to the Pole, as the letters contain a printed warning that the contents should not be published or divulged to the press or the general public as this would be a ‘breach of the agreement which the Members of the Expedition have entered into with the Commander’.

The final letter was written by Bruce on 24 January 1913, titled ‘Homeward Bound’ and written after the loss of Scott’s party.  Bruce describes his distress at having to face his sister, Kathleen, Scott’s wife ‘ I am in terror as to how my sister will take the news.’  He also comments on the failure of the expedition and on the rival Norwegian team : ‘We all rather wonder why the Norwegians should have been granted every facility, while our people met worse weather and hardships than any human beings have ever been able to talk about.

The correspondence was deposited at Glamorgan Archives by the Captain Scott Society, reference DSS. The Society was founded in 1983, following a dinner given to celebrate the anniversary of a dinner given by members of the commercial community of Cardiff, to Scott, his officers and scientists of the British Antarctic Expedition (including Wilfred Bruce), prior to their departure south on the 15 June 1910.