With Scott Before The Mast. Francis H. Davies
why I wanted to go with the expedition and being satisfied with my replies, went on to explain what would be expected of me. My principal job he said would be the erection of Winter Quarters for the Southern party, which was to make an attempt to reach the South Pole, and the eastern party which was to explore King Edward VII Land at the eastern end of the Great Ice Barrier, discovered by Captain Scott on his first expedition. He also told me that I would be paid £40 a year, adding that if I made a success of the job he wouldn’t say what he would do for me, but if on the other hand I failed to come up to scratch I would be for the high jump.
Lieutenant Evans RN the Second in Command of the expedition, was also present at the interview. Antarctic exploration was not new to him, he had served as navigator of Morning, when that ship together with Terra Nova went to the relief of Discovery, beset in the ice of McMurdo Sound on Captain Scott’s first expedition. After the interview Lieutenant Evans took me along to the expedition ship then fitting out in the West India Docks.
What I expected to see I don’t quite remember, but I was much taken aback when I got my first sight of her, she looked an absolute wreck fit only for the knackers yard, long overdue in fact. A sailing ship was a new experience for me. Up to then all my sailoring had been in ships of the King’s Navee where everything was spick and span, regardless of expenses, ‘all ship-shape and Bristol fashion’ as we say at sea. I certainly saw Terra Nova at her worst.
The fact that the yardarms were all askew and the riggers were working aloft added further to the appearance of complete chaos. On the poop shipwrights were extending the saloon to provide additional accommodation for extra personnel and building laboratories for the scientists, amidships a large ice box was being built for transporting frozen meat from New Zealand for the shore parties and, what with all this going on and spare yards and spare rudder hardly a square foot of deck was visible.
Lieutenant Evans had told me going down in the train that he was rather worried about the condition of the ship and that the Board of Trade Surveyor had found so many defects which he wanted made good before he would give a certificate of sea-worthiness that he doubted very much if she could be got ready in time to catch the next Antarctic summer season. There was, however, he said, the possibility that Captain Scott would be elected a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and in that case we should no longer be troubled by the surveyor.
Captain Scott wanted his old ship Discovery which had been specially built for his first expedition, then owned by the Hudson Bay Company, she was in fact tied up in the West India Dock at the time but they could not be persuaded to part with her, so the next best thing was Terra Nova. There were not many of this class of ship to pick and choose from.
After Lieutenant Evans had shown me over the vessel pointing out her many weaknesses, he asked me if I would be afraid to sail in her as she was. It was hardly a fair question to put to me if he wanted a conscientious answer for I would have sailed in anything for the privilege of going on such an adventure.
Battered and scarred as she was, she still remained a fine ship having been soundly and truly built of well seasoned timber some twenty five years earlier. On one or two occasions she had been badly squeezed in the pack-ice, once so badly, I was told, that all her hatches were out of shape. For many seasons she had been sailing out of St. Johns, Newfoundland, and afterwards was badly neglected, possibly due to circumstances over which her owners had no control, for there was not much profit in the whaling industry in those days in spite of the dangers and hardships inseparable from that calling. She was also in a very filthy condition though in that respect, no worse than other ships engaged in this unpleasant occupation.
Under four hundred tons register she was built at Dundee in 1885, barque rigged with auxiliary steam power for pushing through the ice. Originally she was fitted with a two bladed propeller that was hoisted in over the trunk when she was under sail only, reminiscent of the days of sail and steam in the Royal Navy when up funnel and down screw was a familiar pipe. Sometime since she had been fitted with four bladed propellers and this made her a bad sailor, it dragged like a sea anchor. She had the most beautiful hull form I have ever seen and from the point of view of stability she was very seaworthy in spite of her heavy top hamper of masts and yards, a grand old lady of the sea.
Whilst getting my first once over of the ship, I was introduced to three of my new shipmates, *[note 1] Mick Crean, Taff Evans and Bill Smythe who were busy with the riggers sending up the yards. All had served in Discovery with Captain Scott on his first expedition and all had been seamen petty officers in the Royal Navy, Taff Evans and Mick Crean were still serving and had been released by the Admiralty for service with the expedition. Bill Smythe had found the Navy not to his liking after life in the Antarctic and had taken his discharge at the end of his first period of twelve years and had since sailed in tramps, he had now shipped as sailmaker.
They were all very fine seamen, such as we are not likely to see again, particularly as the sailing ship has almost had its day. What characters they were, Mick, with his ever ready smile and Irish wit was for ever chewing ‘baccy, the quid rarely left his cheek except perhaps on odd occasions when he might be sent for by an officer, then it was transferred to his cap. His scalp, with its thinning, unkempt hair to which fragments of tobacco clung like tea leaves was stained brown by the juice of the quids which had found a temporary resting place.
Taff was enormously powerful and might have been a model for the man on the posters advertising a well known brand of stout. He had on more than one occasion been one of the field gun’s crew representing the Portsmouth Command at the Royal Tournament, Olympia. At dinner time these three worthies suggested they should show me where to get some ‘chow’. From the knowing look on their faces I guessed they were sizing me up, wondering if I would be good for a pint or two of ‘Harry Freemans’ (beer). I was really very pleased to be included in their company as I felt quite lost on the beach on my own and it would, I thought, be a good opportunity to pay my footing, which according to ancient nautical custom I should be expected to do sooner than later.
We went to a pub just outside the dock gates, called oddly enough ‘The North Pole’, as we passed the policemen on duty at the dock gates he handed Mick a can which Mick accepted without a word being spoken on either side. I was to find out the meaning of the can in the days that followed to my cost, custom demanded a pint for the policeman on the way back.
Knowing chaps those ‘bobbies’. Never did any of the crew slip out to the pub for a quiet one without being handed the can, what they did with it all puzzled me, they must have hollow legs.
‘The North Pole’ became a home from home for most of the crew till the ship sailed. For threepence we could get enough bread and cheese with pickled onions for a good tuck in, and as much beer as we could pay for or strap at tuppence a pint from 6 p.m. till midnight, with civility thrown in for good measure.
That was in the ‘bad old days’ of course, before this fine old country of ours had shipped the bonds of freedom, when we really were free and it was not considered necessary to pipe the fact every time the bell struck to bring it to notice. It is pleasant to remember having lived in those days. Times have changed a good deal since those not so far off times. I’m afraid the common man has swallowed the bait of democracy hook, line and sinker, and sprung the trap, and it will be a long time before he will gnaw his way to freedom again. As for my own generation. Well, we’ve had it, Chums!
A day or two after I joined the ship she was inclined for stability by a ship constructor from the Admiralty. Amongst the people who were assisting the seamen to hump the pig iron ballast from side to side of the ship to incline her, was Captain Oates, rigged in a serge suit and peak cap. None of us knew who he was up to this time and many were the guesses, all wrong.
I joined the ship in civvies, wearing a bowler hat, then very fashionable. Mick, when introduced mistook me for one of the scientists and said ‘pleased to meet you, Sir’ he never got over that mistake on his part and often ragged me about it, saying, ‘me, calling a …“hard hat”, Sir!’
The seamen generally worked aloft in bare feet, even when fitting out. Taff and Mick were in digs together, Taff used to spin the yarn that his first job mornings was to separate Mick from the sheets which had become stuck to the tar on his