A description of Captain Robert Falcon Scott during the 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition to Antartica
" Scott, who always amazed me by the amount of work he got through without any apparent effort, was essentially the driving force of the expedition. In the hut quietly organizing, working out masses of figures, taking the greatest interest in the scientific work of the station, and perhaps turning out quite by the way an elaborate paper on an obtruse problem in the neighbourhood, fond of his pipe and a good book - Browning, Hardy (Tess was one of his favourites), Goldsworthy; Barry was one of his greatest friends. He was eager to accept suggestions if they were workable and always keen to sift even the most unlikely theories if by any means they could be shaped to the desired end – a quickened modern brain which he applied with thoroughness to any question of practice or theory. Essentially an attractive personality with strong likes and dislikes, he excelled in making his followers his friends by a few words of sympathy or praise. I have never know anybody, man or woman, who could be so attractive if he chose.
Sledging, he went harder than any man of whom I have ever heard. Men never realised Scott until they have gone sledging with him. On our way up the Beardmore Glacier we were going at top pressure, some 17 hours out of the 24; and when we turned out in the morning, we felt as if we had only just turned in. By lunchtime we felt that it was impossible to get through in that afternoon a similar amount of worked to that which we had done in the morning. A cup of tea and two biscuits worked wonders, and the first two hours of the afternoon march went pretty well. Indeed, they were the best hours marching of the day. But by the time we had been going some 4 and a half or five hours, we were all watching Scott for that glance to right and left which betoken the search for a good camping site. …”Oh well, I think we would go on a little bit more”, Scott would say. But it would be an hour or more before we halted and made our camp. Sometimes a blizzard had had its silver lining. Scott could not wait. However welcome a blizzard could be to tired bodies (I speak only of Summer sledging), to Scott himself any delay was intolerable. And it is hard to realise how difficult waiting may be to one in a responsible position. It was our simple job to follow, to get up when we were roused, to pull our hardest, to do our special work as thoroughly as possible. It was Scott’s work to organise distances and weights and food, as well as do the same physical work as ourselves. In sledging, responsibility and physical work are combined to an extent seldom if ever found elsewhere.
Sledging, he went harder than any man of whom I have ever heard. Men never realised Scott until they have gone sledging with him. On our way up the Beardmore Glacier we were going at top pressure, some 17 hours out of the 24; and when we turned out in the morning, we felt as if we had only just turned in. By lunchtime we felt that it was impossible to get through in that afternoon a similar amount of worked to that which we had done in the morning. A cup of tea and two biscuits worked wonders, and the first two hours of the afternoon march went pretty well. Indeed, they were the best hours marching of the day. But by the time we had been going some 4 and a half or five hours, we were all watching Scott for that glance to right and left which betoken the search for a good camping site. …”Oh well, I think we would go on a little bit more”, Scott would say. But it would be an hour or more before we halted and made our camp. Sometimes a blizzard had had its silver lining. Scott could not wait. However welcome a blizzard could be to tired bodies (I speak only of Summer sledging), to Scott himself any delay was intolerable. And it is hard to realise how difficult waiting may be to one in a responsible position. It was our simple job to follow, to get up when we were roused, to pull our hardest, to do our special work as thoroughly as possible. It was Scott’s work to organise distances and weights and food, as well as do the same physical work as ourselves. In sledging, responsibility and physical work are combined to an extent seldom if ever found elsewhere.
He was a subtle character, full of lights and shades. England knows Scott as a hero; she has little idea of him as a man. He was certainly the most dominating character in our not uninteresting community. Indeed there was no doubt that he would carry weight in any gathering of human beings, but few who knew him realised just how shy and reserved the man was, and it was partly for this reason that he so often laid himself open for misunderstanding. Add to this that he was sensitive, femininely sensitive to a degree which might be considered a fault, and it will be clear that leadership to such a man may be almost a martyrdom, and that the confidence so necessary between leader and followers, which must of necessity be based upon mutual knowledge and trust, becomes in itself more difficult. It wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott more quickly - to others knowledge came with experience. He was not a very strong man physically, and was in his youth a weakly child – at one time not expected to live, but he was well-proportioned with broad shoulders and a good chest; a stronger man than Wilson; weaker than Bowers or seaman Evens. He suffered from indigestion and told me at the top of the Beardmore Glacier that he never expected to go on during the first stage of the descent.
Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might very easily have been an irritable autocrat. As it was, he had moods and depressions which might last for weeks, and of these there is ample evidence in his diary - the man with the nerves get things done, but sometimes he has a terrible time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have ever known. What pulled Scott through was character – sheer good grain, which ran under and over and through his weaker self and clamped it together. It would be stupid to say he had all the virtues. He had, for instance, little sense of humour and he was a bad judge of men, but you have only to read one page of what he wrote towards to the end to see something of his sense of justice. For him, justice was God. Indeed, I think you must read all those pages, and if you have read them once, you will probably read them again. You’ll not need much imagination to see what manner of man he was. And, notwithstanding the immense fits of depression which attacked him, Scott’s was the strongest combination of a strong mind in a strong body that I have ever known, and this because he was so weak - naturally so peevish, highly strung, irritable, depressed and moody; practically such a conquest of himself, such vitality, such push and determination - and withal in himself such a personal and magnetic charm.
...He had been a poor man. He had had a horror of leaving those dependent upon him in difficulties. You may read it over and over again in his last letters and messages. He will go down into history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole and who died as fine a death as any man has had the honour to die. His triumphs are many, but the Pole was not by any means the greatest of them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love. "
Extract from “The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley CHERRY-GERRARD
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