South with Scott | Page 4

her from the day I saw her,
because she was my first command. Poor little ship, she looked so dirty
and uncared for and yet her name will be remembered for ever in the
story of the sea, which one can hardly say in the case of the stately
liners which dwarfed her in the docks. I often blushed when admirals
came down to see our ship, she was so very dirty. To begin with, her
hold contained large blubber tanks, the stench of whale oil and seal
blubber being overpowering, and the remarks of those who insisted on
going all over the ship need not be here set down. However, the blubber
tanks were withdrawn, the hold spaces got the thorough cleansing and
whitewashing that they so badly needed. The bilges were washed out,
the ship disinfected fore and aft, and a gang of men employed for some
time to sweeten her up. Then came the fitting out, which was much
more pleasant work.
Scott originally intended to leave England with most of the members of
the Expedition on August 1, 1910, but he realised that an early start
from New Zealand would mean a better chance for the big depot-laying
journey he had planned to undertake before the first Antarctic winter
set in. Accordingly the sailing date was anticipated, thanks to the united
efforts of all concerned with the fitting out, and we made June 1 our
day of departure, which meant a good deal of overtime everywhere.
The ship had to be provisioned and stored for her long voyage, having
in view the fact that there were no ship-chandlers in the Polar regions,
but those of us who had "sailed the way before" had a slight inkling
that we might meet more ships, and others who would lend us a helping
hand in the matter of Naval stores.
Captain Scott allowed me a sum with which to equip the "Terra Nova";
it seemed little enough to me but it made quite a hole in our funds.
There were boatswain's stores to be purchased, wire hawsers, canvas
for sail-making, fireworks for signalling, whale boats and whaling gear,
flags, logs, paint, tar, carpenter's stores, blacksmith's outfit, lubricating

oils, engineer's stores, and a multitude of necessities to be thought of,
selected, and not paid for if we could help it. The verb "to wangle" had
not then appeared in the English language, so we just "obtained."
The expedition had many friends, and it was not unusual to find Petty
Officers and men from the R.N.V.R. working on board and helping us
on Saturday afternoons and occasionally even on Sundays. They gave
their services for nothing, and the only way in which we could repay
them was to select two chief Petty Officers from their number, disrate
them, and take them Poleward as ordinary seamen.
It was not until the spring of 1910 that we could afford to engage any
officers or men for the ship, so that most of the work of rigging her was
done by dock-side workers under a good old master rigger named
Malley. Landsmen would have stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at
Malley's men with their diminutive dolly-winch had they watched our
new masts and yards being got into place.
Six weeks before sailing day Lieut. Campbell took over the duties of
Chief Officer in the "Terra Nova," Pennell and Rennick also joined,
and Lieut. Bowers came home from the Indian Marine to begin his
duties as Stores Officer by falling down the main hatch on to the pig
iron ballast. I did not witness this accident, and when Campbell
reported the matter I am reported to have said, "What a silly ass!" This
may have been true, for coming all the way from Bombay to join us
and then immediately falling down the hatch did seem a bit careless.
However, when Campbell added that Bowers had not hurt himself my
enthusiasm returned and I said, "What a splendid fellow!" Bowers fell
nineteen feet without injuring himself in the slightest. This was only
one of his narrow escapes and he proved himself to be about the
toughest man amongst us.
Quite a lot could be written of the volunteers for service with Scott in
this his last Antarctic venture. There were nearly 8000 of them to select
from, and many eligible men were turned down simply because they
were frozen out by those who had previous Antarctic experience. We
tried to select fairly, and certainly picked a representative crowd. It was
not an all-British Expedition because we included amongst us a young

Norwegian ski-runner and two Russians; a dog driver and a groom. The
Norwegian has since distinguished himself in the Royal Air Force--he
was severely wounded in the war whilst fighting for the British and
their Allies, but