Читать книгу The Canadian Readers, Book V - John Miller Dow Meiklejohn - Страница 8

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In 1910, Captain Scott for the second time set out under the direction of The Royal Geographical Society, with a well-equipped party, to carry on his study of the Antarctic continent and to attempt to reach the South Pole.

He landed on that continent in November, and proceeded at once to build a few of the twelve depots for which he had planned, between his landing-place and the Pole, which lay four hundred miles distant on the other side of a huge glacier ten thousand feet high. The other depots for the storing of food and fuel-oil they intended to build on the actual journey to the Pole.

After a hard, rough journey Scott and his four companions reached the Pole on January 16th, 1912, only to find the Norwegian flag flying there. For, starting on February 22nd, 1911, from a point sixty miles nearer to it than Scott’s landing-place, Amundsen had made a dash for the Pole, using Eskimo dogs and the lightest equipment, and on December 16th, 1911, had won the honor of being the first to discover the spot.

The Scott party, after making the necessary observations, turned their faces towards home, sadly disappointed. Then began their last, long, hard, and unsuccessful struggle against rough ice, storms, hunger, and cold. The story of their stout-hearted endurance and noble courage is told in Captain Scott’s diary, which was found lying beside him in his tent just eleven miles from safety.

For a time they succeeded in making good progress, notwithstanding high winds and rough travelling; but very soon the condition of Evans and Oates caused Scott much concern. He wrote that he did not like the easy way in which Oates and Evans got frostbitten. As food was getting low and the cold was intense, Evans steadily lost strength, and on February 17th he dropped behind. When the rest returned to him he was very weak and died the next day.

After this sad event the survivors plodded on, finding without much difficulty the cairns and depots in which they had placed small supplies of food and oil on their way to the Pole. But in each case they found that, owing to leakage, the supply of oil was very scanty. Their feet were always cold, they were always hungry, and they talked of little but the food and oil they expected to find in the next cairn. The surface grew worse then ever, and their rate of progress was little more than a mile an hour.

Oates, especially, was finding it hard to march at all. His feet were frozen, and this made him very lame, but he resolutely struggled onward, as he did not mean to allow himself to become a burden to the rest. The future looked dark to him and to all of them; but, whatever these four Englishmen thought, they spoke cheerfully, as though their hardships were near an end. “We mean to see the game through with a proper spirit,” wrote Scott. “But it is tough work.”

At last Oates was forced to allow himself to be pulled on a sled. He did not complain of his plight, whatever he may have thought; but it was noticed that he grew more and more silent.

At the next depot, which they reached on March 5th, they found that both food and oil were very scanty, and they were now reduced to the necessity of eating dog food only. For four days they had to remain in this spot, owing to a blizzard.

Oates became much worse, and he asked his comrades what he should do. They urged him to go on with them as long as he could. Soon his hands and feet became useless, and he begged to be left behind in his sleeping-bag. But the others encouraged him, and he continued with them.

That evening he was very weak, and he thought that he would not live till morning; but when the day dawned he was still living. Then he knew that he must no longer hesitate. A blizzard was raging, and he said to the others: “I am just going outside and may be some time.” They knew what would happen if he left the tent, and they begged him to remain. But he walked out into the blizzard, and his friends saw him no more. Scott wrote in his diary: “It was the act of a brave man and of an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit; and assuredly the end is not far.”

Scott, Wilson, and Bowers were now seriously frostbitten; the blizzard raged for days; and yet they still bravely talked of reaching the next depot, twenty-one miles away, where they expected to find a relief party awaiting them. They had only a little oil left, and, when they were within fifteen miles of the depot, they had food for only a few days.

But they faced their terrible situation with an unconquered spirit; they struggled on till they were within eleven miles of safety. There the blizzard forced them to camp.

For several days they were held prisoners in their tent. On March 20th their food supply was sufficient for only two days, and they had enough oil to heat only two cups of tea for each man. On the 23rd, Scott’s entry reads: “We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.” This was followed by those last few words: “For God’s sake! look after our people.” This request touched the hearts of his countrymen, and they quickly responded to his last appeal.

Eight months later a search party found the tent in which the three men had met death. Scott had died later than the other two, for he had thrown his arm affectionately across Wilson. Beside him lay letters to his family and to the public, in which the same unconquerable spirit is shown: “What lots and lots I could tell you of this journey. How much better it has been than lounging in great comfort at home.”

After the burial service had been read, the party built a huge cairn over the tent, and on the top they placed a cross.

—Mary McGregor.

From “The Story of Captain Scott.”