But eleven days before Scott and his companions struggled back to safety the great event of the season had happened in the arrival of the Morning. How the funds were raised by means of which this ship was sent is a tale in itself; briefly, however, it was due to the untiring zeal and singleness of purpose shown by Sir Clements Markham that the Morning, commanded by Lieutenant William Colbeck, R.N.R., was able to leave the London Docks on July 9, 1902.
Long before the Discovery had left New Zealand the idea of a relief ship had been discussed, and although Scott saw great difficulties in the way, he also felt quite confident that if the thing was to be done Sir Clements was the man to do it. Obviously then it was desirable to leave as much information as possible on the track, and the relief ship was to try and pick up clues at the places where Scott had said that he would attempt to leave them. These places were Cape Adare, Possession Islands, Coulman Island, Wood Bay, Franklin Island and Cape Crozier.
On January 8 a landing was effected at Cape Adare, and there Colbeck heard of the Discovery's safe arrival in the south. The Possession Islands were drawn blank, because Scott had not been able to land there, and south of this the whole coast was so thickly packed that the Morning could not approach either Coulman Island or Wood Bay.
Franklin Island was visited on January 14, but without result; and owing to the quantities of pack ice it was not until four days later that a landing was made at Cape Crozier. Colbeck himself joined the landing party, and after spending several hours in fruitless search, he was just giving up the hunt and beginning despondently to wonder what he had better do next, when suddenly a small post was seen on the horizon. A rush was made for it, and in a few minutes Colbeck knew that he had only to steer into the mysterious depths of McMurdo Sound to find the Discovery, and practically to accomplish the work he had set out to do.
On board the Discovery the idea had steadily grown that a relief ship would come. For no very clear reason the men had begun to look upon it as a certainty, and during the latter part of January it was not uncommon for wild rumors to be spread that smoke had been seen to the north. Such reports, therefore, were generally received without much excitement, but when a messenger ran down the hill on the night of the 23rd to say that there was actually a ship in sight the enthusiasm was intense. Only the most imperturbable of those on board could sleep much during that night, and early on the 24th a large party set out over the floe. The Morning was lying some ten miles north of the Discovery, but it was far easier to see her than to reach her. At last, however, the party, after various little adventures, stood safely on deck and received the warmest of welcomes.
During the last week of January the weather was in its most glorious mood, and with some of the treacherous thin ice breaking away the Morning was able to get a mile nearer. Parties constantly passed to and fro between the two ships, and everyone—with unshaken confidence that the Discovery would soon be free—gave themselves up to the delight of fresh companionship, and the joy of good news from the home country. To this scene of festivity and cheeriness Scott, Wilson and Shackleton returned on February 3, and though the last to open their letters they had the satisfaction of knowing that the Morning had brought nothing but good news.
By a curious coincidence Colbeck chose the night of the Southern party's return to make his first visit to the Discovery, and soon after Scott had come out of his delicious bath and was reveling in the delight of clean clothes, he had the pleasure of welcoming him on board. 'In those last weary marches over the barrier,' Scott says, 'I had little expected that the first feast in our home quarters would be taken with strange faces gathered round our festive table, but so it was, and I can well remember the look of astonishment that dawned on those faces when we gradually displayed our power of absorbing food.'
But however difficult the appetites of the party were to appease, for a fortnight after they had reached the ship their condition was very wretched. Shackleton at once went to bed, and although he soon tried to be out and about again, the least exertion caused a return of his breathlessness, and he still suffered from the violent fits of coughing that had troubled him so much on the journey. With Wilson, who at one time had shown the least signs of scurvy, the disease had increased so rapidly at the end that on his return he wisely decided to go to bed, where he remained quietly for ten days. 'Wilson,' Scott wrote on February 16, 'is a very fine fellow, his pluck and go were everything on our southern journey; one felt he wouldn't give in till he dropped.' And this collapse when he got back to the ship was in itself a proof of the determination which must have upheld him during the last marches.
Scott, though the least affected of the three, was also by no means fit and well. Both his legs were swollen and his gums were very uncomfortable, but in addition to these troubles he was attacked by an overwhelming feeling of both physical and mental weariness. 'Many days passed,' he says, 'before I could rouse myself from this slothful humour, and it was many weeks before I had returned to a normally vigorous condition. It was probably this exceptionally relaxed state of health that made me so slow to realize that the ice conditions were very different from what they had been in the previous season.... The prospect of the ice about us remaining fast throughout the season never once entered my head.' His diary, however, for the month shows how he gradually awakened to the true state of affairs, and on February 13 he decided to begin the transport of stores from the Morning to the Discovery, so that the former ship 'should run no risk of being detained.' And on the 18th when he paid his first visit to the Morning and found the journey 'an awful grind,' he had begun to wonder whether the floe was ever going to break up.
