How did the way seem to the men who still went on and on, now in the awful glare of the sun on the glistening ice, now in the teeth of a terrific gale? Here are some lines written by Wilson which may tell you something of what they felt:
The silence was deep with a breath like sleep
As our sledge runners slid on the snow,
And the fateful fall of our fur-clad feet
Struck mute like a silent blow.
And this was the thought the silence wrought,
As it scorched and froze us through,
For the secrets hidden are all forbidden
Till God means man to know.
We might be the men God meant should know
The heart of the Barrier snow,
In the heat of the sun, and the glow,
And the glare from the glistening floe,
As it scorched and froze us through and through
With the bite of the drifting snow.
But still they pushed on and on, carrying supplies and their precious instruments, together with the records of their observations and experiences, until at last the goal was reached.
The South Pole at last! But here after all they had dared and endured another great trial awaited them just at the moment of seeming success. There at the goal toward which they had struggled with such high hopes was a tent and a mound over which floated the flag of Norway. The Norse explorer, Amundsen, had reached the Pole first. A letter was left telling of his work of discovery. He had happened on a route shielded from the terrific winds against which Scott had fought his way mile by mile, and had arrived at the Pole a month earlier.
Now, indeed, Scott showed that “the soul of a brave man is stronger than anything that can happen to him.” Cheerfully he built a cairn near the spot to hold up their Union Jack, which flapped sadly in the freezing air as if to reproach them with not having set it as the first flag at the Farthest South of the earth. Then before they started back with the news of Amundsen’s success, Scott wrote these lines in his diary:
“Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must face 800 miles of solid dragging—and good-by to most of the day dreams.”
But it was for Scott to show the world that defeat might be turned into the greatest victory of all. When you hear any one say that a man is too weak or fearful to bear hardship and ill-success to the end, think of Captain Scott and say, “The brave soul is stronger than anything that can happen.”
On he struggled, on and on, though delayed again and again by blizzards that raged about in the most terrible fury as if determined to make this little party give up the fight. At last they came, weak and nearly frozen (for the supplies of food and fuel had run short), almost within sight of a provision camp where comfort and plenty awaited them. At this moment came the most terrible storm of all, that lasted for more than a week.
One morning Lieutenant Oates, who was ill and feared that his friends might lose their last chance of reaching safety by staying to care for him, walked out into the blizzard with these words: