The Laboratory After the Fire

Seen from above, the silent continent is abandoned, its final task to bring home what remains.

The Ross Island coastline in late December 1912 resolves from above into a geometry of ice and rock: the volcanic cone of Erebus to the north, the pressure ridges of the Ross Ice Shelf to the south, and between them the small promontory of Cape Evans with its single dark rectangle. From altitude the hut appears as a smudge, a human interruption in the white vastness. Descending, detail accumulates. The smudge becomes a structure. The structure resolves into Scott’s Hut, erected in 1911 by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910–1913. On its veranda, sledges lie stacked against the wall beside empty fuel tins and a line of frozen laundry that will never be taken in. The hut itself, twenty-five by twenty-five feet, contains what remains of the Terra Nova Expedition.

Inside, the air holds the particular cold of enclosed spaces in polar regions—not the biting exterior wind, but a settled chill that has entered the walls and will not leave until summer’s brief thaw. The interior is divided into two rooms: the larger, the living quarters; the smaller, the laboratory. Between them, a partition of packing cases. On this late December morning, the laboratory contains four men. They are not speaking much. Their work requires concentration, and concentration requires a certain withdrawal from the present environment.

Edward Atkinson, the senior surviving officer, stands at a bench with a geological specimen in his hands. The rock is from the Beardmore Glacier, carried back by the search party from the tent where Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died. Atkinson turns it slowly, examining the surface, then sets it down and makes a notation in a ledger. The entry records specimen number, rock type, collection point, and date. The date of collection is not the date of death, but the two are proximate. The search party had found the tent on 12 November 1912. They had collected what they could carry.

Atkinson’s hands are chapped from the search journey. The skin has cracked across the knuckles, and the cracks have been sealed with a mixture of lanolin and petroleum jelly that leaves a faint sheen on everything he touches. All the men who went south in October share this condition: the return of blood circulation to frozen extremities produces a painful swelling, then peeling, then new skin that is tender and prone to re-injury. Atkinson works through it. He has worked through worse.

Across the room, Apsley Cherry-Garrard packs zoological specimens. His movements are methodical, almost mechanical. He takes a penguin skin from a crate, examines it for damage, notes its catalogue number against a list, wraps it in cotton wool, and places it in a larger box lined with tin. The tin is to prevent the penetration of sea air during the voyage home. The cotton wool is to prevent abrasion. The catalogue number is to ensure that the specimen can be matched to its field notes, its collector, its date and place of origin. Without the number, the skin is merely a skin. With the number, it becomes data.

Cherry-Garrard is twenty-six years old. He has been in Antarctica for twenty-five months. He has survived the winter journey to Cape Crozier with Wilson and Bowers, a journey that killed their companion status and nearly killed them. He has participated in the search for the polar party, the discovery of the bodies, the burial in the snow.

He has read Scott’s final letters, held in his hands the message to the public and the message to Wilson’s wife and the message to Bowers’s mother. He has seen the position of the bodies in the tent: Scott between Wilson and Bowers, his arm extended across Wilson’s shoulder. He has noted the thirty-five pounds of geological specimens on the sledge outside, specimens the dying men had refused to abandon. Now he packs penguin skins with the same attention he gave to those specimens on the barrier, and the work is both consolation and torment.

The laboratory contains other objects in process. On a shelf above Atkinson’s bench, meteorological logs are stacked in chronological order, their covers stained with the various substances of hut life: blubber smoke, cooking fat, the inevitable condensation that freezes and thaws and freezes again. The logs record temperatures, wind directions, barometric pressures, cloud cover, precipitation. They record the data that will allow the expedition’s scientific staff to write papers, to make claims, to justify the expedition’s existence in the official mind. The expedition had scientific objectives. The expedition had geographical objectives. The expedition had, above all, the objective of reaching the South Pole, which it failed to achieve first. The scientific work is what remains.

A geologist works at a separate table, boxing rock samples. His particular responsibility is the collection from the western mountains, the specimens gathered by survey parties during the long winter. These specimens do not carry the immediate freight of the polar party’s geology. They were not carried by dying men. They are nevertheless part of the same archive, the same accumulation of material that must be preserved, transported, and presented to the institutions that funded the expedition. He wraps each sample in paper, labels it, places it in a wooden box. The box will be nailed shut, then roped for lifting. The boxes will be stacked on the deck of the Terra Nova, then in the hold, then in the warehouses of Lyttelton and London.

The work proceeds in silence broken by practical communications. Requests pass between the men. A hammer is handed over. A crate is pronounced full. Queries about labels and locations are answered. These are the sounds of institutional process, the conversion of experience into record. The men have been engaged in this conversion for weeks, since the return of the search party. They will continue until the Terra Nova arrives, until the loading is complete, until the ship departs and carries them away from the scene of their loss.

The living quarters of the hut present a different order of preservation. Here the empty bunks stand in their rows, the bedding folded, the personal effects of the dead arranged for inventory and disposition. Scott’s corner retains his books, his photographs, his private papers. Wilson’s medical kit sits on a shelf, the instruments in their fitted case. Bowers’s corner is particularly dense with objects: he had been a collector by temperament, and his space holds his expedition equipment, his personal library, his correspondence, the small items he had accumulated during two years of isolation. Oates’s bunk is stripped; his effects were fewer, and what remained after his departure for the pole had been distributed among his companions. Evans’s corner holds the tools of his trade as a petty officer, the sextants and chronometers he had maintained, the notebooks in which he recorded his observations.

The men who work in the laboratory do not enter these spaces without purpose. The work of preservation is selective. Some objects will be returned to families. Some will be retained by the expedition for its official records. Some will be discarded, their value insufficient to justify their weight in the ship’s limited cargo capacity. The decisions are made by Atkinson, as senior officer, in consultation with the specialists who understand the scientific value of particular collections. The decisions are documented. The documentation becomes part of the archive.

The transformation of the expedition from living venture to historical record is not merely a matter of packing and labelling. It requires a continuous negotiation with grief, a negotiation that takes place in the interstices of practical work.

Atkinson, writing in his diary on 23 December 1912, records that he was busy all day packing geological specimens. He notes that the Cape Crozier eggs are in good condition. The eggs are the three emperor penguin eggs collected by Wilson, Bowers, and Cherry-Garrard in the winter of 1911, carried back at enormous cost in suffering and risk. They represent, in concentrated form, the expedition’s scientific ambition: the study of embryology at the coldest edge of the habitable world.

Atkinson does not note, in this entry, that two of the three men who collected them are dead. The diary’s form does not accommodate such statements directly. They emerge instead in the juxtaposition of subjects: the packing of specimens, the condition of eggs, the ongoing work of the living.

Cherry-Garrard’s diary, more expansive, records the same period differently. He writes that they are busy getting things ready for the ship. He adds that it is strange work, going through the things of the dead. The strangeness is not specified. It inheres in the action itself: the handling of objects that retain the imprint of their owners, the folding of clothes that retain the shape of their wearers, the reading of letters that were never meant to be read by these eyes. The expedition’s scientific legacy is being secured, but its human legacy is being dispersed. The two processes cannot be separated. Each box that is sealed, each specimen that is catalogued, each log that is wrapped for transport, carries with it the weight of its origin.

The meteorological records present a particular challenge. They are voluminous, the product of systematic observation throughout the expedition’s duration. They are also fragile, the paper susceptible to damage from the hut’s variable conditions. Silas Wright, the physicist who maintained the records through the winter, has organized them into sequences: the Cape Evans observations, the Hut Point observations, the records from the various sledging journeys. The sequences must be preserved intact. A missing page, a displaced sheet, would compromise the entire series. Wright works with the assistance of Patrick Keohane, the Irish petty officer who has become, through necessity, a skilled clerk. Together they check each entry against the original observation books, verifying the transcription, noting discrepancies, correcting errors where the original permits certainty.

The work of verification is tedious. It is also, in its way, a form of mourning. The observation books contain meteorological data and the traces of their compilers: Scott’s handwriting in the early entries, Wilson’s in the later, the various hands of the men who maintained the record through the winter of 1912. To read these books is to encounter the dead in their habitual actions, the routine of scientific work that continued even as the polar party failed to return.

Wright finds, in the Hut Point records for March 1912, an entry in Atkinson’s hand recording no news of the polar party. The entry is dated 16 March, three weeks after the latest possible date of survival. Atkinson had known, by then, that the search party sent out earlier in the month had been driven back by weather. He had known that nothing further could be attempted until spring.

The entry records knowledge without recording its emotional content. The meteorological log is not the place for such content. Yet it is present, if only in the regularity of the handwriting, the maintenance of form in the face of catastrophe.

The zoological collections require different treatment. The skins and skeletons accumulated by the expedition’s biologists must be prepared for transport without damage to their scientific value. This means protection from moisture, from insect infestation, from the crushing weight of other cargo. Cherry-Garrard, who assisted Wilson in the field, now assists in the preservation of his collections. He packs the emperor penguin embryos with particular care. These are the specimens for which Wilson had risked his life, and then risked it again, and then died. Their value is scientific: they would allow the study of a species whose breeding habits were then unknown, whose embryonic development might illuminate evolutionary relationships. Their value is also symbolic: they represent the expedition’s commitment to knowledge, the priority given to data even in extremity.

The packing proceeds according to protocols established before the expedition’s departure. The protocols were designed for normal conditions. They are being applied in abnormal conditions, with limited materials and under the pressure of an uncertain departure date. The Terra Nova is expected in early January 1913. It may arrive earlier, or later, depending on ice conditions in McMurdo Sound. The men must be ready. The readiness requires long hours of physical labor in cold that, while not the killing cold of the barrier, is sufficiently uncomfortable to make fine motor control difficult. The chapped hands, the stiff fingers, the condensation that freezes on metal surfaces: these are the conditions of the work.

Atkinson supervises the overall operation with the methodical attention that has characterized his leadership since Scott’s departure for the pole. He is not a charismatic figure. His authority derives from his competence, his endurance, his willingness to undertake the necessary tasks without complaint. He had led the search party that found the bodies. He had made the decision, on that occasion, to leave the tent and its contents undisturbed except for the removal of certain documents and objects. He had presided over the burial, the construction of the cairn, the erection of the cross. Now he presides over the conversion of the expedition’s materials into transportable form, and the work is continuous with what preceded it: the maintenance of order, the preservation of record, the fulfillment of duty in circumstances that would excuse neglect.

The laboratory work is intersected by other necessary activities. The hut must be secured for its eventual abandonment. The stores must be inventoried, the surplus either destroyed or cached for possible future use. The dogs, those that remain, must be cared for until their disposition is determined. The ponies are all dead, consumed or killed during the various journeys. The motor sledges failed early and were abandoned. The surviving animals are the dogs, and they are few: the demand for their labor during the search and relief operations has reduced their numbers, and their condition is poor. Atkinson records, in his diary for 28 December, that two more dogs died, old and worn out. The expedition’s living resources are being exhausted along with its human resources.

The inventory of stores produces its own archive. The depot ledgers, maintained throughout the expedition’s duration, are closed and sealed. They record the placement of supplies across the route to the pole: the quantities of pemmican, biscuit, oil, tea, the positions of the depots, the dates of their establishment. These records will be examined, in England, by authorities seeking to understand the expedition’s fate. They will be examined by historians seeking to assign responsibility. For the present, they are simply closed, their information fixed, their testimony complete. The ledgers are wrapped in oilcloth and placed in a wooden box. The box is labelled with the expedition’s name and the date. The label is written in Atkinson’s hand, which is clear and legible even in the cold.

The personal effects of the dead present more complex problems. Scott’s letters, written in the final days, have been read and copied. The originals will be returned to his wife. The copies will remain with the expedition’s records, evidence of the circumstances of death. Wilson’s sketches, made throughout the journey, are being sorted and packed. Some will go to his family. Some will be retained for publication, for exhibition, for the official account that will be required. Bowers’s photographs, taken with the expedition’s cameras, are being developed and printed where possible, the negatives packed for transport.

The photographic record is particularly valuable: it provides visual documentation of the journey, the landscape, the conditions that the men encountered. It also provides, in its final images, a record of the polar party’s last known state: the photographs taken at the pole itself, the camera found with Bowers’s body, the undeveloped film recovered by the search party.

Wright undertook the development of this film, working in the hut’s darkroom. The results were partial: some images were recoverable, others damaged by the conditions of storage. The recoverable images include the photograph of Oates, Wilson, Scott, Evans, and Bowers at the pole, standing before the tent and the Norwegian flag that Amundsen had left. The photograph is stiff, formal, the faces showing the strain of their situation. It is the last image of all five men alive. Wright’s development of this image, in the weeks after the search party’s return, was an act of technical competence applied to material that carried enormous emotional weight. He does not record, in his diary, his response to the image. The diary’s form does not require such recording. But the work of development, like the work of packing, was conducted in the presence of the dead.

The scientific value of the expedition’s collections is not abstract. It is specified in the planning documents, the grant applications, the correspondence with the Royal Geographical Society and the government departments that provided funding. The expedition was to make a contribution to knowledge: of Antarctic geography, of Antarctic meteorology, of Antarctic biology, of Antarctic geology. The contribution was to justify the expenditure, the risk, the potential loss of life. Now, with the loss of life accomplished, the contribution must be secured. Each specimen damaged in packing, each log lost, each observation that cannot be verified, represents a diminution of the expedition’s return on its investment. The men work with this awareness. Their labor is preservative and productive, the generation of value from circumstances that might have produced only waste.

The contrast between this productive labor and the raw fact of loss is present in every action. Atkinson, handling Wilson’s medical instruments, encounters the stethoscope that Wilson used to examine his companions, the surgical kit that he carried for emergencies that exceeded its capacity. Cherry-Garrard, packing the Cape Crozier eggs, remembers the journey that collected them: the darkness, the cold, the wind that tore through their inadequate shelter, the return journey that brought them to the edge of death. The geologist boxing the western survey specimens thinks of the parties who gathered them, their months of travel and measurement, their return to a base that no longer contained the leader who had authorized their work. The memories are not distractions. They are the medium in which the work is conducted, the continuous presence that gives the work its meaning and its pain.

The work is transforming the hut itself. Spaces that were organized for living are being reorganized for storage. The scientific laboratory, always a working space, has become a processing center, the benches cleared for the handling of materials, the walls lined with packed crates. The living quarters, still containing the bunks and personal effects of the dead, have acquired the quality of a museum or memorial, a space preserved rather than used. The men sleep in a portion of the hut, cook in another, work in others. The functional distinctions are maintained, but they are overlaid by the awareness that the hut’s primary function has concluded. It is no longer a base for exploration. It is a depot for the storage of what exploration produced.

The weather continues its indifferent cycle. In late December, the temperature at Cape Evans ranges between 20 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. The wind blows from the south, carrying the cold of the interior. The sea ice in McMurdo Sound is stable, but the open water beyond is visible from the heights above the hut, a dark line on the horizon that marks the limit of accessible navigation. The Terra Nova will come from that direction, when it comes. The men watch for it, though they do not speak of watching. They have learned, in two years, that anticipation does not expedite arrival.

The final stages of the packing involve the most precious materials: the polar journals, the sketches, the letters recovered from the tent. These are wrapped in multiple layers of protection, then placed in a metal box that will be carried by hand to the ship, never left unattended, never subjected to the risk of the general cargo. Atkinson takes personal responsibility for this box. Its contents are the expedition’s most immediate legacy, the words of the dead in their own hands, the record of their final experience. The box will travel to England in Atkinson’s cabin. It will be presented to the expedition’s sponsors, its contents examined, published, disseminated. The words will become public property, the private experience of the dying converted into national narrative.

The work is completed in sections, each section representing a category of material, a phase of the expedition’s activity. The geological collections from the polar journey are packed and sealed. The meteorological records are wrapped and boxed. The zoological specimens are crated and roped. The personal effects are inventoried and distributed among the containers that will carry them to their various destinations. The hut is progressively emptied of its accumulated contents, its walls bared, its corners cleared. What remains is the structure itself, the fabric of the building that will be left behind, preserved by the cold for future discovery.

On 4 January 1913, the Terra Nova is sighted from the lookout point above the hut. The ship appears first as a smudge on the horizon, resolving gradually into a vessel with masts and funnel, the distinctive profile of the Dundee whaler that carried them south two and a half years before. The sighting produces a complex response: relief at the prospect of departure, grief at the finality it represents, anxiety about the voyage ahead and the reception that awaits in New Zealand. The men continue their work. The ship will not reach the ice edge for several days. There is time to complete the loading, to secure the final crates, to make the final inventory.

The arrival of the ship initiates the last phase of the expedition’s Antarctic existence. The cargo is transferred from hut to shore, from shore to ship, with the methodical efficiency that characterizes all polar operations. Each crate is checked against the inventory, each discrepancy noted and resolved. The weight is distributed according to the master’s requirements, the hold packed to maximize capacity without compromising stability. The men work long hours, the continuous daylight of the polar summer allowing labor without the interruption of darkness. They work in the knowledge that each crate loaded represents a choice: what to preserve, what to abandon, what to leave for the ice to claim.

The last scientific crate is sealed in the silent hut, its contents—the expedition’s official legacy—now a curated collection awaiting transport and judgment by the world beyond Antarctica.