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OHYAT: The Vote
Jun. 14th, 2012 07:41 pmIt's been an awfully long time since I've done one of these, but that's because once the mantle of winter pinned them more or less in the hut, the men of the British Antarctic Expedition 1910 didn't really get up to much. This was even more true this winter than last, as the weather was more 'boisterous' as they put it – blizzard after blizzard howled over Cape Evans and the wind at times seemed incessant, so strong that it blew gravel off the beach to rattle against the windows, and ice which had been safely permanent last year at this time kept blowing out to sea.
In the midst of this raging weather, after the Terra Nova failed to reach them on her last trip north, the six men of Campbell's northern party – including Murray Levick, who has been in the news lately – were huddled in a cave they'd dug in a snowbank up the coast, spending most of their time shivering in their summer clothes inside their reindeer bags and eking out their rations from their small store. They tried to hunt seals and penguins, but the animals which would have provided their winter larder tended not to hang around their windswept bay in the middle of winter. It was going to be a very long winter.
( Back at the base, life trundled along. )
So it was that we come to ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY, when Atch called a meeting to discuss what to do in the next sledging season: go north to try to assist Campbell, or south to try to find out what had happened to the Polar Party.
( The Dilemma )
Atch made his case – he was for going south – but didn't want to make a unilateral decision so he asked for everyone's opinion. 'No one was for going north,' Cherry wrote, 'one member only did not vote for going south, and he preferred not to give an opinion. Considering the complexity of the question, I was surprised by this unanimity. We prepared for another Southern Journey.'
In the midst of this raging weather, after the Terra Nova failed to reach them on her last trip north, the six men of Campbell's northern party – including Murray Levick, who has been in the news lately – were huddled in a cave they'd dug in a snowbank up the coast, spending most of their time shivering in their summer clothes inside their reindeer bags and eking out their rations from their small store. They tried to hunt seals and penguins, but the animals which would have provided their winter larder tended not to hang around their windswept bay in the middle of winter. It was going to be a very long winter.
( Back at the base, life trundled along. )
So it was that we come to ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY, when Atch called a meeting to discuss what to do in the next sledging season: go north to try to assist Campbell, or south to try to find out what had happened to the Polar Party.
( The Dilemma )
On the one hand we might go south, fail entirely to find any trace of the Polar Party, and while we were fruitlessly travelling all the summer Campbell's men might die for want of help. On the other hand we might go north, to find that Campbell's men were safe, and as a consequence the fate of the Polar Party and the result of their efforts might remain for ever unknown. Were we to forsake men who might be alive to look for those whom we knew were dead?
... It is impossible to express and almost impossible to imagine how difficult it was to make this decision. Then we knew nothing: now we know all. And nothing is harder than to realize in the light of facts the doubts which others have experienced in the fog of uncertainty.— ibid.
Atch made his case – he was for going south – but didn't want to make a unilateral decision so he asked for everyone's opinion. 'No one was for going north,' Cherry wrote, 'one member only did not vote for going south, and he preferred not to give an opinion. Considering the complexity of the question, I was surprised by this unanimity. We prepared for another Southern Journey.'
