OHYAT: Famous Last Words

[tealin]

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY, Cherry, Dimitri, and the dog teams arrived back at Hut Point, having weathered blizzards, uncertain direction, and some dangerously crevassed ice. Atch records:

Both men were in exceedingly poor condition, Cherry-Garrard's state causing me serious alarm. The dogs were frostbitten, and miserably thin, while in many cases their harnesses were iced up and frozen to them. They were quite unfit for any further work that season.
    Cherry-Garrard under the circumstances and according to his instructions was in my judgment quite right in everything that he did. I am absolutely certain no other officer could have done better.

– E.L. Atkinson, Scott's Last Expedition Vol. II

This is not the most significant thing to happen on this day, though, because out on the Barrier ...

At lunch, [March 15th*], poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping-bag. That we could not do, and induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse and we knew the end had come.
    Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates’ last thoughts were of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking that his regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met his death. We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not – would not – give up hope to the very end. He was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night ... hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning – [March 16th]. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.
    ... We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and assuredly the end is not far.

– R.F. Scott

*This OHYAT takes a little bit of math, and seems to be a source of confusion for some historians, so I thought I should lay out how I approached it. Scott's journal entry relating the death of Oates is headed 'Friday 16 or Saturday 17 March – lost track of dates but think the last correct.' In fact he had lost track of days of the week some time before, in the Week of Two Mondays mid-February, so really it's Saturday/Sunday, but that's not that important. What is important is that as he's describing the events he refers to 'the day before yesterday' and 'yesterday,' so even though he is writing about Oates' death on (probably) the 17th, you have to count back to find when things actually happened. I suspect the reason this trap is so tempting to fall into is that 17 March 1912 was Titus' 32nd birthday, and the human mind is drawn to symmetry.

. . .

Well, I don't know about you, but after that I need a song.

Comments

[tealin]

I do appreciate your taking the time to comment – I'm surprised how many people I know IRL who've commented that they like my OHYATs, but it means something else when it comes from someone I don't know personally. The posts don't really make commenting easy so it's hard to gauge how they're received ... but I'd probably put them up all the same anyway. :)