- 5/4/2025
The Worst Journey in the World (2007) BBC with Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard
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TVTranscript
00:00Don't risk the dogs.
00:08That's what he said, wasn't it?
00:10I know we've been through this more than once,
00:11but if you just, please, indulge me.
00:14I know that these orders were quite sick.
00:16Just look them over.
00:17Look them over and you'll see.
00:18You remember.
00:19You must remember.
00:21Don't risk the dogs.
00:22Don't risk the dogs.
00:24Just, just, just look.
00:25Just, just have a look, please.
00:28People say I,
00:28I could have saved them.
00:31You see?
00:33I could have saved them.
00:41Some people blamed me for not saving Captain Scott's life,
00:45and I suffered for that for the rest of my life.
00:49It's very easy for others to lay blame,
00:52but they don't know the whole story.
00:54Yes, I was with Scott in Antarctica.
01:01But before he started out for the pole,
01:03I had my own journey into hell.
01:07It was a scientific expedition
01:09to study some of the strangest creatures on God's Earth.
01:13The Edwardian era was called the heroic age of polar exploration,
01:41and the names of Nansen, Amundsen, Shackleton, and Scott have passed into legend.
01:47The race for the poles caught the popular imagination,
01:51conquest of the South Pole in particular.
01:53Captain Scott emerged as a tragic hero whose story has achieved almost mythical status.
02:01What's less well-known is that Scott took more than 30 others to Antarctica,
02:06where they spent two years conducting extensive scientific experiments,
02:11as well as preparing for the attempt on the pole.
02:14One of the more esoteric chapters of this adventure
02:17is an amazing story of human endurance.
02:20It concerns the search for a penguin's egg
02:25and the youngest Englishman in Scott's party.
02:30This is his story,
02:32and how he ended up here.
02:35Total collapse.
02:56Total collapse?
02:58I don't know what that...
02:59He's not dying, is he?
03:02I mean, he knows we're here.
03:03Polar exploration is at once the cleanest,
03:31a most isolated way of having a bad time,
03:35which has been devised.
03:37It's important.
03:38It's about the eggs.
03:39Eggs?
03:40What eggs?
03:40Who are you?
03:42I wrote.
03:43I wrote well in advance.
03:45My name is absolutely Cherry Garrard.
03:49I brought the penguin's eggs.
03:52This ain't a bleeding egg shop.
03:53You can't just roll up and palm off some ruddy eggs on us.
03:56I'll put the police on you.
03:57I don't want...
03:58Look, you don't understand.
03:59The eggs of the Emperor Penguin from Antarctica...
04:02I don't know about that.
04:02You'd better speak to Mr. Sweetman.
04:06Look, I was with Scott on the Terra Nova expedition.
04:10I wrote to inform you that I was bringing the eggs
04:12that Dr. Wilson, Lieutenant Bowers, and myself
04:14retrieved from the colony at Cape Crozier.
04:17It's all very irregular.
04:23Well, Mr. Cherry Garrard,
04:27you've bought us some eggs.
04:31Have you come far?
04:38Listen.
04:40Blackcap, or I'm a Dutchman.
04:43Lost him.
04:44Is it true, Bill?
04:47Hmm?
04:48About Captain Scott?
04:49Yeah.
04:52Oh, yeah.
04:53He's planning another expedition.
04:56There is unfinished work in the South,
04:58despite all he achieved on the Discovery trip.
05:01Science demands those big blank spaces
05:03and fill it in.
05:05Unfinished work for him, or for both of you?
05:07Now, what would he want with an old croc like me?
05:11He wouldn't go without you, Bill.
05:12You know that.
05:13Well, that's a long way off, I'm sure.
05:16We shall have to wait and see
05:17what Shackleton manages to pull off.
05:18You mean the pole?
05:21I mean knowledge, Cherry.
05:23The race for the pole is merely a vulgar sideshow.
05:27It's what that great white unknown
05:29holds for us as naturalists,
05:30as men of science, that matters.
05:33And I wouldn't mind getting another peek
05:35at those penguins.
05:38Penguin?
05:38The emperor?
05:39The most remarkable bird I've ever clapped eyes on.
05:43Perhaps the most remarkable there is.
05:46So primitive, you see.
05:48If we could only get a good look at its embryo.
05:52Have you ever read Heiko?
05:53Ah, evolutionist, yes.
05:56His theory that the ontogeny,
05:58the embryonic stages of an animal,
06:00repeat its evolution,
06:01just as the human embryo for a time
06:03has a tail and vestigial gills.
06:06Showing that we crawled up from the swamps.
06:08I may have done.
06:10I'm not so sure about you, landed gentry.
06:12But the emperor being such a primitive bird,
06:17I got one or two eggs in O2,
06:20but they were addled.
06:20It was too late in the season
06:21for them to be of any use.
06:24Um, when you go back...
06:26If I go back,
06:28you'll need willing volunteers.
06:31Oh, yes.
06:33I can make no promises.
06:36Enthusiasm counts for much.
06:39Keenness.
06:40Hard work.
06:42There's a purity out there on the snow.
06:47I felt it every day I was there.
06:50It's just you.
06:52And the ice.
06:54And God?
06:56Come on.
06:58Ori will be wondering what's happened to us.
07:12It's only right.
07:16With your poor papa gone,
07:20I must move out of here.
07:21Well, you'll marry soon, I expect.
07:27A hundred miles.
07:29It's there for the taking.
07:31You're not listening.
07:33Scott must announce his intentions soon.
07:36Well, I'm speaking of your intentions.
07:38Oh, mother.
07:42I'm too young to settle down.
07:44I want to see a bit of the world.
07:48Well, there's still something of it to see.
07:50I did go abroad.
08:06Marseille.
08:07Port Said.
08:09India.
08:10Australia.
08:11That's where I first read Scott's announcement.
08:16He was going south again.
08:18So I wrote at once to Bill Wilson.
08:24The papers here are all agog over the announcement.
08:27After all, Australia is practically Antarctica's neighbour.
08:31I can hardly say, dear Bill,
08:33how much being part of the Terra Nova expedition would mean to me
08:36and urge you to press my case with Captain Scott
08:39at the most convenient opportunity.
08:41I would happily exchange my gypsy wanderings in warmer climes
08:45for a shot at the last great unknown.
08:48Hello again.
09:06Hello.
09:07We met on the cruise last year.
09:10Norway.
09:12I don't expect you to remember.
09:13Of course.
09:14It's Miss Turner, isn't it?
09:15That's right.
09:18Seems like quite a time ago now.
09:21Did you enjoy the trip?
09:22Very much.
09:23And you?
09:24Most restful.
09:26Of course.
09:27You're rather more used to the cold.
09:28I've, um, been looking you up.
09:33Have you?
09:35You've read my book?
09:36Oh, no, no, um, but my brother knows every line.
09:38Oh.
09:40Well, shall we go into dinner?
09:42Hmm.
09:43I should be very glad to hear something of your adventures.
09:46Really?
09:47Of course.
09:48It's not every day a girl meets an heroic explorer.
09:50Oh.
09:53I wasn't like the others.
09:55I had to pay my way.
09:57Dear Cherry, I am more sorry than I can say to inform you that your application to join
10:08the expedition has been turned down.
10:10It grieves me also that it should have been necessary for me to offend your sense of the
10:14fitness of things by suggesting that you pay money for your place.
10:19I'm sure you understand that it is vital to keep the numbers to an absolute minimum
10:23and that your eyesight could not be ruled out of the equation.
10:37Well, that's that.
10:40Perhaps now you can concentrate on the estate.
10:46Mr. Farris isn't a great stew.
10:48The Little Whittenham estate is going to ruin.
10:53I shall give the money anyway.
10:55That's all our dear.
10:57I beg your pardon?
10:59I'll give it anyway.
11:00A donation.
11:02A thousand pounds?
11:05We've got heaps of money.
11:07Pots of it.
11:08It might as well go on something good, something fine.
11:11But Little Whittenham!
11:13Hang, Little Whittenham!
11:22Mother wasn't happy, but I sent the cheque anyway, and my gesture had immediate results.
11:28I was summoned to see the owner, as Captain Scott was known.
11:34Nearly an hour, birdie.
11:38Do you reckon the owner will come round to him?
11:43Captain Scott was very impressed by the gesture.
11:45Very impressed.
11:47Well, the loot will certainly help.
11:48It's not that.
11:49It's what it says about Cherry Garrard.
11:51Oh, good shit.
12:04Well done.
12:05Well done, Mr. Cherry Garrard.
12:07My friends call me Cherry.
12:09Bye.
12:11Birdie.
12:11How do you do?
12:14Right then.
12:14South.
12:24South.
12:30After months of preparation, we set sail from New Zealand.
12:34I took to it well.
12:35I felt as though I'd found what I'd been looking for all my life.
12:41And then, at last, we reached the Antarctic coast.
12:45And what was it like?
12:48Cold.
12:48Well, there's nowhere like it.
12:53The light.
12:55Sometimes the sky's like copper.
12:58Then a deep, deep blue.
13:01Sometimes green, pink.
13:04There are mauve shadows under the icebergs.
13:06And then there's Erebus, of course, the great volcano, steaming like a white pennant.
13:14Above all...
13:16Yes?
13:24Well, it's the last place on Earth.
13:28It's no one's.
13:29Belongs to no one.
13:32So, you promptly set about naming bits of it?
13:36Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
13:38Yes.
13:38Ha, ha, ha, ha.
13:45Scott wanted to set up camp on Ross Island, as near as possible to Cape Crozier, where the
13:50Emperor Penquin colony had been discovered back in 1902.
13:53But it proved impossible.
13:56So, instead, we set up camp on the northern side of the Cape.
14:00Just a spit of black sand.
14:02Scott named it Cape Evans.
14:06It was ruddy hard work.
14:11If we sat down for a moment, we went to sleep.
14:14But we couldn't waste a moment.
14:16We had to lay the food depots, you see, for the following year.
14:18If Scott were to reach the pole, we needed to get as much food and fuel as far south as
14:28possible before the winter closed in.
14:31The plan was to leave the last depot at 80 degrees south.
14:35But there was a terrible blizzard.
14:37Scott stopped short.
14:40One ton depot?
14:41You have read my book.
14:44Of course.
14:46I did my job.
14:48Everyone said so.
14:49Atkinson said so.
14:50Atkinson said no other officer, no other officer could have done more.
14:54He was so specific, you see.
14:55Just, just, just look at these one more time.
14:57I couldn't have pressed on, you see.
15:00But Scott was so specific, you see.
15:02Don't risk the dogs.
15:03That's what he said.
15:03Don't risk the dogs.
15:09There was a lot of criticism, wasn't there?
15:12When the expedition was over.
15:15Some.
15:15I can't bear people like that.
15:20Armchair explorers who wouldn't brave a cold snap to visit the privy.
15:24You're very kind, Miss Turner.
15:27Angela, Mr Cherry Carrot.
15:29My friend's calling Cherry.
15:40As you know, the sun doesn't behave itself like it does back in England.
15:44Our summer is the Antarctic winter, and vice versa.
15:49For four months in the summer, it is permanently daylight.
15:52For four months in the winter, it is permanently dark.
15:56We could only make an attempt on the pole in warmer temperatures,
15:59and so we settled in for the long Antarctic winter.
16:06We kept ourselves occupied as best we could,
16:08mostly reading in the warmth of the hut.
16:11Except for birdie bowers,
16:12who always had so many wakes to tally
16:14and meteorological observations to record
16:17that he had little fancy for books.
16:20And then there were the lectures.
16:22Three a week.
16:24Windproofing, as we have discovered,
16:27is better, by far, than fur.
16:31Especially for manhauling.
16:33However, we will...
16:34Some better thought of than others.
16:38Archaeopteryx lithographica.
16:39Commonly known as the first bird.
16:41But really, a reptile with feathers.
16:43Could it be that this halfway house,
16:46this evolutionary stage between bird and reptile,
16:50will show in the embryo of the emperor penguin?
16:52What a funny chap the emperor is.
16:56Can't fly.
16:57Never steps on land, even to breed.
17:00The female lays her egg directly onto the bare ice,
17:03and then promptly passes it to the male.
17:05But they have to be quick.
17:07If it spends too long on the ice,
17:09the egg will freeze.
17:11The lucky chap then has to balance it on his feet
17:13and keep it warm until it hatches.
17:21Morning, gentlemen.
17:22And at last, Captain Scott began to outline his plans
17:26for the assault on the pole.
17:46Of course, we weren't the only men in Antarctica that winter.
17:52You already knew about the Norwegians?
17:58Oh, dear me, yes.
18:00Amundsen had behaved very badly, of course.
18:03He told everyone, his backers, his men,
18:06that he was heading north,
18:07and all the time he was planning to go south.
18:09Not very sporting?
18:11No.
18:11But professional.
18:16Quite right.
18:18Bill and Captain Scott were both adamant
18:20that our expedition had two aims of equal importance.
18:23The pole, of course,
18:25but also scientific endeavour.
18:27So we tried to put the Norwegians out of our minds
18:31and made preparations for another journey altogether.
18:33the weirdest birds-nesting expedition there's ever been.
18:3967 miles to the penguin colony.
18:42With dogs?
18:44Man-holding.
18:44Excellent.
18:47Let them say the Britisher
18:48is in a feat decadent now.
18:52Really?
18:53All very Ryder Haggard, what?
18:56Something on your mind, Mr Wentworth?
18:59No, no.
19:02I mean, well, yes.
19:06It just seems to me,
19:08sparing your presence, Mr Cherry Garrard,
19:10and no-one's doubting your pluck and all,
19:12it just seems like suffering for suffering's sake.
19:16You dragged those sledges.
19:19We did.
19:21Why not ski?
19:24Well, we had ski,
19:26but none of us were awfully good at it.
19:32Couldn't you have learnt?
19:34Steady, Clive.
19:36It won't be easy.
19:38A regular snorter.
19:39Hardly a flicker of light.
19:41And we all know how cold it's getting.
19:43Why now, Bill?
19:44Well, we can't do anything else until the summer
19:46and it beats hanging around here doing nothing.
19:49I think the Emperor lays his eggs at the end of this month.
19:52Last time I was too late.
19:53This time we can nab the eggs
19:54at just the right period of incubation.
19:56We'll see if Heigler was right.
19:58Why us?
20:01Because there are no better men to do the job.
20:04I think so.
20:06Captain Scott thinks so.
20:08I only hope we can prove equal to your confidence.
20:11My dear chap.
20:12I had no doubts about those two.
20:18But as for myself,
20:20I don't mind admitting I was badly scared.
20:22We set off in good heart,
20:31hauling 750 pounds of stuff.
20:34Six weeks' provisions,
20:35pickling gear,
20:36ice axes,
20:37canvas.
20:40The darkness took some getting used to.
20:44Not that I could see much.
20:46My spectacles froze up
20:47and I had to abandon them.
20:55We're cooking alternately.
20:56It's a bad job.
20:58Eating only pemmican,
20:59a sort of mixture of dried meat and fat
21:01and biscuit and butter,
21:03but in different proportions.
21:07Captain Scott has asked us to experiment with rations
21:10in preparation for the polar trip.
21:12I'm all for fat,
21:14Birdie proteins,
21:15leaving Cherry with the carbohydrates.
21:18He has quite bad heartburn as a result.
21:21Birdie's cramp is something terrible,
21:23but we're managing.
21:42The pulling was easy at first.
21:45We weren't to know
21:46it was the only good pulling we'd have.
21:49My hands kept slipping,
21:51so I took off my mitts.
21:54The temperature was minus 47 degrees.
22:00I was a fool.
22:19Bill did his best to lance my blisters,
22:21but the fluid had frozen solid.
22:26My hands became like gauntlets.
22:43Day and night ceased to have much meaning for us.
22:45After a while,
22:47we continued as if such a convention did not exist.
22:51And the temperature kept dropping
22:52and dropping.
23:03At minus 75 degrees,
23:05it was so cold
23:07that even matches refused to light.
23:08In our sleeping bags,
23:18it was much too cold
23:19to keep open a hole
23:20through which to breathe,
23:21so all night long,
23:23our breath froze into the skins.
23:25They became like sheets of armour plate.
23:27I never thought it would be this bad.
23:30I never thought it would be this bad.
23:48I'm sorry.
23:50It's just a cold slap, Bill.
23:52The snow became impossible.
24:07The hardest and smallest crystals.
24:10In that cold,
24:11it was like pulling through sand.
24:12generally,
24:21we steered by Jupiter.
24:23It was too dark to read the compass.
24:33Should we go on?
24:35Of course.
24:36I think we're all right
24:38as long as our appetites are good.
24:40But you must say...
24:41I'm really rather too warm.
24:44Minus 43.
24:46You can might sleep in the buff tonight.
24:48Keep your socks on, please.
24:53Bill was of the salt of the earth.
24:55Always patient,
24:57self-possessed,
24:59unruffled.
25:01He never thought of himself.
25:03Not for one moment.
25:04He was the only man on earth,
25:06I believe,
25:07who could have led that journey.
25:08I find it hard to describe the horror of it.
25:36It was difficult not to howl.
25:38Sometimes angels and fools
25:41do the same thing in this life.
25:44I have never been able to settle which we were.
25:47Steak it, stick it, stick it, stick it.
26:03You've got it in the neck.
26:05Stick it, stick it, stick it.
26:09In the summer, when you sledge, it's a joy to let your mind wander, to think of sunshine and theatres and picnics.
26:31Captain Oates would mentally provision his little yacht.
26:36Or we'd think of a pretty girl.
26:40But not on this journey.
26:43It was impossible to think of anything except going on.
26:48I lived in the moment.
26:51But there was the Aurora, wasn't there?
26:52I remember reading about it. I mean, that must have been incredible.
26:55Must have been. I couldn't see a thing.
27:08Must have been. I couldn't see a thing.
27:20I couldn't see a thing.
27:21I couldn't see a thing.
27:22I couldn't see a thing.
27:22I couldn't see a thing.
27:23But I couldn't see a thing.
27:24I couldn't see a thing.
27:25When the temperature reached minus 77 degrees, records hardly seemed worth keeping.
27:30I thought that Dante was right to place the circles of ice below the circles of fire.
27:36How are your evening building skills, Terry?
27:40Oh, you know, not too shoddy.
27:44If we can get the hut built in time, it'll be a fine place to examine the birds.
27:50Yes.
27:50In my heart, I felt sure it was lunacy.
27:56We would never reach Cape Crozier.
27:58Time and again, Bill asked us if we wanted to go on, and every time we answered, yes.
28:04We were quite intelligent people.
28:06We must have known it was folly to go forward.
28:09And yet, with quiet perseverance and perfect friendship, almost with gentleness, those two men led on.
28:20And you?
28:24Oh, I just did as I was told.
28:29Oh, what's that?
28:31It's quartz.
28:32Just a bit of quartz.
28:35It's beautiful.
28:50We've reached the slopes of Mount Terror, a volcano like Erebus, but extinct.
28:58In its lee, enormous slabs of ice known as pressure ridges.
29:02Our troubles have been greatly increased by the state of our clothes.
29:07If we'd have been dressed in lead, we should have been able to move our arms, necks and heads more easily.
29:12A blizzard kept us pinned down for three days.
29:18But then things began to look up.
29:23We did seven miles in a day, something that had taken us nearly a week in the past.
29:27And all at once, we had arrived.
29:39The Empress!
29:42It had taken us 19 days.
29:45It was wonderful how our cares vanished.
29:47So how far then, Uncle Bill?
29:50Half a mile.
29:51Oh, come on then.
29:52Oh, it's too late in the day.
29:54We're almost there.
29:55We don't want to get stuck here in total blackness.
29:57And there's always tomorrow.
29:59Our scheme was to build an igloo with rock walls, banked up with snow, and a big sheet of canvas as the roof.
30:12And there was a special stove that would run on penguin blubber.
30:23We pitched the tent outside, but this was to be our cozy hut.
30:26We were going to pop in and out for our excursions down to the Penguin Rookery, four miles or so away.
30:33Oh, that was the plan.
30:42The view was magnificent.
30:45To the east, great fields of pressure ridges looking as if giants had been plying furrows 50 feet deep.
30:50And beyond that, the frozen Ross Sea, flat, white and peaceful, as though it could never know such a thing as a blizzard.
31:02God, what a place.
31:03We worked round the clock.
31:07We had to get that blubber stove up and running.
31:09Why?
31:10Were you in such a hurry to break the necks of the poor birds?
31:13We were running seriously short of oil.
31:16We'd had to leave the stove burning in the tent just to keep us going as it got so cold.
31:22Now we were well into the fifth of our six tins of oil.
31:26Cutting back to two meals a day, Hal, but...
31:27We had to conserve what we had to get home.
31:35It was a calm, fine day when we set out for the Rookery.
31:42We had to crawl on our hands and knees,
31:45feeling our way in the darkness to avoid hidden crevasses.
31:49Without my spectacles, I could see scarcely anything.
31:54I simply trusted to luck.
31:57It was like a terrible game, blind man's bluff.
32:07And then the wind became alive with a familiar sound.
32:14After indescribable effort and hardship,
32:18we were witnessing a wonder of the natural world.
32:21And we were the first and only men to have done so.
32:26We were turning theories into facts with every observation we made.
32:44And we had but a moment to give.
32:45The dismal bit of light was fading fast.
32:49And we didn't like the look of the wind from the south.
32:53We quickly killed and skinned three penguins
32:55and retrieved five of the precious eggs.
32:59Then the weather began to close in.
33:05We legged it back as hard as we could.
33:07Five eggs in our fur mitts.
33:09Oh, blow!
33:18Blow!
33:25But we got back with three eggs more or less intact.
33:30Both mine had broken.
33:32And spent our first night in the igloo.
33:34In order to get our special stove working,
33:42we had to render the penguin fat.
33:43For the rest of the night,
34:10Bill lay quite unable to stifle his groans
34:13and obviously in very great pain.
34:16We did our best for him.
34:29Bill told us afterwards that he thought his eye was gone.
34:32But in his report for Captain Scott,
34:34he only said,
34:35I was incapacitated for a short time.
34:39That was Bill.
34:41Things must improve.
34:44I think we've hit better.
34:46Things must improve.
34:52We felt no particular uneasiness that night.
34:55Our tent was well dug in outside.
34:58No power on earth could move the thick walls of our igloo.
35:00We'd had hardly anything like a healthy sleep for nearly a month.
35:06And the wear and tear on our minds was very great.
35:14I suppose the last thing anyone expected was a hurricane.
35:17There was no sign of the tent.
35:43We grabbed all the equipment we could
35:45and got back inside the igloo.
35:54This is never a mess.
35:57The group knows.
35:58The best thing is to get into our bags
36:01and get frozen in green.
36:03I agree.
36:04The question is,
36:06can we get back without the tent?
36:08We still have the floor cloth.
36:10Perhaps if we dig a hole in the snow every night,
36:13use the company as protection.
36:14No!
36:22Come on, Bill.
36:24That's on your own, Berg.
36:26Please, Terry.
36:28We all cried, yes.
36:42Even though we only did so
36:44because we knew we were all wrong.
36:48I said my prayers
36:49and waited.
36:52He who would valiant be
37:03Gains told his master
37:06Let him in constancy
37:11Fall over master
37:15We lay there for 48 hours without food,
37:31sheltering as best we could
37:32in the remains of our stone igloo.
37:35I'm sure neither of my companions
37:37gave up hope for an instant.
37:40As for me,
37:41I never had any hope at all.
37:43This must be the end.
37:46Without the tent,
37:48we were dead men
37:48and we were 900 feet up Mount Terror.
37:53There wasn't the slightest chance
37:54we would see the tent again.
37:57I wasn't angry.
37:59I couldn't have wept if I'd tried.
38:02It was a pity.
38:03That was all.
38:06The road to hell
38:06may be paved with good intentions
38:08but the road to heaven
38:09is paved with lost opportunities.
38:13What I wouldn't give
38:14for my years again,
38:15I thought.
38:17What fun I would have.
38:20What glorious fun.
38:23And how I wanted peaches and syrup.
38:25God, how I wanted them.
38:28And you've been without sugar for a month.
38:33That's how it was with me.
38:35How I set out to die.
38:37I thought I might get some more fear
38:41from the medical case
38:41if it got too bad.
38:44Not a bit heroic, you see.
38:47Not a bit.
38:49You don't think so?
38:52Men do not fear death.
38:56They fear the pain of dying.
38:58At last, there came a lull in the storm.
39:07We dug out the ground sheet
39:08and put it over our heads
39:09and then we settled
39:11that we must cook a meal.
39:15Somehow, we'd only lost
39:17a few bits from the cooker
39:18and it worked out all right.
39:20The snow slowly melted
39:22and we threw in the pemmican.
39:24It was full of hairs from our bags,
39:26penguin feathers, dirt and debris.
39:29But it was better than anything on earth.
39:35Soon, there came a little glow of light again.
39:39So we set out Ponce-Mont
39:40in search of the tent.
39:42Our lives had been taken away
40:07and given back to us.
40:09We were so thankful
40:11we said nothing.
40:17If that tent went again,
40:19we were going with it.
40:20We made our way back up the slope,
40:23carrying it solemnly and reverently
40:24as though it were something
40:25not quite of this earth.
40:28And then we dug it in
40:29as tent was never dug in before.
40:31Oh, this hush looks good.
40:41Old family recipe.
40:43Plus, uh, penguin feathers.
40:47It's been a close call.
40:51There's no question of pickling specimens
40:53or anything like that now.
40:55We must try to get back home.
40:59Never.
41:00Don't you fancy another go at the rookery?
41:02No, Bertie.
41:03We've pushed our luck this far.
41:06We'd want to have to try it further.
41:09Aye, sir.
41:09Will you not take my
41:20Ida-down bag?
41:22No, I couldn't possibly.
41:24Oh, go on, Sherry.
41:25I don't use it.
41:27And it's dry.
41:29I should feel a brute.
41:32Listen, you're no use to anyone
41:34if you don't get some rest.
41:35Your back's too big.
41:39You said so yourself.
41:42What about you?
41:43I'm all right.
41:44I'm always all right.
41:47Thank you, Bertie.
41:53Bertie never tired.
41:55He was magnificent.
42:05As for myself,
42:08I was growing weaker all the time.
42:11I felt as though I should crack.
42:20Higher feet, Jerry.
42:23Very cold.
42:25That's all right.
42:27So am I.
42:35We were constantly plagued by frostbite,
42:40but I seemed to have the worst of it.
42:45It progressed into my jaw,
42:48and I say goodbye to most of my teeth.
42:50Stick it, stick it, stick it, stick it, stick it.
43:18You've got it in the neck.
43:20Stick it, stick it, stick it.
43:22Jerry.
43:23Stick it, stick it, stick it.
43:26Jerry.
43:26Jerry.
43:40And there it was.
43:42Impossibly.
43:44Cape Evans.
43:45Home.
43:53Spread out well,
43:55and they'll be able to see that there are three of us.
44:00I, uh,
44:01I want to thank you two for what you have done.
44:06I couldn't have found two better companions.
44:10And what is more,
44:13I never shall.
44:15Have you come far?
44:22Have you come far?
44:23Have you come far?
44:31Quite a way, yes.
44:34Well,
44:35most kind of you, I'm sure.
44:37Good day.
44:38I should like a receipt.
44:53A receipt?
44:55Yes.
44:57Well, it ain't necessary.
44:59It's quite all right.
44:59I should like a receipt.
45:04I don't know how you bore it.
45:26Oh, it didn't matter, really.
45:33Oh, I did seem to have returned to a different world.
45:37All the certainties had vanished.
45:38I heard a story once about a blind man.
45:44He'd been blind since birth,
45:46but one day he was offered an operation which would give him his sight.
45:49The operation was successful, but a few weeks later, he took his own life.
45:56Whatever for?
45:57Because the world he'd imagined all those years
46:04was so much more vital,
46:09more beautiful than the tawdry reality.
46:12And what about the eggs?
46:17What did you find when you opened them up?
46:19The embryos were more advanced than we'd hoped.
46:24So, not much.
46:28Not much, no.
46:31Then what was the point?
46:32Oh, Mr Wentworth.
46:33I do beg your pardon, Miss Turner.
46:35And as I say, I've no wish to impugn our friend's undoubted courage,
46:38but my question stands.
46:40Your friends Wilson and Bowers set off for the pole
46:44only a couple of months later, didn't they?
46:46Exhausted and depleted from your queer bird's nesting trip.
46:52Was it wise of Scott to let you go, do you think?
46:54It wasn't merely the hunt for the eggs, Mr Wentworth.
46:57There was the polar rationing experiment.
46:58Could have been carried out months before in conditions of perfect safety,
47:01rather than leaving you crippled with cramp out there on the ice.
47:04Steady on, Clive.
47:05Oh, no.
47:06Let him speak.
47:07Mr Wentworth is of the coming age, I think.
47:14I hope I can say that, yes.
47:17It's not an age I care to be part of, quite frankly.
47:20I don't think I understand it.
47:22It's simply that the scales have fallen from our eyes, old man.
47:25All that John Ball guff.
47:27The Empire.
47:28Relic of another age.
47:29Why doesn't Amundsen ever get any credit?
47:34He won, for goodness sake.
47:35He got to the pole first.
47:38His men were trained, they wore the correct clothing,
47:40they took dogs and they won.
47:42Please!
47:42It's only in Britain that we can't tolerate that sort of thing.
47:45Not sporty, not painful enough.
47:48Shames me to say it, but it's in the very marrow of our bones.
47:52The embracing of amateurism.
47:54The shoddy, the third rate.
47:57The failure.
48:02You're a brave man, Mr Cherry Garrard.
48:04And by God, you've been through something I doubt I could even attempt.
48:08For the love of heaven, sir, what was the use?
48:12We never forgot to say, please and thank you.
48:23And all the little links with decent civilization, we could still keep going.
48:29I think there was still a grace about us when we staggered in.
48:37And we kept our tempers.
48:40Even with God.
48:42Isn't that enough?
48:55Paradise, I thought.
48:57Must be something like this.
49:01We slept for ten thousand years.
49:04Dr Edward Bill Wilson
49:12and Lieutenant Henry Birdie Bowers
49:15accompanied Captain Scott, Captain Oates
49:19and Petty Officer Evans to the South Pole
49:22only to find the Norwegians had beaten them to it.
49:26After all five perished on the return journey.
49:29After all they went through,
49:44all we went through,
49:47that journey beggared the imagination.
49:50The worst journey any human being has ever endured.
49:54And only a few months later, Birdie and Wilson were dead.
49:58I went out to look for them,
50:00and if I'd slaughtered some of the dogs
50:02and fed them to the remaining beasts,
50:03then we might have pressed on,
50:05we might have found them,
50:05we might have saved them.
50:06Scott was specific, you see.
50:10Don't risk the dogs.
50:12Don't risk the dogs.
50:14That's what he said, wasn't it?
50:15It's here.
50:16It's all in here.
50:17I know it's a long time ago now,
50:20but that's your eye over them once more.
50:24People say I could have saved them, you see.
50:27That's what people are saying.
50:30What more could I have done?
50:35What more could I have done?
50:47Oh, what's that?
50:52It's quartz.
50:53Just a bit of quartz.
50:57It's beautiful.
50:58It's beautiful.
51:17If you have the desire for knowledge
51:23and the power to give it physical expression,
51:27go out and explore.
51:31If you are a brave man,
51:32you will do nothing.
51:34If you are fearful,
51:36you may do much,
51:38for non-but-cowards have need to prove their bravery.
51:43Some will tell you that you are mad,
51:45and nearly all will say,
51:49what is the use?
51:51For we are a nation of shopkeepers.
51:56And so you will sledge nearly alone.
52:01But those with whom you sledge
52:03will not be shopkeepers.
52:07That is worth a good deal.
52:11If you march your winter journeys,
52:14you will have your reward.
52:15So long as all you want
52:19is a penguin's egg.
52:22In the next one,
52:26in the next one,
52:27we let go.
52:27This is Cape Evidence today, left just as it was when Apsley Cherry Garrard and the others
52:56were last here, their equipment, food provisions and clothing all preserved.
53:09As canned few months after returning to Cape Evans, Wilson and Bowers set off as part of
53:13Scott's party, hoping to conquer the Pole.
53:18Cherry waited here and recuperated, before being ordered to sledge out to meet what he
53:23hoped was a triumphant returning party.
53:26He reached one-ton depot in February of 1912, but owing to a confusion of orders found that
53:33there was no dog food laid there.
53:35It was only possible to move further south to meet Scott if Cherry killed some of the dogs
53:40and fed them to the remainder.
53:44Scott's orders though were not to risk the dogs as they were to be saved for sledging the
53:48following year.
53:51Scott and his surviving men were only 11 miles away from one-ton depot and starving, but
53:57Cherry had no idea that pressing on would have made the difference between life and death,
54:01and it never occurred to him to disobey an order.
54:05Throughout his life, Cherry suffered from periodic mental collapses as a result of his experiences
54:11in the Antarctic.
54:12He became obsessed by the idea that he could have saved his friends if only his search party
54:18had pressed further on.
54:20The penguins' eggs that Cherry and his companions brought back from Cape Crozier added little to
54:34the sum of scientific knowledge.
54:36It wasn't until much later that we finally began to understand these curious creatures.
54:43Heichel's evolutionary theory that embryos display the relics of their common ancestors
54:50has been largely discredited.
54:53With typical understatement, Dr. Wilson's report concluded,
54:57we'd attempted too difficult an undertaking without light in the winter.
55:07Actually, Cherry Garrard returned from Antarctica to a changing world.
55:11The Edwardian era ended abruptly in the tragedy of the Great War, a conflict in which he was
55:17naturally keen to do his bit.
55:19Uncommissioned as an officer, he was offered various assignments including a scheme to use
55:24dogs at the front, but nothing much came of them.
55:27In 1916, an attack of acute ulcerative colitis, a disease often associated with nervous disorders,
55:34brought about his physical collapse and he was invalided out of the conflict.
55:39Whether or not his physical problems had their root in his Antarctic experiences,
55:44his mental ones certainly did.
55:46In 1922, Cherry's account of his time on the Cherenova expedition was published as
55:55The Worst Journey in the World.
55:57It won immediate and lasting acclaim.
56:00Despite the cathartic effect of writing the book, Cherry's health remained delicate.
56:05Increasingly, he seemed a man lost in time, an Edwardian,
56:10stranded in a dizzying and frightening modern world.
56:14However, late in life, and much to the surprise of his friends and family, he fell in love.
56:27And in September 1939, he and Angela Turner married.
56:33They were together for 20 years, weathering the storms of his debilitating illnesses
56:39until Cherry's death in 1959.
56:49Seen here for the first time are the remains of the stony glue and the equipment Cherry, Wilson and Bowers,
56:57abandoned at Cape Crozier.
56:59The Antarctic cold, which came so close to finishing them off, has preserved forever these last relics of the worst journey in the world.
57:22Go to bbc.co.uk slash bbc4 to watch an interview with Mark Gatiss on the making of the worst journey in the world.
57:35Or stay here for Scott of the Antarctic, next.
57:39OF COURSE
57:40The Antarctic
57:43¶¶
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