Scott: Antarctic self-deceptions

Press, 21 July 1984, Page 20

Scott: Antarctic self-deceptions

Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the South Pole. By Roland Huntford. Pan, 1934. 565 pp. $14.95 (paperback).

(Reviewed by

David Gunby)

A comparative study of Scott and Amundsen, and of their rival bids in the 1912 “race for the pole,” Roland Huntford’s book achieved a great deal of notoriety in Britain when it first appeared in 1979, because it argued — and argued with devastating effect — that the popular image of Scott the hero, defeated by misfortune, should be replaced by the image of Scott the poor leader, defeated by his own mistakes and weaknesses. Not, it seems, so much remarked upon here, “Scott and Amundsen” nonetheless deserves a wide and discerning readership, not only because it challenges an accepted view of one of the major figures in Antarctic exploration, but also because it is a fine book, lucidly argued and written. In effect a double biography, Huntford’s book sets out to put the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, and the Englishman, Robert Falcon Scott, side by side, sometimes so that explicit contrasts and (rarely) likenesses can be drawn, but more often so that the reader can make his or her own deductions from the evidence.

This method of presentation generally favours Amundsen, though not always, for it shows among other things his inability to take a joke against himself, his undoubted problems in dealing with women on terms other than prostitute-client or parent-child, his academic failure as a medical student, about which he remained forever touchy and reticent, and his general tendency to be a loner. In two of these respects, at least, Scott shows up better than Amundsen. For though he was (as his wife found), a mother-worshipper, Scott nonetheless enjoyed the company of women, and while he could not be described as gregarious, he certainly sought company in general more than his Norwegian rival. On all other counts, however, Scott comes out decidedly less well than Amundsen. Less self-assured, given to self-doubt and to jealousy (the latter most marked in the case of Shackleton), ambitious but not gifted, either in the Nayy or in the Antarctic, without the single-mindedness and talent quite to achieve what he wished, a muddler, a poor leader of men, prone to self-pity and to self-deception, Scott should never, by Mr Huntford’s account, have been the leader of a polar expedition. That he was — twice — was due to the inadequacies of the Royal Geographic Society, and to the autocratic manner in which Sir Clements Markham dictated to it.

Scott attracted Markham’s attention, expressed his desire to lead an Antarctic expedition, and ended up doing so, despite his complete lack of experience of polar conditions. Amundsen, by contrast, put himself through years of training for his bid for the pole, learning all the time, whether from his own mistakes or from the life-style of the Eskimo, and so was completely prepared for the extremes of climate and terrain he met in the Antarctic. What emerged from Huntford’s book, then, is a disturbing picture, so far as Scott’s expedition is concerned, of personal inadequacies compounded by national ones. The author’s view seems to be, not unreasonably on the evidence, that the British (or should one say English?) tendency to glorify the amateur approach and to denigrate the professional led to a poorly thought-out expedition, poorly led and poorly equipped. Amundsen’s small but expert team carried out what Mr Huntford rather nicely describes as a “Viking raid” on the South Pole. Scott’s ponderous and over-large expeditionary force launched a massive frontal attack. Amundsen knew, both from his experience and that of others, that Greenland dog teams, driven by expert skiers, offered by far the best chance of success. Scott, who rarely learnt from even his past experiences, put his trust in ponies — which had already proved a failure under Shackleton — and motor sledges, which were entirely untried under polar conditions, for the first part of the journey, and manhauling for the rest. Amundsen was prepared for pretty well any contingency. Scott, as his earlier 1902-4

expedition showed, tended to assume the best, and leave too little in reserve for emergencies which, in the polar regions, were almost bound to occur. As Huntford’s narrative proceeds, the outcome seems as inevitable as in a Greek tragedy, yet we are not allowed to see Scott in the traditional way as a tragic hero. Scott paid for his failings with his own life, it is true, but also those of the rest of the polar party. Seeing how unnecessary their deaths were, and avoidable, we cannot but pity Wilson, Bowers, Evans and Oates. For Scott, however, this reviewer at least feels something more like anger and contempt. In case this last comment should be interpreted as induced by similar feelings expressed by the author, it should be added at once that Huntford tries at all times to be fair and just to Scott. Not everyone will agree, of course, and Scott’s son, the distinguished ornithologist Sir Peter Scott, has for one protested at what he sees as the unnecessary denigration of his father’s reputation. Given Huntford’s aim, however, and the comparative method he follows, it is hard to see how the book could turn out other than as it has: unless one is willing to take refuge once more in the myth of “Scott of the Antarctic” and deny the facts. In short, this is a remarkable book, one which will permanently alter our perceptions of .both Scott and (to a lesser degree) Amundsen. A pleasure to read, and drawing one on inexorably towards Amundsen’s triumph and Scott’s failure, it is marred only in one small particular — the evidence in places of hurried or casual proofreading.