On Waitangi Day, five days of commemorations will start in Oamaru to mark 100 years since the arrival of Terra Nova with news of how Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole came to a tragic end. As Charles Cole explains, the ship's Oamaru visit involved more cloak and dagger tactics than a John Le Carre novel.
On February 10, 1913, the ship Terra Nova brought the dreadful news about the fate of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his polar party into the port of Oamaru.
One year and three weeks after the event, the eagerly awaited news would confirm that, as expected, Scott had reached the South Pole, where he had found the Norwegian flag that had been planted there just weeks before by Roald Amundsen. However, this was just the preamble to the main revelation: Two months later, beset by Antarctic blizzard conditions, unusually low temperatures (down to -47degC) and diminishing rations, Scott and his four companions had perished on their return journey in the icy wastes, three of them just 18km from a vital food depot.
This was the biggest news story in the world, a story of heroism that easily rivalled that of the sinking of Titanic 10 months earlier, and within hours would stun the whole British Empire into immediate mourning. However, the well-travelled former whaling ship did not arrive like a long-lost and breathlessly eager herald, trumpeting its return to the civilised world. The expedition's contract with the Central News Agency (which provided it with much-needed funds) required absolute secrecy lest a rival news agency managed to get the news out first, therefore Terra Nova chose the dead of the night to approach the harbour of the small port, and refused to identify itself as requested by the signals of the port's night watchman.
Two expedition members, Lieutenant Harry Pennell and Dr Edward Atkinson, were rowed ashore with the simple mission of sending a telegraph cable to Joseph Kinsey, the expedition's agent in Christchurch, and they had strict instructions to evade all questions as to their identity and purpose. As soon as they were landed, Terra Nova slipped away into the darkness and lingered off the coast trying to avoid detection for another 48 hours (enough time for the message to be relayed to London), before approaching Lyttelton, the port from which it had sailed 27 months earlier.
The most logical reason for choosing Oamaru would have been its comparative seclusion as a small port town, with less chance of detection than the larger ports (especially Lyttelton, where the expedition members would have been easily recognised). In any case, because Oamaru was a 300km nautical journey from Lyttelton, the cable could be sent well in advance of their arrival in that port.
So it is that, this week, Oamaru is celebrating the centenary of this secret landing, enjoying its unique place in history with a number of events and activities, including a re-enactment of the February 10 landing, a regatta, and some polar presentations and discussions. There is even the performance of a new play which is based on this strange event when Oamaru was the connection through which Scott's fate was communicated to the world.
Right here, 100 years ago, the men on Terra Nova had a tantalising sight of terra firma, knowing that they would be confined to the ship for another day or two. In The Worst Journey in the World, expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard wrote, ''And so at 2.30am on February 10 we crept like a phantom ship into the little harbour ... With what mixed feelings we smelt the old familiar woods and grassy slopes, and saw the shadowy outlines of human homes. With untiring persistence the [light on the shore] blinked out the message, 'What ship's that?' 'What ship's that?' They were obviously puzzled and disturbed at getting no answer. A boat was lowered and Pennell and Atkinson were rowed ashore and landed ...''
Neil McKinnon, the night watchman, was understandably suspicious at the unknown ship's refusal to identify itself, and when the dinghy arrived at Sumpter Wharf he demanded to know the men's business. Getting no response, he told them they couldn't come ashore without the Customs officer or the harbourmaster being present.
This had no effect on the two men, who proceeded to come ashore, and themselves insisted on seeing the harbourmaster, Captain James Ramsay. They asked for him by name and demanded to speak to him privately over the phone. This was accordingly arranged in the night watchman's little hut beside the wharf. When McKinnon was permitted to join the men in his own hut he detected something in their manner and dress that prompted him to voice his suspicion that they had come from further south than Bluff. Thus the first glimmerings of light started to fall on the matter that would shortly shock London and the world.
Leaving the night watchman to his speculations, Pennell and Atkinson started to walk up the hill towards the harbourmaster's house on Wharfe St. Before they got there they met Ramsay himself coming down the road to meet them. That road is named Arun St, and today, in the middle of the street, halfway up the hill, there still stands an oak tree that was planted later in 1913 to commemorate the occasion. A tablet at its base is inscribed: ''In memory of the Antarctic heroes, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, Evans, who reached the Pole on January 18, 1912, and perished on the return journey.''
Pennell and Atkinson identified themselves to Ramsay as members of the Terra Nova expedition, and also informed him that they needed to send a telegraph cable, but they did not give him any hint of the nature of the news they possessed. Little would the harbourmaster have guessed that just three months earlier Atkinson had stood at the lonely tent which contained Scott, Wilson and Bowers' frozen bodies and read the burial service from Corinthians. Ramsay took the two men back to his house for the rest of the night and they slept in the dining room.
Pennell later wrote to thank him for ''the typical New Zealand welcome we received in spite of arriving in the dead of the night''. In the letter that is now in the possession of the North Otago Museum in Oamaru, he continues, ''I hope Mrs Ramsay appreciates the fact that we really were most comfortable despite the fact of choosing to sleep on the floor.''
In the light of the new day, Pennell and Atkinson walked down two blocks to the post office on the main street and sent a brief cable to Kinsey in Christchurch, giving the bare facts that the previous year Scott had reached the South Pole on January 18, but in a blizzard on the return journey had perished with the rest of the southern party. They would provide him with a full report once they had caught a train to Christchurch. Many records repeat the story that the Oamaru telegraph operator was detained for a while in a room to help prevent the news from leaking.
However, speculation was already starting to spread, for the local steamer Ngatoro came into port at 9am and reported having seen Terra Nova. Newspaper reporters approached Pennell and Atkinson when their train stopped at stations on the way north to Christchurch but they remained tight-lipped. A reporter from The Press who recognised Pennell was merely told that Scott had arranged to supply an account of the expedition to the New Zealand papers 24 hours after the same had reached London. Noting the secrecy about the identity of the two men, that paper therefore concluded, ''there is little doubt that they were Captain Scott and one of his officers''.
Terra Nova itself was subject to questioning, as Cherry-Garrard noted, ''... the little ship which runs daily from Akaroa to Lyttelton put out to sea on her way and ranged close alongside. 'Are all well?' 'Where's Captain Scott?' 'Did you reach the Pole?' Rather unsatisfactory answers and away they went ...''
Back in Oamaru, Ramsay met all inquiries with a statement that he was under a pledge of secrecy. The report in that newspaper the following day speculated that ''if Captain Ramsay did get any information in regard to the expedition, which is unlikely, he certainly did respect his pledge, for he was 'as close as an oyster'.''
The secret had been kept so well that the paper could only conclude that the two visitors had been cabling home Scott's report before their arrival in Lyttelton. ''It is understood ... that the visitors reported `All well'.''
In Christchurch, the expedition's agent,Kinsey remained silent in the face of press inquiries. He was already engaged in cable communications with the Central News Agency in London, as well as trying to inform the relatives of the dead men of the facts before the newspapers published them.
The secrecy of the expedition members enabled the Central News Agency to achieve a scoop with one of the greatest news stories in history. They had paid 32,500 to have the first rights to the story, which they would not have anticipated would become the tale of heroic death that was now taking shape. Two years earlier, they would have been planning a strategy to report news of a successful British polar expedition before any similar news from the Norwegian one. Indeed, after winning the race to the Pole, Amundsen had rushed back wary that Scott might still beat him in the race to the telegraph wires.
News of the calamity broke in London during the day on February 10, within 24 hours of Terra Nova entering the port of Oamaru. It was first communicated around Antarctic circles, including families of expedition members and the Royal Geographical Society, but by the evening it was in print, being shouted by newspaper sellers on the streets of London, and on its way around the world. The anticipated tale of British triumph at the extreme end of the earth was transformed into a heroic story for the ages, and a great example of self-sacrifice.
The news was cabled back to New Zealand early on February 11 (NZ time). The Oamaru Mail was not happy that the news had travelled to the opposite end of the earth before it could be reported in the town in which it originated, ''Not even the barest hint of disaster was allowed to leak out yesterday ... the earliest rumours were received with flat incredulity, it being assumed that if such a great calamity had befallen the expedition those concerned would be sure to have mentioned it when the vessel called at Oamaru. That secrecy was so jealously maintained was in the circumstances incredible.''
The Sydney Daily Telegraph was more critical, ''... the public was deceived ... and was foolishly allowed to believe the expedition alive and well ... Surely such an item as the destruction of the exploring party should not be commercialised. Presumably the defence of this ghastly silence is that the survivors conceived it their duty to carry out to the letter the contract entered into by Scott himself.''
Terra Nova waited at sea another 24 hours before entering Lyttelton Harbour. Cherry-Garrard evoked the feelings of the Antarctic explorers: ''At dawn the next morning, with white ensign at half-mast, we crept through Lyttelton Heads. Always we looked for trees, people, houses. How different it was from the day we left and yet how much the same: as though we had dreamed some horrible nightmare and could scarcely believe we were not dreaming still.''
All the flags in the port and town of Lyttelton were at half-mast, and Cherry-Garrard was soon aware of the reality of the situation.
'' ... we had been too long away, and the whole thing was so personal to us, and our perceptions had been blunted: we never realised. We landed to find the Empire - almost the civilised world - in mourning. It was as though they had lost great friends.''
Next weekend, in Oamaru, the February 10 re-enactment of the secret landing will take place in authentic surroundings, for the night watchman's hut still stands next to Sumpter Wharf. Sumpter Wharf itself is fenced off as dangerous, but the plan to restore it will be officially launched later in the day. There will also be a promenade to the former post office building at 11am, 100 years and a few hours since the famous telegram was sent.
Meanwhile, down in the harbour, the local sea scouts have been preparing for the re-enactment of the landing. Since the 1930s, Scott's Own Sea Scouts have been jumping in and out of boats on this shore - just like those two silent Antarctic explorers, when they brought the biggest news in the world to Oamaru 100 years ago.
