I am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates - Antarctic Tragedy by Michael Smith

The title to this post is also in part the answer to the photographic question from my previous post. The poignant photograph is Lawrence Oates who suffered one of the tragic deaths of Captain Scott's 1910-1913 Terra Nova Antarctic expedition and is taken from I am Just Going Outside by Michael Smith. I think it is a startling photo because it doesn't feel like you are looking at an image of a man who died nearly 100 years ago. Images of men from the late Edwardian period usually show then smartly dressed with well oiled hair and neatly trimmed mustaches (think WWI soldiers) but Oates here, in his scruffy sweater with little threads unraveling, and his clean shaven face and modern soldier's cropped hair is sartorially so close to now as to make his long-ago death seem unreal.

Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, born in 1880, was from a family of explorers. His very wealthy Yorkshire roots included the naturalist Frank Oates. Lawrence Oates was an experienced soldier and a skilled horseman. He was involved in a dramatic incident during the Boer War where he bravely refused to surrender against a numerically superior force, earning for himself the sobriquet 'No Surrender Oates' and a leg badly shattered by a bullet. This wound probably contributed to his scurvy affected body's failure, and his heroic death, in the dramatic wastes of the Antarctic.

Smith's book, despite its bleak subject matter, is a vibrant, pacey read. He examines Oates' childhood, his struggles at school with his dyslexia, his affinity with horses and his love of hunting, his domineering mother, and the bored life of the wealthy gentleman. Oates' psychological state and his motivations to join the army are well worth comparing with Julian Grenfell whose biography by Nicholas Mosley is published by Persphone and makes a very good companion read to this volume.

The story of the ill-fated expedition is closely examined. Scott, as is more usual I think in later considerations of the events, does not come out well. The tradition of polar exploration was a naval one and Oates looked on events, and on Scott's decisions, with the eyes of a soldier and a cavalry officer. He was in fact called Soldier by his companions. Scott and Oates frequently fell out. Oates was there because of his expertise with horses but Scott would not follow his advice. Scott's decisions were often emotional or even romantic and he left the practical, unsentimental Oates baffled.

Two of Scott's more exasperatingly romantic decisions were his use of ponies rather than dogs and his inclusion of Oates in the last party to make the final leg of the walk to the pole. Scott felt ponies and man-hauling (where the men pulled their own sledges) were more dignified and 'British' than the use of dogs. The Norwegians of course used dogs to great effect to reach the pole, months before Scott, on December 14th 1911.

Perhaps the most fatal of the decision especially for the men selected was Scott's choice of company for that final leg. Scott, described as "remote and unapproachable", did not consult others, especially his doctors, on who best to take, and his remoteness meant that the doctors did not volunteer information on fitness. Bizarrely, romantically, Scott wanted Oates along so that both the navy and the army were represented at the pole. Oates with his injured leg over an inch shorter than the other had the resultant problems from a twisted spine. He was a cavalry officer picked for his ability with horses and not trained to march. He had poor circulation and he neither wanted nor expected to be in the final party now reliant on man-hauling and without pony-power at all. But Scott wanted the army there; a decision Smith mildly condemns as 'unscientific'. Of the ratings (Scott saw things very much as men and officers), Scott picked Teddy Evans even though Evans had been man-hauling longer than most and was exhausted before they set off on the last walk. All five men in the final party reached the pole but Evans and Oates suffered health problems immediately. They slowed the party down and their presence probably caused the deaths of the other three. Evans died but Oates lingered. According to Scott, Oates begged to be left behind, but Scott refused. So, on a unsure date but probably on his 32nd birthday, Oates, suffering from scurvy, hunger, frostbite, gangrene and exhaustion, told his companions in his famous throw-away comment, as casual as that sweater in the picture, that he would be going outside and might be some time. In his socks, his feet too damaged to wear his boots, Oates padded or crawled to his death. His body has never been found.

The tragedy for the five men and their families was of course great, and though many millions would not survive the next few years and the Great War, there is still something poignant about this expedition. Oates is perhaps the very last of the old fashioned heroes before the horrors of the trenches and the eloquence of the war poets made heroism a fashion of the past, as odd for men as long skirts were to become for women. Smith notes in his preface that, 'Oates was the finest example of how, if nothing else, Britons knew how to die'. We no longer expect our soldiers to die, though sadly of course they still do, but each loss is examined and gone over in the hope of avoiding a repeat. We rightly remember those that do die, and reward those that perform feats of bravery, but we no longer complacently expect it or treat duty and death as synonyms. I am Just Going Outside is a truly fascinating book and I think, makes vital reading for an understanding of pre-war attitudes to men and heroes.

Comments

[Kit Courteney]

That sounds absolutely fascinating. I've always been interested in those who venture into what (as it turns out) becomes their 'route to death'. Not so much those who have done it recently, but back in days long past.

To me they seem so much more heroic than the technically backed-up people who follow in their footsteps!

[Jane]

Wonderful review Catherine - thanks.

[Juxtabook]

I agree Kit about the lack of technology. It was over a year before the families of the five men knew of their deaths as it took that long for the back-up crew to get out of Antarctica to somewhere cables could be sent. Oates poor mother paid for him to have life membership of the Royal Geographic Society not knowing he was already dead.

Jane - thank you!

[Melanie]

Thanks for highlighting this book. I've always been charmed by Titus Oates and really want to read this now. You are correct, the picture is so very modern it is a bit discombobulating.