thing could be
done while the full fury of the wind lasted. Campbell paced quietly up
and down the bridge with a smile on his face. The watch was grouped round
the ratlines ready to go aloft, and Crean volunteered to go up alone and
try and free the yard, but permission was refused. It was touch and go
with the mast and there was nothing to be done.

The squall passed, the sail was freed and furled, and the next big squall
found us ready to lower upper topsails and all was well. Finally the
damage was a split sail and a strained mast.

The next morning a new topgallant sail was bent, but quite the biggest
hailstorm I have ever seen came on in the middle of the operation. Much
of the hail must have been inches in circumference, and hurt even through
thick clothes and oilskins. At the same time there were several
waterspouts formed. The men on the topgallant yard had a beastly time.
Below on deck men made hail-balls and pretended they were snow.

From now onwards we ran on our course before a gale. By the early morning
of October 12 Cape Otway light was in sight. Working double tides in the
engine-room, and with every stitch of sail set, we just failed to reach
Port Phillip Heads by mid-day, when the tide turned, and it was
impossible to get through. We went up Melbourne Harbour that evening,
very dark and blowing hard.

A telegram was waiting for Scott:

"Madeira. Am going South. AMUNDSEN."

This telegram was dramatically important, as will appear when we come to
the last act of the tragedy. Captain Roald Amundsen was one of the most
notable of living explorers, and was in the prime of life--forty-one, two
years younger than Scott. He had been in the Antarctic before Scott, with
the Belgica Expedition in 1897-99, and therefore did not consider the
South Pole in any sense our property. Since then he had realized the
dream of centuries of exploration by passing through the North-West
Passage, and actually doing so in a 60-ton schooner in 1905. The last we
had heard of him was that he had equipped Nansen's old ship, the Fram,
for further exploration in the Arctic. This was only a feint. Once at
sea, he had told his men that he was going south instead of north; and
when he reached Madeira he sent this brief telegram, which meant, "I
shall be at the South Pole before you." It also meant, though we did not
appreciate it at the time, that we were up against a very big man.

The Admiral Commanding the Australian Stati