"
[Illustration: HUT POINT--E. A. Wilson, del.]
Strongly as Scott tries to word this, it quite fails to convey how he
felt, and how we all felt more or less, in spite of the warning conveyed
in the telegram from Madeira to Melbourne. For an hour or so we were
furiously angry, and were possessed with an insane sense that we must go
straight to the Bay of Whales and have it out with Amundsen and his
men in some undefined fashion or other there and then. Such a mood could
not and did not bear a moment's reflection; but it was natural enough. We
had just paid the first instalment of the heart-breaking labour of making
a path to the Pole; and we felt, however unreasonably, that we had earned
the first right of way. Our sense of co-operation and solidarity had been
wrought up to an extraordinary pitch; and we had so completely forgotten
the spirit of competition that its sudden intrusion jarred frightfully. I
do not defend our burst of rage--for such it was--I simply record it as
an integral human part of my narrative. It passed harmlessly; and Scott's
account proceeds as follows:
"One thing only fixes itself definitely in my mind. The proper, as well
as the wiser, course for us is to proceed exactly as though this had not
happened. To go forward and do our best for the honour of the country
without fear or panic.
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