Nor does he know that these same specimens
dated a continent and may elucidate the whole history of plant life. He
will admit that we were all very wonderful, very heroic, very beautiful
and devoted: that our exploits gave a glamour to our expedition that
Amundsen's cannot claim; but he has no patience with us, and declares
that Amundsen was perfectly right in refusing to allow science to use up
the forces of his men, or to interfere for a moment with his single
business of getting to the Pole and back again. No doubt he was; but we
were not out for a single business: we were out for everything we could
add to the world's store of knowledge about the Antarctic.
Of course the whole business simply bristles with "ifs": If Scott had
taken dogs and succeeded in getting them up the Beardmore: if we had not
lost those ponies on the Depot Journey: if the dogs had not been taken so
far and the One Ton Depot had been laid: if a pony and some extra oil had
been depoted on the Barrier: if a four-man party had been taken to the
Pole: if I had disobeyed my instructions and gone on from One Ton,
killing dogs as necessary: or even if I had just gone on a few miles and
left some food and fuel under a flag upon a cairn: if they had been first
at the Pole: if it had been any other season but that.... But always the
bare fact remains that Scott could not have travelled from McMurdo Sound
to the Pole faster than he did except with dogs; all the king's horses
and all the king's men could not have done it.
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