Free The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

the basis of the book he would have written. As his
personal diary it has an interest which no other book could have had. But
a diary in this life is one of the only ways in which a man can blow off
steam, and so it is that Scott's book accentuates the depression which
used to come over him sometimes.
    We have seen the importance which must attach to the proper record of
improvements, weights and methods of each and every expedition. We have
seen how Scott took the system developed by the Arctic Explorers at the
point of development to which it had been brought by Nansen, and applied
it for the first time to Antarctic sledge travelling. Scott's Voyage of
the Discovery gives a vivid picture of mistakes rectified, and of
improvements of every kind. Shackleton applied the knowledge they gained
in his first expedition, Scott in this, his second and last. On the whole
I believe this expedition was the best equipped there has ever been, when
the double purpose, exploratory and scientific, for which it was
organized, is taken into consideration. It is comparatively easy to put
all your eggs into one basket, to organize your material and to equip and
choose your men entirely for one object, whether it be the attainment of
the Pole, or the running of a perfect series of scientific observations.
Your difficulties increase many-fold directly you combine the one with
the other, as was done in this case. Neither Scott nor the men with him
would have gone for the Pole alone. Yet they considered the Pole to be an
achievement worthy of a great attempt, and "We took risks, we knew we
took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no
cause for complaint...."
    It is, it must be, of the first importance that a system, I will not say
perfected, but developed, to a pitch of high excellence at such a cost
should be handed down as completely as possible to those who are to
follow. I want to so tell this story that the leader of some future
Antarctic expedition, perhaps more than one, will be able to take it up
and say: "I have here the material from which I can order the articles
and quantities which will be wanted for so many men for such and such a
time; I have also a record of how this material was used by Scott, of the
plans of his journeys and how his plans worked out, and of the
improvements which his parties were able to make on the spot or suggest
for the future. I don't agree with such and such, but this is a
foundation and will save me many months of work in preparation, and give
me useful knowledge for the actual work of my expedition." If this book
can guide the future explorer by the light of the past, it will not have
been written in vain.
    But this was not my main object in writing this book. When I undertook in
1913 to write, for the Antarctic Committee, an Official Narrative on
condition that I was given a free hand, what I wanted to do above all
things was to show what work was done; who did it; to whom the credit of
the work was due; who took the responsibility; who did the hard sledging;
and who pulled us through that last and most ghastly year when two
parties were adrift, and God only knew what was best to be done; when,
had things gone on much longer, men would undoubtedly have gone mad.
There is no record of these things, though perhaps the world thinks there
is. Generally as a mere follower, without much responsibility, and often
scared out of my wits, I was in the thick of it all, and I know.
    Unfortunately I could not reconcile a sincere personal confession with
the decorous obliquity of an Official Narrative; and I found that I had
put the Antarctic Committee in a difficulty from which I could rescue
them only by taking the book off their hands; for it was clear that what
I had written was not what is expected from a Committee, even though no
member may disapprove of a word of it. A proper Official Narrative
presented itself to our imaginations and sense of propriety as a quarto
volume, uniform with the