It was expected that the topgallant mast would go, but nothing 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 Station came on board.  The event of the inspection was Nigger, the black ship’s cat, distinguished by a white whisker on the port side of his face, who made one adventurous voyage to the Antarctic and came to an untimely end during the second.  The seamen made a hammock for him with blanket and pillow, and slung it forward among their own bedding.  Nigger had turned in, not feeling very well, owing to the number of moths he had eaten, the ship being full of them.  When awakened by the Admiral, Nigger had no idea of the importance of the occasion, but stretched himself, yawned in the most natural manner, turned over and went to sleep again.