The expedition had many friends, and it was not unusual to find Petty Officers and men from the R.N.V.R. working on board and helping us on Saturday afternoons and occasionally even on Sundays.  They gave their services for nothing, and the only way in which we could repay them was to select two chief Petty Officers from their number, disrate them, and take them Poleward as ordinary seamen.

It was not until the spring of 1910 that we could afford to engage any officers or men for the ship, so that most of the work of rigging her was done by dock-side workers under a good old master rigger named Malley.  Landsmen would have stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Malley’s men with their diminutive dolly-winch had they watched our new masts and yards being got into place.

Six weeks before sailing day Lieut.  Campbell took over the duties of Chief Officer in the “Terra Nova,” Pennell and Rennick also joined, and Lieut.  Bowers came home from the Indian Marine to begin his duties as Stores Officer by falling down the main hatch on to the pig iron ballast.  I did not witness this accident, and when Campbell reported the matter I am reported to have said, “What a silly ass!” This may have been true, for coming all the way from Bombay to join us and then immediately falling down the hatch did seem a bit careless.  However, when Campbell added that Bowers had not hurt himself my enthusiasm returned and I said, “What a splendid fellow!” Bowers fell nineteen feet without injuring himself in the slightest.  This was only one of his narrow escapes and he proved himself to be about the toughest man amongst us.

Quite a lot could be written of the volunteers for service with Scott in this his last Antarctic venture.  There were nearly 8000 of them to select from, and many eligible men were turned down simply because they were frozen out by those who had previous Antarctic experience.  We tried to select fairly, and certainly picked a representative crowd.  It was not an all-British Expedition because we included amongst us a young Norwegian ski-runner and two Russians; a dog driver and a groom.  The Norwegian has since distinguished himself in the Royal Air Force—­he was severely wounded in the war whilst fighting for the British and their Allies, but his pluck and Anglophile sentiments cost him his commission in the Norwegian Flying Corps.

Dr. Wilson assisted Captain Scott in selecting the scientific staff, while the choice of the officers and crew was mainly left to myself as Commander-elect of the “Terra Nova.”

Most Polar expeditions sail under the Burgee of some yacht club or other:  We were ambitious to fly the White Ensign, and to enable this to be done the Royal Yacht Squadron adopted us.  Scott was elected a member, and it cost him 100 pounds, which the Expedition could ill afford.  However, with the “Terra Nova” registered as a yacht we were able to evade those Board of Trade officials who declared that she