#captain oates

[confusedbyinterface]

You know, it used to be when people lionized wandering off into the antarctic to die, it was about giving everyone else a better chance at survival. Now it's just because fascists think dying is based and penguinpilled or whatever.

[emiett]

A little preview of the comic I'm making for TCAF!

The dark lord Rothke is dead! Captain Oates, suddenly the highest ranking officer in her kingdom, has been tasked with cataloguing his collection. Accompanied by the three wizards who took Rothke down, she discovers a trove of strange treasure.

[worstjourney]

If you know anything about Titus Oates, even more than his name, it's his famous last words, uttered 111 years ago today. But did you know he was famous before joining the Expedition, and already had a catchphrase?

[poem-today]

A poem by Derek Mahon

Antarctica

‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ The others nod, pretending not to know. At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime. He leaves them reading and begins to climb, goading his ghost into the howling snow; He is just going outside and may be some time. The tent recedes beneath its crust of rime And frostbite is replaced by vertigo: At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime. Need we consider it some sort of crime, This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest? No, He is just going outside and may be some time – In fact, for ever. Solitary enzyme, Though the night yield no glimmer there will glow, At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime. He takes leave of the earthly pantomime Quietly, knowing it is time to go: ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.

Derek Mahon

(1941-2020)

[sastrugie]

So currently I´m reading this biography of Captain Lawrence Oates, the man who commited suicide on the journey back from the south pole in 1912. I guess we all know his famous last words „I am just going outside and may be some time.“

The Person who wrote the book was Sue Limb and it was published in 1982, being the second biography of Titus ever written. The story of how she got the idea of writing the book and how she got inspired is as good as the book itself. Sue Limb had been interested in polar exploration already as a young girl and found a mentor, to whom the book is also dedicated. She called him „Uncle Deb“.

I really think this is a super cute story and it made me so happy to hear about it, so I thought I should share it with you all and everyone interested in polar exploration.

The following extract is from the introduction of the book, where Sue tells us the story:

In 1962, antarctic enthusiasts commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Scott´s death. At Cheltenham, the home town of Scott´s companion Dr. Wilson, there was an exhibition, and Herbert Ponting´s cinefilm of the Terra Nova Expedtion, 90° South, was shown. Among the many interested townspoeple who attended was Sue Limb, whose schoolgirl susceptibilities led her to an enduring fascination with the whole story. Wishing to make contact with a surviving member of the expedition, she decided on Frank Debenham, whose books she had greatly enjoyed. Debenham had been one of Scott´s geologists and had later founded the Scott Polar Research Institue in Cambridge.

Christmas was near, so she made a Chritsmas card in the style of the South Polar Times, a light-hearted magazine which had been produced in Antarctica during the winter of 1911. Trembling slightly at her temerity, she posted the card (signed also by two friends for moral support) and waited for any response. If she was lucky, she thought, there might be an official note from a secretary. After all, an Emeritus Professor is a very august personage for a schoolgirl. But soon after Christmas a thick envelope dropped onto her doormat.

„My dear dear incredible trio“, the astonishing letter began,“You have sent me the most delightful, the cleverest and the most understanding christmas card I have ever received in my life.“ He wrote of his life in Cambridge, was full of teases, and ended: „ If your parents would entrust you to Mrs Deb and me here for a few days on your next holidays we would be delighted to see you. The advantage of three Mahomets coming on their camels to one immobile mountain is that there is the Polar Institute where you would get closer contact with things you alredy know a great deal about.“

Sue had the great fortune to become one of Debenham´s „adopted nieces“, and though he was eighty, fairly deaf and almost totally incapacitated by heart disease, „Uncle Deb“ had a razor-sharp mind, a flawless memory and an endearing personality which made him an enchanting friend and an invaluable companion. He steered her youthful literary aspirations towards the idea of a biography of Captain Oates.

[...]

Debenham also introduced Sue to Violet Oates, the sister of Captain Oates, who was also in her eighties, though very active and alert. (Miss Oates would provide Sue with hundreds of letters she had saved from the destruction ordered by her mother.)

„The important thing“, wrote Debenham after the first meeting, „is that Miss Oates is ready to consider the idea of your someday writing a biography of her brother. I would not advise your attempting such a book until you have finished your school and other training so there´s no hurry about that, but there should be no delay in finding or hearing the material, that is, making contact with certain people. That is so partly because those of us who knew him are becoming rather thin on the ground, but even more because Soldier was far from being a letter writer and you will have to depend more on circumstantial evidence, what he said or hat he did, than what he wrote down. His character will only appear from his deeds and not from his words.“

[…]

during the 1960s, others, too, did more than just to encourage. Mrs Debenham, whose hospitality to Sue was overwhelming, was also full of useful background stories.

[…]

conscious of her good fortune, the aspring biographer pored over these manuscripts in the company of Violet Oates, an irresistibly sympathetic woman. From the manuscipt sources and from conversations with Miss Oates and Professor Debenham, she produced a first draft of the book shortly before going up to Cambridge in 1965.

Sadly, „Uncle Deb“ died during that Michealmas Term in 1965 and never got to read that first draft...

I dont know why, but this whole story really touched me and since I´m also a great fan of Frank Debenhams books or simply all the things he did, I thought this short story would show what a nice, kind, warmhearted and wonderful person he was. Thanks to him we dont only have amazing books and the Scott Polar Research Institute, but also the best biography of Captain Oates ever written. I bet Deb would have been proud of her and proud of this excellent biography of his close friend.

[worstjourney]

This is probably a silly question, but: was the famous "I am just going out, and may be some time" something which Expedition members might normally have said as a euphemism for nipping outside to relieve themselves? I've been wondering for years.

There certainly is no mention of it being such, either jokingly before or sheepishly after.  English has so many euphemisms for relieving oneself, who knows if that phrase was ever used! But it never turns up in anyone’s writing and is never mentioned as an in-joke in anything I’ve read.  I have not read everything.  But I have read a lot.

FWIW Expedition members’ reactions to the account of Oates’ death are unanimously sombre and admiring, usually something along the lines of ‘a very fine end’.  I suspect that if this were an in-joke, at least the ones with more private diaries might not have alluded to it directly, but may have commented on his dry sense of humour or flippancy or something like that, because that was an aspect of his character and to see it shine through even in dire extremity would have been ... I don’t know, comforting, in a funny sort of way?

On the other hand, whether or not it was a running gag, Oates very well might have meant for it to sound like a euphemism – there is certainly room for that subtext in the words and the situation, and it would have been his style to play the extremely mundane act of having a wee against a Tragic (in the classical sense) self-sacrifice.

[worstjourney]

May we all take today to remember that we never know when our time is up, so make the most of the life you have while you have it.

Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, 17 March 1880 - 16 March 1912

[worstjourney]

RIP L.E.G. Oates

105 years ago today – March 16th, 1912 – Captain Lawrence “Titus” Oates waked to his death in a blizzard to give his friends the chance of survival, with those famous last words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

“But wait a minute, wasn’t it the 17th?  I’m sure I’ve seen the date given as the 17th.” You very may well have seen that, but it cannot have been the case!  This assumption comes from two possible things: 1. A misreading of Scott’s journal entry in which he describes the event 2. The human attraction to symmetry, as Oates’ birthday was March 17th.

Let me explain ... 

The confusion starts with the dating of Scott’s journal entry, as he himself was a bit confused in writing it.  The entry itself is dated “March 16th or March 17th” and he writes “Lost track of dates, but think the last correct.”  Later in the entry he writes “I can only write at lunch and then only occasionally,” and his last letter to Sir Edgar Speyer is definitely dated March 16th, so it’s a fairly grounded hypothesis that that letter was written at lunch on the 16th and this journal entry at lunch on the 17th.  Nearly half the entry is dedicated to describing Oates’ end, but it’s describing what happened on previous days, not on the 17th.  Presuming it was written on the 17th, the dates would fall thus:

At lunch, the day before yesterday [March 15th], poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping-bag. That we could not do, and induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night [March 15th] he was worse and we knew the end had come.

Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates’ last thoughts were of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking that his regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met his death. We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not – would not – give up hope to the very end. He was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night before last [the night of March 15/16th], hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning – yesterday [March 16th]. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.

So the very latest it can have been was the morning of the 16th, with the possibility that both this and the letter to Speyer were written on the 16th and he is describing the events of the morning of the 15th.

The misapprehension of the 17th dates back nearly as far as the story goes – it was quoted to the media when the news reached civilisation in 1913, and even fellow expedition members made the mistake in their own writing, at least as late as the 1920s.  But it stops here!  Tell your friends.