Frozen Resolve: Following Captain Robert Falcon Scott Into The Ice

The Antarctic plateau stretches to the ends of the earth, a world stripped of color and sound. White above, white below, white on every horizon. The wind never relents. It claws at the skin, fills every breath with biting cold, and whistles through the tent seams as though mocking our attempts at shelter. Out here, the land itself seems our enemy.

The following is a fictional vignette derived from primary sources to put you in the moment, feel the cold, the stress, and the decision-making. We want you to learn from this situation to hone your mental game.

I first met Captain Robert Falcon Scott aboard the Terra Nova, his bearing unmistakably naval. He stood straight as an arrow, every detail of his dress and manner neat despite the chaos that surrounded us. Scott was not a man of effusive warmth, but he carried himself with a steadiness and confidence that drew men to him. He believed in discipline and endurance, in duty to King and Country, and in the power of resolve to overcome any hardship. We believed in him because he so clearly believed in himself.

The expedition had grand aims. We would push the boundaries of science. Scott planned to collect geological samples, study penguin colonies, and map the uncharted coast. But there was another goal that overshadowed all others: to plant the Union Jack at the South Pole before any rival. It was a matter of national honor, and Scott bore it as a personal burden.

Our journey south was cruel from the start. The motor sledges broke down almost at once, frozen by the cold. The ponies sank into the drifts, their breath frosting heavy in the air until one by one they perished. That left us harnessed like beasts of burden, dragging the sledges ourselves. The straps cut into our shoulders, as the snow and ice stretched ahead of us without end.

Scott was a good leader and we appreciated his presence on those long Antarctic nights when the cold gnawed at bone and spirit alike. He would rub his swollen fingers, frost riming his beard and whisper reassurances. “One more march, lads. Just one more march.” The chief scientist, Edward Wilson, was never far from his side. His gentle and patient demeanor paired well with our stalwart captain, and helped steel our hearts against the endless white ice cap.

I ate my hardtack in silence. The bread was nearly frozen. I looked over at my friend Lawrence Oates. “Bowers, these damned feet will finish me before the Pole does,” he muttered, his teeth clenched against the pain. Frostbite crept up his legs.

I ate my hardtack in silence. The bread was nearly frozen, more ice than food. I looked across the tent at my friend Lawrence Oates. The old soldier winced as he unwrapped his ruined feet. He shook his head and sighed. “Bowers, these damned feet will finish me before the Pole does,” he said through gritted teeth. Frostbite was climbing his legs, slow and merciless.

Scott looked up from his journal. “You’ll endure,” he said. “We all will. Every man will do his part.”

I forced a smile through cracked lips. “Crack on, Royal! We will be at the pole soon, and back victorious in jolly England before you know it.” The words felt hollow the moment they left my mouth. My teeth were loose from scurvy, every bite of food pure agony. Still, I said nothing. None of us did. In Scott’s presence, complaint had no place. He bore his suffering in silence, and so we followed his lead, each of us enduring for the sake of the others.

From left to right, Wilson, Scott and Oates standing; Bowers and Evans seated.

The air burned our lungs as we climbed the final rise, our world narrowed to the rhythm of breath and the crunch of snow beneath our sledges. Frost clung to our eyelashes, turning every blink into a blur of light and ice. “Just another hundred meters, men,” Scott called, his voice hoarse but steady. “The Pole is ahead.”

For a brief, glorious moment, the thought of victory carried us. I felt it rise through the cold and exhaustion like a tide of hope. I could see the triumph of England’s flag snapping in the clean polar wind in my mind’s eye. But as we crested the last drift, that hope died.

A flag was already there, red, white, and blue against the endless white, the cross of Norway twisting in the wind. The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten us. By weeks, perhaps more. No one spoke. The silence was absolute, save for the hiss of the wind and the soft creak of harness leather. My throat ached, though not from the cold.

Scott stood very still, eyes fixed on the flag, his expression unreadable. Several moments passed. He dropped his head and said quietly, “We will march home with honor.” He gathered us for a photograph, our faces hollow and raw with frostbite and disbelief. Our grit and endurance, magnificent as it had been, had not been enough. And in that still white emptiness, victory felt farther away than ever.

The march back was a descent into misery. Frostbite blackened our fingers, and the cold gnawed at what little strength remained. We rationed each crumb as if it were gold, weighing hunger against survival. The wind howled through the tent walls, carrying the scent of death and the sound of our labored breath.

Oates was failing fast. Each step became an act of will. One night, after struggling to unlace his boots with hands that had turned to wood, he looked up at me. “I can’t keep dragging you down, Marine,” he said quietly, his voice even, almost calm. I gripped his shoulder through the layers of wool and frost. “You aren’t dragging anyone down, my friend.” But his eyes did not lift to meet mine.

At dawn he stirred, pulling his coat close with slow, deliberate hands. He looked at us one last time. “I am just going outside and may be some time,” he said. I raised a hand in farewell, not yet understanding. The tent flap fell shut behind him, and the storm swallowed his shape. None of us followed. We knew what he had chosen, and we knew why.

Through it all, Scott kept writing. His diary became both map and monument, a record of our miles and our misery. Each page carried the weight of hunger, frost, and duty. Even as the cold closed its grip and the ink froze at the nib, his words stayed measured and clear, untouched by panic. “We shall stick it out to the end,” he wrote, “but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.”

When the final storm sealed us in the tent, just eleven miles from the depot, Scott’s hand still found the strength to write. His last words carried the same calm resolve that had guided him through every march. “For God’s sake look after our people.”

You can read more about the race to the South Pole in The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford. This brilliant dual biography revisits every detail of the contest between Britain’s Robert Falcon Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen, two men driven by pride, ambition, and national glory at the dawn of the twentieth century. Huntford’s account draws from original Norwegian sources and offers the most comprehensive English-language study of both expeditions. He contrasts Scott, who perished with his men only eleven miles from safety, with Amundsen, who not only reached the Pole first but returned home alive. The result is a gripping, deeply researched history that reveals the motivations, rivalries, and flaws behind one of exploration’s greatest dramas. If you want to understand the character of these men and the true nature of their race, this is the book to start with. You can purchase it here.

You can read more about Roald Amundsen in The Last Viking by Stephen R. Bown. This gripping biography tells the story of the man who conquered every great polar mystery of his time: the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole. Bown captures Amundsen’s brilliance, ambition, and contradictions: a leader both feared and admired, celebrated in life and lost on a rescue mission in the Arctic. Drawing on rich archival material, Bown brings Amundsen’s world to life with the vivid realism of The Endurance and the suspense of a Jon Krakauer adventure. If you want to understand the mind of the explorer who mastered preparation and precision, this is the book to read. You can purchase it here.

You can read more about Scott’s expedition in The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Widely regarded as the greatest adventure book ever written, it offers a firsthand account of the ill-fated race to the South Pole and the endurance it demanded. Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott’s team, combines his own memories with his comrades’ journal entries to portray the courage, friendship, and tragedy of the expedition. His vivid storytelling captures both the grandeur and the misery of the Antarctic, how men starved, froze, and persevered in pursuit of discovery. It remains a moving tribute to Scott and the explorers who gave everything for their cause. You can purchase it here.

Article Author: Byron Owen - Ibex Journal Editor, MTNTOUGH Leadership/Military SME

Byron Owen is a former Reconnaissance Marine with tours as both a platoon commander and commanding officer at the elite 1st Force Reconnaissance Company. He also had the honor of commanding several intelligence and cyber units to include Combat Mission Team One, Cyberspace Warfare Task Group 1, and 3d Radio Battalion. He writes about influence warfare and cyber at keyterraincyber.com, and about leadership at broadswordsix.com.