Sunday, November 18, 2001		Books

He was happiest collecting penguin eggs
Review by Lucy Moore

Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard by Sara Wheeler. Jonathan Cape.Pages 257. 9.95 pound sterling.

WHEN Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of Captain Scott’s companions on his doomed polar expedition in 1912, fell in love aged 50, his lovemaking followed an unusual pattern. He met 20-year-old Angela Turner on a Norwegian cruise in 1937. He was alone, she with her parents and brother. One day, the boat docked and Angela and Cherry slipped off for a walk on their own. They sat on a bench where Cherry picked up a small piece of quartz and offered it to Angela. "Years later, when she had become an Antarctic expert, Angela discovered that the courtship ritual of the penguin centres around stone-giving, stones being a vital commodity for the construction of the nest."

This story illuminates the reserved, passionate Cherry-Garrard (always known, except to his mother, as Cherry) in several ways. At that time, almost no one in the world would have known such an intimate detail about penguin lovemaking, but Cherry had made "the worst journey in the world" to collect penguin eggs and always retained a deep affection for the comical, determined birds he had nearly given his life to see. He was also chronically shy and afflicted by bouts of dark depression which made expressing his emotions painful for him. This type of non-verbal communication was the perfect solution for a man who felt things deeply but had terrible trouble talking about them.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard was born in 1886, the eldest son of a typically Victorian upper middle class English household. The Cherry-Garrards were rich and young Apsley, after Winchester and Oxford, floated purposelessly between London and the family estate in Hertfordshire. But he never wanted to be a dissolute young man of fashion; Cherry sought meaning and direction. He found both when he met the inspirational scientist, Bill Wilson, through whom he obtained a place on Scott’s expedition.

That first year, life on board the Terra Nova was all he had dreamed it would be. "I really have never seen anyone with such a constant expression of ‘this is what I have been looking for’ on his face", Wilson wrote. All his crewmates testified to the pluck, charm and unflagging enthusiasm that led to Cherry’s nickname, Cheery.

But the best of times were also the worst of times. Cherry, Wilson and Birdie Bowers hauled 750 pounds of equipment 67 miles each way through the dark Antarctic winter to obtain emperor penguin embryos, never before seen by anyone except the penguins themselves. They nearly died in temperatures dropping to minus 76, sometimes marching as little as a mile and a half in a day (if a day in which the sun never shines can really be called a day) through blinding storms and across deadly crevasses. In Cherry’s eyes, this journey was redeemed by the profound faith that permeated Wilson’s leadership and the depth of the three men’s friendship and support for one another. Although it had been a time of unspeakable horror, "I’ll swear there was still a grace about us when we staggered in," Cherry wrote. "And we kept our tempers — even with God.""

Writing about the poles is not an easy task, but an audience (especially given recent interest in Scott and Shackleton) is virtually assured. Where Sara Wheeler excels in this first biography of Cherry-Garrard is in illuminating his life before and after the epoch-making polar expedition. She makes of his struggle to work out and write the truth about those years a narrative almost as exciting as the journey itself.

This is Wheeler’s first biography and it is a wonderful match of author to subject. Her last book, "Terra Incognita", told of the time she spent in Antarctica. Having lived there, she understands the South Pole’s intense draw (as well as the horrors its beauty conceals) and she brilliantly communicates the icy spell that holds her, and held Cherry, in its frozen grip.

"Then, and now," she writes, "it would be impossible, looking out at the incandescent band of purply blue light that lies between ice and sky on an Antarctic horizon, not to think about forces beyond the human plane. From the fecund coast to the sterile interior, the dignity of the landscape shines a light on to a corner of the human psyche that is rarely lit among the gas bills and rain-splattered streets of home." Illuminating this aspect of the soul is what Cherry did so unforgettably in "The Worst Journey in the World". In "Cherry", Wheeler has produced a companion volume that richly lives up to its inspiration.