DEATH OF CAPTAIN OATES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8362, 24 February 1913, Page 3

DEATH OF CAPTAIN OATES

(By Delamore McCoy, in Sydney “Sun.") Captain Oates, unable to travel, and unwilling to burden bis comrades, walked out in tbe snow to die. Out of the wide and silent places, \Vhere the winding-sheet of the snow is spread. There comes a vision of pale, pinched faces. The dumb, white ghosts of the frozen dead* And the bravest souls of the northern races In the icy waste of the South- have sped. They fought and fell, with no crowd to cheer them j Alone, unnoticed, until the end. They faced the fate that was starkly near them. With stiff, cold courage no storm could bend. Had they called for help, there was none could hear them. Nor torn hearts answer, nor love befriend. When men died greatly in heat of battle. The maddened mediey of shouts and cheers, , ... The scream of shell and the nfles rattle Had stirred their blood and had stilled their fears; But to seek the death of the snowbound Is a deed that lives through the deathless years. With eyes half-blinded we read his 6 f°ry> Whose still face stares to the Tolar sky; His monuments are the icebergs hoary. His requiem is the wild bird s cry; And a new page blazed in the Book of Glory . When Oates walked out in the enow to die. .