I think we did well to keep it as calm and non-committal as we succeeded in doing

[longnguyen1994]

It was approximately 4 P.M., after wide plane cruising had forced us to give Gedney up for lost, that we sent our guarded message to the Arkham for relaying; and I think we did well to keep it as calm and non-committal as we succeeded in doing.
Source: "At the Mountains of Madness" by H. P. Lovecraft

Further context: A team of scientists went to Antarctica. There, they split into two teams, and established 2 camp sites. After a while, 1 site (site A) went dark, prompting the other (site B) to go investigate. When the site-B team arrive at site-A, they found everyone at site-A had been massacred, with one man missing (Gedney). Site-B team did a wide search using airplane, but can't find any trace of Gedney. After giving up on the search, they sent out a report (the "guarded message").

I'm confused by the part in bold. I don't know how to express it, but there seem to be something... circular?... about the whole sentence. It's like it loop back and repeat itself, and I can't figure out what the meaning here is.

Can some one express it in a simpler way please?

Note: cross-posted here, but haven't received any answer for nearly a day: https://forum.wordreference.com/thr...n-committal-as-we-succeeded-in-doing.4088358/

 

[stanislaw.masny]

"I think we did well to keep it as calm and non-committal as we succeeded in doing."
I would put it this way,
"I think we did well to remain/stay calm and casual as we did."

 

[Tarheel]

They didn't want to panic, which would not have been helpful.