They were up to date in distance, and there was a very good amount of food, probably more than was necessary to see them to the Pole and off the plateau on full rations. Best thought of all, perhaps, the motors with their uncertainties, the ponies with their suffering, the glacier with its possibilities of disaster, all were behind: and the two main supporting parties were safely on their way home. Here with him was a fine party, tested and strong, and only 148 miles from the Pole.
I can see them, working with a business-like air, with no fuss and no unnecessary talk, each man knowing his job and doing it: pitching the tent: finishing the camp work and sitting round on their sleeping-bags while their meal was cooked: warming their hands on their mugs: saving a biscuit to eat when they woke in the night: packing the sledge with a good neat stow: marching with a solid swing—we have seen them do it so often, and they did it jolly well.
And the conditions did not seem so bad. "To-night it is flat calm; the sun so warm that in spite of the temperature we can stand about outside in the greatest comfort. It is amusing to stand thus and remember the constant horrors of our situation as they were painted for us: the sun is melting the snow on the ski, etc. The plateau is now very flat, but we are still ascending slowly. The sastrugi are getting more confused, predominant from the S.E. I wonder what is in store for us. At present everything seems to be going with extraordinary smoothness. . . . We feel the cold very little, the great comfort of our situation is the excellent drying effect of the sun. . . . Our food continues to amply satisfy. What luck to have hit on such an excellent ration. We really are an excellently found party . . . we lie so very comfortably, warmly clothed in our comfortable bags, within our double-walled tent."[1]
Then something happened.
While Scott was writing the sentences you have just read, he reached the summit of the plateau and started, ever so slightly, to go downhill. The list of corrected alti-
- ↑ Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. pp. 530–534.
