I903] BACK TO DEPOT NUNATAK 211 



' For a full five minutes I could do nothing ; my hands 

 were white to the wrists, and I plunged them into my breast, 

 but gradually their circulation and my strength came back, and 

 I was able to get to work. With two of us on top and one 

 below, things had assumed a very different aspect, and I was 

 able to unhitch my own harness and lower it once more for 

 Evans ; then with our united efforts he also was landed on the 

 surface, where he arrived in the same frost-bitten condition as 

 I had. For a minute or two we could only look at one 

 another, then Evans said, " Well, Fm blowed " ; it was the 

 first sign of astonishment he had shown. 



' But all this time the wind was blowing very chill, so we 

 wasted no time in discussing our escape, but turning our 

 broken sledge end for end, we were soon harnessed to it again 

 and trudging on over the snow. After this, as can be imagined, 

 we kept a pretty sharp look-out for crevasses, marching in 

 such an order as prevented more than one of us going down 

 at once, and so we eventually reached the bare blue ice once 

 more, and at six o'clock found our depot beneath the towering 

 cliffs of the Depot Nunatak. 



*As long as I live I can never forget last night. Our 

 camp was in bright sunshine, for the first time for six weeks 

 the temperature was above zero, but what we appreciated still 

 more was the fact that it was perfectly calm ; the canvas of 

 our tent hung limp and motionless, and the steam of our 

 cooking rose in a thin, vertical shaft. All Nature seemed to 

 say that our long fight was over, and that at length we had 

 reached a haven of rest. And it has been a fight indeed ; it is 

 only now that I realise what discomforts we have endured and 

 what a burden of anxiety we have borne during the past month 

 The relief of being freed from such conditions is beyond the 

 power of my pen to describe, but perhaps what brought it 

 home to us most completely was the fact that the worst of our 

 troubles and adventures came at the end, and that in the brief 

 space of half an hour we passed from abject discomfort to rest 

 and peace. 



' And so we dawdled over everything. We were bruised, 



P2 



