RELAYING 157 



started the * Convoy Commando ' exchanged farewells. We 

 gave them three cheers and Nelson and sturdy little Anton 

 marched steadily across to Cape Royds, thirty miles away. 

 Henceforth for over three months we were left to our own de- 

 vices. We were now really starting, although the relaying to 

 date had almost totalled a hundred miles, in all of which Nelson's 

 assistance had been invaluable. 



So we moved off, Debenham linking in; for to our great 

 joy his leg was certainly not worse for its drastic treatment. 

 The sun was bright and we wore amber or green glasses. 

 Through them the snow looked like the rippled sand at the 

 mouth of a shallow river. Forde turned out in an Antarctic 

 Panama with a brim slightly less than a yard wide. Gran and 

 Debenham had felt hats with ear flaps. I just tied my felt hat 

 down a la coal scuttle until it was too cold, and then we had to 

 wear our ' balaclava ' helmets. 



Now we started a fortnight's relaying. Weary work at best, 

 but when the course lies on sea ice which may go out any day 

 and your retreat is barred by a vertical ice-barrier thirty feet 

 high, an anxious time as well. 



We now started a regular routine of five stages a day. After 

 breakfast we packed the sledges and left the ' biscuit ' sledge 

 flagged at our camp. Then pushed on about a mile with the 

 ' tent ' sledge. Flagged that and tramped back to the other. 

 Pulled it to the ' tent ' sledge and then rested five minutes and 

 criticised the Antarctic generally and the snow surface more par- 

 ticularly! So that in about two hours we had shifted our half 

 ton a whole mile, and walked three in doing it. Then on again 

 for another mile with the tent sledge. Here we pitched the 

 lunch camp. Debenham boiled the tea and got the tent fixed 

 while we three brought up the lighter biscuit sledge. In the 

 afternoon we managed three of these stages, Debenham as be- 

 fore having the tent ready when we brought in the last sledge. 



On November 20 we reached Cape Bernacchi. It was an 

 awful surface. We crossed a layer of loose ice crystals in which 

 one sometimes sank to the knee. Debenham's knee got a very 

 painful wrench so that he could do no relaying. However, he 

 started the plane table survey which he carried on throughout 

 the whole journey thus producing by far the most detailed 

 sledge map of any part of Victoria Land. 



