886 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Xorembcr 1, 1915. 



It was a swift ending for a gallant 

 sailor. A chapter of accidents had con- 

 verted the strongest man and the handi- 

 est artificer into a drag upon the party 

 he had done so much to help. 



" Shambles Camp " was reached next 

 day, with its plentiful store of horse 

 meat. The surface became worse, the 

 wind veered to the north. Day after 

 day the record of courage against odds 

 continues with a growing consciousness 

 of their slender chances. 



GATES GOES OUT INTO THE NIGHT. 



On February 25th the Southern Bar- 

 rier depot was reached ; on March ist 

 they arrived at the next, despite " very 

 heavy dragging." Oates was nearly 

 done, his feet in a wretched condition, 

 and he very lame. After eight days 

 more of slow, dogged pulling, another 

 longed-for depot was reached. Alas ! 

 the fierce cold had injured the stoppers, 

 and much of the oil had vanished. This 

 was a grievous blow. On March loth 

 Scott wrote, " We have seven days' food, 

 and should be about fifty-five miles 

 from One Ton Camp to-night, leaving 

 us thirteen miles short of our distance ; 

 even if things get no worse. ... I 

 doubt if we can possibly do it." 



At midday on the 15th Oates said he 

 could not go on, and proposed that he 

 be left in his sleeping bag. He was in- 

 duced to struggle on, and " we made a 

 few miles." At night he was worse, and 

 we knew the end had come. 



" March 17. — He was a brave soul. This 

 was the end. He slept through the night — 

 yesterday— hoping not to wake, but he woke 

 in the morning. It was blowing a blizzard. 

 He said, ' I am just going outside, and may 

 be some time.' He went out into the bliz- 

 zard, and we have not seen him since." 



And here the Journal places it formally 

 on I'ecord that they " stuck to their sick 

 companions to the last. In the case of Edgar 

 Evans, when we were absolutely out of food 

 and he lay insensible, the safety of the re- 

 mainder seemed to demand his abandonment, 

 but he died a natural death — we did not 

 leave him till two hours after his death." 



And on March 16, "We knew that poor 

 Oates was walking to his death, but though 

 we tried to dissuade him we knew it was 

 the act of a brave man and an English 

 gentleman. We all hope to meet the end 

 witli a similar spirit." 



THE DEATH-DEALING BLIZZARD. 

 On March i8th Scott's foot was so 

 bad that he wrote " amputation is the 



least I can hope for now. The weather 

 doesn't give us a chance." On the 19th 

 they struggled to their last camping- 

 ground " with two days' food, but barely 

 one allowance of fuel," a mere eleven 

 miles from plenty at One Ton Camp. 

 There Cherry-Gerrard and Demetri had 

 been waiting from March 4th to March 

 loth with the dog-teams. They had an 

 awful journey back through storm and 

 cold to Hut Point. 



Even in their extremity Scott and his 

 two companions would have marched the 

 eleven miles, but a fearful blizzard, 

 which lasted nine days, descended on 

 them. To go out in a blizzard is to be 

 instantly robbed of breath, to be half 

 stupefied by the battery of hurricane 

 wind and whirling snow-particles, to 

 wander hopelessly from tracks and 

 direction. 



FOODLESS FOR TEN DAYS. 



Expecting the storm to lull after the 

 usual interval, a " forlorn hope " was 

 resolved upon after a couple of days : 

 Bowers and Wilson were to push on for 

 supplies and fuel. But day after day 

 the blizzard held them prisoners. 



The final resolve was to start, if a 

 start could be made, " and die in their 

 tracks." But to stir out was impossible. 



For ten days they lived in the tent 

 without food or fire, whilst the blizzard 

 howled their death-knell in shrieking 

 blasts. On the 29th Scott wrote : 

 " Every day we have been ready to 

 start for our depot eleven miles away, 

 but outside the door of the tent it re- 

 mains a scene of whirling drift. I do 

 not think we can hope for any better 

 thing now." 



Then in the frail shelter the gallant 

 leader wrote firmly, clearly, without 

 faltering or erasure, that message to the 

 public which has thrilled the world. 

 Two days before the end Atkinson 

 sledged to Corner Camp in a last hope 

 of helping the Southern party. He 

 could get no further, and returned to the 

 base camp on April ist. 



THE END. 



When the winter was over two search 



parties set out on October 30th, prepared 



to go six hundred miles to the head of 



Beardmore Glacier. On November 1 2th 



