SUSPENSE 417 



I confess I had my misgivings. I had never driven one 

 dog, let alone a team of them; I knew nothing of naviga- 

 tion ; and One Ton was a hundred and thirty miles away, 

 out in the middle of the Barrier and away from landmarks. 

 And so as we pushed our way out through the wind and 

 drift that night I felt there was a good deal to be hoped 

 for, rather than to be expected. But we got along very 

 well, Dimitri driving his team in front, as he did most of 

 this journey, and picking up marks very helpfully with his 

 sharp eyes. In the low temperatures we met, the glasses 

 which I must wear are almost impossible, because of fog- 

 ging. We took three boxes of dog-biscuit from Safety 

 Camp and another three boxes from a point sixteen miles 

 from Hut Point. Here we rested the dogs for a few hours, 

 and started again at 6 p.m. All day the light was appalling, 

 and the wind strong, but to my great relief we found Corner 

 Camp after four hours' more travelling, the flag showing 

 plainly, though the cairn itself was invisible when a hun- 

 dred yards away. This was the last place where there was 

 any dog-food on the route, and the dogs got a good feed 

 after doing thirty-four miles (statute) for the day's run. 

 This was more than we had hoped: the only disquieting 

 fact was that both the sledge-meters which we had were 

 working wrong: the better of the two seemed however to 

 be marking the total mileage fairly correctly at present, 

 though the hands which indicated more detailed informa- 

 tion were quite at sea. We had no minimum thermometer, 

 but the present temperature was - 4 . 



" February 27. Mount Terror has proved our friend to- 

 day, for the slope just above the Knoll has remained clear 

 when everything else was covered, and we have steered by 

 that — behind us. It seemed, when we started in low drift, 

 that we should pick up nothing, but by good luck, or good 

 I don't know what, we have got everything: first the motor, 

 then pony walls at 10 miles, where we stopped and had a 

 cup of tea. I wanted to do 15 miles, but we have done 1 %\ 

 miles on the best running surface I have ever seen. After 

 lunch we got a cairn which we could not see twenty yards 

 away after we had reached it, but which we could see 



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