THE LAST WINTER 437 



Campbell's party of six men must be fighting for their lives 

 against these same conditions, or worse — unless indeed 

 they had already perished on their way south. We knew 

 they must be in desperate plight, but probably they were 

 alive : the point in their favour was that they were fresh 

 men. To the south of us, anywhere between us and the 

 Pole, were five men. We knew they must be dead. 



The immediate problem which presented itself was how 

 best to use the resources which were left to us. Our num- 

 bers were much reduced. Nine men had gone home before 

 any hint of tragedy reached them. Two men had been landed 

 from the ship. We were thirteen men for this last year. Of 

 these thirteen it was almost certain that Debenham would 

 be unable to go out sledging again owing to an injury to 

 his knee: Archer had come to cook and not to sledge: and 

 it was also doubtful about myself. As a matter of fact our 

 sledging numbers for the last summer totalled eleven, five 

 officers and six men. 



We were well provided with transport, having the seven 

 mules sent down by the Indian Government, which were 

 excellent animals, as well as our original two dog-teams : 

 the additional dogs brought down by the ship were with 

 two exceptions of no real sledging value. Our dog-teams 

 had, however, already travelled some 1 500 miles on the Bar- 

 rier alone, not counting the work they had done between 

 Hut Point and Cape Evans ; and, though we did not realize 

 it at this time, they were sick of it and never worked again 

 with that dash which we had come to expect of them. 



The first thing which we settled about the winter which 

 lay ahead of us was that, so far as possible, everything 

 should go on as usual. The scientific work must of course 

 be continued, and there were the dogs and mules to be 

 looked after : a night-watch to be kept and the meteoro- 

 logical observations and auroral notes to be taken. Owing 

 to our reduced numbers we should need the help of the 

 seamen for this purpose. We were also to bring out 

 another volume of the South Polar Times on Mid-winter 

 Day. The importance of not allowing any sense of depres- 

 sion to become a part of the atmosphere of our life was 



