576 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



ing (as Campbell and his men were) but no help can reach 

 him from the outside world for a year, if then. There is 

 no chance of a ' cushy ' wound : if you break your leg on 

 the Beardmore you must consider the most expedient way 

 of committing suicide, both for your own sake and that of 

 your companions. 



Both sexually and socially the polar explorer must make 

 up his mind to be starved. To what extent can hard work, 

 or what may be called dramatic imagination, provide a sub- 

 stitute ? Compare our thoughts on the march ; our food 

 dreams at night ; the primitive way in which the loss of a 

 crumb of biscuit may give a lasting sense of grievance. 

 Night after night I bought big buns and chocolate at a stall 

 on the island platform at Hatfield station, but always woke 

 before I got a mouthful to my lips ; some companions who 

 were not so highly strung were more fortunate, and ate 

 their phantom meals. 



And the darkness, accompanied it may be almost con- 

 tinually by howling blizzards which prevent you seeing 

 your hand before your face. Life in such surroundings is 

 both mentally and physically cramped ; open-air exercise 

 is restricted and in blizzards quite impossible, and you 

 realize how much you lose by your inability to see the 

 world about you when you are out-of-doors. I am told that 

 when confronted by a lunatic or one who under the in- 

 fluence of some great grief or shock contemplates suicide, 

 you should take that man out-of-doors and walk him about : 

 Nature will do the rest. To normal people like ourselves 

 living under abnormal circumstances Nature could do 

 much to lift our thoughts out of the rut of everyday affairs, 

 but she loses much of her healing power when she cannot 

 be seen, but only felt, and when that feeling is intensely 

 uncomfortable. 



Somehow in judging polar life you must discount com- 

 pulsory endurance ; and find out what a man can shirk, 

 remembering always that it is a sledging life which is the 

 hardest test. It is because it is so much easier to shirk 

 in civilization that it is difficult to get a standard of what 

 your average man can do. It does not really matter much 



