246 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
much worse than Bill or I. I suffered a lot from heartburn, 
especially in my bag at nights: we were eating a great 
proportion of fat and this was probably the cause. Stupidly 
I said nothing about it for a long time. Later when Bill 
found out, he soon made it better with the medical case. 
Birdie always lit the candle in the morning—-so called, 
and this was an heroic business. Moisture collected on our 
matches if you looked at them. Partly I suppose it was 
bringing them from outside into a comparatively warm 
tent; partly from putting boxes into pockets in our cloth- 
ing. Sometimes it was necessary to try four or five boxes 
before a match struck. The temperature of the boxes and 
matches was about a hundred degrees of frost, and the 
smallest touch of the metal on naked flesh caused a frost- 
bite. If you wore mitts you could scarcely feel anything 
—especially since the tips of our fingers were already very 
callous. To get the first light going in the morning was a 
beastly cold business, made worse by having to make sure 
that it was at last time to get up. Bill insisted that we must 
lie in our bags seven hours every night. 
In civilization men are taken at their own valuation 
because there are so many ways of concealment, and 
there is so little time, perhaps even so little understanding. 
Not so down South. These two men went through the 
Winter Journey and lived: later they went through the 
Polar Journey and died. They were gold, pure, shining, 
unalloyed. Words cannot express how good their com- 
panionship was. 
Through all these days, and those which were to follow, 
the worst I suppose in their dark severity that men have 
ever come through alive, no single hasty or angry word 
passed their lips. When, later, we were sure, so far as we 
can be sure of anything, that we must die, they were cheer- 
ful, and so far as I can judge their songs and cheery words 
were quite unforced. Nor were they ever flurried, though 
always as quick as the conditions would allow in moments 
of emergency. It is hard that often such men must go 
first when others far less worthy remain. 
There are those who write of Polar Expeditions as 
