296 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
pannikins or the primus in our hands. I know that our 
sleeping-bags were so full of ice that we did not worry if 
we spilt water or hoosh over them as they lay on the floor- 
cloth, when we cooked on them with our maimed cooker. 
They were so bad that we never rolled them up in the usual 
way when we got out of them in the morning: we opened 
their mouths as much as possible before they froze, and 
hoisted them more or less flat on to the sledge. All three 
of us helped to raise each bag, which looked rather like a 
squashed coffin and was probably a good deal harder. I 
know that if it was only — 40° when we camped for the 
night we considered quite seriously that we were going to 
have a warm one, and that when we got up in the morning 
if the temperature was in the minus sixties we did not 
enquire what it was. The day’s march was bliss compared 
to the night’s rest, and both were awful. We were about as 
bad as men can be and do good travelling: but I never 
heard a word of complaint, nor, I believe, an oath, and I 
saw self-sacrifice standing every test. 
Always we were getting nearer home: and we were 
doing good marches. We were going to pull through; it 
was only a matter of sticking this for a few more days; 
six, five, four . . . three perhaps now, if we were not 
blizzed. Our main hut was behind that ridge where the 
mist was always forming and blowing away, and there was 
Castle Rock: we might even see Observation Hill to- 
morrow, and the Discovery Hut furnished and trim was 
behind it, and they would have sent some dry sleeping-bags 
from Cape Evans to greet us there. We reckoned our 
troubles over at the Barrier edge, and assuredly it was not 
far away. “‘ You’ve got it in the neck, stick it, you’ve got 
it in the neck”’—it was always running in my head. 
And we did stick it. How good the memories of those 
days are. With jokes about Birdie’s picture hat: with 
songs we remembered off the gramophone: with ready 
words of sympathy for frost-bitten feet : with generous 
smiles for poor jests: with suggestions of happy beds to 
come. We did not forget the Please and. Thank you, 
which mean much in such circumstances, and all the little 
