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 cofiin 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 



