Page:The Worst Journey in the World volume 1.djvu/61

lii records, or Campbell and his men (who might be alive). There were not enough men left to do both. We believed that the Polar Party had come to grief through scurvy, or through falling into a crevasse—the true solution never occurred to us, for we felt sure that except for accident or disease they could find their way home without difficulty. We decided to leave Campbell to find his way unaided down the coast, and to try and find the Polar Party's records. To our amazement we found their snowed-up tent some 140 geographical miles from Hut Point, only 11 geographical miles from One Ton Camp. They had arrived there on March 19. Inside the tent were the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers. Oates had willingly walked out to his death some eighteen miles before in a blizzard. Seaman Evans lay dead at the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier.

Having found the bodies and the records the Search Party returned, proposing to make their way up the Western Coast in search of Campbell. On arrival at Hut Point with the dog-teams, I must have gone to open the hut door and found pinned on to it a note in Campbell's handwriting; but my recollection of this apparently memorable incident is extraordinarily vague. It was many long months since we had had good news. This was their story.

When Campbell originally landed at Evans Coves he brought with him sledging provisions for six weeks, in addition to two weeks' provisions for six men, 56 lbs. sugar, 24 lbs. cocoa, 36 lbs. chocolate and 210 lbs. of biscuit, some Oxo and spare clothing. In short, after the sledge work which they proposed, and actually carried out, the men were left with skeleton rations for four weeks. They had also a spare tent and an extra sleeping-bag. It was not seriously anticipated that the ship would have great difficulty in picking them up in the latter half of February.

Campbell's party had carried out successful sledging and useful geological work in the region of Evans Coves. They had then camped on the beach and looked for the ship to relieve them. There was open water lashed to fury