Page:The Worst Journey in the World volume 2.djvu/60

Rh depôted more of it on the cairns. As it was, what we did not eat was given to the dogs. With some tins of extra oil and a depôted pony the Polar Party would probably have got home in safety.

On December 3 we roused out at 2.30 It was thick and snowy. As we breakfasted the blizzard started from the south-east, and was soon blowing force 9, a full gale, with heavy drift. "The strongest wind I have known here in summer." It was impossible to start, but we turned out and made up the pony walls in heavy drift, one of them being blown down three times. By 1.30 the sun was shining, and the land was clear. We started at 2, with what we thought was Mount Hope showing up ahead, but soon great snow-clouds were banking up and in two hours we were walking in a deep gloom which made it difficult to find the track made by the man-hauling party ahead. By the time we reached the cairn, which was always built at the end of the first four miles, it was blowing hard from the N.N.W. of all the unlikely quarters of the compass. Bowers and Scott were on ski.

"I put on my windproof blouse and nosed out the track for two miles, when we suddenly came upon the tent of the leading party. They had camped owing to the difficulty of steering a course in such thick weather. The ponies, however, with the wind abaft the beam were going along splendidly, and Scott thought it worth while to shove on. We therefore carried on another four miles, making ten in all, a good half march, before we camped. On ski it was simply ripping, except for the inability to see anything at all. With the wind behind, and the good sliding surface made by the wind-hardened snow, one fairly slithered along. Camping was less pleasant as it was blowing a gale by that time. We are all in our bags again now, with a good hot meal inside one, and blow high or blow low one might be in a worse place than a reindeer bag."

It was all right for the people on ski (and this in itself gave us a certain sense of grievance), but things had not