. It is pathetic enough because we can do nothing for him;
more hot food might do a little, but only a little, I fear. We none
of us expected these terribly low temperatures, and of the rest of us
Wilson is feeling them most; mainly, I fear, from his self-sacrificing
devotion in doctoring Oates' feet. We cannot help each other, each has
enough to do to take care of himself. We get cold on the march when
the trudging is heavy, and the wind pierces our warm garments. The
others, all of them, are unendingly cheerful when in the tent. We
mean to see the game through with a proper spirit, but it's tough
work to be pulling harder than we ever pulled in our lives for long
hours, and to feel that the progress is so slow. One can only say
'God help us!' and plod on our weary way, cold and very miserable,
though outwardly cheerful. We talk of all sorts of subjects in the
tent, not much of food now, since we decided to take the risk of
running a full ration. We simply couldn't go hungry at this time.

_Tuesday, March_ 6.--Lunch. We did a little better with help of wind
yesterday afternoon, finishing 9 1/2 miles for the day, and 27 miles
from depot. (R. 48.) But this morning things have been awful. It was
warm in the night and for the first time during the journey I overslept
myself by more than an hour; then we were slow with foot gear; then,
pulling with all our might (for our lives) we could scarcely advance
at rate of a mile an hour; then it grew thick and three times we had
to get out of harness to search for tracks. The result is something
less than 3 1/2 miles for the forenoon. The sun is shining now and
the wind gone. Poor Oates is unable to pull, sits on the sledge when
we are track-searching--he is wonderfully plucky, as his feet must
be giving him great pain. He makes no complaint, but his spirits
only come up in spurts now, and he grows more silent in the tent. We
are making a spirit lamp to try and replace the primus when our oil
is exhausted. It will be a very poor substitute and we've not got
much spirit. If we could have kept up our 9-mile days we might have
got within reasonable distance of the depot before running out,
but nothing but a strong wind and good surface can help us now,
and though we had quite a good breeze this morning, the sledge came
as heavy as lead. If we were all fit I should have hopes of getting
through, but the poor Soldier has become a terrible hindrance, though
he does his utmost and suffers