as though he might knock up. Keohane did well,
and is very fit. They came in over fifteen miles yesterday, and have
brought in the sledge of the Second Return Party, the one they took out
being very heavy pulling. They had no day on which they could not travel.
Here it has been blowing and drifting half the time he has been absent,"
and a few days later, "We have got to face it now. The Pole Party will
not in all probability ever get back. And there is no more that we can
do. The next step must be to get to Cape Evans as soon as it is possible.
There are fresh men there: at any rate fresh compared to us."[273]

* * * * *

Atkinson was the senior officer left, and unless Campbell and his party
came in, the command of the Main Party devolved upon him. It was not a
position which any one could envy even if he had been fresh and fit.
Amidst all his anxieties and responsibilities he looked after me with the
greatest patience and care. I was so weak that sometimes I could only
keep on my legs with difficulty: the glands of my throat were swollen so
that I could hardly speak or swallow: my heart was strained and I had
considerable pain. At such a time I was only a nuisance, but nothing
could have exceeded his kindness and his skill with the few drugs which
we possessed.

Again and again in these days some one would see one or other of the
missing parties coming in. It always proved to be mirage, a seal or
pressure or I do not know what, but never could we quite persuade
ourselves that these excitements might not have something in them, and
every time hope sprang up anew. Meanwhile the matter of serious
importance was the state of the ice in the bays between us and Cape
Evans: we _must_ get help. All the ice in the middle of the Sound was
swept out by the winds of March 30 to April 2, and on the following day
Atkinson climbed Arrival Heights to see how the remaining ice looked. The
view over the Sound from here is shown in the frontispiece to this book.
"The ice in the two bays to Cape Evans is quite new--formed this morning,
I suppose, with the rest that is in the Sound. There are open leads
between Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans, inside the line joining the ends
of the two. There is a big berg in between Glacier Tongue and the
Islands, and also a flat one off Cape Evans."[274]

We had some good freezing days after this, and on April 5 "we tried the
ice this afternoon. It is naturally slushy a