MEARES CREAN
WILSON ATKINSON FORDE
LIEUT. EVANS CHERRY-GARRARD DIMITRI
BOWERS GRAN
OATES KEOHANE

Imaginative friends of the thirteen men who started from Cape Evans on
January 24, 1911, may have thought of them as athletes, trained for some
weeks or months to endure the strains which they were to face, sleeping a
good nine hours a night, eating carefully regulated meals and doing an
allotted task each day under scientific control.

They would be far from the mark. For weeks we had turned in at midnight
too tired to take off our clothes, and had been lucky if we were allowed
to sleep until 5 A.M. We had eaten our meals when we could, and we had
worked in the meantime just as hard as it was physically possible to do.
If we sat down on a packing-case we went to sleep.

And we finally left the camp in a state of hurry bordering upon panic.
Since the ice to the south of us, the road to the Barrier, was being
nibbled away by thaw, winds and tides, it was impossible to lead the
ponies down from the Cape on to the sea-ice. The open sea was before us
and on our right front. It was necessary to lead them up among the lava
blocks which lay on the escarpment of Erebus, south-eastwards towards
Land's End, and thence to slide them down a steep but rubbly slope to the
ice which still remained. As a matter of fact that ice went out the very
next day.

During the last two days provisions had been bagged with the utmost
despatch; sledges packed; letters scribbled; clothing sorted and rough
alterations to it made. Scott was busy, with Bowers' help, making such
arrangements as could be suggested for a further year's stay, for which
the ship was to order the necessaries. Oates was busy weighing out the
pony food for the journey, sorting harness, and generally managing a most
unruly mob of ponies. Many were the arguments as to the relative value of
a pair of socks or their equivalent weight in tobacco, for we were
allowed 12 lbs. of private gear apiece, to consist of everything which we
did not habitually wear on our bodies. This included such things as:

Sleeping-boots.
Sleeping-socks.
Extra pair of day socks.
A shirt.
Tobacco and pipe.
Notebook for diary and pencil.
Extra balaclava helmet.
Extra woollen mitts.
Housewife containing buttons, needles, darning needles,
thread