forming and blowing away, and there was Castle Rock: we might even see
Observation Hill to-morrow, and the Discovery Hut furnished and trim was
behind it, and they would have sent some dry sleeping-bags from Cape
Evans to greet us there. We reckoned our troubles over at the Barrier
edge, and assuredly it was not far away. "You've got it in the neck,
stick it, you've got it in the neck"--it was always running in my head.

And we _did_ stick it. How good the memories of those days are. With
jokes about Birdie's picture hat: with songs we remembered off the
gramophone: with ready words of sympathy for frost-bitten feet: with
generous smiles for poor jests: with suggestions of happy beds to come.
We did not forget the Please and Thank you, which mean much in such
circumstances, and all the little links with decent civilization which
we could still keep going. I'll swear there was still a grace about us
when we staggered in. And we kept our tempers--even with God.

We _might_ reach Hut Point to-night: we were burning more oil now, that
one-gallon tin had lasted us well: and burning more candle too; at one
time we feared they would give out. A hell of a morning we had: -57 deg. in
our present state. But it was calm, and the Barrier edge could not be
much farther now. The surface was getting harder: there were a few
wind-blown furrows, the crust was coming up to us. The sledge was
dragging easier: we always suspected the Barrier sloped downwards
hereabouts. Now the hard snow was on the surface, peeping out like great
inverted basins on which we slipped, and our feet became warmer for not
sinking into soft snow. Suddenly we saw a gleam of light in a line of
darkness running across our course. It was the Barrier edge: we were all
right now.

We ran the sledge off a snow-drift on to the sea-ice, with the same cold
stream of air flowing down it which wrecked my hands five weeks ago:
pushed out of this, camped and had a meal: the temperature had already
risen to -43 deg.. We could almost feel it getting warmer as we went round
Cape Armitage on the last three miles. We managed to haul our sledge up
the ice foot, and dug the drift away from the door. The old hut struck us
as fairly warm.

Bill was convinced that we ought not to go into the warm hut at Cape
Evans when we arrived there--to-morrow night! We ought to get back to
warmth gradually, live in a tent outside, or in the annexe for a day or
two. But I'm sure we never meant