en it would stick, and all the
starting operations had to be gone through afresh. We did perhaps half a
mile in the forenoon. Anticipating a better surface in the afternoon we
got a shock. Teddy [Evans] led off half an hour earlier to pilot a way,
and Captain Scott tried some fake with his spare runners [he lashed them
under the sledge to prevent the cross-pieces ploughing the snow] that
involved about an hour's work. We had to continually turn our runners up
to scrape the ice off them, for in these temperatures they are liable to
get warm and melt the snow on them, and that freezes into knobs of ice
which act like sandpaper or spikes on a pair of skates. We bust off
second full of hope having done so well in the forenoon, but pride goeth
[before a fall]. We stuck ten yards from the camp, and nine hours later
found us little more than half a mile on. I have never seen a sledge sink
so. I have never pulled so hard, or so nearly crushed my inside into my
backbone by the everlasting jerking with all my strength on the canvas
band round my unfortunate tummy. We were all in the same boat however.

"I saw Teddy struggling ahead and Scott astern, but we were the worst off
as the leading team had topped the rise and I was too blind to pick out a
better trail. We fairly played ourselves out that time, and finally had
to give it up and relay. Halving the load we went forward about a mile
with it, and, leaving that lot, went back for the remainder. So done were
my team that we could do little more than pull the half loads. Teddy's
team did the same, and though Scott's did not, we camped practically the
same time, having gone over our distance three times. Mount Kyffin was
still ahead of us to the left: we seemed as if we can never come up with
it. To-morrow Scott decided that if we could not move our full loads we
would start relaying systematically. It was a most depressing outlook
after such a day of strenuous labour."[227] We got soaked with
perspiration these days, though generally pulling in vest, pants, and
windproof trousers only. Directly we stopped we cooled quickly. Two skuas
appeared at lunch, attracted probably by the pony flesh below, but it was
a long way from the sea for them to come. On Thursday December 14, Scott
wrote: "Indigestion and the soggy condition of my clothes kept me awake
for some time last night, and the exceptional exercise gives bad attacks
of cramp. Our lips are getting raw and blistered. The eyes of