The northward sledge journey over the floes of the frozen sea, though conducted by brave and experienced officers with selected men, was made under unusual physical disadvantages which made impossible any further success than was actually accomplished. The party was encumbered with heavy boats, which were carried as a precautionary measure through fear lest the main polar pack might be disrupted during their journey. The sledges were fearfully overloaded, for while their burdens of two hundred pounds per man might be hauled short distances over good ice, the later conditions of four hundred pounds (three sledges with two crews) per man, in deep snow and through rough ice, was simply impossible. The extreme roughness of the ice of the Arctic Ocean was beyond expectation or earlier experience. Finally it developed on the march that the health and strength of the men were impaired by attacks of incipient and unsuspected scurvy. So it happened that when only thirteen days out from the ship a scurvy-stricken man had to be hauled on the already overloaded sledge. With true British grit Markham went ahead, but four days later, in order to spare the strength of his men, who were daily falling out of the traces, he decided to take the chances of pack-disruption and so abandoned one of his boats.
It is not needful to give the details of the outward journey, which involved the abject misery of scarified faces, frost-hardened fingers, capsizing sledges, deep snows, and extreme cold to which most arctic sledgemen are subjected. To these were added road-making, owing to the mazes of high hummocks with deep intervening valleys. The increase of loads, so that progress could be made only by standing-pulls, was bad enough, but this disability was enhanced by the steady decrease of the number of sledgemen, by the necessity of hauling disabled men, and by the nursing care of patients steadily growing worse and unable to do anything for themselves.
Under such conditions Markham added to the glory of the British Navy by displaying the flag of his country on May 12, 1876, in 83° 20′ N., thus establishing a world's record. As five of his seventeen men were then unable even to walk, his venturesome courage in this journey could not be surpassed. Certainly Commander Markham pushed to the extreme limit compliance with his assertive sledge motto: "I dare do all that becomes a man. Who dares do more is none."
Amidst the glory and happiness of this notable day, there could not fail to arise in the minds of all, especially of Markham and his efficient aid, Lieutenant Parr, unbidden forebodings as to the homeward march. Was it not possible that their distressing conditions were a prelude to disaster? Would they all reach the ship? At all events they would do all that was in their power.
The seriousness of the situation was soon evident. In five days' travel, though inspired to greater efforts by the fact that they were homeward bound, they averaged only one and a half miles daily, at which rate it would take fifty days of uninterrupted sledging to reach the Alert. The sledge work was simply appalling, almost heart-breaking. It took the whole force to advance the largest of the three sledges, and the necessary return for the smaller sledges tripled the distance of the original march. In addition the windings of the road to avoid bad ice so increased the length of the route that they were travelling five miles for each mile made good toward the ship.
Meantime the health and the strength of the men steadily decreased, and, most alarming symptoms of all, the appetites of the sledgemen began to fail. Markham's field journal briefly tells the harrowing tale: "With great difficulty can the patients be persuaded to eat anything. Mouths are too tender for well-soaked biscuit, and stomachs rebel against pemmican and fat bacon.... Unquenchable thirst, alleviated at meals only for lack of fuel to melt ice.... Invalids very weak and much subject to fainting fits. So utterly helpless and prostrate are they that they have to be assisted in every detail by two and sometimes four of their companions.... Tea-leaves are devoured with avidity by the majority.... The men find great difficulty in moving their legs, and are in great pain.... All are so stiff that the slightest exertion causes great suffering.... Out of thirty-four legs in the party we can only muster eleven good ones.... Every hour is important, as we know not when we may all be attacked and rendered useless."
When in this condition they were storm-stayed for thirty-six hours by a violent blizzard, when one could not see a sledge's length ahead. This brought matters to a crisis, and to hasten the march Markham was obliged to abandon his last boat and all stores that could be spared, ammunition, one hundred and seventy pounds of pemmican, and much camp gear. It was indeed time, for only four of the men were entirely well.
A pleasurable incident made happy for a moment these distressed sailors, sick, worn out, surrounded by an illimitable expanse of ice. Markham records: "The appearance of a little snow-bunting, which fluttered around us for a short time, uttering to us its rather sweet chirp. This was an event of no small interest to our party, as it was the first bird seen by the majority for a period of nine months. Even the sick men on the sledge requested they might have their heads uncovered and lifted so as to obtain a glimpse of the little warbler."