'R. SCOTT.
'Last entry For God's sake look after our people.'
After Cherry-Garrard and Demetri had returned to Hut Point on March 16 without having seen any signs of the Polar party, Atkinson and Keohane made one more desperate effort to find them. When, however, this had been unsuccessful there was nothing more to be done until the winter was over.
During this long and anxious time the leadership of the party devolved upon Atkinson, who under the most trying circumstances showed qualities that are beyond all praise. At the earliest possible moment (October 30) a large party started south. 'On the night of the 11th and morning of the 12th,' Atkinson says, 'after we had marched 11 miles due south of One Ton, we found the tent. It was an object partially snowed up and looking like a cairn. Before it were the ski sticks and in front of them a bamboo which probably was the mast of the sledge...
'Inside the tent were the bodies of Captain Scott, Doctor Wilson, and Lieutenant Bowers. They had pitched their tent well, and it had withstood all the blizzards of an exceptionally hard winter.'
Wilson and Bowers were found in the attitude of sleep, their sleeping-bags closed over their heads as they would naturally close them.
'THE LAST REST'.
The grave of Capt. Scott, Dr. Wilson, and Lieut. Bowers.
Photo by Lieut. T. Gran.
Scott died later. He had thrown back the flaps of his sleeping-bag and opened his coat. The little wallet containing the three notebooks was under his shoulders and his arm flung across Wilson.
Among their belongings were the 35 lbs. of most important geological specimens which had been collected on the moraines of the Beardmore Glacier. At Wilson's request they had clung on to these to the very end, though disaster stared them in the face.