We had now definitely located the South Pole on the highest plateau in the world, and our geological and meteorological work would be of the greatest use to science. But all this was not the Pole. And how sadly I realised that I need not say.
Still, man could only do his best, and after ten hours' struggle against the strongest forces of nature, one pannikin of food with two biscuits and a cup of cocoa did but little to warm and comfort and satisfy him.
I resolved to make a depot on the 4th and then to dash for the Pole, and on that day we left a depot on the great wide plateau, a risk which nothing but the circumstances could justify, but to which my companions agreed with the regardlessness of self which they had always shown.
Pathetically small did the bamboo look which we left to mark the little stock of provisions—indeed, we lost sight of it in half an hour, and had to trust that our footprints in the snow would guide us back again to the depot.
By night, however, I knew—and had to acknowledge—that our limit was almost reached. We had only been carrying 70 lb. per man since we had made our last depot, but it was harder work than the 100 odd lb. we had been pulling the day before, and far harder than 250 lb. had seemed some three weeks previously.
Nothing could more clearly have convinced me of our failing strength, even if I could have shut my eyes to the facts that our faces were cut, our feet and hands always on the verge of frost-bite, our boots nearly worn out, and that when we got up in the morning out of the wet bag, our Burberries became immediately like a coat of mail, and also that our heads and beards got iced up with the moisture when breathing on the march.
What we would have given at that time for a pair of scissors to trim our beards I should not like to say, and had we known that we were going to experience such cold weather we should certainly have kept a pair.
The main things, indeed, against us were the altitude and ice-cold wind. Nature had declared against us, and at the best I had to abandon all hopes of getting nearer than 100 geographical miles to the Pole.
During the next day we were absolutely obliged to increase our food if we were to get on at all, for our temperatures were far below normal, and I had such a headache that I should be sorry for any living man who had to endure such pain.
Never once had the thermometer been above zero since we had been on to the plateau, though this was the height of summer, and on January 6 we had to endure 57° of frost with a strong blizzard and high drift.