At the Magnetic Pole we were fully 260 statute miles distant, as the skua gull flies, from our depot, and as we had knocked off eleven of these miles on the previous day we still had 249 miles to cover. If, then we were to reach the Drygalski depot by February 1, we had only fifteen days in which to do it, and we should have to average sixteen and two-third miles a day in order to reach the coast in the time specified.
This, of course, did not allow for any delay from blizzards, and we knew from the direction of the sastrugi during our last few days' march that the prevailing direction of the blizzards was likely to be exactly in our teeth. The prospect, therefore, of reaching our depot in the specified time did not appear to be bright.
Ready to start Home. (See page 233)
On starting, however, on the 17th we had most glorious weather, and the wind which had helped us towards the Pole turned round and helped us away from it. In spite of our late start we sledged 16 miles, and on the following day, although Mawson's left leg was paining him, we covered practically the same distance.
The 19th saw us still keeping up the same rate of progress, but owing to some miscalculation of mine we discovered that we had no tea for this week, our sixth week out, unless we took it out of the tea-bag for the seventh week. Accordingly we halved the tea in the seventh week bag, and determined to collect our old tea-bags at each camp as we passed it, and to boil these bags together with the small pittance of fresh tea.
As we progressed coastwards we soon had quite an imposing collection of muslin bags with old tea leaves, and with the thorough boiling they got there was a strong flavour of muslin added to that of old tea. But nevertheless we considered that this drink was nectar.
In view of the steady sixteen miles a day that we were doing Mawson proposed on the 20th that we should return to nearly full rations, a proposal which was hailed with delight, for we were becoming very exhausted through insufficient food.
Up to that date we had been able still to follow our old sledge tracks, which was a great blessing when the magnetic needle was of so little use to us. But on the following days we, lost these tracks, and had a great deal of pie-crust snow to cross, which made our work terribly fatiguing.
However, we managed to keep up our sixteen miles per day, and on January 24 we were cheered by sighting Mount Baxter. Towards evening we discussed whether we were following approximately our old out-going tracks. Mackay thought we were nearer to the mountain than before, I thought we were farther to the south-west, Mawson, who was leading, said that we were pretty well on our old course. Just then I discovered that we were actually on our old tracks which showed up plainly for a short distance, and which were striking evidence of Mawson's skill as a navigator.