“We faced the blast again, but got it partially behind us on reaching the Heights.  We camped for the night under Castle Rock on an inclined slope.  It calmed down to a glorious night with a low temperature.  Crean and I lay head down hill to make Nelson and Hooper—­who had never sledged before—­more comfortable.  As a result Crean slipped half out of the tent and let in a cold stream of air under the valance, for which I was at a loss to account until the morning disclosed him thus, fast asleep of course.  It takes a lot to worry Captain Scott’s coxswain.

“We arrived at Hut Point and had a great reception there, chiefly on account of the food we brought, particularly the sugar.  We had been living on some paraffin sugar when I left before, and even this was finished.  The next day we stayed there to kill seals.  Cherry and I skinned one and then went for a walk round Cape Armitage.  It was blowing big guns off the cape, fairly fizzing in fact.  We went as far as Pram Point and then turned, coming in with it behind us.  I only had a thin balaclava and my ears were nearly nipped."[131]

* * * * *

Meanwhile those of us who had been left at Hut Point with the ponies and dogs journeyed out one afternoon to Safety Camp to get some more bales of compressed fodder.  Easter Sunday we spent in a howling blizzard, which cleared in the afternoon sufficiently to see a golden sun sinking into a sea of purple frost-smoke and drift.

I have it on record that we had tinned haddock this day for breakfast, made by Oates with great care, a biscuit and cheese hoosh for lunch, and a pemmican fry this evening, followed by cocoa with a tin of sweetened Nestle’s milk in it, truly a great luxury.  For the rest we mended our finnesko, and read Bleak House.  Meares told us how the Chinese who were going to war with the Lolos (who are one of the Eighteen tribes on the borders of Thibet and China) tied the Lolo hostage to a bench, and, having cut his throat, caught the blood which dripped from it.  Into this they dipped their flag, and then cut out the heart and liver, which the officers ate, while the men ate the rest!

The relief party arrived on April 18:  “We had spent such a happy week, just the seven of us, at the Discovery hut that I think, glad as we were to see the men, we would most of us have rather been left undisturbed, and I expected that it would mean that we should have to move homewards, as it turned out.

“Meares is to be left in charge of the party which remains, namely Forde and Keohane of the old stagers, and Nelson, Day, Lashly and Dimitri of the new-comers.  He is very amusing with the stores and is evidently afraid that the food which has just been brought in (sugar, self-raising flour, chocolate, etc.) will all be eaten up by those who have brought it.  So we have dampers without butter, and a minimum of chocolate.

“Tuesday and Tuesday night was one of our few still, cold days, nearly minus thirty.  The sea northwards from Hut Point, whence the ice had previously all gone out, froze nearly five inches by Wednesday mid-day, when we got three more seal.  Scott was evidently thinking that on Thursday, when we were to start, we might go by the sea-ice all the way—­when suddenly with no warning it silently floated out to sea."[132]