Ten months afterwards we found their bodies.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [247] Lashly’s diary.

   [248] Lashly’s diary.

   [249] Scott’s Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 525.

   [250] Ibid. p. 521.

   [251] Scott’s Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 513.

   [252] Ibid. p. 529.

CHAPTER XII

THE POLAR JOURNEY (continued)

    THE DEVIL.  And these are the creatures in whom you discover what
    you call a Life Force!

    DON JUAN.  Yes; for now comes the most surprising part of the
    whole business.

    THE STATUE.  What’s that?

    DON JUAN.  Why, that you can make any of these cowards brave by
    simply putting an idea into his head.

THE STATUE.  Stuff!  As an old soldier I admit the cowardice:  it’s as universal as sea sickness, and matters just as little.  But that about putting an idea into a man’s head is stuff and nonsense.  In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.

DON JUAN.  That is perhaps why battles are so useless.  But men never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a universal purpose—­fighting for an idea, as they call it.

    BERNARD SHAW, Man and Superman.

IV.  RETURNING PARTIES

Two Dog Teams (Meares and Dimitri) turned back from the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier on December 11, 1911.  They reached Hut Point on January 4, 1912.

First Supporting Party (Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard, Wright, Keohane) turned back in lat. 85 deg. 15’ on December 22, 1911.  They reached Hut Point January 26, 1912.

Last Supporting Party (Lieut.  Evans, Lashly, Crean) turned back in lat. 87 deg. 32’ on January 4, 1912.  They reached Hut Point February 22, 1912.

Of the three teams which started up the Beardmore Glacier the first to return, a fortnight after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the First Supporting Party:  the second to return, a month after starting the Summit Rations, was known as the Last Supporting Party.  Of the two dog-teams under Meares, which had already turned homewards at the bottom of the glacier after having been brought forward farther than had been intended, I will speak later.[253]

I am going to say very little about the First Return Party, which consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Keohane and myself.  Atkinson was in command, and before we left Scott told him to bring the dog-teams out to meet the Polar Party if, as seemed likely, Meares returned home.  Atkinson is a naval surgeon and you will find this party referred to in Lashly’s diary as “the Doctor’s.”