and the sun shining,—­and we have shifted the tent, dried our bags and gear a lot, and been pottering about all day.”  At this time, however, when we were at One Ton I looked upon these conditions as being a temporary cold snap:  there was no reason then to suppose these were normal March conditions in the middle of the Barrier, where no one had ever been at this time of year.  I believe now they are normal:  on the other hand, in our meteorological report Simpson argues that they were abnormal for the Barrier at this time of year.[264]

Since there was no depot of dog-food at One Ton it was not possible to go farther South (except for the one day mentioned above) without killing dogs.  My orders on this point were perfectly explicit; I saw no reason for disobeying them, and indeed it appeared that we had been wrong to hurry out so soon, before the time that Scott had reckoned that he would return, and that the Polar Party would really come in at the time Scott had calculated before starting rather than at the time we had reckoned from the data brought back by the Last Return Party.

From the particulars already given it will be seen that I had no reason to suspect that the Polar Party could be in want of food.  The Polar Party of five men had according to our rations plenty of food either on their sledge or in the depots.  In addition they had a lot of pony meat depoted at Middle Glacier Depot and onwards from there.  Though we did not know it, the death of Evans at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier provided an additional amount of food for the four men who were then left.  The full amount of oil for this food had been left in the depots; but we know now what we did not know then, that some of it had evaporated.  These matters are discussed in greater detail in the account of the return of the Polar Party and after.[265]

Thus I felt little anxiety for the Polar Party.  But I was getting anxious about my companion.  Soon after arrival at One Ton it was clear that Dimitri was feeling the cold.  He complained of his head; then his right arm and side were affected; and from this time onwards he found that he could do less and less with his right side.  Still I did not worry much about it, and my decision as to our movements was not affected by this complication.  I decided to allow eight days’ food for our return, which meant that we must start on March 10.

“March 10. Pretty cold night:  -33 deg. when we turned out at 8 A.M.  Getting our gear together, and the dogs more or less into order after their six days was cold work, and we started in minus thirties and a head wind.  The dogs were mad,—­stark, staring lunatics.  Dimitri’s team wrecked my sledge-meter, and I left it lying on the ground a mile from One Ton.  All we could do was to hang on to the sledge and let them go:  there wasn’t a chance to go back, turn them or steer them.  Dimitri broke his driving-stick:  my team fought as they went:  once I was dragged with my foot pinned under my driving-stick, which was itself jammed in the grummet:  several times I only managed to catch on anywhere:  this went on for six or seven miles, and then they got better."[266]