It was drifted up some 2-3 feet to windward.  Just by the side two pairs of ski sticks, or the topmost half of them, appeared over the snow, and a bamboo which proved to be the mast of the sledge.

Their story I am not going to try and put down.  They got to this point on March 21, and on the 29th all was over.

Nor will I try and put down what there was in that tent.  Scott lay in the centre, Bill on his left, with his head towards the door, and Birdie on his right, lying with his feet towards the door.

Bill especially had died very quietly with his hands folded over his chest.  Birdie also quietly.

Oates’ death was a very fine one.  We go on to-morrow to try and find his body.  He was glad that his regiment would be proud of him.

They reached the Pole a month after Amundsen.

We have everything—­records, diaries, etc.  They have among other things several rolls of photographs, a meteorological log kept up to March 13, and, considering all things, a great many geological specimens. And they have stuck to everything. It is magnificent that men in such case should go on pulling everything that they have died to gain.  I think they realized their coming end a long time before.  By Scott’s head was tobacco:  there is also a bag of tea.

Atkinson gathered every one together and read to them the account of Oates’ death given in Scott’s Diary:  Scott expressly states that he wished it known.  His (Scott’s) last words are: 

“For God’s sake take care of our people.”

Then Atkinson read the lesson from the Burial Service from Corinthians.  Perhaps it has never been read in a more magnificent cathedral and under more impressive circumstances—­for it is a grave which kings must envy.  Then some prayers from the Burial Service:  and there with the floor-cloth under them and the tent above we buried them in their sleeping-bags—­and surely their work has not been in vain.[291]

That scene can never leave my memory.  We with the dogs had seen Wright turn away from the course by himself and the mule party swerve right-handed ahead of us.  He had seen what he thought was a cairn, and then something looking black by its side.  A vague kind of wonder gradually gave way to a real alarm.  We came up to them all halted.  Wright came across to us.  ‘It is the tent.’  I do not know how he knew.  Just a waste of snow:  to our right the remains of one of last year’s cairns, a mere mound:  and then three feet of bamboo sticking quite alone out of the snow:  and then another mound, of snow, perhaps a trifle more pointed.  We walked up to it.  I do not think we quite realized—­not for very long—­but some one reached up to a projection of snow, and brushed it away.  The green flap of the ventilator of the tent appeared, and we knew that the door was below.

Two of us entered, through the funnel of the outer tent, and through the bamboos on which was stretched the lining of the inner tent.  There was some snow—­not much—­between the two linings.  But inside we could see nothing—­the snow had drifted out the light.  There was nothing to do but to dig the tent out.  Soon we could see the outlines.  There were three men here.