Bowers and Wilson were sleeping in their bags.  Scott had thrown back the flaps of his bag at the end.  His left hand was stretched over Wilson, his lifelong friend.  Beneath the head of his bag, between the bag and the floor-cloth, was the green wallet in which he carried his diary.  The brown books of diary were inside:  and on the floor-cloth were some letters.

Everything was tidy.  The tent had been pitched as well as ever, with the door facing down the sastrugi, the bamboos with a good spread, the tent itself taut and shipshape.  There was no snow inside the inner lining.  There were some loose pannikins from the cooker, the ordinary tent gear, the personal belongings and a few more letters and records—­personal and scientific.  Near Scott was a lamp formed from a tin and some lamp wick off a finnesko.  It had been used to burn the little methylated spirit which remained.  I think that Scott had used it to help him to write up to the end.  I feel sure that he had died last—­and once I had thought that he would not go so far as some of the others.  We never realized how strong that man was, mentally and physically, until now.

We sorted out the gear, records, papers, diaries, spare clothing, letters, chronometers, finnesko, socks, a flag.  There was even a book which I had lent Bill for the journey—­and he had brought it back.  Somehow we learnt that Amundsen had been to the Pole, and that they too had been to the Pole, and both items of news seemed to be of no importance whatever.  There was a letter there from Amundsen to King Haakon.  There were the personal chatty little notes we had left for them on the Beardmore—­how much more important to us than all the royal letters in the world.

We dug down the bamboo which had brought us to this place.  It led to the sledge, many feet down, and had been rigged there as a mast.  And on the sledge were some more odds and ends—­a piece of paper from the biscuit box:  Bowers’ meteorological log:  and the geological specimens, thirty pounds of them, all of the first importance.  Drifted over also were the harnesses, ski and ski-sticks.

Hour after hour, so it seemed to me, Atkinson sat in our tent and read.  The finder was to read the diary and then it was to be brought home—­these were Scott’s instructions written on the cover.  But Atkinson said he was only going to read sufficient to know what had happened—­and after that they were brought home unopened and unread.  When he had the outline we all gathered together and he read to us the Message to the Public, and the account of Oates’ death, which Scott had expressly wished to be known.

We never moved them.  We took the bamboos of the tent away, and the tent itself covered them.  And over them we built the cairn.

I do not know how long we were there, but when all was finished, and the chapter of Corinthians had been read, it was midnight of some day.  The sun was dipping low above the Pole, the Barrier was almost in shadow.  And the sky was blazing—­sheets and sheets of iridescent clouds.  The cairn and Cross stood dark against a glory of burnished gold.