“Are you all well,” through a megaphone from the bridge.

“The Polar Party died on their return from the Pole:  we have their records.”  A pause and then a boat.

Evans, who had been to England and made a good recovery from scurvy, was in command:  with him were Pennell, Rennick, Bruce, Lillie and Drake.  They reported having had a very big gale indeed on their way home last year.

We got some apples off the ship, “beauties, I want nothing better....  Pennell is first-class, as always....”  “One notices among the ship’s men a rather unnatural way of talking:  not so much in special instances, but as a whole, contact with civilization gives it an affected sound:  I notice it in both officers and men."[359]

“January 19.  On board the Terra Nova. After 28 hours’ loading we left the old hut for good and all at 4 P.M. this afternoon.  It has been a bit of a rush and little sleep last night.  It is quite wonderful now to be travelling a day’s journey in an hour:  we went to Cape Royds in about that time and took off geological and zoological specimens.  I should like to sit up and sketch all these views, which would have meant long travelling without the ship, but I feel very tired.  The mail is almost too good for words.  Now, with the latest waltz on the gramophone, beer for dinner and apples and fresh vegetables to eat, life is more bearable than it has been for many a long weary week and month.  I leave Cape Evans with no regret:  I never want to see the place again.  The pleasant memories are all swallowed up in the bad ones."[360]

Before the ship arrived it was decided among us to urge the erection of a cross on Observation Hill to the memory of the Polar Party.  On the arrival of the ship the carpenter immediately set to work to make a great cross of jarrah wood.  There was some discussion as to the inscription, it being urged that there should be some quotation from the Bible because “the women think a lot of these things.”  But I was glad to see the concluding line of Tennyson’s “Ulysses” adopted:  “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

The open water stretched about a mile and a half south of Tent Island, and here we left the ship to sledge the cross to Hut Point at 8 A.M. on January 20.  The party consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Lashly, Crean, Debenham, Keohane and Davies, the ship’s carpenter and myself.

“Evening.  Hut Point. We had a most unpleasant experience coming in.  We struck wind and drift just about a mile from Hut Point:  then we saw there was a small thaw pool off the Point, and came out to give it a wide berth.  Atkinson put his feet down into water:  we turned sharp out, and then Crean went right in up to his arms, and we realized that the ice was not more than three or four inches of slush.  I managed to give him a hand out without the ice giving, and we went on floundering about.  Then Crean went right in again, and the sledge nearly went too:  we pulled the sledge, and the sledge pulled him out.  Except for some more soft patches that was all, but it was quite enough.  I think we got out of it most fortunately.”