of snow which bore down on the canvas.  The blizzard on the second day pursued its course with unabated violence, the temperature increased, however, and we experienced driving sleet.  The tent floor cloths had pools of water on them, and water dripped on our faces as we lay in our sleeping-bags.  Outside the scene was miserable enough, the poor ponies cowering behind their snow walls the picture of misery.  Their more fortunate companions, the dogs, lay curled in snug balls covered in snow and apparently oblivious to the inclemency of the weather.  Our lunch at 5.30 broke the monotony of the day.

We had supper somewhere near 9 p.m. and then slept again.

December 6 found still greater discomfort, for we had sleet and actually rain alternating.  The wind continued and ploughed and furrowed the surface into a mash.  Our tents became so drifted up that we had hardly room to lie down in our bags.  I fancied the man-haulers were better off than the other tents through having made a better spread, but no doubt each tent company was sorrier for the others than for itself.  We occasionally got out of our bags to clear up as far as we were able, but we couldn’t sit around and look foolish, so when not cooking and eating we spent our time in the now saturated bags.  The temperature rose above freezing point, and the Barrier surface was 18 inches deep in slush.  Water percolated everywhere, trickling down the tent poles and dripping constantly at the tent door.

We caught this water in the aluminium tray of our cooker.

The ponies arrived at the state of having to be dug out every now and again.  They were wretchedness itself, standing heads down, feet together, knees bent, the picture of despair.  Hard and cruel as it may seem, it was planned that we should keep them alive, ekeing out their fodder until December 9, when it was proposed that we should use them to drag our loads for 12 miles and shoot them, the last pound of work extracted from the wretched little creatures.

I am ashamed to say I was guilty of an unuttered complaint after visiting the ponies, for I wrote in my diary for December 6 concerning the five remaining Siberian ponies: 

“I think it would be fairer to shoot them now, far what is a possible 12 miles’ help?  We could now, pulling 200 lb. per man, start off with the proper man-hauling parties and our total weights, so why keep these wretched animals starving and shivering in the blizzard on a mere chance of their being able to give us a little drag?  Why, our party have never been out of harness for nearly 400 miles, so why should not the other eight men buckle to and do some dragging instead of saving work in halfpenny numbers?”

Still, it is worthy of mention that on the day the ponies did their last march every man amongst their leaders gave half his biscuit ration to his little animal.