The wind all the time turned our breath into cakes of ice on our beards.  Taking sights when we stopped was a bitterly cold job:  fingers had to be bared to work the little theodolite screws, and in the biting wind one’s finger-tips soon went.  Over 16 miles were laid behind us on Christmas Eve when we reached Latitude 85 degrees 35 minutes S., Longitude 159 degrees 8 minutes E. I obtained the variation of the compass here—­179 degrees 35 minutes E., so that we were between the Magnetic and Geographical Poles.

The temperature down to 10 degrees below zero made observing unpleasant, when one had cooled down and lost vitality at the end of the day’s march.

Christmas Day, 1911, found our two tiny green tents pitched on the King Edward VII.  Plateau—­the only objects that broke the monotony of the great white glittering waste that stretches from the Beardmore Glacier Head to the South Pole.  A light wind was blowing from the South, and little whirls of fine snow, as fine as dust, would occasionally sweep round the tents and along the sides of the sledge runners, streaming away almost like smoke to the Northward.  Inside the tents breathing heavily were our eight sleeping figures—­in these little canvas shelters soon after 4 a.m. the sleepers became restless and occasionally one would wake, glance at one’s watch, and doze again.  Exactly at 5 a.m. our leader shouted “Evans,” and both of us of that name replied, “Right-o, sir.”

Immediately all was bustle, we scrambled out of our sleeping-bags, only the cook remaining in each tent.  The others with frantic haste filled the aluminium cookers with the gritty snow that here lay hard and windswept.  The cookers filled and passed in, we, gathered socks, finnesko, and putties off the clothes lines which we had rigged between the ski which struck upright in the snow to save them from being drifted over in the night.  The indefatigable Bowers swung his thermometer in the shade until it refused to register any lower, glanced at the clouds, made a note or two in his miniature meteorological log book, and then blew on his tingling fingers, noted the direction of the wind, and ran to our tent.  Inside all had lashed up their bags and converted them into seats, the primus stove burnt with a curious low roar, and peculiar smell of paraffin permeated the tent.  By the time we had changed our footgear the savoury smell of the pemmican proclaimed that breakfast was ready.  The meal was eaten with the same haste that had already made itself apparent.

A very short smoke sufficed, and Captain Scott gave the signal to strike camp.  Out went everything through the little round door, down came both tents, all was packed in a jiffy on the two 12-foot sledges, each team endeavouring to be first, and in an incredibly short space of time both teams swung Southward, keeping step, and with every appearance of perfect health.  But a close observer, a man trained to watch over men’s health, over athletes training, perhaps, would have seem something amiss.