We heard the baying of the dogs, first once, then again.  Lashly, who was lying down by my side quietly talking, sprang to his feet, looked out, and saw!

They galloped right up to the tent door, and the leader, a beautiful gray dog named Krisravitsa, seemed to understand the situation, for he came right into the tent and licked my hands and face.  I put my poor weak hands up and gripped his furry ears.  Perhaps to hide my feelings I kissed his old hairy, Siberian face with the kiss that was meant for Lashly.  We were both dreadfully affected at our rescue.

Atkinson and the Russian dog-boy, Dimitri, had come out hot-foot to save us, and of all men in the Expedition none could have been better chosen than “Little Aitch,” our clever naval doctor.  After resting his dogs and feeding me with carefully prepared foodstuffs, he got me on one sledge and Lashly on the other, the dogs were given their head, and in little more than three hours we covered the thirty-five miles into Hut Point, where I was glad to see Crean’s face once more and to hear first hand about his march.  It had taken him eighteen hours’ plodding through those awful snows from our camp to Hut Point, where fortunately he met Atkinson and Dimitri and told them of my condition.

After the Expedition was over the King gave Lashly and Crean the Albert Medal for their bravery in helping me win through.

It is little enough tribute that I have dedicated this book to these two gallant fellows.

CHAPTER XVI

THE POLE ATTAINED—­SCOTT’S LAST MARCHES

The details of Scott’s final march to the Pole, and the heartrending account of his homeward journey, of Evans’s sad death, of Oates’s noble sacrifice, and of the martyr like end of Wilson, Bowers, and Scott himself have been published throughout the length and breadth of the civilised world.  In “Scott’s Last Expedition”—­Vol.  I. the great explorer’s journals are practically reproduced in their entirety.  Mr. Leonard Huxley, who arranged them in 1913, had had to do with Scott’s first work, “The Voyage of the ’Discovery’,” and, as Mr. Huxley has said, these two works needed but little editing.  Scott’s last fine book was written as he went along, and those of us who have survived the Expedition and the Great War, and we are few, are more than proud to count ourselves among the company he chose.

A synopsis of his march from 87 degrees 35 minutes to the South Pole, and a recapitulation of the events which marked the homeward march must certainly find their way into this book, which is after all only the husk of the real story.

However much the story is retold—­and it has been retold by members of the Expedition as well as by others—­the re-telling will never approach the story as told by Scott himself:  for the kernel one must turn to Volume I, of “Scott’s Last Expedition”:  However, perhaps I can give something of interest; here is what little Bowers says in extracts from his diary, given me by his mother: