“We had our first northerly wind on the plateau to-day, and a deposit of snow crystals made the surface like sand latterly on the march.  The sledge dragged like lead.  In the evening it fell calm, and although the temperature was -16 deg. it was positively pleasant to stand about outside the tent and bask in the sun’s rays.  It was our first calm since we reached the summit too.  Our socks and other damp articles which we hang out to dry at night become immediately covered with long feathery crystals exactly like plumes.  Socks, mitts and finnesko dry splendidly up here during the night.  We have little trouble with them compared with spring and winter journeys.  I generally spread my bag out in the sun during the 11/2 hours of lunch time, which gives the reindeer hair a chance to get rid of the damage done by the deposit of breath and any perspiration during the night."[296]

Plenty of sun, heavy surfaces, iridescent clouds ... the worst windcut sastrugi I have seen, covered with bunches of crystals like gorse ... ice blink all round ... hairy faces and mouths dreadfully iced up on the march ... hot and sweaty days’ work, but sometimes cold hands in the loops of the ski sticks ... windy streaky cirrus in every direction, all thin and filmy and scrappy ... horizon clouds all being wafted about....  These are some of the impressions here and there in Wilson’s diary during the first ten days of the party’s solitary march.  On the whole he is enjoying himself, I think.

You should read Scott’s diary yourself and form your own opinions, but I think that after the Last Return Party left him there is a load off his mind.  The thing had worked so far, it was up to them now:  that great mass of figures and weights and averages, those years of preparation, those months of anxiety—­no one of them had been in vain.  They were up to date in distance, and there was a very good amount of food, probably more than was necessary to see them to the Pole and off the plateau on full rations.  Best thought of all, perhaps, the motors with their uncertainties, the ponies with their suffering, the glacier with its possibilities of disaster, all were behind:  and the two main supporting parties were safely on their way home.  Here with him was a fine party, tested and strong, and only 148 miles from the Pole.

I can see them, working with a business-like air, with no fuss and no unnecessary talk, each man knowing his job and doing it:  pitching the tent:  finishing the camp work and sitting round on their sleeping-bags while their meal was cooked:  warming their hands on their mugs:  saving a biscuit to eat when they woke in the night:  packing the sledge with a good neat stow:  marching with a solid swing—­we have seen them do it so often, and they did it jolly well.