t, lying head
towards the door. .. Bowers and Wilson seem to have passed away in a
kind of sleep.... Concerning our unlucky Polar Party we learned that
Petty Officer Evans died at the Lower Glacier Depot; he was done, and
had fallen coming down the Glacier: death was the result of a
concussion of the brain. On the Barrier they met with extreme low
temperatures. Down to -50 degrees in the night time for weeks, also
head wind.

"'Soldier' had got his feet frost-bitten badly and suffered
enormously. He understood that the salvation of the party depended on
his death--but as death would not relieve him he went out of the tent
in a blizzard to meet it. The three others arrived here at this camp
March 21 with food for two days and fuel for one meal. A terrible
blizzard prevented them from getting in, and on March 29 all was
finished.

"Scott writes in his diary: 'There is no more hope, and so God look
after our people....' All this only a day's march from plenty.... We
buried them this morning, a solemn undertaking. How strange it was to
see men bareheaded whilst the wind blew with the thermometer at -20
degrees. We are now going to look for 'Soldier' and then return to
look for Campbell. I must say our Expedition is not given much luck
... the sun is shining beautifully in this place of death: over the
Bluff this morning stood a distinct cross in clouds."

It continues: "November 12, Lunch time:

"We have built a cairn--a 12-foot cairn--and put a cross made of a pair
of skis on it...." Gran says later, and it is worth quoting: "When I saw
those three poor souls the other day, I just felt that I envied them.
They died having done something great. How hard death must be for those
who meet it having done nothing."

Atkinson in his account says:

"We recovered all their gear and dug out the sledge with their
belongings on it. Amongst these were 35 lb. of very important
geological specimens which had been collected on the moraines of the
Beardmore Glacier: at Doctor Wilson's request they had stuck to these
up to the very end, even when disaster stared them in the face and
they knew that the specimens were so much weight added to what they
had to pull...."

The following record was left:

"November 12, 1912, Latitude 79 degrees, 50 minutes, South. This cross
and cairn are erected over the bodies of Captain Scott, C.V.O., R.N.,