There appeared
to be little hope of reaching the Hut. It was easy to sleep on in the
bag, and the weather was cruel outside. But inaction is hard to brook,
and I thought of Service's lines:

Buck up, do your damndest and fight,
It's the plugging away that will win you the day.

If I failed to reach the Hut it would be something done to reach some
prominent point likely to catch the eye of a search party, where a cairn
might be erected and our diaries cached. And so I commenced to modify
the sledge and camping gear to meet fresh requirements.

The sky remained clouded, but the wind fell off to a calm which lasted
for several hours. I took the opportunity to set to work on the sledge,
sawing it in halves with a pocket tool. A mast was made out of one of
the rails of the discarded half of the sledge and a spar was cut
from the other rail. The sledge-meter, very much battered, was
still serviceable. Lastly, the load was cut down to a minimum by the
elimination of all but the barest necessities.

Late on the evening of the 8th I took the body of Mertz, wrapped up
in his sleeping-bag, outside the tent, piled snow blocks around it and
raised a rough cross made of the two half-runners of the sledge.

On January 9 the weather was overcast and fairly thick drift was flying
in a wind reaching about fifty miles an hour. As certain matters still
required attention and my chances of re-erecting the tent were rather
doubtful, if I had decided to move on, the start was delayed.

"I read the Burial Service over Xavier this afternoon. As there is
little chance of my reaching human aid alive. I greatly regret inability
at the moment to set out the detail of coastline met with for three
hundred miles travelled and observations of glacier and ice-formations,
etc.; the most of which latter are, of course, committed to my head.

"The approximate location of the camp is latitude 68 degrees 2' S.,
longitude 145 degrees 9' E. This is dead reckoning, as the theodolite
legs have been out of action for some time, splinted together to form
tent-props. I believe the truth lies nearer latitude 67 degrees 57' S.,
longitude 145 degrees 20' E., as the wind must have drifted us to the
north."

During the afternoon I cut up Mertz's burberry jacket and roughly sewed
it to a large canvas clothes-bag, making a sail which could be readily
set or furled, so as to save delay in starting out or in camping.

January 10 was an impossible day for