But they also had their good, or less-bad, days: such was mid-winter
night when they held food in their hands and did not want to eat it, for
they were full: or when they got through the Te Deum without a hitch: or
when they killed some penguins; or got a ration of mustard plaster from
the medical stores.

Never was a more cheerful or good-tempered party. They set out to see the
humorous side of everything, and, if they could not do so one day, at any
rate they determined to see to it the next. What is more they succeeded,
and I have never seen a company of better welded men than that which
joined us for those last two months in McMurdo Sound.

On September 30 they started home--so they called it. This meant a sledge
journey of some two hundred miles along the coast, and its possibility
depended upon the presence of sea-ice, which we have seen to have been
absent at Evans Coves. It also meant crossing the Drygalski Ice Tongue,
an obstacle which bulked very formidably in their imaginations during the
winter. They reached the last rise of this glacier in the evening of
October 10, and then saw Erebus, one hundred and fifty miles off. The
igloo and the past were behind: Cape Evans and the future were in
front--and the sea-ice was in as far as they could see.

Dickason was half crippled with dysentery when they started, but
improved. Browning, however, was still very ill, but now they were able
to eat a ration of four biscuits a day and a small amount of pemmican and
cocoa which gave him a better chance than the continual meat. As they
neared Granite Harbour, a month after starting, his condition was so
serious that they discussed leaving him there with Levick until they
could get medicine and suitable food from Cape Evans.