trying; however, there was nothing to be done but to nurse my wounded
limb and to determine that never again would I be so rash as to
run hard snow-slopes on ski.'

By March 4 the preparation of the sledge party was completed. The
party consisted of four officers, Royds, Koettlitz, Skelton and
Barne, and eight men, and was divided into two teams, each pulling
a single sledge and each assisted by four dogs. But again the want
of experience was badly felt, and in every respect the lack of system
was apparent. Though each requirement might have been remembered, all
were packed in a confused mass, and, to use a sailor's expression,
'everything was on top and nothing handy.'
[Page 62]
Once more Scott comments upon this lack of experience: 'On looking
back I am only astonished that we bought that experience so cheaply,
for clearly there were the elements of catastrophe as well as of
discomfort in the disorganized condition in which our first sledge
parties left the ship.'

The days following the departure of the sledge party were exceptionally
fine, but on Tuesday, March 11, those on board the ship woke to
find the wind blowing from the east; and in the afternoon the wind
increased, and the air was filled with thick driving snow. This
Tuesday was destined to be one of the blackest days spent by the
expedition in the Antarctic, but no suspicion that anything untoward
had happened to the sledge party arose until, at 8.30 P.M., there
was a report that four men were walking towards the ship. Then the
sense of trouble was immediate, and the first disjointed sentences
of the newcomers were enough to prove that disasters had occurred.
The men, as they emerged from their thick clothing, were seen to