These fringes promise very
well--Christopher without his is blinking in the hot sun.
_Saturday, November_ 4.--Camp 2. Led march--started in what I think
will now become the settled order. Atkinson went at 8, ours at 10,
Bowers, Oates and Co. at 11.15. Just after starting picked up cheerful
note and saw cheerful notices saying all well with motors, both
going excellently. Day wrote 'Hope to meet in 80 deg. 30' (Lat.).' Poor
chap, within 2 miles he must have had to sing a different tale. It
appears they had a bad ground on the morning of the 29th. I suppose
the surface was bad and everything seemed to be going wrong. They
'dumped' a good deal of petrol and lubricant. Worse was to follow. Some
4 miles out we met a tin pathetically inscribed, 'Big end Day's motor
No. 2 cylinder broken.' Half a mile beyond, as I expected, we found
the motor, its tracking sledges and all. Notes from Evans and Day
told the tale. The only spare had been used for Lashly's machine,
and it would have taken a long time to strip Day's engine so that
it could run on three cylinders. They had decided to abandon it and
push on with the other alone. They had taken the six bags of forage
and some odds and ends, besides their petrol and lubricant. So the
dream of great help from the machines is at an end! The track of the
remaining motor goes steadily forward, but now, of course, I shall
expect to see it every hour of the march.
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