We therefore
had our supper in the tent and were turning in between eleven and
twelve when I had a last look to see where they were and found they
had camped as it appeared to me on safe Barrier ice, the only safe
thing they could have done. They were now about six miles away from
us, and it was lucky that I had my Goerz glasses with me so that we
could follow their movements. Now as everything looked all right,
Meares and I turned in and slept. At 5 A.M. I awoke, and as I felt
uneasy about the party I went out and along the Gap to where we could
see their camp, and I was horrified to see that the whole of the sea
ice was now on the move and that it had broken up for miles further
than when we turned in and right back past where they had camped,
and that the pony party was now, as we could see, adrift on a floe
and separated by open water and a lot of drifting ice from the edge
of the fast Barrier ice. We could see with our glasses that they
were running the ponies and sledges over as quickly as possible from
floe to floe whenever they could, trying to draw nearer to the safe
Barrier ice again. The whole Strait was now open water to the N. of
Cape Armitage, with the frost smoke rising everywhere from it, and
full of pieces of floating ice, all going up N. to Ross Sea.
_March_ 1. _Ash Wednesday_. The question for us was whether we could
do anything to help them. There was no boat anywhere and there was
no one to consult with, for everyone was on the floating floe as we
believed, except Teddie Evans, Forde, and Keohane, who with one pony
were on their way back from Corner Camp.
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