He was dead and buried when
we got there. We found that Scott had that morning seen the open
water up to the Barrier edge and had been in a dreadful state of
mind, thinking that Meares and I, as well as the whole pony party,
had gone out into the Strait on floating ice. He was therefore much
relieved when we arrived and he learned for the first time where the
pony party was trying to get to fast ice again. We were now given
some food, which we badly wanted, and while we were eating we saw in
the far distance a single man coming hurriedly along the edge of the
Barrier ice from the direction of the catastrophe party and towards
our camp. Gran went off on ski to meet him, and when he arrived we
found it was Crean, who had been sent off by Bowers with a note,
unencumbered otherwise, to jump from one piece of floating ice to
another until he reached the fast edge of the Barrier in order to
let Capt. Scott know what had happened. This he did, of course not
knowing that we or anyone else had seen him go adrift, and being
unable to leave the ponies and all his loaded sledges himself. Crean
had considerable difficulty and ran a pretty good risk in doing this,
but succeeded all right. There were now Scott, Oates, Crean, Gran,
Meares, and myself here and only three sleeping-bags, so the three
first remained to see if they could help Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, and
the ponies, while Meares, Gran, and I returned to look after our dogs
at Hut Point.
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