Its light is very faint, pale and wan, scarcely enough to enliven the icy air; the oscillating waves in the apparatus hardly produce any livelier signals, but the mere sight of the sun is cheering. The expedition is feverishly equipped to make use of the short span of light without delay, the light that means spring, summer and autumn in one, and in what, by our milder standards, would still be the depths of a bitter winter. The motor sledges race ahead. After them come the sledges drawn by Siberian ponies and dogs. The route has been carefully divided up into stages; a depot is set up at the end of every two days’ journey to store new clothing and provisions for the return journey, and, most important of all, paraffin—condensed warmth in the endless frost. They move forward together, so as to return gradually in single groups, thus leaving behind the maximum load, the freshest draught animals and the best sledges for the final group, the chosen conquerors of the Pole.

The plan has been thought out in a masterly manner, even foreseeing accidents in detail. And there are indeed accidents. After two days’ journey the motor sledges break down and have to be left lying there, useless ballast. The ponies are not as tough as they might have expected either, but in this case organic triumphs over technical equipment: those that have to be shot provide the dogs with welcome, warm nourishment rich in blood to give them new energy.

They set out in separate groups on 1st November 1911. The photographs they took show the strange caravan consisting of first thirty, then twenty, then ten and finally only five men making their way through the white wilderness of a lifeless, primeval world. There is always a man going ahead, muffled up in furs and fabric, a being of wild, barbaric appearance with only his eyes and his beard showing. His hand, gloved in fur, holds a pony by the halter as it drags his heavily laden sledge along, and behind him comes another man in the same clothing and with the same attitude, followed by yet another, twenty black dots moving on in a line in that endless, dazzling white. At night they huddle in their tents, erecting ramparts of snow in the direction from which the wind is blowing to protect the ponies, and in the morning the march begins again, monotonous and dreary. They move through the icy air as it drinks human breath for the first time in millennia.

But there is more cause for concern. The weather remains poor: instead of going forty kilometres they can sometimes make only thirty, and every day is precious now they know that someone else is advancing towards the same destination from the other direction. Every small incident here becomes dangerous. A dog has run away, a pony will not eat—all these things are alarming, because values change so terrifyingly in this wilderness. The worth of every living creature here is multiplied by a thousand, is even irreplaceable. Immortality may depend on the four hooves of a single pony, a cloudy sky with a storm coming may prevent something for ever. And the men’s own health is beginning to deteriorate: some have snow blindness, others have frostbitten limbs, the ponies are getting wearier all the time, and have to be kept short of food; and finally, just before the Beardmore Glacier, they collapse. The men have to do their sad duty: these brave animals, who have become their friends over two years here in isolation, and accordingly companionship, whom everyone knows by name and who have had affection lavished on them, must be killed. They call this sad place “Shambles Camp” because of the butchery that occurred there. Some members of the expedition split off at this bloodstained place and go back; the others brace themselves to make the last effort, the cruel way over the glacier, that dangerous wall of ice that surrounds the Pole, a wall that only the fire of a passionate human will can destroy.

The distance they march in a day is getting less and less, for the snow here forms a granulated crust, with the result that they have to haul the sledges rather than pull them along. The hard ice cuts the runners, the soft ice rubs the men’s feet sore as they walk through its sandy consistency. But they do not give up. On 30th December they have reached 87 degrees latitude, Shackleton’s ultimate point. Here the last group must turn back, leaving only five chosen members of the expedition to go on to the Pole. Scott looks at that last group. They dare not protest, but their hearts are heavy to think they must turn back so close to the destination and leave the glory of having seen the Pole first to their companions. But the dice have been cast.