I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.

R. SCOTT.

For God’s sake look after our people.

Dreaded discovery

Eight months later, in November 1912, a search party found three frozen bodies in a tent half-buried by snow. Bowers and Wilson were zipped into their sleeping bags, in the attitude of sleep. Scott apparently died after his companions did. His sleeping bag and his coat were thrown open, his diaries stuffed beneath his shoulder. His arm was stretched across the body of his friend Wilson.

The searchers covered the tent with snow, marked it with a cross made from skis, and left the dead men where they lay.