OHYAT: One Cause of Senile Decay

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY ...

After a 'horrid' march into a thick blizzard, the second of the 'crocks,' Silas' pony Chinaman, met his end. It's one of my favourite of Silas' journal entries because he describes it thus:

Chinaman died tonight of senile decay complicated by the presence of a bullet in the brain.

Before they'd started the journey it had been questionable whether Jehu and Chinaman would have been fit even to go; the fact they made it this far was testament to Oates' work with them over the previous winter. Chinaman had actually improved over the course of the journey, but was starting to get worn out, and while he might have been coaxed all the way to the base of the Beardmore Glacier, the dogs needed feeding.

A possible hint as to Atch's feelings about his own pony's demise might be found at the end of Silas' entry:

Would eat some of him only Atch refuses.

In his memoir, though, he says he ate him 'without compunction,' so ... maybe when Atch wasn't looking?