OHYAT: The Slaughter of the Innocents

With the weather now merely snowing ('thick,' as they described it; a world of white with limited visibility), and four days behind schedule, the Southern Party, the dog teams, and the five remaining ponies struggled their way out of the Slough of Despond, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY. Teddy Evans describes it as "the hardest physical test we had had since the bailing out in the great gale a year ago." They were aiming for the place where Shackleton had discovered one could cross over the chasm between the ice shelf and the land, and get onto the Beardmore Glacier, which provided a clear path through the Transantarctic Mountains to the Polar Plateau.

The horses could hardly move, sank up to their bellies, and finally lay down. They had to be driven, lashed on. It was a grim business. ...
     My impressions of that day are of groping our way, for Bowers and I were pulling a light sledge ahead to make the track, through a vague white wall.* ... Hour after hour we plugged on: and we dare not halt for lunch, we knew we could never start again. After crossing many waves huge pressure ridges suddenly showed themselves all round, and we got on to a steep rise with the coastal chasm on our right hand appearing as a great dip full of enormous pressure. Scott was naturally worried about crevasses, and though we knew there was a way through, the finding of it in the gloom was most difficult. For two hours we zig-zagged about, getting forward it is true, but much bewildered, and once at any rate almost bogged. ... Scott settled to go as far as they could be induced to march, and they did wonderfully. We had never thought that they would go a mile: but painfully they marched for eleven hours without a long halt, and covered a distance which we then estimated at seven miles. But our sledge-meters were useless being clogged with the soft snow ...

– Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the Worst Journey in the World

*Cherry's and Birdie's ponies had been shot at the beginning of the blizzard

None of the men seem to have been happy about what came next, though afterward they were relieved: when they made camp ('Shambles Camp' they called it) the last five valiant ponies were shot and cut up for the dogs. 'It was a horrid business.' (Cherry-Garrard) Teddy records that some called it 'the Slaughter of the Innocents,' and that everyone had fed the ponies that last day out of their own biscuit ration.

The end of the ponies marked the end of Titus Oates' obligations on this expedition – he'd been brought on as the horse expert, and had worked miracles with the ancient and decrepit Siberian ponies that had been bought without his oversight, but now there were no more horses to be an expert on.

Oates came up to Scott as he stood in the shadow of Mount Hope. "Well! I congratulate you, Titus," said Wilson. "And I thank you, Titus," said Scott.

And that was the end of the Barrier Stage.

– Worst Journey