Scott's party faced extremely difficult conditions on the return journey, mainly due to the exceptionally adverse weather, low food supply, injuries sustained from falls, and the effects of frostbite all slowing their progress. On 17 February 1912, near the foot of the Beardmore glacier, Edgar Evans died, suspected by his companions to be the result of a blow to his head suffered during a fall into a crevasse a few days earlier.[3] Oates' feet had become severely frostbitten and it has been suggested (but never evidenced) that his war wound had re-opened by the side-effects of scurvy. He was certainly weakening faster than the others. His slower progress, coupled with the unwillingness of his three remaining companions to leave him, was causing the party to fall behind schedule. With an average of 65 miles between the pre-laid food depots and only a week's worth of food and fuel provided by each depot, they needed to maintain a march of over 9 miles a day in order to have full rations for the final 400 miles of their return journey across the Ross Ice Shelf. However, 9 miles was about their best progress any day and this had lately reduced to sometimes only 3 miles a day due to Oates' worsening condition. On 15 March, he told his companions that he could not go on and proposed that they leave him in his sleeping-bag which they refused to do. He managed a few more miles that day but his condition worsened that night. Waking on the morning of 16 March[4] and recognising the need to sacrifice himself in order to give the others a chance of survival, Scott wrote that Oates said to them "I am just going outside and may be some time."[5] Forgoing the pain and effort of putting his boots on,[6] he walked out of the tent into a blizzard and minus 40 °F temperatures to his death. Scott also wrote in his diary, "We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman".
