As time passed on we all gradually got busy again preparing for the sledge expedition. On Tuesday, January 15th, I say: "This evening the doctor gave a lesson to Johansen and myself in bandaging and repairing broken limbs. I lay on the table and had a plaster-of-Paris bandage put round the calf of my leg, while all the crew were looking on. The very sight of this operation cannot fail to suggest unpleasant thoughts. An accident of this nature out in the polar night, with 40° to 50° of cold, would be anything but pleasant, to say nothing of how easily it might mean death to both of us. But who knows? We might manage somehow. However, such things must not be allowed to happen, and, what is more, they shall not." As January went on we could by noon just see the faint dawn of day--that day at whose sunrise we were to start. On January 18th I say: "By 9 o'clock in the morning I could already distinguish the first indications of dawn, and by noon it seemed to be getting bright; but it seems hardly credible that in a month's time there will be light enough to travel by, yet it must be so. True, February is a month which all 'experienced' people consider far too early and much too cold for travelling; hardly any one would do so in the month of March. But it cannot be helped; we have no time to waste in waiting for additional comfort if we are to make any progress before the summer, when travelling will be impossible. I am not afraid of the cold; we can always protect ourselves against that.