<P> Oates' slower progress was causing the party to fall behind schedule . With an average of 65 miles (105 km) between the pre-laid food depots--which each provided a week's food and fuel--they needed to cover 9 miles (14 km) per day to have full rations for the final 400 miles (640 km) across the Ross Ice Shelf . However, 9 miles (14 km) was about their best progress on any day and this had lately reduced to sometimes only 3 miles (4.8 km) due to Oates' worsening condition . On 15 March, Oates 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 . </P> <P> Robert Falcon Scott </P> <P> On the morning of 17 March (or possibly 16 March--Scott was unsure) Oates walked out of the tent into a − 40 ° F (− 40 ° C) blizzard to his death . Scott 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 ." According to Scott's diary, as Oates left the tent he said, "I am just going outside and may be some time", though Edward Adrian Wilson, who was also present, made no reference to this in his own diary or the letters to Oates' mother . </P> <P> Scott, Wilson and Bowers continued onwards for a further 20 miles (32 km) towards the' One Ton' food depot that could save them but were halted at latitude 79 ° 40'S by a fierce blizzard on 20 March . Trapped in their tent and too weak and cold to continue, they died nine days later, eleven miles short of their objective . Their frozen bodies were discovered by a search party on 12 November 1912; Oates' body was never found . Near where he was presumed to have died, the search party erected a cairn and cross bearing the inscription; "Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L.E.G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons . In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships ." </P>

Who said i'm going outside i may be some time
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