Chap­ter III begins with Gore lying in his cab­in, lost in reflec­tion about his dete­ri­o­rat­ing phys­i­cal state. His mind drifts to a com­ment made by Stan­ley about “Debil­i­ty,” which describes the scurvy rav­aging the crew and leav­ing them emo­tion­al­ly frag­ile and phys­i­cal­ly inca­pac­i­tat­ed. The imagery of despair sur­round­ing him is pal­pa­ble, with men lament­ing their sep­a­ra­tion from home, deal­ing with joint pain, and suf­fer­ing from the grad­ual loss of their teeth. The weight of these afflic­tions weighs heav­i­ly on Gore, but it is the word “Moth­er” that stirs deep, painful mem­o­ries with­in him, bring­ing past wounds back to the sur­face. These emo­tion­al scars remain ten­der, as the pain of loss is com­pound­ed by the phys­i­cal decline he faces. As he grap­ples with his thoughts, the past and present col­lide, leav­ing Gore in a state of melan­cholic intro­spec­tion as his body con­tin­ues to weak­en.

While stretch­ing his fin­gers, Gore is remind­ed of a past injury, a gun acci­dent that occurred dur­ing his time with Cap­tain Stokes in Aus­tralia. The vivid mem­o­ry resurfaces—he was prepar­ing to shoot a bird dur­ing an expe­di­tion up a riv­er when a sud­den, thun­der­ous gun­shot rang out. This moment of shock freezes in his mind, leav­ing him lying in the boat beside Stokes, who appears pale and shak­en by the inci­dent. The mem­o­ry is briefly inter­rupt­ed, but it lingers in Gore’s mind, col­ored by the dark humor of the sit­u­a­tion. Gore’s awk­ward remark about hav­ing “killed the bird” prompts a rare laugh from Stokes, a fleet­ing but sig­nif­i­cant moment of cama­raderie that Gore now sore­ly miss­es. The shared laugh­ter in the face of dan­ger high­lights the deep bond between the two men, some­thing that feels dis­tant as Gore’s cur­rent iso­la­tion con­tin­ues to grow.

As Gore lies there, he longs for the warmth and vital­i­ty of Aus­tralia, yearn­ing for the live­li­ness of the land and the spir­it of explo­ration that once filled his days. He fond­ly recalls the small, triv­ial misadventures—like the mishaps with local berries—that once punc­tu­at­ed his trav­els, adding col­or and life to his expe­ri­ences. How­ev­er, the cold, bar­ren Arc­tic land­scape he now inhab­its leaves him feel­ing detached from the world around him, as he grap­ples with the harsh real­i­ty of his sur­round­ings. His thoughts turn to his fam­i­ly back in New South Wales, but he avoids dwelling on them, know­ing that such mem­o­ries might stir feel­ings of loss and long­ing that he prefers not to con­front. His body, now thin and frag­ile, feels for­eign to him, a stark con­trast to the vital­i­ty he once took for grant­ed. This phys­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion is a reminder of his mor­tal­i­ty, and though his mind longs for the warmth of home, he finds it dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile the man he once was with the per­son he’s becom­ing in this des­o­late envi­ron­ment.

Despite his weak­en­ing body, Gore is res­olute in his abil­i­ties as a hunter. He acknowl­edges that his skills remain sharp, par­tic­u­lar­ly his remark­able aim, which still offers him some sense of con­trol and pur­pose in an oth­er­wise chaot­ic and uncer­tain world. He plans to ven­ture out again the next day in hopes of secur­ing bet­ter game, a small but sig­nif­i­cant attempt to regain his strength. His mind drifts to a suc­cess­ful hunt he had at the age of twen­ty-six with his friend Robert McClure, under­scor­ing the deep sense of lone­li­ness that has over­tak­en him. His friends and com­pan­ions, once inte­gral parts of his life, have fad­ed away over time, leav­ing him to wres­tle with the soli­tude of his cur­rent exis­tence. Yet, despite this soli­tude and the con­stant phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing, Gore finds solace in the act of hunt­ing. For him, the suc­cess of a kill affirms his sense of worth and pro­vides a rare feel­ing of being loved and val­ued in a world that has become increas­ing­ly indif­fer­ent to his strug­gles. This dichotomy—his phys­i­cal decline jux­ta­posed with his endur­ing skill—captures the essence of Gore’s emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal bat­tle in the face of over­whelm­ing adver­si­ty.