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The heavy sleeping-bags would have made our progress, encumbered as we were with our fur coats, too slow; but I had hopes that we would reach the trappers' huts that afternoon, and so decided to discard them in favour of the fur-lined sleigh-rug, which would, at least, keep Jacqueline warm.
We are now sitting in here enjoying a very excellent thick hoosh. A light has been improvised out of an old tin with methylated spirit." The party spent the next day in their sleeping-bags, while a blizzard raged outside. The weather was fine again on March 12, and they built a cairn for the depot.
We took with us several days' supply of food, a little tent, sleeping-bags, and frozen fish for the animals. I must record that a small wharf was in course of construction, and that the contractor's sign read: "Northern Exploitation Company."
The men awoke early and were so eager and impatient for their full ration on this special occasion that they could not remain in their sleeping-bags, but turned out to cook a "full hoosh breakfast" for the first time for many weeks that evening they repeated the hoosh and augmented it by cocoa with sugar in it, then four citric acid and two ginger tabloids.
The tents which had lasted so well and endured so much were torn to ribbons, with the exception of the square tent occupied by Hurley, James, and Hudson. Sleeping-bags and clothes were wringing wet, and the physical discomforts were tending to produce acute mental depression.
Christmas Eve was worse, with the temperature down to 38 degrees below zero and the wind up to eighty miles an hour in gusts, and during the greater part of Christmas Day we were all confined to our sleeping-bags and half buried in the snow that had drifted in on us.
This accident did not complete the tale of the night's misfortunes. The big eight-man tent was blown to pieces in the early morning. Some of the men who had occupied it took refuge in other tents, but several remained in their sleeping-bags under the fragments of cloth until it was time to turn out.
M. Victor is in hospital, with Madame and Mademoiselle in constant attendance. So we settle down in the chateaux, and unroll our sleeping-bags upon its dusty parquet. Occasionally we find a bed available. Then two officers take the mattress, upon the floor, and two more take what is left of the bed. French chateaux do not appear to differ much as a class.
Jaeger sleeping-bags and coats were spread over the outside of these walls, packed over with snow and securely frozen up, effectively keeping out this drift. At first all the cooking was done outside under the lee of some rocks, further protection being provided by a wall of provision-cases.
We are at No. 14 pony camp, only two pony marches from One Ton Depôt. We leave here our theodolite, a camera, and Oates' sleeping-bags. Diaries, &c., and geological specimens carried at Wilson's special request, will be found with us or on our sledge. Sunday, March 18. To-day, lunch, we are 21 miles from the depot. Ill fortune presses, but better may come.
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