United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The temperature is low for a blizzard, but we are very comfortable in our double tent and the cold snow is not sticky and not easily carried into the tent, so that the sleeping-bags remain in good condition. I hope we shall be able to start in the morning, but fear that a disturbance of this sort may last longer than our local storm. It is quite impossible to speak too highly of my companions.
There, in a log-cabin among the pines, we passed unbelievably cherished days work a-plenty, play a-plenty, and the family together day in, day out. There was one little extra trip he got in with the two sons, for which I am so thankful. The three of them went off with their sleeping-bags and rods for two days, leaving "the girls" behind. Each son caught his first trout with a fly.
The dogs had been showing signs of distress that afternoon, pulling us more and more reluctantly, and walking with drooping ears and muzzles depressed. I hammered in the pegs and built a fire with dry boughs, collecting a quantity of wood sufficient to last until morning. Then Jacqueline made tea, and we ate our supper and crept into our sleeping-bags and lay down.
The exhausted men had to be wrapped up carefully in their blankets, which were sewed closely round their limbs, then packed in their sleeping-bags and covered completely up, only a small hole being left opposite their mouths to breathe through, and after that they were lashed side by side on the small sledge.
The worst of camping is the poor dogs and our weak condition, which means we have to get out of our wet sleeping-bags and have another half cup of tea without working for it. With scrapings from dog-tank it is a very scanty meal.
The temperature usually dropped below zero, but every opportunity was taken during these fine, sunny days to partially dry our sleeping-bags and other gear, which had become sodden through our body-heat having thawed the snow which had drifted in on to them during the blizzard. The bright sun seemed to put new heart into all.
On Monday, May 22, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Atkinson, P.O. Evans and Clissold went off to Cape Royds with a go-cart which consisted of a framework of steel tubing supported on four bicycle wheels and sleeping-bags, a cooker and a small quantity of provisions.
The corrugated iron above our heads admitted a draught at only one corner; as our sleeping-bags were spread out on a couple of spring mattresses, moved by some one at some time from some neighbouring homestead, we could not complain of lack of comfort. April 24 was the last day on which our Brigade awaited and prepared to meet a Boche attack of the first magnitude.
The men, except the watch, crouched and huddled in the bottom of the boat, getting what little warmth they could from the soaking sleeping-bags and each other's bodies. Harder and harder blew the wind and fiercer and fiercer grew the sea. The boat plunged heavily through the squalls and came up to the wind, the sail shaking in the stiffest gusts.
But we had such yarns of home, such plans were made for next Christmas, and after all we got down our fur sleeping-bags, and for a change we were quite warm owing to the full amount of food which we so sorely needed.
Word Of The Day