272 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
three eggs left, more or less whole. Both mine had burst 
in my mitts: the first | emptied out, the second I left in my 
mitt to put into the cooker ; it never got there, but on the 
return journey I had my mitts far more easily thawed out 
than Birdie’s (Bill had none) and I believe the grease in 
the egg did them good. When we got into the hollows 
under the ridge where we had to cross, it was too dark 
to do anything but feel our way. We did so over many 
crevasses, found the ridge and crept over it. Higher up we 
could see more, but to follow our tracks soon became im- 
possible, and we plugged straight ahead and luckily found 
the slope down which we had come. All day it had been 
blowing a nasty cold wind with a temperature between 
— 20° and 30°, which we felt a good deal. Now it began 
to get worse. The weather was getting thick and things 
did not look very nice when we started up to find our 
tent. Soon it was blowing force 4, and soon we missed 
our way entirely. We got right up above the patch of rocks 
which marked our igloo and only found it after a good deal 
of search. 
I have heard tell of an English officer at the Darda- 
nelles who was left, blinded, in No Man’s Land between 
the English and Turkish trenches. Moving only at night, 
and having no sense to tell him which were his own 
trenches, he was fired at by Turk and English alike as he 
groped his ghastly way to and from them. Thus he spent 
days and nights until, one night, he crawled towards the 
English trenches, to be fired at as usual. “Oh God! what 
can Ido!” some one heard him say, and he was brought in. 
Such extremity of suffering cannot be measured: mad- 
ness or death may give relief. But this I know: we on 
this journey were already beginning to think of death as 
a friend. As we groped our way back that night, sleep- 
less, icy, and dog-tired in the dark and the wind and the 
drift, a crevasse seemed almost a friendly gift. 
“Things must improve,” said Bill next day, “I think 
we reached bed-rock last night.” We hadn’t, by a long 
way. 
It was like this. 
