292 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
sledge, tent and all of us dropped about a foot, and the 
noise of it ran away for miles and miles: we listened to it 
until we began to get too cold. It must have lasted a full 
three minutes. 
In the pauses of our marching we halted in our har- 
nesses the ropes of which lay slack in the powdery snow. 
We stood panting with our backs against the mountainous 
mass of frozen gear which was our load. There was no 
wind, at any rate no more than light airs: our breath 
crackled as it froze. There was no unnecessary conversa- 
tion: I don’t know why our tongues never got frozen, but 
all my teeth, the nerves of which had been killed, split to 
pieces. We had been going perhaps three hours since 
lunch. 
“How are your feet, Cherry?”’ from Bill. 
1 Very cold.” 
“That’s all right; so are mine.” We didn’t worry to 
ask Birdie: he never had a frost-bitten foot from start to 
finish. 
Half an hour later, as we marched, Bill would ask the 
same question. I tell him that all feeling has gone: Bill still 
has some feeling in one of his but the other is lost. He 
settled we had better camp: another ghastly night ahead. 
Westarted to get out of our harnesses, while Bill, before 
doing anything else, would take the fur mitts from his hands, 
carefully shape any soft parts as they froze (generally, 
however, our mitts did not thaw on our hands), and lay 
them on the snow in front of him—two dark dots. His 
proper fur mitts were lost when the igloo roof went: these 
were the delicate dog-skin linings we had in addition, 
beautiful things to look at and to feel when new, excellent 
when dry to turn the screws of a theodolite, but too dainty 
for straps and lanyards. Just now I don’t know what he 
could have done without them. 
Working with our woollen half-mitts and mitts on our 
hands all the time, and our fur mitts over them when 
possible, we gradually got the buckles undone, and spread 
the green canvas floor-cloth on the snow. This was also 
fitted to be used as a sail, but we never could have rigged a 
