THE WINTER JOURNEY 205 
and thus got rid of a lot of moisture which came out as 
snow or actual knobs of ice. When we did turn our bags 
the only way was to do so directly we turned out, and even 
then you had to be quick before the bag froze. Getting out 
of the tent at night it was quite a race to get back to your 
bag before it hardened. Of course this was in the lowest 
temperatures. 
We could not burn our bags and we tried putting the 
lighted primus into them to thaw them out, but this was 
not very successful. Before this time, when it was very 
cold, we lighted the primus in the morning while we were 
still in our bags: and in the evening we kept it going 
until we were just getting or had got the mouths of our 
bags levered open. But returning we had no oil for such 
luxuries, until the last day or two. 
I do not believe that any man, however sick he is, has 
a much worse time than we had in those bags, shaking with 
cold until our backs would almost break. One of the added 
troubles which came to us on our return was the sodden 
condition of our hands in our bags at night. We had to 
wear our mitts and half-mitts, and they were as wet as they 
could be: when we got up in the morning we had washer- 
~ women’s hands—white, crinkled, sodden. ‘That was an un- 
healthy way to start the day’s work. We really wanted 
some bags of saennegrass for hands as well as feet; one of 
the blessings of that kind of bag being that you can shake 
the moisture from it: but we only had enough for our 
wretched feet. 
The horrors of that return journey are blurred to my 
memory and I know they were blurred to my body at the 
time. I think this applies to all of us, for we were much 
weakened and callous. The day we got down to the pen- 
guins I had not cared whether I fell into a crevasse or not. 
We had been through a great deal since then. I know that 
we slept on the march; for I woke up when I bumped 
against Birdie, and Birdie woke when he bumped against 
me. I think Bill steering out in front managed to keep 
awake. I know we fell asleep if we waited in the compara- 
tively warm tent when the primus was alight—with our 
