THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



food early in the storm, so there was no fear of starving, 

 but as we learned afterwards he could get nothing to 

 drink and so could not eat. No one could offer to 

 change places with him, as in doing so the sleeping-bag 

 would have filled with snow, and might have blown 

 away. On Wednesday Marston dressed in his Burberries 

 and crawled down to Priestley, who reported " All well," 

 but he had had no food for twenty-four hours. Marston 

 gave him some biscuits and chocolate. On Thursday 

 morning he repMed to the hail, but he was getting further 

 and further from the tent, as every time he moved he 

 slipped a little bit down the smooth glacier. At mid- 

 day there was no reply to our hail, and we thought of 

 the precipitious ice-foot and imagined things. Joyce and 

 I dressed and went out to seek him. The drift was so 

 thick that nothing whatever could be seen, and when 

 the head was lifted to try and look the whole face and 

 eyes were instantly covered by a sheet of ice. We 

 crept about on hands and knees looking for the lost 

 man. The only chance of getting back to the tent again 

 was to steer by the wind, down the wind looking for 

 Priestley, up the wind home again. At one side the 

 sledge lay, forming a landmark, and Priestley had been 

 not very far from the far-away end. Creeping along 

 the sledge to where he had lain, I found that he was 

 not there. Joyce went a httle further to the right and 

 came upon him, all alive." 



Priestley's experiences during this period are related 

 in his diary. "I had volunteered to sleep in the bag 

 outside the tent," he wrote, "and by the time I was 

 ready to turn in the drift had started again pretty 

 badly, and the only sheltered spot I could find was at 

 the top of the hill, so I told Joyce where he would find 

 me in the morning and camped down, first luckily 

 taking the precaution to put a few cubic feet of kenyte 



SO 



