191 ij THE TENT BLOWN AWAY 45 
overcast. When I turned out three or four hours later 
there was still no wind; but it came on to blow suddenly 
soon after 3 a.m., and blew heavily from the S. with little 
drift at first. 
Saturday^ July 22, 191 1. — By 6.30 a.m. it was blowing 
force 9 to ID from the S.S.W., with heavy drift and wind 
in strong gusts, and when Bowers turned out he found 
the tent had disappeared, legs, lining, cover and all, leaving 
the cooker and all the gear we had left in it overnight 
on the ground. The drift was now very thick and there 
was nothing to be done but to collect the gear, which 
Bowers and Cherry did and passed it in to me in the hut. 
Very little of the gear was lost. All our finnesko were 
there and were recovered, as well as a quantity of smaller 
gear. The only losses were the two flat parts of the cooker, 
which we never found afterwards. 
[We were woken up by Birdie shouting through the 
door, ' Bill, Bill, the tent has gone.' I got out, helped 
Birdie, and passed the gear which had been in the tent 
into the igloo, where Bill took it. It was impossible to 
stand against the wind : Birdie was blown right over ; 
each time we got something it was a fight to get the three 
or four yards to the igloo door : if the wind had started 
us down the slope nothing would have stopped us. The 
place where the tent had been was littered with gear. 
When we came to reckon up afterwards we had every- 
thing except the bottom piece of the cooker and the top 
of the outer cooker. The former was left on the top of 
the cooker, the latter was in its groove. We never 
regained them. The most wonderful thing of all was 
