48 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[July 
oil into tins and lamps for the journey home in case our 
candles ran out, and for drying or thawing out socks and 
mits. 
We then considered matters in the light of a shortage 
of oil and absence of tent. We decided first to go as long 
as we could without a hot meal so long as the blizzard 
kept us inactive. We also saw that we could not afford 
to start our last can of oil with the vague chance of getting 
a seal and improvising a blubber stove and so staying on 
here. We still had a fill of oil in our fifth can. As for 
the tent, we believed we should at any rate find part of 
it, if only the legs, and we saw no impossibility in im- 
provising a tent cover of some sort from the canvas roof 
of our hut, even if the tent and lining were both lost. 
Lying in our bags in the hut we were very wet, and got 
wetter from the fine drift every time we moved in or 
out of them. Everything was buried in a pile of soft, 
fine drift. But we were not cold. We finished our break- 
fast on the primus when the blubber stove gave out, 
and this was our last meal for a good many hours as it 
happened. [At intervals during the next 24 hours Birdie, 
who was absolutely magnificent, was up and about, stop- 
ping up every crevice where wind or drift was working 
in with socks, mits, and anything handy. A drift hole 
was especially bad in the middle of the windward wall, 
drifting us all up lightly, and putting a lot in Birdie's 
corner. The only possible thing to do for the roof would 
have been lashings over it outside, and in that wind that 
was out of the question. Our position, with the tent 
gone, was bad.] 
