I9II] RECOVERY OF THE TENT 51 
wind had dropped to force 2. At 10 a.m. it was about 
force 3, and we awaited tlie moment when there would 
be light enough for us to look for our tent. Meanwhile 
Bowers suggested an al fresco meal under the floorcloth 
as we sat in our bags. We lit the primus and got the 
cooker going and had a good hot meal, the first for 48 
hours, the tent floorcloth resting on our heads. 
As it was still dark when we had finished we lay in 
our bags again for a bit. Daylight appeared, and we at 
once turned out, and it was by no means reassuring to 
find that the weather in the south still looked as bad 
and thick as it possibly could. We therefore lost no 
time at all in getting away down wind to look for the 
tent. Everywhere we found shreds of green canvas 
roof the size of a pocket-handkerchief, but not a sign of 
the tent, until a loud shout from Bowers, who had gone 
more east to the top of a ridge than Cherry and I, told 
us he had seen it. He hurried down, and slid about a 
hundred yards down a hard snow slope, sitting in his 
haste, and there we joined him where he had found the 
whole tent hardly damaged at all, a quarter of a mile 
from where we had pitched it. One of the poles had 
been twisted right out of the cap, and the lower stops 
of the tent lining had all carried away more or less, but 
the tent itself was intact and untorn. 
We brought it back, pitched it in the old spot in the 
snow hollow below our hut, and then brought down our 
bags and cooker and all essential gear, momentarily ex- 
pecting the weather to break on us again. It looked as 
thick as could be and close at hand in the south. 
E 2 
