SOUTH 
freezing-point, as occasionally happened, the hut became the 
drainage-pool of all the surrounding hills. Wild was the first 
to notice it by remarking one morning that his sleeping-bag 
was practically afloat. Other men examined theirs with a like 
result, so baling operations commenced forthwith. Stones 
were removed from the floor and a large hole dug, and in its 
gloomy depths the water could be seen rapidly rising. Using 
a saucepan for a baler, they baled out over 100 gallons of 
dirty water. The next day 150 gallons were removed, the 
men taking it in turns to bale at intervals during the night ; 
160 more gallons were baled out during the next twenty-four 
hours, till one man rather pathetically remarked in his diary, 
" This is what nice, mild, high temperatures mean to us : no 
wonder we prefer the cold." Eventually, by removing a portion 
of one wall a long channel was dug nearly down to the sea, 
completely solving the problem. Additional precautions were 
taken by digging away the snow which surrounded the hut 
after each blizzard, sometimes entirely obscuring it. 
A huge glacier across the bay behind the hut nearly put 
an end to the party. Enormous blocks of ice weighing many 
tons would break off and fall into the sea, the disturbance thus 
caused giving rise to great waves. One day Marston was out- 
side the hut digging tip the frozen seal for lunch with a pick, 
when a noise like an artillery barrage " startled him. Look- 
ing up he saw that one of these tremendous waves, over thirty 
feet high, was advancing rapidly across the bay, threatening 
to sweep hut and inhabitants into the sea. A hastily shouted 
warning brought the men tumbling out, but fortimately the 
loose ice which filled the bay damped the wave down so much 
that, though it flowed right under the hut, nothing was carried 
away. It was a narrow escape though, as had they been washed 
into the sea nothing could have saved them. 
Although they themselves gradually became accustomed 
to the darkness and the dirt, some entries in their diaries show 
that occasionally they could realize the conditions under which 
they were living. 
The hut grows more grimy every day. Everything is a 
sooty black. We have arrived at the limit where further in- 
228 
