et some seal
meat and ice and prepare a meal. Mr. Evans is alright and asleep. We are
looking for a mail now. How funny we should always be looking for
something else, now we are safe.
[End of Lashly's Diary.]
* * * * *
Crean has told me the story of his walk as follows:
He started at 10 on Sunday morning and "the surface was good, very good
surface indeed," and he went about sixteen miles before he stopped. Good
clear weather. He had three biscuits and two sticks of chocolate. He
stopped about five minutes, sitting on the snow, and ate two biscuits and
the chocolate, and put one biscuit back in his pocket. He was quite warm
and not sleepy.
He carried on just the same and passed Safety Camp on his right some five
hours later, and thinks it was about twelve-thirty on Monday morning that
he reached the edge of the Barrier, tired, getting cold in the back and
the weather coming on thick. It was bright behind him but it was coming
over the Bluff, and White Island was obscured though he could still see
Cape Armitage and Castle Rock. He slipped a lot on the sea-ice, having
several falls on to his back and it was getting thicker all the time. At
the Barrier edge there was a light wind, now it was blowing a strong
wind, drifting and snowing. He made for the Gap and could not get up at
first. To avoid taking a lot out of himself he started to go round Cape
Armitage; but soon felt slush coming through his finnesko (he had no
crampons) and made back for the Gap. He climbed up to the left of the Gap
and climbed along the side of Observation Hill to avoid the slippery ice.
When he got to the top it was still clear enough to see vaguely the
outline of Hut Point, but he could see no sledges nor dogs. He sat down
under the lee of Observation Hill, and finished his biscuit with a bit of
ice: "I was very dry,"--slid down the side of Observation Hill and
thought at this time there was open water below, for he had no goggles on
the march and his eyes were strained. But on getting near the ice-foot he
found it was polished sea-ice and made his way round to the hut under the
ice-foot. When he got close he saw the dogs and sledges on the sea-ice,
and it was now blowing very hard with drift. He walked in and found the
Doctor and Dimitri inside. "He gave me a tot first, and then a feed of
porridge--but I couldn't keep it down: thats the first time in my life
that ever it happened, and it was the brandy t
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