Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/91

About now we began to realise that the roof must go. The stones holding the door end (leeward) of the roof began to work: drift was coming in, and the place where I had slit up the roof to fold it in over the door was obviously weak: the foodbags did something to remedy this. Bill told us he thought that to turn over, flaps under, would give us our best chance. We could do nothing, and lay in our bags until Birdie told us that the roof was flapping more: he was out of his bag trying to hold the rocks firm, and I and Bill were sitting up in ours pressing against them with a bamboo. Suddenly the roof went—first, I believe, over the door, splitting into seven or eight strips along the leeward end, and then ripping into hundreds of pieces in about half a minute.

We got into our bags as best we could. I remember trying to get Bill into his, as he was farther out than I was; he wouldn't let me—'Please get into your bag, Cherry.' Both Birdie's hands went in getting back to his. We turned our bags over, flaps under, as much as possible, and were gradually drifted up.

It was a most appalling position. I knew that Peary had once come through a blizzard lying in the open in his bag in the summer. I had no idea that human beings could do so in winter in the state in which we were already. I wondered whether it was really worth trying to keep warm. I confess that I considered that we were now come to the end. If we got out of the blizzard and had, as we decided, to try and get back by digging ourselves into the snow for the night, I meant to