We had no chance of recovering them.
This accident did not complete the tale of the night's misfortunes.
The big eight-man tent was blown to pieces in the early morning. Some
of the men who had occupied it took refuge in other tents, but several
remained in their sleeping-bags under the fragments of cloth until it
was time to turn out.
A southerly gale was blowing on the morning of April 18 and the
drifting snow was covering everything. The outlook was cheerless
indeed, but much work had to be done and we could not yield to the
desire to remain in the sleeping-bags. Some sea-elephants were lying
about the beach above high-water mark, and we killed several of the
younger ones for their meat and blubber. The big tent could not be
replaced, and in order to provide shelter for the men we turned the
'Dudley Docker' upside down and wedged up the weather side with
boulders. We also lashed the painter and stern-rope round the heaviest
rocks we could find, so as to guard against the danger of the boat
being moved by the wind. The two bags of clothing were bobbing about
amid the brash and glacier-ice to the windward side of the spit, and it
did not seem possible to reach them. The gale continued all day, and
the fine drift from the surface of the glacier was added to the big
flakes of snow falling from the sky.
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