Adrift on an Ice-Pan | Page 8

see the sea. Indeed,
most of them cannot see it at all, so that I could not in the least expect
any one to see me, even supposing it had been daylight.
Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the
wind with, I piled up the carcasses of my dogs. With my skin rug I
could now sit down without getting soaked. During these hours I had
continually taken off all my clothes, wrung them out, swung them one
by one in the wind, and put on first one and then the other inside,
hoping that what heat there was in my body would thus serve to dry
them. In this I had been fairly successful.
My feet gave me most trouble, for they immediately got wet again
because my thin moccasins were easily soaked through on the snow. I
suddenly thought of the way in which the Lapps who tend our reindeer
manage for dry socks. They carry grass with them, which they ravel up
and pad into their shoes. Into this they put their feet, and then pack the
rest with more grass, tying up the top with a binder. The ropes of the
harness for our dogs are carefully sewed all over with two layers of
flannel in order to make them soft against the dogs' sides. So, as soon
as I could sit down, I started with my trusty knife to rip up the flannel.
Though my fingers were more or less frozen, I was able also to ravel
out the rope, put it into my shoes, and use my wet socks inside my
knickerbockers, where, though damp, they served to break the wind.
Then, tying the narrow strips of flannel together, I bound up the top of
the moccasins, Lapp-fashion, and carried the bandage on up over my
knee, making a ragged though most excellent puttee.
As to the garments I wore, I had opened recently a box of football
clothes I had not seen for twenty years. I had found my old Oxford
University football running shorts and a pair of Richmond Football
Club red, yellow, and black stockings, exactly as I wore them twenty

years ago. These with a flannel shirt and sweater vest were now all I
had left. Coat, hat, gloves, oilskins, everything else, were gone, and I
stood there in that odd costume, exactly as I stood twenty years ago on
a football field, reminding me of the little girl of a friend, who, when
told she was dying, asked to be dressed in her Sunday frock to go to
heaven in. My costume, being very light, dried all the quicker, until
afternoon. Then nothing would dry anymore, everything freezing stiff.
It had been an ideal costume to struggle through the slob ice. I really
believe the conventional garments missionaries are supposed to affect
would have been fatal.
My occupation till what seemed like midnight was unravelling rope,
and with this I padded out my knickers inside, and my shirt as well,
though it was a clumsy job, for I could not see what I was doing. Now,
getting my largest dog, Doc, as big as a wolf and weighing ninety-two
pounds, I made him lie down, so that I could cuddle round him. I then
wrapped the three skins around me, arranging them so that I could lie
on one edge, while the other came just over my shoulders and head.
My own breath collecting inside the newly flayed skin must have had a
soporific effect, for I was soon fast asleep. One hand I had kept warm
against the curled up dog, but the other, being gloveless, had frozen,
and I suddenly awoke, shivering enough, I thought, to break my fragile
pan. What I took at first to be the sun was just rising, but I soon found
it was the moon, and then I knew it was about half-past twelve. The
dog was having an excellent time. He hadn't been cuddled so warm all
winter, and he resented my moving with low growls till he found it
wasn't another dog.
[Illustration: DOC]
The wind was steadily driving me now toward the open sea, and I could
expect, short of a miracle, nothing but death out there. Somehow, one
scarcely felt justified in praying for a miracle. But we have learned
down here to pray for things we want, and, anyhow, just at that moment
the miracle occurred. The wind fell off suddenly, and came with a light
air from the southward, and then dropped stark calm. The ice was now
"all abroad," which I was sorry for, for there was a big safe pan not

twenty yards away from me. If I could have got on that, I might have
killed my