BIGGLES BREAKS THE SILENCE

by Captain W. E. Johns

IV. BEYOND MEN'S FOOTSTEPS (Pages 50 - 62)

It's 17 degrees below freezing and a tent is set up with the stores in. The plan to find the frozen ship is to take walks out and back in every direction, like the spokes of a wheel, with the camp as the hub. The Skipper explains how easy it is to get lost within half a mile of your ship. When he was last there, they lost a Swede, a fellow named Larsen, and had to leave him behind to fate when the ice started to close in. On the first trek looking for the "Starry Crown", Ginger gets lost in fog. "Within half an hour he was struggling along through a vague world in which everything - ground, air and sky - seemed to be of the same uniform whiteness. These, he thought bitterly, were the very conditions that Biggles had been at pains to describe". By making his way back to open water and then working along the edge of the ice-cliff he is able to make his way back to camp. "We'll try again to-morrow," said Biggles. "Come and have something to eat".