It seemed to them a good omen that when they woke pale sunlight was filtering through the windows of the store. Gervaise was anxious that they should not lose a moment of it as getting out of London seemed likely to be one of the most difficult parts of their journey. Immediately they had breakfasted they dressed in their furs and looking like six Eskimos pulled the already loaded sledge out of the first-floor window onto the snow which now buried Oxford Street to a depth of nearly sixteen feet.
They would have given a lot for a team of dogs to drag the sledge but there was no alternative to pulling it themselves. It was not very heavy and two of the men could draw it easily, but they knew that hours of hauling it behind them, up hill and down dale, were certain to add considerably to the strain of their journey. Gervaise and Derek formed the first team, strapping the harness round them, while Sam and Hemmingway were to steady the sledge behind and help to lug it over obstructions; it being understood that the parts played by the two teams would be reversed after the halt for rest which they intended to make every hour.
Lavina and Margery shared the task of guiding the party. Margery had no bump of location and was of little use in finding the way, so her function was to walk no more than twenty yards ahead of the sledge, signalling to the men to show the places where the snow lay smoothest. Lavina acted as advance guard. She knew her London better and was less likely to lose her way when it might seem best to make detours down side-streets to avoid dragging the sledge up the hills of snow which covered buildings that had fallen into the roadway.
Gervaise had given her a map of London and pointed out the route he wished them to follow; down Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, and the Strand, over the river where the frozen ice covered Waterloo Bridge, and thence into South-East London. There they would try to pick up the Old Kent Road where it emerged from the frozen, flooded area. But Lavina had other ideas. It was certain that the broad thoroughfares were less likely to be blocked than the narrower turnings off Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, so she decided to lead them straight along Oxford Street to Holborn, then down Kingsway to the river; and when they reached Oxford Circus she sent back by Margery a message to that effect.
From their appalling experience in Baker Street four nights before, they had anticipated great difficulty in getting the sledge even as far as the river, but much snow had fallen since so they were no longer faced with lumpy obstructions like buried cars or the wickedly difficult surface formed by debris under a moderate crust of snow. The recent falls had increased the thickness of the snow-layer to such an extent that the way was now smooth except for gentle undulations here and there where vehicles or piles of fallen bricks and mortar lay buried deep under the surface.
By ten o'clock they had passed the Holborn Restaurant and turned south down Kingsway. The top of Bush House still protruded high above the snow at the bottom of the broad thoroughfare but the snow-covered road seemed to run uphill towards it as the buildings at its southern end were buried considerably more deeply than those at its entrance from Holborn. As they advanced they now entered the area where the flood waters had become frozen before they could recede from the lower levels of the city. Only the upper storeys of the tall buildings in the Aldwych still showed above the snow and those in the Strand were buried to their roof-tops. As soon as Lavina had passed them she saw that a great open plain of snow stretched on either hand and far away to her front where, with very few exceptions, the buildings on the south side of the river lay buried. No chimney-stacks, towers or spires broke the vista, so these had evidently been overthrown by the rush of the flood-waters.
She waited, somewhere above the northern end of Waterloo Bridge, for the others to come up to her, then proposed a new and better plan. The open plain of the flooded river offered much better going than they would find when they had crossed it and had reached the higher ground in South-East London, where the buildings were still above the ice-level and where they might get themselves hopelessly lost in trying to pick up the Old Kent Road. I would be much easier, she suggested, to strike a course east over the fiat, flooded area, then turn inland towards the Dover Road farther on.
Gervaise agreed at once, and after taking a compass bearing for her guidance, they set off down-river.
The great, arched roof of Cannon Street station had fallen in, as had the dome of St. Paul's, although its main structure still stood out high above the stricken city. The bulk of the Tower of London was submerged but the top of the White Tower with its four turrets showed the position of the ancient fortress. One of the towers of Tower Bridge had been swept away but the other still reared its pinnacles to the cold, blue sky.
By mid-afternoon they were somewhere over the London Docks and the wide plain became broken and hilly. At first they failed to identify the hillocks by their shape, but they soon realised that the mounds were made by the funnels and superstructures of wrecked shipping.
As snow had begun to fall and evening was approaching, Gervaise decided that they would camp for the night in the lee of one of these great hummocks which concealed a stricken ship. He reckoned that they had covered between seven and eight miles of their journey and considered that to be excellent for their first day's trek. They pitched the three small tents so as to form three sides of a square, the open side of which faced to leeward. One was to be shared by Gervaise and Derek, one by Sam and Hemmingway and one by the two girls. The sleigh was unpacked and Margery cooked their evening meal on the primus. It was bitterly cold and tonight they had to do without a fire, so they turned in immediately they had eaten.
On the second day they again followed the course of the river, identifying a snow-covered hill on their right as Greenwich Park and the hump on top of it as the Observatory. At their next halt Gervaise gave Lavina a new compass bearing, south by east over Woolwich Marshes, in order to cut off the big bend of the river.
No buildings of any kind now broke the skyline, but by compass and map bearings they reckoned that they were approximately over Erith when they halted that afternoon; again having covered eight miles during the day. They still had to do without a fire but they had ample supplies of food, warm furs and comfortable fur bags in which to sleep.
On the third day they moved south-east, parallel with the river; then, cutting off another bend, south by east to Tilbury, accomplishing another eight miles. The whole of Tilbury was under the ice-bank so once more they fed from their stores.
The trek had not, so far, proved too arduous. Gervaise knew that it was absolutely essential to conserve the strength of his party so he gave them frequent halts and never pressed them to a longer day's march than they could manage with reasonable ease. They had been lucky with the weather as snow had fallen only in the late afternoons and during the nights. All of them were in good health and as they were warmly wrapped in furs the intense cold did not seriously affect them. As they marched they often sang and Lavina, having once made up her mind that she must face the journey, had become her old, gay self. She still bullied the others into doing things for her and poked fun at them, but it was kindly fun, and nothing pleased her better than when by accident or design the laugh was turned against herself. At every halt her spontaneous chuckles echoed through the deadly silence of the snow waste and they adored her for the gallant spirit which made light of the labours of their journey.