STILL IN THE HUT
The duties of the messman were more onerous than those of the night
watchman, and began by laying the table--a simple operation owing to
the primitive conditions under which we lived. He then garnished this
with hot sauces to tickle some of our tough palates, and when we sat
down he passed up bowls of porridge and the big jug of hot milk, which
was the standing dish every day.
Then came the messman's order, "Up bowls," and, reserving our spoons,
the bowls were passed along. If it were a "fruit day"--a day when the
second course consisted of bottled fruit--the bowls were retained for
this popular dish.
After he had been assisted in washing up the breakfast things, the duty
of the man in the house was to fill the melting-pots with ice, empty
the ashes and tins into the dust-box outside, and get in a bag of coal.
One often heard the messman anxiously enquiring what the dinner dishes
consisted of, the most popular, from his point of view, being those
which resulted in the least amount of grease on the plates. The hut was
swept out three times a day, so that the building was kept in a tidy
state.
[Illustration: The Type-case and Printing Press for the production of
the "Aurora Australis" in Joyce's and Wild's Cubicle, known as "The
Rouges' Retreat." (_See page 100_)]
It would only be repetition to chronicle our doings from day to day,
during the months that passed from the disappearance of the sun until
the welcome daylight returned. We lived under conditions of steady
routine, and having more than enough to occupy us in our daily work
that spectre known as "Polar ennui" never appeared.
At night some of us played bridge, poker and dominoes; but Joyce,
Wild, Marston and Day spent much time in the production of the "Aurora
Australis," the first book ever written, printed, illustrated and bound
in the Antarctic.
Messrs. Joseph Causton & Sons, Ltd., had generously given us a complete
printing outfit and the paper for the book, and Joyce and Wild had been
instructed in type-setting and printing, Marston being taught etching
and lithography.
They had hardly become skilled craftsmen, but although the early days
of the printing department were not exactly happy, the work progressed
steadily, until at the end of a fortnight or so two pages could
be printed a day. Day meanwhile prepared the binding by cleaning,
planing and polishing wood taken from the venesta cases, while Marston
reproduced the illustrations by printing from aluminium plates.
Marston was handicapped by the fact that all our water had a trace
of salt in it, but he managed to produce what we all regarded as
creditable pictures. In its final form the book consisted of about 120
pages; and at any rate it had helped to guard us from a dangerous lack
of occupation during the polar night.
On March 13 we experienced a very fierce blizzard, and cases weighing
from 50 to 80 lb. were actually shifted from their positions; so when
the gale was over we put everything that could possibly blow away into
places of greater safety.
On this day Murray found living microscopical animals on some fungus
that had been thawed out from a lump of ice taken from the bottom of
one of the lakes, this being one of the most interesting discoveries
that had been made in the Antarctic, for the study of these minute
creatures threw a new light on the capability of life to exist under
conditions of extreme cold and in the face of great variations of
temperature.
From our point of view, it was humorous to see Murray trying to slay
the little animals he had found. He used to thaw them from a block
of ice, freeze them up again, and repeat this process several times
without causing the rotifers any inconvenience. Then he tested them
in brine so strongly saline that it would not freeze at a temperature
above minus 7° Fahr., and still the animals lived, and a good
proportion of them survived a temperature of 200° Fahr. It became a
contest between rotifers and scientist, and generally the rotifers
seemed to triumph.
* * * * *
Tongue and pencil would sadly fail to describe the magic of the
colouring in the days when the sun was leaving us. The very clouds at
this time were iridescent with rainbow hues. The change from twilight
into night, sometimes lit by a crescent moon, was extraordinarily
beautiful, for the white cliffs gave no part of their colour away,
and the rocks beside them did not part with their blackness; so the
effect of deepening night over these contrasts was singularly weird.
Throughout April hardly a day passed without an auroral display,
and about the beginning of that month the temperature began to drop
considerably, and in calm, still weather the thermometer often
registered 40° below zero.
* * * * *
On April 6 Marshall decided that it was necessary to amputate
Brocklehurst's big toe, as there was no sign of its recovery from
frost-bite; and the patient having been put under chloroform, the bone
was removed, and the sufferer moved to my room, where he remained till
just before mid-winter's day.
When mid-winter's day had passed, and the twilight became daily more
marked, I set on foot arrangements for the sledging work in the
following spring. For it was desirable that, at the earliest possible
date, a depot of stores should be placed at a point to the south, in
preparation for the departure of the Southern Party, which was to march
towards the Pole. This depot I hoped to make at least a hundred miles
from the winter quarters.
It was also desirable that definite information should be obtained
regarding the condition of the snow surface on the Barrier; and I
also wanted various members of the party to have practice in sledging
before the serious work began. Considering our scarcity of ponies, I
resolved that these preliminary sledging journeys should be performed
by man-haulage.
During the winter I had given earnest consideration to the question of
the date on which the party that was to march towards the Pole should
leave the hut. Our hoped-for goal lay over 880 statute miles to the
south, and the brief summer was all too short a time in which to march
so far into the unknown and return. The ship would have to leave for
the north about the end of February, for the ice would then be closing
in; and, moreover, we could not hope to carry on our sledges much more
than a three months' supply of provisions on anything like full rations.
Finally, I resolved that the Southern Party should leave mid-winter
quarters on October 28, for by starting earlier the ponies would
probably suffer from the severe cold at nights; and if the ponies were
quickly incapacitated, we should have gained no advantage from our
early start.
[Illustration: Preparing a Sledge during the Winter]
But the date having been fixed, it became necessary to arrange for the
laying of the depot during the early spring, and I thought that the
first step towards this should be a preliminary journey on the Barrier
surface, so that we might gain an idea of the prevailing conditions,
and find out if the motor-car would be of service for at any rate the
early portion of the journey.