The Home Of The Blizzard Part 14

Our hearth and home was the living Hut and its focus was the stove.

Kitchen and stove were indissolubly linked, and beyond their pale was a wilderness of hanging clothes, boots, finnesko, mitts and what not, bounded by tiers of bunks and blankets, more hanging clothes and dim photographs between the frost-rimed cracks of the wooden walls.

One might see as much in the first flicker of the acetylene through a maze of hurrying figures, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, the plot would thicken: books orderly and disorderly, on bracketed shelves, cameras great and small in motley confusion, guns and a gramophone-horn, serpentine yards of gas-tubing, sewing machines, a microscope, rows of pint-mugs, until--thud! he has obstructed a wild-eyed messman staggering into the kitchen with a box of ice.

The wilderness was always inhabited, so much so that it often became a bear-garden in which raucous good humour prevailed over everything.

Noise was a necessary evil, and it commenced at 7.30 A.M., with the subdued melodies of the gramophone, mingled with the stirring of the porridge-pot and the clang of plates deposited none too gently on the table. At 7.50 A.M. came the stentorian: "Rise and shine!" of the night-watchman, and a curious a.s.sortment of cat-calls, beating on pots and pans and fragmentary chaff. At the background, so to speak, of all these sounds was the swishing rush of the wind and the creaking strain of the roof, but these had become neglected. In fact, if there were a calm, every one was restless and uneasy.

The seasoned sleeper who survived the ten minutes' bombardment before 8 o'clock was an unusual person, and he was often the Astronomer Royal.

Besides his dignified name he possessed a wrist-watch, and there was never a movement in his mountain of blankets until 7.59 A.M., unless the jocular night-watchman chose to make a heap of them on the floor.

To calls like "Breakfast all ready! Porridge on the table getting cold!"

seventeen persons in varying stages of wakefulness responded. No one was guilty of an elaborate toilet, water being a scarce commodity. There were adherents of the snow-wash theory, but these belonged to an earlier and warmer epoch of our history.

For downright, tantalizing cheerfulness there was no one to equal the night-watchman. While others strove to collect their befuddled senses, this individual prated of "wind eighty miles per hour with moderate drift and brilliant St. Elmo's fire." He boasted of the number of garments he had washed, expanded vigorously on bread making--his brown, appetizing specimens in full public view--told of the latest escapade among the dogs, spoke of the fitful gleams of the aurora between 1.30 and 2 A.M., of his many adventures on the way to the meteorological screen and so forth; until from being a mere night-watchman he had raised himself to the status of a public hero. For a time he was most objectionable, but under the solid influence of porridge, tinned fruit, fresh bread, b.u.t.ter and tea and the soothing aroma of innumerable pipes, other public heroes arose and ousted this upstart of the night.

Meanwhile, the latter began to show signs of abating energy after twelve hours' work. Soon some wag had caught him having a private nap, a whispered signal was pa.s.sed round and the unfortunate hero was startled into life with a rousing "Rise and shine!" in which all past scores were paid off.

Every one was at last awake and the day began in earnest. The first hint of this came from the messman and cook who commenced to make a Herculean sweep of the pint-mugs and tin plates. The former deferentially proceeded to sc.r.a.pe the plates, the master-cook presiding over a tub of boiling water in which he vigorously scoured knives, forks and spoons, transferring them in dripping handfuls to the cleanest part of the kitchen-table. Cooks of lyric inclination would enliven the company with the score of the latest gramophone opera, and the messman and company would often feel impelled to join in the choruses.

The night-watchman had sunk into log-like slumber, and the meteorologist and his merry men were making preparations to go abroad. The merry men included the ice-carrier, the magnetician, the two wardens of the dogs, the snow-shoveller and coal-carrier and the storeman. The rest subdivided themselves between the living Hut at 45 degrees F. and the outer Hut below freezing-point, taking up their endless series of jobs.

The merry men began to make an organized raid on the kitchen. Around and above the stove hung oddments like wolf-skin mitts, finnesko, socks, stockings and helmets, which had pa.s.sed from icy rigidity through sodden limpness to a state of parchment dryness. The problem was to recover one's own property and at the same time to avoid the cook sc.r.a.ping the porridge saucepan and the messman scrubbing the table.

The urbane storeman saved the situation by inquiring of the cook: "What will you have for lunch?" Then followed a heated colloquy, the former, like a Cingalese vendor, having previously made up his mind. The argument finally crystallized down to lambs' tongues and beetroot, through herrings and tomato sauce, fresh herrings, kippered herrings, sardines and corn beef.

The second question was a preliminary to more serious business; "What would you like for dinner?"

Although much trouble might have been saved by reference to the regulation programme, which was composed to provide variety in diet and to eliminate any remote chance of scurvy, most cooks adopted an att.i.tude of surly independence, counting it no mean thing to have wheedled from the storeman a few more ounces of "glaxo," another tin of peas or an extra ration of penguin meat. All this chaffering took place in the open market-place, so to speak, and there was no lack of frank criticism from bystanders, onlookers and distant eavesdroppers. In case the cook was worsted, the messman st.u.r.dily upheld his opinions, and in case the weight of public opinion was too much for the storeman, he slipped on his felt mitts, shouldered a Venesta box and made for the tunnel which led to the store.

He reaches an overhead vent admitting a cool torrent of snow, and with the inseparable box plunges ahead into darkness. An hour later his ruddy face reappears in the Hut, and a load of frosted tins is soon unceremoniously dumped on to the kitchen table. The cook in a swift survey notes the absence of penguin meat. "That'll take two hours to dig out!" is the storeman's rejoinder, and to make good his word, proceeds to pull off blouse and helmet. By careful inquiry in the outer Hut he finds an ice-axe, crowbar and hurricane lantern. The next move is to the outer veranda, where a few loose boards are soon removed, and the storeman, with a lithe twist, is out of sight.

We have pushed the tools down and, following the storeman, painfully squeezed into an Arcadia of starry mounds of snow and glistening plaques of ice, through which project a few boulders and several carcases of mutton. The storeman rummages in the snow and discloses a pile of penguins, crusted hard together in a h.o.m.ogeneous lump. Dislodging a couple of penguins appears an easy proposition, but we are soon disillusioned. The storeman seizes the head of one bird, wrenches hard, and off it breaks as brittle as a stalact.i.te. The same distracting thing happens to both legs, and the only remedy is to chip laboriously an icy channel around it.

In a crouching or lying posture, within a confined s.p.a.ce, this means the expenditure of much patience, not to mention the exhaustion of all invective. A crowbar decides the question. One part of the channel is undermined, into this the end of the crowbar is thrust and the penguin shoots up and hits the floor of the Hut.

The storeman, plastered with snow, reappears hot and triumphant before the cook, but this dignitary is awkwardly kneading the dough of wholemeal scones, and the messman is feeding the fire with seal-blubber to ensure a "quick" oven. Every one is too busy to notice the storeman, for, like the night-watchman, his day is over and he must find another job.

Jobs in the Hut were the elixir of life, and a day's cooking was no exception to the rule. It began at 7 A.M., and, with a brief intermission between lunch and afternoon tea, continued strenuously till 8.30 P.M. Cooks were broadly cla.s.sified as "Crook Cooks" and "Unconventional Cooks" by the eating public. Such flattering t.i.tles as "a.s.sistant Grand Past Master of the Crook Cooks' a.s.sociation" or "a.s.sociate of the Society of Muddling Messmen" were not empty inanities; they were founded on solid fact--on actual achievement. If there were no const.i.tutional affiliation, strong sympathy undoubtedly existed between the "Crook Cooks' a.s.sociation" and "The Society of Muddling Messmen."

Both contained members who had committed "championships."

"Championship" was a term evolved from the local dialect, applying to a slight mishap, careless accident or unintentional disaster in any department of Hut life. The fall of a dozen plates from the shelf to the floor, the fracture of a table-knife in frozen honey, the burning of the porridge or the explosion of a tin thawing in the oven brought down on the unfortunate cook a storm of derisive applause and shouts of "Championship! Championship!"

Thawing-out tinned foods by the heroic aid of a red-hot stove was a common practice. One day a tin of baked beans was shattered in the "port" oven, and fragments of dried beans were visible on the walls and door for weeks. Our military cook would often facetiously refer to "platoon-firing in the starboard oven."

One junior member of the "Crook Cooks' a.s.sociation" had the hardihood to omit baking powder in a loaf of soda-bread, trusting that prolonged baking would repair the omission. The result was a "championship" of a very superior order. Being somewhat modest, he committed it through the trap-door to the mercy of the wind, and for a time it was lost in the straggling rubbish which tailed away to the north. Even the prowling dogs in their wolfish hunger could not overcome a certain prejudice.

Of course some one found it, and the public hailed it with delight. A searching inquiry was made, but the perpetrator was never discovered.

That loaf, however, like the proverbial bad penny, turned up for months.

When the intricate system of snow-tunnels was being perfected, it was excavated. In the early summer, when the aeroplane was dug out of the Hangar, that loaf appeared once more, and almost the last thing we saw when leaving the Hut, nearly two years after, was this petrifaction on an icy pedestal near the Boat Harbour.

No one ever forgot the roly-poly pudding made without suet; synthetic rubber was its scientific name. And the muddling messman could never be surpa.s.sed who lost the cutter of the sausage machine and put salt-water ice in the melting-pots.

There appeared in the columns of 'The Adelie Blizzard' an article by the meteorologist descriptive of an occasion when two members of the "Crook Cooks' a.s.sociation" officiated in the kitchen:

TEREBUS AND ERROR IN ERUPTION An 'Orrible Affair in One Act BY A SURVIVOR

Dramatis Personae

TEREBUS Crook Cooks ERROR

Other Expedition Members

Scene: Kitchen, Winter Quarters.

Time: 5.30 P.M.

ERROR. Now, Terebus, just bring me a nice clean pot, will you?

TEREBUS [from his bunk]. Go on, do something yourself!

ERROR. Do something? I've done everything that has been done this afternoon.

TEREBUS. Well, you ought to feel pretty fresh.

ERROR. And all the melting-pots are empty and I'm not going to fill them. Besides, it's not in the regulations.

Voices. Who's going crook? Error!

[TEREBUS climbs from his bunk and exit for ice. ERROR attempts to extricate a pot from the nails in the shelves. Loud alarums.

Voices. Champ-ion-ship!

[Alarums without. Loud cries of "Door!" Enter TEREBUS with box of ice; fills all the pots on the stove.

ERROR. Good heavens, man, you've filled up the tea water with ice.

TEREBUS [with hoa.r.s.e laugh]. Never mind, they won't want so much glaxo to cool it.

ERROR [who has meanwhile been mixing bread]. What shall we bake the bread in? I believe it is considered that a square tin is more suitable for ordinary ovens, but, on the other hand, Nansen in his 'Farthest North' used flat dishes.

TEREBUS. Use a tin. There'll be less surface exposed to the cold oven.

ERROR. What's all this water on the floor? I thought my feet seemed cold. Some one must have upset a bucket.

TEREBUS. Oh, it's one of the taps turned on. Never mind, there's plenty more ice where that came from. Get your sea-boots.

[Enter METEOROLOGICAL STAFF and others with snow-covered burberrys, mitts, etc., crowd kitchen and hang impedimenta round the stove. Great tumult.

TEREBUS. Here, out of the kitchen. This isn't the time to worry the cooks.