On May 6 Campbell's party sustained a severe disappointment, for they saw what appeared to be four men coming towards them. Immediately they jumped to the conclusion that the ship had been frozen in and that this was a search party. The four figures turned out to be Emperor penguins, and although disappointing in one way they served to replenish the larder, and so had their use.
Here are three specimen diary pages extracted from Campbell's journey:
April 9.—Warmer to-day. We saw a small seal on a floe but were unable to reach him. The bay remains open still. On the still days a thin film of ice forms, but blows out as soon as the wind comes up. In these early days, before we had perfected our cooking and messing arrangements, a great part of our day was taken up with cooking and preparing the food, but later on we got used to the ways of a blubber stove, and things went more smoothly. We had landed all our spare paraffin from the ship, and this gave us enough oil to use the primus for breakfast, provided we melted the ice over the blubber fire the day before. The blubber stove was made of an old oil tin cut down. In this we put some old seal bones taken from the carcasses we found on the beach.
"A piece of blubber skewered on to a marline-spike and held over the flame dripped oil on the bones and fed the fire. In this way we could cook hoosh nearly as quickly as we could on the primus. Of course the stove took several weeks of experimenting before it reached this satisfactory state. With certain winds we were nearly choked with a black, oily smoke that hurt our eyes and brought on much the same symptoms as accompany snow-blindness.
"We take it in turns to be cook and messman, working in pairs: Abbott and I, Levick and Browning, Priestley and Dickason, and thus each has one day on in three. The duties of the cooks are to turn out at 7 and cook and serve out the breakfast, the others remaining in their bags for the meal. Then we all have a siesta till 10.30, when we turn out for the day's work: The cook starts the blubber stove and melts blubber for the lamps. The mess-man takes an ice-axe and chips frozen seal meat in the passage by the light of a blubber lamp. A cold job this and trying to the temper, as scraps of meat fly in all directions and have to be care-fully collected afterwards. The remainder carry up the meat and blubber, or look for seals. By 5 p.m. all except the cooks are in their bags, and we have supper. After supper the cooks melt ice for the morning, prepare breakfast, and clear up."
"May 7.—A blizzard with heavy drift has been blowing all day, so it was a good job we got the penguins. We have got the roof on the shaft now, but in these blizzards the entrance is buried in snow, and we have a job to keep the shaft clear. Priestley has found his last year's journal, and reads some to us every evening.
"From now till the end of the month strong gales again reduced our outside work to a minimum, and most of our energies were directed to improving our domestic routine.
"We have now a much better method for cutting up the meat for the hoosh. Until now we had to take the frozen joints and hack them in pieces with an ice-axe. We have now fixed up an empty biscuit tin on a bamboo tripod over the blubber fire. The small pieces of meat we put in this to thaw: the larger joints hang from the bamboo. In this way they thaw sufficiently in the twenty-four hours to cut up with a knife, and we find this cleaner and more economical.
"We celebrated two special occasions on this month, my wedding day on the 10th, and the anniversary, to use a paradox, of the commissioning of the hut on the 17th, and each time the commissariat officer relaxed his hold to the extent of ten raisons each.
"Levick is saving his biscuit to see how it feels to go without cereals for a week. He also wants to have one real good feed at the end of the week. His idea is that by eating more blubber he will not feel the want of the biscuit very much."