Debenham was certainly nurse to the Ubdugs, that is to say he was the least untidy, but then of course he was the smallest. In this cubicle the most voluminous of diaries were kept, and at least two books have been published therefrom. Gran kept his diary mostly in Norwegian, but there were many words coined in our Expedition which had no Scandinavian equivalent, and Gran failed to translate them, in spite of his having more imagination than any one amongst us.
Crossing over the hut to the cubicle opposite one arrives at the somewhat congested space in which Cherry-Garrard was housed, with Bowers above him. In their corner were store lists, books, and mystery bags which contained material for the "South Polar Times," toys and frivolous presents to liven us up at the midwinter and other festivities. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard were, in a way, worse off than the others, for they had the darkest part of the hut, yet in this gloomy tenement all kinds of calculations were made and much other good work done.
Oates came next, with his bunk more free of debris than anybody else's, for he was the horse man, pure and simple, and his duties freed him from that superabundance of books, instruments, stationery, specimens, charts, and what-not with which we others had surrounded ourselves. Any spare gear he kept in the saddle room, a specially cleared space in the stables, where he was assisted by the little Russian groom, Anton, who soon became devoted to his hard-working and capable master. The two men, so unlike in appearance and character, etc., and such miles apart in social standing and nationality, worked shoulder to shoulder in the stables throughout the long winter night. By the dim candle-light which illuminated our pony-shelter, one could see Oates grooming his charges, clearing up their stall, refitting their harness, and fixing up the little improvements that his quick, watchful eye continually suggested. At the far end of his stables he had a blubber stove, where he used to melt ice for the ponies' drinking water and cook bran mashes for his animals. Here he would often sit and help Meares make dog pemmican out of seal meat—they made about 8 cwt. of this sustaining preparation.
Moving along from the Château, Oates, Meares's and Atkinson's two bunks came next, Meares above and Atkinson below. These two sleeping berths likewise were not conspicuous by any superfluity of scientific oddments, for Meares's work took him outside of the hut as a rule, unless he was engaged in making dog harness. Meares and Oates were the greatest friends, and these two, Atkinson, Cherry-Garrard and Bowers, were, if I remember rightly, known collectively as the Bunderlohg. Although numerically superior to their vis-à-vis, the Ubdugs, and always ready to revile them, the Ubdugs kept their end up and usually came out victorious in discussions or in badinage.
Finally, the Holy of Holies, where Captain Scott and the library occupied one end and Uncle Bill and myself the far corner, with the ceaselessly ticking chronometers and many sledging watches. There was an air of sanctity about this part: all the plotting was done here, charts made and astronomical observations worked out. Wilson worked up his sketches at the "plotting table," interviewed the staff here, and above his bunk kept a third of the shore party's library. We had two comfortable trestle beds up our end and our leader also had a bed in preference to the built-up bunk adopted by most of the afterguard. Ours was the Mayfair district: Wilson and I lived in Park Lane in those days, whilst Captain Scott occupied Grosvenor Street! He had his own little table covered with "toney" green linoleum, and also had a multiplicity of little shelves on which to keep his pipes, tobacco, cigars, and other household gods. It was well illuminated in this part, and, although, hung around with fur mitts, fur boots, socks, hats and woollen clothing, there was something very chaste about this very respectable corner. For the rest of it we had our Arctic library, and the spare spaces on the matchboard bulkhead, which fenced it on three sides, were decorated with photographs. In place of eiderdown Scott's old uniform overcoat usually covered his bed, while peeping out from under his sleeping place one could espy an emblem of civilisation and prosperity in the shape of a very good suit-case.
The foregoing pages illustrate sufficiently the grouping of the afterguard, and if one adds an anthracite stove, a 12 ft. by 4 ft. table, a pianola, gramophone, and a score of chairs, with a small shelf-like table squeezed in between the dark-room and Simpson's corner, one completes the picture of the officers' quarters in the Cape Evans Hut. A bulkhead of biscuit cases and so on divided us from the men's accommodation. They were very well off, each seaman having a trestle bed similar to Captain Scott's, unless he preferred to build a bunk for himself, as one or two did. They had a table 6 ft. by 4 ft., and the cook had a kitchen table 4 ft. square, and certainly no crew space was ever provided on a Polar Expedition that gave such comfortable and cosy housing room.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WINTER CLOSES IN
The closing down of the Polar night was very swift now and the few hours of gray daylight were employed collecting what data was required by certain members for working on during the forthcoming days of darkness. Young Gran was handed over to me to help with the survey work and astronomical observations which had to be taken from time to time. He was a most entertaining assistant. Without complaint, he stood patiently shivering in that cutting winter wind whilst I swung around the theodolite telescope and took angles for him to write down in my notebook. I don't think anybody has made a triangulated survey under conditions worse than we endured that epoch: the weather was beastly and we spent much time dancing when nearly sick with cold, our fingers tucked under our arms to recover their feelings. When one's extremities did get frost-bitten it was no joke—frost-bitten finger tips gave us little peace at night with their sharp burning pain.
The most interesting part of the survey work was what is known to the surveyor as coast-lining. This meant walking along the edge of the sea ice, fixing one's position by sextant angle every five hundred yards or so, and sketching in a notebook the character and features of the ever changing coast between the various "fixes." One could keep warm doing this and one saw more of the land and ice formation than the others, for it meant following carefully round-cape and glacier edge, penetrating inlets and delineating every islet, promontory, cliff, and talus.