Before leaving the tunnel, I drove a stout stick into the roof, to which I made fast one end of the line. With the other end secure to my belt, I clambered to the surface over a ladder made of boxes. The drift was still heavy, but with a flashlight it was possible to see a yard or two. After a couple of false stabs I finally fetched the anemometer pole. The drift packed in the cups was almost as compact as cement; I cleaned them out and scraped the contact points. It was an abominable task; but it had to be done, because the fouling slowed down the cups and hence the wind-speed reading. Yet, after what I had been through the night before, there was little reason to complain.
For once «daily promenade» was missed. Every moment that could be spared from the instruments and my own personal needs was devoted to leveling drift around the shack. Luckily, the new snow wasn't packed hard. I just shoveled it into the air and let the wind dissipate it to leeward. That done, I sealed off the breach in the Escape Tunnel with the sides of a couple of food boxes and reopened the hatch. The faint lightening in the gloom that came with midday was draining away; heavy shadows were pressing down through the ghostly billowing of drift. But the wind was spent; and so was the cold, temporarily. The temperature kited to 10 degrees below. Safe in the bunk, I slept the sleep of a man who had been working a hundred years.
Thursday the 24th was unbelievably warm. At the 8 a.m. «ob» the maximum thermometer read 2 degrees above zero. The wind still haunted the east; and puffs of drift came erratically from that quarter, thickening the steady fall of snow from the sky. I was nearly an hour late meeting the radio schedule, because the antenna had been blown down and I didn't find it out until after I had checked the transmitter and receiver. I made a hurried splice at a break and re-rigged the antenna temporarily on two poles. Dyer was still calling patiently when I made contact. My signals, he said, were weak but intelligible. Beyond discussing arrangements for me to participate in a special broadcast, we had little to talk about. At Little America the temperature was 25 degrees above zero, and Bill Haines officially announced a «heat wave.»
I was informed that on Saturday Little America was broadcasting a special program to the Chicago World Fair; would I mind adding my greetings? Certainly not. It was agreed that I should spell out in code, «Greetings from the bottom of the world,» which message was to be picked up and relayed by Little America's more powerful transmitter. I reduced the message to dots and dashes and practiced religiously. When Saturday came, Charlie Murphy broke the news, just before the broadcast, that New York now wanted me to spell, «Antarctic greetings,» instead. «I'm given to understand,» he said sententiously, «they intend to translate the damn thing into fireworks.»
«Let it be on their own heads, then,» I said.
Charlie chuckled. «If the fireworks are supposed to spell out what you send, then Chicago is in for the wildest display since the Fire.»
As excited as an actor making his debut, I sat at Advance Base listening to the broadcast from Little America; and, when somebody said, «We shall now attempt to make contact with Admiral Byrd,» I reached for the key and worked it furiously. But it went for naught. Dyer reported a few minutes after that he had heard it clearly, but Chicago hadn't heard anything. «No doubt the fireworks went off anyway,» he observed dryly.
Bill Haines's forecast of a «heat wave» was no jest. That afternoon the thermometer rose to 18 degrees above zero — the second highest point it every reached. The wind, dallying in the east, flooded the Barrier with warm air from the distant ocean. From then until the end of the month the coldest temperature recorded was 23 degrees below zero; and most of the time it was above zero or close to it. [Studied as a whole, the records show that May was not exactly a hot month. The cold passed 40 degrees below zero 20 days out of the 31; crossed 50 degrees below, 12 days; crossed 60 degrees below, 3 days; and crossed 70 degrees below, 2 days.] Snow fell in a relentless flutter; the Barrier became a concentrated gloom, except when the moon, fetched back on its fortnightly errand, was able to break through the cloud rack and bathe it briefly in an astringent light.
May 25
This is my sixty-fourth day at Advance Base, and it just so happened that I had some leisure time. I have been taking advantage of this to think back over my stay here and take stock of my situation.