June 25
Nothing. . nothing. .
June 26
I've been counting calories, and find that I average about 1,200 daily. Not enough. I should average about 2,500. This morning, for the sake of the extra calories, I melted a big chunk of butter into the hot, sweet milk. Supper menu tonight: dried lima beans, rice, and tomatoes, plus canned turnip tops, plus Virginia ham. I'm eating more nowadays, but my appetite is zero.
June 27
Nothing — and yet, there must be countless things to write about, if I had the will to look. .
Next day brought news in plenty. I met the radio schedule on time. Dyer said briskly and with characteristic Yankee understatement: «Doc and Charlie are both waiting. I think you will be interested in what they have to say.»
Tractor Number One, with Poulter himself aboard, two days before had made the trial run through Amundsen Arm and to the crest of high Barrier just beyond, approximately eleven miles south of Little America. «Everything went very nicely,» Poulter said. «We side-stepped the crevasses and had no special difficulty following the trail. The flags are standing all right, and don't seem to have been frayed much by the wind. Just about the time we'd have one flag abeam, the next flag would be showing up in the headlights. However, I may be able to throw together a makeshift searchlight, which ought to help a lot.
Then, without preliminaries, the Senior Scientist launched into a proposal of his own. It was that the meteor trip proposed earlier be extended to Advance Base in order to observe a meteor shower which was due early in August. Two errands might therefore be disposed of in a single stroke. By continuing on to Advance Base, he said, the observations would benefit from the extended base line and the observers would have the protection of my shack; on my side, I could return with the tractor, if I wished to come, instead of waiting for the base-laying expedition later on. The size of the party was still indefinite, but his first estimate was five men. Of these, two would remain a month at Advance Base and continue the meteor and weather observations.
The present plan, Dr. Poulter continued, was to shove off from Little America at the first clear spell between July 23rd and the 29th. At that time the moon at midnight would be full in the south dead ahead, and the light of the sun would be strongest at their back at noon. Poulter did not wish to leave much later than that because the oncoming dawn would ruin the opportunities for continuous observations; but, on the other hand, neither he nor the other officers at Little America thought it would be wise to leave earlier. Besides, Demas estimated that it would require at least three weeks to complete the overhauling of the other two machines; it did not seem prudent to start out before they were available as a reserve.