In the dull days of blankness which followed, few incidents seemed to mark time. The cold increased. Storms were more continuous and came with greater force. We were cooped up in our underground den with but a peep-hole through the silk of our old tent to watch the sooty nocturnal bluster. We were face to face with a spiritual famine. With little recreation, no amusements, no interesting work, no reading matter, with nothing to talk about, the six hours of a watch were spread out to weeks.
We had no sugar, no coffee, not a particle of civilized food. We had meat and blubber, good and wholesome food at that. But the stomach wearied of its never changing carnivorous stuffing. The dark den, with its walls of pelt and bone, its floor decked with frosted tears of ice, gave no excuse for cheer. Insanity, abject madness, could only be avoided by busy hands and long sleep.
My life in this underground place was, I suppose, like that of a man in the stone age. The interior was damp and cold and dark; with our pitiable lamps burning, the temperature of the top was fairly moderate, but at the bottom it was below zero. Our bed was a platform of rocks wide enough for three prostrate men. Its forward edge was our seat when awake. Before this was a space where a deeper hole in the earth permitted us to stand upright, one at a time. There, one by one, we dressed and occasionally stood to move our stiff and aching limbs.
On either side of this standing space was half a tin plate in which musk-ox fat was burned. We used moss as a wick. These lights were kept burning day and night; it was a futile, imperceptible sort of heat they gave. Except when we got close to the light, it was impossible to see one another's faces.
We ate twice daily—without enjoyment. We had few matches, and in fear of darkness tended our lamps diligently. There was no food except meat and tallow; most of the meat, by choice, was eaten raw and frozen. Night and morning we boiled a small pot of meat for broth; but we had no salt to season it. Stooped and cramped, day by day, I found occasional relief from the haunting horror of this life by rewriting the almost illegible notes made on our journey.
My most important duty was the preparation of my notes and observations for publication. This would afford useful occupation and save months of time afterwards. But I had no paper. My three note books were full, and there remained only a small pad of prescription blanks and two miniature memorandum books. I resolved, however, to try to work out the outline of my narrative in chapters in these. I had four good pencils and one eraser. These served a valuable purpose. With sharp points I shaped the words in small letters. When the skeleton of the book was ready I was surprised to find how much could be crowded on a few small pages. By a liberal use of the eraser many parts of pages were cleared of unnecessary notes. Entire lines were written between all the lines of the note books, the pages thus carrying two narrations or series of notes.
By the use of abbreviations and dashes, a kind of short-hand was devised. My art of space economy complete, I began to write, literally developing the very useful habit of carefully shaping every idea before an attempt was made to use the pencil. In this way my entire book and several articles were written. Charts, films and advertisement boxes were covered. In all 150,000 words were written, and absolute despair, which in idleness opens the door to madness, was averted.
Our needs were still urgent enough to enforce much other work. Drift threatened to close the entrance to our dungeon and this required frequent clearing. Blubber for the lamp was sliced and pounded every day. The meat corner was occasionally stocked, for it required several days to thaw out the icy musk ox quarters. Ice was daily gathered and placed within reach to keep the water pots full. The frost which was condensed out of our breaths made slabs of ice on the floor, and this required occasional removal. The snow under our bed furs, which had a similar origin, was brushed out now and then.
Soot from the lamps, a result of bad housekeeping, which a proud Eskimo woman would not have tolerated for a minute, was scraped from the bone rafters about once a week. With a difference of one hundred degrees between the breathing air of the den and that outside there was a rushing interchanging breeze through every pinhole and crevice. The ventilation was good. The camp cleanliness could almost have been called hygienic, although no baths had been indulged in for six months, and then only by an unavoidable, undesirable accident.
Much had still to be done to prepare for our homegoing in the remote period beyond the night. It was necessary to plan and make a new equipment. The sledge, the clothing, the camp outfit, everything which had been used in the previous campaign, were worn out. Something could be done by judicious repairing, but nearly everything required reconstruction. In the new arrangement we were to take the place of the dogs at the traces and the sledge loads must be prepared accordingly. There was before us an unknown line of trouble for three hundred miles before we could step on Greenland shores. It was only the hope of homegoing, which gave some mental strength in the night of gloom. Musk ox meat was now cut into strips and dried over the lamps. Tallow was prepared and moulded in portable form for fuel.