Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

11 February l949 was the anniversary of our arrival at Signy Island the previous
year and the weather was almost identical. It didn't feel as if a year had passed and
many events seemed to have just happened, when in fact they took place several
months earlier. This was no doubt because we had few outside events to help date
progress. To mark the occasion we had a large dinner - celery soup, roast mutton
with mint sauce, cabbage and mashed potatoes. Christmas pudding and rum butter
finished the meal. Derek made a celebratory cake - with one candle - but we were so
full after the plum pudding that we were unable to deal with it.
On a typical day in l949 we had pancakes for lunch with corned beef and mashed
potatoes (from the dried powder, ‘Pom’). For dinner we had had oxtail soup
followed by stew, French beans and potatoes, with tinned peaches as a desert. We
took coffee (Nescafé) afterwards, and some nights a drink of either whisky or gin.
Dinner over we usually settled down to do the writing, work, sewing or darning or
whatever there was on hand. Charlie and John might amuse themselves playing
cards, or chess, or working out crossword puzzles. I was trying to interest Charlie in
painting and sketching, as it was most important that we should all have plenty to
do, especially in the winter when the daylight hours were minimal. I was very glad
that I had always been able to entertain myself easily - it was essential down there.
He was getting interested and had quite a talent for sketching. Derek might be
engaged in more intellectual pursuits, like translating a paperback from the German,
using a dictionary and guessing as to the grammar. And we tried to keep up our
diaries, not always with success.
Some nights there was interest outside. The winter nights around midwinter l949
were typical. Just then the moon was full and the nights very clear. The moon
seemed much brighter than I remembered it ever being at home and one could see a
long way. This was probably due to the reflection from the snow. The moon cast
shadows quite different from the sun as it rose much further south than England’s
sun ever did. These shadows threw up new detail in the mountains, shadows that
one didn't get with the sun, and gave a different impression of the topography,
which was very useful for the survey work and for the planning of journeys. When
the moon was out I usually walked to what we called ‘the bridge’. It was a crag on
the ridge behind the hut which had a cleft, so formed that one could stand there,
resting one's elbows on the rock in front rather like standing on the bridge of a ship. I
could see the light of the hut below to the left looking very lonely amongst all the
snow and rock. There were the lines of our footprints leading to the Met screen, the
gash dump, generator and Nissen huts and privy, other less well-trodden tracks in
various directions, as well as numerous ski tracks on the slopes near the hut where
we had been practicing. The crags of the point looked very black and the tide-cracks
in the sea-ice showed up silver in the moonlight where the water had overflowed
with the rising tide.
There might be a line of pack fog to the east creeping slowly up the sound and
looking almost incandescent. At other times the horizon was clear and I could make
out the peaks on the Mossman Peninsula of Laurie Island (the most easterly of the
group - on which was situated an Argentine base) about 50 miles away. I could tell
where the pack started because the broken surface was much whiter. There was
almost invariably a corona round the moon - like a halo but closer and with the order
of the colours reversed. If there wasn't either, which was unusual, my breath
165