ed tins is soon
unceremoniously dumped on to the kitchen table. The cook in a swift
survey notes the absence of penguin meat. "That'll take two hours to dig
out!" is the storeman's rejoinder, and to make good his word, proceeds
to pull off blouse and helmet. By careful inquiry in the outer Hut he
finds an ice-axe, crowbar and hurricane lantern. The next move is to
the outer veranda, where a few loose boards are soon removed, and the
storeman, with a lithe twist, is out of sight.

We have pushed the tools down and, following the storeman, painfully
squeezed into an Arcadia of starry mounds of snow and glistening plaques
of ice, through which project a few boulders and several carcases
of mutton. The storeman rummages in the snow and discloses a pile of
penguins, crusted hard together in a homogeneous lump. Dislodging
a couple of penguins appears an easy proposition, but we are soon
disillusioned. The storeman seizes the head of one bird, wrenches hard,
and off it breaks as brittle as a stalactite. The same distracting thing
happens to both legs, and the only remedy is to chip laboriously an icy
channel around it.

In a crouching or lying posture, within a confined space, this means
the expenditure of much patience, not to mention the exhaustion of all
invective. A crowbar decides the question. One part of the channel is
undermined, into this the end of the crowbar is thrust and the penguin
shoots up and hits the floor of the Hut.

The storeman, plastered with snow, reappears hot and triumphant
before the cook, but this dignitary is awkwardly kneading the dough of
wholemeal scones, and the messman is feeding the fire with seal-blubber
to ensure a "quick" oven. Every one is too busy to notice the storeman,
for, like the night-watchman, his day is over and he must find another
job.

Jobs in the Hut were the elixir of life, and a day's cooking was
no exception to the rule. It began at 7 A.M., and, with a brief
intermission between lunch and afternoon tea, continued strenuously
till 8.30 P.M. Cooks were broadly classified as "Crook Cooks" and
"Unconventional Cooks" by the eating public. Such flattering titles
as "Assistant Grand Past Master of the Crook Cooks' Association" or
"Associate of the Society of Muddling Messmen" were not empty inanities;
they were founded on solid fact--on actual achievement. If there were no
constitutional affiliation, strong sympathy undoubtedly existed between
the "Crook Cooks' Association"