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Other Expedition Members

Scene: Kitchen, Winter Quarters.

Time: 5.30 P.M.

ERROR. Now, Terebus, just bring me a nice clean pot, will you?

TEREBUS [from his bunk]. Go on, do something yourself!

ERROR. Do something? I've done everything that has been done this
afternoon.

TEREBUS. Well, you ought to feel pretty fresh.

ERROR. And all the melting-pots are empty and I'm not going to fill
them. Besides, it's not in the regulations.

Voices. Who's going crook? Error!

[TEREBUS climbs from his bunk and exit for ice. ERROR attempts to
extricate a pot from the nails in the shelves. Loud alarums.

Voices. Champ-ion-ship!

[Alarums without. Loud cries of "Door!" Enter TEREBUS with box of ice;
fills all the pots on the stove.

ERROR. Good heavens, man, you've filled up the tea water with ice.

TEREBUS [with hoarse laugh]. Never mind, they won't want so much glaxo
to cool it.

ERROR [who has meanwhile been mixing bread]. What shall we bake the
bread in? I believe it is considered that a square tin is more suitable
for ordinary ovens, but, on the other hand, Nansen in his 'Farthest
North' used flat dishes.

TEREBUS. Use a tin. There'll be less surface exposed to the cold oven.

ERROR. What's all this water on the floor? I thought my feet seemed
cold. Some one must have upset a bucket.

TEREBUS. Oh, it's one of the taps turned on. Never mind, there's plenty
more ice where that came from. Get your sea-boots.

[Enter METEOROLOGICAL STAFF and others with snow-covered burberrys,
mitts, etc., crowd kitchen and hang impedimenta round the stove. Great
tumult.

TEREBUS. Here, out of the kitchen. This isn't the time to worry the
cooks.

ERROR. Take those burberrys away, please, old man. They're dripping into
the soup.

TEREBUS. Give it some flavour at least.

[Great activity in the crater of ERROR while TEREBUS clears the kitchen.
ERROR continues stirring Soup and tapioca custard on the stove. Strong
smell of burning.

VOICES [in peculiarly joyful chorus]. Something burning!

ERROR [aside to TEREBUS]. It's all right. It will taste all right. Say
it's cloth on the stove.

TEREBUS. Somebody's burberrys burning against the stove!!

[General rush to the stove.

TEREBUS. It's all right, I've taken them away.

[Interval, during which much sotto voce discussion is heard in the
kitchen.

ERROR. We haven't put the spinach on to thaw and it's after six o'clock.

TEREBUS. Warm it up and put it on the