I moved into Scott’s tent for the first time in the middle of the Depot Journey, and was enormously impressed by the comfort which a careful routine of this nature evoked.  There was a homelike air about the tent at supper time, and, though a lunch camp in the middle of the night is always rather bleak, there was never anything slovenly.  Another thing which struck me even more forcibly was the cooking.  We were of course on just the same ration as the tent from which I had come.  I was hungry and said so.  “Bad cooking,” said Wilson shortly; and so it was.  For in two or three days the sharpest edge was off my hunger.  Wilson and Scott had learned many a cooking tip in the past, and, instead of the same old meal day by day, the weekly ration was so manoeuvred by a clever cook that it was seldom quite the same meal.  Sometimes pemmican plain, or thicker pemmican with some arrowroot mixed with it:  at others we surrendered a biscuit and a half apiece and had a dry hoosh, i.e. biscuit fried in pemmican with a little water added, and a good big cup of cocoa to follow.  Dry hooshes also saved oil.  There were cocoa and tea upon which to ring the changes, or better still ‘teaco’ which combined the stimulating qualities of tea with the food value of cocoa.  Then much could be done with the dessert-spoonful of raisins which was our daily whack.  They were good soaked in the tea, but best perhaps in with the biscuits and pemmican as a dry hoosh.  “You are going far to earn my undying gratitude, Cherry,” was a satisfied remark of Scott one evening when, having saved, unbeknownst to my companions, some of their daily ration of cocoa, arrowroot, sugar and raisins, I made a “chocolate hoosh.”  But I am afraid he had indigestion next morning.  There were meals when we had interesting little talks, as when I find in my diary that:  “we had a jolly lunch meal, discussing authors.  Barrie, Galsworthy and others are personal friends of Scott.  Some one told Max Beerbohm that he was like Captain Scott, and immediately, so Scott assured us, he grew a beard.”

But about three weeks out the topics of conversation became threadbare.  From then onwards it was often that whole days passed without conversation beyond the routine Camp ho!  All ready?  Pack up.  Spell ho.  The latter after some two hours’ pulling.  When man-hauling we used to start pulling immediately we had the tent down, the sledge packed and our harness over our bodies and ski on our feet.  After about a quarter of an hour the effects of the marching would be felt in the warming of hands and feet and the consequent thawing of our mitts and finnesko.  We then halted long enough for everybody to adjust their ski and clothing:  then on, perhaps for two hours or more, before we halted again.