The men forrard had
their Christmas dinner of fresh mutton at mid-day; there was plenty of
penguin for them, but curiously enough they did not think it good enough
for a Christmas dinner. The ward-room ate penguin in the evening, and
after the toast of 'absent friends' we began to sing, and twice round the
table everybody had to contribute a song. Ponting's banjo songs were a
great success, also Oates's 'The Vly on the tu-urmuts.' Meares sang "a
little song about our Expedition, and many of the members that Southward
would go," of his own composition. The general result was that the
watches were all over the place that night. At 4 A.M. Day whispered in
my ear that there was nothing to do, and Pennell promised to call me if
there was--so I remembered no more until past six.
And Crean's rabbit gave birth to seventeen little ones, and it was said
that Crean had already given away twenty-two.
We had stopped and banked fires against an immense composite floe on the
evening of Christmas Eve. How we watched the little changes in the ice
and the wind, and scanned the horizon for those black patches which meant
open water ahead. But always there was that same white sky to the south
of us. And then one day there came the shadow of movement on the sea, the
faintest crush on the brash ice, the whisper of great disturbances afar
off.
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