The South Pole, Roald Amundsen [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

so that it roared in the chimney — this fellow is not short of fuel. Strange, what a hurry he is in to get that coffee ready! I thought breakfast was at eight, and it is now not more than a quarter past six. He grinds the coffee till his cheeks shake to and fro — incessantly. If the quality is in proportion to the quantity, it must be good enough. “Devil take it” — Lindstr�m’s morning greeting — “this coffee-mill is not worth throwing to the pigs! Might just as well chew the beans. It wouldn’t take so long.” And he is right; after a quarter of an hour’s hard work he has only ground just enough. Now it is half-past six. On with the coffee! Ah, what a perfume! I would give something to know where Amundsen got it from. Meanwhile the cook has taken out his pipe, and is smoking away gaily on an empty stomach; it does not seem to do him any harm. Hullo! There’s the coffee boiling over.

While the coffee was boiling and Lindstr�m smoked, I was still wondering why he was in such a hurry to get the coffee ready. You ass! I thought; can’t you see? Of course, he is going to give himself a drink of fresh, hot coffee before the others are up; that’s clear enough. When the coffee was ready, I sat down on a camp-stool that stood in a corner, and watched him. But I must say he surprised me again. He pushed the coffee-kettle away from the fire and took down a cup from the wall; then went to a jug that stood on the bench and poured out — would you believe it? — a cup of cold tea! If he goes on in this way, we shall have surprises enough before evening, I thought to myself. Then he began to be deeply interested in an enamelled iron bowl, which stood on a shelf above the range. The heat, which was now intense (I looked at the thermograph which hung from the ceiling; it registered 84�F.), did not seem to be sufficient for its mysterious contents. It was also wrapped up in towels and cloths, and gave me the impression of having caught a severe cold. The glances he threw into it from time to time were anxious; he looked at the clock, and seemed to have something on his mind. Then suddenly I saw his face brighten; he gave a long, not very melodious whistle, bent down, seized a dust-pan, and hurried out into the pent-house. Now I was really excited. What was coming next? He came back at once with a happy smile all over his face, and the dust-pan full of — coal! If I had been curious before, I was now anxious. I withdrew as far as possible from the range, sat down on the floor itself, and fixed my eyes on the thermograph. As I thought, the pen began to move upward with rapid steps. This was too bad. I made up my mind to pay a visit to the Meteorological Institute as soon as I got home, and tell them what I had seen with my own eyes. But now the heat seemed intolerable down on the floor, where I was sitting; what must it be like — heavens above, the man was sitting on the stove! He must have gone out of his mind. I was just going to give a cry of terror, when the door opened, and in came Amundsen from the room. I gave a deep sigh. Now it would be all right the time was ten minutes past seven. “‘Morning, Fatty!” — “‘Morning.” —

“What’s it like outside?” — “Easterly breeze and thick when I was out; but that’s a good while ago.” This fairly took my breath away He stood there with the coolest air in the world and talked about the weather, and I could take my oath he had not been outside the door that morning. “How’s it getting on to-day — is it coming?” Amundsen looks with interest at the mysterious bowl. Lindstr�m takes another peep under the cloth. “Yes, it’s coming at last; but I’ve had to give it a lot to-day.” — ” Yes, it feels like it,” answers the other, and goes out. My interest is now divided between “it ” in the bowl and Amundsen’s return, with the meteorological discussion that will ensue. It is not long before he reappears; evidently the temperature outside is not inviting. “Let’s hear again, my friend ” — he seats himself on the camp-stool beside which I am sitting on the floor —

“what kind of weather did you say it was?” I prick up my ears; there is going to be fun. “It was an easterly breeze and thick as a wall, when I was out at six o’clock.” — “Hm! then it has cleared remarkably quickly. It’s a dead calm now, and quite clear.” — “Ah, that’s just what I should have thought! I could see it was falling light, and it was getting brighter in the east.” He got out of that well. Meanwhile it was again the turn of the bowl. It was taken down from the shelf over the range and put on the bench; the various cloths were removed one by one until it was left perfectly bare. I could not resist any longer; I had to get up and look. And indeed it was worth looking at. The bowl was filled to the brim with golden-yellow dough, full of air-bubbles, and showing every sign that he had got it to rise. Now I began to respect Lindstr�m; he was a devil of a fellow. No confectioner in our native latitudes could have shown a finer dough. It was now 7.25; everything seems to go by the clock here.

Lindstr�m threw a last tender glance at his bowl, picked up a little bottle of spirit, and went into the next room. I saw my chance of following him in. There was not going to be any fun out there with Amundsen, who was sitting on the camp-stool half asleep. In the other room it was pitch-dark, and an atmosphere — no, ten atmospheres at least! I stood still in the doorway and breathed heavily. Lindstr�m stumbled forward in the darkness, felt for and found the matches. He struck one, and lighted a spirit-holder that hung beneath a hanging lamp. There was not much to be seen by the light of the spirit flame; one could still only guess. Hear too, perhaps. They were sound sleepers, those boys. One grunted here and another there; they were snoring in every corner. The spirit might have been burning for a couple of minutes, when Lindstr�m had to set to work in a hurry. He was off just as the flame went out, leaving the room in black darkness. I heard the spirit bottle and the nearest stool upset, and what followed I don’t know, as I was unfamiliar with the surroundings — but there was a good deal of it. I heard a click — had no idea what it was — and then the same movement back again to the lamp. Of course, he now fell over the stool he had upset before. Meanwhile there was a hissing sound, and a stifling smell of paraffin. I was thinking of making my escape through the door, when suddenly, just as I suppose it happened on the first day of Creation, in an instant there was light. But it was a light that defies description; it dazzled and hurt the eyes, it was so bright. It was perfectly white and extremely agreeable — when one was not looking at it. Evidently it was one of the 200-candle Lux lamps. My admiration for Lindstr�m had now risen to enthusiasm. What would I not have given to be able to make myself visible, embrace him, and tell him what I thought of him! But that could not be; I should not then be able to see life at Framheim as it really was. So I stood still. Lindstr�m first tried to put straight what he had upset in his struggle with the lamp. The spirit had, of course, run out of the bottle when it fell, and was now flowing all over the table. This did not seem to make the slightest impression on him; a little scoop with his hand, and it all landed on Johansen’s clothes, which were lying close by. This fellow seemed to be as well off for spirit as for paraffin. Then he vanished into the kitchen, but reappeared immediately with plates, cups, knives and forks. Lindstr�m’s laying of the breakfast-table was the finest clattering performance I have ever heard. If he wanted to put a spoon into a cup, he did not do it in the ordinary way; no, he put down the cup, lifted the spoon high in the air, and then dropped it into the cup. The noise he made in this way was infernal. Now I began to see why Amundsen had got up so early; he wanted to escape this process of laying the table, I expect. But this gave me at once an insight into the good-humour of the gentlemen in bed: if this had happened anywhere else, Lindstr�m would have had a boot at his head. But here — they must have been the most peaceable men in the world.

Meanwhile I had had time to look around me. Close to the door where I was standing a pipe came down to the floor. It struck me at once that this was a ventilating-pipe. I bent down and put my hand over the opening; there was not so much as a hint of air to be felt. So this was the cause of the bad atmosphere. The next things that caught my eye were the bunks — nine of them: three on the right hand and six on the left. Most of the sleepers — if they could be regarded as such while the table was being laid — slept in bags — sleeping-bags. They must have been warm enough. The rest of the space was taken up by a long table, with small stools on two sides of it. Order appeared to reign; most of the clothes were hung up. Of course, a few lay on the floor, but then Lindstr�m had been running about in the dark, and perhaps he had pulled them down. On the table, by the window, stood a gramophone and some tobacco-boxes and ash-trays. The furniture was not plentiful, nor was it in the style of Louis Quinze or Louis Seize, but it was sufficient. On the wall with the window hung a few paintings, and on the other portraits of the King, Queen, and Crown Prince Olav, apparently cut out of an illustrated paper, and pasted on blue cardboard. In the corner nearest the door on the right, where there was no bunk, the space seem to be occupied by clothes, some hanging on the wall, some on lines stretched across. So that was the drying-place, modest in its simplicity. Under the table were some varnished boxes — Heaven knows what they were for!

Now there seemed to be life in one of the bunks. It was Wisting, who was getting tired of the noise that still continued. Lindstr�m took his time, rattling the spoons, smiling maliciously to himself, and looking up at the bunks. He did not make all this racket for nothing. Wisting, then, was the first to respond, and apparently the only one; at any rate, there was not a sign of movement in any of the others. “Good-morning, Fatty!” “Thought you were going to stop there till dinner.” This is Lindstr�m’s greeting. “Look after yourself, old ‘un. If I hadn’t got you out, you’d have been asleep