inside and someone treads on this, you can hear the footsteps, and feel the floor vibrate – as Algie is all too fond of demonstrating.
My radio masts stand a few feet to the west, and beyond them is the Stevenson screen for the meteorological measurements. We’ve fenced that in to keep out the dogs, and set a line of posts with ropes slung between them all the way to the porch, as Mr Eriksson says we’ll need this in bad weather. The emergency storehouse is way off near the cliffs; and we’ve planted the dogs’ stakes in front of the cabin, so that we can keep an eye on them.
Before we were even half unpacked, I ran a test on my wireless equipment. It works. Thank God. My heart was in my mouth as I started the petrol engine for the big transmitter. When the valves began to glow, the sweat was pouring off me.
Shakily, I tapped out our first message to England. It’s childish, I know, but I did enjoy impressing the others. See? Good at it, aren’t I?
With head-phones in place and the receiver switched on, I took down our first communication from the outside world.
MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP WE HAVE 5 MESSAGES FOR YOU STOP
. Seventeen hundred miles through the ether, and clear as a bell. The Times and the RGS; Hugo, sportingly wishing us luck from Tromsø; Algie’s girlfriend; Gus’parents and sister. Algie crassly asked why there was nothing for me, so I told him. Parents dead, no siblings, no friends. I think he wishes he hadn’t asked.
The small Gambrell transmitter also works perfectly, as does the Eddystone receiver, which I got going in time for the BBC National Programme. George Gershwin is dead, and the Japs have bombed Shanghai. It all seems very far away.
Or it would have done if Algie hadn’t blathered on about Mr Hitler needing a jolly good thrashing. Gus told him sharply to shut up. He’s like me, he doesn’t want to think about another war. He told me the other day that he comes from a line of soldiers stretching back to Crécy, so the whole thing’s rather hanging over him. Which you’d have thought Algie would have remembered, as he’s known Gus since they were boys.
Still. All that’s over now, and we’ve been settling into our new home.
It’s thirty feet by twenty, which sounds a lot, but is actually pretty cramped, as we’ve got so much equipment. When you enter the porch, you have to squeeze past a tangle of skis, snowshoes, shovels and brooms. Then – and I’m told this will be crucial in winter – you shut the front door
before
you open the one to the hall. (Mr Eriksson calls this the First Rule of the Arctic: always shut one door before opening the next. Especially in a blizzard.)
With that door shut behind you, you’re in darkness, because the hall – which is narrow and extends along the frontage – has no window, only gun racks and hooks for waterproofs, and a cupboard which Gus calls his darkroom. There’s also a hatch into the roof space, which is our main food store.
Having groped your way down the hall, you open the door to the bunkroom – and fiat lux, a window! The bunkroom occupies the eastern end of the cabin, and is mostly bunk, with shelves made of packing cases on the opposite wall. We only needed three bunks, but it was easier to build four. I’ve got the bottom one at the back. (The one above me is empty; we use it as a dumping ground.) My bunk is nearest the stove in the main room, which is good; but it’s got the doghouse directly behind.
From my bunk, you can see straight into the main room, as that doorway has no door. To your right as you go in, there’s the stove, water barrel, and shelves which make up the ‘kitchen’ (no sink, of course). The main room is dominated by a big pine table and five chairs, and against the back wall are shelves crammed with books, ammunition, field glasses, microscopes and provisions.
The western end of the cabin, on the site of the old trappers’ hut, is my wireless area. It’s packed with receivers and
My radio masts stand a few feet to the west, and beyond them is the Stevenson screen for the meteorological measurements. We’ve fenced that in to keep out the dogs, and set a line of posts with ropes slung between them all the way to the porch, as Mr Eriksson says we’ll need this in bad weather. The emergency storehouse is way off near the cliffs; and we’ve planted the dogs’ stakes in front of the cabin, so that we can keep an eye on them.
Before we were even half unpacked, I ran a test on my wireless equipment. It works. Thank God. My heart was in my mouth as I started the petrol engine for the big transmitter. When the valves began to glow, the sweat was pouring off me.
Shakily, I tapped out our first message to England. It’s childish, I know, but I did enjoy impressing the others. See? Good at it, aren’t I?
With head-phones in place and the receiver switched on, I took down our first communication from the outside world.
MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP WE HAVE 5 MESSAGES FOR YOU STOP
. Seventeen hundred miles through the ether, and clear as a bell. The Times and the RGS; Hugo, sportingly wishing us luck from Tromsø; Algie’s girlfriend; Gus’parents and sister. Algie crassly asked why there was nothing for me, so I told him. Parents dead, no siblings, no friends. I think he wishes he hadn’t asked.
The small Gambrell transmitter also works perfectly, as does the Eddystone receiver, which I got going in time for the BBC National Programme. George Gershwin is dead, and the Japs have bombed Shanghai. It all seems very far away.
Or it would have done if Algie hadn’t blathered on about Mr Hitler needing a jolly good thrashing. Gus told him sharply to shut up. He’s like me, he doesn’t want to think about another war. He told me the other day that he comes from a line of soldiers stretching back to Crécy, so the whole thing’s rather hanging over him. Which you’d have thought Algie would have remembered, as he’s known Gus since they were boys.
Still. All that’s over now, and we’ve been settling into our new home.
It’s thirty feet by twenty, which sounds a lot, but is actually pretty cramped, as we’ve got so much equipment. When you enter the porch, you have to squeeze past a tangle of skis, snowshoes, shovels and brooms. Then – and I’m told this will be crucial in winter – you shut the front door
before
you open the one to the hall. (Mr Eriksson calls this the First Rule of the Arctic: always shut one door before opening the next. Especially in a blizzard.)
With that door shut behind you, you’re in darkness, because the hall – which is narrow and extends along the frontage – has no window, only gun racks and hooks for waterproofs, and a cupboard which Gus calls his darkroom. There’s also a hatch into the roof space, which is our main food store.
Having groped your way down the hall, you open the door to the bunkroom – and fiat lux, a window! The bunkroom occupies the eastern end of the cabin, and is mostly bunk, with shelves made of packing cases on the opposite wall. We only needed three bunks, but it was easier to build four. I’ve got the bottom one at the back. (The one above me is empty; we use it as a dumping ground.) My bunk is nearest the stove in the main room, which is good; but it’s got the doghouse directly behind.
From my bunk, you can see straight into the main room, as that doorway has no door. To your right as you go in, there’s the stove, water barrel, and shelves which make up the ‘kitchen’ (no sink, of course). The main room is dominated by a big pine table and five chairs, and against the back wall are shelves crammed with books, ammunition, field glasses, microscopes and provisions.
The western end of the cabin, on the site of the old trappers’ hut, is my wireless area. It’s packed with receivers and
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