CHAPTER (i 
MAKING OUR EASTING DOWN 
‘“‘’Trn minutes to four, sir!” 
It is an oilskinned and dripping seaman, and the 
officer of the watch, or his so-called snotty, as the case may 
be, wakes sufficiently to ask : 
SAV nat saniiker. 
“Two hoops, sir!” answers the seaman, and makes 
his way out. 
The sleepy man who has been wakened wedges himself 
more securely into his six foot by two—which is all his 
private room on the ship—and collects his thoughts, amid 
the general hubbub of engines, screw and the roll of articles 
which have worked loose, to consider how he will best pre- 
vent being hurled out of his bunk in climbing down, and 
just where he left his oilskins and sea-boots. 
If, as is possible, he sleeps in the Nursery, his task 
may not be so simple as it may seem, for this cabin, which 
proclaims on one of the beams that it is designed to 
accommodate four seamen, will house six scientists or 
pseudo-scientists, in addition to a pianola. Since these 
scientists are the youngest in the expedition their cabin is 
named the Nursery. 
Incidentally it forms also the gangway from the ward- 
room to the engine-room, from which it is divided only bya 
wooden door, which has a bad habit of swinging open and 
shutting with the roll of the ship and the weight of the oil- 
skins hung upon it, and as it does so, wave upon wave, the 
clatter of the engines advances and recedes. 
If, however, it is the officer of the watch he will be ina 
24 
