Feasting in the Tropics - Terra Incognita - page 82

Black Pudding Nunatak, and was terribly pleased to find this little piece of Lancashire so far from
home. He asked me to guess where he came from by his accent, and then told me that if I had
said Yorkshire he would have given me smaller portions on all his cookdays, clearly the most dire
threat he could imagine. Besides Ross - the project leader - and the students, the fifth member of
the team, the man who had met me, was camp manager. John was softly spoken and looked after
the others like a benign scoutmaster.
I was used to the initial awkwardness of being a stranger in camp. It never lasted long so I didn't
worry about it any more - quite the reverse, as I relished the thought that these unknown people
were about to define themselves to me, as I to them. It was like a lens coming into focus. It was an
odd way to live, I suppose; but it didn't strike me as odd at the time.
Every day they lowered the yellow vehicle through a hole in the sea ice covered by a canvas
hut. Once the vehicle hit water, Ross controlled it from another hut. He sat in front of a pair of
screens which transmitted images from two cameras attached to the vehicle. A hydrophone next
to the cameras sent up a beep as regular as a heartbeat. Images of diatoms, 1 skittering by as the
vehicle moved along the seabed 450 feet below us, shone out from the screen in the darkness of the
hut. It was like being an extra in Star Wars in there. I could see a jellyfish with long, undulating
strings threaded with tiny lights, and shrimpy crustaceans circling a tall sponge among luminous
branches of hydroids. When Ross tipped the vehicle, the cameras peeked inside a sponge. It was
hollow, and dimpled, and when pushed gently, it folded like a ballerina.
'You know what?' he said. 'No one's ever seen that before.'
As we got back to camp, I saw that John had put up my bottle-green and maroon tent. I hadn't
brought a board to avoid getting soggy in the night, but he had found one in the science crates. We
had dinner in another small canvas hut underneath a sign which said 'Floggings will continue un-
less morale improves.' The graduate students were engaged in eating contests. Mike had recently
won a night off cook duty by swallowing a bowl of cold potatoes and three cans of coke after his
dinner. Ross smiled beatifically as they argued over past ignominies and future victories; the dy-
namics of the group were predicated on an easy and harmonious equilibrium, well oiled now as a
long, hard and successful season drew to a close.
On New Year's Eve we went off to make the last dive of the season. The wind was up, so it was
chilly. I helped to scoop up platelet ice which had formed over the hole, then settled on a crate in
the dark hut. When the yellow machine was travelling to the surface, the screen looked like a bank
of rain on a grey day. 'Like Wigan in November,' Mike said.
I had volunteered to cook a New Year's Eve banquet. They were about to strike camp and return
to the real world, so we had a double cause for a celebration, and besides, they had only had one
day off all season. People in Antarctica were always looking for an excuse for a party. The first
American team at South Pole station threw a birthday party for a dog, and baked him a cake with
a candle. In the early days, the Australians made such effective use of Whitaker's Almanack that
they staged a major feast to celebrate the Anniversary of the Lighting of London by Gas.
I found the absence of any trace of home more refreshing on New Year's Eve than at any other
time. I was spared the sickening realisation that once again, despite the passing of another year,