The last of our cocoa was used to-day. Henceforth
water, with an occasional drink of weak milk, is to be our only
beverage. Three lumps of sugar were now issued to each man daily.
One night one of the dogs broke loose and played havoc with our
precious stock of bannocks. He ate four and half of a fifth before he
could be stopped. The remaining half, with the marks of the dog's
teeth on it, I gave to Worsley, who divided it up amongst his seven
tent-mates; they each received about half a square inch.
Lees, who was in charge of the food and responsible for its safe
keeping, wrote in his diary: "The shorter the provisions the more there
is to do in the commissariat department, contriving to eke out our
slender stores as the weeks pass by. No housewife ever had more to do
than we have in making a little go a long way.
"Writing about the bannock that Peter bit makes one wish now that one
could have many a meal that one has given to the dog at home. When one
is hungry, fastidiousness goes to the winds and one is only too glad to
eat up any scraps regardless of their antecedents. One is almost
ashamed to write of all the titbits one has picked up here, but it is
enough to say that when the cook upset some pemmican on to an old sooty
cloth and threw it outside his galley, one man subsequently made a
point of acquiring it and scraping off the palatable but dirty
compound.
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