The Tom Crean Diary of Polar Exploration
Dear Thelma,
We’re all hungry. Cooper ate his shoes. Tawny’s been looking at me funny. He said he liked my thighs but not as much as liked my “glutes” (?)
Scott suggested we improvise a rope with knots on it to measure the distance we’ve travelled. The scheme would involve throwing a stick, to which the rope is attached, in the direction we’ve come and counting out the knots. Each knot is roughly the length of Scott’s chifferobe, the one he saw in the Sears Roebuck catalogue and has been carrying around on his back. He’s invented a new unit of measurement called a “chiff” which is, I presume, short for “chifferobe.”
“Won’t that mean going home before we’ve reached the Pole?” asked Browny. Scott looked at him and closed his eyes; he rubbed his temples and asked the Lord for patience. “How else are we going to know how far away the Pole is from home?” He said Browny didn’t “get it”; nobody did, except Scott and Cooper’s aunt.
Palmer’s had a pet chicken hidden in his chicken-box. It was discovered when he’d forgotten to nail the top down and the creature poked its head out and sneered at Browny. The latter was discovered talking animatedly to the thing about corn when Scott demanded to know who was responsible for saturating his pin cushion with an 1878 Chateau Lafitte. “Never mind the bloody pin cushion,” I said, “who’s been keeping this bloody wine secret all this time?” “Never mind the bloody wine!” Tawny Owl yodelled, “who’s been hiding this pheasant?” “Chicken,” said Scott; “it’s a chicken.”