Page:Aurora Australis.djvu/83

TRIALS OF A MESSMAN. last three men and a boy for a week.

The messman also enjoys quite a number of other privileges. He is allowed to go out into the cold, and obtain enough ice to fill both the boiler from which we ourselves drink, and the eighteen gallon melting pot which provides the fresh water for the Cavalry Commissariat Department, and he may do this as often as he likes. He is allowed to fetch bags of coal and strips of frozen blubber for the fire, while on Sundays as a great treat, he may dig out the frozen mutton, from the snowdrift on the roof.

With everything apparently united to afford him plenty of employment and make him happy, yet, strange to say, he has his moments of despondency. No other occupation could cause a man to have such a low opinion of his own powers.

To a casual observer stoning raisins appears to be easy enough, and until my first day as messman I had been a very casual observer, and when the autocrat at the head of the Food Department gave me some raisins after lunch, and told me to stone them, I looked forward to a restful interlude in what had so far been a strenuous day. I washed my hands until they were of a colour which I thought could not show on the raisins, even if it did come off, took a tin of raisins and