A short autobiography that covers his early Greenland trip with Gino Watkins, the British Arctic Air Route Expedition of 1930.
p. 62, at his winter weather station where he spent over four months alone (cf. Byrd): We had a great Christmas dinner in advance; then I said good-bye to my companions and, on December 5th, they left. There were some books which had been brought up by the first people. Among them was the Bible, Great Sea Stories of All Nations, Vanity Fair, Guy Mannering, Jane Eyre, The Forsyte Saga, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae and Whitaker’s Almanack.
p. 65: When the light failed, I used to amuse myself by singing—mostly the Beggar’s Opera or Gilbert and Sullivan. It was an awful row but there was no one to hear it.
p. 65: We set out for home the next day. I rode on a sledge the whole way, reading The Count of Monte Christo.
p. 66: Perhaps it is worth putting on record that, besides bringing along the snow-glasses for me, Gino had provided himself with a prayer book. This was just like him: he had a genius for thinking everything out.
Hanging up in our hut we had a piece of polished wood painted with a verse by Masefield. It was presented to the expedition by Admiral Sir William Goodenough of the Royal Geographical Society, and these were the lines on it:
The Power of man is as his hopes,
In darkest night, the cocks are crowing.
With the sea roaring and the wind blowing.
Adventure. Man the Ropes.